Innovation Investing

The U.S. economy is full of innovation. It has to be. Manufacturing industries that dominated the economy decades ago - textiles, televisions, even automobiles, to a large degree - have moved overseas, where costs are lower. Yet the U.S. economy is at its largest point in history. If U.S. corporations weren't innovating, the domestic economy would be contracting, not expanding, and capital would not be flooding into the country. Consider that the U.S. gross domestic product was approximately $1 trillion in 1930 and was more than $17 trillion at the end of 2017. That's growth of 17x. Meanwhile, the U.S. population has grown less than 3x during that time span, to 320 million people from 120 million....  The delta between the GDP growth and the population growth is, in large part, innovation. In addition, the value of listed corporations on U.S. stock exchanges at the end of 2016 was $27.4 trillion (according to the World Bank), representing 42% of global equity-market capitalization; yet the U.S. GDP represented only 23% of total global GDP. Innovation not only helps companies grow, it also helps them reduce risks to their revenue and profit streams from regulators, tax officials and rivals.    more

Argus President John Eade discusses the potential impacts of the Trump Tariffs

Bulls charge back

Stocks are higher at mid-morning Wednesday. Reports of new low-level negotiations between China and the U.S. on trade helped boost investor sentiment. Earnings reports from Walmart (WMT) and Cisco (CSCO) are also contributing to today's rally. ...  more