WALL STREET/MAIN STREET: TWO DIFFERENT WORLDS

As we have long noted, what happens on Wall Street has little to do with Main Street. The “common folk” have not reaped the rewards of the decade-long Bull Run.
A recent survey showed that two thirds of Americans say the bulging stock market has no effect on their lives.  Sixty-one percent said equities have little to no effect on their finances.
The facts prove the majority of Americans don’t follow the stock market.  Only 40 percent knew it was up in 2019, and 42 percent thought it was “about the same” at the start of the year. Eighteen percent thought it had dropped.
TREND FORECAST: The general consensus is that the current economic conditions in America will hurt President Trump’s reelection. 
Thirty-one percent of Americans consider themselves worse off financially since Trump was elected. Thirty-seven percent said their finances were the same, and 32 percent thought their finances had improved.
Considering the Democratic challengers leading in the polls, none have built a platform on how to increase the Gross Domestic Product, expand the manufacturing base, or reduce government debt.  Further, since we forecast negative-to zero interest rates by Election Day 2020, minus a wild card, the U.S. economy will remain on solid footing, especially when compared to the rest of the world.
Indeed, following last week’s positive job report, President Trump repeated Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign slogan: “It’s the economy, stupid.” 
TRENDPOST: The lure of easy money and the blindness of the gamblers – deceiving themselves about the importance of the U.S.-China trade deal – is in sharp contrast to average Americans working low-wage jobs trying to pay down their ballooning debt. 
For example, compare the Federal Reserve’s 1.5 to 1.75 percentage interest rate for corporations with the average payday loan in Utah – an astonishing 652 percent.