Summing Up The Week

What a week! As if the Trade War with China wasn’t enough to cause the markets to become explosively volatile, Trump threw kerosene on the fire by announcing tariffs on Mexican goods if it doesn’t stop allowing illegal emmigrants to cross into the United States.

Also, curious how much the trade war will cost each U.S. family? Read on to learn and to discover the news that moved the markets this week.

Market News

U.S. to make Trade War a Tech War

The U.S. government may put a Chinese surveillance company, Hikivision, on the blacklist, reported CNBC on Sunday.

Much like the recent sanctions against Chinese electronics manufacturer Huawei, many American semiconductor and product manufacturers such as Qualcomm (QCOM) and Xilinx (XLNX) sell to Hikivision, so its addition to the blacklist could send the already-battered tech space further down.

Your Bill for the U.S. China Trade War? $831

The Federal Reserve Bank released a report on Monday where it calculated the cost of the $200 billion in tariffs on Chinese exports for the typical U.S. family at $831 for 2019. Don’t worry, though, despite what every economist says, President Trump claims the cost for the tariffs is falling entirely on China.

China Shows its Next Move – Rare Earth Minerals

China indicated that it may cut off exports of rare earth minerals, 17 elements found in the earth’s crust used in the construction of semiconductors and consumer electronics, in its next move in the Trade War on Wednesday, reported CNBC.

The news sent share prices of rare earth miners skyrocketing while electronics companies such as Apple (AAPL) sank lower.

Georgia’s Anti-Abortion Law Deters Disney & Netflix

In light of the possibility of new anti-abortion regulation in the state of Georgia, Disney (DIS) CEO Bob Iger said the company would likely stop filming there entirely, according to a report by CNBC on Thursday.

“I think people who work for us will not want to work there, and we will have to heed their wishes in that regard,” Iger said in an interview.

In the meantime, Netflix (NFLX), perhaps Disney’s biggest competitor, said that it may “rethink” production there. Netflix announced plans to join the ACLU’s fight against Georgia’s abortion bill on Tuesday, according to Yahoo Finance.

Which company does GetIrked think is the better long-term investment? Check out our premiere episode of Versus: Netflix vs. Disney.

Trump Adds Another Front to the Trade War

The U.S. will impose 5% tariffs on all imports from Mexico if the Mexican government doesn’t stop illegal immigration into the United States, announced Trump in a tweet Thursday evening.

Although not a trade war, per se, using tariffs to prevent immigration certainly is a different tactic not tried by previous presidents.

Next Week’s Gameplan

The selloff shows no sign of stopping with new bad news rolling out with each day. We’re paying close attention to price levels and adding slowly to our existing positions as we plan for further downside.

Remember: Doing nothing is sometimes the best thing to do.

This Week in Play

Stay tuned for this week’s episodes of our Investments in Play and Trades in Play coming online later this weekend! 

Crytpo Corner

Bitcoin Price Action

Bitcoin surprised many analysts this week as it refused to take a break, crashing through our new (perhaps, poorly-named) Line That Shall Not Be Crossed, setting a new weekly high of $9090.00 before retreating to create a new weekly low of $7972.00. 

Bitcoin didn’t see quite the same level of enthusiasm making its new high, so we may be in for some days or weeks of choppy action (and perhaps even a substantial pullback) before it attempts to reach new levels.

Bitcoin Gameplan

We’ve been carefully playing in the crypto space with incredibly small orders and wide buying levels to accommodate for the insane amount of volatility.

Our current plan is to ensure we’re always aware of the 2018-19 low of $3128.89 and taking that figure into account with all of our trades as we wait to see what Bitcoin’s going to do next.