It almost passes unnoticed in day to day operations, but at the end of the week, the transaction tabulations and stock charts tell it all. There has been extreme market volatility, allowing day traders opportunities to make a fortune, but sometimes punishing valuation investors. It has become almost too risky to set a stoploss order, as market makers have been running stops. One should always have a mental stoploss in mind, but not set themselves up as a target for market makers to take advantage. For examle, what good would an actual stoploss order have done for a stock like Tailored Brands (TLRD) this week? One day it is $20/share and the next it opens below $15 with nothing in between.

Some say we are sliding into a recession. Zenith believes this, given the trade agreement mess, threats of dire consequences for ignoring global warming within the next ten years, and the complete lack of any moral authority by a stinking majority of Republican members of Congress in both houses who line their own pockets and feather their own nests with no consideration for the representatives they serve. They do not play by the rules nor observe "norms." Thus the national debt has no regard for grandchildren, because the people who ran it up are all rich and don't care. The President says "When the meltdown omes, I won't be around."

Is there a chance for Democrats to undo the mess? Frankly, it doesn't look like it. Now we have Supreme Court rulings against the Affordable Care Act, a completely abdicated position of the U.S. Dollar as the world's "reserve currency" in favor the Chinese Yuan. We have intelligence agencies ignored by the executive branch warning that China is the biggest threat, not Russia, looking at their growing economic and military power and better economic conditions there than in Russia. Their activities to consolidate power in the South China Sea dwarf what Russia is doing in Ukraine. Just ask any Vietnamese fisherman.

Democrats seem to want to put up Joe Biden as the "front runner." If he's the best they can do, we are looking at eight years of Donald Trump. God knows where the nation wiill be by that time. Biden has been known to back out early of contests, has presented previous campaigns poorly, and worse is known for not responding to his constituents. He lost us at the Branch Davidian massacre oversaw by Janet Reno with the praise and backing of people like Biden. He's a bad choice! We don't think he will win just because of an anti-Trump vote.

The Democrats are not going after the President, at least not in the "impeachment'" sense, because they fear antagonizing Trump's "base." That "base" consists of a weird mix of moral evangelicals (who place anti-abortion above everything else) and ammoral White Supremisists (who just want to kill all the foreigners.)

The market has risen primarily on the extraordinary tax cuts for the rich and rich corporations. There is nothing about new jobs in this analysis, as corporations prefer to have low interest rates, and if employment booms too much, the Federal Reserve will raise rates. Corporations are finding out that tax cuts can be used to offer bonuses to management or buy back stock shares to be doled out in stock option perquisites to management more than to spend on capital improvements and jobs. But they are faced with the effects of the trade wars going on between the U.S. and the rest of the world, which in general is negative for profits, save for a few specific beneficiaries like the steel (but not the auto) industry.

People complaiin that we have a President who doesn't read, can't spell, takes no interest in briefings, is antagonistic toward his own cabinet, and through ignorance has brought the government to a standstill. This will probably increase as measures passed by the House will be stalled by the Senate and executive branch. The truth is that we have an electorate who doesn't read, takes no interest in briefings, and is divisive and un-American, who put that President in there in the first place thorugh total ignorance. That's where the blame lies, and there is some evidence that it is not likely to get much better in the near future. Not when we are spending more money on prisons than on public educational iinstitutions. Give the President credit for giving lip service to Federal prison reform. (Of course, his idea of that is to issue pardons to supporters.) Let's see what, if anything, he is actually able to do with that, as prison reform might have Democratic support. But he seems more interested in "locking up" his opponents (hopefully as his shtick, not actuality.)

Our version of "the wall" is Hell. The word "hell" comes from the old English "hell" meaning to be walled off from or separated from. Evangelicals believe Hell is eternal separation from God. The President's version of "hell" is to be walled off from the rest of the world in isolation. That is very bad for our economy whichever way you look at it, because there are some things other nations do better (and cheaper). There are also some things we do better, languishing in storage silos.

With this type of a "goom and doom" scenario, we think we would do well to position ourselves on the short side of the market, as we are long overdo for a major correction.

Veeva Systems, Inc. is an internet software company facing a large amount of competition, but finding a niche in serving the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries. The former is a strong industry group performer, the latter weaker, and stock stock itself has shown some weakness of late but is still relatively risk-free based upon optimistic growth prospects. It is based in Northern California near the San Jose technology complex. It has an exorbitantly-high current p/e ratio so depends upon continued growth to maintain share price. Nonetheless, we feel this stock may be vulnerable due to corporate governance issues starting with a CEO who is incredibly greedy to say the least to the extent of hurting corporate profits and shareholders.

Our recent article Veeva Systems, Inc. (VEEV) is in the Archives Section Below.

Note: Zenith tries to pick only stocks which are shortable, but sometimes stocks appear afterward on the SEC Regulation SHO list of stocks which are not shortable, which is beyond our control. On some stocks, Zenith may hold more than the number of shares it trades in its inventory. Thus the "short" sale of such a security would technically not be a "short" sale for us and not subject to SEC rules regarding selling securities which are not deliverable. Also, stocks pop on and off the list available for shorting on successive days, so the presence of a stock on the current SHO list doesn't mean it was there at the time it was shorted.