Here are Doug Kass' top thoughts on some of the biggest stories of the week over on RealMoney Pro.
Tuesday's market advance is likely a result of some talk that the Republican party's tax reform policies may be more easily enacted than previously thought.
Some are citing a Politico story to this effect.
If this is the market catalyst, I expect investors to be disappointed:
* Tax reform is historically a far more difficult endeavor than health care (which was a dud).
* The Republicans and Democrats have never had such hatred and participated in such partisan battles as they do today.
* We are quickly moving towards the 2018 election cycle which will exacerbate the above partisanship.
* If there is a compromise and the statutory corporate tax rate goes into the mid to high 20%s this will not have a material impact on the S&P Index -- as most companies have a subpar 25% effective tax rate. Moreover, as I have argued, the largest companies, have a far lower effective tax rate (Apple ( AAPL) , Alphabet ( GOOGL) , Facebook ( FB) , etc.)
I plan to re-establish my large SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust ( SPY) short on any further advance in the markets.
Position: Long SDS; Short AAPL small SPY.
