 Ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard. This is Boom Bust, broadcasting around the world from Washington, D.C. I'm Bart Jelton. Coming up, we'll take stock of equities. Get it? Sorry. Probably too soon. We move fast around here. We'll take stock of equities and ask Melissa Armo of Stock Swoosh to do an analysis of some key companies and analyze their performance. Plus, Holland Cook of The Big Picture tells us why baby boomers might be the most money consequential generation out there. And we go to Miami for the North American Bitcoin Conference and then talk to Jeffrey Tucker of the American Institute for Economic Research, who is there for the conference. But first, let's get to a couple of stories topping today's business and financial headlines. Net neutrality, the principle that internet providers like Comcast and others and local internet and television service providers must treat all data on the internet the same and not discriminate or levy divergent fees by user, content, website, platform, or the app use, that service providers must not discriminate. That principle was overturned by the FCC, the Federal Communications Commission, on a three to two party line vote in December. Well now, Democrat senators say they hold more than 50 senator votes in an attempt to challenge the repeal of net neutrality. That means they have picked up at least one, possibly a few Republican votes. This news represents a small glimmer of hope about the future fate of net neutrality and the fairness principle of access to, well, knowledge. Without net neutrality, we have essentially created a closed and capped media caste system where knowledge is basically being outright rationed. According to a Pew Research study last year, those who live in rural areas are about twice as likely not to even use the internet as urban or suburban Americans which have more choices for news and information and faster connection speeds. The debate will continue and we'll see if those more than 50 plus senators might get a vote to overturn the recent FCC net neutrality pullback. The news this morning is that IBM International Business Machines has reported higher revenue numbers for the first time in nearly two years and expects continued growth this year. On the other side of the spectrum, MX, American Express, saw the first quarterly loss since get this 1992. MX CEO Kenneth Chinalt says the hit was due, like other companies we've discussed in recent days on this program, due to the tax bill that was passed at the end of last year. Well other stocks are making major moves this year. Thanks for bringing in the ever-vested Melissa Armo of Stock Swish who usually tells us about retail numbers but she looks at stocks every day. So Melissa, it's great to have you with us on this topic. Do you want to comment on the IBM and the AMEX numbers? Well good to see you Bart. Good to see you. And yes, well IBM is very interesting because the stock has not made brand new all time high since 2013 and here we are we're in 2018. So to have an earnings miss like this as far as the stock's reaction, like you said they had some good news in the report but the reaction was negative because the night before the earnings of stock was around 169 and then it gapped down in the morning in the pre-market around 164 and fell on the day. So I just think that investors didn't see what they wanted to see with IBM and it's really been lagging and it's had a hard time competing with the likes of Microsoft which has been performing extremely well in this bullish market. And how about Apple stock? You know they made that major announcement yesterday that they had a pullback and they were going to supposedly create all these jobs in the US although some of those they were going to create anymore. Their stock is near and all time high these days, isn't it? Yes, actually Apple hit over 180 which is big news for the stock really getting closer and closer to that 200 level which is I think what investors are looking for. Apple has earnings out February 1st so that's going to be that's the biggest actually earnings night of the season. Google, Amazon and Apple all report February 1st after the bell. So that's going to be a big night and investors are waiting for that but I'll tell you on January 18th Fortune came out and Apple was announced at the top of their list for the world's most admired companies. So Apple is still up there and you mentioned about them creating these jobs the big news too was that they're repatriating $250 billion of their overseas assets into the US because of this new tax reform and that is huge. Not only is it huge for Apple and the growth you're going to see in the US with that money coming back, it's also huge because the government is going to get some of that money taxed over $30 billion and that's all going to go into the US Treasury. Yeah now in fairness I mean they're business they're not philanthropists they're making this move because you know the corporate tax rate was 38% it went down to 21 but that repatriation fee is only 15.5% so while they are going to pay all this money as you say Melissa they're actually saving 50 billion buck a ruse so it's also a big money decision for them. Now we talk about the tax but what about Google and Alphabet for example. How are they doing they were killers last year they're still going strong? Google still stronger than ever again made new highs with the market in the last calendar year as many times almost as the market did but I will tell you the biggest strongest stock in the market is still the beast of Amazon. It seems like that is headed right to 1500 if it has a good quarterly earnings but anybody knows it hit over 1300 went over 1325. I think there's huge expectations for that whole sector tech of this year of 2018 that had a big year in 2017 there's a lot of expectations out for that sector to continue the growth this year particularly with the same needs again with tax reform all these corporations are going to benefit from that and Amazon just continues to expand and expand and expand and although you mentioned about Apple being a company for profit which of course they are they still did not have to bring all that money back to the US because they're going to be taxed on it which if they kept keep it outside of the US they wouldn't be taxed on it so they still did not have to make a move like that. It's probably my you know inquisitive and doubting former regulator mind at work Melissa I just I see all these companies and we need them and they provide the economic engine to our democracy but when they make claims like we saw you know with Walmart that they're going to raise prices and then they're going to under their breath say and we're closing 60 Sam's stores I just get worried Apple was already going to spend I had read several weeks ago 16 billion dollars in the US in a single year so for them to say they're going to spend 30 billion over five years you know that doesn't really start my engine a whole lot but they're a good company they make a great product you know and so finally before we go I want to get your take on GE I mean they're talking about a breakup that would be incredible what's your thoughts on that and on the GE stock well it's like going from apples to oranges talking about Amazon and GE Amazon is one of the strongest stocks in the market and GE is one of the weakest well-known stocks in the market right now and it's unfortunate the last time we're talking about brand new all-time highs the GE saw a brand new all-time highs was back in 2000 so 18 years ago the stock broke 16 dollars it does report January 24th so that will be an important day for the stock however they haven't really performed in this bullish market and they would have to literally gap up to the 36 dollar level stock broke 16 so it would be a tremendous feat for them to get back up in an uptrend GE isn't a down trend and to me it's really not a buy till it hits up over 36 bucks a share right now and I mean that seems unlikely could it happen yes but I think it would be more likely if it had even a good earnings rallies a little bit and then take its time moving back up they had the new CEO came aboard in August of 2017 and you really got to give the guy a chance to see what he can do here he hasn't even been at the helm for a year so we'll see what he can do I mean he's gonna try to turn the company around super that is so fun to do a little round robin we want to do that again we love you on real to retail numbers but we love you on stocks most armor founder of stock swoosh thanks as always thanks for having me