Middle Class and Small Business Being Destroyed by Tariffs, Inflation, Monopolies, Government Corruption, Theft, and Incompetence

Similar to Friday's trading, there wasn't much in the way of volatility Monday, as President Trump welcomed Ukraine's Zelensky and a delegation of European leaders to the White House.

Stocks seem to be a background issue to world events at this juncture. With the meeting of Trump and EU leaders concluded, somewhat successfully, without much in the way of details, the waiting game will continue until there's some concrete agreement. Next up is a meeting between Zelensky and Putin, then, Zelensky, Putin, Trump, and the EU. Some day, maybe, they'll figure out that poking the Bear (Russia) wasn't a good idea.

Meantime, Home Depot (HD) posted adjusted EPS of $4.68, missing analyst estimates by six cents. Despite the miss, the home improvement retailer's earnings were slightly better than the same period a year ago, when EPS was reported as $4.60 per share.

With a share price of 394.70 as of Monday's close and trailing earnings of $14.93, Home Depot is trading at a multiple of 26.44, a premium level for a mature company. The stock peaked at 431 on December 6, 2024, just after the Dow - of which Home Depot is a component - made an all-time high of 45,014.04 on December 4. Both the Dow and HD have failed to mark new records even though the NASDAQ and S&P have powered to multiple new highs this year.

This kind of valuation is what usually leads to market crashes, but, in today's environment, the duopoly of Lowe's (LOW) and Home Depot, which dominates the market with a combined market share exceeding 60%, is allowed to continue while the middle class and small businesses suffer.

According to the new rules, the middle class must just accept whatever the government decrees. As such, democracy and capitalism are dead. It's only insider trading and big money keeping stocks at elevated levels. It shouldn't have been allowed to go on for this long, but it's likely to continue until it all blows up.

At the same time, Americans are forced to accept higher prices for imported goods, the U.S. Treasury collecting duties on everything and then wasting the money on all manner of warfare and welfare.

MAGA all you like. There are no breaks for Americans.

At the Close, Monday, August 18, 2025:
Dow: 44,911.82, -34.30 (-0.08%)
NASDAQ: 21,629.77, +6.80 (+0.03%)
S&P 500: 6,449.15, -0.65 (-0.01%)
NYSE Composite: 20,816.24, +13.56 (+0.07%)