Womack Investment Advisers

“Hooray for the 1%” isn’t a cheer leaving most American’s lips, let alone anything they want to hear.   But according to a recently released study by the Tax Foundation, most Americans would be surprised to learn that the richest percent of Americans pay over 39% of all Federal Income Tax!   In absolute dollars, out of the $1.37 trillion collected from taxpayers, the richest 1% were responsible for over $542 billion of that amount.   In fact, the richest 1% pay almost double the amount the next highest bracket pays:   those with earnings in the top 2% to 5%, pay 20.5% of all Federal Income Tax.   Surprising to most, the bottom 50% of all taxpayers pay just 2.8% of total taxes.   Note that each section of this graphic excludes the next (e.g., the top 5% excludes the top 1%, etc).

Weekly Market Commentary July 24, 2017 The Markets Do we have central banks to thank? Low interest rates, accommodative monetary policy, and improving economic growth have helped stock markets around the world reach record highs, reports Barron’s : “…a look around the globe shows the surge of the U.S. market to new peaks to be anything but unique. Major [markets] in Europe and Asia also have been setting records. Even in South Korea, the Kospi closed at a new peak and is up 25 percent from its 52-week low last year, as the global technology rally has proved to be more powerful than the threat of a nuclear-missile launch from North Korea. Last week also saw a record close in the S&P BSE Sensex in India. Japan’s Nikkei is up 25 percent from last August and near a 52-week high (albeit still down 48 percent from its 1989 bubble peak). The Shanghai Composite is a relative laggard, with a 9.6 percent gain from its August lows, bolstered by a 3.7 percent jump

July 11 th , Tuesday of this past week, was the third annual “Amazon Prime Day”.  This year’s Prime Day smashed last year’s Prime Day sales record by more than 60% and now stands as the biggest sales day in Amazon’s entire history.  Even more remarkable, as research firm Morningstar points out, is that the number of households with Amazon Prime video streaming is nearing the total number of homes with cable or satellite TV.  According to estimates from Morningstar, nearly 79 million households now have an Amazon Prime membership, up from 66 million at the end of 2016.  This compares to a projected 90 million households that pay for cable or satellite TV.  Amazon doesn’t disclose the number of Prime members, so Morningstar’s estimates are based on an analysis of Amazon’s cash-flow statements.  On the day after Prime Day, Amazon said they had more new members joining the Prime subscription service on Prime Day than any other single day in history.  The following