I love America.
As a professional trader and former hedge-fund manager who's spent his entire career in the greatest free market on earth, how could I feel any other way...
For that reason alone, I would love to be positive today. To be truly excited as millions of us engage in enlightened political debate and exercise our right to vote - freedoms people in other parts of the world would (literally) kill for.
But that's not where we are today.
What's already been a frightening and tumultuous year for our health, our economy, our money, and our future has the potential to get worse - even much worse.
Right now, Americans are fixated on the most polarizing election of our lifetime - and the chasm-like divide separating the two sides could be widened and deepened if the ballot is a contested one.
But the real issue is what comes next.
I obviously can't say when we'll get a definite result on who will be commander in chief for the next four years, or if a "blue wave" has swept over Congress.
But here's what I do know: We need answers... from Washington... and we need them now.
Whoever is given the keys to the White House needs to tell us what "the plan" is.
The time for campaigning, spinning, sidestepping, cheap-shotting, obfuscating, and stalling is over.
We need answers.
Now.
There are questions I want answers to.
And those answers will determine when - as a country - we're healthy, wealthy, and working again.
Here on Election Day, I'm sharing those questions with you...
The Six Questions I Want Answered Now
No. 1: Where is the stimulus? If elections are contested, dragged out, and litigated, will those still in power use the stretch between now and Inauguration Day to craft and pass a stimulus package meaningful and impactful enough to save the U.S. economy and the American stock market from imploding? Show us some leadership, some guts - and save regular Americans.
No. 2: How Will You Blunt the Pandemic? How are you going to control the coronavirus without completely smashing our economy? What is your plan if the economy sinks and the market tanks? Tell me - in detail - what's the 9-1-1 game plan here?
No. 3: Are Corporations Looking at a Tax Hike? Will any newly empowered leaders or legislators really boost the U.S. corporate tax rate just as we're trying to climb out of a recession, just as our pension plans and 401(k)s are starting to recover in lockstep with corporate profits?
No. 4: Will You Sacrifice Stocks on the Capital-Gains Altar? Will new money-grabbers in office tax capital gains at ordinary income levels, as proposed, and ignite a full-blown stock market crash by spurring wholesale profit-taking ahead of higher tax rates?
No. 5: Will You Stay Tough on China? Will you continue America's recent tough stance on China, targeting its intellectual-property grabs, pushing back against its plan to cordon off the South China Sea? Will you coddle Beijing, or risk open conflict in a show of force against China's increasing reach and influence?
No. 6: Can You Finally Fix Healthcare? Are you going to make healthcare a priority? Are you going to fix it once and for all, or go into overtime on that political football that drops millions of Americans into frightening and financially ruinous coverage holes, thanks to jacked-up premiums and onerous deductibles?
There are others, too. Questions about healing the country, quelling disorder, whether we will take a fork in the road away from capitalism and toward socialism, and whether congressional "resistance" will continue and undermine whoever inhabits the White House on Jan. 20.
Oh, I'm just getting started. And I promise I'll be vocal about getting answers.
Join me.
What are your questions? Leave them in the comments below.
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About the Author
Shah Gilani boasts a financial pedigree unlike any other. He ran his first hedge fund in 1982 from his seat on the floor of the Chicago Board of Options Exchange. When options on the Standard & Poor's 100 began trading on March 11, 1983, Shah worked in "the pit" as a market maker.
The work he did laid the foundation for what would later become the VIX - to this day one of the most widely used indicators worldwide. After leaving Chicago to run the futures and options division of the British banking giant Lloyd's TSB, Shah moved up to Roosevelt & Cross Inc., an old-line New York boutique firm. There he originated and ran a packaged fixed-income trading desk, and established that company's "listed" and OTC trading desks.
Shah founded a second hedge fund in 1999, which he ran until 2003.
Shah's vast network of contacts includes the biggest players on Wall Street and in international finance. These contacts give him the real story - when others only get what the investment banks want them to see.
Today, as editor of Hyperdrive Portfolio, Shah presents his legion of subscribers with massive profit opportunities that result from paradigm shifts in the way we work, play, and live.
Shah is a frequent guest on CNBC, Forbes, and MarketWatch, and you can catch him every week on Fox Business's Varney & Co.