Gartner Sees Slow Growth Ahead in 2017 Due to ‘Uncertainty’

It appears the market might be waking up to the fact that Trump is going to fuck up the establishment order. Bear in mind, much of what I say boldly are my own wishes. Trump isn’t President yet and no one knows if he’s really going to atomic bomb the elites just yet. After all, his entire cabinet if filled with elites.

Anyway, Trump did lay waste to the drug industry yesterday, promising reform. And today Gartner IT is out with some sobering predictions for the tech sector, especially the semis, which is weighing on shares. Plus, $SWKS caught a Goldman downgrade and everyone is freaking thr fuck out over the weakness in the tape.

Gartner’s 2017 forecast.

Worldwide semiconductor capital spending is projected to increase 2.9 percent in 2017, to $69.9 billion, according to Gartner, Inc. This is down from 5.1 percent growth in 2016.

“2017 was poised to be a rebound year in IT spending. Some major trends have converged, including cloud, blockchain, digital business and artificial intelligence. Normally, this would have pushed IT spending much higher than 2.7 percent growth,” said John-David Lovelock, research vice president at Gartner. “However, some of the political uncertainty in global markets has fostered a wait-and-see approach causing many businesses to forestall IT investments.”

Worldwide devices spending (PCs, tablets, ultramobiles and mobile phones) is projected to remain flat in 2017 at $589 billion (see Table 1). A replacement cycle in the PC market and strong pricing and functionality of premium ultramobiles will help drive growth in 2018. Emerging markets will drive the replacement cycle for mobile phones as smartphones in these markets are used as a main computing device and replaced more regularly than in mature markets.

The worldwide IT services market is forecast to grow 4.2 per cent in 2017. Buyer investments in digital business, intelligent automation, and services optimisation and innovation continue to drive growth in the market, but buyer caution, fuelled by broad economic challenges, remains a counter-balance to faster growth.

“The range of spending growth from the high to low is much larger in 2017 than in past years. Normally, the economic environment causes some level of division, however, in 2017 this is compounded by the increased levels of uncertainty,” said Mr Lovelock. “The result of that uncertainty is a division between individuals and corporations that will spend more — due to opportunities arising — and those that will retract or pause IT spending.”

For example, aggressive build-out of cloud computing platforms by companies such as Microsoft, Google and Amazon is pushing the global server forecast to reach 5.6 per cent growth in 2017. This was revised up 3 per cent from last quarter’s forecast and is sufficient growth to overcome the expected 3 per cent decline in external controller-based storage and allow the data centre systems segment to grow 2.6 per cent in 2017.

Tech and banks are notably weak.

The yield curve is still 115bps, although down from 130bps. Many high beta stocks are getting forklifted and dumped into flaming barrels of garbage. I sold out of my $AMD position, which turned out to be a fucking piece of shit and I’m getting flamethrowed in $TDW — because they’re insolvent. I just sold that whore too. My picks are an extension of my innate fatalism.

With the cash raised from the sale, I’ll buy an Exodus OS signal — should the market be so gracious to provide one.