Global Economic Expert Says Government Attacks  On Corporations Often Happen When Markets Are Strong

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg landed in the hot seat in front of Congress this week over the privacy breach that affected 87 million Facebook users.

Unhappy U.S. senators went so far as to suggest they may need to pass laws to regulate the social-media giant. Those threats come at the same time President Donald Trump has launched attacks on Amazon.

But is it unusual for the federal government to take such aggressive stands toward successful corporations? And what does that bode for the future?

“Uncle Sam has a 128-year history of attacking successful corporations near major stock market tops and relenting near major lows,” says Murray Gunn, head of global research at Elliott Wave International (https://www.elliottwave.com), which analyzes financial markets all over the world.

“Today is no exception. Stocks have had a blistering nine-year run, and now the president threatens antitrust action against Amazon while Congress grills Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. It reminds us of when the feds went after another tech giant, Microsoft, at the height of the dot-com boom.”

About Murray Gunn

Murray Gunn is the head of global research at Elliott Wave International. After earning his master’s degree in economics, Gunn went straight into fund management in 1991. He quickly realized that textbook descriptions don’t apply to real-world markets, which in turn led him to technical analysis and the Elliott Wave Principle. He worked for several firms as a fund manager in global bonds, currencies and stocks, including long posts at Standard Life Investments and the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority. Gunn then joined HSBC Bank as Head of Technical Analysis. A published author (Trading Regime Analysis), he has served on the board of the Society of Technical Analysts (UK), and delivered lectures on the Elliott Wave Principle to students at Queen Mary University and Kings College London. You can read Gunn’s commentary in Elliott Wave International’s Global Market Perspective, Interest Rates and Currency Pro Services, and on deflation.com.

About Elliot Wave International

Elliott Wave International is the largest independent technical analysis firm in the world. We cover every major financial index in the world, around the clock, and many of our publications have won top awards in their categories. We do not take our lead from Federal Reserve Policy, news headlines, Presidential elections or the latest economic statistics. In fact we forecast the forces that produce those outcomes, so we — and you — can expect them to happen.