At the very beginning of the year, I began this column for 2018 saying that this would be the year for conservative investors. It began this way. In 2017, “everything went up and fundamentals were only a bonus. Almost all gaming markets went way up, along with almost everything else in the world. 2018 is not likely to repeat this by a long shot.”

Gaming markets topped in late May, giving added corroboration to the famous Wall Street phrase “Sell in May and Go Away”. On Christmas Eve, the S&P 500 finally confirmed what gaming stocks had been warning about for months. A bear market is coming. And now it is here, officially, according to the arbitrary numbers dictated by the media that constitutes a bear market.

Now that it’s here as 2018 closes out, what follows is what I believe is going to happen in broad strokes in 2019 for China, Europe, and the United States.

China