6A – Identifying Opportunities in Economic & Regulatory Trends

Economic Trend - Trump's corporate tax reform

• Source: https://www.investopedia.com/taxes/trumps-tax-reform-plan-explained/
• I believe that Trump's corporate tax reform can provide an opportunity for new up and coming service businesses because they won't have to be bombarded with heavy amounts of taxes while they're getting their feet off the ground.
• The typical customer of this opportunity would be "mom and paps" kind of stores meaning a store in which you're selling something to a buyer or even a restaurant would benefit from this.
• I think this would be easy to exploit because it's a tax reform that's already been placed, so it's already sitting in your lap.
• I believe I saw this as an opportunity because my dad was actually talking to me about this tax reform and how it doesn't necessarily apply to himself, but it actually helps many of his friends save some money from taxes.

Economic Trend - Fed raising interest rates

• Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/19/your-money/interest-rates-consumers.html
• I believe that the Fed raising interest rates may seem like it would negatively affect all people, but in fact I see an opportunity for people that own government bonds and people that are considered savers.
• The typical customer as mentioned previously would be bond investors because as the rates go up, so does the interest income meaning more value for them.
• I think this would be easy to exploit because it's not difficult to buy a government bond and hold on to it.
• I believe I saw this opportunity because of my father once again. He has talked to me in the past about rising interest rates from the Fed for a while now and then I was able to piece an opportunity together. The main purpose of the Fed raising interest rates is to slow down inflation and monitor it, but I saw that there had to be a winner in the situation and I found out that bond investor benefited from this economic trend.

Regulatory Change - EPA regulatory changes

• Source: https://www.npr.org/2018/12/11/675477583/trump-epa-proposes-big-changes-to-federal-water-protections
• I believe that EPA regulatory changes that were proposed by the Trump administration causing a rollback of federal water protections provides an opportunity for people who own land to save some money. The regulatory change would allow landowners to decide which water sources on their property were subject to federal regulation.
• The typical customer would be landowners because without as much heavy regulations these owners can build in more types of areas and this in turn helps local economies by providing more jobs.
• I think this would be kind of hard to exploit because there's still regulations in place protecting important areas, but the opportunity is still very much there.
• I saw this opportunity when I saw stuff on social media talking about changes in the EPA and at first I thought that less regulation could be a bad thing, but from a local economy standpoint I was sure that this regulatory change would help.

Regulatory Change - Trump administration reduction of regulatory changes on banks

• Source: https://www.americanbanker.com/news/bank-regulatory-actions-under-trump-fall-to-historic-lows
• I believe that regulatory changes on banks provide an opportunity because if the regulations on banks are lowered then it's easier to borrow money to potentially start a business as an entrepreneur.
• The typical customer would be anyone who couldn't previously borrow money from the bank, but can now and hopefully the people borrowing the money now will be able to positively affect the society and economy around them.
• I think this would be hard to exploit because yes while there are less regulations on the banks, at the end of the day there are still regulations.
• I saw this opportunity when I was researching my first regulatory change and after doing some reading on the topic I believe that this is important because the opportunity applies to many entrepreneurs and this can help many of them out. Since I am learning about entrepreneurship right now I felt this was an important thing to look at.