April 17, 2024 | Feds Increase Capital Gains Inclusion Rate

The new Federal Budget released yesterday has significant implications for capital assets held by individuals and corporations. See: Feds raise capital gains inclusion rate to 66.6% starting June 25. The taxable portion increases to two-thirds from one-half on capital gains above $250,000 realized annually by individuals and all capital gains realized by corporations and trusts. This […]

April 16, 2024 | Lower-Income Americans and Republicans Least Likely to Switch to EVs

  I explained how the private sector does not wish to switch to EVs amid high production costs and low demand. A recent Gallup Poll found that Americans do not want to own an EV, and the plans to eliminate fossil fuels do not align with the wishes of the people. Around 7% of respondents, […]

April 16, 2024 | Friday 4/12

It’s hard to overlook the tremendous price volatility that occurred on 4/12, when both gold and silver established new recent price highs, only to fall precipitously by the close of trading. At the time of the sharp selloff, the only market open was the COMEX, with markets in London, China and everywhere else closed. Therefore, […]

April 15, 2024 | 30-year Mortgage Amortizations are Not The Solution Needed

The latest government initiative to try and keep home prices at unaffordable levels is to extend the term of debt amortization to 30 years from 25 for government-insured mortgages (available where property prices are $1 million or less). Making people debt slaves for even longer does little to help the housing unaffordability and debt weighing […]

April 15, 2024 | Pie in the Sky

Happy Monday Morning! The federal government will unveil their budget this Tuesday, ironically on the same day CPI data drops. They’ve already promoted billions of dollars in new spending in pre-budget announcements. Including more than $21B allocated to housing, which we discussed last week. In essence, the feds are paying for zoning. If provinces commit to […]

April 15, 2024 | Imagine Waking from an 8-Year Coma – Reflections from the Last ECM Wave

The year 2015 was not long ago, and yet the entire world economy has changed. Central banks mismanaged monetary policy through arbitrarily low interest rates and continuous printing to appease the bigger issue—fiscal policy. Fiscal policies are all but nonexistent in most of the modern world, and government spending has become one of the largest […]

April 14, 2024 | Springtime for Bonds?

  The devastating bear market in Treasury paper since 2020 may be nearing an end. I was pessimistic about this myself when TLT, an exchange-traded fund, that tracks the long bond, broke down last week. But a bigger picture saw this as occurring in the context of a market that may have bottomed last October. […]

April 14, 2024 | Dividends on Offense

This week continues our series on dividends and dividend growth stocks. This is one part of my strategy to try to get through what I see as a coming crisis by the end of the decade with as much of my buying power as intact as possible. As before, David Bahnsen will be writing this […]

April 14, 2024 | Petition to Remove Trudeau from Office

April 14, 2024 | Danielle on CBC Weekend Business Panel

Danielle was a guest with Jacqueline Hansen and Elmer Kim on CBC’s Weekend Business Panel. You can view a video clip of the segment here.

April 13, 2024 | Trading Desk Notes For April 13, 2024

LATE NEWS: Iran fires missiles into Israel. As much as the market worried that this could happen, there was hope that Iran would not retaliate at this scale. This will likely have a MAJOR impact on markets, especially if Israel and the US counterattack. Is the Fed wrong – again? For traders and investors, the […]

April 13, 2024 | The Most Splendid Housing Bubbles in Canada: Home Prices Dip Further, -14% from Peak in March 2022, Now Below Sep 2021

Condo prices in Canada fell 0.7% in March from February, seasonally adjusted, while house prices edged up 0.3%, and so the Composite MLS Home Price Index edged down 0.1%, according to data from the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) today. The index has now fallen 14.1% from two years ago, from the peak in March […]

April 13, 2024 | Tech Talk for Saturday April 13th 2024

The Bottom Line U.S. equity markets were “off to a rough start” last week following initial releases of first quarter results by major companies: Notably weaker following release of quarterly results included Blackrock, Fastenal, JP Morgan, Wells Fargo and Citigroup. Weakness was recorded despite corporate reports that exceeded revenue and earnings consensus. Trigger for weakness […]

April 12, 2024 | Not Even Central Banks Can Manipulate Markets – NOBODY

QUESTION: Can central banks not even manipulate the markets? FS ANSWER: No.  Here is the track record of the central banks when they created the Group of 5 (now G20) in 1985. I warned them they would create a crash within two years. But look at what happened. The fools assumed the central banks could manipulate the […]

April 12, 2024 | CPI Shocker Could Affect The U.S. Election

The U.S. Consumer Price Index exceeded expectations, growing by 4.8 percent (annualized) in the month of March, while Core CPI rose 3.8 percent from last year. The markets corrected sharply after the surprise as the market expected lower inflation leading to rate cuts. President Joe Biden said that he still expects the Federal Reserve to […]

April 12, 2024 | The MSM Is Dying, NPR Edition

Not so long ago, almost everyone listened to NPR, and people of every political persuasion donated to help fund its ad-free, long-form journalism. Then everything changed. The reporting became weirdly biased and listeners — correctly perceiving that NPR was playing for Team Establishment rather than objectively reporting on big issues — started tuning out. Today’s […]

April 12, 2024 | Rate Cutting Comes with Deteriorating Job Market

Frances Donald, chief economist at Manulife Investment Management, and BMO Capital Markets head of US rates strategy Ian Lyngen explain the biggest economic challenges facing the Federal Reserve as the central bank’s 2% inflation target remains elusive. Frances and Ian speak with Tom Keene and Paul Sweeney on Bloomberg Radio. Here is a direct video link.

April 11, 2024 | Insurance Companies Planning for Climate Lockdowns

  Some insurance companies are altering their policies for corporations and business interruptions, which seems to be in anticipation of government lockdowns for climate change under the label “weather events.” The government seems to be preparing for new lockdowns under the pretense of climate change this summer.  It appears that they are preparing to restrict […]

April 11, 2024 | Easy For Some, Harder for Most

Four months ago, Fed Fund Futures had priced in the expectation of 6 to 8 US rate cuts (150 to 200 basis points) by the end of 2024. Today, that expectation has retreated to just 40 bps, with a 17% chance of a 25 bp cut in June, down from 50% on Monday. A significant […]

April 10, 2024 | Health Prepping Update: So Intermittent Fasting Kills? Really?

A new family of weight loss drugs — including Ozempic and Wegovy — recently hit the market to extreme fanfare. The drugs’ makers claim… wait for it… great results with minimal side effects (other than the fact that the drugs have to be taken for a lifetime to sustain the results). Wall Street analysts responded by raising Big Pharma […]

April 10, 2024 | Debt Stress Pandemic

US credit card debt topped $1.34 trillion in February, significantly above the cycle tops of around $900 billion in 2008 and 2020 (as shown below since 2003, courtesy of MFHOZ). The interest rate on this debt is above 20%. New car loans (5-year term) at 8.22% are above the 2007 rate peak (shown below courtesy of Liz […]

April 10, 2024 | Canada Accuses India of Election Interference

    The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) issued a report accusing India and Pakistan of interfering in Canada’s federal elections in 2019 and 2021. India has called the claims “baseless,” but the CSIS said it will be on the hunt for meddling during the upcoming election. “It is not Government of India’s policy to […]

April 10, 2024 | Jim Willie: 20 Solid Reasons For Gold Breakout

The time has come to cite the many reasons why Gold has risen, and why Gold will continue to launch to much higher levels. The USGovt debt and USTreasury Bond default, in my opinion, deserve the lead factors along with powerful price inflation. These factors are not featured in the press. The Jackass has stated […]

April 9, 2024 | EU Court Rules that Women are Disproportionately Harmed by Climate Change

  Over 2,000 women from Switzerland filed a case through the European Court of Human Rights after claiming that a lack of climate change regulations has disproportionately harmed their gender.  This is the third climate-related case brought to the high court. Six young women from Portugal sued for similar reasons, as did a former mayor […]