ALWAYS CONSULT YOUR INVESTMENT PROFESSIONAL BEFORE MAKING ANY INVESTMENT DECISION
June 28, 2024 | The Financial Stability Report Highlights Some Warnings About The Health of the Canadian Financial System
The resilience of Canadians and the Canadian financial system is very important to Canadians. The Bank of Canada monitors this, and reports that the financial system is sound. But there are a large number of mortgage renewals and payment adjustments about to hit over the next few years. In a recent speech Tiff Macklem, BOC […]
June 27, 2024 | Warner Brothers & CNN Disaster
QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong, Socrates has been so bearish on CNN’s owner, Warner Brothers, and the dabate is so rigged that other networks are even up in arms over CNN’s rules. We sold down all our institutional holdings in Warner Brothers, thanks to Socrates. Do you think this stock will collapse due to this debate that looks […]
June 27, 2024 | Total US Energy Stocks Rose 9.4 MB Last Week. WTI Crude Should Breach US$80/B in the Coming Days
Mixed economic data continues to sway markets from euphoria to concern as each data piece is scrutinized for signs of economic progress with declining inflation or signs of economic weakness and job layoffs with rising inflation. Canada got a surprise on the inflation front on Tuesday with the core May CPI (month over month) which […]
June 26, 2024 | Easy Money Has Yielded a Vicious Payback Period
Interest rates and high debt levels are biting hard in Canada; the economy is weak, and layoffs are rising. Toronto’s new home sales were down 71% compared to May 2023, with new condo sales down 75% and new single-family home sales down 65%. The same period saw an increase of 20,427 new home listings in […]
June 25, 2024 | Inflation in Canada Throws Another Curveball: Core CPI Spikes Month-to-Month by Most since 2022
When the Bank of Canada cut its policy rates by 25 basis points earlier in June, it based that cut on the inflation rates that had cooled sharply, and it based further cuts on these trends continuing. But leery of just the sort of reversal inflation dished up today, BOC governor Tiff Macklem said at […]
June 25, 2024 | Lags Demand Respect
The US 10-2yr Treasury yield curve has been inverted (two-year yields higher than ten-year) for 23 months since July 2022. An inversion in this spread has preceded the onset of every recession in the last 50 years by an average of 10 months. Generally, longer-than-average inversion periods (11 months Sept 12, 1980 to Oct 23, […]
June 25, 2024 | Did Real Estate Peak with the ECM in May 2024?
COMMENT: Marty, you are by far the greatest long-term forecaster ever. I worked on the floor in 2007 when the market crashed on the exact day of your ECM. Everyone called it Armstrong’s Revenge. That was the very day of the high in the Shiller Real Estate Index for 2007. I know you say […]
June 25, 2024 | Luxury Troubles
Happy Monday Morning! National house prices slid lower in the month of May, falling 2.4% from last year. On a seasonally adjusted basis, the national home price index is now down 14% since peaking in February 2022, marking the steepest decline since the index was created back in 2005, per CREA. Source: CREA It’s true […]
June 24, 2024 | Mindless Capital Allocation Leads to Bad Investment Outcomes
Mindless capital allocation leads to wasted resources and bad investment outcomes. We’ve just come through a decade of some of the dumbest financial choices in history–that’s been very expensive. In the midst of a housing supply crisis, thousands of condos in Canada’s largest cities are sitting empty. Most, experts say, are less than 500 square […]
June 24, 2024 | Scary Stat Alert: The Government Liquidity Index
Not that we need any more scary statistics, but here’s one that might be worth watching. From the Brave browser’s AI summarizer: Government liquidity index The government liquidity index is a metric that measures the ease or difficulty of trading in government securities, such as U.S. Treasury bonds. It is a gauge of deviations in yields from a […]
June 24, 2024 | The Western Mainstream Press – Just Want War
COMMENT: Marty: Hello from the UK across the pond. Nigel Farage has come out and said what you have been reporting all along – that the West started this war. You can certainly tell you are friends. BK REPLY: It is interesting how little intelligence exists in the mainstream media. There are just no […]
June 23, 2024 | Canada’s Population Explodes Surpassing 41 Million
Canada’s population has surpassed 41 million, but it is not due to new births. Statistics Canada declared that the population rose 0.6% or 242,673 people since last quarter, standing at 41,012.563 as of April 2024. The nation rose by 1.27 from 2022 to 2023 or a 3.2%. . Nearly all population growth (99.3%; 240,955 […]
June 23, 2024 | ‘Strong Economy’ Is a Dirty Lie
The disconnect between tight Fed policy and a U.S. economy on the brink of recession is growing more unsettling every day. A key question is which economy we are talking about, since there are two distinctly different ones that Fed actions can affect. The first is the economy of consumer goods and services. It is […]
June 23, 2024 | This Time Is (Not) Different
The old saw about doing the same thing and expecting a different result is less simple than it seems. Sometimes you need a few attempts to get it right. Nevertheless, when you see a long succession of smart people doing the same thing and getting the same bad result, it’s fair to wonder what they […]
June 23, 2024 | If Hackers Can Shut Down 15,000 Car Dealerships, Is Your Bank Safe?
On the list of things that might disrupt our increasingly fragile financial system, cyberattacks have always been up there with pandemics, real estate busts, war, and inflation. But those other things have, in one form or another, been happening while cyber disruptions have been limited to small-time extortion and the occasional data breach. That might […]
June 22, 2024 | Trading Desk Notes For June 22, 2024
NVDA goes to the top of the market cap leaderboard The total market cap of NVDA, MSFT, and AAPL is now over $10 trillion. NVDA, MSFT, GOOGL, AMZN, and META collectively are up ~45% YTD, representing ~25% of the S&P market cap and ~60% of S&P YTD gains (NVDA alone accounts for ~35% of the […]
June 22, 2024 | Tech Talk for Saturday June 22nd 2024
The Bottom Line Focus this week is on the May Core PCE Price Index released on Friday. This report is the FOMC’s most important indicator for inflation. A drop below the 2.8% annual rate set in April will signal easing inflation pressures and will set the stage for the traditional “Summer Rally” by U.S. equity […]
June 22, 2024 | Recession Impacts on Employment and Financial Markets
Ted Oakley interviews Danielle DiMartino Booth on recession, interest rates, and markets.Here is a direct video link.
June 22, 2024 | Consumed by Hatred
QUESTION: How can such hatred be passed down the generations for so long? I have never experienced a family grudge against another, so it is hard for me to understand. Besides, neither side is completely innocent for them to claim such an injustice. Far from it. I have 2 high school friends that I […]
June 21, 2024 | Massive Glut in Solar Panel Supply Pushes Prices Lower
Growing China-based production of solar panels and other key components ensures that a massive supply glut will arrive in 2024. Prices for solar panels are plummeting in most world markets, but the U.S. consumer will pay substantially higher prices. According to Bloomberg BNEF, China-based manufacturers continue to build new capacity beyond the level of expected […]
June 21, 2024 | Cost-Cutting in Focus
Some facts on the ground… Cutting Costs – Corporate Mentions of “Operational Efficiency” Spike — DiMartino Booth via Fox Business News. Here is a direct video link.
June 21, 2024 | Will Macron Start War to Retain Power?
The Rassemblement National (RN), which the press calls the far-right in France, has become the ant-war party with hopes of displacing Macron as prime minister after France’s upcoming parliamentary. In 2022, Marine Le Pen doubled down on her criticism of Europe in support of the Ukrainian war and counteroffensive as tensions within the Russian government […]
June 21, 2024 | Home Sales Sag Further, Hit by Mortgage Rates. Price Cuts & Active Listings Surge. Median Price Skewed by Surge in High-End Sales
Still dogged by mortgage rates milling around in the 7% neighborhood, and by people’s urge to wait for lower mortgage rates before buying, sales of existing homes of all types – single-family houses, townhomes, condos, and coops – fell further in May from April on a seasonally adjusted basis, to an annual rate of 4.11 […]
June 20, 2024 | A.I. Hype Has Magnified Market Downside
A worthwhile discussion in this segment… So far this year, the top 10 stocks in the S&P 500 have accounted for more than 76% of the index’s gain. This is the 2nd most concentrated reading for the S&P in the past 20 years. The highest percentage was 79%, achieved in 2007, right before the Global […]
June 20, 2024 | Canadians Want Trudeau OUT
Canadians have long been done with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his oppressive regime. The tides for Trudeau turned in a major way during the coronavirus pandemic when he did all in his power to take away the rights of Canadians. Since then, he has forgone domestic interests in favor of the globalist cabal. […]