July 20, 2024 | One of Reagan’s Best Jokes

July 20, 2024 | Tech Talk for Saturday July 20th 2024

The Bottom Line North American equity markets experienced substantial rotation last week: Out of the technology sector and into other economic sensitive sectors such as Transportation, Banks and Biotech. Second quarter results released to date have been significantly higher than consensus.  According to www.FactSet.com 80% of reporting S&P 500 companies have released a positive earnings […]

July 19, 2024 | CNN’s Report 3 Guns Fired

We have these reports that the sound implied that there were three separate guns fired, and thus, there had to be a second shooter. I think if there were a second shooter, Trump would be dead. I tend to think they stood down, let it happen, and hoped for the best. The same routine in 911 […]

July 19, 2024 | Electricity Produced by Renewable Power Dramatically Lowers Energy Waste

Electricity generated by renewable power reduces energy waste significantly and, therefore, global power needs. This critical fact is key to understanding the energy evolution unfolding. Fossil fuels still supply 80% of our energy. And people point to this number to say it’s impossible to switch to renewables, especially if we want to do it quick […]

July 19, 2024 | Charles Hugh Smith: A Repeat of the 1970s Will Change a Lot of Things

Many people recognize the similarities between today’s world and that of the 1970s. But few understand the potential chaos that implies for a system this overleveraged. Charles Hugh Smith just posted an article that explains the impact on investors. Here’s an excerpt: Twisters on the Horizon: Is This Decade a Re-Make of ‘That 70s Show’? If […]

July 19, 2024 | The Fed will Cut Rates Too Late in This Cycle

Anticipation ahead of the U.S. Federal Reserve’s first rate cut is growing. Traders are betting on a first quarter-point cut at the meeting on September 17-18 as the most likely date, with more cuts to come later this year in November and December. But traders are wrong in thinking that rate cuts are good for […]

July 18, 2024 | Loan Defaults Confirm Faltering Consumers

In the second quarter of 2024, loan loss provisions at the six largest US banks increased the most since 2020 and car repossessions in June (drivers over 60 days late on payments) rose 23% year over year and were +14% compared to the pre-pandemic first half of 2019. See Car Repossessions Surge 23% as Americans Fall […]

July 18, 2024 | Home Buyers Still on Strike even as Mortgage Rates Drop to Lowest since March. But Refis Jump to Highest since Aug 2022

The average conforming 30-year fixed mortgage rate during the latest reporting week dropped to 6.87%, the lowest since mid-March, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association today. Not so ironically, two things happened, as the MBA also reported today: Applications for mortgages to purchase a home fell to the lowest point since early June, as potential […]

July 17, 2024 | Neocons Usurping American Foreign Policy & Assassinations for Regime Change

  I can tell you that when Regan was elected, the Republicans were beside themselves. When I asked: What’s the problem? They said: “You don’t understand!” They explained that they would have to “train” him because he was a “governor” and not one of them from the swamp. The Neocons tried their best to prevent […]

July 17, 2024 | US Total Stocks Rose 11.1 MB Last Week -This Should Put Pressure on Crude Prices

The Republican National Convention is on this week and all of Trump’s former Presidential opponents are singing kumbaya and circling the wagons to get a fully united party to win the Presidency, the Senate and a large majority in the House. His surviving an assassination attempt last week has added to his messianic support. A […]

July 17, 2024 | Nomi Prins: Why Nuclear Power Is Back In Vogue

Best-selling financial writer and former investment banker Nomi Prins just posted a primer on nuclear power (and, by implication, the uranium mining stocks). Here’s an excerpt: The New Gold Rush: Unlock Uranium’s Soaring Demand Nuclear energy is the “Switzerland” of energy sources. It is increasingly popular with both sides of the political spectrum for several reasons. First, nuclear energy is […]

July 16, 2024 | “They” Will Do Anything To Win

“We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.”  – William J. Casey, CIA Director (1981) The always mysterious question when trying to figure out what is happening in this insane world and why it is happening is who are “they”? In the current chaotic atmosphere, “they” are in […]

July 16, 2024 | Beware the “Relative Value” Trap

Over the past 32 months, economically sensitive small and medium-cap stock indices have underperformed the largest-cap tech-heavy indices (price x shares outstanding) to a degree not seen since the last tech bubble in 1998 through March of 2000. Indeed, global fund flows (shown below since July 2023, courtesy of The Daily Shot) have concentrated in […]

July 16, 2024 | KIM Questions the Assassination Attempt – It Does Not Add Up

    

July 15, 2024 | Struggling Consumers are a Tough Slog

Consumer spending drives just under 60% of Canadian GDP growth and consumer spending fell across all categories in June–discretionary and essential (shown below courtesy of RBC). Warm weather and declining interest rates did not entice spending as hoped. Overall, second-quarter retail sales were negative. Fewer Canadians have renovated their homes amid a sluggish housing sector, while […]

July 15, 2024 | The Speculator as Hero

Happy Monday Morning! We’re now in the dog days of Summer, a historically slow time for housing markets that is being compounded by weaker economic activity. The unemployment rate in Canada is up 1.6 percentage points from the lows, which is already a larger increase off the lows than in several recessions over the past […]

July 15, 2024 | Assassinations & Markets – Divided We Stand

  The attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump is reverberating around the world, to say the least. Domestically, it depends if you are a Democrat or a Republican. Each camp naturally views the event through their personal view of the world, which is basically unchangeable. If aliens landed from another planet and started wiping […]

July 15, 2024 | How a Country Goes Bankrupt, In 10 Steps

Japan appears to have entered the inevitable fiat currency death spiral, where interest rates (and interest costs) rise while the currency falls. Fix one problem and the other gets worse, until the system breaks. Here, from March 2023, is a longer explanation:   How a Country Goes Bankrupt, In 10 Steps   The past few […]

July 14, 2024 | Attitude Adjustments

We are in the time of year when Americans pack transatlantic airliners for their European vacations. I had actually hoped to be one of them. That didn’t work out but we can still talk about events in Europe. And we probably should, because potentially major changes are happening. Maybe I should say more changes are happening. Europe has already […]

July 14, 2024 | Summer Doldrums It Ain’t

The dog days of summer have returned with a vengeance to Florida this year, especially in my home. The air conditioner’s condenser coil sprang a leak, which is hardly unusual considering that it’s eight years old. What is unusual, and causing more than a little inconvenience, is that the broken part will take a month […]

July 14, 2024 | China Prepares for War

China has begun using mock US fighter jets for target practice as revealed by new satellite images taken by Plant Labs. The images show F-35 and F-22 modeled aircrafts damaged on a test runway. This comes on the heels of NATO warning China to cease aiding Russia as a “decisive enabler.” The Chinese government fought […]

July 14, 2024 | Two Takes on the Assassination Attempt

A friend just emailed about the Trump assassination attempt, predicting that it guarantees his election in November. I tentatively agreed, and responded with a story: You’re too young to remember Ronald Reagan. But back in the 1980s, his political honeymoon was fading and his approval ratings were dropping. Then someone shot him in the chest, […]

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

Do you believe in mean regression? The NAZ is up ~50% from last October’s lows, 100% from the 2022 lows, and >200% from the 2020 lows. It’s up ~20X from the 2009 lows. At what point does mean reversion kick in, or does that never happen? The S&P has closed higher for 11 of the past […]

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

The Bottom Line The Summer Rally continues. All-time highs were set by broadly based equity indices including TSX Composite Index, S&P/TSX 60 Index, S&P 500 Index, Equal Weight S&P 500 Index, Dow Jones Industrial Average, Australia All Ordinaries and Nikkei Average! Equity markets are responding to encouraging second quarter results released by major companies and […]