ALWAYS CONSULT YOUR INVESTMENT PROFESSIONAL BEFORE MAKING ANY INVESTMENT DECISION
February 10, 2024 | Tech Talk for Saturday February 10th 2024
The Bottom Line Headline reads “S&P 500 Index closes at an all-time high”. The “Magnificent Four” (Microsoft, Amazon, Meta and Nvidia), recently narrowed down from the “Magnificent Seven”, continued to move higher. Their extraordinary overweight in the S&P 500 Index and the NASDAQ 100 Index was the main reason why all-time highs were reached on […]
February 9, 2024 | Becoming Invisible, Part 12: Even Your Car Is Spying On You
Say you want to organize an anti-war rally or buy some controversial medicine. You’re reluctant to do this from home, where Google and Amazon are listening and (possibly) forwarding your plans to all the acronym agencies. So you round up your co-conspirators and hop in your car for a ride, during which you plan your […]
February 9, 2024 | Less Insurance Coverage Suggests Less Exposure Appetite
Property insurance premiums are leaping, and coverage is becoming harder to find in many areas of the world. Few note the significance of these trends and the negative impact on asset prices. Less insurance coverage naturally reduces the amount of net worth owners want in real estate overall and in any location. Many homeowners in […]
February 9, 2024 | Mexico Dethrones China as America’s Largest Exporter
Based on data from the US Commerce Department, China is no longer America’s top supplier of goods. Imported goods from Mexico rose by around 5% from 2022 to 2023, totaling over $475 billion. Mexico has not surpassed China in exports to the US since 2002, marking a drastic shift in overall trade as tensions continue […]
February 9, 2024 | China Struggles with Weak Stock Markets
China starts 2024 with drastic measures to head off further losses in the stock market. These actions echo government rescue efforts in 2021-2023 for the property market which have been unsuccessful. Could China stock markets rebound this time? The meltdown in Chinese stock markets is historic. This chart shows the cycles over the period from […]
February 9, 2024 | Our Drunken Sailors’ Credit Card Balances, Burden, Delinquencies, and Available Credit
Credit cards are a measure of spending, not a measure of borrowing; they’re the dominant consumer payments method in the US, having largely replaced checks and cash. They’re used to pay for anything, from bar tabs to business trips that get reimbursed – and those can be large amounts. Credit cards were used for $5.8 […]
February 8, 2024 | Yell is at it Again – Get Those Damn Americans
After Janet Yellen dared to say the IRS needed to track $600 transactions on eBay and CashApps to get the rich, now it is going after those people who are taking money out of the banks and buying real estate for cash. These disgusting Americans have to be hunted down like the English did […]
February 8, 2024 | Canadian Consumer Insolvencies +23% in 2023
Canadian consumer insolvencies rose significantly in 2023, up 26.2% in Ontario and 23.0% across Canada. The latest Hoyes Michalos 2023 Joe Debtor insolvency data is available here. Doug Hoyes explains the findings below. What’s distressing to me is the person filing for insolvency is someone with higher income than in the past, says Doug Hoyes, co-founder […]
February 7, 2024 | EU Proposes New Climate Target for 2040
The European Union is leading the climate change psyop and releasing recommendations that are completely unattainable and unnecessary. Brussels would now like to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by an astonishing 90% by 2040. “Setting a 2040 climate target will help European industry, investors, citizens and governments to make decisions in this decade that will […]
February 7, 2024 | What’s Cheap — And What’s Cheaper — In 8 Charts
Incrementum, creator of the epic annual In Gold We Trust chart-fest, just posted its monthly Gold Compass update. As usual, the charts tell an interesting story: Let’s start with the fact that no “strong” fiat currencies are left out there. All are evaporating when measured against real money, just at different rates (though the yen is clearly one to watch […]
February 7, 2024 | Powell Focused on Killing the Fed Put?
Danielle DiMartino Booth believes Fed Chair Powell is sticking to prudent interest rate levels in an effort to crush the Fed put and do the “right thing” in the long term for the economy. Here’s hoping… Powell: We Wouldn’t Wait to Get to 2% Inflation to Cut Rates — DiMartino Booth with Charles Payne of […]
February 6, 2024 | DC Court of Appeals Has Judicially Declare Trump is Guilty Without a Trial
DOWNLOAD: DC Court Appeal Trump Has No Immunity I have read the DC Court of Appeals decision stripping Trump of any immunity. In doing so, they are stripping judges and prosecutors of immunity as well for all you had to argue is they acted against their appointment and oath. Their statement of facts calls everyone on […]
February 6, 2024 | China Stumbles Under Debt and Real Estate Bust
Our September 2021 client letter “Shifting Foundations” examined the default of China’s second-largest property developer, Evergrande, and the implications of a real estate bust leading to a slump in the Chinese and global economy. You can read the entire letter at this link. Here’s a taste: Insolvency problems in China’s real estate sector sent shock […]
February 5, 2024 | Capital Flow Analaysis
COMMENT: I found Lagarde’s comment about “those savings actually stay here to finance what needs to be financed” to be an admission that they are well aware of Socrates. You are the inventor of Capital Flow Analysis. It took an actual international hedge fund manager to see the flow of capital and change world […]
February 5, 2024 | Risk
Just because you can’t see something doesn’t mean it isn’t there. It pays to be paranoid.
February 4, 2024 | One-in-Five Mail-In Voters Admit to Fraud
We know that the mail-in voting system was implemented as a measure to control the vote. The question becomes how far does the fraud go? The Rasmussen Reports and the Heartland Institute conducted a survey that found one-in-five mail-in voters committed voter fraud during the 2020 US Presidential Election. These are merely the people […]
February 4, 2024 | Danielle presents at VRIC 2024: Capital Prospects in 2024
Danielle presents at VRIC 2024. Here is a direct video link. Further to real interest rates (nominal rates minus inflation) being demand-crushingly high for borrowers (but attractive for savers), the chart below shows the US Fed Funds Rate (FFR) minus the 5-year inflation swap rate is the highest today in over 20 years.
February 4, 2024 | Industrial Size Surplus
Modern economies, even small ones, are unfathomably complex. The number of variables is far more than any human can comprehend or any model can track. It’s really no wonder so many forecasts are wrong. In my 2024 forecast letter I predicted “A Muddle-Through Year.” That’s still what I expect… but not for everyone, nor for every […]
February 4, 2024 | Wall Street Guns Its Perpetual Motion Engine
Here are a couple of headlines concerning the economy that appeared atop Bloomberg’s front page on the same day last week. Taken together, they could make one’s head spin. First the happy news: IMF Lifts World GDP Outlook on U.S. Strength. But here’s the article just beneath: UPS to Cut 12,000 Jobs. A case of schizophrenia on the […]
February 3, 2024 | Surviving Nuclear War
COMMENT: I just read Newsweek. I now know why you live on the beach. You can convert the water to fresh and live off of seaweed. Very interesting. Paul REPLY: Paul, I also like the fresh air, the white sand, blue water, and the sky is different every day.
February 3, 2024 | Tech Talk for Saturday February 3rd 2024
The Bottom Line Exceptional price gains on Friday by Meta Platform (Up 20.32%) and Amazon (Up 7.87%) after their release of better-than-consensus quarterly results significantly distorted performance of the S&P 500 Index relative to the Equal Weighted S&P 500 Index and its related ETF: RSP. Since December 28th the S&P 500 Index has gained 3.66%% […]
February 2, 2024 | Judge Postpones Trump’s Trial Indefinately
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who has Trump’s Washington case brought by Jack Smith, wrote an order that means something is wrong. Her order has postponed the trial indefinitely, and rightly so, given the fact that the questions presented involve what one would classify as Subject Matter Jurisdiction, which can NEVER be waived. She wrote: “The court […]
February 2, 2024 | Canada Might Abandon Its Inflation Target in a Recession
The Bank of Canada (BOC) held interest rates steady at 5 percent in January, highlighting growing weakness in the Canadian economy. But unfortunately, inflation is not declining as fast as the central bank would like. Will the central bank abandon its inflation target? While the weakness in the economy would normally allow the Bank of […]
February 2, 2024 | Thoughts From The Front Line of Commercial Real Estate
As Meta and Amazon further fan animal spirits in the tech sector, the melt in commercial real estate is spreading through the economy and financial system. US regional banks are -54% since January 2022, and the contagion is international, see Commercial Property Losses Hammer Banks on Three Continents: Investors have wondered when the pain from the […]
February 2, 2024 | A Big New Development
A recent development in COMEX silver futures positioning has been unusual enough that I didn’t detect it at first, because it has been somewhat gradual. Over the past five reporting weeks, from the COT report as of Dec 19, 2023 to the most recent report as of January 23, 2024, the number of long traders […]