ALWAYS CONSULT YOUR INVESTMENT PROFESSIONAL BEFORE MAKING ANY INVESTMENT DECISION
March 20, 2023 | Interesting Discovery
“Quickly” is a word uppermost in my mind, as I try to fully comprehend the sudden collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SIVB). SIVB stock traded at $700 just over a year ago, before, essentially, going worthless. It was the speed of the decline that was so unnerving. Quickly will also come to describe the inevitable […]
March 20, 2023 | Biden Has Seized Your Pensions For His Agenda
President Biden’s decision earlier on Monday to veto a bill that would have killed a Labor Department rule on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing, has effectively seized your pension and expropriated it directing it to invest in this failed green agenda. That is UNCONSTITUTIONAL and there needs to be an immediate class action suit […]
March 20, 2023 | Gone Missing
Happy Monday Morning! National housing data dropped for the month of February, and there’s a lot to unpack here. Home sales plunged 40% year-over-year in February, coming off a blistering hot market this time last year. When you zoom out further it was the weakest February since 2009. However, there’s a caveat. New listings utterly […]
March 20, 2023 | Rates, Banking, Recession and Markets
Ted Oakley interviewed David Rosenberg of Rosenberg Research with his thoughts on banking situations, interest rates, recessions, and the stock and bond markets. Here is a direct video link.
March 19, 2023 | To Pivot, or Not to Pivot, That Is the Question
To pivot, or not to pivot? That is the question Fed Chairman Powell will have pondered over the weekend while tending chicken breasts, franks and burgers spaced meticulously on the grating of a 148,000 BTU grill. If conscience doth indeed make cowards of us all, we might expect him to act boldly. But how? Does […]
March 19, 2023 | The Decline & Fall of the United States
COMMENT: Hi Marty, Seems to me the Democrats are following the time honored practice South American governments have resorted to in recent years when one party displaces another in a national election. In Brasil, the current president, Lula, spent 3 years in jail for charges of corruption. His successor was later removed from office. Now Bolsonaro has fled […]
March 19, 2023 | Another Unstable Finger
“There’s an old saying: Whenever the Fed hits the brakes, someone goes through the windshield,” said Michael Feroli, chief economist at J.P. Morgan. “You just never know who it’s going to be.” (The New York Times, March 16, 2023) For years I’ve used a sandpile metaphor to describe complex systems like banking. Keep dropping grains […]
March 19, 2023 | The Most Splendid Housing Bubbles in Canada: March Update on the Housing Bust
This is the beginning of spring selling season. So let’s see. Home sales in Canada rose by 2.3% in February from January, but that was less of an uptick than it should have been, and on a year-over-year basis, sales plunged 40%, compared to the 37% plunge in January. Prices of single-family houses in February […]
March 19, 2023 | On The Edge
It appears that we are on the threshold of being able to buy silver at prices that will never be lower. Silver prices are set to embark on an upside price journey that will reward those who own it in life-enhancing ways. It only seems logical to buy what is arguably the most undervalued investment […]
March 18, 2023 | Trading Desk Notes For March 18, 2023
Things break when interest rates have been near zero for more than a decade and then rise ~5% in less than a year! Today’s blog will focus on price action across markets; I’ll avoid commenting on “what’s wrong with banks;” thousands of new social media experts have already exhausted that subject. Interest rates declined in […]
March 18, 2023 | Chaos & the Secret Order to Everything
Economics is the ONLY field where cycles are denied. Moreover, people do not even comprehend how COMPLEXITY emerges. Alan Turing was a brilliant mathematician who is probably the father of computers for he built the really first computer to break the German Enigma Machine. The man was Alan Turing. He invented the computer and broke […]
March 17, 2023 | Yellen Casts Doubt of Covering All Depositors
We have a serious problem here. Depositors in a bank are NOT risking their money as an investor in a hedge fund. They expect honesty and stability. If the bank is trading and doubles its money, it belongs to the shareholders – not the depositors. Likewise, a loss belongs to the shareholders and that means 100% […]
March 17, 2023 | Morons We Should Know: Janet Yellen
Watching almost any U.S. policymaker try to explain what they’re doing these days is a surreal experience. Whether it’s foreign policy — especially our multi-front plan to start World War 3 — or public health or border security, it’s clear that these guys have absolutely no idea how their tools work or what the result […]
March 17, 2023 | Canadian Banks are Different But Not Immune
Several banks made headlines this week. The Silicon Valley Bank of San Francisco was wound up after deposits fled. First Republic Bank, also of San Francisco, got into trouble and was rescued. Credit Suisse received government aid. Are Canadian banks next? These banks are in trouble for a variety of reasons but there’s a common […]
March 16, 2023 | Deep Fakes, Artificial Intelligence and the Shrinking Trust Horizon
Some astoundingly consequential things have just happened, and in coming years they’ll reshape — if not end — our connection to the virtual world. Two examples: Deep Fakes It is now apparently possible to create videos of people doing and saying things they haven’t actually done or said. Imagine a YouTube video of a politician […]
March 16, 2023 | What Happened to Swiss Banks?
Good big picture in this segment. A global clampdown on tax evasion, led by U.S. law authorities, has transformed the banking industry in Switzerland. Without its famed reputation for secrecy, wealthy foreigners no longer see it as a haven to hide their money. So how have Swiss banks adapted? Here is a direct video link.
March 16, 2023 | Cash Not Accepted
There once was a time when cash was the undisputed king. Merchants preferred cash payments over credit, and there were often incentives for paying with paper. I recall receiving lower gas prices when paying with cash, for example. It is increasingly common to see “no cash accepted” signs at establishments as the world moves toward […]
March 15, 2023 | Censoring Social Media to Prevent Bank Runs
They censored social media to prevent the public from learning the truth about COVID, vaccines, and accompanying mandates. They censored social media to prevent the public from learning about Hunter Biden’s laptop before his dad could be installed at the POTUS. They censored anyone who questioned the election or Biden’s crime family and deliberately leaked Republican voter information. The extreme […]
March 15, 2023 | Is The US Banking System Safe? – 15 Years Later
“We’ve got strong financial institutions…Our markets are the envy of the world. They’re resilient, they’re…innovative, they’re flexible. I think we move very quickly to address situations in this country, and, as I said, our financial institutions are strong.” – Henry Paulson – 3/16/08 “I have full confidence in banking regulators to take appropriate actions in response […]
March 14, 2023 | Moody’s Downgrades US Banking System Outlook to Negative
Moody’s just announced a downgrade of its outlook on the entire US banking system to negative from stable to reflect “the rapid deterioration in the operating environment following deposit runs at Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), Silvergate Bank, and Signature Bank (SNY) and the failures of SVB and SNY.” Danielle explains the nuances of recent developments in the […]
March 14, 2023 | Services Inflation Rages at Four-Decade High: Fueled by Rents, Auto Insurance, Repairs, Airfares, Hotels, Pet Services, Food Services, Delivery
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) for February showed once again that inflation rages in services at the worst levels in four decades, while inflation in many goods categories continue to back off: Services without energy services: annual inflation jumped by 7.3%, a four-decade high, driven by housing, food services (food away from home), auto insurance, […]
March 13, 2023 | Where to Go?
A lot of people have been asking where to go, what bank is safe, and what’s next? This is by no means over. The fiscal mismanagement is off the charts and we have a major clash with the Marxist views of the Democrats who always want to punish the rich and then ask them for […]
March 13, 2023 | Gradually, then Suddenly
Happy Monday Morning! Central banks finally broke something. After leaving rates hovering near zero for over a decade and engaging in trillions of dollars worth of QE (Quantitative Easing) you can’t simply raise interest rates by 400bps in less than a year without something going boom in the night. It was never a matter of […]
March 13, 2023 | Backstops for Depositors, Not Risk Markets
The Silicon Valley Bank (SVB, founded in 1984) and Signature Bank (publicly traded since 2004) closures over the weekend are the second and third largest US bank failures in history (the largest eight failed banks in assets and deposits, are shown below). Banking failures tend to be contagious. To quell depositor fears, the […]
March 12, 2023 | The Metals Are Not Manipulated
COMMENT: Marty; Two former Merrill Lynch traders were each sentenced to a year and a day in prison Thursday for manipulating the precious metals markets, the US Department of Justice said Thursday. Of course, —- —–, which is forever bullish metals, claims they moved the metals in the “direction they wanted from 2008 to 2014.” […]