December 4, 2022 | Maybe 2023 Won’t Be So Bad

Last week’s commentary went full contrarian with the seemingly nutty idea that 2023 could be a dull year for investors despite the looming possibility of a global economic collapse. Inflation, deep recession, war, disease and political unrest are just a few of the factors that could bring a badly limping financial system down. But suppose […]

December 4, 2022 | Trading Desk Notes For December 3, 2022

Markets react to a “slowing” Fed Leading up to Powell’s scheduled Wednesday speech, some market participants were likely positioned for a re-appearance of “tough-guy” Powell – the man on a mission to bring down inflation and damn the consequences.   But Powell sent those participants scrambling to reverse their positions when he said, “it makes sense to moderate the […]

December 4, 2022 | The Economy Is a-Changin’

When you better start swimmin’ Or you’ll sink like a stone For the times they are a-changin’ —Bob Dylan, “The Times They Are A-Changin’” Change is constant, in the economy and everything else. We talk about it often. Yet when we talk about the economy changing, we usually mean the economy’s condition is changing—from expansion to recession, deflationary […]

December 3, 2022 | HHS & Children Sex Trafficking?

December 2, 2022 | Central Banks Apologize as Borrowers Suffer

  Philip Lowe, governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), made a public apology for the statements that were made about interest rates. He told people that rates would stay low and now that rates have risen substantially many people are in trouble with very large mortgages. Reserve Bank Governor Philip Lowe said that […]

December 2, 2022 | We are Trapped in a Truman Show Directed By Psychopaths

“Whether in actual fact the policy of the boot-on-the-face can go on indefinitely seems doubtful. My own belief is that the ruling oligarchy will find less arduous and wasteful ways of governing and of satisfying its lust for power, and these ways will resemble those which I described in Brave New World. Within the next […]

December 1, 2022 | Secrets of the Universe

COMMENT: Martin – Thank you for your efforts to write your discoveries down into publications so that they will be available for the benefit of civilization after you have passed on. I am very much looking forward the “The Geometry of Time”. Like many groundbreaking thinkers of the past, you may end up being someone […]

December 1, 2022 | Reality: Tightening Done Just Starting To Bite

Financial markets rocketed higher yesterday after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the central bank might scale back the pace of its interest rate hikes as early as December. Bullish hopes fixated on the prospect of a 50 bsp hike on December 14 rather than a fifth consecutive 75 bsp. This is the surreality of the most […]

December 1, 2022 | Closer, But Still No Cigar

It’s remarkable to me how close we appear to be getting to near-universal recognition that silver and gold (along with a host of other commodities) are priced based upon the activities of a relative handful of large paper traders on the COMEX (and other exchanges) and not on the workings of the world of actual […]

December 1, 2022 | Real Estate: The Post-Bubble Bear Market Could Run For Years

A great mania in real estate erupted with the financial bubble and will likely be followed by a lengthy decline. Previous post-bubble contractions have prevailed for some twenty years, with the usual 3 to 4-year business cycle coming and going. The following chart shows the outstanding rally in the S&P Real Estate Sector peaked in […]

November 30, 2022 | The Battle for Investment Survival

“It takes five years to learn how to make money … and twenty-five to learn how not to lose it.”  – Nassim Taleb Whether a person realizes it or not, any body who earns more more than he spends is automatically an investor. The objective of investment is basically to store once’s excess purchasing power for future […]

November 30, 2022 | Instability Breeds Opportunity in 2023

A lucid macro overview in this discussion. Worth a mull. Michael Green, portfolio manager & chief strategist at Simplify Asset Management.  Here is a direct video link. Portfolio manager Michael Green returns for Part 2 of our interview with him to explain why he does not expect a “soft landing” for the economy and predicts stocks […]

November 30, 2022 | China & the Future

COMMENT: Hello Marty !! It looks like the ” China as a parking lot for cash has already begun. FXI going to the moon of late in spite of Xi & Co. cutting off their own economic foot to hide behind their troubles and blame it on the darn protestors to the folly, by golly. […]

November 29, 2022 | In Demand

The retail and wholesale markets in silver and gold are hot. Particularly in silver, the retail market is, quite literally, on fire.  The fact that premiums exist on virtually all forms of retail silver (along with delivery delays), something never seen this pronounced before, means that the creation of new 1,000-ounce bars is necessarily being […]

November 29, 2022 | Dutch Farming Crisis

This is one of those unbelievable stories of who Climate Change is being taken to such an extreme, we will unleash a serious wave of deaths from both starvation and coming freezing temperatures without fuel. The Dutch government actually is planning to buy out and close as many as 3,000 farms in the country, which […]

November 29, 2022 | One Fell Swoop of The Pen

Last week we highlighted some recent data from Desjardins which noted that nearly every borrower who took out a fixed payment variable rate mortgage during the pandemic now owes more in interest than their original fixed payment. Trigger rates galore. It appears the Bank of Canada is finally coming around to the same conclusion. In a research […]

November 29, 2022 | Cyclical Foresight and Patience Pay

After 12 years of ultra-low interest rates, generous government support, and unprecedented liquidity injections from central banks, the global real estate market is in the midst of a much-deserved contraction cycle. As the Financial Times put it this month, The Global Housing Market is Heading for a brutal downturn, and bubble prices and household debt make […]

November 28, 2022 | Trudeau Justifies Invoking Martial Law

Trudeau changed the world’s entire perception of Canada after his mishandling of the Freedom Convoy protest. Hard-working Canadian men and women demanded medical freedom and protested the vaccine mandates. The Canadian media was not permitted to question the COVID agenda, and dissenting voices were muffled. The Canadian trucker’s convoy (aka the Freedom Convoy) sparked the […]

November 27, 2022 | The Case for a Merely Choppy 2023

Early in October, it lifted my spirits to be able to bloviate about how a too-widely-anticipated October crash seemed as likely as a Martian invasion. One lunar calendar-based prediction in particular had October 21 as the crash date, although the forecast went squishy at sundown that day when dark clouds failed to materialize over Wall […]

November 27, 2022 | An Interview with Keith Fitz-Gerald

Last week, I introduced you to my friend of 20+ years, Keith Fitz-Gerald of Keith Fitz-Gerald Research. As I mentioned, I recently signed up for his Morning! 5 With Fitz free research email, and I’m enjoying it immensely. This week, around my trip to a far-too-cold Denver, then to Dallas, and ultimately Tulsa to spend the Thanksgiving holiday […]

November 27, 2022 | Why I Look at the Dow First

COMMENT: Why do you focus on the Dow over the S&P 500 and others? ANSWER: New analysts claim that the S&P 500 provides a better picture of the markets compared to the Dow. Although the S&P 500 obviously has a larger catalog, the Dow is a direct reflection of international capital flows. Look toward the […]

November 26, 2022 | Trading Desk Notes For November 26, 2022

The DJIA closed at a seven-month high this week The DJIA closed higher for seven of the last eight weeks. It rallied ~5,600 points (19%) from its two-year lows on October 13 and is now only ~7% below its January All-Time Highs. All of the stock indices had a terrific rally from the March 2020 Covid […]

November 26, 2022 | Danielle on CBC Weekend Business Panel

Danielle was a guest with Elmer Kim and Hillary Johnstone on the CBC Weekend Business Panel. You can watch an audio clip of the segment here.

November 25, 2022 | Pension Deficits Growing and Widely Understated

I have been writing for years about the train wreck unfolding in pension funds and individual retirement accounts that have migrated towards riskier holdings, leverage, “alternative,” and private equity allocations over the last 12 years of ultra-loose financial conditions. Needless to say, the cost of all this is not yet “marked to market.” The segment […]