ALWAYS CONSULT YOUR INVESTMENT PROFESSIONAL BEFORE MAKING ANY INVESTMENT DECISION
November 7, 2023 | Mortgage & HELOC Balances, Delinquencies, Foreclosures: How Are our Drunken Sailors Holding Up?
Mortgage balances outstanding ticked up 1.0% in Q3 from Q2, to a new record of $12.1 trillion, after having dipped in Q2, according to data from the New York Fed’s Household Debt and Credit Report. This increase is less than half the pace than the big jumps during the era of the 3% mortgages, when […]
November 7, 2023 | Mark Nestmann: The War On Cash, Past And Future
The Nestmann Group just posted a useful primer on the historical roots and likely future of the war on cash. Governments have been at this for a long, long time. Next up: CBDCs. The War On Cash Escalates Economists and governments have long had a very low opinion of the cash you carry in your wallet or […]
November 6, 2023 | Weak Hands
Happy Monday Morning! Let’s address the elephant in the room. I sent out this tweet last week and it went viral. I can’t comment on who it is, for obvious reasons, so please stop asking. Although it really shouldn’t come as a surprise that a developer with a large construction pipeline is suddenly feeling the […]
November 6, 2023 | Canada App Bans and Online News Act
A Chinese-owned app called WeChat, made for instant messaging, social media, and mobile payments, has been banned from Canada effective immediately as of Monday, October 30, 2023. The application was said to be removed from all government-issued devices and has been blocked for future downloads by anyone. While they did do a sweep through the app to […]
November 6, 2023 | The Coming Great Crash?
I fully understand that there are now so many calling for a Great Crash of all time as they have during each correction, big and small, for over 30 years, and they just never get it right, even once. Some tout the rise in interest rates. Others look at this chart and nothing else. If […]
November 6, 2023 | This Is What Inflation Does To Our Kids
Mainstream economics portrays inflation — defined as a currency that loses a bit of purchasing power each year — as necessary to lubricate the gears of commerce. What they don’t seem to understand (or would like the rest of us to not understand) is that inflation is also a tool for redistributing wealth from one […]
November 6, 2023 | Fed on Hold as Economy Weakens
Danielle DiMartino Booth, CEO and Chief Strategist at QI Research, joins Bloomberg Radio to discuss the FOMC decision. Here is a direct video link.
November 6, 2023 | Tightening Further
Last week’s new short position report indicated a moderate increase in the short position on SLV, the big silver ETF, of 2.4 million shares to just under 19.8 million shares (18 million ounces). This increase came at a time of rising prices (as did a similar rise in the shorted shares in GLD, the big […]
November 5, 2023 | Medical Care for Migrants Crisis
Over 900 thousand migrants have crossed the border legally over the last year and over 600 thousand have crossed illegally. It is estimated at about 105 million migrants to have crossed over the border in just a year according to a Biden- appointed secretary. It has been an ongoing issue of seeking shelter across the […]
November 5, 2023 | Markets, Riots, War and Peace
[A change of tone and tempo this week from our good friend Richard Charles, owner of Lake Tahoe-based Alpine Capital. His observations concerning gold’s historical role during periods of intense global strife should remind us that bullion’s sometimes crazy price swings should not be investors’ focus right now. RA ] With plans to attend memorial service for a dear […]
November 5, 2023 | Debt Scores
Identifying problems is great. Identifying solutions is even better, especially when the politicians who are supposed to be solving our big problems don’t even try. In last week’s Debt Catharsis letter, I offered some ideas to start fixing the federal debt problem. To be clear, those ideas won’t balance the budget and in many ways are woefully inadequate. But […]
November 4, 2023 | Trading Desk Notes For November 4, 2023
Stocks and bonds soared this week, and the US Dollar fell as markets believe Central banks are “done” raising interest rates Bonds 30-year Treasury futures fell ~20% from the post-SVB highs in April to last week’s 16-year lows. (Yields rose from 3.55% to 5.10%.) The market turned higher last week and soared this week on a […]
November 4, 2023 | Tech Talk for Saturday November 4th 2023
The Bottom Line The strongest period of seasonal strength in the year for North American equity indices from October 27th to January 5th “started with a bang” last week. The S&P 500 Index jumped % and the TSX Composite Index advanced %. Trigger for the advance was news that the Federal Reserve held the Fed […]
November 3, 2023 | There is No Free Lunch
From a Ben Bernanke speech in 2011: “Perhaps the most important thing for people to understand about the federal budget is that maintaining the status quo is not an option. Creditors will not lend to a government whose debt, relative to national income, is rising without limit; so, one way or the other, […]
November 3, 2023 | The Federal Reserve Issues a Margin Call
The Federal Reserve kept rates unchanged this week, at the highest level since 2001. The chair, Jerome Powell, insisted that the Fed might have to hike more, if inflation does not behave in the next few months. The last rate hike in the U.S. occurred in July 2023, after a streak of 11 hikes that […]
November 2, 2023 | Nordic Countries Promise Mass Deportations
Religious zealots have come out in full force in recent weeks. European nations are now realizing that they made a grave mistake by opening their doors to countless migrants who do not share the same culture or values. Reuters reported that Nordic governments are now planning to deport immigrants who have not established legal residence. Denmark has […]
November 2, 2023 | Lacy Hunt on The Impending Recession and Implications
A worthwhile review in this 1-hour segment. Legendary economist Dr. Lacy Hunt joins Julia La Roche on episode 115 for a wide-ranging discussion on the economy and why we’re facing an impending recession. Here is a direct video link.
November 1, 2023 | US Treasury Secretary Unclear on the Concept of a “Deficit”
I have both good and bad news. The bad news is that the US government is continually spending with no end in sight. The proxy wars have eliminated even a level-headed discussion of anything akin to a real budget. In a move that angered Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen (also good news) Republicans introduced legislation to reduce […]
November 1, 2023 | What Interest Rates Say About Home Prices
The average home price in Canada ($757k) is about 141% higher than what is considered affordable for the average household income. In the highest-population areas, like the Greater Vancouver and Toronto Areas, where incomes and home prices are higher than the national average, the affordability numbers are much worse. Price-to-income ratios in the mid-west and […]
November 1, 2023 | The Most Splendid Housing Bubbles in America, October Update: 10 of the 20 Metros Down from their Peaks Last Year, 6 Metros Set New Highs
We like the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Home Price Index because it’s based on the “sales-pairs method” comparing the sales price of the same house over time, thereby eliminating the issues associated with median price indices (see “Methodology” toward the end of the article). And we like it because it shows the 20 metros it covers […]
October 31, 2023 | World War III – It’s Inevitable
COMMENT: Mr. Armstrong; It is safe to say that nobody can hold a light to Socrates. Nobody has forecast war three years in advance as you did in 2011. Nobody has predicted a Middle East War in advance as you did two years ago. Even your posts on Turkey and its conflict with NATO, our […]
October 31, 2023 | Art of the Collapse, November 2023
Let’s start with an appealing vision of the afterlife… … and contrast that with the real world, where hedge fund assholes turn necessities like shelter into casino chips: Meanwhile, geopolitics is making life hard for the “I support current thing” crowd:
October 31, 2023 | China’s Real Estate Bust Has Global Implications
The International Monetary Fund warned this month that the downdraft in China’s real estate sector has contagion implications globally: In the near term, the sharp adjustment in China’s heavily indebted property sector and the resulting slowdown in economic activity will likely spill over to the region, particularly to commodity exporters with close trade links to China. Beyond […]
October 30, 2023 | Structural Issues
Happy Monday Morning! As expected, the Bank of Canada held interest rates at 5% for the second consecutive time. BoC’s Macklem flagged everything we’ve been highlighting in this newsletter for several months now. Weaker economic growth and a recent surge in global bond yields is doing most of the tightening for them. Adding, “The path […]
October 30, 2023 | Stock Market Likelihood is Lower for Longer
The average time from a yield curve inversion (long-interest rates below short) to the onset of recession has been ten months historically, ranging from 11 to 22 months. October marks the eighteenth month of curve inversion this cycle. Moreover, since June, the yield spread has been flattening out. As we start this trading week, […]