ALWAYS CONSULT YOUR INVESTMENT PROFESSIONAL BEFORE MAKING ANY INVESTMENT DECISION
July 2, 2024 | Art of the Collapse, July 2024
FBI Firearm Training Facility Replaces Paper Targets With Copies Of The Constitution Babylon Bee, Washington, D.C. — In a completely innocuous and in no way concerning recent update, the FBI Training Facility for Firearms and Small Weaponry has replaced all of its paper targets with copies of the Constitution of the United states. According to […]
July 1, 2024 | Supreme Court Rules on Trump’s Immunity
Trump Immunity Decision The Supreme Court’s decision on Trump’s immunity is out today. The Supreme Court ruled 6–3 that presidents enjoy immunity from criminal prosecution for official, but not unofficial, acts. They also noted that even comments that he thought the election was rigged as so many other people, “So most of a President’s […]
July 1, 2024 | Hussman on Thoughtful Money
Happy Canada Day! Today’s guest is one of those who smartly navigated the past 2 great market corrections. He now thinks we stand at the precipice of a 3rd — and he’s ringing a bell for anyone who will listen. To hear why and what he advises we do about it, we have the great […]
June 30, 2024 | Debtors and Creditors
The giant federal debt we’ve been talking about isn’t just borrowed money. It is also lent money. Loans are two-party transactions. One side receives temporary use of cash which it agrees to repay with interest. The other gives up the current use of that cash in exchange for receiving interest. Ideally, it works out for both… […]
June 30, 2024 | Brussels has More Power Than Rome – Italy Balks at Climate Change Agenda
Italy’s new PM, Giorgia Meloni, is learning that she cannot pick and choose what policies Italy would like to adopt from the ruling authority in the European Union. I was willing to give Meloni the benefit of the doubt after she rose to power from virtually nowhere as a perceived anti-establishment, right-winged nationalist candidate […]
June 30, 2024 | Dollar Derangement Syndrome
Of all the markets tracked by Rick’s Picks, the dollar arguably has been the most interesting. This might seem paradoxical, given the relatively placid look of the Dollar Index chart above. Although there has been moderate turbulence since early last year, the overall impression is of a transoceanic flight cruising within a vertical range of several […]
June 29, 2024 | Trading Desk Notes For June 29, 2024
The bond market had a bad Friday This week, price action across asset classes was “mid-summer quiet” ahead of Thursday’s Presidential debate and Friday morning’s PCE report. There were no dramatic market moves immediately following the debate, and the PCE data early Friday was pretty much as expected, perhaps even a shade “benign” in that […]
June 29, 2024 | Health Prepping: Microbiome Maintenance is Key to…Everything
Among the keys to a long, healthy life are exercise, sunshine, and not smoking. But the most important of all might be maintaining a balanced microbiome. Here’s a quick primer: The term “microbiome” refers to the trillions of bacteria, viruses, fungi, and other microscopic living things that exist mainly inside our intestines and on our […]
June 29, 2024 | Tech Talk for Saturday June 29th 2024
The Bottom Line The stage is set for the Summer Rally. See comments below Economic News This Week June ISM Manufacturing PMI released at 10:00 AM EDT on Monday is expected to increase to 49.0 from 48.7 in May. May U.S. Construction Spending is released at 10:00 AM EDT on Monday. Federal Reserve Chairman Powell […]
June 28, 2024 | Trump vs Biden Debate – The Setup for Hillary
Welcome to the fix. CNN was proud to announce that this was the first debate to ever take place BEFORE each candidate was actually nominated by their respective parties. The reason for this was to set the stage for Democrats to move to replace Biden with Hillary. CNN moderators did an amazing job of […]
June 28, 2024 | The Financial Stability Report Highlights Some Warnings About The Health of the Canadian Financial System
The resilience of Canadians and the Canadian financial system is very important to Canadians. The Bank of Canada monitors this, and reports that the financial system is sound. But there are a large number of mortgage renewals and payment adjustments about to hit over the next few years. In a recent speech Tiff Macklem, BOC […]
June 27, 2024 | Warner Brothers & CNN Disaster
QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong, Socrates has been so bearish on CNN’s owner, Warner Brothers, and the dabate is so rigged that other networks are even up in arms over CNN’s rules. We sold down all our institutional holdings in Warner Brothers, thanks to Socrates. Do you think this stock will collapse due to this debate that looks […]
June 27, 2024 | Total US Energy Stocks Rose 9.4 MB Last Week. WTI Crude Should Breach US$80/B in the Coming Days
Mixed economic data continues to sway markets from euphoria to concern as each data piece is scrutinized for signs of economic progress with declining inflation or signs of economic weakness and job layoffs with rising inflation. Canada got a surprise on the inflation front on Tuesday with the core May CPI (month over month) which […]
June 26, 2024 | Easy Money Has Yielded a Vicious Payback Period
Interest rates and high debt levels are biting hard in Canada; the economy is weak, and layoffs are rising. Toronto’s new home sales were down 71% compared to May 2023, with new condo sales down 75% and new single-family home sales down 65%. The same period saw an increase of 20,427 new home listings in […]
June 25, 2024 | Inflation in Canada Throws Another Curveball: Core CPI Spikes Month-to-Month by Most since 2022
When the Bank of Canada cut its policy rates by 25 basis points earlier in June, it based that cut on the inflation rates that had cooled sharply, and it based further cuts on these trends continuing. But leery of just the sort of reversal inflation dished up today, BOC governor Tiff Macklem said at […]
June 25, 2024 | Lags Demand Respect
The US 10-2yr Treasury yield curve has been inverted (two-year yields higher than ten-year) for 23 months since July 2022. An inversion in this spread has preceded the onset of every recession in the last 50 years by an average of 10 months. Generally, longer-than-average inversion periods (11 months Sept 12, 1980 to Oct 23, […]
June 25, 2024 | Did Real Estate Peak with the ECM in May 2024?
COMMENT: Marty, you are by far the greatest long-term forecaster ever. I worked on the floor in 2007 when the market crashed on the exact day of your ECM. Everyone called it Armstrong’s Revenge. That was the very day of the high in the Shiller Real Estate Index for 2007. I know you say […]
June 25, 2024 | Luxury Troubles
Happy Monday Morning! National house prices slid lower in the month of May, falling 2.4% from last year. On a seasonally adjusted basis, the national home price index is now down 14% since peaking in February 2022, marking the steepest decline since the index was created back in 2005, per CREA. Source: CREA It’s true […]
June 24, 2024 | Mindless Capital Allocation Leads to Bad Investment Outcomes
Mindless capital allocation leads to wasted resources and bad investment outcomes. We’ve just come through a decade of some of the dumbest financial choices in history–that’s been very expensive. In the midst of a housing supply crisis, thousands of condos in Canada’s largest cities are sitting empty. Most, experts say, are less than 500 square […]
June 24, 2024 | Scary Stat Alert: The Government Liquidity Index
Not that we need any more scary statistics, but here’s one that might be worth watching. From the Brave browser’s AI summarizer: Government liquidity index The government liquidity index is a metric that measures the ease or difficulty of trading in government securities, such as U.S. Treasury bonds. It is a gauge of deviations in yields from a […]
June 24, 2024 | The Western Mainstream Press – Just Want War
COMMENT: Marty: Hello from the UK across the pond. Nigel Farage has come out and said what you have been reporting all along – that the West started this war. You can certainly tell you are friends. BK REPLY: It is interesting how little intelligence exists in the mainstream media. There are just no […]
June 23, 2024 | Canada’s Population Explodes Surpassing 41 Million
Canada’s population has surpassed 41 million, but it is not due to new births. Statistics Canada declared that the population rose 0.6% or 242,673 people since last quarter, standing at 41,012.563 as of April 2024. The nation rose by 1.27 from 2022 to 2023 or a 3.2%. . Nearly all population growth (99.3%; 240,955 […]
June 23, 2024 | ‘Strong Economy’ Is a Dirty Lie
The disconnect between tight Fed policy and a U.S. economy on the brink of recession is growing more unsettling every day. A key question is which economy we are talking about, since there are two distinctly different ones that Fed actions can affect. The first is the economy of consumer goods and services. It is […]
June 23, 2024 | This Time Is (Not) Different
The old saw about doing the same thing and expecting a different result is less simple than it seems. Sometimes you need a few attempts to get it right. Nevertheless, when you see a long succession of smart people doing the same thing and getting the same bad result, it’s fair to wonder what they […]
June 23, 2024 | If Hackers Can Shut Down 15,000 Car Dealerships, Is Your Bank Safe?
On the list of things that might disrupt our increasingly fragile financial system, cyberattacks have always been up there with pandemics, real estate busts, war, and inflation. But those other things have, in one form or another, been happening while cyber disruptions have been limited to small-time extortion and the occasional data breach. That might […]