June 15, 2024 | Tech Talk for Saturday June 15th 2024

The Bottom Line Investors responded to encouraging U.S. economic news last Wednesday. Core May Consumer Price Index on a year-over-year basis dropped to 3.4%, extending an intermediate downtrend. U.S. equity indices moved higher on the news: the S&P 500 Index and the NASDAQ Composite Index jumped to all-time highs in anticipation of a lower Fed […]

June 14, 2024 | De-Dollarization Update: Saudis Cancel The Petrodollar

Over the past couple of decades, the US has invaded and/or destabilized multiple countries — including Iraq, Libya, and Syria — for accepting currencies other than the dollar for oil. That’s how big a deal the petrodollar was for the Empire. But now it’s over: Saudi Arabia ends petrodollar agreement (Kitco News) – The established […]

June 14, 2024 | The Canadian Housing Bubble Needs To Burst

Real residential house prices in Canada have grown by more than four-fold since 1970. This means that house prices have grown much faster than inflation, and housing unaffordability is extreme compared to the past and other countries like the U.S. Can the housing market in Canada be fixed? This chart shows prices indexed to 100 […]

June 14, 2024 | G7 Dancing with Russian Assets and Poking the Bear

The G7 (Group of Seven) leaders reached an agreement on June 13th to utilize frozen Russian assets in their continued support of the war in Ukraine. However, they dance very carefully with the bear. They are NOT handing the actual assets to Ukraine – the most corrupt country perhaps in the world. The Pandora Papers revealed that Ukraine had […]

June 13, 2024 | IMF Digital Currency to Replace the Dollar

Years ago, when I wrote that Bitcoin was created by the CIA/NSA, some Bitcoiners attacked me and insisted that Satoshi Nakamoto was the creator of Bitcoin.  Yet someone who created such a product never stepped forward and would have been a billionaire on royalties. But this fictional character was not much different than Lee Harvey […]

June 13, 2024 | Tougher For Longer

Yesterday morning, a milder-than-expected US CPI number boosted hopes that the US Fed may soon start lowering its policy rate. Financial markets pooped on the headline, further loosening financial conditions for some publicly traded companies. Then, a more hawkish Fed announcement in the afternoon lowered 2024 cut expectations from 75 basis points (bps) in the […]

June 13, 2024 | Estate Planning: The Big Question

“Getting your affairs in order” requires a lot of sometimes tricky decisions, the biggest and potentially thorniest of which is choosing someone to make sure your assets go where they’re supposed to. The lucky among us will have someone who’s trustworthy and willing to take on the job, but for many others it’s not so […]

June 12, 2024 | Fed Holds Rates – What Tools Are Left?

  The Federal Open Market Committee unsurprisingly voted to maintain rates at 5.25% to 5.5%. The numerous cuts others were anticipating are completely off the table, as the central bank said there might be one reduction for the year compared with their optimistic tone forecast made in March of three rate reductions in 2024. “In […]

June 12, 2024 | Rosenberg Updates on Economic Cycle

This interview offers a lucid top-down review of economic trends and asset markets. Here is a direct video link. As I explained here, I do not share the faith that immigration should prevent Canadian home prices from declining by more than ten percent.

June 12, 2024 | Total US Stocks Grew 11.8 MB Last Week – Lower WTI Prices Ahead

Economic data in the US so far is not supportive of the Fed lowering their Fed Funds rate. Today’s CPI report was benign coming in at 3.4% for core, so the Fed is likely to continue its view that it wants to see a few months of slower economic growth and declining price pressure before […]

June 11, 2024 | People We Should Know: Rep. Thomas Massie

There are maybe 10 currently serving US politicians who have managed to avoid looking corrupt, stupid, senile, and/or mindlessly bloodthirsty in recent years. One of the most interesting of that tiny group is Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie, a consistent libertarian who is anti-war (including the latest one in the Middle East), opposed to foreign aid, in favor […]

June 11, 2024 | Canadian Home Prices Moving Lower For Math Reasons

It is wildly unpopular to say this, but Canadian home prices need to move much lower. And yes, I, too, stand to lose net worth as they do. Immigration is unlikely to prevent mean reversion here. Immigrants need places to live, to be sure, but historically, it took an average of 7 years before immigrants […]

June 11, 2024 | Hillary Releases Merchandise Ahead of Endorsement

The Democrats are preparing to switch out the only candidate they have permitted to run. The mainstream media has begun reporting on Biden’s faults in a calculated move to prepare the public for the big switch. The Democrats believe Hillary Clinton is the only one who could beat Donald Trump. She secured the popular vote […]

June 10, 2024 | Enjoy The Moment

Happy Monday morning! As widely anticipated, the Bank of Canada slashed rates this past week, cutting by 25bps. The move was celebrated across the nation, not just by Realtors and mortagage brokers but provincial leaders in BC & Ontario. The economy is struggling so much so that it warrants a rate cut, and this is […]

June 10, 2024 | Leveraged Gambling Ends Badly, as Usual

The lure of easy money delivers time-worn outcomes, once again. See how Real estate investors are wiped out in bets fuelled by Wall Street loans: Lynn Nathe was growing tired of the meager gains from her family’s retirement account. In late 2021, she invested $200,000 with a company that was making 30% returns by buying the […]

June 10, 2024 | Taiwan’s Defense Strategy – US Protection

  Taiwan’s new administration under President Lai Ching-te has been extremely vocal in its distaste for the One China policy. The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) campaigned on the promise of sovereignty and patriotism. No other president has been this outspoken about China’s control over the small nation that clearly cannot defeat China independently. Yet there […]

June 10, 2024 | Used Car Wholesale Prices Continue Plunge, Gave up 59% of Pandemic Spike. But still up 35% from Jan 2020: EVs +72%, ICE Vehicles +34%

Used vehicle prices are in a historic downward spiral, unwinding the hugest-ever price spike that had built up during the pandemic. Despite the plunge, wholesale prices of vehicles sold at auction in May were still 35% above where they’d been in January 2020, according to Manheim, the largest auto auction house in the US. With […]

June 9, 2024 | Soft Landing Fantasies

Those who think the wizards at the Fed have engineered a soft landing for the grotesquely pumped U.S. economy are in for a rude awakening. Strip out the “wealth effect” from mega-cap stocks driven mostly by hot air and short covering, and the economy is already in recessionary muck. Although yacht sales reportedly are still […]

June 9, 2024 | Why is Keynesian Economics Collapsing?

  John Maynard Keynes in his 1936 book, ‘The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money,” argued aggregate demand was too volatile to be stable and would lead to inflation or recessions. His theory honed in on spending as a means of price control. Low aggregate demand, Keynes argues, would lead to high unemployment and […]

June 9, 2024 | Emission-Free Air Travel Now in Motion

Conventional polluting air travel is ripe for disruption. Fortunately, that’s in motion. German aerospace company Lilium wants to revolutionize air travel with its electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) jet. “Revolutionize means make it absolutely zero emission,” Lilium CEO Klaus Roewe told CNBC Tech in an interview. Here is a direct video link.  

June 9, 2024 | Farage on Britain’s Future

June 9, 2024 | Geopolitical Breakdown

’m writing you from Cape Town, South Africa, where I’ve been warmly welcomed and reminded how much I enjoy international travel (well, except for jet lag!). Our world has so many wonders most people never get to experience. Of course, “there’s no place like home,” but seeing other places makes me happy, too. Yet this […]

June 8, 2024 | Trading Desk Notes For June 8, 2024

Check your old-school assumptions at the door Market sentiment has been oscillating between believing that “higher for longer” is 1) dead or 2) will be indefinitely sustained. The oscillation frequency has shrunk from months (during the October to February period) to days (since mid-April), and this week, sentiment swung from pillar to post between Monday and […]

June 8, 2024 | Gold Hit With One-Two Punch

On Friday, two announcements combined to hit gold and silver about as hard as they’ve ever been hit. First, the US jobs report, as usual, came in far hotter than expected, which led credulous headline readers to conclude that the economy is booming and interest rates will have to stay higher for longer. If true, […]