ALWAYS CONSULT YOUR INVESTMENT PROFESSIONAL BEFORE MAKING ANY INVESTMENT DECISION
May 31, 2024 | German Property Price Crash Will Not Become a Crisis
Germany property prices are plummeting. Prices for commercial properties and multi-family buildings are dropping with insolvencies and foreclosures soaring. Even house prices are falling. The housing market in Germany is very different from the U.S., Canada and Australia, particularly in the terms and amount of financing available to buy a house for a first-time buyer. […]
May 31, 2024 | Japan Death Spiral Update: Now Inflation Is Spiking
Pretend you’re running a central bank and your primary job is to maintain a stable currency. Then assume that your long-term interest rates are around 1% and an important inflation measure is spiking to near 3%. What do you do? Normally, you’d raise interest rates to one or two percentage points above the rate of […]
May 30, 2024 | Total US Inventories Grew By 13.2 MB Last Week. Crude Prices Under Pressure
Bearish commentary from the Fed meeting notes and repetitive comments by Fed officials that they see no reason to lower interest rates in the near term has spooked markets. There have even been some officials saying that higher rates may be needed if inflation persists or goes higher. This is a big change from prior […]
May 30, 2024 | The Silver Secret
Two of the oldest commodities known to man, gold and silver, share a history dating back thousands of years. The role of gold has changed little through the passage of time. The same cannot be said for silver. In fact, it is the remarkable transformation in the usage of silver that has set the stage […]
May 30, 2024 | Running Bulls Need No Thinking
For a year now, overnight interest rates have been above 5% in Canada and America, while the Consumer Price Index (CPI) has been falling. This has resulted in the highest real interest rates (overnight rate – CPI) in at least 23 years. While very hard on debtors, it’s favourable for savers and it’s long overdue. […]
May 30, 2024 | “Peer Reviews” And The Shrinking Trust Horizon
It’s now widely understood that science faces a “replication crisis” where attempts to re-do experiments frequently fail to yield the same results. In other words, a lot of cheating and/or incompetence is showing up in peer-reviewed journals these days, making it impossible for, say, doctors to know how to treat their patients or the rest […]
May 30, 2024 | Trump Found Guilty in NYC – As Expected
Former President Donald Trump was found guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, as a jury of 12 unanimously returned their verdict on May 30 after two days of deliberation. With this result, President Trump becomes the first ever American president to be convicted of a crime. Of course, he will appeal a […]
May 29, 2024 | The Most Splendid Housing Bubbles in America, April 2024 Update. Biggest Price Drops from 2022 Peak in San Francisco, Seattle, Phoenix, Portland, Denver, Las Vegas, Dallas
The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Home Price Index, released today and dubbed “March,” is a three-month moving average of home prices whose sales were entered into public records in January, February, and March. So that’s the time-frame we’re looking at here. It reflects Rate-Cut Mania that commenced in November and peaked February 13, when the first of three […]
May 29, 2024 | What Completes a Phase Transition?
What completes a phase transition? Simple — capital inflow to the United States. For example, when oil was in the $10 range in 1998, we forecast that oil would rise to $100 by 2007.15. In court, the Department of Energy wanted us to develop a model, but Alan Cohen of Goldman Sachs blocked that […]
May 29, 2024 | Koo Explains Balance Sheet Recessions
Once the private sector is focused on paying down debt, economic growth is much harder to generate. Not just in China. Richard Koo, Chief Economist at Nomura Research Institute, explains why he thinks Beijing’s stimulus so far is not enough to get the country out of a “balance sheet recession”. Here is a direct video link.
May 28, 2024 | Commodities Trade Differently
All commodities, including gold, trade substantially differently than stocks or real estate. Pictured here is wheat back to 1200. Note that you see what appears to be a brain wave. Commodities trade differently because they are subject to nature. Manufactured items can be produced on a more regular basis. However, commodities are subject to weather, […]
May 28, 2024 | The Bond King Returns
For our first-ever in-studio Webcast with Dave, David Rosenberg hosts the “Bond King”, Jeffrey Gundlach, to discuss where the long-awaited recession is, his views on inflation o er the next 1-3 years, and his current thinking on the treasury market. The call, recorded on May 23, 2024, has been made available to the general public. […]
May 27, 2024 | The Theory of Non-Linear Intervention
Economics is well known for rather unrealistic theories based upon fundamentally unsound principles, such as the assumption that all things remain equal. Reality parts with academics whenever such assumptions are drawn to a foregone conclusion. However, greater false assumptions, which go unnoticed, lie at the foundation of so many theories in economics – primarily the […]
May 27, 2024 | Analysis-Free Asset Allocation is No Free Lunch
Michael Green reveals the hidden economic dangers and the risks of passive investing in today’s market. In this episode, Andrew Brill welcomes back Michael Green, Portfolio Manager and Chief Strategist at Simplify Asset Management, for an insightful discussion on the current state of the economy. Discover why market indexes continue to hit new highs despite […]
May 27, 2024 | Hoping for the Cut
Happy monday morning! The Bank of Canada got the news they needed ahead of their rate announcement on June 05. CPI inflation decelerated to 2.7% year-over-year in April, down from 2.9% in March, and remaining below the upper end of the Bank of Canada’s 1% to 3% target range for the fourth consecutive month. The […]
May 26, 2024 | Artificially Intelligent
When new inventions turn into market frenzies, the contrarian part of me wants to be skeptical. But the optimistic part of me wants it to be true, especially when the idea promises to change life for the better. Reality is usually somewhere in between. And that, I suspect, is where the current artificial intelligence frenzy […]
May 26, 2024 | Honor Memorial Day – Thank you Veterans
We at Armstrong Economics honor the men and women who bravely served in the armed forces. We thank you for your service, upholding American freedoms, and sacrificing everything to provide everyone, even the ungrateful, with an opportunity to live in the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave. My father was with […]
May 25, 2024 | Trading Desk Notes For May 25, 2024
Divergence: while NVDA soared on Thursday, all 30 stocks in the DJIA closed lower on the day (for the first time in 2024) NVDA’s quarterly report on Wednesday was expected to be good. Still, the possibility of it being “less bullish than expected” likely sidelined many bullish traders ahead of the release date because it […]
May 25, 2024 | Rosenberg: Canada is Probably Already in Recession
David Rosenberg, founder and president of Rosenberg Research, talks with Financial Post’s Larysa Harapyn about how Canada is probably already in a recession. Here is a direct video link.
May 25, 2024 | Tech Talk for Saturday May 25th 2024
The Bottom Line The gain by one stock dominated performances by the S&P 500 Index and NASDAQ Composite Index last week, the 15% price advance by heavily weighted Nvidia following release of its better than expected quarterly results. Other major U.S. equity indices were notably weaker: Dow Jones Industrial Average down 2.33%, Dow Jones Transportation […]
May 24, 2024 | We Pick Our Poison
It’s a worldview thing: bulls celebrate AI euphoria led by Nvidia (chart below courtesy of Bloomberg), driving record-high stock valuations amid overstated job and GDP growth that get revised lower in retrospect. Realists see all this and everything else within the historical context. With assets priced for perfection, there’s no room for disappointment. The […]
May 24, 2024 | NVIDIA Could Be The Most Important Stock on The Planet
NVIDIA, the computer chip and artificial intelligence company, announced excellent results this week, pushing the stock to new highs. The company’s share price has tripled from a year ago, making NVIDIA worth $2.5 trillion. Stock traders were pleased with the optimistic outlook expressed by the CEO. Is Nvidia the single most important stock on the […]
May 24, 2024 | De-Dollarization: The Trend Continues
Big parts of the world continue to migrate away from the US dollar. And lately the process has met some important milestones. Russia Confiscates €800 Million From Deutsche Bank, Unicredit And Commerzbank (Zero Hedge) – After two years of being on the receiving end of a weaponized global reserve currency, getting booted from SWIFT, countless […]
May 23, 2024 | My Forecast from 10 Years Ago
In an interview on May 11, 2014, I explained on USAWatchdog that confidence always outweighs reality. “It’s basically what you believe. There have been all sorts of studies on fundamentals that say if interest rates go up, stocks go down. It is simply not true. The stock market has never peaked with interest rates twice in history. […]
May 23, 2024 | Debtasized: How Our Reliance on Credit Leads To Price Inflation
Easy credit pushed up the price of existence for all by enabling unsustainable demand. Now we have the payback period. The video below from Doug Hoyes and Co is worth watching. I found playing it at 1.25x speed was more comfortable. Debt Free in 30 takes viewers on a journey through credit history, price inflation, […]