ALWAYS CONSULT YOUR INVESTMENT PROFESSIONAL BEFORE MAKING ANY INVESTMENT DECISION
April 14, 2024 | Springtime for Bonds?
The devastating bear market in Treasury paper since 2020 may be nearing an end. I was pessimistic about this myself when TLT, an exchange-traded fund, that tracks the long bond, broke down last week. But a bigger picture saw this as occurring in the context of a market that may have bottomed last October. […]
April 14, 2024 | Dividends on Offense
This week continues our series on dividends and dividend growth stocks. This is one part of my strategy to try to get through what I see as a coming crisis by the end of the decade with as much of my buying power as intact as possible. As before, David Bahnsen will be writing this […]
April 14, 2024 | Petition to Remove Trudeau from Office
April 14, 2024 | Danielle on CBC Weekend Business Panel
Danielle was a guest with Jacqueline Hansen and Elmer Kim on CBC’s Weekend Business Panel. You can view a video clip of the segment here.
April 13, 2024 | Trading Desk Notes For April 13, 2024
LATE NEWS: Iran fires missiles into Israel. As much as the market worried that this could happen, there was hope that Iran would not retaliate at this scale. This will likely have a MAJOR impact on markets, especially if Israel and the US counterattack. Is the Fed wrong – again? For traders and investors, the […]
April 13, 2024 | The Most Splendid Housing Bubbles in Canada: Home Prices Dip Further, -14% from Peak in March 2022, Now Below Sep 2021
Condo prices in Canada fell 0.7% in March from February, seasonally adjusted, while house prices edged up 0.3%, and so the Composite MLS Home Price Index edged down 0.1%, according to data from the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) today. The index has now fallen 14.1% from two years ago, from the peak in March […]
April 13, 2024 | Tech Talk for Saturday April 13th 2024
The Bottom Line U.S. equity markets were “off to a rough start” last week following initial releases of first quarter results by major companies: Notably weaker following release of quarterly results included Blackrock, Fastenal, JP Morgan, Wells Fargo and Citigroup. Weakness was recorded despite corporate reports that exceeded revenue and earnings consensus. Trigger for weakness […]
April 12, 2024 | Not Even Central Banks Can Manipulate Markets – NOBODY
QUESTION: Can central banks not even manipulate the markets? FS ANSWER: No. Here is the track record of the central banks when they created the Group of 5 (now G20) in 1985. I warned them they would create a crash within two years. But look at what happened. The fools assumed the central banks could manipulate the […]
April 12, 2024 | CPI Shocker Could Affect The U.S. Election
The U.S. Consumer Price Index exceeded expectations, growing by 4.8 percent (annualized) in the month of March, while Core CPI rose 3.8 percent from last year. The markets corrected sharply after the surprise as the market expected lower inflation leading to rate cuts. President Joe Biden said that he still expects the Federal Reserve to […]
April 12, 2024 | The MSM Is Dying, NPR Edition
Not so long ago, almost everyone listened to NPR, and people of every political persuasion donated to help fund its ad-free, long-form journalism. Then everything changed. The reporting became weirdly biased and listeners — correctly perceiving that NPR was playing for Team Establishment rather than objectively reporting on big issues — started tuning out. Today’s […]
April 12, 2024 | Rate Cutting Comes with Deteriorating Job Market
Frances Donald, chief economist at Manulife Investment Management, and BMO Capital Markets head of US rates strategy Ian Lyngen explain the biggest economic challenges facing the Federal Reserve as the central bank’s 2% inflation target remains elusive. Frances and Ian speak with Tom Keene and Paul Sweeney on Bloomberg Radio. Here is a direct video link.
April 11, 2024 | Insurance Companies Planning for Climate Lockdowns
Some insurance companies are altering their policies for corporations and business interruptions, which seems to be in anticipation of government lockdowns for climate change under the label “weather events.” The government seems to be preparing for new lockdowns under the pretense of climate change this summer. It appears that they are preparing to restrict […]
April 11, 2024 | Easy For Some, Harder for Most
Four months ago, Fed Fund Futures had priced in the expectation of 6 to 8 US rate cuts (150 to 200 basis points) by the end of 2024. Today, that expectation has retreated to just 40 bps, with a 17% chance of a 25 bp cut in June, down from 50% on Monday. A significant […]
April 10, 2024 | Health Prepping Update: So Intermittent Fasting Kills? Really?
A new family of weight loss drugs — including Ozempic and Wegovy — recently hit the market to extreme fanfare. The drugs’ makers claim… wait for it… great results with minimal side effects (other than the fact that the drugs have to be taken for a lifetime to sustain the results). Wall Street analysts responded by raising Big Pharma […]
April 10, 2024 | Debt Stress Pandemic
US credit card debt topped $1.34 trillion in February, significantly above the cycle tops of around $900 billion in 2008 and 2020 (as shown below since 2003, courtesy of MFHOZ). The interest rate on this debt is above 20%. New car loans (5-year term) at 8.22% are above the 2007 rate peak (shown below courtesy of Liz […]
April 10, 2024 | Canada Accuses India of Election Interference
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) issued a report accusing India and Pakistan of interfering in Canada’s federal elections in 2019 and 2021. India has called the claims “baseless,” but the CSIS said it will be on the hunt for meddling during the upcoming election. “It is not Government of India’s policy to […]
April 10, 2024 | Jim Willie: 20 Solid Reasons For Gold Breakout
The time has come to cite the many reasons why Gold has risen, and why Gold will continue to launch to much higher levels. The USGovt debt and USTreasury Bond default, in my opinion, deserve the lead factors along with powerful price inflation. These factors are not featured in the press. The Jackass has stated […]
April 9, 2024 | EU Court Rules that Women are Disproportionately Harmed by Climate Change
Over 2,000 women from Switzerland filed a case through the European Court of Human Rights after claiming that a lack of climate change regulations has disproportionately harmed their gender. This is the third climate-related case brought to the high court. Six young women from Portugal sued for similar reasons, as did a former mayor […]
April 9, 2024 | Selective Law Enforcement
JPMorgan took over Bear Stearns in 2008, inheriting Bear’s massive short position in COMEX silver (and gold). There was a formal investigation by the CFTC’s Enforcement Division that began as a result of my request to readers to write to the CFTC about the massive short position held by JPMorgan. 5 years later, the investigation […]
April 8, 2024 | Becoming Invisible, Part 14: Proton’s Latest Tools
The biggest hurdle for non-techies trying to avoid the world’s data predators is the need to cobble together solutions from different sources, each of which has to be installed correctly, monitored, and upgraded. This can be a nearly full-time job—and still end up failing. So a one-stop privacy shop that plugs all the holes and […]
April 8, 2024 | Canada and Australia: Two Economies with Similar Challenges
Canadian GDP per capita declined for the 6th consecutive quarter in the final quarter of 2023; this means there are less resources per person–the standard of living is in decline.A new RBC study finds that more than half – one million – of 1.9 million new Canadian households by 2030 will not be able to buy a […]
April 8, 2024 | Zoning for Cash
Happy Monday Morning! It’s budget season, and the fiscal taps are wide open, flush with new promises and billions in new spending. This will make life more difficult for Macklem and friends at the Bank of Canada who are still fighting the last mile on inflation. They’re on deck this week, no cut expected. It […]
April 8, 2024 | The Eclipse of ’24 – Good or Bad Omen?
Since ancient times, eclipses and comets have been omens of good and bad events. The Babylonian priests saw the connection between geopolitical events on Earth and the movement of the stars in the heavens and gave birth to astrology. But they also could see the cycles in everything and were rather good […]
April 7, 2024 | At Ringside for Another Freaky Friday
[Many readers of these weekly commentaries may not be aware that the focus of Rick’s Picks each day is on timely trading ideas. Below is chat room banter for a typical ‘freaky Friday’. The discussion includes several trades that were posted ahead of actionable opportunities in a few stocks, including McDonald’s, Tesla and Amazon. All the links […]
April 7, 2024 | Bank of Canada Balance Sheet QT Sheds 64% of Pandemic QE Assets, Indicates QT Might End in September 2025
The Bank of Canada, in its quantitative tightening program, does not cap the roll-off. Whenever Government of Canada bonds in its portfolio mature, the BoC gets paid for them at face value and doesn’t replace them. That’s the roll-off. There are months when nothing in the BoC’s portfolio matures, and there are months when a […]