ALWAYS CONSULT YOUR INVESTMENT PROFESSIONAL BEFORE MAKING ANY INVESTMENT DECISION
March 21, 2024 | Poorer Than Most Think
Yesterday, the US Fed paused for the fifth consecutive meeting since July 2023. Holding its overnight rate at 5.25 to 5.5%, the Fed expects that rising unemployment will prompt it to ease policy rates later this year. At the same time, Chair Powell intends to continue reducing the Fed’s balance sheet (QT), withdrawing liquidity from […]
March 20, 2024 | Ukraine Bombing of Russian Refineries Adds US$2/B To War Premium Over The Last Week
GLOBAL ECONOMIC, POLITICAL & MILITARY UPDATE Today’s FOMC meeting and press conference by Chairman Powell thereafter, reiterated their plan to have three rate cuts of 25 BP each later this year. When, was left ambiguous. While there has been significant progress on the inflation front over the last year, recent CPI and PPI data are […]
March 20, 2024 | Republican Zionists Collaborating to Buy TikTok
China is NOT the reason that Congress nearly unanimously agreed to ban TikTok – the final frontier of free speech. America relies on China for the majority of its pharmaceuticals. China is America’s largest trade partner, and most of the products we use daily are made in China. There have been state provisions, […]
March 20, 2024 | Robert Prechter: Levitating Optimism in the Stock Market
People don’t care about cycles when prices are going up. But up followed by down cycles have been constant for centuries, and once everyone who can buy has bought, only sellers remain. Bob Prechter offers a detailed temperature check in his latest market overview. Here is a direct video link.
March 20, 2024 | Becoming Invisible, Part 13: Glenn Meder Explains “De-Googled” Phones
Three days after privacy expert Glen Meder offered a free cryptocurrency seminar (to which I posted a link here), he published a primer on removing Google’s malign presence from Android phones. The guy is on a roll. Below is an excerpt from that post. But first, the usual disclaimer: I don’t profit in any way from highlighting other […]
March 19, 2024 | Housing Wealth
Happy Monday Morning! In what seems like a recurring theme of late, inflation came in hotter than expected in the US this past week. Consumer prices increased 0.4% for the month and 3.2% from a year ago. Meanwhile, core CPI rose 0.4% on the month and was up 3.8% year-over-year. The last mile on getting […]
March 19, 2024 | The Great Misconception of AI
AI is a hot topic for regulators. Regulators and most companies that offer purported AI are clueless about what constitutes actual AI. Way too many charlatans are out there calling a simple trend-following program AI. They create some rules, and the program just follows what they created. That is NOT Artificial Intelligence. The SEC […]
March 19, 2024 | Liquidity Crunch Spreads as Investors Try to Exit
Saturday’s Report on Business included an insightful investigative report on private debt funds that became all-the-rage during the 2009-2022 low-rate era. See The risks of Bay Street’s hottest funds: Investors often fly blind, and billions of dollars are now trapped: The 2008-09 global financial crisis was a major catalyst for the sector’s growth. Before the crash, […]
March 18, 2024 | The Most Splendid Housing Bubbles in Canada: National House Prices Flat in Feb., -16% from Peak, Condos Drop Further, on Bank of Canada’s 5% & Massive QT
House prices in Canada were unchanged in February compared to January, seasonally adjusted, having fallen by 15.6% from the peak in February 2022, according to the Home Price Benchmark Index for single family houses by the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) today. Compared to a year ago, it ticked up 1.6%. In dollar terms, the […]
March 18, 2024 | Democrats Are Dancing in the Streets Over Bankrupting Trump & Family
I have warned that our computer has put out a MAJOR long-term SELL SIGNAL on New York City. You had better get the HELL out of NYC and not do business with ANY company in New York City, for the courts are no longer reliable. The novel action against Trump is that they claimed […]
March 18, 2024 | Marketplace Reveals Financial Disservice at Canadian Banks
Canadians trust they’re getting good financial advice from their banks — especially in these tough financial times. But a hidden camera investigation by Marketplace uncovers immense pressure on bank employees to push products and services to meet sales targets, or risk losing their jobs. Seven years after CBC first investigated the pressure to sell, bank […]
March 17, 2024 | Something’s Got to Give
For nearly a year, I’ve promoted the idea that the post-covid bull rampage would end when Microsoft shares hit $430. They effectively achieved that benchmark on Friday with a pre-dawn print at 428.95 that gave way to a $16 plunge. If this was not THE top, it certainly felt like A top, and a potentially […]
March 17, 2024 | Smart Cars Reporting to Govt – Insurance Rates up 26% YoY
Car insurance rates in the US have spiked by around 26% overall in the past year. The government has been pushing for everyone to go electric and trade, spending tens of thousands more for an electric vehicle, which always comes equipped with monitoring software. Even older cars with basic features like OnStar have tracking devices […]
March 17, 2024 | A Valuation Conversation
You may have noticed the stock market rising lately. Much of the gain isn’t so much “the market” as a handful of mega-cap stocks. Nonetheless, the bulls are clearly in charge. The question is how long they will stay there. History suggests longer than many market bears think. I expect another bear market at some […]
March 17, 2024 | Welcome To The Third World, Part 3: Just Leave Your Keys Where The Car Thieves Can Find Them
This video from Toronto, Canada is both chilling and self-explanatory. Here you go: “Toronto Police advise the public to reduce the risk of home invasions aimed at car theft by placing their key fobs near the front door. This strategy is suggested because culprits are primarily entering homes to access cars, not to steal other […]
March 16, 2024 | Georgia Needs to be Expelled from United States – with NY & Calif – NOW to save Society!
The absurd decision that Fani Willis is not disqualified after meeting with the Vice President and having her lover appointed the prosecutor over Trump, who was also meeting with the Department of Justice, demonstrates that the legal system is just a political charade. A judge is supposed to be recused when a reasonable person might […]
March 16, 2024 | Trading Desk Notes For March 16, 2024
Short and long-term interest rates rose every day this week. Are higher rates starting to matter? The S&P and the NAZ closed lower again this week – the first time those indices have seen back-to-back weekly declines since October. Yields on the 10-year Note hit a 16-year high (~5%) in October (as stock indices hit a 5-month […]
March 16, 2024 | Tech Talk for Saturday March 16th 2024
The Bottom Line Focus this week is on the Fed Fund Rate update released at 2:00 PM EDT on Wednesday. U.S. equity markets traded in a narrow range last week prior to the news. Consensus is that the FOMC will maintain the rate at 5.25%-5.50%. Comments following the 2:00 PM statement will be examined carefully […]
March 16, 2024 | Unprecedented Speculative Option Trading
Hmmmm… next-level bats*#t. Gunjan Banerji, Wall Street Journal live markets coverage lead writer, joins ‘Squawk Box’ to discuss the options market around semiconductor and tech stocks, the impact of AI mania on the options market, the impact of Fed rate cuts, and more. Here is a direct video link.
March 15, 2024 | Soul of a Nation
QUESTION: You have said that a nation’s true wealth is not its gold but its people. Would you say that what makes the people different from nation to nation is their customs and culture? Is Soros’s Open Society destroying civilization by opening borders and undermining our culture? He is doing what Marx did and has no […]
March 15, 2024 | Banks are Fighting Proposals for Tougher Regulatory Rules
A battle is underway in the U.S. over new rules requiring higher equity capital for the banks. Enhanced equity capital protects the bank from insolvency in the event of a financial crisis. Bank lobbyists are fighting hard to keep capital requirements at the lowest possible level while regulators would like higher capital given the historical […]
March 15, 2024 | Reaping What We’ve Sown
Eleven years of near-zero interest rates (2009-2022) drove record debt and consumption, with a manic over-allocation to expensive real estate. Then, online shopping and work-from-home collapsed demand for commercial and office space, and central banks embarked on the most aggressive rate-tightening cycle in more than 40 years. As central banks hold tight, the highly […]
March 14, 2024 | Mainstream News is Committing Suicide
Virtually everyone I talk to thinks mainstream news is just propaganda. COVID drove a spike through the very heart and soul of the First Amendment. Even five years later, people generally respected the news. COVID appears to have been the death knell to mainstream news. This chart shows the results of Gallip[ Polls], and […]
March 14, 2024 | Ukraine Drone Attacks on Key Russian Refineries Boosts Crude Prices
GLOBAL ECONOMIC, POLITICAL & MILITARY UPDATE The hope that US inflation has been tamed was rebuked with the CPI data released yesterday. US CPI month over month rose 0.4% or 4.8% annualized, more than double the Fed’s target rate and the second month of hot data. Wage growth came in at up 4.3% from the […]
March 14, 2024 | Accidentally Funny CNBC Grapples With Costco Gold Sales
The legacy media has never understood gold, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that Costco and Walmart stocking precious metals — to booming demand — would seem a bit odd. But CNBC just outdid itself with a piece that can be divided into two parts: A befuddled but more or less factual accounting of the trends and numbers, followed […]