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February 13, 2022 | Plenty of Scary News Signifying…Nothing?

Rick Ackerman

Rick Ackerman is the editor of Rick’s Picks, an online service geared to traders of stocks, options, index futures and commodities. His detailed trading strategies have appeared since the early 1990s in Black Box Forecasts, a newsletter he founded that originally was geared to professional option traders. Barron’s once labeled him an “intrepid trader” in a headline that alluded to his key role in solving a notorious pill-tampering case. He received a $200,000 reward when a conviction resulted, and the story was retold on TV’s FBI: The Untold Story. His professional background includes 12 years as a market maker in the pits of the Pacific Coast Exchange, three as an investigator with renowned San Francisco private eye Hal Lipset, seven as a reporter and newspaper editor, three as a columnist for the Sunday San Francisco Examiner, and two decades as a contributor to publications ranging from Barron’s to The Antiquarian Bookman to Fleet Street Letter and Utne Reader.

Thinking back over the last 30 years, it’s hard to recall a single instance when traders ultimately lost money diving into stocks on ‘bad’ news. There was a hot mess of it on Friday, when shares plummeted to presumptive bargain levels on reports that Putin is about to invade Ukraine.  That’s bad news indeed, although the talking heads seem as clueless as the rest of us about what it will ultimately mean.  The end of NATO? Possibly. But even then we are left to wonder how  NATO’s demise would change the global balance of power. And is Biden’s further mishandling of this crisis likely to doom his presidency?  There’s no denying that he has ever looked stupider or more incompetent, and that’s saying something.

His first disastrous gaffe was to announce to the world that America’s reaction to an invasion would depend on the scale of it. In other words, if Putin invades only a little bit, the U.S. would stand down militarily. Biden’s handlers had already drummed up some very harsh economic sanctions a couple of weeks ago, but the jury is still out on whether the measures are so extreme that they will cause the collapse of the global banking system. We should have an answer in the fullness of time, but for now it couldn’t hurt to get a vegetable garden started in your back yard as spring approaches. Realize that the myriad shortages we are experiencing these days could seem relatively mild if shock waves from Ukraine prove unexpectedly destructive to worldwide trade.

Where Red and Blue Agree

Biden could have placed the blame for whatever happens in Germany’s lap by simply pointing out that the U.S. has no compelling reason to risk blood and treasure in Ukraine if Germany’s leaders can’t summon the gumption or moral courage to warn off Putin. Instead, Biden’s ‘wait-and-see’ speech maintained his track record for doing the wrong thing 100% of the time.  To extend his losing streak, he is sending Kamala Harris to the Munich Security Conference, where the U.S. president normally speaks. Considering that the Vice-President’s lack of competence and judgment nearly matches that of her boss, this is like sending an attaché to Berlin just before Hitler invaded Belgium. In any event, virtually no one, not even CNN’s most insufferable Biden apologists, could conceive of the President going to Munich and impressing the world in this time of crisis with a display of statesmanship, wisdom and resolve. For in fact, foes on both sides of the red/blue political divide seem uncharacteristically united in fearing that he could only cause us embarrassment or worse.

Ironically, Biden’s mounting failures have stirred up a groundswell of resentment so broad and deep that it has rocked wokeness, cancel culture, the legacy news media and even Hollywood back on their heels. The fact that looney leftists continue to flail away at Dave Chappelle, Joe Rogan and Tucker Carlson only strengthens the impression not only that their socialist/fascist banner is going to get torched in November, but that they know it.

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February 13th, 2022

Posted In: Rick's Picks

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