July 25, 2023 | More on the Silver Code Red

Last week, I made public an edited version of the more extensive weekly review sent to subscribers earlier. As previously stated, I believe there is a current market emergency in the COMEX silver market based upon official data indicating a massive increase in futures positioning of more than 130 million oz (26,000 contracts) as reported […]

July 25, 2023 | Canadian Equity Market: High Capital Risk Amid Falling Earnings

Canada’s TSX index has rebounded 6%, year-to-date, while its corporate earnings have contracted. As of today, the S&P/TSX Composite is expected to report a Q2 (year-over-year) earnings decline of -20.4%, compared to the estimated (year-over-year) earnings decline of -17.4% on June 30 and the estimated (year-over-year) earnings decline of -12.5% on March 31. See Canada Earnings […]

July 25, 2023 | Ukraine is a Disaster, Putin is the Moderate, & Truth is the Victim

  COMMENT: Mr. Armstrong, At first, I questioned why you were more pro-Putin than the media. But given your reliable forecasting and being renowned for your sources, I kept an open mind. Whilst it is becoming clear that Putin has been going after the people who wanted to nuke and totally invade Ukraine, the media […]

July 25, 2023 | Burning Books in a Brave New 1984 World – The Age of Censorship

In Part 1 of this article, I explored how Huxley, Orwell, and Bradbury foretold the use of technology by totalitarians to subjugate and control the masses. Now we move on to a currently hot topic – censorship. “Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth.” ― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World Censorship “There was always a […]

July 24, 2023 | Operation Acoustic Kitty

The Central Intelligence Agency has a long history of spying on Americans. People think of the old Soviet Union or North Korea as examples of extreme government surveillance measures, but it happens right here in the Land of the Free. A reader wrote in about this topic, and I can confirm it is not a […]

July 24, 2023 | Moody’s: Financial Conditions Pose Growing Threat To Non-Banks

A new report from Moody’s highlights the clear and present risks posed by “less regulated and transparent parts of the global financial system.” In particular, financial institutions carrying “more leverage, less liquidity and weak risk management will find it harder to navigate the cycle.” But wasn’t this time supposed to be different? See Shadow Banking Stress Lurks, Moody’s warns: Tighter […]

July 24, 2023 | A Price to Pay

Happy Monday Morning! CPI headline inflation came in lower than expected this past week. Markets were calling for 3% and we got 2.8%, a pleasant surprise and back to its lowest levels since March 2021. Perhaps the 475bps of rate hikes are finally starting to work their way through the system? We are back within […]

July 23, 2023 | British Banks Close Accounts for Political Views – Wait for CBDC Currency to Appear

We have a very serious problem. Banks, Media, and Tech Companies seem to be all pushing for the end of all our civil and human rights. The truth has come out now that the Coutts Bank closed down Nigel Farage’s accounts, and it had NOTHING to do with his finances that they told everyone. That […]

July 23, 2023 | Housing Hiccups

  While inflation is technically about general price levels, in practice we use it to describe living costs. That’s why the benchmarks measure consumer prices and personal consumption expenditures. These are where higher prices hurt because they apply to everyone. Other measures like the Producer Price Index have valuable information but are less immediately relevant to most people. But […]

July 23, 2023 | A Few Trillion Here, a Few Trillion There…

Last week’s commentary predicted that rates on the Ten-Year Note, currently around 3.8%, will hit a minimum 5.5% before inflation lurches into reverse and the U.S. begins a hellish descent into a full-blown debt deflation. The following, insightful response came from our friend Richard Charles at Alpine Capital: Well done, Rick, for highlighting the crux of markets […]

July 22, 2023 | Trading Desk Notes For July 22, 2023

A turning point in sizzling tech stocks? On Tuesday, MSFT announced plans to invoice corporations for employees using Microsoft AI. Within an hour; the share price rose >$20 to new All-Time Highs, adding ~$100 Billion (~4%) in market cap. By Friday’s close, those gains had evaporated, leaving the weekly chart with an ominous shooting star candlestick pattern. […]

July 22, 2023 | RAP Getting the Message? – Brainwashed

July 22, 2023 | This Week in Money

• Bob Hoye –  Stock Markets, Dow, Gold, Oil, Headlines
• Wolf Richter – (21:43) USD, Recession, Consumer Spending, Electric Vehicles

July 22, 2023 | Tech Talk for Saturday July 22nd 2023

The Bottom Line Focus next week is on news released from the FOMC meeting on Wednesday. Consensus calls for at least another 0.25% increase in the Fed Fund Rate to 5.50%. Second quarter results released by S&P 500 companies were mixed at best last week. Better than consensus results were released by most U.S. money […]

July 21, 2023 | Public Health and the Shrinking Trust Horizon

I’m on the road this week and can’t do much research. But there’s time to cut and paste some notable pieces of news. So, along the lines of January’s Gold And The Shrinking Trust Horizon, here’s a short piece from Matt Taibbi on the fallout from the lab-leak fiasco: Covid’s Origins and the Death of Trust Public has just published […]

July 21, 2023 | China Property Market Struggles with Debt Bubble

China began a new stage in its multi-year struggle with insolvency among property developers. One of the biggest, China Evergrande, reported losses of US$81 billion this week. Will massive debts of US$207 billion dollars in the property sector drag China down? The property sector started to contract in 2021, after a brief post-COVID surge.  Recent […]

July 21, 2023 | Fat Pitches and Market Cycles

Near-zero interest rates and trillions of asset buying by central banks (QE) enabled twelve years of increasingly deranged financial behaviour between 2011 and 2023. In the process, gambling became an international preoccupation, and investable assets were traded to uneconomically high valuations. A global standout, at the market peak in 2022, the S&P 500 index (shown […]

July 21, 2023 | The Death of Free Speech Is the Beginning

Tunisia is actually criminalizing free speech under the claim that it is spreading “fake news” to end free speech in the country. The problem is this is the trend in the aftermath of COVID. Anything disagreeing with the government narrative is increasingly moving toward criminalization. This was the very same trend that the LEFT took […]

July 20, 2023 | Recession Watch: Real Estate And Manufacturing Seize Up

Rising interest rates don’t hit everything all at once. Some sectors feel the pinch immediately while others keep chugging along, seemingly oblivious to tightening money. But eventually, the pain spreads far enough to hurt and/or scare everyone, which brings on the cycle-ending recession and bear market. That day is getting closer, as multiple sectors report […]

July 20, 2023 | The Elevator Pitch for Capital Preservation

The challenge is to explain complex systems in simple enough terms that people can comprehend. I attempt to do this every day in finance. But people can be hard to help. We have to want to learn and remember why capital preservation is our dominant goal. Financial enlightenment is made harder because most “experts” in […]

July 20, 2023 | Housing Market Faces Reckoning: Price of Used Houses now the Same as Price of New Houses

Sales of previously owned single-family houses fell by 3.4% in June from May, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of sales of 3.72 million houses, the lowest since January, according to the National Association of Realtors today. This is deep-dismal sales territory, even as supply rose to 3.1 months, and inventories to 960,000 houses, both the […]

July 20, 2023 | Harris – Reducing the Population is a Real Goal

The White House claims that Vice President Kamala Harris made a gaff by saying that the goal was to “reduce population” when she should have said pollution. Of course, the immediate claim is that anyone disagreeing with that statement is engaging in a conspiracy theory. As they say, actions speak louder than words. She actually […]

July 20, 2023 | Inflation Just Pausing?

When the stock markets might top

July 20, 2023 | Signs Markets Are Being Manipulated

How much of the “free market” does the government secretly control? Receive 50% Off VR Trader Newsletters! Enter Promo Code 2022HALFOFF