March 11, 2026 | Canada’s Housing Crisis Shows the Consequences of the Easy Money Era

Canada’s housing market has become one of the most expensive in the developed world, and the affordability crisis continues to worsen despite rising interest rates. Mortgage payments as a share of household income are now near record levels, leaving many first-time buyers completely priced out of the market while existing homeowners face significantly higher borrowing […]

March 11, 2026 | Oil Companies the Big Iran War Winners

Uranium and fertilizer could be the next big things to soar higher

March 10, 2026 | Subcutaneous Microchip Mandates

  There was a time when warnings about governments embedding identification technology directly into the human body would have sounded like something from George Orwell rather than a public policy debate. Yet here we are. Washington State is now considering legislation to prohibit employers from forcing workers to accept subcutaneous microchip implants. The fact that […]

March 10, 2026 | Fuel Costs Tax Everyone

Last week’s near 35% spike in the price of oil (WTIC) was the biggest gain in futures trading history, dating back to 1983 (shown below, courtesy of Bespoke Investment Group). After closing at $90.90 a barrel on Friday, the price rose to $119.48 intraday yesterday, then slumped 15% to $80 this afternoon. That’s still up 47% […]

March 9, 2026 | Upsetting the Apple Cart

Happy Monday Morning! Last week we wrote a piece titled ‘Landmark Agreements’ in which the Federal Government signed an agreement acknowleding aboriginal title for the Musqueam First Nations across most of Metro Vancouver. It was a “Landmark Agreement” according to the Feds, yet received zero mainstream media coverage. Why it received so little coverage we’ll […]

March 9, 2026 | Canada and Europe Strengthen Trade Ties as Global Economy Fragments

Canada and the European Union agreed to modernize their existing trade agreement while launching negotiations for a new digital trade pact. On the surface, this appears to be another routine trade update between two long-standing partners. In reality, it reflects a much deeper shift underway in the global economy as nations begin quietly restructuring trade […]

March 8, 2026 | Zuckerberg’s Huge Branding Problem

[Your editor is taking a busman’s holiday in San Francisco. Although trading touts will update as usual and I’ll be active in the chat room, this commentary and the next come from the archive. You can judge for yourself whether they were sufficiently on-target to still be relevant. RA] Stocks looked leaden as the week ended, […]

March 8, 2026 | AI and Creative Destruction

If you’re tuning in to see what I think of the latest Iran fireworks, you may be disappointed. My opinion is as accurate as market reactions have been. Which, given wild swings both ways, suggests no one really knows what to expect. So rather than dwell on a topic where your insight is as good […]

March 8, 2026 | Has the Great Taking Begun?

If you (like me) keep mixing up Blackstone and BlackRock, you can relax now. They’re both in serious financial trouble, so you can assert that either is “imploding” and be more-or-less right: BlackRock fund limits withdrawals as redemptions rattle private credit (Reuters) – BlackRock (BLK.N) said on Friday it has limited withdrawals from a flagship debt fund […]

March 8, 2026 | Trading Desk Notes for March 7, 2026

Let’s start with crude oil Nymex front-month April WTI traded above $92.50 on Friday, up ~$25 (38%) on the week, the largest ever weekly price rise, on the highest ever weekly trading volume (over 14 million contracts at 1,000 barrels per contract = roughly the equivalent of 140 days’ worth of total global crude oil production traded on […]

March 7, 2026 | This Week in Money

• Ross Clark:  Stock Markets, Oil, Gold, Silver, Copper, USD, Canadian Dollar, Bitcoin.
• Martin Straith:  (11:55) Stock Markets, Oil, Strait of Hormuz.
• David Brett:  (46:23) Mining Industry, Aboriginal Land Claims.

March 7, 2026 | Tech Talk for Saturday March 7th 2026

The Bottom Line Start of the war against Iran had a significant negative impact on world equity markets last week. By the end of the week, intermediate term technicals for world equity markets had deteriorated from Overbought to Neutral levels. Despite international and political influences, analysts raised 2026 cash flow and earnings estimates for S&P […]

March 6, 2026 | Trump Holds a Weak Hand Heading into the Upcoming Summit

Trump Heads to Beijing With a Weak Hand When Donald Trump meets Xi Jinping in Beijing later this month, the setting will look like a diplomatic summit. But the real story is leverage—and right now China appears to have more of it. The three-day meeting comes as tensions rise over U.S. military action in Iran. […]

March 6, 2026 | Diversify This

The investment sales world loves to talk about the defensive benefit of holding different equity sectors and global markets. The pitch is that there’s always a bull market somewhere, so we can always-be-buying risk-on products. The US stock market is heavily concentrated (39%) in the top 10 most expensive companies today (dark blue bar below). […]

March 6, 2026 | Existing US Home Sales Collapse Despite Falling Mortgage Rates

    Existing home sales just delivered one of the clearest signals yet about the true state of the housing market in 2026, and it is not the rebound narrative the mainstream keeps promoting. The latest data shows that existing-home sales fell 8.4% in January to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of just 3.91 million […]

March 5, 2026 | Europe Is Building a Digital Identity System for 450 Million People

The European Union is quietly constructing what may become one of the most sweeping digital identity systems ever attempted. Under new legislation, every EU member state must provide citizens with a government-approved “European Digital Identity Wallet” by 2026. This system will allow people to store official documents, verify identity, access government services, sign legal contracts, […]

March 5, 2026 | Could New Gulf War Cause Stock Market Crash?

Is the US already in a recession?

March 5, 2026 | Even Without War, Markets Would Have Been Bumpy

All metals will likely do better than stock markets right now

March 4, 2026 | Great Nations Do Not Fight Endless Wars

  “Great nations do not fight endless wars,” Donald Trump said during his campaign when highlighting his “Americas First” message. Trump explicitly promised to maintain peace and keep American troops out of foreign wars. American blood has been shed in the Middle East once more amid Operation Epic Fury. Could this escalating war cause MAGA […]

March 4, 2026 | Blocked Exits Intensify The Urge To Get Out

After the 2008 financial crisis, more than a decade of zero-interest-rate policies drove an explosion in private credit products and funds that were initially marketed to institutions and pensions under the oxymoron of safe ‘high-yield’. Then, from March 2022 to May 2023, a record succession of central bank rate hikes took the US Fed rate […]

March 3, 2026 | Recession Watch: Is Private Credit The New Subprime Mortgage?

Oil has been one of the worst-performing commodities lately, due mostly to rising US production and relative peace in the Middle East. Well, that peace ended with a bang last weekend, and oil has erased its price declines. Higher gasoline prices are likely to follow. While oil was spiking, pretty much everything else tanked on […]

March 3, 2026 | Shocks are Part of life; Sentiment Coming into Them Matters

Macro shocks are a constant throughout time. The market impact is often dramatic in the short-term. Longer-term, outcomes vary depending on the level of optimism that was priced in when the shock hits. Coming into 2026, most asset markets were exhibiting excessive optimism -pricing the best of all possible outcomes. Just one example: the S&P […]

March 3, 2026 | Iranians Divided Over Regime Change

The Western press is desperately trying to frame the Iranian people as either celebrating liberation or rallying behind their government. As always, the truth is far more complex. The Iranian population is deeply divided, and that division is precisely what unfolds when an external military strike hits a nation already suffering from internal political and […]

March 2, 2026 | Landmark Agreements?

Happy Monday Morning! While everyone was busy following the enormous geopolitical events unfolding in the middle east, a subtle news release from the Federal Government went largely unnoticed or perhaps intentionally burried, despite having (potentially) significant ramifications for nearly all of Metro Vancouver. The Musqueam Indian Band and the Government of Canada signed a Rights Recognition […]