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Danielle Park

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Portfolio Manager and President of Venable Park Investment Counsel (www.venablepark.com) Ms Park is a financial analyst, attorney, finance author and regular guest on North American media. She is also the author of the best-selling myth-busting book "Juggling Dynamite: An insider's wisdom on money management, markets and wealth that lasts," and a popular daily financial blog: www.jugglingdynamite.com

Juggling Dynamite - All the hype about cryptocurrencies being more secure than conventional currencies and banks. How safe, secure and practical does all of this sound? See, ‘Bitcoin Family’ hides crypto codes etched onto metal cards on four continents after recent kidnappings: The family’s new system involves splitting a single 24-word bitcoin seed phrase — the cryptographic key that […]

Juggling Dynamite - The World Bank sharply cut its global economic growth forecast. It now projects the global economy to expand by 2.3% in 2025, down from an earlier forecast of 2.7% (below, courtesy of Bloomberg). This would mark the slowest rate of global growth, outside of a recession, since 2008. Growth is expected to recover modestly to […]

June 10th, 2025 | Wise To Be Wary

Juggling Dynamite - Worried about tariff-inspired inflation, the US Federal Reserve has held its overnight target rate steady at 4.25 to 4.5% since December, and markets have walked back easing expectations to just two 25 basis point cuts by year-end. At the same time, businesses are warning that constantly shifting trade policies are hindering their ability to plan […]

Juggling Dynamite - Canada’s unemployment rate has climbed to 7% from 6.2% a year ago, and up 210 basis points from 4.9% in June 2022 (chart below via The DailyShot). Excluding the pandemic, this is the highest unemployment rate since 2016 (Statscan report here). A 180-basis-point increase in the jobless rate over two years has historically been a […]

Juggling Dynamite - Since June 2024, interest rates have trended down from a two-decade high, yet remain above the historically low levels seen during the pandemic. Approximately 1.2 million Canadian mortgages will renew in 2025, a vast majority (85%) of which were secured when the Bank of Canada’s key lending rate was at or below 1% compared with […]

June 5th, 2025 | Job Losses Leaping

Juggling Dynamite - Slowly, then all at once…job losses ‘unexpectedly’ leaping across many sectors. Andy Challenger, Senior Vice President, Challenger, Gray & Christmas, shares his insights on the latest Challenger layoff report in the U.S. and what sectors were most impacted.  Here is a direct video link. 

June 4th, 2025 | Dark Factories

Juggling Dynamite - The idea that re-shoring manufacturing will increase good-paying jobs in North America faces some challenges from automation. Corporations focus on profit margins, so where machines are more efficient than human labour, automation will win out. Factories have been transformed by automation, with robots now taking on a sizeable proportion of jobs once done by people […]

Juggling Dynamite - China’s Caixin purchasing managers’ index unexpectedly fell in May to 48.3 (sub-50 signals contraction) as US tariffs took a toll on smaller exporters. The consensus had expected the gauge to improve, not worsen. At the same time, US manufacturing activity contracted further in May to the lowest level since November. The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) purchasing managers’ index […]

Juggling Dynamite - It’s an especially confusing time for investors. On one hand, the US economy is showing signs of slowing, with a negative growth for Q1 GDP, and mounting evidence that many corporations and consumer households are feeling the pinch of higher borrowing costs. On the other hand, FOMO Is returning to the stock market as corporate […]

May 30th, 2025 | DOGE Disappoints

Juggling Dynamite - As I feared, DOGE has drastically undershot its targeted spending cuts. It’s hard to reduce overhead without the political will to reduce corporate subsidies and reform entitlement programs in a meaningful way. At the same time, the masses want tax cuts. The math is not mathing. Elon Musk is done with the Department of Government […]

Juggling Dynamite - Today, we received further confirmation of Canada’s deteriorating labour market, with March payrolls falling 54,100 to a 10-month low, and a negatively revised 40,200 fewer jobs in February (Stats Can survey of employers, payrolls, and hours). Canada’s largest lender, Royal Bank, also disappointed with an earnings miss after setting aside $1.42 billion for loan losses […]

Juggling Dynamite - Denmark raised its retirement age last week to 70 for Danes born in 1971 or later. Workers currently become eligible for the Danish equivalent of Social Security at age 67, which will go up steadily in the coming years. See: The New Retirement Age in Denmark is 70: This is the result of a reform passed […]

Juggling Dynamite - During the pandemic, near-zero interest rates and government subsidies enabled excess consumption beyond sustainable means. That inflated the prices of most goods and assets while exacerbating wealth gaps between the old and young, as well as between the top ten percent and the rest. We are now in a mean reversion phase, and the downward […]

Juggling Dynamite - According to the University of Michigan’s preliminary May survey, the U.S. Consumer Sentiment Index fell to 50.8, down from 52.2 in April. This marked the second-lowest reading in the survey’s nearly 75-year history, surpassed only by June 2022. The decline is attributed to heightened concerns over inflation and the economic impact of President Trump’s trade policies. Notably, 75% […]

Juggling Dynamite - In the ‘easy-money’ ultra-low rate era, there was a lot of demand from secondary property owners for recreation or renting to others. Most were over the age of 50. An increasing number will look to sell to lower overhead/upkeep and free up cash flow in retirement. The good news is that this will continue to […]

Juggling Dynamite - The S&P 500 risk premium—forward earnings yield minus the 10-year Treasury yield—is once again about zero (below since 2000, via The Daily Shot). Such dismal equity risk-reward prospects have only been seen once in the last quarter century and that was coming out of the 2000 bubble top. The large cap S&P 500 went on […]

May 20th, 2025 | Summer of Discontent

Juggling Dynamite - In April, Canada’s unemployment rate rose to 6.9%, the highest since September 2021 and 210 basis points above the July 2022 cycle low of 4.8% (shown below since 1950).     Beata Caranci, chief economist at TD Bank, expects a recession in the coming quarters and another 100,000 job losses by the fall. See, Canada’s economy […]

Juggling Dynamite - We recently completed rooftop solar, which allows us to run operations and vehicles on sunshine. Technology is here to improve efficiency and lower waste for all sectors of the economy—a much-needed bright spot ☀️. Smart food production powered by renewable energy is what productivity enhancement looks like. For the first time, a King City, Ont, greenhouse […]

Juggling Dynamite - The spreading downturn in real estate is the typical and foreseeable mean reversion of the speculative mania that prevailed through the years of near-zero interest rates. The condo market in two of Canada’s big cities has taken a major downturn. CBC’s Nisha Patel breaks down three reasons why condos aren’t selling in the middle of […]

May 14th, 2025 | Mayhem continues

Juggling Dynamite - A 90-day pause on embargo-style US-China trade tariffs has revived bullish spirits. The large-cap S&P 500 (black below), with its one-third weight in tech companies (“Magnificent Seven” companies in orange), has rebounded 18% since April 8—now flat year to date and -3.8% below the February high. The retail crowd is back at it, bidding the […]

Juggling Dynamite - The Canadian unemployment rate rose to 6.9% in April (from 6.7% in March). Outside of the 2020 COVID shutdown, this was the highest level since January 2017 and up 210 basis points from the July 2022 cycle low of 4.8%. This is a warning sign: in past cycles since 1953, we have been six months […]

Juggling Dynamite - TRREB is Canada’s biggest real estate board, covering the Greater Toronto Area (area codes 416 and 905, as shown below), which has the largest population concentration in Canada. TRREB just posted April numbers (here); year over year, single-family home sales were down 22%, and condo sales were down 30%. An hour or so in each […]

Juggling Dynamite - Yesterday, the US Federal Reserve held its policy rate steady at 4.25%–4.50%, as Chair Jerome Powell admitted he doesn’t know whether rising inflation or surging unemployment will hit hardest. In the meantime, indebted businesses and consumers feel the pressure of interest rates near multi-decade highs. A larger share of student loan balances are past due […]

Juggling Dynamite - China’s economy showed signs of damage from the trade war in April, with a drop in export orders and the weakest production at the country’s factories in more than a year. See, Beijing doesn’t want America to see its trade war pain Here is a direct video link.  The impacts are evident in America, too. Port of […]

Juggling Dynamite - Dr. Lacy Hunt, Chief Economist at Hoisington Investment Management, analyzes what he calls an economic “interregnum” where five convergent forces are aligning to depress growth. Dr. Hunt methodically explains how tariffs will ultimately prove deflationary rather than inflationary, why the Fed’s restrictive monetary policy is misplaced, how federal spending cuts are creating headwinds, why massive […]
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