ALWAYS CONSULT YOUR INVESTMENT PROFESSIONAL BEFORE MAKING ANY INVESTMENT DECISION
February 4, 2025 | Canadian Insolvencies at 15-Year High and Rising
According to the latest Canadian Association of Insolvency and Restructuring Professionals, 2024 saw a 15-year high in Canadian business and consumer insolvencies—about 375 daily. The group expects pressure on companies and consumers to continue in 2025 amid threats from potential tariffs and mortgage renewals. See, Insolvencies in Canada rose 12.1% in 2024, led by business filings: […]
February 3, 2025 | Starting Points Matter Most of All
How long the Trump bump will continue in stock prices is everyone’s guess. Still, great expectations increase room for disappointment, and nothing matters more to long-term investment returns than the level of fundamental valuation at the starting point. Donald Trump comes back to office astride extreme confidence and the most highly valued stock market of […]
January 31, 2025 | Hunt: Global Capacity Under-Utilization Leading Unemployment Higher
Hoisington Management’s Fourth Quarter 2024 Review and Outlook is now available at this link. Always worth a mull. Here’s the main takeaway: “…fundamental determinants of inflation indicate the prospects for slower price increases are even more significant than in any year since the late 1990s. In addition to the growing factory capacity glut and rising UR […]
January 29, 2025 | Pent-up Listings Hope for Spring Demand
The Bank of Canada (BoC) cut interest rates by 25 bps this morning, bringing the overnight rate to 3%, 200 bps lower than when the central bank started easing in June 2024. Moreover, the BoC announced it would restart quantitative easing (Treasury buying) in March to reduce longer-term yields/interest rates and increase liquidity in the […]
January 28, 2025 | Insolvency Cycle Picking Up
‘Maximizing shareholder value’ has been about pumping up near-term valuations at the expense of long-term financial health and viability. Private equity is excellent at this. Kristina Partsinevelos joins CNBC’s ‘The Exchange’ to discuss the latest data on bankruptcies. Here is a direct video link. Households are increasingly struggling. The American consumer is showing some signs of […]
January 27, 2025 | American Tech Exceptionalism Under Review
The trouble with overconfidence and securities priced to perfection is that something always happens to upend the narrative. Underdogs often accomplish more for less; it’s a question of when, not if. Necessity has always been the mother of invention because constraints drive ingenuity. Anna Edwards, Guy Johnson, Kriti Gupta and Mark Cudmore break down today’s […]
January 23, 2025 | Loonie Dives to 22-Year Low
Canada’s loonie (CAD) traded at .6939 U.S. this morning, the lowest since January 2003. Part of the weakness comes from the Canadian overnight rate at 3.25%, which is expected to be cut to 3% on January 29, 133 basis points (bps) below the current U.S. effective funds rate at 4.33%. Foreign capital flows where it’s […]
January 22, 2025 | Trump Astride Most Over-Valued Stock Market
President Trump comes back to office amid one of the most over-valued stock markets of all time, even more inflated than at President Hoover’s inauguration months before the Black Tuesday crash of 1929. See WSJ: Make America Cheap Again. The CAPE is just one of a long list of historically prescient indicators ringing alarm bells. Of […]
January 21, 2025 | DoubleLine Round Table 2025
More moving parts than usual in 2025…For a few new ones, see Everything to Know about Trump’s Use of Executive Orders. The discussion below further elucidates. During the macroeconomic segment of Round Table Prime’s 2025 edition, participants, among other issues, deliberate the future path of inflation, premature Trump administration assumptions at the Federal Reserve, the hidden but […]
January 20, 2025 | Balance Sheet Recessions Take Years To Repair
The winds of change are blowing around the globe. 74 countries representing half of the world’s population held national elections last year. Many of them — including the US — saw a replacement of the ruling incumbent by the opposition, often one promising a more nationalistic agenda. With so many new leaders and their accompanying […]
January 16, 2025 | When will People Stop Moving to the Riskiest Areas?
For the last 50 years, Americans have flocked to the warm, sunny South. But, as climate change makes extreme heat, hurricanes, wildfire and flooding worse, will that trend ever STOP? Well, some regions might just be showing signs of a reversal, and they hold lessons for what other areas might expect as the world continues […]
January 15, 2025 | Rethinking Risk-Exposure
The Great Fire of London in 1666 prompted the creation of the first fire insurance companies, which later evolved into broader property insurance. Home insurance became more widespread in the 19th century, particularly in the United States and Europe, as urbanization and industrialization increased. The Hartford Fire Insurance Company began offering policies in the U.S. […]
January 14, 2025 | Surprise: Financial Conditions Tightening into 2025
While the U.S. Federal Reserve cut overnight rates by 125 basis points since November 2023 (below on the lower right), the U.S. 10-year Treasury yield has risen more than a percentage point, touching 4.8% for the first time since October 2023 (on the lower left) and April 2007 before that. Higher rates are the opposite […]
January 13, 2025 | How Canadian Prime Ministers Stepped Down Over The Years
History offers valuable perspective on human systems and cycles. Political leadership is easy to criticize and hard to do. Pendulums swing, and so it goes. Revisit decades past in Canadian politics as prime ministers came and went and oversight of the country changed hands. Here is a direct video link.
January 9, 2025 | Risk-Blind Bets Are All The Rage
Risk complacency is evident in exuberantly priced assets. Stocks do not provide contractually prescribed interest payments or a return of principal date. Some pay dividends, but these are always at the discretion of corporate management and can and should be cut when a company’s financial circumstances warrant it. When a company becomes insolvent, creditors and […]
January 8, 2025 | The Biggest Global Risks for 2025
Many moving parts are pulling in opposite directions. This discussion highlights some big ones. 2025 ushers in one of the most dangerous periods in world history — on par with the 1930s and early Cold War, says Ian Bremmer, president and founder of Eurasia Group and GZERO Media. Highlighting the top geopolitical risks for the […]
January 7, 2025 | Different Countries Similar Challenges
Canada’s unemployment rate rose to 6.9% in December, now up 210 basis points (bps) from the 4.8% low in June 2022 (below in blue). The U.S. unemployment rate, at 4.2%, has risen 80 bps since it bottomed in April 2023. There has never been a time when unemployment has increased this much outside of recessions.Moreover, […]
January 6, 2025 | Unaffordable Home Prices Weigh
Asset bubbles create unproductive debt and uneconomic pricing, which magnifies financial trauma as prices reverse. Most Canadians now live in cities where the average home price is five to twelve times the average household income (shown below, courtesy of WOWA.ca). The long-term ‘affordable’ norm was three times, max. This reality increases financial vulnerability for households, […]
January 3, 2025 | Why are China’s Youth Boycotting Pensions?
A massive population followed by 36 years of a one-child policy (1980 to 2016) magnified the demographic strains building in China. Still, similar generational flashpoints are growing in most developed countries today. Compromise, fresh thinking and more efficiency/less waste are necessary. China’s pension system is in danger of running out of money in a decade. […]
December 31, 2024 | Home Builders Report Biggest Spike in Unsold Homes in a Decade
Home builders across America like Lennar and DR Horton are issuing massive warnings about the US Housing Market in 2025. Most recently, Lennar signaled a big decline in revenue YoY and a huge pile-up of homes for sale. Housing markets like Florida, Texas, and Arizona are most in the cross-hairs of this home-builder downturn. Access […]
December 24, 2024 | Grantham on the Baby Bust
It is no secret that population dynamics significantly impact global stability. But what’s really behind today’s shifting global birth trends, the increased need for medically-assisted pregnancy, and the changing age demographics of industrialized nations? Furthermore, what are the implications of these shifts for future economic security? Today, Nate is joined by investment strategist Jeremy Grantham […]
December 20, 2024 | Fed’s Frayed Nerves Amid Inflation Fears and Rising Unemployment
There are many clear-eyed insights in this segment. Danielle DiMartino Booth, CEO and chief strategist of QI Research and former Federal Reserve insider, joins the Julia La Roche Show for an in-person interview to discuss why she sees “frayed nerves” at the Federal Reserve about the incoming Trump administration. In this wide-ranging conversation, DiMartino Booth […]
December 19, 2024 | TM: Bubbles End Badly
As 2024 draws to a close, the mood on Wall Street is very jolly. Stocks are back to trading near all-time highs. Positive sentiment — be it among investors, businesses or consumers — is suddenly spiking. Is such exuberance merited? Should we expect the market’s good times to continue rolling in 2025? Or, is the […]
December 18, 2024 | Yields and the Loonie Dive While Stock Markets Levitate
Canada’s economy is slumping, along with support for the federal government. So far, the Bank of Canada says it plans to ease policy rates at a slower pace in 2025. The Treasury market is not convinced. Through fits and starts, government bond prices have continued to rise on safety-seeking inflows (yields in a downtrend). The […]
December 17, 2024 | Balance Sheet Repair Takes Years
Today on the Jay Martin Show, Jay sits down with Danielle DiMartino Booth, CEO of QI Intelligence and author of Fed Up. the pair dissect critical economic and geopolitical trends shaping today’s markets. They explore the historic overvaluation of the stock market, rising consumer debt, and the hidden vulnerabilities in the gig economy. Danielle offers […]