ALWAYS CONSULT YOUR INVESTMENT PROFESSIONAL BEFORE MAKING ANY INVESTMENT DECISION
May 8, 2025 | President Trump’s Proposal to Eliminate Income Taxes: Can It Be Done?
In February, President Trump said that tariffs would generate so much income that Americans would no longer need to pay income taxes. The latest plan, according to U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, is to abolish income taxes for people who earn less than $150,000 yearly. That move would affect roughly 75% of workers, according to U.S. […]
May 8, 2025 | Canada Attempts to Loosens Reliance on US Trade
Canadian exports to the United States are beginning to decrease in light of the trade war. Statistics Canada announced that exports to the United States, Canada’s largest trading partner, declined 6.6% during the first month of tariffs while imports from the United States fell 2.9%. March 2025 was the second-highest recorded monthly increase in non-US […]
May 8, 2025 | Fed Sits Tight as Economic Hits Keep Coming
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 […]
May 7, 2025 | California Loses Another Oil Refinery – Gas Prices to Rise 75% by 2026
Oil refinery Valero has opted to close its operations in California due to excessive regulations on energy. Located in the small city of Benicia, the town is expected to lose 400 jobs, which the mayor is calling the exit “a major hit on the city.” Everyone in California is feeling the impact of Newsom’s war […]
May 7, 2025 | Trade-War Pain Spreading
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 […]
May 7, 2025 | Next Stock Market Decline To Set Up Bargain Window For Energy Stocks
Trump Tariffs are getting the most attention for deals (White House optimism) with 15 countries before the end of the 90 day window and no deals have yet come to fruition. Japan and Korea were expected to be first but changes in the political leadership in each country is delaying any deals. This would be painful […]
May 6, 2025 | Wuhan Virology Lab Continues Gain-of-Function Research on Coronaviruses
(The Wuhan Institute of Virology) America will no longer fund gain-of-research studies, thanks to an executive order implemented by Donald Trump that “will drastically reduce the potential for lab-related incidents involving gain-of-function research, like that conducted on bat coronaviruses in China by the EcoHealth Alliance and Wuhan Institute of Virology.” As a reminder, the Wuhan […]
May 6, 2025 | Lacy Hunt: Five Recessionary Forces
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 […]
May 5, 2025 | Amish Win Battle Against Canadian Govt Over COVID Regulations
The Amish had an extremely low rate of COVID infections, as well as for most diseases that infect modern societies. Regardless, the Canadian government is continuing to harass this community for failing to abide by COVID-era regulations. In particular, the Canadian government is demanding that the Amish community pay for non-compliance with the federal […]
May 5, 2025 | Affordability Cometh
Happy Monday Morning! Mark Carney is in. The Liberal government was granted a fourth term in power and will have their work cut out for them as the economy circles the drain. Housing, in particular, is in a rather precarious spot. As we’ve highlighted at length in this newsletter, housing starts are crumbling. Source: RBC […]
May 5, 2025 | Black Swans: What If Bad People Get Next-Level AI?
This is the first in a series of “heads up” posts on things that might go very wrong very fast, and how to prepare for them. An obvious place to begin is AGI: The global race to develop ever-smarter AIs has an interim goal called Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), which refers to a system capable […]
May 5, 2025 | Cash-Strapped Investors Borrowing Against Illiquid Funds
During the highly unnatural, central bank-imposed years of ZIRP ‘zero interest rate policy’, investors were increasingly attracted to ‘alternative’ illiquid, opaque, securities that did not mark to market and promised future payouts premised on an endless supply of greater fools who would buy off existing holders. Some funds have been marketing theoretical return data, not […]
May 4, 2025 | Soft Data Gets Softer
Economic data can be soft or hard. “Soft” data reflects attitudes, expectations, opinions, and feelings. It’s a step removed from the “hard” data reflecting actual events. Soft data is still valuable because future expectations shape the hard data that follows. Looking at the most recent soft data, I found myself consulting the thesaurus for a […]
May 4, 2025 | Four Weeks Off Bottom, Stocks Enter ‘Danger Zone’
[We are coming up on a month since I blew ‘Taps’ for a bear market that supposedly was just starting. There was panic in the air that Sunday because America’s enemies in Brussels were dumping T-Bonds in an attempt to crash the market. They were intent on forcing Powell to ease, but their plan failed […]
May 4, 2025 | Semi-Automatic Weapons Ban
Democrats are continuing their plight to abolish the Second Amendment. “You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind each blade of grass,” is a famous quote misattributed to Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto during the last World War. Yet, our right to bear arms certainly keeps us safe from predators both […]
May 3, 2025 | If Trump Does Not Wake UP – The EU will Invoke Article 5 and Take us into WWIII
QUESTION: Do you agree with Trump imposing more sanctions on Russia to force peace? VB ANSWER: Absolutely no way. This is a stupid move, and it demonstrates to me that either Trump is not being fed the real intel, or he is being reckless. There is no way Putin should sign any peace deal with Ukraine when […]
May 3, 2025 | Trading Desk Notes for May 3, 2025
The 180-degree turn in market sentiment from bearish to bullish has been sustained, powering the S&P higher for nine consecutive days The S&P was down ~22% at the April 7 lows (blue ellipse) following “Liberation Day” and subsequent tariff escalations. Two days later, Trump “paused” many of the tariffs to allow for “trade deals” to be […]
May 3, 2025 | Tech Talk for Saturday May 3rd 2025
The Bottom Line Sell in May and go away? History of the Dow Jones Industrial Average during Post Presidential Election Years since 1950 (e.g. 2025) shows a shallow period of weakness from mid-May to th end of September (including a brief summer rally to the end of July). Average drop during the period was 2.0%
May 2, 2025 | Mark Carney Faces His Biggest Challenge
Prime Minister Mark Carney will meet President Donald Trump soon to try to convince him to amend or remove the punishing tariffs that he has imposed on Canada. Will Mark Carney succeed in building a mutually beneficial relationship between these two close allies? Carney has a long history of leadership with Goldman Sachs, the Bank […]
May 2, 2025 | Markets Rallying Into Resistance
Market Summary – May 1, 2025 US stocks extended their rally Thursday: S&P 500 rose 0.6% to 5,604.14, marking its 8th straight gain. Dow Jones added 0.2% to 40,752.96. Nasdaq surged 1.5% to 17,710.74, erasing April’s losses. Microsoft jumped 9% after posting $70B in revenue, with strong AI-fueled cloud growth. Meta also beat expectations with a 16% YoY revenue gain and plans to ramp […]
May 2, 2025 | Household Struggles Weigh on Real Estate and Spending
A surge in active listing supply and an increase in price reductions failed to lure more homebuyers off the sidelines in April, as US pending home sales dropped for the fourth consecutive month (chart below via Realtor.com®). See, Supply of Homes for Sale Hits a Post-Pandemic High in April—but Pending Sales Drop as Buyers Grapple With Economic Uncertainty: The […]
May 2, 2025 | Canada Inevitable Split East and West
All my sources have been singing the same song. Carney won by creating hatred of Donald Trump, for this was a strategy carried out for the sole purpose of moving away from the USA and aligning with the EU. Even when Carney first became PM, he went to the EU, not to Washington. He is […]
May 1, 2025 | Next General Stock Market Decline Underway. Energy Stocks Likely To Reach Table Pounding BUYS Again In Late May
The Canadian Federal election resulted in a minority Liberal government that will need legislative support from the Bloc. Its leader has said he would support the new government for a year if the Liberals spend $2B more in Quebec. Is this for housing, the high speed train between Montreal and Quebec City or more generous […]
May 1, 2025 | Serious Question: How Long is Our Run?
Equity prices have made some ‘mean reversion’ progress year-to-date. At the end of March, the average geometric valuation for S&P 500 companies had declined to 148% from 167% in February (below since 1900, courtesy of Advisor Perspectives). This was the lowest since June 2024, but still, the most expensive in history and three standard deviations […]
May 1, 2025 | Washington State Deficit in the Billions – Taxes to Rise
Washington state is multiplying taxes for mega corporations in a move to cover its widening budget deficit. The state is expected to face a $12 to $16 billion shortfall over the next four years, according to the Office of Financial Management. The deficit should come as no surprise as state spending has ballooned by 40% […]