July 26, 2025 | Tech Talk for Saturday July 26th 2025

The Bottom Line Here comes equity market volatility! Lots of market moving news impacting North American equity markets this week including:  FOMC and Bank of Canada’s decisions on interest rates on Wednesday. No changes in U.S. and Canadian administered rates are expected, but traders will watch closely for potential timing for future rate reductions […]

July 25, 2025 | Lofty Valuations for Tesla are at Risk

Tesla: Lofty Valuation, Slipping Fundamentals Tesla still carries a sky-high valuation — more than 100 times its projected profits. That kind of multiple has only shown up a handful of times in history, and only for a few companies. So, do the fundamentals support this kind of price? Let’s take a look. Tesla hit a […]

July 25, 2025 | Trucker Convoy Lawyer Debanked

Banks have the ability to debank customers at a moment’s notice. Canada successfully weaponized its banks against the people during the Trucker Convoy, a peaceful protest demanding the right to bodily autonomy during the COVID-19 vaccine mandates. Lawyer Eva Chipiuk, who represented the Trucker (Freedom) Convoy, received notice from the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) […]

July 24, 2025 | Japan’s Bond Market Crisis Intensifies – Has BOJ Finally Lost Control?

Japan, with its highest in human history per capita government debt, has been an accident waiting to happen for a long time. But somehow, it has always managed to slip out of whatever trap the financial markets set for it. Until now? Japanese interest rates have been rising, increasing government interest costs and leading traders […]

July 24, 2025 | Klarman on Finding Value and Maintaining Discipline

A world focused on selling us investment products and ideas spends little time defining sell or aversion rules. If someone tells you what they own or would buy, ask them when they would sell it. Most haven’t thought that far; they ride price cycles up and down with no plan to protect capital from drawdowns. […]

July 24, 2025 | China Continues to Offload US Treasuries

  China has been offloading its US Treasury holdings for years. Once the top holder of US debt, China cut its US Treasury holdings for the third consecutive month this May. Total holdings have fallen to $756.3 billion from $757.2 billion in April, according to the US Treasury, marking the lowest debt held since May […]

July 23, 2025 | WTI Weakens As New EU Sanctions On Russia Lack Effectiveness. Crude Likely To Breach US$60/b In Coming Weeks.

Summary: President Trump has announced a trade deal with Japan opening the country to US sales of cars, trucks, rice and other agricultural food stuff. In return for a 15% tariff on Japanese exports (down from 25%) Japanese companies etc., plan on investing US$550B in the US. Importing US rice will alienate protected rice farmers. […]

July 23, 2025 | Meme-Stock Craze, Season Two

The 2023–2024 rate hikes and bear market wipeouts tamped down rampant retail speculation. But in 2025, rate cut expectations, along with AI-inspired price rebounds year to date, have reignited animal spirits. ChatGPT astutely observes that “Day trading’s resurgence may also reflect disillusionment with traditional investing timelines and frustration with affordability/inflation.”  In other words, the masses are […]

July 23, 2025 | Cash Accepted Here – Payment Choice Act

  Senators Kevin Cramer (R-ND) and John Fetterman (D-PA) have introduced bipartisan legislation, the Payment Choice Act, which would require businesses to accept cash payments. Money is merely the medium of exchange that someone is willing to accept for goods or services. Businesses across America have inadvertently contributed to the push toward a cashless society […]

July 22, 2025 | Institutions Decreasing Real Estate Purchases

  Investors continue to snap up residential properties, as real estate has evolved into an investment class of its own. New reports show that between 2020 and 2023, investors were responsible for 18.5% of home purchases. In the first three months of 2025, investors composed 27% of all residential properties, marking the highest share in […]

July 21, 2025 | The Great Pivot

Happy Monday Morning! Last week we wrote a piece called The Only Game in Town, in which we argued CMHC has financed nearly 90% of all new rental construction in the country, up from just 5% in 2017. They have become the only game in town and the financial exposure was concerning in an environment where […]

July 21, 2025 | Grantham: Don’t Be Conned By Those Selling Shovels In The Gold Rush

The Next Twelve Months Price-to-Earnings ratio (NTM P/E, shown below courtesy of ISABELNET) is one of the historically relevant forward-looking valuation metrics that compares a company’s current share price to its projected earnings over the next 12 months. Today’s sky-high US equity valuations, highlighted in dark blue, are comparable only to the rare, infamous peaks of […]

July 21, 2025 | The Treaty of Versailles Part II?

  Vladimir Putin has 580 billion additional reasons not to end the war. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz entered office with a clear intent to usher Germany into World War III. Not only has Merz mobilized troops and the largest military spending package in modern European history, but he is now demanding that Russia pay reparations […]

July 20, 2025 | Tomorrow’s Job Market: DO NOT Learn To Code – Do Become a Mining Engineer

In late 2023, I posted an article on how to develop the skills necessary to get through a protracted supply chain disruption: Skill Stacking, Part 1: Handymen Will Inherit the Earth. But since then, the stakes have gotten even higher. A financial/supply chain crisis is still coming. But now AI is altering the job market in […]

July 20, 2025 | Interview: An Independent Alberta Matters

July 20, 2025 | Is Obama About to Get His Comeuppance?

The stock market continues to waft higher with the riskless predictability of loaded dice. DaBoyz have trained their firepower on just a few high-flyers, chiefly Microsoft and Nvidia, in order to squeeze the broad averages skyward with an absolute minimum of capital. I’ve explained here before in exhaustive detail how this carnival midway trick is […]

July 20, 2025 | Inflationary Confusion

If you listen to the media—both MSM and social media—it seems like everyone in the world wants lower interest rates. Historically low rates were the landscape for most of the last 15 years, and anyone who borrowed money enjoyed it. Savers, not so much, but the idea of going back to low mortgage rates, bank […]

July 19, 2025 | Trading Desk Notes for July 19, 2025

The Trend Is Your Friend – summerweight edition! The S&P has rallied nearly 10X in the last 16 years. It is up ~3X from the covid lows five years ago. It’s up ~30% from the April 2025 “Liberation Day” lows. And this week, when the S&P fell ~100 points on “fresh news” that Trump was planning […]

July 19, 2025 | Tech Talk for Saturday July 19th 2025

The Bottom Line Focuses this week are on second quarter earnings reports by major U.S. and Canadian companies. Look for additional surprisingly strong results relative to consensus! Consensus for Earnings and Revenues for S&P 500 companies Source: www.factset.com The second quarter earnings season continues to surprise: 60 S&P 500 companies have reported results to date […]

July 18, 2025 | China’s Auto Industry is About To Crush The Competition — and Ford’s CEO Knows It

Chinese automakers are rapidly dismantling the global pecking order—and there’s growing evidence they’re about to take the top spot. Ford CEO Jim Farley has issued a stark warning: many Detroit automakers might not survive this existential threat. Take Xiaomi’s new electric sedan, the SU7. Priced between US$35,340 and $45,995, this EV boasts specs that outclass most […]

July 18, 2025 | Market Pulse – July 18/25

Equities & Major Indices The S&P 500 and Nasdaq set new record highs early in the week, before slipping on profit-taking ahead of key earnings reports. The Dow Jones Industrial Average also edged lower in the final sessions. Despite Friday’s dip, the Canadian TSX posted a weekly gain of around +1.1%, marking a year-to-date increase […]

July 18, 2025 | Health Prepping: Eliminate Those Forever Chemicals

All roads lead to the microbiome Of all the environmental horror stories circulating out there, “forever chemicals” might be the creepiest. It seems that we live in a miasma of artificial molecules that, once inside the human body, refuse to leave. Instead, they build up until they trigger cancer or some other lethal condition. Here’s […]

July 18, 2025 | 60% of Canadians Face Rising Mortgage Payments by 2026

  Canadians with a mortgage renewal in the near future are facing trouble ahead. The Bank of Canada released a new report detailing that around 60% of outstanding mortgages are set to renew in 2025 or 2026, and those homeowners are highly likely to see a rise in monthly payments. Most borrowers went into a […]

July 17, 2025 | The Stripper Index

One company has been looking to one of the world’s oldest professions to gauge the state of the economy—sex work. “The ‘stripper index’ is an unconventional economic indicator that correlates changes in sex work revenue, such as escort pricing, strip club tips, and related search interest, with broader economic cycles,” Erobella states on its website. […]