Fabulously wealthy, mentioned by three major religions..and a figure who may provide insight into modern economica.    It’s his way of “thinking about thinking” that we not only find intriguing, but plain old useful. Not hard to do, either. Before we do that, it’s the Day of Three Number Sets.  First is CPI just out.  … Read More

Sure…numbers…let’s roll with that first: Dead: 4,028 Cases: 114,585 What’s worse is that the global case count is still tracking to bust 6-million and the death toll threatens to be above a quarter-million by the Fourth of July. In my measured view, and despite a massive 50% retrace rally for the markets today, I still … Read More

High-level view first today:  I’m going to show you a number of charts and make the case that while the COVID-19 virus IS something to be concerned about, there is a much greater threat to humans:  The arrival of a Global Depression. Let’s begin with the present 30-day change-rate of the spread. (These graphics will … Read More

I don’t want you to be a victim of circumstances.  To get there, you need to learn to see the world differently. Mold it to you instead of the other way around. Cast-off the chains of group-think.  Smart School is now in session… We have done a couple of articles on how to set up … Read More

Yee gads.  Anther quiet weekend and yet…there’s a lot of moving pieces, so here’s an early AM Update: On the Virus Spread The spread continues.  Here’s our latest daily rate-of-change work based on sources found to be reliable (Hopkins and WHO): As you can see, the daily numbers of cases (yellow highlight, top) stabilized.  But, … Read More

If our topics sound a bit scattered, they’re not:  It’s a cross between a Sit-Rep, Social Outlook about Where Your Money’s going.  All of which got me out of bed and firing up a fresh pot of Kona roast at 1:00 AM.  In an attempt at contextualizing some of what may lay before us in … Read More

We again confront the age-old Editor’s Paradox:  Do we begin with what’s  important or do we lead with  what’s urgent? Not that hard to answer, since I’ve been telling you what’s important all week.  We’ll change-up a bit and lead with  urgent instead. We have three data points to consider:  The Jobs Data, Fresh International … Read More

You won’t see it in the headlines, most places.  But, it lurks.  It stalks, and we’re in the process of playing the same modest market bounce that we did in 1929 prior to the markets declining more than 35%. OK, may sound melodramatic, but thinking people with spreadsheets all over the world are coming to … Read More

Just a technical note:  For the first time in almost 20-years of living in the Outback of East Texas, we were totally without coms this morning as two phone lines with DSL and a ViaSat connection all went down due to severe weather. 2″ of rain in about 30-minute.  The precipitation path loss took down … Read More

An exposition today on what the Fed rate cut, market reaction, woo-woo, and time machine research have in common.   Yep.  This is one of those Twilight Zone kind of discussions that sinks down into the part of being human that we mostly don’t visit often.First, though, in addition to our usual daily dose of market … Read More

Just announced by the Federal Reserve: “The fundamentals of the U.S. economy remain strong. However, the coronavirus poses evolving risks to economic activity. In light of these risks and in support of achieving its maximum employment and price stability goals, the Federal Open Market Committee decided today to lower the target range for the federal … Read More

Breaking:   Federal Reserve just poured $120-billion into the repo market.  Light ’em up, markets! Facts and Folly The late Dr. Carl Sagan summed it up best in the book titled “The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark.”  Our problem today is we are living in an asylum populated by addicts hooked … Read More

Preliminary data first, so you have data to stand on when we get to the weather-related angle:  Although we could see a “snap-back rally” this week in markets, the longer-term outlook seems to be firming up:  We would not be surprised to see stocks collapse to below 2,000 on the S&P and that infers a … Read More