QTR’s Fringe Finance

I’m talking about a genuine global energy emergency, where oil reaches $150 or even $200 a barrel. What if the global oil crisis gets much, much worse? I’m not talking about another $10 move in crude. I’m talking about a genuine global energy emergency, where oil reaches $150 or even $200 a barrel, physical shortages begin shutting down meaningful portions of the global economy, and central banks find themselves confronting an inflationary recession.

On the anniversary of Hamas's massacre, New York City's mayor turned a day of mourning into a political soapbox, while Hamas flags flew in New York City. To be frank, I don’t care where you stand on Israel, Palestine, Netanyahu, Hamas or the broader conflict in the Middle East. At the end of the day, we all have our stance and arguing about it at this point accomplishes little other than wasting time, energy and emotional capital.

“Indeed, the US is in uncharted water...” By Ryan McMaken, Mises Institute The August personal consumption expenditures price index, the Fed’s main inflation gauge, saw an increase of 3.4%, year over year. Meanwhile, the core PCE, excluding food and energy, rose by 3%. This now means that the Fed’s preferred measure of price inflation has been above the two percent target for 66 months in a row.

Cathie Wood looks to me to just be a product of fifteen years of free money. Nowadays, being wrong is acceptable. Admitting it apparently isn’t. Cathie Wood is not a new topic on this blog. I have written about Wood and ARK Invest plenty of times over the years, largely because I remain fascinated by the seemingly endless free pass she gets from the financial media despite underperforming tech indexes and what I believe are batshit insane price targets she has become known for setting on companies.

I joined Tony Greer on his Macro Dirt Podcast yesterday for a wide ranging conversation about my story, my experience in markets, our bailout culture, the deteriorating bond market and the Wall Street fraud and nonsense I’ve witnessed over the last 15 years in markets.

...this isn’t simply the familiar story of the rich pulling away from the poor. The ultra rich are now pulling away from the merely rich. I know I write about the widening wealth gap a lot. But I keep coming back to it because I feel like a sleuth who has found a loose string that I know eventually leads to cracking the case. I feel like Morpheus describes to Neo in the Matrix, when he first meets him and explains his pull toward the Matrix. Maybe you feel the same. “Let me tell you why you’re here.

“The Fed is keeping inflation front and center, but they need to be careful.” By Peter Schiff, Schiff Gold The analysis below covers the Employment picture released on the first Friday of every month. While most of the attention goes to the Headline Report, it can be helpful to look at the details, revisions, and other reports to get a better gauge of what is really going on. Current Trends The jobs report showed a meager gain of 29k jobs in the month of September.

We spent years inflating assets, crushing affordability and then acted shocked when voters demanded something radical. Usually, at least once a day, I come across something on the internet that almost causes me to lose my lunch. Yesterday, it was a photo of Zohran Mamdani and Curtis Sliwa holding hands and getting flu shots together. As someone who observed the mayoral race in New York City closely, I found the spectacle disgusting on multiple levels.

Please read my disclaimer at the bottom of this post and on my “About” page carefully. You have to start to like bonds here a little, right? Here’s how I’m thinking about it. With equities, over long periods, investors generally expect annual returns of roughly 7% to 8%, albeit with plenty of volatility and drawdowns along the way.

Market breadth is deteriorating at a historic pace as yields surge, flashing huge warning signals under indexes powered by just a handful of stocks. Often quoted by me on this blog, Mark Baum in The Big Short said it best: “It is a shitstorm out here, sweetie. You have no idea the kind of crap people are pulling.