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Truth Social, the social media platform created by former President Donald Trump, has soared to the top of the Android app download charts after finally being allowed in the Google Play Store this week. Upon becoming available, Truth Social quickly launched to the top of Android’s app downloads, making it not just the top social media app, but the most popular app in the Play Store overall, according to data from Sensor Tower. Truth Social has been available for iPhone users through the App Store since February, but Google had blocked the app from its Play Store for the majority...

High inflation has captured the headlines as of late particularly as CPI recently hit the highest levels since 1981. Some are even suggesting we will face hyperinflation. However, while inflation is certainly present, the question to be answered is whether it will remain that way, or if the worst may already be behind us? To answer that question, let’s define the difference between an inflationary increase and hyperinflation. Not surprisingly, as Milton Friedman stated, “Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon. It is always and everywhere a result of too much money, of a more rapid increase of money,...

Yep, we went there and unleashed the ‘deer in headlights’ image… While most blinkered investors ignored last week’s record surge in revolving consumer credit (i.e. credit card spending), this week’s Walmart and Target earnings brought it home to the rest of the country that the “American consumer is strong” or “consumer has best balance sheet ever” narrative imploded, crashing on the shores of a gigantically lopsided and divided national aggregate that hides the reality that most of America is unable to pay the ‘cost of living’ under Bidenomics 40-year-high inflation without resorting to the plastic. Additionally, we are hearing more...

More than a month ago, we wrote why with the yen at risk of an “Explosive” downward spiral – which has since been confirmed – we explained why China may soon devalue the yuan, and a few weeks later when this latest prediction was again promptly confirmed, we wrote “Whispers Of Yuan Devaluation After Biggest Weekly Plunge Since 2015.” Fast forward to Monday, when China’s Onshore yuan’s selloff has accelerated to levels which until recently most “experts” FX strategists (with a few exceptions) said were impossible, and after breaking 6.7 per dollar for the first time since 2020 the yuan...

Stocks sank on Friday, putting the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 on pace for consecutive weekly declines, as traders weighed a raft of corporate earnings and rising interest rates. The Dow fell 846 points, or 2.4%. The S&P 500 was 2.5% lower, and the Nasdaq Composite declined by 2.4%. Friday’s loss was the biggest of the month for the Dow. Those losses put the Dow down 1.5% for the week, on track for its fourth straight weekly decline. The S&P 500 was headed for a three-week slide, and was down 2.5% week to date. The Nasdaq was the...

Americans’ credit cards are taking a beating – as was evident in the plunge in the savings rate and the surge in revolving consumer credit – to enable them to keep the dream alive and spend beyond their means and that over-reach enabled them to increase retail sales spending by 0.5% MoM – as expected in March. Notably, the rise in retail sales year-over-year is decelerating dramatically (up only 6.9% YoY – the lowest since Feb 2021)…Source: BloombergThe relative weakness was driven by a huge drop in non-store retailer sales (online) MoM leaving sales up just 1.8% YoY.However, before everyone...

The timeline for the looming stagflationary recession continues to creep forward, with the Peterson Institute for International Economics warning that global growth is set to slow dramatically, and warning that “an even more abrupt tightening of monetary policy that causes asset prices to fall sharply and consumers to pull back, combined with a greater slowdown in China than currently expected, could push the economy into recession by the end of this year.“ Last week, Deutsche Bank spooked trading desks when it became the first major bank to predict a US recession would strike before the end of 2023, echoing a...

In the latest inflationary shock – one which Biden will dutifully read from the teleprompter was entirely the fault of "PutInflation" – even if a chart of CPI in context shows otherwise… … this morning the BLS reported that headline CPI skyrocketed 1.2% (1.24% unrounded) M/M in March as energy surged 11.0% and food prices jumped 1.0% mom for a second consecutive month. The energy price moves reflect the shock from the Russia-Ukraine conflict, while food has yet to feel the impact given lagged pass-through and is likely to remain hot throughout the year. In other words, while much of...

A parking lot of vessels are waiting outside China’s largest ports as the country experiences the biggest COVID-19 outbreak in two years continues to spread amid extended lockdowns in Shanghai. Vessels carrying raw materials have increased over the last month as Shanghai’s 25 million people have been placed on lockdown, as new daily infections jumped to 26,000 on Sunday. The lockdown has shuttered factories, disrupted logistical networks, and reduced operational capacity at ports. Shipping data via Bloomberg shows 222 bulk carriers waiting off Shanghai, China’s biggest port, 15% higher than a month ago. At the Port of Ningbo-Zhoushan, there were...

Ukraine, known as the “breadbasket of Europe” given it’s long been among the world’s top ten wheat exporters and supplied over $6 billion in agricultural products to the European Union in 2020, has issued an emergency order Wednesday banning the export of grains and other products.The ban includes the export of wheat, oats, millet, buckwheat, sugar, live cattle, meat, and other products considered vital to the global economy. But amid wartime, and with Ukraine’s government saying many of its citizens are now starving under Russian siege, Ukraine’s minister of agrarian and food policy Roman Leshchenko said the drastic action was...

Don’t underestimate this fertilizer/agriculture fiasco. It is going to be far more severe and prolonged than what the vast majority has led themselves to believe.As Europe’s farmers prepare to spread fertilizers on fields after winter, sky-high nutrient prices are leaving them little choice but to use less and try to pass on the cost down the food chain.For growers of staples like corn and wheat, it’s the first time they’ve really been exposed to a fertilizer crisis fueled by an energy crunch, export curbs and trade sanctions. It now costs much more to buy chemicals needed for winter crops coming...

Another day, another contradictory economic data point.Just one business day after the latest UMichigan report showed consumer sentiment in January tumbled to the lowest level since 2011, driven in large part by the continued surge in inflation expectations which hit a whopping 5.0% for the 1-year window, the highest since 2008 and a remarkable 3.1% for the 5-10 year period, the highest since 2011 and following a relentless increase over the past two years… … moments ago the NY Fed published its own contradicting view on the critical issue of consumer inflation expectations – critical because the higher it rises,...

Whoops! How embarrassing! The CDC gave you bad advice. If you want to survive COVID, you should use the drug they said to avoid, and avoid the drug they said to use.Steve Kirsch15 hr ago Remember that “horse dewormer” that the FDA, CDC, NIH, CNN, and Sanjay Gupta all told you not to use? A new paper recently published in the Journal of the AMA (JAMA) shows that Ivermectin works way better than the COVID vaccine in keeping you from dying from COVID.This was an open-label randomized trial done in Malaysia with around 250 patients in each arm. One arm...

Geopolitical risks are on the rise in a system with no slack, and that, according to Goldman Sachs commodities research chief, Jeffrey Currie, strengthens his thesis that the case for commodities has rarely been stronger. While many commodities are fundamentally exposed to events in Ukraine, believes oil and gold provide the cleanest hedges for this geopolitical risk. First, there is clear upside skew in oil prices on both a tactical and strategic basis, with any geopolitical risk premia coming in on top of the tightest inventory levels in decades, low spare capacity and a much less elastic shale sector. If...

Many are asking why gold is not rising, as just about every other commodity makes new highs in the backdrop of inflationary tailwinds.That’s a very fair question.Some are even saying gold is dead, a silly and “barbarous” old relic of ancient times, ancient math and ancient common sense.Needless to say, we beg to differ, not because we are Swiss-based gold bugs, but simply…well… let’s explain.Current Price vs. Current and Future RolesFor those who see history and math as guides rather than “barbarous” and outdated disciplines, their convictions regarding gold’s role, and even price trajectory, do not wane or rise simply...

Something strange is going on.On one hand stocks are trading at all-time highs, levitating every day without an apparent care in the world, with traders seemingly complacent that any air pocket in the market will simply mean more accommodation by the Fed which may not taper and which, according to some, may even to more QE. On the other, traditional bear-market signals such as the CNN fear and greed indicator, are deep in neutral territory, having dipped in "fear" territory as recently as one month ago...... while the SKEW index which many view as an indicator of crash preparation, is...

[H/T Fractal Trader]Authors:Small. 2021 Jun 24; 17(25): 2101483.Published online 2021 May 14. doi: 10.1002/smll.202101483PMCID: PMC8236978PMID: 33988903Mehmet Altay Unal, 1 Fatma Bayrakdar, 2 Hasan Nazir, 3 Omur Besbinar, 1 , 4 Cansu Gurcan, 1 , 4 Neus Lozano, 5 Luis M. Arellano, 5 Süleyman Yalcin, 2 Oguzhan Panatli, 4 Dogantan Celik, 1 , 4 Damla Alkaya, 1 , 4 Aydan Agan, 4 Laura Fusco, 6 Serap Suzuk Yildiz, 2 Lucia Gemma Delogu, 6 Kamil Can Akcali, 1 , 7 Kostas Kostarelos, 5 , 8 and Açelya Yilmazer 1 , 4Author information Article notes Copyright and License information Disclaimer Associated DataSupplementary MaterialsData...

Lefties and journalists -- often one in the same, of course -- have been sharing charts on social media purporting to illustrate how much better Joe Biden's first major legislative achievement ('American Rescue Plan') will be for average Americans than Donald Trump's opening foray ('Tax Cuts and Jobs Act'). Because they appear to confirm typical partisan stereotypes designed to reflect poorly on Republicans, these have rocketed around the internet:President Trump's first major economic legislation vs. President Biden's, in @TaxPolicyCenter distributional tables: https://t.co/yq8ZNZM6Cfpic.twitter.com/x0LkoenmgF— Jim Tankersley (@jimtankersley) March 8, 2021The top 20% of households reaped 65% of benefit from Trump’s tax cuts....

Yes. We are in a stock market bubble. The only question is, what will be the issue that eventually pops it? We alluded to this answer in Friday’s #MacroView discussing why more “Stimulus Won’t Create Economic Growth.”As discussed in our previous article, if market bubbles are about “psychology,” as represented by investors’ herding behavior, then price and valuations reflect that psychology.In other words, bubbles can exist even at times when valuations and fundamentals might argue otherwise. Let me show you an elementary example of what I mean. The chart below is the long-term valuation of the S&P 500 going back...

At a time when the US just reported record numbers of new cases, some traders - and the general population - are starting to ask if the US economy faces a new round of lockdowns, especially under a Joe Biden administration (who frequently likes to remind his fans "listens to the scientists" which supposedly also includes such "experts" as Minneapolis Fed president who has been demanding a 6-week hard lockdown of the economy). As BofA summarizes, US cases have now eclipsed the July peak as with the 7-day average of new daily cases topping 68k for the first time....