Smoke And Mirrors: What Happens After Biden’s Economic Manipulations Disappear? Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us, There is a popular school of thought that believes most economic stability is purely psychological; that the health of the economy relies on the population NOT knowing the true state of things. In other words, “ignorance is bliss.” I partially agree with the premise but only under certain conditions. If […]

Would-Be Trump Assassin Said In Book That He Looks Forward To World War III Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com, Ryan Wesley Routh, the 58-year-old man arrested on Sunday for allegedly trying to kill former President Donald Trump, said in a book he published in February 2023 that he looked forward to World War III and hoped he could burn down the Kremlin. “I do dream of the day that we cross over into Russia and march […]

Stocks & Bonds Sold Ahead Of Fed Decision; Crypto & Crude Surge Hot retail sales print and better than expected Industrial production data are not exactly what the doves wanted to see ahead of tomorrow’s big decision (25 or 50bps). Does this look like an economy that needs rate-cuts? Source: Bloomberg To complicate things further for traders, NikiLeaks (WSJ’s Nick Timiraos) said withholding a larger cut could raise […]

Minnesota Test Scores Remain Low Despite Walz Spending Billions Authored by Eric Lundrum via American Greatness, The Democratic Party’s vice presidential nominee, Governor Tim Walz (D-Minn.), has failed to improve average test scores in his state of Minnesota despite spending billions of dollars to try to improve the state’s education system. As the Daily Caller reports, Walz previously signed a bill in 2023 that aimed to […]

Age Of Rage: 26 Million Americans Believe Political Violence Is Justified Authored by Jonathan Turley, A poll released by the University of Chicago via the Chicago Project on Security and Threats offers a chilling account of the growing radicalism in America, particularly after the second foiled assassination attempt of former president Donald Trump, the poll found that 26 million Americans believe “the use of force” is […]

War Preparations Build After 9 Killed, 2700+ Wounded In Israel’s Pager Attack On Hezbollah Update(1445ET): Official Lebanese Health Ministry figures are that nine people were killed in the simultaneous pager explosions, including a young girl, and some 2,750 wounded. The Lebanese government has identified “Israeli aggression” as being behind the attack, while Hezbollah also says it holds Israel “fully responsible”. Israel has yet […]

Nassim Taleb: People Aren’t Seeing The Real De-Dollarization Authored by Mike Maharrey via MoneyMetals.com, It’s not a “black swan” event. In fact, it’s playing out right before our eyes and was entirely predictable. The world is slowly but surely spurning the dollar.  But most people haven’t noticed. De-dollarization might seem like a wild conspiracy theory, but it is happening. Countries worldwide are trying to limit their […]

“FAA Bureaucracy Will Be The Reason We Never Become Multiplanetary!”  Does the Biden Administration have it in for Elon Musk?.. Absolutely. Last week: Biden’s FAA Punishes SpaceX, Delays Starship Rocket Launch By Months One week later, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) proposed slapping Elon Musk’s SpaceX with $633,009 in civil penalties. This time, according to the federal agency, SpaceX “allegedly failed to follow […]

Momentum Investing Gives You An Edge… Until It Doesn’t Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com, Since 2020, momentum investing has generated significantly better returns than other strategies. Such is not surprising, given the massive amounts of stimulus injected into the financial system. However, Brett Arends for Marketwatch noted in 2021 that momentum investing can give you an edge. To wit: “Its success […]

Ugly, Tailing 20Y Auction Sends Yields To Session High After last week’s solid auction which saw stellar demand no doubt on the expectation that the Fed will soon be slashing rates, moments ago we got the results of this week’s sole coupon offering: a $13 billion reopening of 19Y-11M cusip UD8, where we learned that demand for 20Y paper was far weaker than expected. Stopping at a high yield of 4.039%, the 20Y reopening yield was […]

CNN Worries That Trump Assassination Attempts Are Helping Him Politically Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news, A former Obama administration official turned CNN shit talker expressed a concern Sunday that all these pesky failed attempts to assassinate Donald Trump are helping him politically. Yes, really. Juliette Kayyem, a former Department of Homeland Security official under Obama, labelled the situation a […]

NATO Chief ‘Welcomes’ Allies Approving Attacks On Russia With Long-Range Missiles Outgoing NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg has addressed the question of the US and UK mulling allowing Ukraine to strike Russian territory with West-supplied long-range weapons. President Putin last week spelled out clearly that if this happened then Moscow and NATO would be in a state of direct war. Stoltenberg downplayed this threat of major new […]

Two Oversight Officials Fired Hours After Pointing Out Anti-Police Bias In Chicago’s Office Of Police Accountability Two members of the Chicago Civilian Office of Police Accountability were fired at the end of last month…immediately after they complained to the Inspector General about bias against police. Matt Haynam, deputy chief administrator for the Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA), responsible for […]

Freight Spend, Shipments Soft Again In August By Todd Maiden of FreightWaves August data from Cass Information Systems showed the freight market continues to trudge along what is expected to be a trough. Both shipments and freight spend stepped lower from year-ago levels. Shipments captured by the Cass Freight Index fell 1.9% year over year in August, following a 1.1% y/y decline in July. The August result came in ahead of a […]

No AI-Fueled Upgrade Supercycle? Apple iPhone 16 Discounts Offered At Major Chinese Online Retailers  For Wall Street analysts banking on new AI-powered iPhones to spark an upgrade supercycle this fall, growing evidence already points to underwhelming demand for these smartphones.  The latest development comes from China, the world’s largest smartphone market, where online retailers have already offered price discounts on the new […]

Nifty, Shifty, Grifty, Swift-y Fifty-50 By Michael Every of Rabobank Ahead of the Fed meeting, our US strategist Philip Marey has just put out an FOMC preview titled ‘Casino’ that acts as reminder that his ahead-of-the-market call of three Fed 25bps cuts this year starting in September still holds – but there is now a substantial risk of a 50bp move this week. The market has been pricing the Fed as close to a 50-50 red-black […]

Bombshell Whistleblower Report Exposes Major Security Failures In First Trump Assassination Attempt With Donald Trump now the target of two assassination attempts in two months, a new whistleblower report released by Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) has unveiled a series of alarming security lapses by the U.S. Secret Service (USSS) and other federal agencies during the attempt at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, 2024. The […]

Trump Silent On World Liberty Financial, Team Unveils WLFI Crypto Token Authored by Jesse Coghlan via CoinTelegraph.com, Donald Trump didn’t end up talking about World Liberty Financial — his family’s new crypto platform — during a so-called launch event on X, but the team eventually shared information about the project’s token. Former President Trump was interviewed by crypto influencer Farokh Sarmad in a Sept. 16 X […]

Burning Oil Tanker “Successfully Towed To Safe Area” Amid Urgent Red Sea Salvage Operation  The European Union’s Operation Aspides naval force began an urgent salvage operation to tow the burning oil tanker Sounion in the southern Red Sea to safety, with hopes of preventing an environmental disaster.  “The salvage of the MV SOUNION is a complex operation and consists of various phases. The tug boats have successfully connected […]

“All Been Hoaxes” – Ohio Governor Debunks Claims Of Bomb Threats Against Haitians Update (1330ET): Ohio Governor Mike DeWine is refusing to identify the ‘foreign actors’ who called in the majority of the hoaxes… BREAKING: Ohio Governor Mike DeWine is refusing to identify the foreign actors who called in the majority of hoax bomb threats in Springfield, Ohio. This is outrageous. The public has a right to know which foreign nations […]

US Industrial Production Is Flat YoY In August, Despite Surge In Auto Production After a significant decline in July, US Industrial Production rebounded dramatically in August, rising 0.8% MoM (as July was revised down from -0.6% to -0.9% MoM). That lifted Industrial Production back up to unchanged on a YoY basis… Source: Bloomberg Manufacturing also soared 0.9% MoM, lifting the YoY print to +0.2%… Source: Bloomberg Most […]

Meta Bans Russia’s RT From Facebook, Instagram Following Biden Admin Directive Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, has responded to the US government’s directive urging entities and nations abroad to ban all activities by Russian state broadcaster RT and other Moscow-funded networks. Meta on Tuesday announced it is booting RT from its apps globally, agreeing with the Biden administration on its charge of deceptive influence […]

US Retail Sales Better-Than-Expected Thanks To Non-Store Retailers After August’s upside surprise (+1.0% MoM, thanks to some shenanigans in the used car sales segment of the economy), US Retail Sales was expected to decline MoM (-0.2% MoM) in August (with BofA suggesting a 0.3% MoM decline). But…. just like in July, the headline retail sales print for August beat expectations, rising 0.1% MoM (with July revised up to +1.1% MoM) […]

Claudia Sahm’s Recession-Denial-Theory Flunks A Simple Data Test Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com, Claudia Sahm claims to have invented a recession indicator created by Ed McKelvey. Now she says the indicator is wrong. Let’s investigate. Data from the BLS, chart by Mish What is the McKelvey Recession Indicator? Take the current value of the 3-month unemployment rate average, subtract the 12-month low, and if the […]

US Futures At All Time High As Yields, Japan Slide Ahead Of Key Retail Sales Print US equity futures gain, and trade just shy of all time highs, led by Tech (especially Mag7 and Semis) as global markets trade higher ahead of the FOMC tomorrow as traders continue to increase probability of 50bps cut (~70% chance now) prompted by another Nick Timiraos WSJ article saying the decision between at 25 vs 50bps rate cut is complicated but […]