Category Archive: 9) Personal Investment

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Is Japan In A Death Spiral?: A Contrarian Take

2025-12-09

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2025-12-09

A day doesn't seem to go by without a market pundit asserting that Japan is in a monetary and fiscal death spiral. It's easy to come to such a conclusion given: Based on those stats and others, it's easy to see why many think it's only a matter of time before Japan's economic system collapses. … Continue reading »

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1 Million Layoffs

2025-12-08

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2025-12-08

U.S. employers have announced over 1 million layoffs this year, the highest annual total since the pandemic-era collapse in 2020. November alone saw more than 71,000 layoffs announced, keeping pressure on sectors from technology to telecoms even as the equity market pushes higher. The post below, courtesy @KobeissiLetter, details some of this year's announcements.   …

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The DPI Link To Margin Debt

2025-12-08

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2025-12-08

A recent article by Simon White, via Bloomberg, discussed the rising cost of margin debt for investors. While his analysis below compares the cost of debt to GDP, we will also consider a more critical comparison to disposable personal income (DPI). Here is Simon's point. "Yet, where history does raise a red flag is if … Continue reading...

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Bullish Case Or Bearish Backdrop

2025-12-06

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2025-12-06

🔎 At a Glance 💬 Ask a Question Have a question about the markets, your portfolio, or a topic you'd like us to cover in a future newsletter? 📩 Email: [email protected]🐦 Follow & DM on X: @LanceRoberts📰 Subscribe on Substack: @LanceRoberts We read every message and may feature your question in next week’s issue! 🏛️ … Continue...

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Jobs Data From Alternative Sources May Drive Fed’s Next Move

2025-12-05

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2025-12-05

With the federal government shutdown delaying critical economic reports, the official jobs data remains incomplete. Last week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released the September jobs report. However, the October report, originally expected earlier this month, remains in limbo, potentially permanently. The reason is due to the shutdown, as the BLS was unable to …

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5x Leverage Is Too Much Says The SEC

2025-12-05

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2025-12-05

Wall Street’s financial engineers thought they had found yet another way to turn financial markets into casinos. The gimmick this time is with 3x, 4x, and even 5x leveraged ETFs tied to individual stocks and cryptocurrencies. The SEC just ruled against these new proposals, apparently drawing the line at 2x leverage as the rules state. …

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Natural Gas Prices: Weather, Data Centers And LNG

2025-12-04

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2025-12-04

As we share below, courtesy of FinViz, natural gas prices have risen by over 50% since late October. Moreover, natural gas prices, approaching $5, are at three-year highs. The primary cause of the recent price surge is increased heating demand driven by colder-than-expected winter weather, which is resulting in greater-than-average inventory draws. Per the EIA, …

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Year-End Financial Planning Checklist: 7 Steps to Maximize Your Wealth Before December 31

2025-12-04

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2025-12-04

The end of the year tends to sneak up on people. One minute it’s late summer; the next, you’re staring at a calendar and wondering how to wrap up your financial goals before the deadline hits. A thoughtful approach can make a measurable difference in what you keep, what you owe, and how prepared you …

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Fed Regime Change: Groupthink May Be Ending

2025-12-03

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2025-12-03

Starting in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, a profound change to the Fed’s liquidity-providing role in the capital markets was underway.  We can sum up the Fed regime change with a popular quip: The Fed has shifted from lender of last resort to the lender of only resort! In our articles QE Is … Continue...

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Black Friday Sales Results

2025-12-03

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2025-12-03

Based solely on Black Friday sales data, the holiday shopping season may be decent despite poor consumer sentiment.  According to Adobe Analytics, which draws data from over one trillion retail site visits, Black Friday online sales hit a record $11.8 billion, up 9.1% from last year. Per MasterCard's SpendingPulse, retail sales, including online and in-store …

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How to Reduce Taxes on Investment Gains: Advanced Strategies for High Net Worth Investors

2025-12-02

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2025-12-02

Building wealth requires more than market awareness; it requires keeping as much of your earnings as possible. High net worth investors face steeper tax exposure, wider reporting thresholds, and more complex investment structures. Learning how to reduce taxes on investment income is one of the most effective ways to strengthen long‑term performance. Below are the …

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Overheating Financial Markets Highlight Data Centers Handicap

2025-12-02

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2025-12-02

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) trading platforms were shut down for approximately 4 hours due to overheating after its cooling system at its Illinois data center failed. The outage began around 10:00 p.m. ET on November 27, halting about 90% of global derivatives volume on the Globex platform across futures and options for equities, bonds, …

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A Bear Market Is A Good Thing.

2025-12-01

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2025-12-01

One of my favorite writers for the WSJ is Spencer Jakab, who recently penned an article explaining why a bear market is not necessarily a bad thing. He starts with a quote from "The Godfather." "“These things gotta happen every five years or so, ten years. Helps to get rid of the bad blood…been ten … Continue reading »

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HSBC Casts Doubt On OpenAI’s Future

2025-12-01

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2025-12-01

Per the Financial Times (LINK), HSBC has serious doubts about OpenAI's financial wherewithal. The following bullet points outline HSBC's assumptions, which highlight the challenging financial path OpenAI faces. The graphic below from the article shows that HSBC expects OpenAI to run a massive operating loss in the year 2030. Accordingly, they have serious concerns about …

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Year-End Rally Begins

2025-11-29

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2025-11-29

🔎 At a Glance 💬 Ask a Question Have a question about the markets, your portfolio, or a topic you'd like us to cover in a future newsletter? 📩 Email: [email protected]🐦 Follow & DM on X: @LanceRoberts📰 Subscribe on Substack: @LanceRoberts We read every message and may feature your question in next week’s issue! 🏛️ … Continue reading...

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The K Shaped Economy In One Graph

2025-11-28

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2025-11-28

Tuesday's weak Consumer Confidence report was a good reminder of why some economists are calling our economy the K shaped economy. The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index fell 6.8 points to 88.7 in November, below expectations of 93. Moreover, it sits at levels similar to those of early 2020, when the pandemic shuttered the economy. …

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TPUs Or GPUs: Is Nvidia’s Moat Eroding?

2025-11-26

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2025-11-26

Markets have priced Nvidia as the clear winner in AI chip production. To some, its moat appears impenetrable. Google's developments suggest there may be some competition. Google has been training and serving its AI platform with in-house tensor processing units (TPUs). These chips are more cost-effective and power-efficient than Nvidia’s GPUs. By using TPUs in …

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Ray Dalio Says Sell: But Not Yet

2025-11-25

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2025-11-25

Ray Dalio is considered by many investment professionals to be a market maven. This is because of the wild success of his hedge fund, Bridgewater, with assets under management of $136 billion, as well as several best-selling economics/finance books he has written. In recent times, Ray Dalio has repeatedly emphasized that markets are in a … Continue...

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Permanent Job Losers: A Worrying Facet Of Today’s Economy

2025-11-24

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2025-11-24

Given the two-month delay, Thursday's BLS employment report on September labor market conditions was not nearly as pertinent as the BLS data typically is. Despite it being old news, it is worth sharing that the number of jobs increased by 119k, but the unemployment rate ticked up from 4.3% to 4.4%. The markets didn’t seem …

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Market Bubbles: A Rational Guide To An Irrational Market

2025-11-24

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2025-11-24

We’re hearing it everywhere: AI is in a bubble. The surge in capital, the parabolic stock charts, and the bold claims from CEOs all have a familiar rhythm. Nvidia’s valuation has soared, along with AI-related startups raising billions with little to no revenue. Investment in data centers, chips, and infrastructure is happening at a scale …

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