What's the best predictor of a recession?
Economists and PhDs could debate this for days. Some claim consumer spending is the most accurate predictor. Some claim it's the labor market. And others use a bunch of indicators weighted together, like the Conference Board's Leading Economic Index.
Doc's note: The economy and stock market are still booming, but now the financial "tide" is rolling out... The Federal Reserve is now raising rates and unwinding its massive stimulus program for the first time in nearly a decade. Credit is tightening, slowly but surely.
According to my good friend and Stansberry Research founder Porter Stansberry, there's one major consequence of this that nobody ever talks about.
If you've been a long-term, buy-and-hold commodity investor for 20 years, you may not have earned a dime.
Yet... in that period, you could have made thousands of percent gains if you could have correctly traded the commodity cycle.
"Buy when there's blood in the streets."
Baron Rothschild, an 18th century British nobleman and member of the Rothschild banking family, is credited with this famous saying. Rothschild made a vast fortune when he bought during the panic right after the Battle of Waterloo against Napoleon.
Every morning, when I was growing up, my dad followed the same routine...
He'd get down his shaving brush and razor from the cabinet... He'd lather up with a soap mug... I can still remember the smell, and the ceramic mug with the Navy emblem of the USS Albany... before moving on to his double-edged safety razor...
We've turned into the "Indoor Generation." And it's killing us.
A new survey conducted for the Danish window and skylight company Velux found that on average, Americans spend 90% of their time indoors.
"Things must really be bad. Even Doc's finally getting bearish."
I've heard similar comments from readers these past few weeks. They noticed a change in my writing. It's not surprising. I've earned a reputation for my optimism on this current bull market. The only analyst more bullish is probably our own Steve Sjuggerud.
There's a lot of noise in the market right now...
On one extreme, you hear the bears advocating for the collapse of the market... Debt is too high and valuations are overstretched. On the other, the bulls think the long run-up in stocks is not over yet and we still haven't seen the final explosive phase – the "Melt Up," as my colleague Steve Sjuggerud calls it.
People tell me all the time that they're a "contrarian"...
I must admit, that makes me laugh.
Across the U.S., many of us go outside and see the same thing – sheets of pollen covering our cars every morning.
For about 50 million Americans, that only means one thing... It's the beginning of headache season.