Daily Commentary
The Morning Line
Rick Ackerman’s daily market commentary — blunt, specific, and free of Wall Street spin. Browse the full archive below.
January 14, 2024
Reader Scott Baker took issue last week with my unsettling prediction of a deflationary bust. The mountain of debts that I believe will cause this is really no big deal, says Baker. He quotes economist Michael Hudson to back him up: “Debts that can’t be repaid, won’t be.” That certainly doesn’t sound very menacing. So […]
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January 7, 2024
The stock market is so pumped with hubris, lies and delusions that I’m beginning to doubt whether the bull market will see Microsoft rally to $430 before everything comes crashing down. I’ve been using MSFT as a bellwether because it has been the strongest megacap stock in the world for the last four years, and […]
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December 31, 2023
In these way-too-interesting times, there aren’t many publications that would trumpet a New Year’s Eve headline like the one above. It topped the front page of the South Florida Sun Sentinel, however, a tribute to the Sunshine State’s winning performance on the playing field. Two college basketball teams, University of Miami and Florida American University, […]
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December 24, 2023
[The following was written by my good friend James Trabulse. A devout Catholic, Jim regularly attends a Latin mass. He is also a gifted trader who brings rigorous science and outside-the-box thinking to nearly everything he does, including playing golf, staying healthy, cooking savory, nutritious meals and training Olympic-caliber athletes. RA ] Merry Christmas, and […]
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December 17, 2023
Most of us had been expecting gold to explode through the $2000 “barrier” and soar into the wild blue yonder. Instead, it spasmed to $2152 for a nanosecond on December 4, then crashed back down below $2000 like an anvil dropped into an elevator shaft. What happened? Gold is most certainly in a bull market, […]
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December 10, 2023
[This essay originally appeared here in July 2022 and was written by a friend who spends a lot of time thinking outside the box. His provocative thesis is that that there is a physiological basis for our political differences; moreover, he notes, liberals cancel and ghost their conservative friends for reasons that are tied to […]
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December 3, 2023
They don’t ring a bell at the top, as the saying goes, but it’s hard to see how Mr. Market can avoid it this time. The stock market’s heedless, nutty short squeeze since October will end when Microsoft hits $430, probably early in the new year. It’s that simple. How do I know this? Just […]
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November 26, 2023
AI hubris has become America’s chief source of good news. Over the past year, artificial intelligence surpassed bitcoin as mankind’s most easily imaginable pathway to quick riches, shortened work weeks, ingenious solutions to every problem, and endless satisfactions. An AI-assisted world supposedly will revolutionize the way we do business, enabling high school graduates, even mediocre […]
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November 19, 2023
Lacy Hunt, a gray eminence of the financial world and no doomsayer, was out with a Hoisington Report recently that should scare the pants off anyone concerned about the direction of the U.S. economy. His meticulously detailed take on a commercial real estate debacle that has been metastasizing for more than a year should dispel […]
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November 12, 2023
U.S. shares continued to climb a wall of well-justified worry last week, propelled with sufficient vigor to suggest new all-time highs are likely. Notice how Microsoft’s push into record territory on Friday occurred after the stock had spent nearly six months consolidating at the red line. This is a ‘midpoint Hidden Pivot’, according to our […]
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November 5, 2023
[A change of tone and tempo this week from our good friend Richard Charles, owner of Lake Tahoe-based Alpine Capital. His observations concerning gold’s historical role during periods of intense global strife should remind us that bullion’s sometimes crazy price swings should not be investors’ focus right now. RA ] With plans to attend memorial […]
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October 29, 2023
Although my technical forecasts have generally been accurate, occasional guesses about when the sky would fall have consistently underimagined the height of bullish folly. Since yet another October looks likely to pass without a stock-market crash, perhaps it’s a good time to look at the chart of Apple, an institutional proxy that is incapable of […]
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