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Daily Commentary

The Morning Line

Rick Ackerman’s daily market commentary — blunt, specific, and free of Wall Street spin. Browse the full archive below.

August 13, 2023

T-Bond Plunge Ahead?

Is Mr. Market about to deliver the coup de grace to bond bulls? It certainly appears that way.  They’ve been getting schmeissed regularly since a frightening few days back in March 2020.  At the time, investors were struggling to decide how covid would affect their financial lives. The wild gyrations near the top, followed by […]

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August 6, 2023

AAPL Takes the Lead…Lower

Last week’s commentary said the first big correction of 2023 had a ways to go, and that is still the case. If there were any doubts about this, Apple’s swan dive Thursday on punk Q2 earnings released after the close should have dispelled them. The most valuable stock in the world fell by nearly 5%, […]

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July 30, 2023

First Big Correction of 2023 Has a Ways to Go

My ‘Chipotle indicator’ suggests that CMG, along with other high-fliers and the broad averages, could fall by at least 27% from recent highs before the bull market resumes later this summer. We last visited the burrito vendor’s chart in early May, just after a short-squeeze powered by feverish buying speared the red line, a ‘midpoint […]

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July 23, 2023

A Few Trillion Here, a Few Trillion There…

Last week’s commentary predicted that rates on the Ten-Year Note, currently around 3.8%, will hit a minimum 5.5% before inflation lurches into reverse and the U.S. begins a hellish descent into a full-blown debt deflation. The following, insightful response came from our friend Richard Charles at Alpine Capital: Well done, Rick, for highlighting the crux […]

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July 16, 2023

5.5% Rate on T-Bonds Coming, but Then What?

Jim Grant, the financial word’s adult in the room, says the bear market in Treasury bonds could last for decades. Do the long-term charts bear him out? The one reproduced above suggests that it’s at least possible that we are in the early stages of such a move. Most immediately, the chart projects a further […]

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July 9, 2023

Few Big Winners in the Hard Times Ahead

Will the rich and powerful own everything when the global financial system collapses from too much debt? Supposedly, “they” have been plotting and preparing for this all along — even getting a new money system ready to make the takeover complete. But this theory makes no more sense than the one that puts the same […]

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July 9, 2023

Two Stories the Press Has Ignored

If you know any kids trying to break into journalism, there are two interesting stories waiting to be developed that have gotten scant attention from the mainstream media, what with all the fuss over a packet of cocaine left in the White House by you-know-who). The first concerns the collapse of America’s postal delivery system. […]

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July 2, 2023

What to Expect After an Endless ‘Fourth’

This promises to be the longest holiday ever celebrated in the U.S., eclipsing even the eight-day festival holidays that frequently pop up on the Jewish calendar. By the time you read this, the Independence Day celebration will be in its unofficial fourth day, having begun in spirit with a pronounced slowdown in the stock market […]

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June 25, 2023

We’ll Look Back Fondly on Inflation

Inflation is being crushed from the system by vastly larger forces of deflation that have been lurking for decades. Although we might have expected the trillions in funny money that were force-fed into the U.S. economy during the covid era to have a longer-lasting effect on prices, inflation never had much of a chance. With […]

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June 18, 2023

Frustrated Bear? Temporary Relief Is on the Way

When will the rampaging bull run out of steam? A good question, considering how Wall Street has been flouting a slew of good reasons for the broad averages to be at multiyear lows rather than revving up for a shot at new record highs. Two destructive juggernauts in particular are bearing down on the economy […]

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June 11, 2023

How Wall Street Thrives on Meaningless Data

The Biden Administration can count on Wall Street to celebrate meaningless economic data and bogus GDP growth with steep rallies, even as the visible economy continues to implode. It will become increasingly difficult to ignore signs of impending collapse, however, as anyone who lives in San Francisco could tell you. The city’s growing wretchedness is […]

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June 4, 2023

Crypto Scam Targets Guys’ Groins

China’s criminal class, both entrepreneurial and political, know that when you play dirty to win, it pays to distract your prey. Anyone can see that it’s working for our communist enemies, and well. That’s because they’ve settled on the one distraction that never fails when it is American men they are trying to manipulate: a […]

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