Back in July, President Trump tweeted his intentions to nominate Judy Shelton to be on the board of the Federal Reserve.
And while she hasn't been formally nominated yet, her mixed-up ideas on how the Fed should operate under government control are both alarming and dangerous.
Back in July, President Trump tweeted his intentions to nominate Judy Shelton to be on the board of the Federal Reserve.
And while she hasn't been formally nominated yet, her mixed-up ideas on how the Fed should operate under government control are both alarming and dangerous.
The options market can look like an overwhelming amount of numbers and ratios at first.
But we're going to make this far less intimidating for you.
We're going to show you the single number that matters more than any other in options trading.
Not everyone likes to hear good news about the economy.
Typically, political parties out of power want to see seated opponents get clobbered by economic failure.
In this age a real, or virtual recession, could be manufactured given today's media reach and technological tools when leading to an election if even just in the minds of voters.
So, you need to ask yourself: Is a recession being manufactured right now? Who benefits from a failing economy or just pushing the recession narrative? Could a manufactured recession or incessant recession fearmongering crash the stock market? And, what would happen to you?
Since you just asked by reading those questions, I'm going to answer them for you.
Only, you're not going to like what's really happening and how bad it's going to get.
Our Tim Melvin's here to tell you that marijuana will be legal in the United States, on the federal level, most likely by the next presidential election.
At this very moment, U.S. and Chinese trade representatives are meeting in the hopes of establishing a "memorandum of understanding" against the backdrop of a potentially escalating trade war in which the United States already has a 10% tariff on over $200 billion worth of Chinese imports.
The deadline is, in theory, tomorrow, March 1. Trump, citing "good progress," has said he's willing to move the deadline for the tariff hammerblow back, though it could very well fall tomorrow.
But as of now, nothing has changed: The world's two top trading powers are hoping to avert the "mutually assured destruction" of a continuing trade war while simultaneously seeking to save face in their politicos' respective postal codes.
The United States was on the pointy end of a $375 billion trade deficit back in 2017; we imported more than $506 billion worth of Chinese products, while they imported just $130 billion of ours. It was initially easy to understand Trump's frustrations with such an imbalance.
Then again, if the United States wants to hate China for not buying enough U.S. widgets, from iPhones to blue jeans, then we should also hate U.S. CIOs at places like Apple, GE, Nike, and AT&T.
But, much better, you'll know how and when to buy into real value...
On Monday, on the eve of the "round two" denuclearization talks between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, a news story broke that Pyongyang's main nuclear reactor for making weapons-grade plutonium may still be operating.
I wasn't at all surprised.
The fact is, whenever people ask me if I think we'll be able to get North Korea to give up its nukes, I don't offer a direct response.
Instead, I send them to the "Bamboo Lounge."
That's right - I tell those folks to watch the one-minute, 40-second "introduction" scene in Martin Scorsese's classic gangster movie, "Goodfellas."
You know the scene I'm talking about.
Let me show you what I mean. Then let me show you what to do...
Last week, senators Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Bernie Sanders (D-VT) co-authored an opinion piece in The New York Times titled: "Limit Corporate Buybacks: Corporate self-indulgence has become an enormous problem for workers and for the long-term strength of the economy."
The senators said, "From the mid-20th century until the 1970s, American corporations shared a belief that they had a duty not only to their shareholders but to their workers, their communities, and the country."
I have to say the senators are right: Buybacks should be limited. They benefit too few people, who already have the advantage.
But the senators are dead wrong about buybacks' impact on workers and the wider economy.
That a bunch of D.C. insiders are wrong isn't news at all. But in this case, I'll show you the senators' prescription for fixing the problem is disingenuous at best, and a command-economy disaster at worst.
The good news is, the problem of buybacks is very fixable.
Over the past year, I've recommended some profitable direct military and defense plays for my Energy Advantage, Energy Inner Circle, and Micro Energy Trader subscribers.
The connection between energy and global geopolitics might not seem obvious, but it is very real. It's very profitable, too, as you'll see with the choice investment pick I'm going to share in a moment.
Each time I've recommended a defense or military play, energy markets have provided the reason, whether through security reasons impacting energy sources and transport, or energy technology breakthroughs that directly benefit the defense sector.
The South China Sea, "off-the-grid" power systems, North Korea, Iran - developments in all these places and more have delivered consistent profits.
No matter what side of the "aisle" you're on, we can all probably agree that American politics can get pretty taxing; some folks tune out altogether.
But the truth is, for cannabis investors, politics are vitally important because, as we've seen time and again, "when laws pass, pot stocks skyrocket." We don't have the luxury of not paying attention... and I follow the issues very closely.
As luck would have it, marijuana reform happens to be a "non-toxic," broadly bipartisan issue, with politicos across the ideological spectrum in passionate pursuit of real change.
It's a bright spot.
From Trump's conservative "right-hand man" to arch-liberal Northeastern senators, folks in D.C. and out in the rest of the country are fighting for change - change with the potential to significantly boost our bottom lines.
And with an entirely new Congress poised to enter power, things are looking better than ever...
The United States spends roughly $800 billion a year on defense; the People's Republic of China, about $146 billion. The Russian Federation lays out around $55 billion, annualized, while the Islamic Republic of Iran's military spend annualizes at $15 billion - not accounting for the crippling 13%-plus inflation it's experiencing.
Finding reliable figures for military expenditures of Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, or the tattered remnants of al-Qaeda and ISIS would be a waste of time.
It's enough to say that not a single one of these state and non-state actors can reasonably be expected to show up on our shores, "D-Day style," at any point in the near future. And if you expect any of these adversaries might come ashore, cannons blazing, in Cleveland, or San Francisco, or Austin, or Bismarck, N.D., then I respectfully submit you may be watching a little too much cable news.
And in the slightly more likely event that one of these foes were to, say, set off a dirty bomb in any of these places, it's doubtful an extra aircraft carrier would prevent it.
And yet, if the manifestly stupid, hopelessly censored mainstream media - run by just five conglomerates - were to be believed, hordes of jihadist enemies are closing in from all sides, moments away from striking.
Then again, this pale shadow of a legitimate Fourth Estate has also - just as dangerously - confused an East Coast stock bubble for real, widespread prosperity and strength.
We knew Nov. 7 was going to be a historic day for the cannabis sector - we've been saying as much in the lead-up to the midterms.
But as we've also seen, the marijuana industry moves at hyper speed. And the real post-election story was virtually impossible to predict, at least in terms of timing.
By midday Wednesday, the markets had woken up to the fact that voters in one of the most populous states, Michigan, and one of the most conservative states, Utah, had opened the door to legal marijuana in some form or another, and stocks spent a couple of hours gaining in value.
But then... it happened.
The No. 1 opponent of legal cannabis in the United States lost every ounce of his power to hold back the fastest-growing industry on the planet. Investors need to know just how important this is to the growth of cannabis as a business in the United States.
Election Day 2018 marked another resounding victory for cannabis.
At least 36 different ballot measures and elective offices across the country were in play.
From coast to coast, candidates from both parties who are on the record as favoring some form of marijuana reform were returned to office or swept into Congressional delegations, state houses, and local assemblies. These are the folks who can help move reform efforts along all over the country.
More importantly, voters in each of the three states with the most important legalization efforts (all three of which were carried by the Trump campaign in 2016, by the way) passed their referendum questions.
This isn't really a surprise - we knew going into Nov. 6 that 66% of Americans favor the legalization of cannabis for recreational use, and more than 90% want it to be legal for medical application.
Still, the results are big news for cannabis investors - and a flashing green light to folks who may yet be sitting cautiously on the sidelines.
That's because there are major benefits to adding one of the largest states by adult population, and one of the reddest "red states" to the pro-cannabis bandwagon.
The fate of the corporate tax cuts that have sent the market soaring hangs in the balance today.
Here's how the elections could affect the Dow Jones...
Legal cannabis is off to a roaring start in Canada, of course, but the next flood of big-gain potential will come to us courtesy of folks south of the border.
That's because today, voters in Colorado, Michigan, North Dakota, Utah, Missouri, Ohio, and Wisconsin will head to the polls to vote on no less than 36 major cannabis reform ballot measures.
Now, any one of these could catalyze tremendous pot-stock gains virtually overnight because, as we've seen time and again since 2014, "when laws pass, stocks soar."
But I'm most excited about the biggest of them...
Former Speaker of the House John Boehner made headlines when he announced he was going "all in" on marijuana at the American Cannabis Summit.
Now his successor, top House Republican Paul Ryan, has issued a surprise endorsement of cannabidiol.
