More Lines than Hunter Biden’s…

Many of today’s charts have more lines than a mirror in Hunter Biden’s bedroom.

When I started, we plotted our charts by hand using pencil and paper, updating them every day. Because of that, when we drew any lines, we had to be very economical because removing them with an eraser often meant we had to re-draw the lines we rubbed out.

Therefore, I only draw lines on my charts if they are major trend lines, even though I can easily remove them from my computer screen.

I saw some charts today with so many lines and studies that it took me a while to see much of the data. But with the abundance of indicators available today, many will say, why not use them?

A decently presented chart is a massive sales tool, and with most people following charts to make investment decisions, even a poorly plotted graph will get the message across to those you are trying to influence,

I don’t put charts on my reports because that is not the objective. Neither is it my objective to be a news service because we can leave that to Reuters and Bloomberg: or we could before they become the mouthpieces of banks and politicians.

The real problem for today’s investors is picking through the sales waffle and clickbait and finding something tangible to use.

Moreover, now that we have ChatGPT, we can only expect the amount of influencer waffle and clickbait to increase.

I have tried a few of these AI programs, which can be fun to use—much more fun than when I bought my first Alexa. But I don’t know about relying on AI to produce market commentary.

In my case, as much as I have tried, I cannot get these AI machines to replicate my poor grammar, or worse, the output is so politically correct, readers would quickly realize it wasn’t original.

If you prompt these programs to write a paragraph on Joe Biden running for re-election, they can issue a few paragraphs without causing the reader to chuckle. Now that is clever!

I tried to prompt the program to explain why five banks collapsed in the past 3-months, costing more than all the banks lost in 2008, yet the markets seem to be ignoring it. And I got a long-winded response about how strong the banks are now (?) and how well our governments and central banks control the situation. Sheesh!

Two weeks ago, I discussed the adage of selling in May and going away. Since then, I have started to sell Equities, the Euro and BTC, these trades might not all give me the result I am looking for, but as it stands, I am not uncomfortable having this short exposure.

The banking situation in the USA is in a real mess, which has caused many people to move their capital to other jurisdictions. That has underpinned the value of the Euro, and we could see more Euro strength, but I expect to see more problems in Europe coming into focus, and I believe Europe is in a worse situation than the USA. The big difference is that MAGA Republicans are going out of their way to show how badly Biden has handled the economy. At the same time, Europeans act much more reserved, especially when highlighting the difficulties, they face.

When it comes to BTC, it is so vital for everyone that BTC and cryptocurrencies manage to survive and grow after the present economic troubles play themselves out. But by the time that happens, enemies of BTC might force the industry further underground.

We can expect governments and bankers to continually undermine cryptocurrencies because they don’t want anything to get in the way of the roll-out of CBDC.

As I wrote last week, I am genuinely shocked by the lack of opposition to CBDC. But then again, outside of investment circles, the general public needs much more information about CBDC and how it will detrimentally affect everyone’s lives before they take to the streets.

It’s great to hear some opposition voices in the USA, but in Europe, opposition to these developments and open discussions are minimal.

Finally, I am continually monitoring the commodity space and wish to build a small basket of commodities, which I can hold until the third quarter when this sector will start to pick up.

I have been trading against my long precious metals position, and it would not surprise me to see a few weeks or months of weakness. But I promised myself that I would not be short of gold no matter what price it reached, and I don’t plan on breaking that promise any time soon.

Finally, an historic observation.

This week, King Charles will be crowned with the pomp and ceremony only Great Britain can create.

This is a very rare event, and probably the last Coronation with such historic reference.

Try not to miss it.

Until Next time.