Natural Monopoly

There is No Such Thing as a “Natural” Monopoly

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The for many years telephone services and electricity were considered “natural monopolies” and competition was prohibited by the government or you could say the dominant player was protected by the government. But then in January of 1982, the government reversed its longstanding protection of Bell Industries and broke it up into a bunch of “Baby Bells” that could compete against each other. And along came cell phones and the rest is history.

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Central Bank Digital Currency

Is it Really Paranoid to Worry about a Central Bank Digital Currency?

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Recently there has been talk about the FED creating a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). A CBDC is similar to a cryptocurrency, except that its value is set by the central bank and equivalent to the country’s fiat currency. Some countries like Venezuela have already tried a National Cryptocurrency in an effort to solve their inflation problem, but since the same guys are pulling the levers, it worked out about as well as you would expect.

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Fifth Third Bank Louisville

Commercial Banks Suffer Along With Commercial Real Estate

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This article looks at the current abysmal state of the commercial real estate market and its effects on companies like Blackstone, Fifth Third Bank, and Union Bank. With commercial real estate selling as low as $9 /sf, these companies are taking a big hit to profits as they try to sell excess real estate for less than half of what they paid for it just a few years ago. Some companies like Brookfield are simply walking away from the properties in places like downtown Los Angeles.

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NYSE Weekly 4-26-23

Big Move Coming in Stocks

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The stock market appears to be approaching an “inflection point.” Mr. Market is going to have to make up his mind… whether this is going to turn into a bullish or bearish market. At this point, it could still go either way, but the big caveat is that when it moves, the move will probably be dramatic. Looking at the following chart, we can see the two blue short-term support and resistance lines are forming a “pennant” formation. Generally, when that happens, it is like a spring being coiled up as the index gets compressed into the two lines. When it finally breaks free in one direction or the other, it is often explosive.

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Inverted Yield Curve March 2023

Stock Market Outlook – March 24, 2023

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Today Chris Ciovacco of Ciovacco Capital Management looks at the market situation in light of the bank failures. First up is the Inverted Yield Curve. We can see that it originally inverted in July of last year, when short-term interest rates moved higher than long-term rates. From there it moved steadily lower before rebounding earlier this month. So although it is still inverted it is not anywhere near as bad as it was just a few weeks ago.

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Dollar Dominance

More Cracks in U.S. Dollar Dominance

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Back in 1933, Roosevelt forced Americans to sell their gold to the government for $20.67 an ounce and then promptly raised the price to $35/oz. Thus he presided over a 69.33% gain in the value of gold which was equivalent to a 69% tax on the ownership of gold. Then at the tail end of WWII, Roosevelt pulled off the Bretton Woods agreement that made the U.S. the dominant world currency. When that began to fail Nixon cut a deal with Saudi Arabia instituting the “Petrodollar” which once again put the dollar at the top of the heap. But now some cracks are once again emerging.

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Red and Blue States

Do “Red States” Ride the “Blue State” Gravy Train?

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When Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene called (again) for “national divorce” this week, a common retort among her detractors on Twitter was to claim that so-called red states are heavily dependent on so-called blue states to pay for pretty much everything. Reporter Molly Knight claimed, for example, that “Red states get their money for roads and cops and schools from blue states. You cut off that gravy train and you e [sic] got a third world country.”

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NYSE Daily 1-23-2023

Has the Stock Market Turned Positive?

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It has been a long time since there has been any positive news for the stock market. In our January 12th, 2023, NYSE ROC report, we changed from a “Sell Signal” to a “Hold Signal” because of some positive indications in the market. Although the ROC has not yet switched to a “Buy”, we noticed a few positive indicators that could indicate either a bottom has been set or that we are in for a short-term rally. Some may call this “green shoots” in the market.

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