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Transcript UNC 010524

UNC Jan 5 Transcript

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It&rsquo;s the most dangerous time for investors since the 1930s&hellip; and new threats to your wealth appear every week.
That&rsquo;s why we created Rickards Uncensored &mdash; a weekly Zoom broadcast that takes you deeper into Jim Rickards&rsquo; research and analysis than is possible in any other format.
Each Friday, Jim, his team and special invited guests will share their absolute latest thoughts on what&rsquo;s happening in the world &mdash; helping you navigate today&rsquo;s troubled markets.
You&rsquo;ll hear from seasoned traders&hellip; retirement specialists&hellip; commodities experts&hellip; government officials&hellip; financial heavyweights&hellip; even Jim himself.
Members of this elite team predicted the 2008 housing bubble&hellip; the gold price spikes in 2010 and 2019&hellip;&nbsp; American Airlines&rsquo; bankruptcy in 2011&hellip; Donald Trump&rsquo;s election victory in 2016&hellip; the pandemic-fueled market crash in 2020&hellip; the bond collapse in 2021&hellip; and more.
So you can count on them to tell you the unvarnished truth &mdash; regardless of how controversial it may be&hellip;
They&rsquo;ll also answer viewers&rsquo; questions, ensuring you get the answers you need.
You won&rsquo;t find a better source of information on what&rsquo;s next for the global economy&hellip; and what you should do right now. Get it all in a LIVE broadcast every Friday morning.&nbsp;

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Insider trading is illegal. But that doesn&rsquo;t stop connected insiders from using their first-hand knowledge to take advantage of the market.
It can feel like you&rsquo;re always just behind the curve, only acting on news after it breaks.
But Jim Rickards' Insider Intel offers another way.
It helps you take advantage of stocks that insiders are quietly piling into.
We&rsquo;re not talking about following the paper trail that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) requires when company executives and institutions make big trades.
Instead, Jim and his team scan the markets for subtle signs of &ldquo;off the books&rdquo; trading &mdash; using the proprietary I-3 Indicator.
Once it&rsquo;s zeroed in on suspicious activity, Jim&rsquo;s team examines the macroeconomic and fundamental clues that could explain the signals.
If everything checks out, they&rsquo;ll tell you the best way for you to cash in on the expected move.

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Updates

Wall Street just gave investors whiplash.
Yesterday, the market staged its most spectacular rally since 2008, with the S&amp;P 500 rocketing up 9.5% after Trump announced his tariff pause.
Then today, stocks crashed back to earth, erasing more than half those gains despite inflation numbers coming in better than expected at just 2.4%.
It's enough to make any investor's head spin.
But amidst the chaos, one asset class is showing remarkable resilience.
Cryptocurrencies.
While traditional markets swing wildly between euphoria and despair, Bitcoin has been trading in a relatively stable range between $78,000 and $84,000.
This stability during market madness isn't happening by accident.
Something bigger is brewing beneath the surface of the crypto markets.
I call it "The Great Gain" &ndash; and it's being driven by two massive forces that are converging right now for the first time in history.
Let me explain why this could be the wealth-building opportunity of our lifetime.
<h3>An Aligned Federal Government</h3>
Yesterday, while most financial headlines were screaming about Trump's tariff pause, something equally monumental happened in Washington.
The Senate confirmed Paul Atkins as the new SEC Chairman.
Why does this matter?&nbsp;
Because it represents the final piece of Wealth Driver #1: America's first truly pro-crypto administration.
Atkins isn't just another Washington regulator.
He's a vocal crypto advocate who has built his career advising financial services firms &ndash; including many crypto exchanges and DeFi platforms.
During his confirmation hearing, Atkins made his priorities crystal clear.
Creating a "firm regulatory foundation for digital assets" would be his "top priority" as SEC chair.
This comes after the SEC has already dropped enforcement actions against major crypto players like Coinbase in recent months.
The old anti-crypto guard has officially been swept aside.
Atkins joins an administration that already includes a dedicated "Crypto Czar" (David Sacks) and a planned Crypto Advisory Council to the White House.
For the first time, the entire federal government &ndash; from the White House to the Treasury to the SEC &ndash; is aligned in support of cryptocurrency's growth.
This is Wealth Driver #1 in full force.
But here's what makes this moment truly exceptional.
Wealth Driver #1 is colliding with Wealth Driver #2&hellip;&nbsp;
<h3>The Bitcoin Halving Cycle</h3>
Last year on April 19, Bitcoin underwent its fourth "halving" &ndash; a programmed event that cuts the rate of new Bitcoin creation in half.
History shows these halvings kick off predictable bull cycles.
But here's the part most people miss.
We're currently about 12 months into this cycle. While Bitcoin gets all the headlines, it's actually the "altcoins" &ndash; cryptocurrencies beyond Bitcoin &ndash; that deliver the truly life-changing returns.
And that's where the extraordinary opportunity lies.
When you combine Wealth Driver #1 (pro-crypto administration) with Wealth Driver #2 (halving cycle momentum), you get what I call "The Great Gain."
It's a once-in-a-lifetime convergence that could dwarf previous crypto bull markets.
Think about it.
If crypto could deliver those kinds of returns while fighting against hostile regulators and skeptical institutions...
Imagine what's possible now that the entire U.S. government is actively supporting its growth.
<h3>An Extraordinary Opportunity</h3>
The smart money is already positioning itself.
While retail investors panic over daily market swings, institutional investors are quietly building their crypto positions.
They see the same signals I do.
The market uncertainty created by tariffs and trade wars actually strengthens the case for cryptocurrency as a hedge.
As Matthew Sigel, head of Digital Assets Research at VanEck, recently noted: "The White House's attempts to reorder global trade may actually be working in Bitcoin and crypto's benefit."
That's why, despite all the market chaos, I remain more confident than ever about the crypto opportunity ahead.
This isn't just another bull market.
It's The Great Gain &ndash; a rare moment when regulatory tailwinds and market cycles align to create extraordinary opportunity.
While others obsess over daily market swings, smart investors are focusing on the bigger picture.
They're positioning themselves now for the potential gains that lie ahead as these two unstoppable Wealth Drivers continue to push crypto values higher throughout the year.
In a financial world dominated by uncertainty, The Great Gain offers something precious: a clear pathway to potential wealth based on predictable cycles and concrete policy shifts.
For those who recognize this opportunity and act accordingly, the next 12 months could be truly transformative.
The Great Gain has begun.
What comes next is up to you.

With the simple mantra of &ldquo;Choose Yourself,&rdquo; James has built a massive following &mdash; helping people find new and unusual opportunities to generate inward success.
Now he wants you to achieve the next step: True financial freedom and independence.
He&rsquo;s tapping into the skills he developed as a hedge fund manager and venture capitalist to reveal every secret he&rsquo;s ever learned about building wealth.
And he&rsquo;s not alone.&nbsp;
James is connected to the biggest players in Silicon Valley and Wall Street. So he&rsquo;s hand-picked a team of investment experts and trading superstars to create Altucher&rsquo;s Investment Network &mdash; connecting you directly to their wealth of knowledge.
You&rsquo;ll learn tips for navigating Wall Street&hellip; personal finance strategies.. and tricks to boost retirement income. The team will also tell you specific ways to get ahead of hot investment trends like AI, cryptocurrencies, biotech, cybersecurity and driverless cars.
With Altucher&rsquo;s Investment Network, you&rsquo;ll have the tools to start building a personal financial fortress to live a life of abundance and true financial well-being.

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The Great Gain: While Markets Crumble...

Miscellaneous

I&rsquo;m Byron King, senior geologist for Jim Rickards.
I&rsquo;ve been working with Jim on various publications for many years and have crisscrossed the globe in search of the world&rsquo;s best mining investment opportunities. You could say I have gained Jim&rsquo;s trust by being out in the field and reporting back on the latest intel in the precious metals and energy markets.
That&rsquo;s why I&rsquo;m reporting on something Donald Trump did recently that most investors missed.
Trump signed an executive order that fast-tracks the federal permitting process to mine our mineral-rich Federal lands. And that&rsquo;s a big deal. Why?
Because for many decades, America has been sitting on a $150 trillion fortune. But it&rsquo;s been locked up by bureaucrats and anti-development regulation.
Now, though, and for the first time in several generations, the government is going to monetize America&rsquo;s real, physical wealth. Not just with things like our nation&rsquo;s gold reserves. But with all the priceless metals and resources hidden under the surface on our Federal lands.
Investors like you who tap into these minerals right now could become wealthier than you ever imagined. In fact, this secret store of wealth is so valuable, it could turn every legal U.S. citizen into a millionaire. This is your American birthright in action!
Thanks in large part to President Trump.
How did we get to this point? Let&rsquo;s look at a map&hellip;
<h2 class="subhead nbp">Along Came Trump</h2>
Now, I don&rsquo;t work for President Trump, and he doesn&rsquo;t call me on the phone to discuss policy. But I can think of two key drivers behind his efforts to unleash your American birthright.
First, look at the 2024 presidential electoral map, especially by county. Trump won the American heartland big-time.

<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/68VMcANdOztTIK7Z1Kw8xa/04b36e657e0ff8e0f6ed75bd18583aeb/awn-update-04-02-25-img-1.jpg" width="300px" />

2024 presidential electoral map by county. Courtesy Washington Post.
Trump wrapped up his win for president based on solid wins across the industrial Midwest, from Western Pennsylvania through Ohio and Michigan, over to Wisconsin. And while Trump lost overall in states like Illinois and Minnesota based on the urban vote, look at the rest of those jurisdictions. In suburban and rural areas where many current (and former) mines, mills, and factories are located, voters casted ballots for Trump.
Right away, you can see where the working-class vote came out for Trump. People voted for jobs, jobs, and jobs, and that point was central to Trump&rsquo;s message. So anymore, when he talks about opening up America for renewal &ndash; the MAGA message, if not an American birthright &ndash; he reflects the desires of his voter base.
Another angle on Trump&rsquo;s policies goes back to 2020, early in the pandemic. People realized that the U.S. no longer manufactures most of its medical products and supplies. Then (and even now), America imported massive quantities of items from overseas, especially China.
In other words, it dawned on many that the country&rsquo;s medical supply chain relied on third-party foreign players. From antibiotics to pacemakers, blood thinners to bandages and much more, most U.S. medical products originated from abroad (eg, China and India), and still do in many instances. Or there&rsquo;s the issue that the items may be manufactured domestically but with precursor chemicals from abroad. Right away, this became a national security issue.
Meanwhile, we&rsquo;re now in the fourth year of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and one glaring takeaway is that the U.S. lacks a sufficient industrial base to supply and resupply its military. Examples are legion and range from the inability to mass-produce ammunition like artillery shells and missiles, to the glacial pace of output for aircraft, ships, submarines and more, including the latest battlefield development, drones.
Arguably, the U.S. is a superpower only in a legacy sense, meaning that war reserve warehouses are filled with equipment and ammunition produced long ago, in factories that are no longer there; or if they&rsquo;re still there, they have limited capacity.
Looking ahead, what if the U.S. had to fight a real war? Well, America is no longer that so-called &ldquo;Arsenal of Democracy&rdquo; you read about in history books. We have a strategic-level problem on our hands that the Deep State perma-bureaucrats in Washington do not want to publicize and overly highlight. Hey, they don&rsquo;t care, and their paycheck always comes on time, right?
But the national security issue is real and absolutely concrete. Military power is the first derivative of industrial power, and Trump wants rapidly to rebuild U.S. industry to reenable military strength. Of course, people write long books about these topics, and this is only a newsletter article.
What do all these industrial goals have in common? The country needs minerals and metals in manufacturing, whether it&rsquo;s for medical or military use. This is a framework through which to understand what we see with Trump and his policies.
The Man from Queens wants to open up America, to permit people to invest and reinvest in basic resources and wealth creation. He wants this land to be more for you and me to share the wealth, not just the special interests.
<h2 class="subhead nbp">What Does It Mean to You?</h2>
What should you do as an investor? The short answer is to invest in American companies that will benefit from Trump opening up federal lands, reducing regulations on development, and moving to reshore industry. That is, own hard assets like energy and resources, plus of course, precious metals.

Jim Rickards&rsquo; Strategic Intelligence is designed to help you prepare and profit from the coming collapse of the dollar.
It&rsquo;s masterminded by Jim Rickards, New York Times bestselling author of the The Road to Ruin, Currency Wars, The Death of Money, The New Case for Gold and more.
He&rsquo;s spent over 40 years in investment banking, international economics, political and national intelligence advisory roles. As adviser on international economics and financial threats to the Department of Defense and the U.S. intelligence community, he served as a facilitator of the first-ever financial war games conducted by the Pentagon.
To safely guide your investments, Jim has developed a revolutionary way of looking at the financial system and stock markets. He calls it &ldquo;complexity theory,&rdquo; which has been used by government intelligence agencies but never applied to the financial world.
Jim will use this theory to help you build safe investment positions in stocks, bonds, cash, art, land, precious metals and other hard assets.&nbsp;
You can get Jim&rsquo;s research every month &mdash; with weekly email updates &mdash; in Jim Rickards' Strategic Intelligence.

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Tap Trump’s $150 Trillion American Birthright Fund Now

What is the Mar-a-Lago Accord? And what would a Mar-a-Lago Accord mean for the value of the U.S. dollar?
We begin our analysis with the name itself. Mar-a-Lago Accord is an echo of the three major international currency accords since the original Bretton Woods Agreements reached in 1944.
<h2 class="subhead">Accords Through The Years</h2>
The first was the Smithsonian Agreement in December 1971. This came in the aftermath of President Nixon&rsquo;s decision on August 15, 1971, to end the convertibility of U.S. dollars into physical gold by U.S. trading partners at the fixed rate of $35.00 per ounce. The major countries in the global system (U.S., UK, France, Germany, Italy, Japan Netherlands, Sweden Switzerland, Canada, Belgium, and Netherlands) met at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC to decide how to reopen the gold window.
The main U.S. goal was to devalue the dollar. In the end, the price of gold was increased by 8.5% to $38.00 per ounce (revalued to $42.22 per ounce in 1973), which equaled a 7.9% dollar devaluation. Other currencies were revalued against the dollar, including a 16.9% upward revaluation of the Japanese yen.
The effort to reopen the gold window failed. Instead, major countries moved to floating exchange rates, which remains the norm to this day. Gold moved to free market trading and is currently about $3,050 per ounce. That gold price represents a 98.8% devaluation of the dollar measured by weight of gold since 1971.
The period from 1971 to 1985 was tumultuous in foreign exchange markets including the Petrodollar agreement (1974), the Herstatt Bank collapse (1974), the sterling crisis (1976), U.S. hyperinflation (50% from 1977-1981), a gold price super-spike (1980), and a major global recession (1981-1982). By 1983, inflation was subdued, the dollar was gaining strength, and strong economic growth was achieved in the U.S. under Ronald Reagan.
The next major economic gathering on foreign exchange was the Plaza Accord in September 1985. This was convened by U.S. Treasury Secretary James Baker at the Plaza Hotel in New York and included the U.S., Germany, the UK, Japan and France. At the time, the dollar was at an all-time high relative to other currencies. The dollar had even strengthened against gold, which had dropped in price from $800.00 per ounce in January 1980 to around $320.00 per ounce in 1985.
The purpose of the meeting was to devalue the dollar in stages. In this respect, the meeting was a success. Importantly, the method of devaluation was to be gradual and it was to be accomplished by central bank and finance ministry interventions in the foreign exchange markets. It was not a fiat devaluation; it was a finesse.
In practice, the market interventions were quite few. Once foreign exchange traders got the message, they took the dollar where it needed to go on their own. No foreign exchange dealer wanted to be on the wrong side of the trade if the central banks decided to intervene on any particular day.
The Louvre Accord, signed on February 22, 1987, among the U.S., UK, Canada, France, Japan and Germany was, in effect, a victory lap following the Plaza Accord. Between 1985 and 1987, the dollar did devalue against other currencies. The dollar also fell against gold, which rose from $320 per ounce to $445 per ounce by the time of the meeting. It was mission accomplished for Treasury Secretary James Baker. The purpose of the Louvre Accord was to lock down the accomplishments of the Plaza Accord, stop further dollar depreciation, and return to a period of relative stability in foreign exchange markets.
This accord was also a success. The dollar was mostly stable after 1987, despite the introduction of the euro in 2000 (the euro bounced between $0.80 and $1.60 in the early 2000s. Today it&rsquo;s $1.09, which is not far from its original valuation of $1.16).
The other wild card was gold. After hitting bottom at around $250 per ounce in 1999, gold surged to $1,900 per ounce in 2011, a 670% gain for gold and a de facto devaluation of the dollar when measured by weight of gold. The period of relative stability in foreign exchange markets lasted until 2010 when a new currency war was unleashed by President Obama.
<h2 class="subhead">A New Mar-A-Lago Accord</h2>
Which brings us to discussion of a possible new international monetary conference in the chain of conferences from the Smithsonian Agreement to the Plaza Accord to the Louvre Accord. Given Donald Trump&rsquo;s dominance on the world economic scene today and his love of ornate architecture of the kind seen at the Plaza Hotel and the Louvre (Trump owned the Plaza Hotel from 1988 to 1995),it&rsquo;s not a stretch to expect that Trump would convene any new world monetary conference at his equally ornate Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida.
The first discussion of a Mar-a-Lago Accord appears in Chapter Six of my book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Aftermath-Secrets-Wealth-Preservation-Coming/dp/0735216959/ref=sr_1_1">Aftermath</a> (2019), published six years ahead of current attention to the topic. That chapter is titled &ldquo;The Mar-a-Lago Accord&rdquo; and contains extensive discussion of the evolution of the international monetary system starting in 1870, including the more recent accords noted above.
It then moves through my private meetings with IMF head John Lipsky and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner with a focus on a possible new gold standard and the attempted replacement of gold by the Special Drawing Right (SDR), created in 1969 and used among IMF members ever since. It ends with the classic 1912 quote from Pierpont Morgan that, &ldquo;Money is gold, and nothing else.&rdquo; and recommends that investors acquire physical gold for their portfolios. The dollar price of gold has risen 120% since that recommendation.
Today&rsquo;s vogue in Mar-a-Lago Accord research began with a November 2024 <a href="https://www.hudsonbaycapital.com/documents/FG/hudsonbay/research/638199_A_Users_Guide_to_Restructuring_the_Global_Trading_System.pdf">paper</a> written by Stephan Miran titled &ldquo;A User&rsquo;s Guide to Restructuring the Global Trading System&rdquo;, published by Hudson Bay Capital. Although the title refers to the trading system, it explains how currency devaluation can be used to offset the impact of tariffs and refers to &ldquo;persistent dollar overvaluation.&rdquo;
From there, it&rsquo;s a short leap to the ghost of the Plaza Accord and the need for a new Mar-a-Lago Accord. (Shortly after the paper was published, Trump appointed Miran as Chair of his Council of Economic Advisors, which gives his views added weight).
<h2 class="subhead">Issuance of 100-Year Bonds</h2>
In the currency section of the paper (pages 27-34), Miran not only suggests a devaluation of the dollar; he proposes that the U.S. issue 100-year bonds. In Miran&rsquo;s view, 100-year bonds will be attractive to foreign reserve managers and will reduce any dollar selling needed to prop up their own currencies. Those long-term dollar holdings will mitigate short-term dollar devaluation in a way that moves the entire international monetary system toward a desirable equilibrium. Miran specifically uses the term Mar-a-Lago Accord to describe his proposed system.
There are many more technical details in Miran&rsquo;s plan that we don&rsquo;t have room to discuss in this article. These include use of the Treasury&rsquo;s Exchange Stabilization Fund, the Fed&rsquo;s Bank Term Funding Program, and Fed currency swap lines. Miran also suggests using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (IEEPA) to impose withholding taxes on interest payments to foreign holders of Treasury securities (a form of capital controls) as a way to discourage trading partners from holding Treasuries and therefore a way to devalue the dollar.
Trading partners would be evaluated using a traffic-light system. Countries would be ranked green (friendly), yellow (neutral) and red (adversary). Green countries would get U.S. military protection and the most favorable tariffs, yellow would get reciprocal tariffs, and red countries would get no security help, punitive tariffs and possible capital controls.
<h2 class="subhead">A Financial Catastrophe in the Making</h2>
In effect, Miran is trying to have it both ways. He wants to devalue the dollar and at the same time keep the dollar at the center of the International Monetary System. Nixon did this in 1971 and Baker did it in 1985. With regard to Miran, one cannot resist a paraphrase of Lloyd Bensen &ndash; &ldquo;Stephan, you&rsquo;re no Jim Baker.&rdquo; The success of the Plaza Accord depended entirely on close cooperation of the major country finance ministries. No such cooperation exists today given sanctions on Russia, tariffs on China and the U.S. isolation of the EU with respect to the War in Ukraine.
Since Miran&rsquo;s paper, the topic has spun completely out of control. A recent MarketWatch <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/wall-street-cant-stop-talking-about-the-mar-a-lago-accord-heres-how-the-currency-deal-would-work-f8fbbda0">headline</a> says &ldquo;Wall Street can&rsquo;t stop talking about the &lsquo;Mar-a-Lago Accord.&rsquo;&rdquo;Some analysts propose that gold on the Federal Reserve&rsquo;s balance sheet (actually a gold certificate) would be revalued from $42.22 per ounce to the market price (now $3,050 per ounce) with the &ldquo;profit&rdquo; added to the Treasury General Account. Another idea is to use U.S. assets such as land and mineral rights to collateralize U.S. debt.
As of now, no one knows what a Mar-a-Lago Accord would actually be or whether it will even happen, so it&rsquo;s impossible to describe the impact. Still, the best-known version of plan would have unintended consequences that could lead to a global financial catastrophe.
There&rsquo;s no need to force holders to swap short-term debt for long-term debt. You simply let the short-term debt mature and replace it with new 100-year bond issues through the existing primary dealer underwriting system. No coercion is needed; there would be huge demand for 100-year debt.
Dollar devaluation does not fight potential inflation from tariffs (there isn&rsquo;t any). It actually causes inflation by increasing the cost of imported goods. Any gold price mark-up on the Fed&rsquo;s books is simply an accounting entry. The suggested &ldquo;audit&rdquo; of Fort Knox by Trump and Elon Musk (if it happens) will be nothing more than a staged photo-op. Gold has a world price entirely unaffected by accounting games between the Treasury and the Fed.
Again, the Mar-a-Lago Accord as it&rsquo;s envisioned today would cause a global financial crisis. That&rsquo;s because it fails to understand the importance of short-term Treasury debt as collateral for inter-bank lending and derivatives. Substituting 100-year Treasury debt for short-term Treasury bills would make those bills scarce. Treasury bills are the most liquid collateral in the world and are at the root of the Eurodollar system and the $1 quadrillion derivatives market. Scarcity of Treasury bills would implode bank balance sheets and lead to the greatest banking crisis in history.
The big winner in this context is gold. The BRICS are moving toward gold as fast as they can. Investors can do the same. Don&rsquo;t be left behind.

Soaring resource costs&hellip; crashing stock prices&hellip; chaos on Wall Street&hellip;
Today&rsquo;s markets may seem more unpredictable than ever.
But drawing on his experience with the Central Intelligence Agency, Jim Rickards has developed a system for pinpointing the best times to enter and exit a trade.
It reveals the exact cross-section where you have enough good information to be smart AND still have time to effectively act.&nbsp;
And while the U.S. government has been using this system to predict geopolitical events for decades, Jim is the first to apply it to the investment markets.
He calls it the &ldquo;Kissinger Cross&rdquo; strategy&hellip; and it&rsquo;s only available in The Situation Report with Jim Rickards.
Jim and his team use it to detect big moves in gold, energy, currencies and commodities before they happen. Then it&rsquo;s just a matter of pairing that knowledge with the right trades &mdash; for chances to quickly multiply your money.
So don&rsquo;t be a victim of Wall Street&rsquo;s sudden ups and downs.
With The Situation Report with Jim Rickards, you can harness the power of the &ldquo;Kissinger Cross&rdquo; strategy &mdash; for a chance at big profits from gold, energy, currencies and commodities.

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A Financial Catastrophe in the Making

This could be the best spot to get into AI stocks in years.
And if you've been waiting on the sidelines, this might be your last chance to get in before the next massive leg up.
AI names have traded way lower this year.
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) is down 42% from last year&rsquo;s all time highs.
Dell Technologies (DELL)? Almost cut in half, down 45%.
Even the mighty Nvidia Corp (NVDA) is down 21% from last year&rsquo;s all time highs.
Investors have been worrying that the AI boom might be cooling, and that worry has shown up in AI hardware companies going lower.
But Nvidia's GTC conference yesterday turned that fear upside down in spectacular fashion.
This is exactly what James talked about in Austin last week during our Tech Turning Point 2025 event.
He said AI is a transformative technology that's rapidly evolving and creating significant investing opportunities.
And guess what? He&rsquo;s right.
If you've been holding NVDA or other AI stocks through recent volatility, yesterday was your vindication moment.
We have a unique opportunity right now.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang was on stage yesterday in his trademark leather jacket. And he revealed something that changes everything about AI investing&hellip;
The computational demands of next-generation AI are going to be much, much greater than what anyone anticipated just a year ago.&nbsp;
"The amount of computation we need is easily a hundred times more than we thought we needed this time last year," he said.

<img class="alignleft" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/27TFhkGKRPSewzsBmWRezJ/643bfa0d94a57e5c005208c07b07260c/ALN-Alert-03-19-25_1_.png" alt="Click here to learn more" width="200" align="none" />

This isn't just another product announcement or incremental upgrade. This is Nvidia essentially saying: "That massive AI build-out you thought was happening? Multiply it by 100."
That&rsquo;s Nvidia math!
<h3>The Reasoning Revolution</h3>
So what's driving this massive increase in demand?
It's what Jensen calls "reasoning AI" &ndash; artificial intelligence that doesn't just blurt out an answer based on pattern matching, but actually works through problems step by step.
In one demonstration, Nvidia showed how a traditional AI could solve a complex problem using 439 "tokens" (the building blocks of AI responses). The answer came quickly but was wrong.
The new reasoning AI took nearly 9,000 tokens to solve the same problem &ndash; it tested different approaches, checked its answers, and arrived at the correct solution. But it required 20X more processing power.
This shift to reasoning AI is transforming the entire industry. Think of it as the difference between a calculator and a mathematician.
A calculator gives instant answers but can only handle what it's been programmed for. A mathematician takes longer but can tackle novel, complex problems.
<h3>Beyond GPU Shortages</h3>
For investors, this has massive implications.
First, remember all the talk about GPU shortages ending? Forget it. We're entering a new phase of AI that will drive unprecedented demand for computing power.
Second, Nvidia isn't just upgrading its chips &ndash; it's completely reimagining how AI computing works. Their new Blackwell system delivers 25X more performance than its predecessor using the same amount of power.
Remember when Nvidia&rsquo;s Hopper GPUs were the hot stuff?
Jensen openly mocked his own previous generation hardware, saying "when Blackwell starts shipping in volume, you couldn't give Hoppers away."
That's how fast the technology is advancing.
<h3>"Nvidia Math" Changes Everything</h3>
Nvidia has become so dominant that they're literally changing how the industry measures computing power. They're measuring differently, counting differently, and building differently &ndash; all to support the massive scale needed for this new generation of AI.
The company unveiled a roadmap through 2027 showing each generation providing exponentially more power, culminating in systems 900 times more powerful than today's top chips.
Perhaps most significant for investors: Nvidia is no longer talking about data centers, but "AI factories."
These aren't traditional facilities &ndash; they're specialized buildings designed from the ground up to generate AI tokens. Jensen projects that AI factory build-out will reach $1 trillion soon, creating enormous opportunities across the entire supply chain.
From liquid cooling systems to specialized integration services, from new memory technologies to advanced silicon &ndash; the entire ecosystem is being transformed.
This isn't just another chip cycle. It's the beginning of what will likely be the defining wealth-creation opportunity of our lifetime.
When something you want goes on sale, you buy.
Right now, AI is on sale.
Wall Street is still catching up to what this means. But for those who understand the implications, the opportunity has never been clearer.

Why “Nvidia Math” Is Going To Make Us Rich

First, a technical point. Donald Trump&rsquo;s address to a joint session of Congress last night was not strictly speaking a State of the Union address. There is a requirement in the U.S. Constitution, Article II, Section 3, Clause 1 that the president will periodically &ldquo;give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.&rdquo; The speech is usually given in January or February based on an invitation to the president extended by the speaker of the House.
Custom and practice dictate that the State of the Union address is given only after the president has been in office for a year. It&rsquo;s something like a report card on how things are going and what comes next. This means Donald Trump&rsquo;s first State of the Union address in his second term of office will take place early in 2026.
Ronald Reagan began the practice of a newly inaugurated president addressing a joint session of Congress in the first year of his term in 1981, but he refrained from calling the speech a &ldquo;State of the Union.&rdquo; Subsequent presidents have continued the Reagan practice. That&rsquo;s what Trump did last night. Still, it&rsquo;s an important speech and we followed it closely. It was called Trump&rsquo;s address to a joint session of Congress.
As an aside, presidents did not deliver a State of the Union address to Congress in person from 1801 to 1913. Instead they fulfilled their constitutional obligation by delivering a written report. Woodrow Wilson revived the practice of delivering the speech in person. Future presidents are unlikely to abandon that practice. The platform is too big and the audience is huge. It&rsquo;s exactly the kind of environment in which Trump thrives.
<h2 class="subhead">Trump&rsquo;s Address: A Review</h2>
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson presided over the speech. He was seated on the podium next to Vice President JD Vance, acting in his capacity as president of the U.S. Senate. President Trump stood in front of them facing the cameras and the world.
On the House floor, in addition to the members of Congress, were the Justices of the Supreme Court, members of Trump&rsquo;s cabinet and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. First Lady Melania Trump and members of the Trump family were seated in the House gallery. Elon Musk, head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was also in the gallery. It was a rare gathering and rare display of practically unlimited power in one room. Trump reached the podium to continuous applause and chants of &ldquo;USA! USA! USA!&rdquo;
<h2 class="subhead">The Democrats: A Shameful Display</h2>
After the initial salutations, Trump turned to the Democratic side of the House floor and asked Democrats to join him and the Republicans in an effort to make America a better place for all Americans. Then he said, in effect, that he knew the Democrats would not cooperate and would not even listen to his speech. With that done, he turned to the Republican side of the House and delivered one of the most powerful and partisan speeches ever delivered in U.S. history.
Trump pulled no punches and gave no ground to his opponents. It was like a campaign speech but it was not filled with promises. It was filled with accomplishments. It was a litany of just how many concrete actions Trump and his team had taken in a mere 43 days.
Trump punctuated the speech with rallying cries including, &ldquo;America is back!&rdquo; and &ldquo;Our spirit is back, our confidence is back.&rdquo; He said, &ldquo;The American dream is unstoppable.&rdquo; And &ldquo;The Golden Age of America has only just begun.&rdquo; He then claimed, &ldquo;We have accomplished more in 43 days than most administrations accomplish in four years &hellip; and we are just getting started!&rdquo; All true.
Importantly, Trump emphasized that he had a mandate to do exactly what his administration is doing. Trump pointed out that, &ldquo;We won all seven swing states giving us an Electoral College victory of 312 votes. We won the popular vote. We won the counties 2,700 to 525.&rdquo; All of these claims were true.
Democrats booed and yelled from their seats, but Trump kept going. Trump pushed back on the Democrats by saying, &ldquo;America has given us a mandate for profound and bold change.&rdquo; And &ldquo;The days of rule by unelected bureaucrats are over.&rdquo; Trump rounded out the opening of the speech by saying, &ldquo;The first month in our presidency &hellip; is the most successful in the history of the nation.&rdquo; His mandate is real and it&rsquo;s powerful despite Democrat jeers.
Almost from the beginning, Democrats were rude and highly disruptive. They stood and yelled. Their behavior was not the usual dissent but something much closer to an effort to shut down the speech. This was dumb politics but not surprising coming from Democrats. They have learned nothing from their defeat and still have nothing to offer but name-calling and unhinged rants.
Democrats waved paddle signs with slogans such as, &ldquo;Musk Steals&rdquo; &ldquo;That&rsquo;s a lie,&rdquo; &ldquo;False,&rdquo; and the like. Some members walked out of the House during the speech wearing black shirts that said &ldquo;Resist.&rdquo; Pathological liar Adam Schiff sat stone-faced. Bernie Sanders was seen gritting his teeth. Trump called Elizabeth Warren &ldquo;Pocahontas&rdquo; while referring to her support for more killing in Ukraine.
Dem behavior soon got so out of hand that the Speaker of the House directed the Seargent-at-Arms to physically remove Democratic Representative Al Green from the House chamber. Green may have thought he was making a point, but all he did was embarrass himself and his party. Trump put a stop to the disruption by declaring, &ldquo;The people elected me to do the job and I&rsquo;m doing it.&rdquo; The Democrats were mostly silent after that.
<h2 class="subhead">A Common Sense Revolution</h2>
Trump did not shy away from saying exactly what he thought of Joe Biden and the Biden administration. He referred to Biden as &ldquo;the worst president in American history.&rdquo; He pointed out that Biden had released &ldquo;murderers into our country.&rdquo; Trump highlighted the gross incompetence and needless deaths of American military in the disgraceful withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. He concluded by saying, &ldquo;It was a failed administration.&rdquo;
Trump spent nearly an hour going through his administration&rsquo;s accomplishments in the brief time he has been in office. This list is too long to go into detail here, but it included a freeze on new hiring, a freeze on all foreign aid, withdrawal from the &ldquo;Green New Scam,&rdquo; withdrawals from the Paris Climate Accord, the &ldquo;corrupt&rdquo; World Health Organization, and the anti-Semitic UN Human Rights Organization (which funds Hamas).
The president went down an expansive list of key policy moves. Trump ended electric vehicle mandates, signed an order making English the official language of the United States, renamed the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America and renamed Mount McKinley from its Obama-named Denali.
Trump recited the fact that he had ended DEI policies, removed the &ldquo;poison of critical race theory from our schools,&rdquo; and signed an executive order banning men from women&rsquo;s sports. Trump said, &ldquo;There are only two positive genders &ndash; male and female&rdquo; and he promised that &ldquo;Our country will be woke no longer.&rdquo; Trump then proclaimed a &ldquo;common sense revolution.&rdquo;
Trump continued a tradition of recognizing invited guests seated in the House gallery who personify certain admirable behavior, talents or accomplishments that exemplify the administration&rsquo;s goals and policies. Among those guests was Riley Gaines, a highly competitive college swimmer who lost a women&rsquo;s championship race to a man posing as women. Riley Gaines became a leader in the national movement to ban men from women&rsquo;s sports, which Trump has now implemented by executive order and with proposed legislation.
Other gallery guests who received recognition included Peyton McNabb, an outstanding volleyball player whose career was ended when she was smashed in the face by a volleyball spiked by a man pretending to be a woman. The sister and mother of Laken Riley who was brutally beaten, raped and murdered by an illegal immigrant were in attendance in recognition of Trump&rsquo;s signing of the Laken Riley Act requiring the detention of illegal alien criminals so they cannot roam the streets.
Other guests included Robert Ortiz, a border patrol officer who risked his life in a gunfight to protect a fellow officer, Stephanie Diller, wife of an NYPD officer killed by a criminal with over twenty prior arrests, Marc Fogel, an American hostage in Russia who was released through Trump&rsquo;s efforts and the family of Corey Comperatore, a fireman killed during the attempted assassination of Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania. All were either heroes or family members of innocent victims of illegal aliens or criminals.
The most touching moment was when DJ Daniel was recognized. DJ is a 13-year-old brain cancer survivor whose ambition is to be a police officer. Trump announced from the podium that DJ was now officially a member of the Secret Service. The head of the Secret Service presented DJ with his badge and ID live from the gallery. The applause was sustained, yet even at this joyful moment the Democrats just sat on their hands.
One of the best lines of the evening was when Trump explained that the Democrats had insisted on legislation to fix the border. Trump said we didn&rsquo;t need legislation. &ldquo;All we really needed was a new president.&rdquo;
On a forward-looking basis, Trump promised to end income tax on tips, overtime and Social Security benefits. He said he would make interest on car loans tax deductible &ldquo;but only if the car is made in America.&rdquo; He called for the death penalty for anyone who murders a police officer. He said he would &ldquo;resurrect the U.S. commercial shipbuilding industry.&rdquo;
Trump pointed out that over $1.7 trillion of new investment in the United States has been announced since he was sworn in including $500 billion from Apple, and hundreds of billions from Taiwan Semiconductor and Honda Motors.
On foreign policy and national security, Trump said categorically that &ldquo;My administration will be reclaiming the Panama Canal, and we&rsquo;ve already started doing it. &hellip; The Carter administration gave it away for $1.00 &hellip; We&rsquo;re taking it back&rdquo;
With regard to the people of Greenland, Trump said, &ldquo;We strongly support your right to determine your own future and if you so choose, we will welcome you to the United States.&rdquo;
On Ukraine, Trump simply said, &ldquo;It&rsquo;s time to stop this madness, time to stop the killing.&rdquo;
Trump&rsquo;s vision extended beyond planet Earth. He promised, &ldquo;&ldquo;We&rsquo;re going to plant the American flag on the planet Mars and even far beyond.&rdquo;
There was even more to the speech than we have time to capture here. It was a political and historical tour de force.
Perhaps what was most remarkable about the speech was not any particular policy proposal but Trump&rsquo;s overall demeanor. Trump is 78, just three years younger than Joe Biden, but their presentation styles could not be more different. Biden tripped up stairs, fell off his bicycle and could barely walk in the sand toward his favorite beach chair. He mumbled words, did not know where he was, rigged his press conferences (which were few) and showed every sign of steep cognitive decline.
Trump was vigorous and crisp in his delivery of the speech. Regardless of your views on Trump&rsquo;s policies, he showed stamina, mental toughness and a clear grasp of the issues. We all get older but we do not show signs of age at the same pace. Trump has the strength and focus of a much younger man. That&rsquo;s important. He&rsquo;ll need that focus to fend off the continual attacks of the Deep State, the legacy media and the Biden-Obama appointed Federal judges standing in the way of his policies.
The speech lasted almost two hours and Trump&rsquo;s energy and tempo seemed actually to increase as the night went on. Trump&rsquo;s presentation in this address to the joint session of Congress shows he has the strength to see things through and the determination to do so.
<h2 class="subhead">Trump Gets The Last Laugh</h2>
Finally, we can&rsquo;t pass up the opportunity to share a bit of reporting on the speech from Byron York of the Washington Examiner. In his pre-speech column, he reminded readers that after Trump&rsquo;s 2020 State of the Union address, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who was in plain view of the world audience, took her copy of the speech, tore it up in a flamboyant fashion and lightly tossed it in the air.
It was a conspicuous insult to Trump and took place the night before the Senate was going to vote to remove Trump from office based on the impeachment of Trump that Pelosi had engineered. Pelosi embarrassed herself and the House by taking a cheap shot at Trump in an effort to damage him politically.
Here we are five years later. Pelosi is 84 and limping with a cane after breaking her hip by falling down a flight of stairs and needing emergency hip replacement surgery. Trump is president of the United States. Pelosi was nowhere in sight on the House podium tonight.
As a fillip, the Trump administration just released a list of over 400 federal office buildings it plans to sell to the private sector. Included on the list is the Nancy Pelosi federal office building in San Francisco. No doubt the buyer will want to change the name. As the proverb says, &ldquo;He who laughs last, laughs best.&rdquo;

A Political Tour De Force

Well, it happened&hellip;
As James predicted back in December, President Trump and Elon Musk have already taken giant steps to make America the center of the AI revolution.
President Trump right away rescinded Biden&rsquo;s AI executive order holding back AI&rsquo;s development on America&rsquo;s shores.
And Elon, in his inimitable style, is making good on his promises to advance AI&hellip;
<h3>Grok 3 Unleashed</h3>
Just weeks after Trump dismantled Biden's AI restrictions, Musk's xAI dropped a bombshell: Grok 3, a model that's rewriting the AI playbook.&nbsp;
This isn't just another incremental update, Grok 3 has 10x the processing power of xAI&rsquo;s prior model.
It's the first AI to break the 1400 barrier on Chatbot Arena, an AI computing benchmark, leaving competitors like ChatGPT 4o and Google's Gemini in the dust.
While OpenAI was busy rejecting Musk's $97.4 billion takeover bid last week, xAI was quietly putting the finishing touches on what today is being called the world&rsquo;s most powerful AI.&nbsp;
Both Google and OpenAI have been around for years&hellip;
On the other hand, xAI is barely a year old, a baby by comparison.
But despite being years younger, xAI&rsquo;s Grok 3 has leapfrogged both in key benchmarks.
<h3>Bigger, Faster, Better Thinking AI</h3>
Impressive as this may seem, Elon&rsquo;s Final Project is just getting started.
Grok 3 was trained on over 100,000 Nvidia H100 chips, and xAI is already installing the next-generation B100 chips, which pack four times the punch.&nbsp;
They're expanding their "Colossus" supercomputer cluster in Memphis from 250 megawatts to 1.2 gigawatts. They&rsquo;re installing generators to make enough power to run a small city, all dedicated to pushing AI forward.
However, its Grok&rsquo;s new capabilities that have the AI community talking.
One of the missing pieces that enterprises need for serious research and analysis is a reasoning-based approach.
With Grok&rsquo;s new DeepSearch features, xAI's new AI agent that does more than answer questions. It shows its work!&nbsp;
Add in the upcoming voice features with natural inflection and tone, and you can see why OpenAI&rsquo;s Sam Altman might be getting nervous.
Again, the speed at which xAI has taken the crown is breathtaking. Everything at xAI was focused on speed.
Elon mentioned during his announcement call that they looked at using the big hyperscaling companies to run Grok &mdash; but that they would take far too long to build out the capacity to run it.&nbsp;
So he built his own AI supercomputer, called Colossus.
xAI has also cracked the code on building large-scale GPU clusters with shared memory. Elon is proving that AI scaling laws still hold &mdash; more compute power really does mean better AI.&nbsp;
Furthermore, xAI&rsquo;s planned expansion to 1 million GPUs will give them 40 times the compute power used to train Grok 3.
<h3>Elon&rsquo;s Final Project Comes Into Focus</h3>
The AI race is entering a new, frenzied phase where raw computing power, combined with technical innovation, is creating unprecedented advantages.&nbsp;
Companies that can harness this scale, whether through partnerships, infrastructure, or direct investment, will be the ones to watch.
We&rsquo;re already seeing what&rsquo;s possible with Elon&rsquo;s AI partners helping him build this next-generation technology.&nbsp;
But this is just the beginning.&nbsp;
We&rsquo;re about to see what&rsquo;s finally possible when innovators like Trump and Musk back the most powerful technological forces shaping the planet right now.

RIP ChatGPT

Issues

On January 20, 2025, Donald J. Trump was sworn in to be the 47th president of the United States.
In his inaugural address, President Trump declared a "golden age" for America with his plans to boost domestic oil production, impose tariffs on both Canada and Mexico, and crack down on our borders.
And to the delight of the tech billionaires sitting in the front row, he also promised to send astronauts to plant the American flag on Mars vowing, &ldquo;We will pursue our Manifest Destiny into the stars.&rdquo;
In doing so, and using the specific phrase &ldquo;Manifest Destiny,&rdquo; President Trump intentionally tapped into a deeply rooted American concept.
&ldquo;Manifest Destiny&rdquo; was first coined by John O&rsquo;Sullivan in the July-August 1845 issue of The United States Magazine and Democratic Review.
Here&rsquo;s what he said:
&ldquo;Texas is now ours&hellip; Her star and her stripe may already be said to have taken their place in the glorious blazon of our common nationality; and the sweep of our eagle&rsquo;s wing already includes within its circuit the wide extent of her fair and fertile land. She is no longer to us a mere geographical space &mdash; a certain combination of coast, plain, mountain, valley, forest and stream. She is no longer to us a mere country on the map. She comes within the dear and sacred designation of Our Country&hellip; other nations have undertaken to intrude themselves&hellip; in a spirit of hostile interference against us, for the avowed object of thwarting our policy and hampering our power, limiting our greatness and checking the fulfillment of our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions.
California will, probably, next fall away from the loose adhesion which, in such a country as Mexico, holds a remote province in a slight equivocal kind of dependence on the metropolis. Imbecile and distracted, Mexiconever can exert any real governmental authority over such a country. The impotence of the one and the distance of the other, must make the relation one of virtual independence; unless, by stunting the province of all natural growth, and forbidding that immigration which can alone develop its capabilities and fulfil the purposes of its creation, tyranny may retain a military dominion, which is no government in the, legitimate sense of the term.
And whosoever may hold the balance, though they should cast into the opposite scale all the bayonets and cannon, not only of France and England, but of Europe entire, how would it kick the beam against the simple, solid weight of the two hundred and fifty, or three hundred millions &mdash; and American millions &mdash; destined to gather beneath the flutter of the stripes and stars, in the fast hastening year of the Lord 1945!&rdquo;
When reading O&rsquo;Sullivan&rsquo;s commentary, I can&rsquo;t help but notice distinct correlations between his word choice, and the very things President Trump talks about to this day&hellip;
Policy, Power, Greatness.
Mexico being imbecile, distracted, and impotent.
Back then, the belief that the United States had a God-given right &mdash; a destiny &mdash; to expand its territory across North America quickly spread and was a direct cause of the Mexican-American War in May 1846.
On Feb. 2, 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed, transferring California to the United States and establishing the Rio Grande (and not the Nueces River) as the U.S.-Mexican border.
It was bad luck for Mexico, as only nine days before was when gold was first discovered in California, ultimately leading to the rapid influx of fortune seekers hoping to carve their wealth out of the California Gold Rush.
It&rsquo;s worth noting that while the added territory was a huge win and served as a key turning point in our nation&rsquo;s history, it came at a cost. The new land had an unresolved issue: slavery. This issue of the laws that would govern this new territory ultimately lit the fuse that set off the Civil War, a war that continues to divide our country to this day.
<h2 class="subhead nbp">180-Degree Tension in America</h2>
I bring this all up for several reasons.
John O&rsquo;Sullivan made his case for Manifest Destiny in 1845, exactly 180 years ago.
The number 180 is important. In astrology, the number 180 is opposition, it represents a time when a person needs to navigate between two extremes.
The 180-year cycle between the birth of Manifest Destiny and Trump&rsquo;s modern-day vision of space exploration creates an opposition, a moment of intense change where two vastly different ideas &mdash; rooted in conquest and territorial expansion &mdash; are forced to face each other.
The expansionist vision that once drove America all the way to the Pacific persists today. In the 19th century, it was all about conquering new lands, claiming America&rsquo;s glory, securing resources and wealth, and stretching not only our influence but our dominance.
Now in 2025, our world is dramatically different. Our purpose has changed. Instead of looking outward to more land, Trump is calling to secure control in a limitless frontier &mdash; our celestial destiny in the cosmos. So, we find ourselves at a precipice between past and future, land and space, and what is tangible and what is theoretical.
But the old vision to conquer and expand and the celestial destiny ring eerily similar at their cores &mdash; to innovate, to dominate, to be #1.
As Trump calls for a new Manifest Destiny in space, America faces the opposition of two forces: the economic realities of today&rsquo;s globalized market and the unpredictable, high-risk gamble of space exploration.
It&rsquo;s a bet that America can reinvent itself in the cosmos while its financial stability teeters on the edge.
This tension between speculative ambition and practicality has seeped into the markets as well, and you have probably felt it yourself. Investors are constantly torn between the allure of innovative technologies, speculative fast-moving stocks, and even the dream of overnight crypto wealth, versus the tangible, steady returns offered by established assets like commodities, financials, and bonds &mdash; much like the sectors we track here at The Map. 
<h2 class="subhead nbp">Ole-Reliable</h2>
I may be biased when it comes to reliable trades. As you know, at The Map, our strategy is based on trading four exchange-traded funds (ETFs), which serve as proxies for four important markets: equities, government debt, energy, and precious metals.
We&rsquo;ll sometimes enter a trade outside of these areas if I see an opportunity, but I&rsquo;ve found over time that staying anchored in our core four &mdash; SPY, TLT, XLE and GLD &mdash; is the way to build lasting wealth.
Over the past two weeks, I issued recommendations to short both the SPY and GLD.
In those alerts, I highlighted how I expect that SPY and GLD will reach their respective peaks over the next week as we approach the New Moon and Lunar New Year of the "Wood Snake" on January 29th. I see us entering a period of heightened market volatility and these short positions will set us up to benefit.
But these trading decisions also reflect the broader tension we&rsquo;re seeing in today&rsquo;s economic landscape, a trend I highlighted when discussing Trump&rsquo;s plans.
Investors are wrestling with conflicting narratives, and that tug-of-war will be reflected in our financial markets.
Again, as we approach the Lunar New Year, the financial markets are fighting with themselves&hellip; optimism battling realism, growth clashing with fear, and speculation wrestling with stability. For traders like us, this is not a time to be swayed by emotion or market noise.
But that brings us to how all of these geocosmic moves converge.
<h2 class="subhead nbp">The Year of the Snake</h2>
2025 is the year of the Wood Snake. In Chinese astrology, the Snake symbolizes wisdom, intuition, and transformation. The Wood element gives a sense of grounding, growth, and strength.
Trump promises a golden age, a period that seems to perfectly align with the Year of the Wood Snake.
I&rsquo;m inclined to believe him. If we use history as our guide, there is another Year of the Wood Snake that comes to mind: 1845, when Manifest Destiny took hold of the American psyche and brought us to where we are today.
And so we come full circle, but not without caution.
We shouldn&rsquo;t kid ourselves&hellip; while the stars are enticing, the financial markets remain firmly rooted on Earth and economic realities don&rsquo;t care much for lofty undertakings. In truth, we don&rsquo;t deal in dreams, we deal in trends, fundamentals, and probabilities. After all, whether it&rsquo;s gold rushes or moon landings, the ones who thrive aren&rsquo;t chasing the glitter &mdash; they&rsquo;re selling the shovels.
So as tempting as it is to chase the next big thing, I believe the winners in 2025 will be those who trade with patience, and precision, and who keep their investments anchored in fundamentals. That is the only path I see for avoiding speculative traps and capitalizing on the market cycles we&rsquo;ll witness this year.
We&rsquo;re using both our SPY and GLD shorts to position ourselves in such a market. As is with any transformative year, I expect 2025 to be full of volatility but also opportunity, as long as we play it right.

The Map is your chance to navigate the ups and downs of the market&hellip;
Mason Sexton, developed a system using both mathematical laws and the laws of nature to make uncanny, specific predictions for the market.
Using his forecasting strategies, Mason predicted the top of the market in 1987 to the day.
Then, weeks before it happened, Mason predicted the epic crash of Black Monday and showed his clients how to profit from the fall.
And his work continues to this day&hellip; the name of this publication &mdash; The Map &mdash; says it all. Think of this service as your guide through what we expect to be a very difficult period for most investors.
In the weeks and months ahead, you can expect to learn about such topics as: Elliott Wave Theory, price/time equilibrium, the seminal works of W.D. Gann, and yes, even how the movements of heavenly bodies can impact the direction of markets, society, and everything in between.
These are not topics that we expect most readers will have heard of. And they&rsquo;re certainly not something you&rsquo;ll hear from your average financial advisor. But if you follow the average research, you will see average results.

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Your guide to understanding the natural rhythms of the market. Using fundamental analysis as well as cosmic data, we can predict market trends before they happen… and profit from these broader forces at work.

The Map

The Manifest Destiny Into the Stars

It&rsquo;s not going away.
Inflation picked up for a fourth straight month in January amid another rise in in food and energy costs.
Consumer prices overall increased 3% from a year earlier, up from 2.9% in December. That's the most since June and above the 2.9% expected.
Inflation seemed to be coming under control as it peaked at 9.1% in June 2022 and had been coming down steadily. The trend from March 2024 to September 2024 showed a drop from 3.5% to 2.4%. That trend was heading toward the Fed&rsquo;s goal of 2.0% inflation.
The trend reversed suddenly in October 2024 when inflation rose to 2.6%. It then rose further in November 2024, hitting 2.7%. Then it rose again to 2.9% in December, the highest rate since last July. Then again in January. In short, the narrative that inflation is coming under control just exploded in the Fed&rsquo;s face.
Here&rsquo;s the tale of the inflation tape using the Consumer Price Index on a year-over-year basis:
<table style="width: 51.4518%; height: 186px;" align="center">
<tbody>
<tr style="text-align: center; background-color: #f1f1f1; height: 36px;">
<th style="width: 43.9141%; height: 36px;">Date</th>
<th style="width: 56.0859%; height: 36px;">CPI (year-over-year)</th>
</tr>
<tr style="text-align: center; background-color: #f1f1f1; height: 36px;">
<td style="width: 43.9141%; height: 36px;">September 2024</td>
<td style="width: 56.0859%; height: 36px;">2.4%</td>
</tr>
<tr style="text-align: center; background-color: #f1f1f1; height: 18px;">
<td style="width: 43.9141%; height: 18px;">October 2024</td>
<td style="width: 56.0859%; height: 18px;">2.6%</td>
</tr>
<tr style="text-align: center; background-color: #f1f1f1; height: 18px;">
<td style="width: 43.9141%; height: 18px;">November 2024</td>
<td style="width: 56.0859%; height: 18px;">2.7%</td>
</tr>
<tr style="text-align: center; background-color: #f1f1f1; height: 18px;">
<td style="width: 43.9141%; height: 18px;">December 2024</td>
<td style="width: 56.0859%; height: 18px;">2.9%</td>
</tr>
<tr style="text-align: center; background-color: #f1f1f1; height: 18px;">
<td style="width: 43.9141%; height: 18px;">January 2025</td>
<td style="width: 56.0859%; height: 18px;">3.0%</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
Markets are reacting negatively today so far as the Dow is down over 400 points. The 10-year Treasury yield is up. The increase in inflation over the past five months may indeed prove transitory, but there can be no assurance of that as of now. But the Fed can&rsquo;t take that chance. Unemployment is &ldquo;normalizing&rdquo; around 4.0% in the Fed&rsquo;s view, so inflation is the problem at hand. What is concerning is the upward trend is continuing.
The next Fed meeting is March 19. The Fed&rsquo;s policy move at that meeting will be a close call. The Fed is likely to stand pat in view of the increasing inflation metrics. Powell said in his last press conference that the Fed is in no hurry to lower rates. That is not music to President Trump&rsquo;s ears.
Other inflation and employment reports will be released in early March before the March 19 meeting. This kind of data dependence is revealing because it shows the Fed is following markets and not leading them. That&rsquo;s bad news for investors because if the Fed were leading the economy, they would get ahead of the coming recession. They&rsquo;re not and markets will suffer.

Still Sticky

"We've always done it this way"
That was the explanation my friend Larry gave me three years ago when I asked him about his company's investment strategy.
Larry is a financial advisor for a firm whose name you would probably recognize. His job is to play golf with potential clients, invest their money wisely, and assure them that risks are being taken seriously. Back in 2022, I had a conversation with Larry about his investment approach -- And I was extremely unimpressed.
At the time, Larry was a proponent of "target date funds" -- mutual funds that combined stock and bond investments and adjusted the ratio as customers got closer to retirement age. The idea was to add more bond exposure as clients get older so theoretically there would be less risk.
In 2022, bond yields were near all-time lows. And these target date funds were investing more capital into these bonds for seniors who needed income and couldn't afford to take as much risk.
In my opinion, these funds were horrible investments and were unlikely to protect investors' capital OR give these investors a reasonable amount of income.
When I was discussing the challenges with my friend Larry, all he could come up with was the lame excuse: "We've always done it this way." And three years later, his clients have suffered greatly because Larry was unwilling to use common sense when it came to the strategy that these retirement funds used.
Don't ever let that happen to you!!
Using "conventional wisdom" blindly can be one of the most dangerous decisions you can make with your retirement account -- and in life.
But thinking through the concepts behind "conventional wisdom" can give you a chance to apply traditional concepts when they make sense and avoid the pitfalls when "conventional wisdom" is inappropriate.
Today, I want to explain what was wrong with Larry's investment approach in 2022 and also show you an opportunity that is emerging in our current market that can hand you extra income with a chance to lock in some large capital gains.
<h2 class="subhead nbp">The Trouble with Bonds in 2022</h2>
Back when I had the conversation with Larry, interest rates were at all-time lows. The Fed had its target rate for banks set near zero percent. And it was clear that interest rates had nowhere to go but UP!
The problem for bond investors is that bond prices move in the opposite direction from interest rates. So, if rates were set to rise, it was very clear that bond prices were set to fall. In other words, bond investors were poised to lose a lot of money.
When you own a bond, you own debt that is issued by whoever is behind the bonds. Many people buy treasury bonds which are backed by the full faith and credit of the United States.
Other investors buy corporate bonds. These bonds must be paid back by companies -- typically large, well-known corporations.
Traditionally, bonds mature at $1,000 per bond. So, if you buy a treasury bond today, you're buying a contract that says the U.S. government will pay you $1,000 on the date the bond matures. The same is true for corporate bonds, and bonds typically have a specific maturity date.
If you buy a bond that matures next year &mdash; and the interest rate is 5%, you should be willing to pay about $950 for that bond. This way, when you receive $1,000 in a year, you'll get a 5% return on your $950 invested.
If the interest rate is 10%, you should be willing to pay something closer to $900 for the bond. That way you'll receive a 10% rate of return when your bond matures in a year. So, you can see that when overall interest rates rise, the current price of a bond must drop.
Bonds with longer maturities are more sensitive to interest rate changes. That's because if it takes several years for the bond to mature at $1,000, then you should be willing to pay a lot less so that your interest can accumulate over time until the bond ultimately pays you $1,000 a few years down the road.
Many bonds also pay bi-annual interest payments called "coupons". These coupons add complexity to the math when figuring out what a bond should be worth today. But the basic concept still applies &mdash; as interest rates move higher, bond prices drop. And when interest rates pull back, bond prices rise.
Sure enough, as the Fed began to hike interest rates, bond prices tanked. And Larry's clients who owned target date funds were hit hard. Ironically, it was the investors who could least afford losses that took the biggest hit. That's because their portfolios held a larger portion of "safe" bonds.
Treasury bonds are supposed to offer "riskless returns". That's because the U.S. government has the ability to print money and can always "pay back" its debt -- even if printing new currency causes high inflation.
But in a situation where rates were near zero, these bonds offered "returnless risk"! Because long-term bonds that were sensitive to rising interest rates declined in value. And retirees were already getting near zero returns from their bond investments.
Talk about a terrible situation! And all it took was some common sense to understand that rates were exceptionally low and had nowhere to go but up.
This situation was criminal in my opinion and unfortunately, the following bond rout hit vulnerable investors much harder than those who could afford to take risks.
<h2 class="subhead nbp">2025: The Year of Redemption for Bonds</h2>
Fast forward to 2025 and we have a completely different situation for bond investors. Interest rates had a chance to recover thanks to higher inflation and a Federal Reserve that spent the better part of 2 years hiking rates.
Today, bonds are paying investors attractive yields and market interest rates appear ready to roll lower.
That means if you buy bonds today, you'll be locking in attractive income payments from now until when the bonds mature.
And you also have the potential for these bonds to trade higher as rates start to pull back.
As I look at the bond market today, I do think it&rsquo;s a good idea to have exposure to Treasury bonds since their prices will move higher.
Of course, you could go ahead and buy Treasury bonds outright. Most brokerages will allow you to do this with no problem.
Another option is to buy the 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF (<a href="https://my.paradigmpressgroup.com/ticker/tlt">TLT</a>).
This fund invests in long-term treasury bonds. TLT has fallen sharply over the last few years as market interest rates have been rising.
At today's lower price, you can expect to receive a yield near 4.2%, and any uptick in long-term interest rates will drive the price of TLT (and your investment) higher.
The key point is that interest rates are likely making a short-term (or medium-term) peak.
So, in today's market, bonds offer a great way for investors to generate income, create more stability, and potentially profit from a rollover in market interest rates.

Lifetime Income Report is dedicated to bringing you great stocks offering the biggest payouts.&nbsp;
But it&rsquo;s not just about looking for high yields. You want a company that can sustain its dividends &mdash; and increase them as its business grows.
Zach Scheidt, a former hedge fund manager, knows all the tricks for finding Wall Street&rsquo;s biggest values. In fact, his&nbsp; &ldquo;Three Pillars of Income Investing&rdquo; system is designed to zero in on the best of the best.
Each monthly issue of his Lifetime Income Report walks you through the research, showing you exactly why his latest discovery deserves a spot in your portfolio.
Expect to see a lot of household names as well as lesser-known dividend-payers in hot markets like&nbsp; alternative energy and cloud computing.&nbsp;
He&rsquo;ll also share strategies to reduce your taxes, earn extra paychecks, invest in commodities like gold and silver, even ways to pick up more cash outside of the stock market.
With Zach&rsquo;s help, you can build a diversified set of income streams so you never have to worry about money again.

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Mailbag

Here are a few questions:
Q: Will a return to products being made in America result in higher prices for consumers due to higher labor costs? &ndash; Pete S.
A: No.There are several reasons for this. Better paying jobs in the U.S. will increase savings and tend to lower interest rates. Larger-scale production in the U.S. will also result in economies of scale that reduce unit costs. Finally, foreign investors will need dollars to invest in U.S. manufacturing and to get over high tariff walls. That will make the dollar stronger, which will reduce the dollar prices of those foreign inputs that will still be needed. Reduction in the trade deficit does not mean the end of trade. Some imported components will always be needed, and a strong dollar makes those cheaper. The lower costs from lower interest rates, a strong dollar and economies of scale will offset higher wage costs.
Q: Do you see silver as good an investment as gold for those of us who can&rsquo;t afford gold at current prices? &ndash; Molly P.
A: Silver is a good investment both because it will follow the price of gold higher and because it can be more practical than gold when it comes to buying groceries and other necessities if the power grid goes down or the monetary system collapses. I consider a certain number of one-ounce American silver eagles to be as important as a flashlight, water and food in a crisis.
Q: In what ways do you see mass deportation of illegal immigrants impacting the U.S. economy? &ndash; Bobby S.
A: It will not impede the economy. The deportations will begin with criminals and terrorists who do not contribute to society and in fact cause enormous harm. Then the deportations will continue with illegals who currently receive free housing, free cell phones, pre-paid debit cards and free medical care. These illegals cost far more than they produce. It will be impossible to deport all ten million illegals who entered under Biden. Several million will remain in all events and they are likely to be the most productive and resourceful of the group. Deporting the criminals, terrorists and freeloaders will only help the economy.
That&rsquo;s it for this week. Thanks for all your questions sent in.

awn-hero-img-01-16-25 BORDER PATROL- A man and woman with baggage retreat back to the border when they are spotted by a border control helicopter. They entered via a breach in a barbed wire fence and retreat through that s

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Crisis Trader with Jim Rickards uses proprietary algorithms to peer into corporate balance sheets &mdash; uncovering the ugly secrets of popular companies.
You don&rsquo;t want these names in your portfolio. But you can set yourself up for massive profits when the truth inevitably comes to light.
Jim Rickards and Dan Amoss can show you how. They correctly predicted every move the Federal Reserve made to fight inflation. And now they believe we&rsquo;re on the verge of a historic economic downturn.
Most investors are completely unprepared for the wave of bank failures and corporate bankruptcies that will rock Wall Street.
Luckily, you don&rsquo;t have to be caught unaware.&nbsp;
Jim and Dan will guide you through the worst of what&rsquo;s to come &mdash; revealing opportunities to score big wins from the market&rsquo;s worst stocks.

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Rickards Uncensored Call (with Byron King 1/5/2024)

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