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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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Rickards Uncensored Call (with Jim Rickards 8/23/2024)

Updates

2025 was a special year for gold as prices surged with gains over 60%.
There are important developments almost daily that will sustain the gold bull market for years to come. Let&rsquo;s first look briefly at the gold price action in 2025 and then turn to these breaking developments.
At the beginning of 2025, gold stood at around the $2,600 level and moved steadily higher before surging toward the end of August to reach its all-time highs closing out the year. Of course, this bull market is far from over and material gains in the near future should be expected.
There were three main drivers of the gold price this past year.
Central banks remain net buyers of gold as they have been since 2010. This puts an informal floor under the price of gold while still allowing unlimited upside. Also, geopolitical risks continued in the War in Ukraine and in Venezuela that drove investors to buy gold as a safe haven allocation to their portfolios. Finally, monetary policy may also be driving the upswing in gold prices this year, with investors more bullish after three consecutive rate cuts from the Federal Reserve. I expect another cut in January and more easing of monetary policy as President Trump nominates a new Fed Chair to replace Jerome Powell in May 2026.
<h2 class="subhead">New Developments Going Into 2026</h2>
I made my prediction in the latest Strategic Intelligence issue that I expect gold to reach $5,000 an ounce in 2026. But it&rsquo;s entirely reasonable to suggest gold could reach $10,000 per ounce. What few investors may realize is that each $1,000 increase in the price of gold is easier than the one before. The price gain is the same at each milestone, but the percentage increase is smaller because each increase is working from a higher base. Going from $4,000 to $5,000 per ounce is a 25% gain. But going from $9,000 to $10,000 per ounce is only an 11% gain. This is why the push to $10,000 per ounce will go slowly at first and then quickly.
<h2 class="subhead">Underreported Events to Consider</h2>
That much is widely known. What is less well known is series of underreported events that will turbocharge the price gains ahead going into 2026. Here is a summary of those events:
<ul class="blockquote" style="background-color: #f1f1f1;">
<li>Central banks will continue to be net buyers of gold as they have been since 2010. This keeps a floor under the gold price as it keeps surging to all-time highs.</li>
<li>Mining output has been flat for last six years. This does not mean &ldquo;peak gold&rdquo;, but it shows that gold is getting harder to find and more expensive to mine. Supply constraints + expanding demand = higher prices.</li>
<li>The copper-to-gold price ratio is at an all-time low. This speaks to the relative role of industrial metals versus precious metals. The gold price can rise in recessionary scenarios and depressions. Gains are not limited to periods of inflation and hot economies.</li>
<li>Russia has demonstrated that it can survive Western dollar-based financial sanctions by holding over 25% of its reserves in physical gold. That&rsquo;s a lesson the world and especially the BRICS are internalizing.</li>
<li>Digitally tokenized gold has become a huge new source of demand. Tether is leading the way with its XAUt token that has a current market cap (tied to the price of gold) of $2.2 billion. This means Tether is the ultimate buy-and-hold gold investor and their gold is effectively off the market.</li>
<li>Italy has recently taken steps to asset that Italian gold (2,452 metric tonnes; the third largest gold reserve in the world after the U.S. and Germany) belongs to the Italian people and not to the Bank of Italy. That dispute has cooled down, but its mere existence shows that a global struggle for possession of physical gold is underway.</li>
<li>Television and media personality Tucker Carlson has launched an online gold dealing operation. That&rsquo;s only one among many online dealers, but it shows that gold ownership is reaching a wider audience and we are getting closer to the retail frenzy stage of price appreciation.</li>
<li>The U.S. Treasury is giving serious consideration to revaluing its gold reserves by causing the Federal Reserve to restate the value of its gold certificate given when the Treasury took the Fed&rsquo;s gold in 1934. The current value of the certificate is $42.22 per ounce. If revalued to $4,200 per ounce, this would not change the world price of gold (it&rsquo;s just an accounting entry), but it would add about $1 trillion to the Treasury&rsquo;s account at the Fed and it would show that the U.S. respects gold as a legitimate monetary asset.</li>
</ul>
Other material developments in the gold markets are occurring almost daily. We expect this to continue into 2026 and beyond.
Remember - If you have not invested in gold yet or if your allocation is small, it&rsquo;s not too late to invest. The biggest gains are still ahead and will happen sooner than later. The time to invest is now.
Happy New Year. I wish you a prosperous 2026.

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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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Welcome to the Omega Wealth Circle Wiretap &mdash; your exclusive look at what our top minds are talking about right now.
Not surprisingly, the biggest conversations have been about our predictions meeting last week.
So today, I want to share more of what the team said at our all-hands event &mdash; including the best ways to play what they see ahead.
Let&rsquo;s start with what our editors and analysts predict will happen in the new year.
<h2 class="subhead nbp">1. 2026 Could Have a Rough Start</h2>
As I said on Friday, Greg Guenthner has <a href="https://my.paradigmpressgroup.com/article/2026-embrace-the-chaos">proclaimed 2026 the &ldquo;Year of the Trader.&rdquo;</a>
He foresees stocks making dramatic swings, giving you excellent chances to cash in on the ups and downs.
Mason Sexton is much more bearish.
He warns that a &ldquo;cosmic convergence" will occur Feb. 17&ndash;24, which could be the start of a major turning point in the major stock indices.
It might even prove to be the top of the bull market. He expects the first signs of panic to show up in early March.
But don&rsquo;t start selling yet.
According to Mason&rsquo;s analysis, the S&amp;P 500 will keep gaining ground. He believes the SPDR S&amp;P 500 ETF Trust (<a href="https://my.paradigmpressgroup.com/ticker/SPY">SPY</a>) will hit $800 before retreating.
Zack Scheidt also expects a major sell-off in January and February. He thinks traders are waiting until the New Year to take profits so they <a href="https://my.paradigmpressgroup.com/article/your-wiretap-the-real-ai-bubble-to-worry-about-dont-buy-these-dips-first#2">don&rsquo;t have to count the gains in their 2025 taxes</a>
But Zach also says it will create opportunities to buy great companies on the dips.
He&rsquo;s particularly interested in businesses that will find innovative ways to use artificial intelligence. As he puts it, Wall Street&rsquo;s interest will shift from the AI developers to AI implementers.
Names on his watch list include SoundHound AI Inc. (<a href="https://my.paradigmpressgroup.com/ticker/SOUN">SOUN</a>)... UiPath Inc. (<a href="https://my.paradigmpressgroup.com/ticker/PATH">PATH</a>)... and Samsara Inc. (<a href="https://my.paradigmpressgroup.com/ticker/IOT">IOT</a>).
Pairing these stocks with the right options could deliver 500% gains or more.
Look for his specific recommendations in Altucher&rsquo;s True Alpha once we&rsquo;ve cleared the pullback he foresees.
Speaking of AI&hellip;
<h2 class="subhead nbp">2. The Biggest Tech Stories of 2026</h2>
We&rsquo;ve talked about Enrique Abeyta OpenAIpocalypse prediction &mdash; the collapse of the company that created ChatGPT.
OpenAI is a private company, so the biggest losers will be the venture capitalists who helped prop it up.
That includes SoftBank Group Corp. (<a href="https://my.paradigmpressgroup.com/ticker/SFTBY">SFTBY</a>), a private investment firm that has pledged $40 billion to fund OpenAI.
Plenty of public companies will take a hit, too. Enrique singles out Oracle Corp. (<a href="https://my.paradigmpressgroup.com/ticker/ORCL">ORCL</a>), a major OpenAI supplier, and CoreWeave Inc. (<a href="https://my.paradigmpressgroup.com/ticker/CRWV">CRWV</a>), which works closely with OpenAI.
The end of OpenAI won&rsquo;t be the end of AI, of course &mdash; just like Netscape&rsquo;s collapse didn&rsquo;t kill the internet.
Instead, Enrique says, the remaining leaders in AI will get a lot more attention &mdash; Alphabet Inc. (<a href="https://my.paradigmpressgroup.com/ticker/GOOG">GOOG</a>)... Meta Platforms Inc. (<a href="https://my.paradigmpressgroup.com/ticker/META">META</a>)... and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (<a href="https://my.paradigmpressgroup.com/ticker/BABA">BABA</a>).
Chris Campbell, as I also said on Friday, thinks artificial intelligence will help facilitate a massive cyberattack in 2026. The recovery will boost Iridium Communications Inc. (<a href="https://my.paradigmpressgroup.com/ticker/IRDM">IRDM</a>).
But that wasn&rsquo;t the only &ldquo;black swan&rdquo; event he sees ahead.
Chris also warns that we&rsquo;re overdue for a massive solar storm, like the Carrington event in 1859 that caused telegraph wires to catch fire.
Today, a similar storm could knock out the Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites we rely on for much more than just navigation. So there will be a sudden interest in building resilient satellites.
And Chris says Frequency Electronics Inc. (<a href="https://my.paradigmpressgroup.com/ticker/FEIM">FEIM</a>) is one of the few pure plays in this space.
It specializes in &ldquo;ultra-stable atomic oscillators and emerging quantum sensing systems,&rdquo; he tells us&hellip; which we assume is a good thing.
As for cryptocurrencies, Chris believes stable coin Tether will shift some of its reserve assets. Tether tries to keep each of its tokens&rsquo; value at $1 using a mix of things like cash, Treasury bills, even some gold.
Chris says that it will add silver to its reserves next, sending demand &mdash; and prices &mdash; for the precious metal soaring.
The silver stampede will cause &ldquo;the moon metal to outperform gold six to one,&rdquo; Chris predicts.
He&rsquo;s also expecting the next stage of Basil III, a series of bank reforms, to create a global liquidity crisis. The best solution will be to tokenize Treasury bills on the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain.
It will allow banks to &ldquo;rebuild their balance sheets overnight, sending ETH surging.&rdquo;
Rounding out our tech predictions, Ray Blanco expects a &ldquo;Sputnik&rdquo; moment in 2026. China will launch orbiting data centers, <a href="https://my.paradigmpressgroup.com/article/your-wiretap-chinas-other-ai-edge-musks-new-business-model-these-stocks-look#1">giving them another edge in the AI battle</a>.
It will force the United States to play catch up. Millions of dollars could go to Elon Musk&rsquo;s Space X, which is expected to go public next year.
Smaller satellite providers and equipment manufacturers will benefit, too.
Ray also expects what will amount to a cure for type 1 diabetes.
Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. (<a href="https://my.paradigmpressgroup.com/ticker/VRTX">VRTX</a>) is working on a stem cell treatment that will help restore a person&rsquo;s natural insulin production.
Test results have been positive so far&hellip; and if the numbers continue to look good, the company could seek regulatory approval next year.
But Ray is also keeping a close eye on another biotech &mdash; too small to mention here &mdash; that may have a superior treatment. (He recommended the stock in his Catalyst Trader back on July 24.)
Finally, Ray predicts that 2026 will see inflation reverse into deflation.
&ldquo;Not the bad kind from demand collapse,&rdquo; he says &ldquo;but the good kind from technologically-driven productivity.&rdquo;
In other words, AI and robots will finally deliver the cost savings we&rsquo;ve been promised.
And it will trigger &ldquo;the biggest growth stock rally since 2020,&rdquo; Ray adds.
<h2 class="subhead nbp">3. &ldquo;Time Travel&rdquo; Plays for the New Year</h2>
We all wish we could go back in time and buy investments when they were extremely cheap.
Now two of our analysts say you&rsquo;ll have a chance to do the next best thing as we head into the New Year.
First, Chris Cimorelli dug deeper into one of his recommendations from <a href="https://my.paradigmpressgroup.com/article/your-wiretap-paradigm-shift-summit-recap-watch-out-for-trade-war-shocks-like#1">October&rsquo;s Paradigm Shift Summit</a> &mdash; cryptocurrency Bitcoin Cash (BCH).
BCH is a &ldquo;fork&rdquo; in Bitcoin&rsquo;s (BTC) algorithm, meaning it started as part of Bitcoin&rsquo;s blockchain, then broke off to become its own cryptocurrency.
The fork tweaked the Bitcoin code to make transactions faster. It also gave the cryptocurrency the ability to create more robust smart contracts than regular Bitcoin.
Still, the underlying principles are the same&hellip; and BCS costs a fraction of Bitcoin&rsquo;s price &mdash; currently around $564.
Chris says buying BCH today would be like buying Bitcoin at 2016 prices.
The catalyst will come when Bitcoin prices start to recover &mdash; and investors start hoarding BTC again. That will send Wall Street searching for cheaper alternatives&hellip; and BCH will fit the bill nicely.
Chris says the attention could spark a 10x surge in BCH.
Alan Knuckman coined the term &ldquo;Time Travel&rdquo; plays when discussing his thoughts on 2026.
First on his list is Freeport-McMoRan Inc. (<a href="https://my.paradigmpressgroup.com/ticker/FCX">FCX</a>). 
It&rsquo;s primarily a copper miner, with gold a happy byproduct.
And Alan believes copper prices will rise in 2026.
He also thinks gold will continue to gain ground, especially once Americans can add precious metals to their 401(k)s starting in February 2026.
But investors still haven&rsquo;t gotten the message about mining companies yet. That&rsquo;s why FCX currently trades for around $48 &mdash; what they were trading for in 2022.
Alan is also very bullish on Slb Ltd. (<a href="https://my.paradigmpressgroup.com/ticker/slb">SLB</a>), better known as oil services company Schlumberger.
It&rsquo;s another company trading at about the same level as it was in 2022, giving up nearly half its gains from its 2023 high.
But Trump is making it more and more clear that he wants Venezuela to give <a href="https://my.paradigmpressgroup.com/article/your-wiretap-gameplans-for-the-final-stretch-of-2025-trump-is-stepping-on#3">the United States access to its oil</a>. Even if it doesn&rsquo;t come to an armed invasion, it could lead to an agreement to let U.S. companies do business in the country.
By all reports, Venezuela&rsquo;s oil infrastructure is already in bad shape. So SLB could be <a href="https://concierge.paradigmpressgroup.com/post/trumps-venezuela-end-game">one of the prime companies tapped</a> to improve it.
In fact, the company has a long connection to the country, going back 85 years. Alan tells us it still has one active rig in Venezuela, &ldquo;compared to more than 80 in 2014.&rdquo;
Any major thaw in tensions could see SLB quickly try to make up for lost time!

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The Omega Wealth Circle is the first time we&rsquo;ve seen such a diverse and well respected group of editors come together for one membership!
The group of editors we&rsquo;ve assembled for this membership have NEVER worked together before. So, your access to their research is quite groundbreaking.&nbsp;
You'll have access to our most comprehensive level of financial analysis and advice. Your impressive roster of experts includes one of the world&rsquo;s leading income investors&hellip; a former advisor to the CIA and Pentagon...a millionaire crypto investor&hellip; world renowned futurist&hellip; and a tech investment expert.
Remember, this group of editors has NEVER come together before. We&rsquo;ve created this elite membership exclusively for viewers of the Six Predictions Summit. It&rsquo;s the only place where you can have an all-access pass to everything they&rsquo;re publishing.&nbsp;

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Your Wiretap: More 2026 Predictions

Talk of an AI &ldquo;bubble&rdquo; continued to shake up the market this week, with the latest example being the custom AI chipmaker Broadcom.
The company reported an outstanding fiscal fourth quarter earnings report yesterday, besting Wall Street&rsquo;s estimates thanks to a surge in AI chip sales.
Broadcom brought in record revenue of $18.02 billion and $8.5 billion in profit, compared to $4.3 billion a year ago.
Looking ahead, the company expects its AI chip sales surge to continue into the first quarter and reach $8.2 billion, trouncing analysts' expectations for $6.9 billion.
Custom AI chips like what Broadcom makes are in growing demand by top firms like Google, and analysts estimate they&rsquo;re poised to take 25%-30% of the accelerated computing market by 2030.
Still, shares of Broadcom pulled back along with the broader market today as investors continue to worry about an AI &ldquo;bubble.&rdquo;
However, when I hear the word &ldquo;bubble&rdquo; &mdash; especially in the context of the AI buildout &mdash; my ears perk up.
Here's why: Bubbles don't just pop... first, they inflate. And that expansion phase? That's where life-changing wealth gets created.
<h2 class="subhead nbp">The Great AI Expansion of 2026</h2>
Take a look at this chart from Bespoke Investment Group. It compares two pivotal moments in tech history&hellip;

<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/51mu781Je9bpdQRpe6ofEG/7e461b1b445a390990addcc116ec9340/sei-alert-12-12-25-img-2.png" width="540px" />

Source: Bespoke Investment Group
The blue line tracks the Nasdaq after Netscape's release in December 1994 &mdash; the moment the internet became accessible to everyday people.
Notice how it actually took years for the dot-com bubble to truly inflate. And the biggest gains didn't come at the beginning. They came at the end, right before the peak.
The red line shows the Nasdaq's performance since ChatGPT's release in November 2022 &mdash; when AI technology became available to the masses.
As you can see, the pattern is nearly identical to the one formed during the dot-com expansion.
If this correlation holds (and I believe it will), we're approaching the most profitable phase of the AI boom.
<h2 class="subhead nbp">The AI Implementation Wave</h2>
But here's the key: not all AI stocks will participate in this rally equally.
The biggest winners won't be the infrastructure plays &mdash; the chip makers, data center builders, and power suppliers. Those companies already had their run.
The next wave will be AI Implementation stocks.
These are companies actually applying AI technology to transform industries, from healthcare and finance to manufacturing and logistics.
In other words, they're taking what's been built and putting it to work in the real economy.
That's where I expect the explosive growth will come from in 2026.
In the coming year, I expect we&rsquo;ll see a blow-off top that could hand us outsized gains from fresh Blue Spike setups.
Which is why we&rsquo;re targeting a minimum of 5 AI plays that will triple or more in 2026.

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Artificial intelligence (AI) is sweeping the world, disrupting everything from medicine to the legal industry&hellip; And of course, financial institutions are adopting it, too.
Hedge funds are using it to beat the markets&hellip; manage risk&hellip; and find new opportunities. Now you can, too.
Altucher&rsquo;s True Alpha uses a powerful AI algorithm to identify &ldquo;insider moves&rdquo; in the stock market &mdash; giving YOU a chance to cash in before anyone else.
This is your chance to turn the tables and start using AI to grow your own wealth, thanks to James&rsquo; patented Blue Spike indicator. It helps to identify &ldquo;behind-the-scenes&rdquo; market moves everyday investors simply don&rsquo;t know about.
In other words, the Blue Spike indicator knows when Wall Street&rsquo;s deepest pockets are positioning themselves for something big&hellip; and can signal you before the news goes mainstream.
Together, James and the ALPHA-3 system level the playing field. It&rsquo;s your opportunity to profit from the kind of market moves previously reserved for Wall Street fat cats.
The next big announcement could come at any time. So don&rsquo;t miss your shot at getting in ahead of tomorrow&rsquo;s headlines.

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Weekly Update: The AI “Bubble” Isn’t Bursting — It’s Expanding

For the first time in a long time, an American president is changing the rules of engagement in our own hemisphere&hellip; and almost no one is talking about what that really means.
On paper, the military strikes off the coast of Venezuela is a counter-narcotics mission.
Trump is finally taking the fight to the narco-terrorists who&rsquo;ve been poisoning this country with fentanyl and meth while Washington looked the other way. Compared to the last forty years of half-measures, decisive action is a relief.
After all, we&rsquo;ve been promised &ldquo;wars&rdquo; on drugs since the Reagan era. This is the first time anyone has treated it like one.
But if you look at the scale and posture of what&rsquo;s happening, the &ldquo;drug interdiction&rdquo; narrative doesn&rsquo;t quite match the facts.
Drones, missiles, and nighttime strikes now define the operation. And over all of it is a president saying Maduro&rsquo;s &ldquo;days are numbered,&rdquo; and essentially ordering him to get out of the country.
This is why Venezuela now looks less like a one-off enforcement action and more like the opening chapter of something much larger. The last time the U.S. publicly used this kind of force in Latin America was Panama in 1989.
Trump is doing what past presidents were too timid to attempt&hellip; using American hard power in our own backyard to confront a hostile regime tied into the drug trade and aligned with our adversaries.
That may be strategically correct. It may, in the long run, be the right call for the security of the United States. But it also carries risks that go far beyond a handful of destroyed boats.
<h3>What Trump Is Doing</h3>
Since September 2nd, the U.S. has carried out more than 20 strikes in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific. Over 80 people have been killed. The targets are small vessels, often fishing boats or &ldquo;flippers,&rdquo; that intelligence officials say are being used as maritime couriers by groups like Tren de Aragua and the ELN.
The footage the president released shows a missile hitting a boat at high speed &mdash; exactly the kind of strike a Reaper drone or a Navy helicopter would carry out in a combat zone.
And now we have the USS Gerald R. Ford, the largest carrier in the world, positioned off Venezuela&rsquo;s coast. You don&rsquo;t deploy an asset like that unless you expect escalation, or at minimum, want your adversary to believe escalation is on the table.
While the legal framework the administration is using is not new, applying it in this context is.
Trump has determined that certain cartels and criminal networks qualify as &ldquo;terrorist combatants.&rdquo; Under that designation, the president can authorize lethal force without a formal declaration of war, similar to how the U.S. conducted drone strikes in Pakistan during the post-9/11 era.
The idea is if a cartel is functionally behaving like an insurgent group, then it gets treated like one.
But this is where things get complicated. Lethal force against an imminent threat is one thing. What happens after the initial strike is another.
Once a boat is destroyed, once the &ldquo;threat&rdquo; in the legal sense has been neutralized, what exactly is the authority to engage further?
International law doesn&rsquo;t allow for machine-gunning survivors floating in the water &mdash; not even in declared wars. The U.S. prosecuted Nazi U-boat officers for that exact behavior.
This is why the Pentagon is in a legally delicate position. It&rsquo;s not the strike itself that creates exposure. It&rsquo;s everything that follows. If a vessel genuinely tied to narcoterror networks is hit, the administration can defend that under established counterterrorism doctrine.
But the moment you move from stopping a threat to eliminating witnesses, or from interdiction to punitive destruction, you&rsquo;ve crossed into territory that lawyers and political opponents will all seize on.
All of this means that the margins for error are razor thin. And when you&rsquo;re operating in a legal gray zone with high explosive ordnance, thin margins have a way of becoming bright-red warning signs.
<h3>Mission Creep</h3>
The real risk in Venezuela lies not in the legality of a single strike or even the casualties themselves&hellip; it&rsquo;s the trajectory.
Mission creep is what occurs when a limited operation expands step-by-step into something far larger, not through a grand plan, but through the logic of escalation. And historically, when the U.S. applies military pressure in Latin America, that logic tends to accelerate quickly.
We&rsquo;ve seen it before in Guatemala and Cuba in the 1950s, in Chile in the &rsquo;70s, and most famously in Panama in 1989, missions that began as narrow actions against criminal or destabilizing actors evolved into de facto regime-change operations.
Once the U.S. commits force in the hemisphere, the political and strategic incentives tilt toward &ldquo;finishing the job.&rdquo;
That&rsquo;s why the current moment feels so precarious.
If Maduro doesn&rsquo;t leave &mdash; and he won&rsquo;t voluntarily &mdash; the U.S. faces a choice between backing down or doing more.
And if we do more, and destabilize a regime, you inherit a power vacuum. And the U.S. has rarely been able to avoid being pulled into the aftermath.
<h3>How This Plays at Home</h3>
On the home front, support for the strikes is solid&hellip; for now. Actually doing something for once to stop drug trafficking in a real way is what we&rsquo;ve been asking for.
But this support is conditional, and everyone inside the movement knows it.
The base is all-in on confronting narco-terror networks. They are not all-in on another foreign commitment that slowly expands into a nation-building project. There is a deep muscle memory from Iraq and Afghanistan &mdash; a sense that Washington can be honest about the first phase of a mission but evasive about where it ultimately leads.
If the operation begins to look less like interdiction and more like regime management, the mood shifts. Fast.
Republican voters will not support a multi-year stabilization effort in a country of 28 million. They will not support U.S. personnel getting drawn into the day-to-day politics of Caracas. And they will absolutely revolt if they sense they are being walked toward a &ldquo;Restoring Venezuelan Democracy&rdquo; mission without a straight explanation.
This is the political risk Trump faces.
The minute this operation starts to look like Operation Restore Venezuela, the coalition fractures.
Trump&rsquo;s strength on foreign policy has always come from doing the opposite of the neocon playbook. The danger now is that the operation off Venezuela&rsquo;s coast expands in ways that run counter to that brand.
That&rsquo;s the tightrope: maintain pressure without triggering the instincts of a base that is extremely sensitive to anything that smells like another endless project overseas.
<h3>Venezuela&rsquo;s the First Domino</h3>
There&rsquo;s a larger strategic backdrop to all of this that isn&rsquo;t getting enough attention. Venezuela is the anchor of a regional bloc that has survived on inertia and outside support for decades.
For years, Venezuela has effectively subsidized Cuba&rsquo;s survival. Cut-rate oil shipments, preferential financing, and political backing have allowed the Castro regime &mdash; now run by its successors &mdash; to limp through wave after wave of economic collapse.
If Maduro falls or flees, that arrangement collapses. Cuba loses its last real lifeline. And Russia and China &mdash; both stretched militarily and economically &mdash; are in no position to step in and replace Venezuelan support.
Beijing has already pulled back from risky Latin American entanglements, focusing on its own slowdown. Moscow is tied down in Europe and lacks the capacity to bankroll a Caribbean client state even if it wanted to.
That opens the door to something we haven&rsquo;t seen since the late 1950s: a moment where the structure of power in the Western Hemisphere is genuinely up for renegotiation.
Historically, these moments have been rare. The Monroe Doctrine set the tone in the 19th century, but it was challenged repeatedly during the Cold War.
The Bay of Pigs, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the entire arc of U.S.-Soviet competition in Latin America revolved around the question would outside powers gain a foothold in America&rsquo;s neighborhood? 
Reagan&rsquo;s pushback against Soviet influence in Central America was the last time Washington moved decisively to answer that question.
Now, for the first time in decades, the pieces are lining up again.
A reset is possible. Whether that reset leads to stability or a new round of disorder is what the next phase of this crisis will reveal.
<h3>What the White House Isn&rsquo;t Saying</h3>
At this point, the U.S. operation off Venezuela&rsquo;s coast can still go one of two ways.
It can remain what the administration insists it is &mdash; a short, sharp show of force meant to disrupt narcotics networks and remind a hostile regime that its impunity is over.
Or it can become the opening phase of a strategy the White House hasn&rsquo;t said out loud&hellip; one aimed at forcing political change in Caracas and reshaping the balance of power in the hemisphere.
There is a narrow lane where this ends cleanly. The pressure may rattle Maduro&rsquo;s inner circle. A negotiated exit becomes possible. The regime weakens without collapsing outright. And the U.S. steps back without inheriting the burden of managing a fractured state.
But there&rsquo;s a broader lane too, and we&rsquo;re already edging into it. Once you apply this level of sustained military pressure and frame cartel networks as terrorist combatants, you are operating in territory where events can develop faster than the American public would support.
None of this means the administration is wrong to act. In many ways, Trump is doing what previous presidents should have done.
But decisive action carries its own gravity. The closer this operation gets to a regime-change outcome, the more unpredictable the next phase becomes.
Is it a controlled demonstration of force? Or is it the first chapter in a much larger confrontation? We don&rsquo;t know yet.
The choice between the two is coming&hellip; whether the White House says it plainly or not.

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America’s Secret “War” in the Caribbean

On behalf of our entire team, we wish you and your family a happy Thanksgiving.
In case you need some reading material in between preparing your dinner and watching football, we have you covered at Strategic Intelligence!
As you may have noticed when purchasing your Thanksgiving dinner items (or if you got an early start to your Christmas shopping), higher prices are everywhere. But can we afford it?
Affordability is a great issue because it incorporates so many other issues in a single word. Health care costs? Check. Food prices? Check. Housing costs? Check. And so on. Everyone spends money to live and support their families. If the cost of so many everyday items seem out of reach, there&rsquo;s an affordability crisis. And this is a great issue for Democrats leading into a pivotal political year in 2026.
The Democrats are claiming that Americans, especially younger Americans, cannot afford housing, food and other basics. Tuition and healthcare are too expensive. Most Americans are living paycheck to paycheck and cannot save anything. Safe housing in large cities is completely out of reach. The claim of an affordability crisis is a shortcut phrase for all the above.
Trump and the White House staff reply that affordability is getting better. The price of gasoline is down, interest rates are falling, and job opportunities are opening up because of all the foreign investment in the U.S. and other new investment by U.S. companies. This has happened at Trump&rsquo;s urging or through his use of tariffs as leverage.
<h2 class="subhead">Who&rsquo;s Right?</h2>
Both sides have some points in their favor, but the Democrats are winning the political argument and they know it. The reason is that declining inflation is not the same as declining prices.
Biden produced the highest inflation in over 40 years. Inflation hit 9.1% (year-over-year) in June 2022. Inflation has come down since then, although Trump has been on a losing streak lately. Inflation was 2.3% last April and is 3.0% today. That&rsquo;s not as bad as Biden, but shoppers still notice. Regular gas prices are down from where they were in 2022. but they&rsquo;re about the same now as they were a year ago.
Trump seems to understand he&rsquo;s vulnerable on the affordability issue. He has taken up the issue himself and has launched a full-scale effort to show he&rsquo;s the one making life in the U.S. more affordable. Trump reduced tariffs on coffee, bananas, beef and 200 other food products to lower costs to consumers. Trump also gave a keynote address recently at a conference hosted by McDonalds for its franchisees.
This recalled Trump&rsquo;s highly successful 2024 campaign stop where he put on a McDonalds apron and cooked fries and worked the drive-through window. Trump praised McDonalds ability to keep prices low for consumers. That&rsquo;s true, but even low prices are higher than they were, and this comes at a time when incomes are stagnant. That&rsquo;s the problem Trump can&rsquo;t get around.
<h2 class="subhead">A Bad Look for Trump Politically</h2>
These are not bad moves on Trump&rsquo;s part, but they are trivial compared to the scope of the problem. Since the Democrats are mostly out of power, they don&rsquo;t have to do anything constructive. All they have to do is complain. And they are complaining very effectively.
Medicare Plan B coverage premiums are going up 9.7% in 2026. That&rsquo;s more than three times the headline 3.0% inflation in the CPI. Most consumers cannot name more than a few of the 100 plus items in the CPI basket for calculation purposes. But 100% of citizens over the age of 65 can tell you what they&rsquo;re paying in Medicare premiums. They can also tell you they can&rsquo;t afford a near 10% price increase on what for them is a necessity.
Republicans are touting the fact that inflation has fallen from 9.1% under Biden to just 3.0% under Trump. But even 3.0% inflation will cut the value of the dollar in half in 24 years and half again in another 24 years. That&rsquo;s a 75% devaluation over the course of a 48-year career starting at age 17 and retiring at age 65.
Here&rsquo;s why Democrats are winning this debate. It&rsquo;s true that Biden is to blame for the inflation. But Biden is off the stage, and no one cares. Trump&rsquo;s inflation is better than Biden&rsquo;s but it&rsquo;s still inflation. In other words, prices are going up at a slower pace but they&rsquo;re still going up.
And they&rsquo;re going up off the much higher base created by Biden. Those price increases from 2022 and 2023 have not gone away. They&rsquo;re embedded in today&rsquo;s prices along with any new increases. That&rsquo;s what makes things unaffordable today and that&rsquo;s why Trump is being blamed.
The solution is more high paying jobs but that takes time. Trump&rsquo;s investment wave will play out over three to five years, but the mid-term elections are less than a year away. Trump may complain but he still gets the political blame.
Noted commentator and globalist progressive Fareed Zakaria offered a rebuttal to Democrats and puts the blame where it belongs to defend Trump:
&ldquo;If America has an affordability crisis, it tends to be in places Democrats govern, like New York, Illinois, and California, all featuring high taxes, soaring housing costs, and stagnant outcomes. It is a paradox that defines much of blue-state America: government that promises more, costs more, but delivers less. Democrats&rsquo; instinctive response to every problem remains the same: spend more.
For decades, states and cities have traded short-term political harmony for long-term fiscal ruin. In too many Democratic strongholds, regulation has metastasized into paralysis. Housing is unaffordable because local zoning codes and environmental reviews, rent control and union carve-outs make construction painfully slow and expensive. California has spent $24 billion on homelessness over five years, yet the problem has only worsened. More is spent per mile on subway construction in New York than any other city on earth.
Each new initiative layers another bureaucracy atop the last. Democrats must rediscover the lost art of simple competence&mdash;and they can prove it to the entire nation by governing well in places like big cities where they are in charge.&rdquo;
Zakaria&rsquo;s analysis is exactly right, but it&rsquo;s also irrelevant. Everyday Americans don&rsquo;t need a lecture on whose fault it is. They can&rsquo;t pay their bills and their incomes are stagnant. They want relief now and Trump is in charge, so they expect Trump to deliver some solutions. Everything else is tuned out as pure politics.
<h2 class="subhead">What Needs To Be Done ASAP</h2>
If Trump wants the high ground on the affordability issue, he needs to do several things immediately.
The first is simple education. Explain to voters where the inflation came from.
Biden&rsquo;s American Rescue Plan of 2021 spent over $1 trillion on pandemic relief at a time when the economy had already recovered and stocks were at new all-time highs. Pelosi&rsquo;s Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 spent another almost $1 trillion on the Green New Scam. These two acts together were the main drivers of inflation in 2021-2022. Inflation has been reduced since then but, again, prices are still not coming down.
The second thing Trump can do is drill, baby, drill. This program should include oil and natural gas and opening up drilling on federal lands, off the East and West Coasts and in Alaska and the Gulf of America. Energy demand is dropping. There&rsquo;s no &ldquo;oil glut&rdquo;; there&rsquo;s a collapse of demand. Flooding the market with even more energy could push the price of oil to $40 per barrel or lower. The losers will be Arab and other foreign energy producers, and the winners will be American consumers and Trump politically. Americans are more aware of the price of gas at the pump than any other single price metric.
As an aside, with the Ukraine War peace deal in the headlines, there&rsquo;s no faster way to end the war in Ukraine than $40 oil. Who loses from low oil prices? Russia. Oil prices of $40.00 or less will bring Putin to the bargaining table and help end the war in Ukraine.
A third policy is to complete the privatization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and unleash them to support mortgage finance coming from bank and non-bank mortgage originations. This competition and added liquidity will lower mortgage interest rates faster than yelling at Jay Powell and the Fed night and day.
The Democrats are winning the affordability debate. Trump can win in the end, but only if he stops whining and enacts solid policies on energy and mortgages. The mid-terms are only eleven months away. Congress will close up shop in eight months. Time is short.

awn-commentar-hero-img-11-27-25

A Crisis Americans (Including Trump) Can’t Afford

The stock market has been in a stealth selloff for the past few months.
Even while the major indices were hitting new highs just a few weeks ago, the majority of stocks were actually moving lower.
Now this correction has begun to impact the larger indices, despite strong earnings results from companies recently.
The latest example is Nvidia.
Even though the company reported exemplary numbers on its earnings call this week, the stock ended the following day down 3.15%.
Nvidia&rsquo;s latest earnings report &mdash; as they all do &mdash; brought up speculation over the AI bubble.
My view is that we absolutely are in a bubble.
But the key is to understand what exactly a &ldquo;bubble&rdquo; means for stocks and how it plays out over time.
<h2 class="subhead nbp">It&rsquo;s Not Time to Panic (Yet)</h2>
Each time a revolutionary technology like AI comes along, we get extreme levels of investor enthusiasm with it.
There&rsquo;s intense speculative activity with investors misallocating large amounts of their capital.
A lot of capital goes into companies that will never achieve any success. For a period of time, these are the best stocks in the entire market.
Unfortunately, most of these stocks will lead to steep losses. And in many cases, the shares will be worthless.
Is that what&rsquo;s happening right now? I don&rsquo;t think so&hellip; at least not yet.
Especially not when you see the strong earnings like we saw this last quarter. Not just for Nvidia, but for a broad swath of companies.
Here are some charts from Bespoke Investment Group showing how this most recent quarter ranks relative to other quarters historically.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/5SL1YERHyNQGbNCdnbuZMu/589bffcde56a86e2b1c5a6fc9c45d56e/bad-update-11-21-25-img-2.png" alt="" width="400px" />
This most recent quarter ranked in the 90%+ percentile performance for companies beating earnings per share, revenue, and raising guidance.
I&rsquo;ve invested professionally through bubbles before. I saw the 2008 crash coming. I wasn&rsquo;t surprised when the dot-com bubble burst.
And I can tell you this is not how the bubble bursts.
Even when it inevitably does, we are prepared with our strategy here at Breaking Profits.
First, we focus on buying real businesses that will succeed even if AI spending falls. They may not reach the same heights of growth, but they will grow nevertheless.
Second, we are disciplined with our profit and loss taking. This allows us to make sure we keep our gains if the market heads for a lengthy pullback.
But it&rsquo;s my strongly held view that the current bull market has plenty of time left.

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This Chart Doesn’t Say “Bubble Bursting”

The Oracle of Omaha called it "rat poison squared."
Back in 2018, when Bitcoin was trading around $10,000, Warren Buffett dismissed cryptocurrency with his usual blunt style.
At the time, I wouldn't have blamed him.
Seven years ago, cryptocurrency was full of scams.
To be fair, it still is.
Hundreds of worthless tokens. Almost no real businesses.
Buffett's mistake was lumping the few legitimate projects together with the garbage.
He also couldn't see what would drive real world demand.
Without real usage, prices have no reason to climb.
This past week, Buffett published his final letter as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway.
The 95-year-old legend is stepping down after 60 years of building a $1 trillion empire.
In his farewell, Buffett reflected on his journey.
He never mentioned cryptocurrency.
But something has changed since his "rat poison" comment...
<h3>From Hype to Usage</h3>
Cryptocurrency is finally growing up.
After years of wild promises, the industry is building real businesses.
These businesses have sales and solve real problems.
Stablecoins are digital dollars that move around the world in seconds.
No banks. No three-day waits. No expensive fees.
Payments are just one of the ways these standout cryptos are being used by real people.
Helium (HNT) lets anyone set up a hotspot and provide cellular coverage.
Millions of people use it every day without knowing it.
Their phones connect to Helium&rsquo;s access points just like any other cell tower.&nbsp;
Anyone can set up a Helium hotspot and immediately start earning cryptocurrency for helping provide cell coverage.
Crypto is also being used to develop and improve AI.
Bittensor (TAO) created a marketplace where people build AI tools and get paid.
Some AI systems predict the weather.
Others forecast stock movements or help programmers write code.
Ethereum (ETH) and Solana (SOL) have become platforms for trading stocks, bonds, and commodities.
Traditional businesses are paying attention, too.
Lemonade, Inc. (LMND), an insurance company, built tools to protect farmers in Africa.
When droughts destroy crops, the farmers still get paid through automatic insurance.
The payments happen instantly, no paperwork required.
Businesses like these would make sense to Buffett.
They generate value. They serve customers. They solve problems.
But the market hasn't figured out how to price them yet...
<h3>What This Means for Investors</h3>
Bitcoin climbed from $10,000 in 2018 to over $100,000 today.
That's a 10x return in seven years.
If Buffett had bet against Bitcoin, he would've lost everything.
But he didn't, because deep down he knew he did not understand it.
Now crypto is finally becoming something Warren Buffett might understand...
Cryptocurrencies with real users and real revenue are trading cheap.
Way cheaper than they should be.
The market hasn't figured out how to properly value these businesses yet.
When markets can't properly price them, early investors can win big.
The recent dip is your chance to get in at a discount.
Warren Buffett spent six decades proving something simple.
Patient investors who identify real value and hold through the rough patches eventually win.
His advice works for cryptocurrency just like it worked for railroads and insurance companies.
Just remember: keep crypto small in your portfolio, and never invest more than you can afford to lose.
Investors positioned correctly today could build serious wealth as cryptocurrency goes mainstream.
The cryptocurrency industry is becoming the kind of business Buffett built his fortune on.
Even if he'd never admit it.

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The Market Is Mispricing the Cryptos That Matter

It&rsquo;s been a rough week for the bulls.
Stocks ran into trouble again yesterday as the AI-unwind took a bite out of the major averages. The Nasdaq Composite was hit the hardest, dropping 1.9% as several tech mega-caps hit the skids.&nbsp;
The Nasdaq is now down more than 2.8% on the week &ndash; and it&rsquo;s not exactly looking peppy today as stocks remain stuck in the red.&nbsp;
Crypto is also struggling this week. Bitcoin is closing in on $100K. Ethereum is up a bit. Both continue to trail the S&amp;P this year by a wide margin.&nbsp;
Another round of companies fell into the earnings spotlight yesterday evening: SoundHound AI, Inc. (SOUN), NuScale Power Corp. (SMR), IREN Ltd. (IREN), Archer Aviation, Inc. (ACHR), Opendoor Technologies, Inc. (OPEN), Affirm Holdings, Inc. (AFRM), MP Materials Corp. (MP), Block, Inc. (XYZ)
The results were a mixed bag. But only two of these eight names exceeded EPS and revenue estimates, while only one is trading higher today &mdash; AFRM.
Red blankets the rest with XYZ and OPEN falling the hardest.
A handful of energy companies reported numbers earlier this morning.
The clean energy source, Constellation Energy Corp. (CEG), fell short of EPS estimates and is trading lower.&nbsp;
Duke Energy Corp. (DUK), with a heavy hand in natural gas, is flat after beating the street&rsquo;s expectations.
And following a double-miss, the Canadian oil and gas company Enbridge, Inc. (ENB) is down slightly.
International equities are slipping into the weekend.
Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Tokyo shares see red, as do the FTSE 100, German DAX, and Euro STOXX 50.&nbsp;
The Nikkei 225 posted its largest weekly loss since March. At the same time, it&rsquo;s now trading just below record levels after an impressive 3-month rally. Japanese stocks are ripe for a correction, and this week&rsquo;s action could mark the beginning.&nbsp;
The Shanghai Composite, on the other hand, printed its highest weekly close in over a decade and shows no signs of slowing down.
Across the pond, the FTSE 100 notched a new all-time high this week, while the German DAX drifted toward its June lows, and the STOXX 50 threw back to retest its March highs.
On the home front, U.S. stocks are attempting to dig in their heels without much success. The S&amp;P 500 is hugging a six-month trendline, but buyers are timid. We could witness the U.S. benchmark slide 100 points on a breakdown below 690.
So far, global weakness is making its way back to the U.S.
A few notes about this week&rsquo;s drawdown.&nbsp;
First, it feels worse than it really is. That&rsquo;s for a couple reasons&hellip;
All the big winners started getting hit in early October. The more speculative names are down a lot more than the averages and have been steadily dropping for four weeks.&nbsp;
Next, remember that this market has not posted a meaningful drawdown/pullback since the April tariff debacle. Smooth sailing shifts expectations &ndash; folks are used to stocks only going up. When they finally stop working, the pain is more intense.&nbsp;
Ultimately, I think it&rsquo;s too early to change our market outlook for the rest of the year. We should continue to expect stocks to eventually catch and rally into the holidays. Until something material changes and bigger trends begin to break, our plan should be to watch and wait for a bounce to emerge and play it accordingly.&nbsp;
That being said, sitting on our hands this week turned out to be a decent move. We didn&rsquo;t blindly buy into a weak market. Yes, our older open trades are getting smacked around. But we&rsquo;re not throwing good money after bad. If and when we do get a bounce off this reset, it should be a prime opportunity to take some strong bullish trades into January.
Commodities are mostly green here.
Precious metals are finding support at logical levels. Soybeans and soybean meal continue to rip (as cattle prices bite the dust). And coffee percolates just below a shelf of former all-time highs. Even crude oil and its distillates are finding a bid.
Inflation remains sticky, and interest rates remain in a structural uptrend &mdash; worldwide.
Perhaps gold, silver, palladium, and platinum are carving out tradeable lows and will rocket higher from here. Regardless, we anticipate more commodities and commodity-related stocks will join the rally as the market environment continues to favor raw materials.
<h3>Today&rsquo;s Trading Action&hellip;</h3>
No new trade today.&nbsp;
Our best move in this environment is to "hurry up and wait" -- there's no need to overtrade while most stocks are struggling here.&nbsp;
Hopefully, this flush will set us up for the beginnings of a bounce next week or the week after. I'll continue to track the averages and the more speculative tech baskets into the afternoon to see if anything interesting stands out.&nbsp;
For now, let's keep our minds in the game. There's no need to panic -- despite how the herd is acting. Lots of people are freaking out right now just because the market is off its highs. This type of sentiment washout can help set up the next bounce -- we simply have to be patient.&nbsp;
I'm going to film a quick video going over some important charts for Truth &amp; Trends that will hit your inbox this afternoon. Hopefully, this will calm your nerves and give you some ideas to think about over the weekend.&nbsp;
Hang in there! We'll regroup early Monday morning and see where this market takes us...&nbsp;

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A Rough Week For The Bulls

Markets in late 2025 look manic but feel strangely stable&hellip; as if euphoria itself had become the new equilibrium.
AI valuations are at dizzying heights, the Nasdaq trades as if gravity were optional, and yet, beneath the froth, there&rsquo;s a growing sense that the next great bull run may still lie ahead.
Yes, this is an AI bubble.
Every corporate deck now features a slide on &ldquo;transformative intelligence,&rdquo; and private valuations make 1999 look conservative.
But this isn&rsquo;t 1999.
Back then, the leaders were ideas without income&hellip; websites without revenue, dreams without data centers.
This time is different. Beneath the speculative excess, real cash flow and real infrastructure are taking shape. The price action screams euphoria, but the macro backdrop tells a subtler story that could set the stage for an explosive 2026.
<h3>The Resilience Paradox</h3>
Start with the debt picture. The U.S. now carries more than $38 trillion in gross national debt, a sum that should, in theory, crush risk appetite and confidence.
Yet the opposite has happened, and the market has learned to live with excess. The 10-year yield still hovers near 4.5%, a level that signals neither panic nor surrender, just adaptation.
Global capital keeps treating U.S. assets as the safest, most productive home for money. With Japan locked in deflation and Europe flirting with stagnation, America remains the only game in town with real depth, liquidity, and growth.
Then there&rsquo;s the $7 trillion parked in money-market funds &mdash; &ldquo;cash on the sidelines,&rdquo; as strategists like to say.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/23LzEA0yYItEvrcFGivG15/efc7e3a5b23c1368b801621130c65c63/mnp-10-24-25-img-1.png" alt="chart" width="350px" />
It&rsquo;s the psychological residue of the 2022-2023 trauma: investors burned by rate hikes, inflation shocks, and geopolitical chaos. But as yields drift lower and confidence rebuilds, that capital won&rsquo;t sit still. When the tide turns, the chase for return could turn 2026 into one of the most explosive years in recent memory.
Even geopolitics may be shifting from headwind to tailwind. Whispers of a trade d&eacute;tente with China suggest a pragmatic recalibration after years of decoupling. A peace framework in the Russia-Ukraine war (even a partial one) would redirect trillions from defense and commodities toward productivity and infrastructure. Either outcome could unlock a surge of global risk appetite, especially across Europe and emerging markets.
Meanwhile, AI &mdash; the bubble everyone sees &mdash; could also be the bridge to the next expansion.
<h3>The Setup for 2026</h3>
Beneath the hype, real productivity gains are taking root. The billions pouring into GPUs, data centers, and model development are infrastructure, not vapor.
Just as the railroads of the 1800s or the internet of the 1990s laid down the wiring of new economies, AI is building the scaffolding for a transformation that could define the next generation.
That doesn&rsquo;t mean the road ahead is smooth. Sticky inflation, political friction, and overextended consumers will test the system.
Corrections will come.
But if 2025 turns out to be a year of consolidation &mdash; a pause rather than a pop &mdash; the setup for 2026 is formidable: leaner balance sheets, massive liquidity, and a global economy starved for optimism.
The best bull markets never begin in confidence; they begin in disbelief.
Right now, disbelief runs the show. That&rsquo;s what makes this moment feel so dangerous&hellip; but so full of potential.

mnp-10-24-25-featured

The Birthplace of the Next Bull Run

Mailbag

This week, the mailbag included questions on the gold price, the state of the market, and new sanctions on Russia.
Here are a few:
Q: Should gold investors be worried about the recent drop in price? &ndash; Sally R.
No. The price drop has more to do with some profit-taking by investors, which is normal with such a surge in gold in recent months. Also, there was caution in advance of the latest CPI report on inflation that could impact gold prices if a reading came in higher than expected. That didn&rsquo;t happen. The CPI report showed a 3.0% rate that was lower than expected. This is good news for gold investors. It shows the Fed will continue its rate cutting cycle next week and for the December meeting. These rate cuts will support higher gold prices. Nothing has changed in my analysis of why gold prices have surged. Central bank buying continues, output is flat, and geopolitical risks are still present. Importantly, think of gold as an &ldquo;everything hedge&rdquo;. The vectors of uncertainty are everywhere. These include tariffs, tax policy, the War in Ukraine, the rise of China, a likely recession, even left-wing violence. It&rsquo;s difficult to forecast how any one of these situations will turn out, let alone all of them and their complex interactions. Stocks and bonds can be volatile as a result. Gold is the one safe haven asset that powers through them all and offers investors some peace of mind. I expect the bull market in gold to continue to new highs.
Q: I&rsquo;m worried about my investment portfolio as markets have looked shaky lately. Could we be looking at a correction soon in stocks as you have warned? Jim T.
A: We are most definitely in a bubble. That part is easy to see. The difficult part is predicting when that bubble will burst. One factor to keep an eye on is bank lending. How much are banks lending out? If banks don&rsquo;t want to lend and creditworthy clients don&rsquo;t want to borrow, then the economy falls into a deflationary spiral or depression. In these conditions, today&rsquo;s stock market could fall to an extent we haven&rsquo;t seen since 2000 (down 80%) or 1929 (down 83%). Stock market crashes can be far more damaging to investors than even recessions because they are almost impossible to predict and huge losses happen quickly. The solution is real diversification and a kind of all-weather portfolio.&nbsp;That means gold, silver, cash, private equity and real estate along with your stocks and high-quality bonds.&nbsp;React quickly when trouble starts and move away from the worst affected assets. Don&rsquo;t tell yourself the market is wrong. The market is never right or wrong. It just is what it is. Some assets in that model portfolio may be hurt in a panic, but others will perform brilliantly. Most importantly, you&rsquo;ll live to fight another day.
Q: Will President Trump&rsquo;s new sanctions on Russia&rsquo;s two biggest oil producers make a difference for negotiations in the Ukraine War? &ndash; Nigel S.
A: No. Sanctions won&rsquo;t work. The Europeans have had 18 rounds of economic sanctions and none of them have worked. The sanctions put on by the U.S. haven&rsquo;t worked either. Russia got through the entire Cold War with almost no commerce with the United States. The fact is, Russia has not missed a shipment of oil. All the oil that Europe doesn&rsquo;t want to buy, they&rsquo;re shipping to China and India. India&rsquo;s running refineries. They&rsquo;re buying Russian oil. China is selling refined product. China needs all the energy they can get. Trump&rsquo;s foreign policy has been a disaster. Russia should be a natural ally of the West to line up against China. Instead, by fighting Russia, we&rsquo;re driven Russia and China closer together. Everything about this is counterproductive and will fail. Sanctions only work if you have a small to mid-sized power with a low reserve position, meaning hard currency, and no friends. So that could be Iran. Iran is about the biggest country where they actually did work. But when you&rsquo;re Russia, nobody else is joining in the sanctions. Brazil, China, India, Malaysia, and many other countries, none of these countries have joined the sanctions. Russia&rsquo;s not isolated. They might be isolated from France and Germany, and the U.S. to some extent, but not the rest of the world. And they have huge reserve positions. They were very smart. They put over 25% of the reserves in physical gold bullion, which you cannot seize or freeze. These reserve positions are being bolstered by the higher price of gold, and they have a ton of trading partners. So, this will all fail, and why anyone in the White House think otherwise is a mystery to me.

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