[Oct. 17, 2024 1047 am] - Oh hell. Back in fully, on a downtick. More dangerous to be out?
[Oct. 17, 2024 - 9:37 am] - Out. Took profits. We are currently very worried, and both AI's are pointing down
[Oct 6, 2024] - Re-acquired same positions at lower price. Risker to be out than in.
[Sept 26, 2024 - update]: AI still pointing up. Unloaded this, smells wrong.
[Sept 7, 2024] This equity in question that we track with our AI, has turned seriously positive, driven by expectations of lower interest rates, and sustained bank profits, despite increases in provisions for possible credit losses.

This is not to be considered an exercise in investment advice. Make your own decisions, please.

Banks in Canada risk-manage reasonably well, and have been paying roughly 40% to 50% of their earnings out as dividends for a long time, so for low-to-mid-risk investors, they are pretty much the best local game in town, if one wants to avoid currency risk. We are also (not so secretly) concerned that the USA is becoming seriously crazy, neo-racist ("Whites of Earth Now!!!" ala Cowboy Junkies first album), and DEI efforts in many companies provides solid evidence of a hard-core clinical-level of insanity. The drivers of this accelerating madness, is unclear. Perhaps it was the Covid-19 virus, and/or the mass vaccine efforts? We do not know.

And yet in history, one sees these periods of collective insanity. It's actually pretty common. The "Cultural Revolution" in China is a good example (again, we did direct research and know of what we speak when we say it was pure insanity), and also the "French Revolution", where a similar madness took control of an entire nation, and mass-murder became a political and cultural project. The rise of European fascism in the 1930's, all across Europe (not just Germany), is another example, as is the rise of the economic and totalitarian madness that was Marxist Communism. (England was not immune. The rise of Oliver Cromwell, the rabid-moralistic "Pikers", the execution of King Charles the First, and the English civil war that induced the initial colonization efforts to America, appears to be another example.)

Entire nations can quite literally go crazy. Civilization is a thin coating of bright social-paint, upon a raging level of latent dark-violence that always seems to exist, just below the surface. And banking, is right up there with whoring, as one of the oldest and most successfully sustainable professions, as long as proper risk-management is maintained. One has to own banks to survive the "battle for investment survival", as Gerald Loeb called it. He understood risk better than most.

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[Oct. 17, 2024 - 10:47 am] - Curious. My insane "inner-trader" made me buy it all back lower. My argument for being out just seems like bullshit, on second reading. It just smells wrong. The heat in the economy may lift everything. The problem is that the banks are just making too damn much money, not to own them. It's that simple.

[Oct. 17, 2024] - Out. Took profits. We unloaded a significant position in bank stocks. Both AI's pointing down. This one is REALLY negative, and it is the higher-frequency one. It's flashing yellow warning lights. We are very worried now, as inflation continues to run between warm and too damn hot. Further rate-reductions may not happen. They would be unwise. Rates may actually be moved up a bit, as inflation seems to be everywhere, despite what the official numbers say. If rates are bumped up in the next few months, it will hammer long-duration securities (long bonds and bank stocks, which are like infinite-duration bonds - very rate sensitive. A lot of pre-election liquidity seems to be on-stream (we don't really know), and it will have to withdrawn, post-election, regardless of who wins. The times are actually most dangerous I have seen in my lifetime, truth be told. There is too damn much warfare on now, also. This is just double-plus-ungood - damn foolish, actually.

[Oct. 6, 2024] - Update] - Full Disclosure: Re-acquired same positions at lower price, for cash takeout. Needed funds for required hardware costs, tax payments on property. Curious times. Risk is higher, being out, than in, we suspect. We think Kamala Harris is inept, and Trump will win, as he has actual experience with being a President. This will be positive for Western-World markets. If it goes the other way, we are all screwed, regardless of market postions, so little will really matter. Canada will have to self-correct at some point, and if Trump wins, this process may be accelerated also. Too much is just too silly to continue much longer. But propserity will have to be maintained, so we suspect inflation will run warm, but not too hot. The old "Goldilocks" model... Remember? One needs to be invested, to keep the machines running.

[Sept 26, 2024 - Update] - Full Disclosure: Unloaded this. It just smells wrong. Still too much inflation. We think rate-expectations are wrong - but the AI still points straight up. Rates will have to rise, or inflation will rage like a forest-fire, and do great damage.

[Sept 7, 2024 - Update] This equity in question that we track with our AI, has turned seriously positive, driven by expectations of lower interest rates, and sustained bank profits, despite increases in provisions for possible credit losses.

This projection, automatically driven by our AI model, is typically at a higher-frequency, but in this case, it matches our other, more smoothed, projection. We find when both models agree, the projection seems to have a higher probability of playing out as indicated.

This information is not "Security or Trading Advice". It is simply an honest reporting of our research efforts.
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The difficulty of seeing the forest, for the trees, always remains... The field beyond the forest, yields. But the forest is an attractive nest of chaotic action, held in a fine ecological-orbital balance by the forces of destruction, and re-birth. If you look closely, a small maple tree, with yellow-orange leaves, which are being shed for winter, is visible in the lower-right of this image. In time, if left to nature, these trees with leaves, which are shed in Autumn, and re-created in the Spring, will replace and displace this grove of spruce-trees. But if I keep the deciduous trees cut back, and work to protect the spruce, I can keep this grove intact, and it will grow, and I can enjoy the green spruce branches in deep, cold winter.

Nature is *not* to be left to operate randomly. Our job is to manage and manipulate it, and encourage the natural outcome we wish to have take place. Left to it's own, nature simply kills everything. Humans need to understand this basic biological truth. Our job is to make nature serve us. We must not become confused, and invert this key requirement.