You know the central banks they orchestrating rallies off of short squeezes since you know
early two thousand and nine. You can make a case from the low of
two thousand and nine when the S and P five hundred traded at sixty sixty
six on March sixth, that that was an orchestrated, no reversal, massive
short squeeze. So you know, these guys know that this is the name
of the game. It can't stop either. There is no other remedy.
You're listening to Carrie Letz's Financial Survival Network where you get valuable information. You
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o's Carrie lutz Nick. Hey a little while, we've both been on vacation,
family and all that good stuff. Now the year has started, we're
hitting the ground running. So we're going to do a basically your insights into
twenty twenty four bernstlet's juice, just do our standard market rehease. What's the
market doing today, Yeah, we got a mixed session today. Technology is
actually getting a bid that's been weak recently, having video trading higher. That's
up over five hundred dollars. So everybody's talking about that today. AI back
in the and the main scene of things. But overall, you know,
since the New year's begun, we've gotten a little bit of a pullback from
that very very overbought position that we had going into the end of the year.
And that was a big short squeeze there. And I think that short
squeeze now has the remedy itself, and you'll start to see the market chop
around here for a little bit. But ultimately I don't really see anything problematic
yet, at least for the markets right now. Well, I know they
say Santa Claus only comes once a year, and we had quite a Santa
Claus rally, didn't we. I mean almost from the moment they put up
the Christmas lights. Yes, j Powell decided to put on a Santa suit
this year. He's a little bit thin, but it worked out. Nonetheless,
you know, the Powell pivot did the trick, and you know,
nobody expected that. I didn't expect that myself. I thought he would talk
hawkish because he really had things in control with the two year treasury yield bawling
below the Fed funds rate. But you know, I think it was December
twelfth, December thirteenth when he came out with that decision, and it really
gave us another big rocket ship boost to the upside. And you know,
now the markets are just trying to work that off a little bit. We
have earning season starting up in the next couple of weeks, so that'll be
pretty important as well. We'll start to get some numbers from some of these
companies and see how things are truly faired. You know, you never know
how the market is when it gets you fork like it did off the Powell
pivot. Yeah, well that power. But we're going to talk more about
as far as UH sectors. I remember we saw housing stocks hit that new
high. I think it was December one that hit the all time high.
All the major housing stocks, whether it's Toll Brothers, Kadi, Lennar,
right around that same time, within a two to three day time period,
they all hit that high. And that was kind of the giveaway that somebody
knew something. Right, that's right. You know, the housing stocks were
not going down. They were acting really really well. They were moving up.
And somebody always knows something in this business. It's just not us,
but somebody always knows something. You know. We have to look at the
charts and try to find the patterns, and you know that that's how we
go about our business. But somebody always knows something. And you know it
would really was. The market moves on surprises, whether it's to the upside
of the downside. When the market doesn't have something calculated in and you get
a big move, you know that it was a surprise, and that really
was shocker to see him lower his his rate out look, after being so
hawkish for so long, all of a sudden, you know, two weeks
ago or two weeks prior to that announcement, he's very very hawkish, and
here he comes in as the dove of all doves, and you know we've
seen him do this before. He actually did it in December of twenty eighteen,
and we call the Christmas reversal. I think it was on the twenty
sixth of December. You know, we're going to lower the Fed funds rate
back down to zero. We're gonna start a quantitative easy remember that, And
the market just ramped up for two years. So you know, you just
got to be aware of how the Fed operates. They jawbone a lot,
and then when they can actually jaw bone, it seems like they really do
take action, and that gives them another, you know, another market move
in a direction of their favor. Yeah. I just find the whole thing
kind of fascinating because look, historically, five percent interest rates, that's what
we've had, right, that is the number, and you know, five
percent mortgages whatever. And now the economy can't even sustain the historic normalized interest
rates for very long. The economies can't. The economies of the World warre
just falling to pieces. And I don't think it was something that Powell did
lightly. I think it's something you had no choice but to do, because
how many more banks could collapse before something had to happen here? Nick,
Yeah, absolutely, And we've had an inverted Yolker for well over a year
now between the two year note and the ten year note, So that's always
been a great indicator of a recession throughout history. And you know, a
lot of people are now looking for twenty twenty four to have well, let's
see if we have a recession this year, so it's certainly a possibility.
You know, the central banks they orchestrating rallies off of short squeezes since you
know, early two thousand and nine. You can make a case from the
low of two thousand and nine when the S and P five hundred traded at
six six six on March sixth, that that was an orchestrated, no reversal,
massive short squeeze. So you know, these guys know that this is
the name of the game. It can't stop either. There is no other
remedy. You either let the markets go down, then you squeeze them up,
and you just keep playing this game as long as you can. But
we've already crossed the rubicon carry with thirty four trillion dollars worth of debt.
So you know, enjoy the rallies when you get them, I guess,
and you know you go back to business that way. Yeah. Actually,
the first time I remember them directly interceding in the markets was nineteen eighty seven.
The crash of nineteen eighty seven happened on a Friday, and basically on
Monday, all the markets had seized up except the Kansas City futures market,
and the FED started massive buying on that market, and all of a sudden,
everything opened up and jolted ahead, and we saw these huge advances.
And from that point on, the market's never been allowed to actually engage in
its cleansing action. Arguably, we had that recession during Obama and they let
the market go down, but only to a certain point, and then they
were back in there manipulating the hell out of it. That's right. And
you know there's an old wivestyle out there that Ronald Reagan signed an executive order
after the eighty seven crash and created a working team to never let the markets,
you know, fall that much. Now, we don't know how true
that is, if it's really something, but I believe they did do a
working group, and they do have a working group out there. But you
know, you don't even have to follow that so much. You just follow
really what the FED is going to do, and you follow charts, and
all the tr rules still work as good as they've ever worked. And this
has been going on for years and years, and that's why I used them
and I tell everybody just learn the charts. You know, if you're not
going to always nail it to the day or pinpoint things perfectly, sometimes you
do, but you know you'll have a good, good understanding of how the
markets work and how they actually move, especially when you get all this rhetoric
coming out of you know, central bankers almost on a daily basis. Hey,
that was the birth of the good old PPT, the Plunge Protection Team.
That's right. I haven't seen anybody make any mention of the PPT for
years now because it's so normalized that, you know, I don't want to
say it's transparent, but it's transparently obvious. That's right. It has.
And that's like everything, Kerry. You know, when they implement something,
if they implemented long enough, it just becomes normalized, like you just said,
And that that's exactly where we are, where people don't even mention the
PPT, the Pluet Protection Team any longer. All right, quickly, Energy
and precious metals, where where is it? Where did we start the year
at? Where is it now? Well? Prude oil, Actually we'll start
with energy and oil. Prude oil actually tried to make a move and you
know, oil got to around seventy five dollars a barrel. It just really
can't get anything going. I actually own the USO at the dead low,
so I'm still in the money there, but I have a breaking and stop
on my second half position. It's been a tough trading. Like I said,
k if we take out the lows that were made, you know,
not that long ago in oil, we're going to see oil go down to
fifty five dollars a barrel. So I know that's hard to believe with all
the conflicts going on around in the world, but even today we had Saudi
Arabia basically come out and say that they're going to lower oil prices around the
globe. And just right before the holidays, we had an OPEC meeting where
these same guys wanted to do production cuts. So they speak out of both
sides of their mouth. They've actually learned from the Federal Reserve. They've learned
the playbook from the master. They learn learn the faster as of double speak.
They have, they really have, and they are good at it.
So now all of a sudden, today the headline is that, you know,
Saudi Arabia is gonna lower oil prices around the world. You just can't
make this stuff up, you know, And this is why, you know,
I always tell my traders, I said, hey, we already made
money on this trade, and take app off the table and we just sit
with the second half at breaking with a break even stop and play with the
houses money. Because it just gets to be, you know, one day
to the next, you just get so much rhetoric from these different groups.
Okay, so oil, what's oil? We've got energy. That gas is
still trading at the lows. Yeah, that gas had a good little run.
It tried to make a run at three. Now it's back off again.
It's been a lot of whipsawce. So that tells me probably somewhat of
a manipulated market here for nack gas. But that's that's with everything. So
you know, after you have a seventy eight month run up, you're going
to get a pullback of some sort. I think that pullback has already occurred.
I'm looking for a bottom in that gas. I pulled my nack gas
trade off the table a while ago again with a break even stop and made
a little profit there. But I'm looking to get back in it. I
do think it's headed higher. I think it's still the energy that the world
needs, but you know, supposedly these controllers don't believe it. So well,
we'll see how it plays out. But the chart is going to be
important for that gas. But today it's having to sell off, and you
know, it's been very volatile, and that's the problem with it. You
know, you have five percent moves almost on a daily basis. O good,
so and then all right, so what about bitcoin and and gold and
silver? All right, we'll go to bitcoin next because everybody's waiting for this
approval of a spot bitcoin ETF. I think that's gonna help a little bit.
I don't think. I think the move in bitcoin has probably been made
for the most part, or it's factored into the cake already with the big
run up that it's had into these spot bitcoin ETFs. If these things don't
get approved, I mean bitcoin is going to sink like a ship. So
that's that's where we are. You know, I don't know what's going to
happen. Honestly, it's in the SEC's court. The court's kicked it back
to the SEC. So we'll see what happens here as we go forward.
But you know, it's very very important that they get that approval. If
they don't get that approval, I mean, it could be you know,
the end of bitcoin as we know it. That will be interesting to see.
And yeah, today bitcoin crossed forty five thousand, and it looks like
the market seems to think these ETFs are going to be a fade a complate.
But we will see. You know, one thing I've learned is never
count on the government or the courts to bail you out or to provide you
with a windfall. If you get one anyway, that's okay, but don't
think they're going to save you. Hey, so precious metals, We're still
over two thousand in gold, but taking a little bit of a hit this
week. Yeah, gold had a great run and it's been flirting with that
breakout Kerry. You know, there's a big trend line going on a monthly
chart of gold futures and we have not been able to close above there,
and that's a real, real big problem at the moment. Now, eventually
I believe it's going to close above there and go a lot lot higher.
But in in their term, we're doing a lot of backing and fillings,
so you still got to be careful with gold here. I love it longer
term and the short run. You know, I'm just sitting and waiting to
trade levels. I haven't done anything really in the space because it just hasn't
given me a confirmation of a breakout, and it might trade a little bit
lower in the near term. So I don't know what to do here.
When I don't know, I don't do and I just sit back and wait.
But you know, if gold goes into a real correction type move now,
we could see a trade down to the mid to high sixteen hundergandle which
I believe is a golden goose buying opportunity, and I would be all over
at that stage of the game. No guarantees it's going to get down that
far. But you know, again, it has not broken out, and
I would not chase it right now. And of course silver has like not
participated at all here. Yeah, silver is lagging gold right now. And
we've seen, you know, last year or the year before, we've seen
silver take leadership. This time around, it's legging. It is not keeping
up with gold, So keep an eye on that. I love the silver
formation though, what it's doing a lot of traders are looking at silver saying,
ah, you know, it's not going to make a move, But
I think silver has got to pull back in its cards here, and that's
going to be a setup to get long and a level I I really like,
and I'm going to give it to you guys here. I give it
to my members over the weekend is nineteen dollars on silver futures. It might
be a slight pierce, you know, maybe eighteen eighty, eighteen seventy five,
but if you get silver down in nineteen, I will be loading the
boat once more. And I already got a boatloaded the stuff Kerry, so
I will be loading up once again around that level. And I think that's
if you missed it at seventeen forty when I gave the call there in September
of twenty twenty two, this is your chance to get into silver. You
know. Nineteen bucks is the next load up phase. Okay, all right,
sounds good. Now let's talk about twenty twenty four and beyond. You
know, I always think about what I'm thinking about the future. I always
think about what Eisenhower said when he was president, and he said something the
effect of things are more like they are now than they've ever been before.
Well, I'm gonna stick with that, saying myself, they really are.
And and I know a lot of people are going into the new year thinking
we're gonna have a crash, and you know, I'm not in that camp.
I think the market will chop around. You have an election year this
year, so you know you're gonna get some volatility just done on that basis
I would expect. But overall, what I'm seeing for the year is that
this market is just gonna be a chopping grind and if you don't, you're
gonna have to watch chart patterns. You're gonna have to be a chartist.
And again, if the central banks do come out and do rate cuts,
that's always a positive and markets can go higher. So I'm not an uber
bear this year at all. I think that the Fed is still driving the
ship, and there Jay Powell is still in charge, sitting at the captain's
seat right now. All right, so gold, you what are your feelings
about gold for the year. Well, I really think that gold right now
is a little bit of a tough trade. If we across that twenty one
hundred, and we do it on a monthly closing basis, goals off to
the races. If we stay underneath that twenty one hundred, we could go
back as low as sixteen seventy five, sixteen eighty, and that would be
the level to get in, and I mean get in for the long haul.
Get in and don't look to get out for years to come. That's
my take on it, because when gold does break out, we're going to
see it probably go twenty eight twenty nine hundred, that's what the symmetry of
the pattern shows. That's where we would go, maybe even test three thousand.
I'm not in the camp that I hear so many people say, goals
going to ten twenty thirty thousand. I don't see that, but you know
it moved to three thousand. Move to twenty eight hundred. Twenty nine hundred
certainly is possible. But you got to cross that twenty one hundred level on
a monthly closing basis. You do that, that's where we're headed and we'll
probably get there pretty quickly. Good. So as far as stocks go,
so, like you said, it's going to be a grind. Any sectors
you see that are probably better than others. Yeah. So right now you've
had a big, big tech run techniques to correct itself, so you kind
of stay away from that for the first half of the year. There will
be tech stocks, maybe some certain names that will do better than others in
the near term, but for the whole you stay away from tech at least
until you know, late April or even even into June perhaps, and then
you start to look at tech. Tech could be a second half runner,
but the first half, Tech's got to work off that ridiculous gain that it
had last year. I mean, the Nasdaq was up forty four percent,
so you got to work that off. You don't look at technologies, you
know, you look at now. You look at companies that were beaten down
last year, believe it or not. I like Bristol Myers right that stock
was eighty closed down that round fifty dollars last year. That's something I'm in
call options with. I'm looking to be a buyer of it. You look
at other stocks, even Walgreens, which I don't like the company at all.
They just cut their dividend. Stock looks horrible, but it's a dog
of the Dow. So you look at something like that. I also like
a lot of the proctors and Kimberley Clarks. I think those could firm up.
They're not there right now, but that's a group or an area.
The consumer goods names that I would look at as well. They need to
play some ketchup and then you could look at small caps after a pullback of
some sort, but they add too big of a run into the end of
the year, so I would stay away from them until they give us a
really good level and they you know, we could see like a forty thirty
to fifty percent retrace before that occurs, So you know, you look for
patterns set ups now. But I would void tech for the first half of
the year for the most part. Hey, Walgreens going back to that at
a high yield, it hasn't been doing well and then they cut it,
which I guess was widely anticipated. Now it's down to a four percent yield,
and I guess the stocks kind of finding its way. Huh. Yeah,
it's trying to find a bottom. I don't like the company at all.
I think it's it's horribly run. I think chart has been bearish for
years and years. But you know, you got a dog of a Dow
theory there, right, Dogs in a Dow usually play out. At least
they're you know, something that could could catch up and do a little bit
better. And you know, just like the Intel was last year, right,
Intel was a dog of the Dow last year. Intel had a really
good run in recently, so you know again in twenty twenty three. So
you look for things like that the first the first half of the first few
months of this year. You know, I wouldn't be putting money to work
in these five flying tech names. I think that should be avoid at all
costs. And again, you know, sometimes they defy gravity and they go
higher than anybody expects, but I would never chase them up here after the
run that we've seen like last year. Oh good, So all right,
so we talked about housing, But what do you see about housing for the
I mean, you're because we do have this shortage of housing all right now.
Obviously, all you need to cure a shortage of housing is a lot
of people looking to sell, and more people looking to sell than to buy.
But this looks like it's almost a systemic issue here. Well, we
got to remember, Kerry, we had a lot of big, big firms
out there, whether it was subsidiaries of Blackstone or black Rock. They've all
bought, you know, houses. I can't tell you how many people I
know that sold their home and are renting from the same people that they sold
the house to. It's incredible phenomenon. We've never seen this in our lifetime.
So you know, that has taken a lot of supply off the market,
and when you don't have supply, prices stay. I so I'm not
looking for any dramatic drop in housing unless interest rate and really go through the
roof, and interest rates went from basically nothing to five percent and the mortgage
rates went up to eight percent on moston a housing price is still held up.
So you know, right now it's all about supplying demand and there's very
very little supply out there. So you know, I think housing can pull
in a little bit, but I don't see it going down significantly, all
right, So so housing is more of the same, like we kind of
said there, yep is, and I think that's how it's going to be
this year. You'll get some pullbacks like always in the housing stocks, but
you know, keeping one companies like Lenard that's really probably the tell of what
housing does overall. I think that's the most important. That's like the JP
Morgan of the housing stocks. So watch that one. Stocks still holding up
really well right now? Yeah, yeah, which is like exactly what you
wouldn't think. But hey, I guess it all goes back to the Powell
pivot. So originally Powell said three interest rate cuts, the market turned that
into six. How many cuts do you think we're gonna get for the coming
year? Will we get? I think if we do get cuts, it'll
just be two. I don't even think we're going to get three because you
have wars going on. Wars are inflationary, so how you know? Everythinks
the Fed is really stupid because they play dumb. But these guys are not
stupid. They're they're very smart. They have a big team over there,
NBA's PhDs, mathematicians, statisticians. I've said this a million times. They're
not stupid. They know that interest rates are not going down that much,
even though regardless of what they do, there's a four under the ten year
Treasury note yield, so you know where that could it go? Three seven,
three point five percent? That's it. It's not going down any lower
than that. And if you get any invasion of Taiwan, China going into
Taiwan or something along those lines. Now you've got supply chain disruptions. That's
as inflation area as it gets, so they have to be aware of this.
I just don't really see how they're gonna cut rates. I'm they give
them two rate cuts because they said they're gonna do three, and the market's
looking for more. But the market's always greedy, right, The market's always
looking for way more than what they they are going to get. Right.
The market's always like it's like a dog begging for a treat, you know,
So you have to think of it like that, right when you walk
in a dog, a dog always looking for a treat. They'll stop and
give you the paw and all of that stuff. You might even roll around.
Well, that's what the market is. The market's like a dog looking
for a treat. They're always looking for free money. So I just don't
see how it's going to happen. If China does go into Taiwan. Hey
the ballgame changes and everybody better be aware of that. Yeah, I personally
don't think it's going to happen because the CCP is in real trouble right now.
Crisis of leadership ZE looks like he's you know, not long for the
party. If he does manage to hold on, the problem is, in
order for them to invade Taiwan, he's got to a point somebody the head
of the military, all the all the branches in China. That person then
becomes the most powerful person in China, and that could well be what's held
it back. Plus, it is a question about can they really win,
right, Well, I think they could win. I think that that would
be a problem, the same way I think Russia could win Ukraine. I
don't think that's a problem either. The problem is, right, at what
cost does it come? And that's that's what they they're up against. But
basically we get news reports saying that President she has already told President Biden that
at some point he is going into Taiwan this year, So, you know,
is that just more rhetoric. Will they do it? You know,
it remains to be seen. I don't know that stuff. I don't know
if they will or they won't. But what I will say, if they
do, watch for inflation. There's no way to counter to that. Yeah.
Yeah, well, probably a huge mistake to go in there, But
leaders have done things when they're desperate before and that have surprised the world.
So hey, it's just the tofu dreg world economy here at work. That's
all we're gonna call it. All right, what about wars? More wars
on the way more? Because we're talking about wars. What's happening with the
wars that are going on now? And what can we look forward to?
Yeah, more wars are on the way for the next six, seven,
eight years. Who knows. It's the war cycles are all in place now.
I mean they all have kicked into gear, you know, so you're
going to see conflicts continue twenty twenty four. You know, hopefully we can
avoid some of it, maybe even going to wind down in Russia and Ukraine,
that's a possibility, but others are going to flare up. It's not
going to end. You could even start to see you know, with the
election, you could even start to see a minor civil a civil war here
in the US. I mean, you know, all of these things are
in play right now. I would I'd be very very much aware of war
sticking around for the next several years. All right. So, yeah,
you even had Venezuela said they were going to go into Guyana and take their
oil fields. Right, yeah, that's right, that's right. And then
you know, watch another you know, people aren't realized, but India has
been the hottest economy in the world. If they have wounds with Pakistan,
that's a problem as well, so keep an eye on that as well.
I mean, but you yeah, the perfect example Venezuela. You know,
who would have expected that? Nobody expected either that? Right, that's crazy,
right it is. And we're in a crazy time, Carrie. This
is an upside down world and all of these things are not going away anytime
soon. So true, so so true. So we got like interesting times
ahead, that's for sure, right, without a doubt. And it's the
chaos is going to continue we are, you know, and we haven't even
spoken about the election yet. That's that could be chaos as well. Yeah,
well it seems like it's getting off out of good foot there. Huh
oh yeah, oh yeah, we're we're we're we are looking at you know,
I like to call it the actors, right, we're looking at all.
I think all these politicians are actors. In fact, I think they
all have Actors Guild cards. So uh, you know, we'll we'll see
how what kind of show they put on for us. Yeah, well it's
it's definitely going to be interesting, isn't it. It's gonna be more than
interesting. This is this is one for the ages. Nothing's going to change,
doesn't matter who gets really gets in. They're all kind of the same,
right, But you know the show is just going to be, you
know, outstanding. It will out do the Hamilton U and everybody liked the
New York City all right, all right, well that is it? Or
today, make sure you go over to Nick site in the Mooneystocks dot com.
See you has beating the averages for decades and we'll see if his prophecies
for the coming year are accurate like they have been in the past. If
you've got a question for Nick myself, email address Klafcarrie LUTs dot com.
Make sure you write your comments in the YouTube channel below. If you're watching
this on YouTube and like, share and subscribe and all that good stuff.
Nick, we'll talk to you on Wednesday. Thanks first stopping by, Thank
you Carrie to see you on Wednesday. Thanks for listening to Carrie Letz's Financial
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