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Listen to the full episode now or follow the Saxo Market Call on your favorite podcast app.

Today’s Links

Silver and gold insanity driven in part by possible Chinese revaluation? Ed Dowd interview with Adam Taggart on Thoughtful Money, discussing equity market (over)valuations, US economy recession risks and much more, especially China internal revaluation needs.

WSJ: The deflation doom loop in China Corporate profits in the economy are down, but debt continues to pile up - and it’s a classic balance sheet recession, with the only way out to either destroy the debt or destroy the unit (currency) that it is denominated in. The latter is usually the chief approach. That aspect of the situation not addressed very well in this article, but it’s still a good one for describing the dilemma. The Ed Dowd interview above does.

UPenn’s Wharton Business school with a huge white paper on stablecoins.

Before raw-dogging your next flight, consider the purpose of boredom Fortunately, people are becoming more self aware on the degree to which the distraction economy and our devices are dangerous for our minds and even our organisms. But unfortunately, we may be doing the wrong thing by purposefully pursuing doing nothing. HT to FTAlphaville.

Trump’s destruction of soft US power in Europe Pretty remarkable evidence that the US’ motivations are seen as very suspect by Europeans and that Europe wants to keep the US at an arm’s length after the recent antagonistic posturing from the Trump administration.

Pax Silica - a key US strategic supply chain effort Pax Silica is the crystallization of the strategy for securing all parts of the semiconductor and AI supply chain, from basic materials and energy to the computing components themselves back with allies and back into the US. The Hudson Institute is doing a live webcast on the topic with key players later today:

Reuters exclusive suggests price floor approach for materials may not persist? Well - how to compete with non-profit Chinese mining and rare earth production outfits, intentionally not making profits to ensure Chinese control? Not sure I trust this story’s implications, but needs tracking.

Chart of the Day - Palantir

Always interesting when a stock does the opposite of the market on any given day, and Palantir is notable for its weakness yesterday as the stock fell -5% and is now challenging below its 200-day moving average for the first time since May of 2023. I scratched my head at the stock’s weakness on today’s podcast, but a quick news search and the light bulb goes off: perhaps its weak performance is on investors associating this company directly with the US Trump administration’s ICE anti-immigration crackdown, as the government uses Palantir software to derive the leaving PR-sensitive institutions not wanting to hold the name and individual names likewise. Read this article - it is disturbing. As well, non-US governments may second guess the risk of association or direct business with this company, which could be seen as a kind of creepy panopticon of the surveillance state. Is Palantir a sub-50-dollar stock?

Questions and comments, please!

Listen to the full episode now or follow the Saxo Market Call on your favorite podcast app.

Today’s Links

The main attraction: Craig Tindale on critical materials, AI and so much more This is a must listen on MacroVoices - offers a compelling take on the criticality of critical minerals, but also drops interesting stock names, makes the case that AI is not necessarily a consumer good, but a key military and natural security asset that must be protected. Tindale also has a steady output on his Substack, including his latest on the irrelevance of the former focus on central banking for allocating a nation’s priorities according to the interest rate lever.

Japanese repatriation to be set in motion by this JPY stabilization? A critical question, and not just for Japanese markets - here EndGameMacro responds to a Michael Burry (of The Big Short fame) post on “repatriation pending”.

Don’t drink almond milk and don’t eat almonds - at least not almonds from California Almonds are a particularly unsustainable environmental catastrophe, but then again, a lot of avocado production probably is too, and so are grains, and so are the way we produce meat in many cases…ugh - this is why I try not to think of these things too often.

Meta glasses - why? I really don’t get why we need our screens mounted to our faces and why the public would accept everyone running around with a recording device strapped to their face at all times. But some people actually use them and the demand is so strong in the US that Meta is delaying an international launch of Ray Ban versions.

Technical analysis, the Japanese way. To help out with the chart below, consider the technical analysis system quite well known everywhere, but particularly popular in Japan, Ichimoku kinko hyo, the “one glance equilibrium chart” analysis that provides a rich sense of where the price is relative to trend.

Chart of the Day - Ichimoku chart of USDJPY

Below a SaxoTrader chart of USDJPY using the Ichimoku technical analysis framework, which includes all kinds of lagging and leading features. Among the interest levels in play right now are the “cloud” which is projected forward based on prior price action. It is considered a notable trend development if the cloud is pierced, and another key trend development if the lagging span, which is just a 26-period lag of the closing price, crosses through the price bars or candlesticks. The latter has already happened, and the cloud is in play on the daily. On the weekly (not shown), the cloud starts down south of 150.00.

Questions and comments, please!