Lending A Helping Hand - INO Cares

Rebuilding Together Sidebar 2Did you know that April is National Volunteer Month? It’s a time to honor those that give their time to worthy causes and also a time to get out there and pay-it-forward! It’s easy to donate cold hard cash, but we wanted to give more than just that.

For our April INO Cares campaign, we thought it was time to get our hands dirty... really dirty! We’ve teamed up with Rebuilding Together of Anne Arundel County to sponsor the repair of a home for a low-income resident in need.

Rebuilding Together of Anne Arundel County (RTAAC) is one of 200 nationwide affiliates under Rebuilding Together, formerly known as Christmas in April. With the support of corporate sponsorships, grants and donations of individuals, churches and volunteer organizations, RTAAC has renovated over 520 homes and has put back over $10M in repair value. April 26th is RTAAC’s “Blitz Day,” where volunteers will repair multiple homes in a our area.

INO.com is proud to be a house sponsor! We will be providing a monetary donation, as well as a handful of employee volunteers to help rebuild a home! We are so excited to help this wonderful organization and a neighbor in need.

Please check back with us the first full week of May for pictures and stories from our day of volunteering! Learn more about RTAAC and Rebuilding Together.

CoT – Gold, Silver, Commodities & T Notes

Among its 29 pages of high quality market analysis, this week's NFTRH (#287) reviewed the Commitments of Traders (CoT) structures of a few markets and their implications.

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The above CoT graph clearly shows that gold has declined as the structure improved (red arrows). It then bottoms with the circled extremes and rises in conjunction with a degrading structure (green arrows). Gold is still on its journey toward bottoming. Continue reading "CoT – Gold, Silver, Commodities & T Notes"

When The Major Equity Market Bubble Crashes, Michael Berry Will Take Refuge in These Gold Stocks

The Gold Report: Mike, you've been watching the stock market and, by extension, the precious metals markets very closely for signs of a larger equity market blow-off that could send gold higher. What makes you think the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the NASDAQ are in a bubble? What are the signs that a crash might be imminent?

Michael Berry: I have been watching bubbles since 1987. In September of that year I correctly predicted the 25% crash of October 19. We have been blowing through mini and maxi bubbles for 30 years; this one is nothing new.

The solution to our macroeconomic issues has been to inflate new bubbles, to inflate asset values to soften the blow from the last bubble, all the while creating the conditions for the next one. That is how we ended up with the current equity market bubble. It is driven solely by the Federal Reserve's liquidity. Always remember that liquidity begets liquidity. I also see a debt market that I consider to be a bubble. These markets are just not sustainable. I can't say when, but we have an equity market decline coming, maybe a severe decline.

TGR: The housing bubble and the tech bubble were, by definition, confined to certain niches initially and then the impact reverberated to other sectors. Are you predicting a market-wide crash where everything falls or will it be confined to certain sectors? Continue reading "When The Major Equity Market Bubble Crashes, Michael Berry Will Take Refuge in These Gold Stocks"

Drugstore Wars: Walgreen Vs. CVS

I hope I'm not dating myself too much, but I remember when the neighborhood chain drugstore was almost a one-stop shop for human needs.

For example, you dropped off your film to get developed. You could get the ointment for that embarrassing itch. You could even get a BLT and some fries. (Not necessarily in that order.)

The BLTs and fries are long gone, but the chain drugstore on the neighborhood corner has continued to evolve and embed itself into our daily lives. And it will continue to do so in an even bigger way going forward.

By far, the two biggest players in the drugstore space are Walgreen Co. (NYSE: WAG) and CVS Caremark (NYSE: CVS). If two-thirds of the Earth is covered by water, the remaining third is covered by these two companies. But which stock makes the most sense for your portfolio? Continue reading "Drugstore Wars: Walgreen Vs. CVS"

Big Pictures: Stocks, Gold and the Miners

Ukraine war hype, China demand drop, GOFO mysteries… these are the short term noise inputs on the gold sector.

US Treasury bond yield spreads, gold vs. commodities (i.e. the 'real' price of gold), gold vs. the stock market… these are some of the fundamental considerations that actually matter and they have taken a hit since January.

It is easy to say 'I am bullish in the big picture' (measured in years) but it is not so easy to actively manage in the smaller pictures (measured in days, weeks and months) with all of the above noise inputs and more bombarding the poor individual player.

We use shorter term charts to manage the shorter time frames.  Daily charts have most recently indicated a bearish set up as bear flags formed across the precious metals complex (with the exception of silver, which never got going to begin with) last week.  Weekly charts continue to indicate that an extended and oh so grinding bottom may be forming, but that includes the potential for ups and downs, also known as volatility. Continue reading "Big Pictures: Stocks, Gold and the Miners"