On this final day of 2024, we bring you a special video edition to help prime your portfolio for 2025.
Welcome to your post-holiday video edition of the 5 Bullets!
As you ease into your day, you won&rsquo;t want to miss some never-before-seen content forecasting one of the biggest investment trends for 2025.
In fact, exactly two weeks ago, Paradigm&rsquo;s top minds convened in Baltimore &mdash; where trading pro and former hedge fund manager Enrique Abeyta issued a monumental New Year&rsquo;s prediction.
He posed one intriguing question: Which Mag 7 mainstay will lose over 30% in market cap?
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In fact, Enrique believes, a major tech player&rsquo;s meteoric rise might be coming to an end.
And he&rsquo;s here to outline how this company will shock investors and financial media alike as he compares this scenario to a well-known plunge during the dot-com crash.
However, Enrique remains optimistic about this tech giant&rsquo;s long-term future, suggesting its value could eventually double. Or even increase tenfold.
Click above to view Enrique&rsquo;s surprise 2025 forecast&hellip; While you enjoy a lazy day in your pajamas (if you&rsquo;re into that sorta thing).
Best regards,
Emily Clancy Paradigm Pressroom&rsquo;s 5 Bullets

Enrique-marketcap

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Paradigm Pressroom’s 5 Bullets is a daily e-letter covering the economy and the markets, reaching 120,000 paying subscribers of the renowned financial publishing firm Paradigm Press.

Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

Paradigm’s top minds convened in Baltimore — where trading pro and former hedge fund manager Enrique Abeyta issued a monumental New Year’s prediction. 


Mega-Cap Meltdown in 2025

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />Friday Flashback
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> On this day six years ago, the U.S. stock market was reacting badly to a spike in COVID-19 cases in China.
In America, the first infections had yet to be reported. The lockdowns were still weeks away. At this juncture, uncertainty loomed large.
&ldquo;Health experts question the timeliness and accuracy of China&rsquo;s official data, saying the testing system captured only a fraction of the cases in China&rsquo;s hospitals, particularly those that are poorly run,&rdquo; said the Financial Times.
The major U.S. stock indexes took a spill that day. Nothing major &mdash; but mid-February turned out to be the top in the S&amp;P 500.
One expert had the foresight to tell his clients to get out before the carnage.
From a peak of nearly 3,400 the S&amp;P began a sickening slide below 2,200 on March 23.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> March 23 was the day everything turned around &mdash; and that same expert had both the methodology and the moxie to call the bottom.
On that day, he recommended 13 stocks &mdash; all of which could have made you a fortune if you&rsquo;d acted on his recommendation. At the time, however, his work was available only to private clients paying up to $10,000 a month.
Perhaps in hindsight the turnaround was obvious: On March 23 the Federal Reserve announced it was embarking on an epic spate of bailouts and money printing &mdash; or as your editor put it that day, &ldquo;the 2008 playbook, on a cocktail of steroids, Adderall and meth.&rdquo;
But at that moment, fear was still rampant. The market opened down big-time that morning. As of midday, the Dow had surrendered all its gains in the last three years.
It took a reliable system and nerves of steel to act on that day.
But when you&rsquo;ve built up a track record like Mason Sexton&rsquo;s, it&rsquo;s not hard. His string of brilliant calls stretches all the way back to the early 1980s &mdash; when he called a bottom that marked the start of an epic 18-year bull market in stocks.
Along the way, he also called the crash of 1987&hellip; the start of the global financial crisis in 2007&hellip; and the end of that crisis in 2009.
Oh, and more recently, he anticipated the market freakout after Donald Trump&rsquo;s &ldquo;Liberation Day&rdquo; announcement last year &mdash; and the rally that followed.
This month, he&rsquo;s stepping forward with a chilling forecast &mdash; an event poised to begin exactly one week from today, Friday Feb. 20.
To get the word out, Mason is convening an urgent live briefing this coming Tuesday Feb. 17 at 1:27 p.m. EST.
Why the odd time? You won&rsquo;t know if you don&rsquo;t watch.
<a href="https://signups.paradigm-press.info/2509606">Signup is free</a>. We&rsquo;ll email you with everything you need to know to be ready for Tuesday.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />Mr. Market Is Reacting Abnormally
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> The major U.S. stock indexes are little moved today despite cooler-than-expected inflation numbers. The Labor Department says the official inflation rate is now running 2.4%.
That&rsquo;s a drop from 3% over the previous four months. So of course the mainstream is chattering about how inflation is steadily returning toward the Federal Reserve&rsquo;s 2% target, clearing the way for the Fed to resume cutting short-term interest rates.
But hold on: The official inflation rate was even lower &mdash; 2.3% &mdash; in April of last year before racing higher to 3% in September.
Seems a bit early for the Fed to declare a victory lap and resume cutting rates.
Thus, stocks aren&rsquo;t reacting with the big rally you might expect whenever the inflation numbers come in cooler than expected. The S&amp;P 500 is up less than 0.2% to 6,845. The Dow&rsquo;s performance is little better, while the Nasdaq is slightly in the red.
➢ Congratulations are in order for Rickards&rsquo; Insider Intel readers, who on Wednesday collected a staggering 1,125% gain playing call options on the mining giant Rio Tinto.
Precious metals are gamely trying to rally after the latest smackdown yesterday. Gold is up 1.2% to $4,979 while silver is up 2.5% and just over $77.
(More about yesterday&rsquo;s slam below in the mailbag section&hellip;)
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> For once, oil is not rallying going into the weekend. Instead a barrel of West Texas Intermediate is flat at $62.79.
For the last two Fridays, traders bid up crude because they didn&rsquo;t want to get caught with their pants down if U.S. forces attacked Iran while the markets were closed for the weekend.
But after still another face-to-face meeting between President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu on Wednesday, the outlook is murkier now.
&ldquo;We have to make a deal with Iran, otherwise it&rsquo;s going to be very traumatic, very traumatic. I don&rsquo;t want that to happen, but we have to make a deal,&rdquo; Trump said yesterday.
Asked about a timeline for a deal, he said, &ldquo;I guess over the next month&hellip; They should agree very quickly.&rdquo;
As we keep emphasizing, much hinges on whether Trump will capitulate to Netanyahu&rsquo;s demand that Tehran give up its ballistic missiles with a range of over 186 miles. Tehran will never do that; its medium-range missiles are its insurance against regime change.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />A High-Conviction Crypto Bet
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Crypto looks moribund with Bitcoin just under $69,000 and Ethereum at $2,049. But spirits couldn&rsquo;t be brighter at Bitcoin Investor Week in New York.
Among the speakers: Real estate mogul Grant Cardone, who sold a $75 million private jet last week to buy more Bitcoin.
&ldquo;Each of these speakers has access to information most investors never see,&rdquo; writes Ari Goldschmidt of Altucher&rsquo;s Investment Network, who&rsquo;s our eyes and ears at this event.
&ldquo;They talk to institutional buyers. They meet with regulators. They understand the flow of capital behind closed doors.&rdquo;
On the Paradigm mobile app yesterday, Ari peppered readers with updates like this one:
<blockquote>Matt Hougan, chief investment officer at Bitwise, one of the largest crypto ETF companies. Matt speaks to a lot of financial advisers about cryptocurrency through the course of his work.</blockquote>
<blockquote>A surprising thing he's seen: The temporary 50% drops in crypto doesn't bother financial advisers at all. More sophisticated advisers will ask about how to value Bitcoin and what it should be worth. Bitcoin is 10% of the global store of value (gold) market today. If you look over the last 20 years, the size of the gold market has increased 10X. If that happens again and Bitcoin stays 10% of the gold market, we&rsquo;re looking at $700,000-plus per bitcoin.</blockquote>
&ldquo;Walking out of the conference,&rdquo; says Ari, &ldquo;I can't help but feel optimistic about the opportunities ahead for crypto. For what it's worth, I've been a buyer of the recent crypto market sell-off, buying small amounts on dips like we're seeing today.&rdquo;
The next big conference on our radar is PDAC &mdash; the metals-and-mining gathering held yearly in Toronto, coming up March 1-4.
Our own Byron King and Matt Badiali will be in attendance and they too will be posting regularly with insights straight from the conference floor on the Paradigm app. If you don&rsquo;t have it yet, you don&rsquo;t know what you&rsquo;re missing: <a href="https://d2z65klgtz99km.cloudfront.net/PPG-App/">Download it at this link</a>.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />Comic Relief
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Yeah, after this week&rsquo;s circus on Capitol Hill, we can&rsquo;t resist&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/5IG9SEzDXRYRLyWfQhSLIC/9a4d75540679b2bee968d63532631f01/FMF-Issue-02-13-26_1_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Mailbag: Gold (and Oil) Manipulation
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;I would like to thank you for this well written article on &lsquo;The Truth about Gold &ldquo;Manipulation.&rdquo;&rsquo; Very informative and illuminating. WOW,&rdquo; a new reader enthuses after <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/the-truth-about-gold-manipulation">yesterday&rsquo;s edition</a>.
&ldquo;This is something I always suspected was going on but I never really saw proved or really talked about in any kind of detail like this before.
&ldquo;It reminds me of a time in recent years where the price of oil per barrel shot up an incredible amount in a period of a year or two. The actual supply and demand for oil during that same time period showed that the price of oil should have remained steady or even went DOWN slightly and not up at all !!
&ldquo;Similar dynamics were at play there too with the price of oil I am sure.&nbsp;
&ldquo;I will be looking for your 5 Bullets articles going forward. Keep up the excellent work please with more like this.&rdquo;
Dave responds: Thank you for the kind words, and welcome aboard. Oil has been routinely manipulated ever since the advent of modern-day oil futures in 1983.
Energy industry journalist James Norman told the story well in his 2008 book The Oil Card. Every so often I have occasion to revisit Norman&rsquo;s thesis and findings &mdash; most recently <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/3-million-acres#2">at the conclusion of the &ldquo;12 Day War&rdquo; last year</a>.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> While we&rsquo;re at it, we might as well examine yesterday&rsquo;s precious metals sell-off.
It commenced at precisely 11:10 a.m. EST. There was no obvious breaking-news catalyst that would instantly tank gold from $5,050 all the way below $4,900 (with an even more extreme move in silver, natch.)
Colleague Adam Sharp at The Daily Reckoning surmises it was a reaction to a Bloomberg exclusive that began thus&hellip;
<blockquote>The Kremlin has set out proposals that could see Russia embrace the dollar again as part of a wide-ranging economic partnership with the Trump administration, according to an internal Russian document reviewed by Bloomberg.</blockquote>
<blockquote>The high-level memo, which was drafted this year, details seven points where, in the Kremlin&rsquo;s view, Russian and U.S. economic interests could converge following a deal to end the war in Ukraine. It sees the two countries working together to champion fossil fuels over greener alternatives as well as joint investments in natural gas, offshore oil and critical raw materials plus windfalls for U.S. companies&hellip;</blockquote>
All else being equal, what&rsquo;s good for the dollar is bad for gold.
Of course, it all hinges on, as the story says, &ldquo;a deal to end the war in Ukraine.&rdquo; And how likely is that?
And is it really that good for the dollar?
Today Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov addressed the issue, however obliquely. Depending on whose translation you want to believe, he said that even if a deal comes about, the dollar&rsquo;s credibility throughout the Global South is already shot.
<blockquote>If the United States abandons this practice of restricting the use of the dollar, then the dollar will have to win competition with other alternative currencies, with national currencies that are increasingly widely used in the world.</blockquote>
Back to Bloomberg&rsquo;s story. In the final paragraph we learn that Bloomberg&rsquo;s source for this &ldquo;confidential Kremlin memo&rdquo; is&hellip; Ukrainian intelligence.
If there&rsquo;s a link between this story and the slam in precious metals yesterday&hellip; well, there are a lot of sketchy someones who were motivated to let the story drop and position themselves ahead of its release. Alas, we&rsquo;ll likely never know.
The lesson for gold bugs is the same lesson for any asset in which you have long-term conviction, be it a blue chip stock or the thinnest-liquidity crypto: Ignore the short-term noise and hold on tight.
Which is where we&rsquo;ll leave it for the week. Back tomorrow with our Saturday wrap, including some, er, unusual events in New York City. Then while the markets are closed Monday you won&rsquo;t want to miss our Presidents&rsquo; Day special, packed with some spooky historical recurrences.

FMF-Issue-02-13-26(Featured)

Six Years Ago: Peak Fear

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />The Truth About Gold &ldquo;Manipulation&rdquo;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> For most of this century, it existed only in the realm of &ldquo;conspiracy theory.&rdquo; Now in 2026 it&rsquo;s broken into mainstream headlines.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1aQNHjyseFG8Js7NqDPBqy/66e09dfeb708badc4bdda1ad73d7f80c/FMF-Issue-02-12-26_1_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
It&rsquo;s right there in the Financial Post, a venerable Canadian outlet that&rsquo;s been publishing since 1907.
<blockquote>Gold bugs spent years predicting bullion would hit its present value of around US$5,000 per ounce, but now that their predictions have borne out, some are airing a long-held grievance that it should be trading even higher, but for unlawful manipulation by big banks and Western governments.</blockquote>
<blockquote>Others write this off as a nonsense conspiracy theory. But with gold prices swinging wildly &mdash; to their highest-ever price in January of US$5,600 per ounce, only to crash 16% in the waning days of the month and then recover back above US$5,000 on Tuesday &mdash; the decades-old debate about what makes the yellow metal rise or fall is rearing its head again.</blockquote>
The article quotes the multibillionaire mining investor Eric Sprott: &ldquo;I&rsquo;m going to call them &lsquo;The cartel&rsquo; &mdash; the major American banks and Canadian ones, too, by the way &mdash; thought gold was kind of their whipping boy; that they could sell it and knock it down.&rdquo;
It&rsquo;s good to know Mr. Sprott hasn&rsquo;t changed: Your editor interviewed him in early 2013. In a few words, he described the suppression scheme like this&hellip;
&ldquo;The Western central banks are surreptitiously supplying gold [to the global market] by leasing theirs out.&rdquo;
There&rsquo;s a lot packed into those few words. More than many people wish to contemplate. The Financial Post article quotes a fellow who runs a firm that helps precious metals miners fund their operations: He said it&rsquo;s a &ldquo;conspiracy theory&rdquo; &mdash; even though he conceded he&rsquo;d never really looked into the matter. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a rabbit hole.&rdquo;
Well, yes. But it&rsquo;s a hole worth jumping down today. Doing so will offer clues about what happens to the dollar price of gold from here. Let&rsquo;s go&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />Deathbed Confessions
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> More than a decade ago, Paradigm&rsquo;s own macro maven Jim Rickards began opening readers&rsquo; eyes to how the powers that be manipulated the gold price.
The short version: Central banks leased gold bars to commercial banks&hellip; which then proceeded to sell the bars to buyers in Asia. The bars, meanwhile, never left the vault. (Too costly and complicated to transport.)
The slightly longer version: Chinese leaders relentlessly accumulated gold for years, aiming to approach or equal the amount held by the U.S. Treasury and the central banks of Europe.
In doing so, they hoped to be assured a &ldquo;seat at the table&rdquo; along with the Americans and Europeans whenever the global monetary system broke down and the powers that be hashed out a new system.
For years, Western movers and shakers went along &mdash; enabling China&rsquo;s accumulation via that leasing scheme. Those Asian buyers included the People&rsquo;s Bank of China.
&ldquo;The gold price must be kept low,&rdquo; Jim wrote in his 2014 book The Death of Money, &ldquo;until gold holdings are rebalanced among the major economic powers, and the rebalancing must be completed before the collapse of the international monetary system.&rdquo;
His research and documentation were peerless. &ldquo;Get the annual report from the Bank for International Settlements,&rdquo; he told me over dinner one evening. &ldquo;Read the footnotes. I understand it&rsquo;s geeky, but it&rsquo;s there. They actually get audited &mdash; unlike the Fed and unlike Fort Knox.&rdquo;
Of course, this was an era when Western leaders still thought they could keep the Chinese under their thumb. Later on we&rsquo;ll get into what&rsquo;s changed&hellip;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> But first, it&rsquo;s worth revisiting the deathbed confession of Bart Chilton.
Chilton was appointed to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission by President Bush in 2007 and kept on by President Obama. In 2014, he left government to join the uber-connected global law firm of DLA Piper.
He was colorful and charismatic, with trademark cowboy boots and shoulder-length hair that were out of place in D.C. Fond of the limelight, he joined Russia&rsquo;s state-run English-language news channel RT in 2018 as host of a daily business news roundup called Boom Bust.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/5eFTuxCSINV0iSUYmCvegk/d3877f0c3b8243dee751c9138728b2db/FMF-Issue-02-12-26_2_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" /> The telegenic Bart Chilton, in his element
His TV career didn&rsquo;t last long. He died the following year of pancreatic cancer at age 58.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Perhaps knowing his time was almost up, Chilton granted a candid interview a few weeks before shuffling off this mortal coil.
His questioner was an ex-Wall Streeter named Chris Marcus, who now runs an advisory firm called Arcadia Economics.
In so many words, Chilton confirmed that at one time JPMorgan Chase controlled about 40% of the global silver market. It was after JPM took over the collapsing Bear Stearns in 2008. The two firms&rsquo; combined position was way over limits set by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The CFTC granted waivers and extensions to JPM, during which time JPM actually acquired more silver.
&ldquo;They did ultimately get down to the position [limit],&rdquo; he recalled. &ldquo;But it was at that time that they were so large, that I made the comment about how large a particular bank was in the market. Which sort of shocked people. And it shocked me, quite frankly, that it was so large.&rdquo;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Upon further investigation, &ldquo;we did uncover a lot of evidence that would lead to a manipulation case, or an attempted manipulation case,&rdquo; Chilton went on.
We&rsquo;re talking voicemails, text messages and a trail of trades. Chilton and crew recruited a forensic economist to dig deeper. Four years this went on. At Chilton&rsquo;s behest the CFTC kept it going for a fifth year, commissioning another forensic economist.
In the end, the evidence was compelling, but not enough to nail anyone to the wall.
&ldquo;We just didn&rsquo;t have the traders, and we didn&rsquo;t have the market participants dead to rights. But we had lots of stuff. And we had real stuff that would have played really well in court&hellip; But the damning part had to be backed up by other requirements of evidence under the law. And we didn&rsquo;t get all of that.&rdquo;
Presumably Chilton was talking about a case big enough to take down the people in JPM&rsquo;s C-suite &mdash; and not the grunt traders periodically <a href="https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/former-jp-morgan-traders-convicted-fraud-attempted-price-manipulation-and-spoofing-multi-year">prosecuted</a> by the Justice Department for appearances&rsquo; sake.
At the time of Chilton&rsquo;s interview, JPM controlled 45% of all derivatives contracts &mdash; futures, options and whatnot &mdash; linked to precious metals. And Citi controlled another 30%.
Now? As of Sept. 30, 2025, JPM&rsquo;s share has shrunk to 27% &mdash; with Citi and Goldman Sachs each controlling about 24%. You can decide for yourself whether that constitutes progress.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />Still More Evidence
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> A luminary in the precious metals space also came around to the manipulation thesis in 2019.
He&rsquo;s Frank Holmes, longtime manager of the U.S. Global family of mutual funds and ETFs, specializing in precious metals and natural resources.
&ldquo;Gold price suppression (&lsquo;fixing,&rsquo; &lsquo;rigging,&rsquo; &lsquo;manipulating&rsquo; or however else you want to think about it) is not just a conspiracy theory,&rdquo; Holmes wrote his investors in May 2019. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a well-documented phenomenon, with real actors and real ramifications.
&ldquo;The best people to speak to about this subject are the folks at the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee, or GATA.&rdquo;
For well over a decade, most investment pros dismissed the GATA crowd as cranks of the first order. For Holmes to take their arguments and documentation seriously? That was a sea change.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> For evidence of rigging, Holmes directed his clients&rsquo; attention to a tumble in the gold price in 2018&ndash;19.
Gold rallied from November through February, peaking at $1,343. &ldquo;Ordinarily,&rdquo; he wrote, &ldquo;you could expect inventory in the bullion-backed SPDR Gold Shares ETF (GLD) to continue to climb at least until then. But that&rsquo;s not at all what happened.
&ldquo;Three weeks before the price of gold peaked, the holdings in the GLD curiously began to fall, and by March 4, the ETF had lost approximately 57.8 metric tonnes. And because the GLD is the largest gold ETF in the world&hellip; such selling will naturally impact the price of gold. Sure enough, the yellow metal soon fell below $1,300. What gives?&rdquo;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/7aE9fs0kNHWW3DHculiM27/c8de2a2fef09e4ebf9c2fd43ff0648a8/FMF-Issue-02-12-26_3_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
Back to the Bank for International Settlements, mentioned above. In its monthly statement for February 2019, &ldquo;the BIS was still actively trading gold swaps [contract in which two parties exchange cash flows], which it uses to gain access to the metal held by commercial banks. Specifically, the bank placed as much as 56 metric tonnes of gold swaps into the market in February.
&ldquo;If you ask me, that amount is remarkably close to the 57.8 tonnes that fled the GLD in the first quarter of this year [2019].&rdquo;
But enough history. Let&rsquo;s bring it up to the present&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />The Game Remains the Same
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Here in the mid-2020s, the players have changed&hellip; but the game remains the same.
Back to the Financial Post piece, and Eric Sprott&rsquo;s description of how it works&hellip;
<blockquote>The banks, he said, manipulated gold futures, which are contracts that allow people to speculate about the gold price at a future date. Such trades can be settled in one of two ways. One is to deliver physical gold on the agreed-upon day; the other is to make a cash payment based on the difference between the contracted price of gold and the spot price on delivery day.</blockquote>
<blockquote>In practice, gold bugs say traders at the big banks figured out a way to game the system. They would short gold or bet on gold futures below the spot price. By executing this strategy at a large scale, they affected market sentiment, and eventually the large number of low-priced gold futures would drag down the spot price of gold.</blockquote>
<blockquote>In that way, the big banks made reams of money and suppressed gold prices in the process.</blockquote>
<blockquote>&ldquo;It works as long as no one asks for delivery,&rdquo; Sprott said.</blockquote>
In theory, someone could stand for delivery with the intention of calling BS on the whole scheme.
But as Jim Rickards has reminded us for years, there are powerful disincentives to do so.
&ldquo;Most major participants in the gold market (banks, dealers and hedge funds) are regulated by one or more of the Federal Reserve, U.S. Treasury, SEC or CFTC,&rdquo; Jim wrote a decade ago. (And he&rsquo;s been a lawyer for banks, dealers and hedge funds, so he&rsquo;d know.)
&ldquo;Applicable laws contain strict anti-fraud and anti-manipulation rules, including jail time in cases of willful and knowing violations.&rdquo;
In other words, standing for delivery with the intention of squeezing the shorts could easily open you up to prosecution.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Target $10K
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Gold&rsquo;s big rally in the mid-2020s &mdash; up 150% in two years even after the recent pullback &mdash; leads to the obvious question: Have the manipulation schemes broken down?
&ldquo;That&rsquo;s where the gold bug&rsquo;s theory begins to dovetail with a more commonly held view of what drives gold prices,&rdquo; says the Financial Post piece.
&ldquo;All the countries used to be united on gold policy,&rdquo; says Chris Powell of the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee &mdash; recalling the history of the 2010s recounted above. &ldquo;Gold is the only alternative to the dollar and the central banks are no longer united on letting the U.S. rule the world.&rdquo;
It comes back to one of those charts we can&rsquo;t show often enough: Central banks around the world started loading up on bullion in 2022 after Washington responded to the Russian invasion of Ukraine by freezing $300 billion in dollar-denominated assets held by Russia&rsquo;s central bank.
Leaders of every government on less-than-friendly terms with Washington thought the same thing: If it can happen to the Russians, it can happen to us.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/7A3vivkZkuVjjZkLDcFs6P/0e8c6b77250019d9dd265e411952e52d/FMF-Issue-02-12-26_4_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
All that central-bank gold buying has an effect of keeping a floor under the gold price.
So where&rsquo;s the ceiling?
Well, as Jim Rickards pointed out during a 5 Bullets guest essay in December, &ldquo;Mining output has been flat for the last six years&hellip; gold is getting harder to find and more expensive to mine.&rdquo;
At the same time, &ldquo;private institutional investors have gold allocations of below 2.0% of total assets. If that expanded to a mere 4.0% allocation, there&rsquo;s not enough gold in the world at today&rsquo;s prices to fill those orders.
&ldquo;That dynamic alone could send gold prices above $10,000 per ounce in the year ahead.&rdquo;

FMF-Issue-02-12-26(Featured)

The Truth About Gold “Manipulation”

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />First They Came for Small Businesses&hellip;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" />It was one of the gravest injustices of the COVID lockdowns six years ago.
Countless small retailers across this country were deemed &ldquo;non-essential&rdquo; and ordered to shut their doors.
Meanwhile&hellip; big-box giants Walmart, Costco and Target thrived. And of course, Amazon.
From small towns to New York&rsquo;s Chinatown, many of the small businesses never recovered. Chinatown is uniquely telling. Once the province of small landlords, it fell into the hands of developers.
The result? &ldquo;Gleaming new storefronts, with $400 jackets and $700 shoes, all curated and lit up like sculptures,&rdquo; wrote the author and critic Naomi Wolf in 2024. &ldquo;Little art galleries, selling $12,000&ndash;25,000 works of modern art to wealthy, young, hip collectors. Chain bubble tea shops. Chain hotels.&rdquo;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Something very similar is happening right now &mdash; this week &mdash; in the realm of AI.
On Monday, the Financial Times reported that &ldquo;Donald Trump&rsquo;s administration intends to spare companies including Amazon, Google and Microsoft from forthcoming tariffs on chips as they race to build the data centres powering the AI boom.&rdquo;
The biggest of the hyperscalers would win this exemption provided they commit to investing in chips made by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.
Which they&rsquo;d probably do anyway, right?
&ldquo;The new scheme would allow TSMC to allocate exemptions for its U.S. customers from this next set of tariffs. The carve-outs would be tied to the scale of the Taiwan-based group&rsquo;s investments in the U.S.&rdquo;
The details are still fuzzy but this much is clear: Large entrenched companies will get a break on their chip costs. Smaller firms hoping to compete will be cut off at the knees &mdash; forced to pay the full load of the tariff.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> This morning&rsquo;s Wall Street Journal brings a similar story: The same three AI giants &ldquo;are looking to sidestep President Trump&rsquo;s $100,000 H-1B visa fee, potentially leaving the brunt of the new policy to hit smaller startups.&rdquo;
As you might know, H-1Bs are the visas set aside for highly-skilled foreign workers. The Trump administration announced the new fee last September to address criticisms that Big Tech was using H-1Bs to fire U.S. citizens and hire cheaper foreign replacements.
The big guys &ldquo;generally plan to find workers in categories that don&rsquo;t have to pay the fee, including existing H-1B visa holders, students and people on other types of visas, according to people familiar with the companies&rsquo; plans&hellip;
&ldquo;But many smaller companies, including startups in specialized areas such as artificial intelligence and health care, can&rsquo;t easily navigate the policy changes or invest in alternatives that are cheaper than the $100,000 fee but still more costly than the status quo.&rdquo;
&ldquo;It would be prohibitive for us to pay the $100,000 fee,&rdquo; says Jennifer Ide of the Georgia-based health care startup Rimidi &mdash; which has all of 20 employees.
It&rsquo;s as if her firm, and countless others like hers, has been deemed &ldquo;non-essential.&rdquo;
Whatever your opinion of the H-1B visa program, something stinks when the system is designed for the biggest companies to circumvent it while small fry are hung out to dry.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> That&rsquo;s a problem when you consider that world-changing innovations rarely come from big lumbering incumbents in their industry.
They don&rsquo;t come from the Microsofts, Amazons and Googles of the world.
They come from the scrappy startups, the proverbial kid tinkering in his garage.
They come from a Microsoft releasing MS-DOS for the first personal computer in 1981&hellip; from an Amazon disrupting the business of selling books in 1995&hellip; from a Google that instantly made people forget about inferior search engines like Lycos and AltaVista in 1998.
So if you care about America keeping its competitive edge in technology&hellip; or &ldquo;winning the AI race with China&rdquo;... what&rsquo;s happening this week is cause for concern.
From an investing standpoint, it&rsquo;s downright discouraging: Among the trio of Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet-Google &mdash; we&rsquo;ll throw in Meta as well because it&rsquo;s also pouring gazillions of dollars into data centers &mdash; only Alphabet&rsquo;s share price outperformed the S&amp;P 500 last year.
Developments like these make our jobs harder at Paradigm Press. Ferreting out the small publicly traded companies with potential to change the world becomes harder when the playing field is tilted in favor of giant incumbents.
Of course, we welcome the challenge and will double down our efforts on your behalf.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />About Those Job Numbers&hellip;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Mr. Market is of two minds when it comes to the January job numbers.
The numbers came out this morning &mdash; five days behind schedule because of the most recent &ldquo;partial government shutdown.&rdquo;
The wonks at the Bureau of Labor Statistics conjured 130,000 new jobs for the month &mdash; way more than the typical Wall Street economist who was expecting 70,000. The official unemployment rate ticked down to 4.3%.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> The initial reaction was positive: &ldquo;Dow jumps 200 points as strong jobs report eases economy concerns,&rdquo; said a CNBC alert. &ldquo;The S&amp;P 500 is set for a record after a much stronger-than-anticipated U.S. jobs report,&rdquo; was Bloomberg&rsquo;s take.
Then it dawned on someone: If the job market is holding up OK, that means it&rsquo;s less likely the Federal Reserve will resume cutting interest rates, right?
At last check, all the major U.S. indexes are in the red: The S&amp;P 500 is down a quarter percent to 6,923. The 7,000 mark will likely have to wait for another day. The Nasdaq and the Dow are both down a little over a half-percent.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> But hold on: The January job numbers don&rsquo;t tell the whole story.
This is the one report each year when the Bureau of Labor Statistics performs revisions to the previous year&rsquo;s numbers &mdash; and the year before that, too.
It turns out that the U.S. economy generated 1.2 million jobs in 2024 &mdash; instead of the previously estimated 2 million.
And in 2025, the total was a mere 181,000 &mdash; revised down from 584,000.
Now as we&rsquo;ve pointed out a couple of times in recent months, the fact the U.S. border has been effectively sealed since last spring changes the calculus when it comes to new jobs: In years gone by it took at least 150,000 new jobs a month to keep up with population growth. But without an influx of immigrants, the number could now be as low as 30,000.
But last year&rsquo;s revised total works out to a tepid 15,083 jobs per month.
So maybe there&rsquo;s something to this &ldquo;cooling labor market&rdquo; chatter after all. We&rsquo;ll be on the lookout for further signs.
Elsewhere, precious metals are on the rally tracks again today &mdash; gold only $10 shy of $5,100 and silver up $3.50 and over $84 for the first time in nearly a week.
No joy in crypto-land, however &mdash; Bitcoin a little over $66,000 and Ethereum sinking toward $1,900.
It&rsquo;s a dangerous juncture here: In my mind, $67K is an extremely important level for Bitcoin,&rdquo; Greg Guenthner writes his Trading Desk readers. &ldquo;This marks those prior cycle highs back in late 2021. If it can't hold this level, look out below!&rdquo;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />Red Lines in the Middle East
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Oil is back on the high end of its year-to-date trading range this morning &mdash; up $1.73 as we write to $65.69. Some sort of U.S. attack on Iran is looking inevitable now.
Israel&rsquo;s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is at the White House today &mdash; his seventh visit to the United States since Donald Trump returned to the presidency 13 months ago.
The visit was originally scheduled for one week from today. Last weekend, the Israeli government asked to move it up after widespread media reports that Trump&rsquo;s enthusiasm for airstrikes is lukewarm: &ldquo;It&rsquo;s really the Israelis who want a strike,&rdquo; a U.S. official told the Axios site. &ldquo;The president is just not there.&rdquo;
The revised timing of the visit is resonant with many Iranians: It was on this day in 1979 that the Iranian Revolution toppled the Shah &mdash; 26 years after he was installed in an American-engineered coup.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Leave aside for the moment the matter of Iran&rsquo;s nuclear program. Netanyahu is also demanding that Iran give up its ballistic missiles.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/47IixE730BNgbYiOHyaXQJ/f5fc2b703d53374ea59721b1f61395e8/FMF-issue-02-11-26_1_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
There were conflicting reports yesterday about whether Trump has agreed to go along with Netanyahu and demand the Iranian side surrender its missiles &mdash; which pose a potential threat to Israel but not to the United States.
As we&rsquo;ve mentioned a couple of times in recent days, this demand would be a nonstarter for Tehran.
Really, it would be for any government. In Iran&rsquo;s case, those missiles serve as a deterrent against an Israeli and/or U.S. attack. If the mullahs agreed to give them up, they&rsquo;d be overthrown in a heartbeat.
Assuming the mullahs stand their ground&hellip; and depending on who you believe&hellip; airstrikes could be underway as early as 10:00 p.m. EST tonight.
Or perhaps the president will wait for a three-day weekend while the markets are closed.
In the meantime, there&rsquo;s been no effort to sell the American people on the urgency of airstrikes &mdash; and no discussion of what the objective would be. Full-on regime change? Kill the ayatollah? Bomb the nuclear sites Trump already said were &ldquo;obliterated&rdquo;?
Little wonder that on social media, an old tweet of the late Charlie Kirk is making the rounds.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/5UdkuHyMTegOaNvMGyhX6I/892556b8f4c25e768a00d5ec040da24c/FMF-issue-02-11-26_2_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
Trump said yesterday he might send a second aircraft carrier to the Middle East &mdash; but people who follow these matters closely say it would take six&ndash;eight weeks to arrive.
As the Jerusalem Post headline suggests above, Netanyahu would act long before then &mdash; forcing Trump&rsquo;s hand. To be continued&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />Comic Relief
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> He might not be wrong&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/2xzeWfDv3a5mxsgSDY9QkL/ceda728cb5f862b2d4a0b6c69db67084/FMF-issue-02-11-26_3_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Mailbag: Blackouts&hellip; and Nuclear
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> After <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/blackout-nation-an-update">yesterday&rsquo;s warning</a> about the vulnerability of the power grid to blackouts, a reader jotted a one-sentence email&hellip;
&ldquo;Nuclear would eliminate all blackout risk, but the climate people will not give any ground.&rdquo;
Dave responds: Yes and no. There are definitely some folks in the climate-change crowd who reject nuclear power even though it generates no &ldquo;greenhouse gases.&rdquo; It&rsquo;s as if they watched The China Syndrome as kids and were scarred for life.
But reality has set in for many others. The Silicon Valley giants know that nuclear is the only non-fossil fuel source that can possibly help them achieve their ambitions &mdash; hence, for instance, Microsoft&rsquo;s deal to reopen the non-damaged Three Mile Island reactor that shut down in 2019.
And there&rsquo;s California Gov. Gavin Newsom&rsquo;s flip-flop &mdash; agreeing to keep the Diablo Canyon plant open beyond its planned 2025 shutdown date &mdash; knowing it&rsquo;s essential to keep the grid up and running.
All that said, it takes time to build new nuclear plants. None in the United States is in the construction stage right now &mdash; which means none will likely be completed before large swaths of the country fall into the &ldquo;high risk&rdquo; category for blackouts. Consider yourself warned&hellip;

FMF-issue-02-11-26(featured)

First They Came for Small Businesses

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />Blackout Nation: An Update
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> At the risk of sounding like a broken record, you need to start preparing for the likelihood of regular electric blackouts before the end of this decade.
We began sounding the alarm about the fragility of the power grid in the summer of 2022. In many regions &mdash; particularly the Upper Midwest &mdash; too many coal and nuclear plants were being shuttered&hellip; and there wasn&rsquo;t nearly enough solar and wind capacity coming online to replace it.
(Your editor, based in the Upper Midwest, bought a generator that summer &mdash; just in case.)
And this was before AI burst into popular consciousness when ChatGPT 3.5 was released later in 2022. By 2024 we were regularly warning that AI could become <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/the-monster-that-ate-the-power-grid-ai">&ldquo;the monster that ate the power grid.&rdquo;</a> Only last year did the mainstream start picking up on the story.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> It was down to the wire last month during the big winter storm that blasted everywhere from Texas to the Northeast.
On Monday Jan. 26, the biggest grid operator in the country &mdash; serving 67 million customers in 13 states &mdash; said 24% of its deliverable power that day came from coal.
Old-economy, dirty coal &mdash; without it, 20% of the demand in its territory that day would have gone unfilled &mdash; resulting in blackouts.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> The situation won&rsquo;t get better and will likely get worse between now and 2030.
That&rsquo;s according to the North American Electric Reliability Corporation &mdash; which a few days ago issued its annual &ldquo;Long Term Reliability Assessment.&rdquo;
The one-sentence takeaway: If you live anywhere in the red areas on this map, you&rsquo;re at &ldquo;high risk.&rdquo;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/7FWruYIh5ilFsHS88i2WDz/43a445bf07944776e73b8bc2b483eda7/FMF-Issue-02-10-26_1_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
Let&rsquo;s dig into a few details, region-by-region&hellip;
<ul>
<li>PJM, a 13-state territory stretching from New Jersey west to Illinois: This is a region that includes &ldquo;Data Center Alley&rdquo; in northern Virginia &mdash; the highest concentration of data centers in the world. PJM is already at &ldquo;elevated risk,&rdquo; which flips to &ldquo;high risk&rdquo; by 2029. From the report: &ldquo;Current projections for resource additions do not keep pace with escalating demand forecasts and expected generator retirement&rdquo;</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>MISO, a 15-state territory stretching from Minnesota to Louisiana: &ldquo;Elevated risk&rdquo; next year, &ldquo;high risk&rdquo; in 2028. From the report: &ldquo;Projected resource additions do not keep pace with escalating demand forecasts and announced generator retirements&rdquo;</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>ERCOT, the Texas grid: Currently &ldquo;elevated risk,&rdquo; also slipping into &ldquo;high risk&rdquo; come 2029 like PJM. The report warns that &ldquo;continued rapid load growth outpaces projected resource additions in later years.&rdquo;</li>
</ul>
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Do you detect a pattern here? None of the issues we began warning about in 2022 have been addressed in any meaningful way.
The three regions listed above aren&rsquo;t the only ones that will slip into the red &ldquo;high risk&rdquo; category before the end of the decade. You can review NERC&rsquo;s report for yourself <a href="https://www.nerc.com/globalassets/our-work/assessments/nerc_ltra_2025.pdf">right here</a>.
And the report might be underselling the risks: NERC says California is at a &ldquo;normal&rdquo; level of risk&hellip; but Paradigm energy authority Byron King says &ldquo;on any given day, about one-third of California&rsquo;s non-solar electricity is wheeled in from outside &mdash; either the Pacific Northwest or the Rocky Mountains.&rdquo;
Both of those regions, you&rsquo;ll note, are in the red.
What to do? You can attack this issue from a couple of angles:
<ul>
<li>First, there&rsquo;s personal preparedness. If you don&rsquo;t have the funds for one of those Generac &ldquo;whole house&rdquo; generators, garden-variety gasoline-fired generators are much more affordable and can keep essential loads running. Do it right: Have an electrician install a transfer switch and breaker interlock. Then test your backup system at least three times a year so you&rsquo;ll know what to do step-by-step once the lights go out for real</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>As for how to invest&hellip; Last year, Paradigm readers started reaping the profits from this phenomenon as share prices of &ldquo;independent power producers&rdquo; that aren&rsquo;t regulated utilities began to soar. On May 7, we offered a rare free pick in 5 Bullets &mdash; Constellation Energy &mdash; which rose 34% by year-end. Meanwhile, Enrique Abeyta pinpointed a special trade for his paid readers, garnering 177% on Talen Energy.</li>
</ul>
Shares of the independent power producers have pulled back in early 2026 &mdash; potentially serving up an attractive new entry point. Keep an eye out in your paid publication(s) for ways to play the trend as the year goes on.
Unfortunately there are no ETFs comprising only independent power producers &mdash; but those companies do make up a meaningful slice of the State Street Utilities Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLU).
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />The Rules Are Changing (Climate Regs)
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> On the margins, action by the White House might help alleviate the electricity crunch described in today&rsquo;s Bullet No. 1.
Today&rsquo;s Wall Street Journal has a front-page story telling us the Trump administration plans to junk the Obama administration&rsquo;s &ldquo;endangerment finding&rdquo; &mdash; which asserted that so-called climate change poses a threat to public health and welfare.
The finding, which dates to 2009, has been a key facet of what our Jim Rickards has long called the &ldquo;Green New Scam.&rdquo;
&ldquo;Expert climate change predictions have been wrong for 50 years,&rdquo; Jim wrote his Strategic Intelligence readers in December. &ldquo;Every year, the science experts claim the world will be flooded in 10 years and 10 years later they&rsquo;re wrong every time.&rdquo;
Ever since that 2009 finding, the EPA has exercised sweeping new powers beyond just keeping the air and water clean. Carbon dioxide came under its purview, and thus the agency has been tightening fuel-economy standards for vehicles and &mdash; relevant to our discussion today &mdash; capping carbon emissions from power plants. It&rsquo;s one reason why so many functional coal-fired plants are shutting down.
The final revised rule will be made public later this week. &ldquo;This amounts to the largest act of deregulation in the history of the United States,&rdquo; EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin tells the Journal.
From the vantage point of early 2026 it&rsquo;s hard to say exactly what the impact will be. And it&rsquo;s likely that the climate-change crowd will take the Trump administration to court.
But we figured it&rsquo;s worth putting on the record today&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />Party Like It&rsquo;s 1999
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;When you strip away the fear and compare today&rsquo;s conditions to those in early 2000, it&rsquo;s clear the market is NOT at a top like the one before the dot-com collapse,&rdquo; says Paradigm trading pro Enrique Abeyta.
As we noted last week, a sell-off in software stocks like Salesforce has revived fears of an &ldquo;AI bubble&rdquo; &mdash; and chatter that we&rsquo;re in for a rerun of the dot-com bust, in which the Nasdaq crumbled by 78% starting in early 2000.
But &ldquo;the market is behaving very differently today,&rdquo; says Enrique &mdash; &ldquo;and many of the signals that defined that era are notably absent.&rdquo;
For one thing, the Nasdaq has not experienced the hyperbolic rise that it did at the end of the dot-com bust &mdash; an 80% surge in only five months.
Indeed the Nasdaq has been consolidating since mid-2025. &ldquo;Blow-off tops don&rsquo;t happen in markets that are correcting internally,&rdquo; Enrique says. &ldquo;They happen when everything rises together, relentlessly, regardless of earnings, growth or balance sheet strength.&rdquo;
For another thing, the Federal Reserve is not raising interest rates &mdash; which it was throughout 1999 and early 2000. Assuming Kevin Warsh is confirmed by the Senate as the new Fed chair, rate cuts are in the offing later in 2026.
&ldquo;Markets typically do not experience catastrophic tops when monetary policy is easing,&rdquo; Enrique says. &ldquo;Liquidity acts as a cushion. It supports risk assets, absorbs shocks and extends cycles longer than many expect.&rdquo;
And there&rsquo;s a third difference, perhaps the most important, he points out: The most notorious-dot coms &ldquo;were burning cash at staggering rates and financing growth almost entirely through debt issuance and equity dilution. When capital markets closed, those business models collapsed overnight.
&ldquo;Fast-forward to 2026 and the picture could not be more different. The companies committing the largest capital expenditures today are among the healthiest and most profitable enterprises on the planet.&rdquo;
That includes the four biggest hyperscalers &mdash; Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta and Amazon. &ldquo;The major technology leaders funding AI infrastructure are generating massive free cash flow, posting strong margins and operating with fortress-like balance sheets.&rdquo;
Bottom line: &ldquo;Against this backdrop, I feel more bullish than I&rsquo;ve been in years&hellip; This environment feels far more like 1999 than 2000.&rdquo;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Maybe today is the day the S&amp;P 500 will notch its first close over 7,000.
At last check, the index is up a little less than a quarter percent to 6,980. The Nasdaq&rsquo;s gain is similar. The Dow is powering still higher into record territory, up a half percent and approaching 50,400.
Precious metals look positively sleepy by recent standards &mdash; gold down about $50 but still holding the line on $5,000 and silver down about two bucks to $81.30.
The major cryptos are little moved from this time 24 hours ago &mdash; Bitcoin a little under $70,000, Ethereum a little over $2,000.
Crude is inching higher at $64.54.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Steady as she goes for the nation&rsquo;s small-business sector.
The National Federation of Independent Business is out with its monthly Small Business Optimism Index. The headline number for January is 99.3, down slightly from December&rsquo;s 99.5. But it&rsquo;s still above the long-term average of this survey, which goes back more than 50 years.
On the portion of the survey where respondents are asked to identify their single-most important problem, taxes are in first place &mdash; cited by 18%.
&ldquo;Taxes ranking as the top issue is typically a sign that other, less consistent issues (labor quality, inflation, poor sales, etc.) are not currently in a bad state,&rdquo; says the NFIB&rsquo;s report.
But good help is still hard to find in many places: &ldquo;Quality of labor&rdquo; was cited by 16%. The cost and availability of insurance comes in third at 13% &mdash; the highest that category has registered in over seven years. Inflation was cited by 12%.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />Copper: Still Attractive
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;Without a significant reduction in demand or a massive increase in supply, we will see a big squeeze in copper,&rdquo; says Real Wealth Insider editor Matt Badiali.
<a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/teslas-loss-your-gain">Last month</a>, as copper crossed $6 a pound for the first time, Matt helped us spotlight the red metal&rsquo;s investment potential in the context of sturdy global demand for electric vehicles.
Since then, the price spiked over $6.50 at the same time gold and silver reached their manic highs &mdash; only to fall back.
But copper is hanging tough, still a little under $6, because the long-term story remains so compelling.
&ldquo;As we enter the age of AI and massive data center buildouts,&rdquo; says Matt, &ldquo;copper is more important than ever. And the supply/demand curve points to even higher prices.&rdquo;
Analysts at S&amp;P Global expect over the next 14 years, global copper supply will fall 23.8% short of demand. According to their recent report, &ldquo;The widening disconnect highlights copper's dual role as both enabler and potential bottleneck for the energy transition and digital transformation.&rdquo;
&ldquo;In other words,&rdquo; says Matt, &ldquo;if you&rsquo;re a tech bull, you&rsquo;re also a copper bull. The limited copper supply creates a &lsquo;systemic risk&rsquo; for AI.&rdquo;
As before, Matt says the simplest way to play it is with a basket of copper mining stocks &mdash; the Global X Copper Miners ETF (COPX).
But he&rsquo;s keeping an eye out for juicier opportunities: &ldquo;The setup in copper is so good today that we can move further down the food chain in this sector. We can take more risks and make larger gains without the fear of a price collapse.&rdquo;
If you&rsquo;re one of Matt&rsquo;s paid readers, keep an eye out for a recommendation or two along those lines. If you&rsquo;re not among them, Real Wealth Insider is currently closed to new subscribers &mdash; but we&rsquo;ll let you know when it reopens.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Paper Money as Floral Arrangements
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> From the central bank of Kenya comes a warning to stop using the country&rsquo;s banknotes as faux flowers for Valentine&rsquo;s Day.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/6vclYRXgXU7w2Z7sl8gUdi/0e511e4bdc07a8157b5e33530e7f38da/FMF-Issue-02-10-26_2_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
Apparently it&rsquo;s become something of a Valentine tradition there &mdash; &ldquo;popularized by celebrities and online influencers, who share videos of themselves presenting such bouquets during celebrations,&rdquo; reports the BBC.
The Central Bank of Kenya does not approve &mdash; issuing a notice on social media last week reminding citizens that defacing the paper currency comes with a penalty as steep as seven years in prison.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> The news coverage we see of this story begs the question: Is the purchasing power of the Kenyan shilling so pitiful that it&rsquo;s useful mostly for fake floral arrangements?
We&rsquo;re pretty sure the blue banknotes used in the picture above are 200 shillings each &mdash; about $1.56 U.S. at the current exchange rate. And that exchange rate has been very stable since mid-2024.
So they&rsquo;re not worthless by any stretch. We&rsquo;re not in Zimbabwe-dollar territory here.
Indeed, the central bank says the problem comes when the paper currency is put back into use after being folded, rolled, glued, stapled and otherwise altered: Apparently it gums up ATMs and cash-counting machines.
Meanwhile, a website called The Punch tells us that &ldquo;Kenya is one of the world&rsquo;s leading producers of flowers, and the announcement has been welcomed by some who argue that fresh floral bouquets are more appropriate Valentine&rsquo;s Day gifts.&rdquo;
See guys, here&rsquo;s your subtle reminder that Saturday&rsquo;s the day. Get your flower order in early. You&rsquo;re welcome.

FMF-Issue-02-10-26(Featured)

Blackout Nation: An Update

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />Flying Cars (Sooner Than You Think)
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> For the better part of 15 years, it&rsquo;s been the most damning indictment of the digital age: &ldquo;We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters.&rdquo;
So read the subtitle of a 2011 report from Founders Fund &mdash; a venture capital firm co-founded by Peter Thiel.
(Recall this was a time when X was still called Twitter and tweets were limited to 140 characters.)
The report&rsquo;s thesis? Computers were getting faster, cheaper, better. But in the realm of &ldquo;real stuff,&rdquo; human progress was nearing a standstill.
As Thiel summed it up to an audience at Stanford University in 2012, &ldquo;Whether we look at transportation, energy, commodity production, food production, agro-tech, nanotechnology &mdash; that with the exception of computers, we&rsquo;ve had tremendous slowdown&hellip;
&ldquo;I believe we are in a world where innovation in stuff was outlawed. It was basically outlawed in the last 40 years &mdash; part of it was environmentalism, part of it was risk aversion. And all the engineering disciplines that had to do with stuff have basically been outlawed one by one.&rdquo;
Thiel was not alone in the early 2010s&hellip;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not denying that the changes in digital IT over the last three decades have been breathtaking,&rdquo; wrote the demographer Neil Howe, also in 2012. &ldquo;They have been.&rdquo;
But progress otherwise during his boomer lifetime, he suggested, was much slower than during the life of, say, Dwight Eisenhower, born in 1890.
&ldquo;When he was a child... you needed to know Morse code to communicate faster than a horse could run, and (in fact) horses were the only mode of ordinary street transport. Children routinely died from bacterial infections. And Lord Kelvin, one of the greatest scientists of that age, declared that &lsquo;aeronautical travel&rsquo; was impossible.&rdquo;
By the time Ike was president in the late &rsquo;50s, &ldquo;he was inside in a Boeing 707... dictating memos on the deployment of hydrogen bombs, sugar-cube vaccines for polio and plans to put a &lsquo;man on the moon&rsquo; while flying at 35,000 feet over a nation whose vast, affluent, homeowning, car-driving, union card-holding middle class would have been utterly inconceivable in the presidency of William McKinley.
&ldquo;Meanwhile I get up every morning and drive basically the same silly internal-combustion car that people drove 50 years ago through the same suburbs on the same interstates to the same buildings powered by the same nuclear plants and hydroelectric dams that Eisenhower&rsquo;s peers saw fit to build.&rdquo;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> That was then. This is now. People privy to Thiel&rsquo;s thinking say he&rsquo;s changed his tune. 
As recently as last summer, Thiel gave an interview to The New York Times in which he continued to lament the lack of progress outside the digital realm.
But during a recent edition of the Provoked podcast, co-host Darryl Cooper said he attended a private talk given by Thiel. Apparently Thiel now believes AI has the potential to bring about a transformation in all the realms where there&rsquo;s been middling progress for the last 50 years &mdash; energy, transportation, agriculture&hellip;
Cooper did not specify what brought about Thiel&rsquo;s change of heart. A couple of different web searches on your editor&rsquo;s part come up dry. Whatever Thiel is saying, he&rsquo;s saying to a limited audience.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> But perhaps what he&rsquo;s saying is along the lines of what Paradigm&rsquo;s top editors were saying during our All-In Summit held last Thursday.
To recap, it was all about &ldquo;aAI&rdquo; &mdash; or autonomous AI.
Jim Rickards, James Altucher, Enrique Abeyta&hellip; They all see AI melding with advanced robotics and a revived U.S. manufacturing base. The sort of combination that could bring about flying cars sooner than you think.
And to be clear, this convergence is not something they see coming in the 2030s. They see three catalysts building here in the first quarter of 2026&hellip;
<ul>
<li>Donald Trump is set to sign an executive order accelerating the development of aAI. Target date: Any day now</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Elon Musk is preparing a one-of-a-kind aAI product rollout &mdash; an autonomous robot called Optimus that will re-shape every industry you can think of. Target date: No later than March 30</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, is set to unveil the company&rsquo;s newest superchip that will power aAI &mdash; and he&rsquo;ll name the tiny software company Nvidia is partnering with to make it all happen: Target date: Nvidia&rsquo;s annual GTC event, also known as the &ldquo;Super Bowl of AI,&rdquo; on March 16.</li>
</ul>
If you&rsquo;re a Paradigm Mastermind Group member, you&rsquo;re already hip to the changes that are coming and how to profit. Still, you won&rsquo;t want to miss a follow-up live session featuring the Mastermind team tomorrow at 1:00 p.m. EST. At that time they&rsquo;ll walk you through all the special reports they issued last week and even take your questions. Watch your inbox for a link.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />Chop on the Surface, Calm Underneath
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Beneath the choppy action in the major U.S. stock indexes, a different picture emerges.
&ldquo;We are witnessing a clear rotation out of the highflying mega-cap tech names and into a much broader area of the market,&rdquo; says Paradigm analyst Zach Scheidt &mdash; who works on several publications including Altucher&rsquo;s True Alpha and Rickards&rsquo; Insider Intel.
&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve seen stocks like the Mag 7 absolutely tear higher over the past several months. It makes sense that these names need a break. And the fact that capital is rotating rather than disappearing means that the overall bull trend is still intact.
&ldquo;If anything, the market is becoming healthier as participation expands. As noted in the recent research from Bespoke regarding market broadening, the rally is no longer relying on just a handful of names to do the heavy lifting.&rdquo;
Consider the following stats:
<ul>
<li>57% of S&amp;P 500 stocks are currently outperforming the broad market index</li>
<li>4 of the S&amp;P sectors closed at 52-week highs at the end of January</li>
<li>91 stocks are already up 10% or more year-to-date.</li>
</ul>
&ldquo;While the Mag 7 names take a breather, small-cap stocks are holding up remarkably well,&rdquo; Zach continues. &ldquo;The Russell 2000 (IWM) remains firmly above its 50-day moving average, signaling that risk appetite isn&rsquo;t vanishing, it&rsquo;s simply moving to other areas of the market that haven&rsquo;t gotten the same excitement as the Mags.&rdquo;
In addition, Zach concurs with trading pro Enrique Abeyta&rsquo;s remarks here last week: The software stocks are deeply oversold after last week&rsquo;s bloodbath and liable to bounce big.
➢ Congratulations are in order for Altucher&rsquo;s True Alpha readers, where Zach and James Altucher recommended an up-and-coming tech name on Jan. 6. Today they urged readers to sell for 220% gains.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> In the meantime, Friday&rsquo;s bounce in the major indexes is extending into a new week.
At last check the S&amp;P 500 is up nearly two-thirds of a percent and less than 25 points away from 7,000. The Nasdaq is up nearly 1.2%. The Dow, which breached the 50,000 level for the first time on Friday, is also in the green today &mdash; but just barely.
Gold has roared over $100 higher to $5,074. Silver is up a blistering 7.2% to $83.25. Bitcoin has recovered the $70,000 mark and Ethereum is approaching $2,100.
Two big economic numbers are coming later this week &mdash; the January jobs report on Wednesday (delayed a few days by the latest &ldquo;partial government shutdown&rdquo; and the official inflation rate Friday.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> The oil price is drifting higher even though a U.S. attack on Iran did not transpire over the weekend.
When we left you on Friday, traders were once again positioning themselves for that possibility &mdash; bidding crude up in the event of a weekend attack when markets were closed.
Ordinarily we&rsquo;d see a pullback as a new week begins. Instead, a barrel of West Texas Intermediate is up over three-quarters of a percent, back over $64.
Perhaps that&rsquo;s because of something that did transpire over the weekend &mdash; an announcement that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will pay a call on the White House Wednesday.
For the record, this will be the seventh time he&rsquo;s visited Trump in the United States since Trump&rsquo;s return to office just over a year ago.
His demands are already clear: In a statement, Netanyahu&rsquo;s office said any U.S. negotiations with Iran &ldquo;must include limitations on ballistic missiles and a halting of the support for the Iranian axis.&rdquo;
That&rsquo;s a nonstarter for Tehran: &ldquo;Missiles are never negotiable because they are a defense issue,&rdquo; Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told Al Jazeera on Saturday.
SpaceX IPO Plans
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />SpaceX IPO Plans
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> The SpaceX IPO is still on track for late spring or early summer after Elon Musk&rsquo;s announcement that SpaceX is acquiring xAI.
Musk made it official a week ago today &mdash; although users of the Paradigm Press mobile app got the scoop days earlier from our Ray Blanco, in attendance at the SpaceCom event in Orlando.
As we mentioned last week, combining the company will make it easier for Musk to pursue his goal of orbiting data centers &mdash; using 24/7 solar power that doesn&rsquo;t compete with homeowners and businesses for scarce electricity back on Earth.
&ldquo;xAI was burning about $1 billion per month,&rdquo; Ray tells us. &ldquo;They need SpaceX for orbital infrastructure. SpaceX needs guaranteed launch revenue. Space data centers solve both problems.
&ldquo;There will be other players doing the exact same thing &mdash; moving compute to space, with Google and Amazon as potential competitors from within the U.S.&rdquo;
As for the timing of the merger &mdash; the combined firm could be valued at $1.25 trillion &mdash; Ray says one possibility is June 8-9, which marks the conjunction of Jupiter and Venus.
&ldquo;It might sound like a weird reason to pick a date,&rdquo; Ray allows, &ldquo;but this is classic Elon Musk style. Remember in 2018 when he tweeted about taking Tesla private at $420 per share (a classic cannabis reference)?
&ldquo;Since SpaceX is a space company, Elon might like a date that occurs during a rare planetary alignment.
&ldquo;Another option is that Elon does it as a birthday gift to himself, on June 28 (Musk's 55th birthday). Either way, the IPO could raise up to $50 billion, which would smash Saudi Aramco's $29 billion record IPO raise.&rdquo;
In the pages of Altucher&rsquo;s Investment Network, Ray and James Altucher have pinpointed several ways to profit from SpaceX&rsquo;s IPO before it ever happens.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />Bread and Circuses
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> The latest Jeffrey Epstein revelations opened an ugly window into what the power elite really thinks of the plebes.
It has to do with the already-disgraced Jes Staley &mdash; a 34-year veteran of JPMorgan Chase who moved on to become CEO of Barclays in 2015. He resigned in 2021 amid ongoing disclosures about his cozy relationship with Epstein.
The most recent Epstein document dump includes a jaw-dropping email Staley sent to Epstein ahead of the 2014 Super Bowl.
The context is that a few days earlier, protesters fought with military police in Brazil&rsquo;s most populous city, Sao Paolo. They were upset with the government&rsquo;s lavish spending on stadiums to host the 2014 World Cup.
Aside from that, the three-sentence email speaks for itself.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/2BlxIIci5CwPpYTrurQGms/f7bf7abe89b7b388a2be41c3819356e0/FMF-Issue-02-09-26_1_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
Brings to mind the late George Carlin&rsquo;s rant about how &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a big club, and you ain&rsquo;t in it.&rdquo;
And in light of how last night&rsquo;s Super Bowl halftime show became another touchstone in the culture wars, this part of his routine seems especially relevant&hellip;
<blockquote>That&rsquo;s all you ever hear about in this country is our differences. That&rsquo;s all the media and the politicians are ever talking about: the things that separate us, things that make us different from one another.</blockquote>
<blockquote>That&rsquo;s the way the ruling class operates in any society: They try to divide the rest of the people; they keep the lower and the middle classes fighting with each other so that they, the rich, can run off with all the ****ing money.</blockquote>
<blockquote>Fairly simple thing&hellip; happens to work.</blockquote>
And he said that in 1992!
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Mailbag: Silver, MAMA Stocks
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> A new week&rsquo;s mailbag begins with a one-sentence inquiry&hellip;
&ldquo;Do you believe confidence exists that silver can go higher than its recent high price and above in the near term of six months?&rdquo;
Of course confidence exists. The question is among whom?
In all seriousness, many smart observers of the precious metals space, both inside and outside Paradigm, believe silver could easily reach $150 by year-end &mdash; certainly next year.
Six months is a tighter timeframe, though. We&rsquo;re talking Aug. 9. Expecting silver to reclaim $121 by that time? It&rsquo;s certainly possible, but I wouldn&rsquo;t want to bet on it.
But I&rsquo;m nonetheless hanging on to my Sprott Physical Silver Trust (PSLV). I&rsquo;m playing for the long haul and I&rsquo;m willing to exercise patience. But that&rsquo;s just me. If you&rsquo;re sitting on hefty silver profits even after the recent whacking and you need to meet current expenses&hellip; you might well come to a different conclusion.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> After last week&rsquo;s mention of how our label of the &ldquo;MAMA&rdquo; stocks never got traction last year &mdash; Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta, Amazon &mdash; a reader weighed in&hellip;
&ldquo;Since your MAMA acronym didn&rsquo;t catch on, how about adding a couple of hyperscaler-related companies, Nvidia and Oracle, and going with the Al Bundy-inspired acronym of NO MA&rsquo;AM?&rdquo;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/4TYtcpDTUzbyvqv90kD1h0/490135b2ebddc9f352d247c302e3a7f5/FMF-Issue-02-09-26_2_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
Dave responds: And I thought my mind went off on weird tangents!

FMF-Issue-02-09-26(Featured).png

Flying Cars (Sooner Than You Think)

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />39 Days Before NVDA Tips Its Hand
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> I&rsquo;m still shaking my head over what happened yesterday during the Paradigm All-In Summit featuring Jim Rickards, James Altucher and Enrique Abeyta.
There they were &mdash; our three most high-profile gurus, guys who frequently disagree about the direction of the market, the direction of the economy, even what to have for lunch.
But they were &ldquo;all in&rdquo; on a single big theme.
And I do mean big &mdash; the imminent convergence of AI, advanced robotics and the revival of U.S. manufacturing. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s going to be the biggest transformation to America&rsquo;s economy in 50 years,&rdquo; said Jim.
They were also all-in on a tiny software company partnering with Nvidia to make it all happen.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> But at the same moment 20,000 of your fellow readers were being clued in to this transformational wonder, mainstream financial media were zeroed in on near-term noise&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/I1WxzhmfmW7AbZEwFydMh/cd8167fe42417909797a4e420f07e9af/FMF-Issue-02-06-26_1_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
&ldquo;Big Tech stocks have sold off heavily,&rdquo; said the Financial Times, &ldquo;after the companies unveiled plans to spend $660 billion this year on AI, as investors fret that the &lsquo;breathtaking&rsquo; capital expenditures are outpacing the earnings potential of the new technology.
&ldquo;Amazon, Google and Microsoft are set to lose a combined $900 billion in market value since filing their quarterly earnings over the past week.&rdquo;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Perspective, please: The Nasdaq Composite is down a not-so-whopping 6% from its late-October peak. If it were at all-time highs, no one in the media would be carping about an &ldquo;AI bubble.&rdquo;
&ldquo;Look, I know a thing or two about bubbles,&rdquo; Enrique said during the summit yesterday. &ldquo;I was managing money when the dot-com bubble burst. I shorted it on the way down and made lots of money for my clients.
&ldquo;What we&rsquo;re seeing today in AI is not how bubbles peak.&rdquo;
Which brings us to an eye-opening chart Enrique shared during the event. We&rsquo;ve shown it in the past here in 5 Bullets as well &mdash; comparing the Nasdaq Composite&rsquo;s performance during the dot-com boom and the current AI-fueled boom.
It sets the starting point of the dot-com boom with the launch of the Netscape web browser in December 1994. And it sets the start of the current boom with the launch of ChatGPT 3.5 in November 2022&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/7daUPtoIFlTu0CB2hpFtcM/55c9fe163550c965fda75f004275b7f9/FMF-Issue-02-06-26_2_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
In both cases, we&rsquo;re looking at a gain of over 100% in a little over three years.
&ldquo;Notice how much this bull run compares to the one 30 years ago,&rdquo; said Enrique. &ldquo;Imagine if this same situation plays out over the next handful of years.&rdquo;
If AI were nothing more than chatbots like ChatGPT, then yes &mdash; AI would be due for a hard reset.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> But as our trio of experts took pains to point out yesterday, AI is about much more than chatbots.
&ldquo;We&rsquo;re really talking about the next wave of AI &mdash; and that&rsquo;s robotics and automation,&rdquo; said James Altucher.
Call it &ldquo;aAI&rdquo; or autonomous AI.
To some extent, aAI already happening. Here&rsquo;s a startling stat we learned during the All-In Summit: A decade ago, the typical Amazon worker handled about 175 packages. Last year, the total was 3,870. That&rsquo;s AI solving real-world practical problems.
But with a new aAI effort called Project Trinity, those leaps in productivity are coming to every industry &mdash; again, AI melding with automation melding with a revival of the U.S. factory sector.
And our experts all agree it&rsquo;s got the backing of three powerful forces&hellip;
<ul>
<li>Donald Trump, set to sign an executive order any day now</li>
<li>Elon Musk, set to roll out his Optimus autonomous robots by the end of this quarter</li>
<li>Jensen Huang, the Nvidia CEO, set to unveil the company&rsquo;s newest superchip that will power aAI on March 16.</li>
</ul>
That&rsquo;s just 39 days from now. Oh, and Huang is also set to name the tiny software company Nvidia is partnering with to make it all possible.
So you have 39 days to position yourself for the biggest economic transformation in 50 years.
Profit potential, you ask? Perhaps 2,566% &mdash; unfolding in a matter of weeks.
If you&rsquo;re a Paradigm Mastermind Group member, you have full access to a suite of special reports released yesterday &mdash; naming this company and laying out a host of other lucrative aAI plays. <a href="https://my.paradigmpressgroup.com/subscription/pmg/reports">Access here</a>.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />About the AI Spending Spree&hellip;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Life comes at you fast, doesn&rsquo;t it, Financial Times?
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/5Y3KQqhnStHq95fAYZi8nl/1eaec8b3548e9269b3795cf9d2b5fe6d/FMF-Issue-02-06-26_3_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
Amazon is down 8% today because its AI spending plans are more ambitious than Wall Street analysts are counting on. But the gloom is not extending to the tech sector as a whole, as the Nasdaq is up nearly 1.2% at last check.
The S&amp;P is up nearly 1.3% to 6,885 and the Dow has rallied 1.8%.
Actually, just about every asset class that took a beating this week is rallying into the weekend&hellip;
<ul>
<li>Gold is up 3.5% to $4,944</li>
<li>Silver is up 7.8% to $76.38</li>
<li>Bitcoin is back over $68,000</li>
<li>Ethereum is within sight of $2,000 again.</li>
</ul>
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Let&rsquo;s return to the AI spending spree before we move on&hellip;
Four of the &ldquo;Magnificent 7&rdquo; stocks are the hyperscalers pouring money into data centers (and the electricity to run them and the water to cool them).
A year ago we tried to label them the MAMA stocks &mdash; Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta and Amazon &mdash; but it didn&rsquo;t catch on. All four of them have now reported their quarterly numbers. Looking at the reaction in each of their share prices, only Meta was rewarded by Wall Street for its spending plans. Hence the doomy headlines of the sort we mentioned in Bullet No. 1.
On the Paradigm Press mobile app, trading pro Enrique Abeyta posted the following yesterday&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/465iuyqqCn47XYecNKwT39/e64cc84d912ec1e4bdaea78ca2382607/FMF-Issue-02-06-26_4_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
He also pointed out a major difference between today&rsquo;s hyperscalers and the dot-com darlings of the late 1990s: The MAMA stocks generate profits hand-over-fist. The most buzzy dot-coms like Global Crossing and Level 3 had way more publicity than profits.
And even if the Street continues to punish the hyperscalers, all that money they&rsquo;re spending will flow toward companies like Nvidia, Broadcom and Credo.
Enrique&rsquo;s bottom line: &ldquo;This is NOT how the AI bubble bursts. We see a huge disconnect right now and would be buying aggressively.&rdquo;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />War Drums
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> For the second Friday in a row, traders are bidding up oil in the event of a U.S. attack on Iran while markets are closed for the weekend.
Checking our screens, a barrel of West Texas Intermediate is up 1.2% and back above $64.
As we&rsquo;ve mentioned more than once, there&rsquo;s been a pattern during both the Biden and Trump 47 administrations &mdash; big military action launched during the weekend, when U.S. markets are closed.
<a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/morning-in-america-if-only">In one instance</a>, U.S. forces launched airstrikes against &ldquo;Iran-linked&rdquo; targets in Iraq and Syria as soon as the stock market closed on a Friday at 4:00 p.m. Eastern.
The idea is to short-circuit any instant market freakout. By the time trading reopens Monday morning, everyone&rsquo;s had a chance to catch their breath and they&rsquo;re less inclined to react with extreme buy or sell orders.
Today, &ldquo;indirect&rdquo; talks between American and Iranian envoys are underway in Oman. But any talks will go nowhere as long as Washington dictates terms that Tehran views as suicidal.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/2N6oKWZ0UB4RII5ZXl2xAh/2cc9bf6833327c45403f894098edadf0/FMF-Issue-02-06-26_5_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;They should know that if they start a war this time, it will be a regional war,&rdquo; Iran&rsquo;s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said last Sunday.
&ldquo;Sounds bad, but you can&rsquo;t exactly blame Tehran for threatening to set the Middle East ablaze,&rdquo; writes Andrew Day at The American Conservative.
&ldquo;Trump has demonstrated a strong preference for military action to be quick and achieve specific objectives so he can avoid American casualties and long, chaotic wars. The Iranians know this, and their provocative rhetoric is meant to prevent another attack on their country, not to antagonize Washington.&rdquo;
Amid that backdrop, &ldquo;It&rsquo;s really the Israelis who want a strike,&rdquo; a U.S. official tells the Axios site. &ldquo;The president is just not there.&rdquo;
He&rsquo;s probably &ldquo;not there&rdquo; because of these poll numbers. Even Republican support for military intervention in Iran is barely 50%...
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1bFOAK5n71uqS299WMfrjI/e3ab921e043cd834d414a4ab87085565/FMF-Issue-02-06-26_6_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> On the one hand, it seems unlikely the Trump administration would order an attack on Super Bowl weekend, right?
On the other hand, the Winter Olympics open tonight &mdash; and Washington has a habit of instigating geopolitical trouble around the Olympics, as we&rsquo;ve chronicled previously&hellip;
<ul>
<li>Summer 2008: Shortly before the Games opened in Beijing, Washington&rsquo;s puppet leader in the former Soviet republic of Georgia invaded a rebel province, hoping to re-annex it. Georgian forces killed and wounded scores of Russian peacekeepers. As the games began, Russian tanks rolled into Georgia and quickly restored the status quo ante</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Winter 2014: As the Games were underway in Sochi, Russia, the Obama administration engineered a coup in Ukraine &mdash; ousting a democratically elected pro-Russian leader. From there, a low-grade civil war raged in Ukraine for eight years until&hellip;</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Winter 2022: During the games in Beijing, the Biden administration blew off Moscow&rsquo;s demands that Ukraine never join NATO and that U.S. weapons systems targeting Russia never be deployed in Ukraine. Moscow launched its &ldquo;special military operation&rdquo; four days after the closing ceremonies.</li>
</ul>
Yes, all of those examples involved Russia. Then again, an extended U.S.-Iran conflict might well draw in Moscow (and Beijing) on the side of Tehran.
Russian and Chinese leaders might tolerate the toppling of Venezuela&rsquo;s strongman Maduro. In contrast, &ldquo;Russia and China simply cannot permit Iran to fall,&rdquo; writes the military analyst William Schryver.
For them, Iran possesses &ldquo;inherent geostrategic importance&rdquo; as well as &ldquo;strategic importance to the emergence of the multipolar world for which Russia and China are the vanguards and strongest components.&rdquo;
On that less-than-cheery thought, we move on&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />Comic Relief
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Wow, and people call me cynical. Here&rsquo;s Ryan McMaken from the Mises Institute&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/CcMVdvL4BX3ZHUVYtL33l/3f5e319ed0ca050ea00111c2c394aa32/FMF-Issue-02-06-26_7_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Mailbag: Silver Smash
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;Thank you, Nick Riso, for the great article,&rdquo; a reader enthuses after we spotlighted our able colleague&rsquo;s deep dive into <a href="https://rudeawakening.info/posts/how-the-machine-ate-itself">the meltdown in silver</a> a week ago today. &ldquo;It was both informative and educational!
&ldquo;One question: Is there not an ability to stop trading in a particular stock or the entire exchange similar to the financial markets? Should there be (you will always have events that can crush a market be they internal or external)?&rdquo;
Dave responds: Well, there are &ldquo;circuit breakers&rdquo; &mdash; a specific crash band for individual stocks. Typically it&rsquo;s a 10% or greater move in five minutes, although that can vary from one exchange to another.
&ldquo;But I can't say intelligently whether that's &lsquo;right&rsquo; or &lsquo;wrong,&rsquo; Nick tells us via email.
"It's a metaethical question there. Maybe it will be in the future with more automated trading, but maybe not. It's complicated.&rdquo;
You didn&rsquo;t get an easy answer, dear reader, but you got an honest one! As purveyors of investment recommendations we must deal with the world as it is, not as we might wish it to be.

FMF-Issue-02-06-26(Featured)

39 Days Before NVDA Tips Its Hand

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />Beyond &ldquo;Critical Minerals&rdquo;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> On the heels of announcing a critical-minerals stockpile Monday&hellip; the Trump administration is convening a critical-minerals summit today.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio is joined by Vice President Vance and delegates from over 50 countries for an event called the Critical Minerals Ministerial.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/7vbMoikcdmVrNR2zwD3Wx6/7da0fe66312e5b99ec9dafd6bee90565/FMF-Issue-020426_1_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
Events like these are not where big decisions get made. They are where governments telegraph their intentions. As the State Department announcement puts it, &ldquo;This historic gathering will create momentum for collaboration to secure these critical components vital to technological innovation, economic strength and national security.&rdquo;
The meeting comes &ldquo;at a time when China has shown it can leverage its dominance in the field,&rdquo; adds the Financial Times &mdash; particularly in the realm of rare earth elements.
<blockquote>Rare earth minerals are used across a range of critical industries including autos, electronics, defense and energy. China dominates the refining and supply of the group of 17 metallic elements. The minerals consultancy Project Blue estimates that China currently controls 66% of the global mined supply and 88% of the refined materials.</blockquote>
<blockquote>Last year China exploited this dominance by imposing restrictions on the exports of some rare earths, raising trade tensions with the U.S. The Trump administration has since sought to support domestic suppliers, including by acquiring a stake in Nevada-based MP Materials, and diversify sources of certain metals to reduce dependency on China.</blockquote>
In China, the summit is the top business story on CGTN, the English-language state broadcaster. Note the &ldquo;cutline&rdquo; with the view from Beijing&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/4NZhXF39iAbJ22RqZLQsRU/8835f66d5cd859aa70af7398fd97f293/FMF-Issue-020426_2_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
To be sure, it&rsquo;s not all about rare earths. The U.S. critical-mineral stockpile announced earlier this week is likely to include everything from gallium to cobalt to lithium &mdash; essential for industries as diverse as automobiles, aerospace and energy.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> The U.S. government taking equity stakes in companies was mostly a 2025 story. 
The headline companies included MP Materials, Intel, U.S. Steel&hellip; and in early 2026, USA Rare Earth.
Paradigm Press readers have fared very well as our editors had the foresight to anticipate both the policy and the potential beneficiaries of that policy.
Several of our publications recommended MP Materials, or options on MP Materials. Altucher&rsquo;s True Alpha readers benefited the most, with 918% gains on MP call options.
Several of our publications also recommended USA Rare Earth &mdash; notably the Paradigm Mastermind Group, a showcase where several of our editors can unveil their most cutting-edge ideas.
In fact, USAR was the focus of a one-of-a-kind event we hosted five months ago called the &ldquo;All-In Summit.&rdquo;
It&rsquo;s a rare moment indeed when macro maven Jim Rickards, AI authority James Altucher and trading pro Enrique Abeyta are &ldquo;all in&rdquo; on a single buy recommendation &mdash; and not just any buy, but a screaming buy. Their consensus on USAR delivered 191% gains in a little over two months.
As it happens, they&rsquo;ve reached consensus again.
As before, action in Washington, D.C. is central to the story. And this time the opportunity could prove to be even more lucrative. (The potential upside is as much as 2,166% in the coming weeks.)
This initiative brings President Trump back together with Elon Musk&hellip; with essential input from Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.
If you&rsquo;re a current Paradigm Mastermind Group subscriber, you&rsquo;ll get the scoop on this new &ldquo;All In&rdquo; recommendation tomorrow afternoon. Watch your inbox.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />Overreaction Much?
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Software stocks are getting smoked &mdash; so much so they&rsquo;re starting to look like a buy.
Yesterday the AI startup Anthropic announced it&rsquo;s adding a set of legal tools to its assistant called Cowork. If the tools live up to their promise, much routine legal research and drafting can be handled by AI.
The news crushed the share prices of companies that provide legal software and/or databases &mdash; Thomson Reuters, LegalZoom, the London Stock Exchange all fell 12% or more. Then the selling spread to software stocks in general &mdash; the Salseforces, ServiceNows and Intuits of the world.
And that proved to be a drag on the market overall &mdash; the Nasdaq ending yesterday down 1.4% and the S&amp;P 500 down 0.8%.
The selling sent the S&amp;P 500 Software Sector ETF (IGV) down so hard, its relative strength index tumbled beneath 20.
As you might be aware, RSI can be a valuable tool: Readings over 70 suggest an asset is overbought and due for a reset. Readings under 30 suggest it&rsquo;s oversold and primed for a rebound.
So for IGV&rsquo;s RSI to sink below 20? &ldquo;This has happened only two times in the 25-year history of the ETF,&rdquo; says trading pro Enrique Abeyta. &ldquo;Both times it was higher by double digits in 90 days.
&ldquo;We think this particular sell-off makes no sense and would be aggressively buying high-quality software stocks right now.&rdquo;
[Editor&rsquo;s note: Enrique originally shared this tidbit on the Daily Feed section of the Paradigm Press mobile app &mdash; where all day our editors are peppering readers with instant insights like these.
The app is also your one-stop shopping source for the buy and sell recommendations of all your paid publications. No more sifting through email to find the most essential info! <a href="https://d2z65klgtz99km.cloudfront.net/PPG-App/">Download here</a>.]
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;I'm looking for signs of capitulation today in some of these tech wrecks,&rdquo; Greg Guenthner writes his Trading Desk readers.
&ldquo;This software sell-off is getting a little ridiculous. I'm not saying that these stocks should magically zip back to their highs. But we should see if we can get some sign of an oversold bounce here.&rdquo;
In the meantime, however, the software sell-off has dragged down the S&amp;P 500 another half-percent on the day &mdash; under 6,900 now. The Nasdaq is off another 1.5%. But the Dow is in the green, up over a half percent.
Bitcoin broke to 52-week lows in the last 24 hours, sitting now a little over $73,000. Ethereum is holding the line on $2,100 for the moment.
Crude is hanging in there at $63.51, smack in the middle of its trading range the last week or so. We&rsquo;ll cover precious metals separately in Bullet No. 3.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Now that the latest &ldquo;partial government shutdown&rdquo; is over, the Labor Department says the January jobs report will be five days late.
Originally it was supposed to come out on Friday; now it won&rsquo;t be till next Wednesday. In the meantime, the payroll firm ADP says private employers added 22,000 jobs in January. That&rsquo;s way less than the typical Wall Street economist was expecting. Worse, the growth came only in one category, &ldquo;education and health services.&rdquo;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Oh, about the shutdown: Congress passed and the president signed a bill funding most of the government through Sept. 30 this year &mdash; except Homeland Security. That&rsquo;s still pending an agreement on how ICE agents are to conduct themselves going forward.
Curiously the bill includes $5 billion in taxpayer aid for refugees who aren&rsquo;t in the country legally &mdash; and yet, all but one Republican voted &ldquo;yea.&rdquo;
<a id="3"></a>
The one Republican was Kentucky&rsquo;s Thomas Massie, who introduced an amendment stripping that funding &mdash; only to be shot down by House Republican leadership, presumably on orders from the White House. Go figure&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />Silver Crash: Now It Can Be Told
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Another day, another round of gyrations in the precious metals.
Gold was within sight of $5,100 overnight but at last check it&rsquo;s clinging to $4,900. Silver surpassed $90 this morning but now it&rsquo;s barely over $85.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> When it comes to silver, &ldquo;the $90&ndash;100 zone now represents a massive wall of resistance, not because of any technical chart pattern, but because that's where thousands of retail traders are trapped in losing positions, waiting for any opportunity to exit at something close to breakeven.
&ldquo;Every rally toward those levels will be met with heavy supply.&rdquo;
So writes colleague Nick Riso. Nick is one of these incredibly smart behind-the-scenes guys we&rsquo;ve got at Paradigm that most of the time you never hear about. His knowledge of the internal plumbing of the options markets is second to none.
And make no mistake, he says it&rsquo;s the options trade that took down silver last Friday from $121 at its peak to $73 at its trough.
&ldquo;Every crisis has a moment where the machinery breaks down completely,&rdquo; he writes &mdash; &ldquo;where whatever thin veneer of order had been maintained simply vanishes. For silver on Jan. 30, that moment arrived at 12:55 PM.&rdquo;
You can read the entire blow-by-blow, before and after that moment, <a href="https://rudeawakening.info/posts/how-the-machine-ate-itself">here</a>. Yes, it&rsquo;s long. But it&rsquo;s thoroughly digestible and totally worth your time.
Nick also takes a wrecking ball to the conventional wisdom about how the appointment of Kevin Warsh as Federal Reserve chair figures into the story. It is not the mainstream narrative about how Warsh is an inflation hawk. Rather it&rsquo;s something else. Again, <a href="https://rudeawakening.info/posts/how-the-machine-ate-itself">go read</a>.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />Comic Relief
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Whoever came up with this nailed all the buzzwords and gobbledygook. Like, perfectly. If you&rsquo;re ever on LinkedIn, you&rsquo;ll recognize it immediately&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/6X2vR8Dy20cdj2UK9EpvA9/64dee4862449f69821d78d3aaefcd737/FMF-Issue-020426_3_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Why We Do What We Do
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;You guys have been delivering value to me for a while and I want to share my gratitude for allowing me to sign up,&rdquo; says a reader who reminds us why we do what we do here.
&ldquo;You guys have consistently provided emails and text updates and I am feeling like I am making progress in my personal life because of the endless value that has been provided. So many people should listen to this but as you know not everybody is on the same page so we gotta do what we can with what we got.&nbsp;
&ldquo;I'm excited for the summit coming up and I look forward to hearing from you guys then.&rdquo;
Dave responds: We&rsquo;ve stepped up our game around here in recent months when it comes to making sure our paid publications keep readers posted about all of the open recommendations. We&rsquo;re heartened that you&rsquo;ve noticed.
And we have more improvements in the works. Stay tuned!

FMF-Issue-020426(Featured)

Critical Minerals Ministerial

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />Project Vault
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> We mentioned it briefly yesterday and it deserves more attention today &mdash; the critical-minerals stockpile the Trump administration has in the works.
Project Vault, it&rsquo;s called. The seed money comes in the form of a taxpayer-backed loan from the U.S. government&rsquo;s Export-Import Bank &mdash; plus another $1.67 billion from the private sector.
&ldquo;The model mirrors the country&rsquo;s emergency oil reserve,&rdquo; says the Mining.com site, &ldquo;but focuses instead on materials such as gallium and cobalt used in products ranging from smartphones to jet engines.
&ldquo;The project spans the automotive, aerospace and energy sectors and underscores Trump&rsquo;s broader push to rewire U.S. supply chains away from China, the world&rsquo;s dominant producer and processor of critical minerals.
&ldquo;More than a dozen companies have reportedly signed on, including General Motors Co., Stellantis NV, Boeing Co., Corning Inc., GE Vernova Inc. and Alphabet Inc.&rsquo;s Google. Commodities traders Hartree Partners LP, Traxys North America LLC and Mercuria Energy Group Ltd. will handle purchases to fill the stockpile.&rdquo;
Vault&rsquo;s ambitious scope is exemplified by the two CEOs who were on hand for yesterday&rsquo;s announcement at the White House &mdash; GM&rsquo;s Mary Barra and mining billionaire Robert Friedland, the founder of Ivanhoe Mines.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/5MjVldXA80YHdGGUUuGY1y/99503d86ab5a9db20c6e9a7f5af38132/FMF-Issue-02-03-26-_1_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
The U.S. government already has a national stockpile for military purposes; this one, we&rsquo;re told, is for civilian applications.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> The mere appearance of the words &ldquo;critical minerals&rdquo; in a headline tends to give a boost to the rare-earth names &mdash; and this week is no exception.
As mentioned here yesterday, shares of USA Rare Earth Inc. (USAR) soared when Bloomberg broke the story ahead of the White House event.
USAR already got a lift last week when the Commerce Department took a 10% stake in the company &mdash; one of many equity stakes the U.S. government has taken in private firms during the Trump 47 administration.
Long before any of these headlines broke, however, the diverse analysts at Paradigm Press saw USAR&rsquo;s potential.
Macro maven Jim Rickards, AI authority James Altucher and trading pro Enrique Abeyta &mdash; they have vastly differing approaches to the recommendations they issue their readers.
But they were &ldquo;all in&rdquo; about USAR during a livestream event on Aug. 7, 2025. As such, we called it the &ldquo;All-In Summit.&rdquo;
USAR shares soared from around $14 at the time of that recommendation well past $40 &mdash; a 191% gain, to be precise. At the very peak in mid-October, Paradigm Mastermind Group readers were urged to sell half their position and let the rest ride. After this week&rsquo;s bounce, USAR trades near $26.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Of course, readers are curious when the next all-in recommendation is coming.
But as we said here last week, it&rsquo;s not often these three guys are on the same page. And the last thing the Paradigm leadership team wants to do is force agreement where agreement doesn&rsquo;t really exist just so we can sell more subscriptions.
(Would we sell more subscriptions by doing so? Yes. Would we have satisfied long-term customers who&rsquo;d renew those subscriptions? Probably not.)
And yet&hellip; in the same way all three of them anticipated developments from Washington that would benefit USAR big-time&hellip; they now see an effort coming together that&rsquo;s far more ambitious than Project Vault.
They&rsquo;re all hearing the same rumblings from their sources. Two of the world&rsquo;s most powerful men &mdash; Donald Trump and Elon Musk &mdash; are in on it. And so is the world&rsquo;s most valuable company, Nvidia.
There&rsquo;s no working name for it yet &mdash; so for the time being we&rsquo;re calling it Project Trinity.
Jim, James and Enrique have identified the one company they believe will benefit the most from this initiative. This single investment could be the key to locking in a potential 2,566% return over the next few weeks.
If you&rsquo;re a current member of the Paradigm Mastermind Group, watch your inbox for the recommendation Thursday afternoon.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />Gold-Silver Rebound
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> The rebound in precious metals today is a sight to behold.
After a Sunday-night plunge to nearly $4,400, gold is now $70 away from reclaiming the $5,000 level &mdash; which, we&rsquo;ll remind you, marked a record high last week before the dizzying run-up to $5,600.
Silver, meanwhile, is up a wild 11.4% on the day to $88.10.
During the big sell-off on Friday, we mentioned in real-time that the mainstream had latched onto a handy explanation &mdash; Donald Trump&rsquo;s nomination of Kevin Warsh as Federal Reserve chair. (Supposedly he&rsquo;s going to be an inflation hawk, resistant to Trump&rsquo;s entreaties for lower interest rates.)
We pooh-poohed the mainstream claptrap: The metals had run up too far, too fast. A correction was coming sooner or later. If Kevin Warsh weren&rsquo;t available for the mainstream to point to, it would have been something else. As our Enrique Abeyta would remind you, Warsh wasn&rsquo;t the reason for the sell-off, but it was the excuse.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;The real reasons for the gold and silver price plunge had to do with hedge fund traders taking profits, automated momentum trading, stop-loss algorithms, trend following and some panic,&rdquo; affirms Jim Rickards.
<ul>
<li>Profit-taking: &ldquo;Hedge fund traders don&rsquo;t really care about gold as money. For them, it&rsquo;s just another commodity like coffee, soybeans or lumber,&rdquo; says Jim. &ldquo;Imagine a hedge fund trader who bought gold on Dec. 31, 2025, at $4,340 per ounce using five-to-one leverage. With gold at $5,355 on Jan. 29, the unleveraged profit was 23%, but the leveraged profit was 117%! Time to cash out and take your money off the table</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Automation: &ldquo;Once some traders start to cash out and the price starts to go down, computers tell others to do the same. They follow suit and the price goes down more</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Stop-loss algorithms: &ldquo;At that point, the stop-loss algos kick in. Traders preset a maximum loss, and when that threshold is hit, the computers automatically close out their position. That drives prices even lower. At this point, longs are getting margin calls on the futures exchange (or from OTC dealers like Goldman Sachs) and they sell their positions for cash to settle up with the dealers. Selling begets selling.&rdquo;</li>
</ul>
At that point, &ldquo;trend-following traders jump on board. Panic selling from all sides is not far behind.&rdquo;
Looking ahead, Jim says all the factors that sent gold to $5,000 will in time send it to $10,000 &mdash; starting with the steady purchases by central banks around the world and mining output that&rsquo;s been flat for the last six years.
&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t panic,&rdquo; he concludes. &ldquo;If you have not invested in gold yet, or if your allocation is small, it&rsquo;s not too late to invest. The drawdown last Friday offers a better entry point today. The biggest gains are still ahead and will happen sooner rather than later. The time to invest is now.&rdquo;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />SpaceXAI
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Last week&rsquo;s hot rumor is this week&rsquo;s confirmed news.
&ldquo;SpaceX has acquired xAI to form the most ambitious, vertically integrated innovation engine on (and off) Earth,&rdquo; Elon Musk announced yesterday.
Paradigm tech-inevesting pro Ray Blanco heard the rumors all day Thursday at the SpaceCom event in Orlando &mdash; and tipped off readers via the Paradigm Press mobile app.
Musk&rsquo;s rationale: The merger will make it easier to pursue his goal of orbiting data centers &mdash; with 24/7 solar power that doesn&rsquo;t compete with homeowners and businesses for scarce electricity back on Earth.
Depending on who you believe, the combined company is worth about $1.25 trillion. There&rsquo;s no way to know for sure, given that neither entity was publicly traded; plans for a SpaceX IPO are still supposed to be on track for later this year.
(Or maybe Musk will fold everything under Tesla &mdash; as colleague Davis Wilson <a href="https://million-mission.com/posts/ticker-symbol-elon-coming-soon">speculated</a> last month.)
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> What the broad stock market gained yesterday, it&rsquo;s losing today.
As we write the S&amp;P 500 is down more than a half percent to 6,934. While the index poked its nose over 7,000 last week it hasn&rsquo;t been able to close over that level. The Nasdaq&rsquo;s losses are steeper, the Dow&rsquo;s narrower. Walmart just surpassed a $1 trillion valuation, rarefied air usually occupied by tech-adjacent companies.
Elsewhere, crude is consolidating just under $63. Crypto&rsquo;s woes are not over &mdash; Bitcoin now under $77,000 and Ethereum at $2,250.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />Epstein
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> There&rsquo;s not much we can say about the new Jeffrey Epstein revelations that others haven&rsquo;t already, except&hellip;
The hits keep coming for Peter Mandelson, the longtime British politico who had to resign as ambassador to the United States last fall because of his relationship with Epstein.
Today brings word that he&rsquo;s now giving up his position in the House of Lords. Really, this is egregious&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/524OtTl1NXG8tszMpZk9gk/0a193a7e4e6a7be04d95053f3d0645ee/FMF-Issue-02-03-26-_2_.png" alt="pub" width="497px" />
&ldquo;For all the newfound insistence that Epstein files are devoid of major revelations, they sure are destroying the reputation and standing of a lot of very powerful people,&rdquo; observes the journalist and civil libertarian Glenn Greenwald.
On this side of the pond, there&rsquo;s former Treasury Secretary and former Harvard President Larry Summers &mdash; who &ldquo;paused&rdquo; his public appearances last November after his correspondence with Epstein was made public.
&ldquo;A key revelation,&rdquo; Greenwald continues on X, &ldquo;is how Epstein's known offenses were irrelevant for his standing among global elites.&rdquo;
Word. And there&rsquo;s a different sort of impunity at work, too&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/2vPbV9tyCy7tqRUWKheLDS/8843a450c4a99f0cfbbb8d8992f161b2/FMF-Issue-02-03-26-_3_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Comic Relief
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> OK, we&rsquo;re a day late, but&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/74P3xMGMxLCxfOHa63nGZK/9eb913188cc5fa85bd123d096686f742/FMF-Issue-02-03-26-_4_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />

FMF-Issue-02-03-26-(Featured)

Project Vault

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" /> OK, time to take a deep breath&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/6F3aqFAnj4yc3rtji2HO1Q/450be07446bebb2358430119be46d29d/FMF-Issue-02-02-26_1_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
Yes, precious metals got whacked on Friday. They&rsquo;re getting whacked some more today.
Let&rsquo;s try to get some perspective as we look at our screens this morning. Gold is just under $4,700. That level was a record high way back on&hellip; Jan. 19. Two weeks ago.
Silver is a little over $80. That was a record high way back on&hellip; Dec. 28. Barely a month ago.
Meanwhile on X, author Lawrence McDonald reminds us that Microsoft&rsquo;s share price is no higher today than it was in&hellip; March 2024.
Netflix shares trade today for the same price they did in November 2024. And by the same token you&rsquo;d be at breakeven on Tesla shares held since [gulp] November 2021.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> The metals had gone up too far, too fast. A reset was inevitable.
What do Paradigm&rsquo;s top experts have to say now? Macro maven Jim Rickards weighed in Friday evening on the Paradigm mobile app&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/2xLzcsU5ZsvEa5yX1N89fF/c8caa6f656e170531a5f94ae6cadc6d1/FMF-Issue-02-02-26_2_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
Trading pro Enrique Abeyta is in broad agreement: &ldquo;Despite the dramatic move last week and the volatility, we are likely to see in coming weeks, the multiyear bull market in silver is not at all over,&rdquo; he writes in our Truth &amp; Trends e-letter, set for publication later today.
&ldquo;In fact, it may still be in its early innings.&rdquo;
None of the factors that drove silver over $50 last year has changed: Supply is tight. Demand is growing. Confidence in fiat currencies both here and abroad is eroding.
The factors that drove silver from $50 to $120? Those did change. The first wave of price appreciation attracted the &ldquo;momentum&rdquo; crowd &mdash; people who don&rsquo;t care about supply or demand or other factors.
&ldquo;These investors do NOT care about the long-term reasons to be bullish silver,&rdquo; Enrique says. &ldquo;They only care that the price is going up.
&ldquo;&hellip; and when the price stops going up? They sell.&rdquo;
Simple as that. If you&rsquo;re into silver for the long term, Jim and Enrique say hold on tight. Your patience will be further rewarded.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />Markets Today: Rare Earths and Oil
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> As a new week begins, the momentum crowd that&rsquo;s ditching silver is suddenly discovering rare earths.
&ldquo;President Donald Trump is set to launch a strategic critical-minerals stockpile with $12 billion in seed money,&rdquo; reports Bloomberg &mdash; &ldquo;a bid to insulate manufacturers from supply shocks as the U.S. works to slash its reliance on Chinese rare earths and other metals.
&ldquo;The venture &mdash; dubbed Project Vault &mdash; is set to marry $1.67 billion in private capital with a $10 billion loan from the U.S. Export-Import Bank to procure and store the minerals for automakers, tech firms and other manufacturers.&rdquo;
As always in situations like these, the details are fuzzy. How much of this is new and how much of it is a continuation of Trump administration initiatives from last year? (We chronicled many of these initiatives here in 5 Bullets &mdash; and many Paradigm readers profited from plays on MP Materials and similar names.)
In any event, investors are bidding up many of the big rare earth names today. USA Rare Earth, for instance, is up 11.5%.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> The broader stock market is starting the week in the green.
At last check the S&amp;P 500 is up over half a percent to 6,980 &mdash; challenging last week&rsquo;s peak. The Nasdaq&rsquo;s gain is a bit stronger, the Dow&rsquo;s stronger still.
The big economic number of the day is the ISM Manufacturing Index &mdash; which roared higher in January from 47.9 to 52.6.
Numbers over 50 suggest the factory sector is growing &mdash; under 50, shrinking. This figure has spent most of the last three years under that 50 watermark, so we&rsquo;ll be on the lookout for a sustainable rebound.
Speaking of economic data, the Labor Department says there will be no January jobs report this Friday, owing to the &ldquo;partial government shutdown&rdquo; that began over the weekend.
Crypto is in a world of hurt &mdash; Bitcoin a little over $79,000 and that&rsquo;s up from the weekend lows. Ethereum sits under $2,400.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Oil prices have cratered nearly three bucks to $62.23 because U.S. forces did not attack Iran over the weekend.
When we left you on Friday, the price action suggested traders were positioning themselves for some sort of renewed conflict.
But no attack took place: U.S. media report that the Pentagon wants to get more air defenses into place first, while Iranian media report that President Masoud Pezeshkian has ordered new negotiations with Washington about Iran&rsquo;s civilian nuclear program.
Back stateside&hellip; there&rsquo;s a merger to report in the energy sector, creating a major player in shale oil: Devon Energy is combining with Coterra Energy in a $58 billion all-stock deal. DVN shares are up more than a half-percent as we write while CTRA is down over 2%.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />Space Is Vast&hellip; But This Is Bigger
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;I&rsquo;m thinking about how major shifts happen. The world transforms quietly while we're looking elsewhere. By the time most people notice, the change is already complete,&rdquo; muses Paradigm tech-investing pro Ray Blanco.
&ldquo;I think we're in one of those moments right now &mdash; and it's not just AI or the breakthroughs happening on the ground.&rdquo;
Ray couldn&rsquo;t help being awed in this way attending the SpaceCom event in Orlando &mdash; which wrapped up on Friday.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/mHCeebTtMjF3Buhy82ipw/44c40597bcbc9c85c75b5561ab91a125/FMF-Issue-02-02-26_3_.jpg" alt="pub" width="540px" /> Our man in Orlando&hellip;
&ldquo;Something bigger is taking shape overhead,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;A new layer of infrastructure beyond our planet &mdash; intelligence, connectivity and industrial capability that's already reshaping how the economy works.
&ldquo;We call it &lsquo;space,&rsquo; but that word feels too small for what I've been witnessing here. It's infrastructure that will be as fundamental as railroads were when they were built or the internet.
&ldquo;Most investors will recognize this shift years from now after it's already happened. You're learning about it today while the foundation is still being poured.
&ldquo;Generational wealth is made by those who see the trend before it becomes obvious. That's the difference between watching wealth being created and creating it yourself.
&ldquo;This has been an incredible three days not only for my current research, but for my understanding of where breakthrough tech is headed next.&rdquo;
Ray will share more of his takeaways with his readers in the days and weeks ahead, so keep an eye out.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />Aliens and Markets
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Here&rsquo;s a problem we hadn&rsquo;t started thinking about yet &mdash; disruptions to the markets caused by disclosure about aliens.
But a former analyst for the United Kingdom&rsquo;s central bank is thinking about it.
Helen McCaw is her name and she&rsquo;s dashed off a letter to Bank of England chief Andrew Bailey. The Times of London got its hands on the letter.
&ldquo;The United States government,&rdquo; she wrote, &ldquo;appears to be partway through a multiyear process to declassify and disclose information on the existence of a technologically advanced nonhuman intelligence responsible for unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs).
&ldquo;If the UAP proves to be of nonhuman origin, we may have to acknowledge the existence of a power or intelligence greater than any government and with potentially unknown intentions.&rdquo;
Hmmm&hellip; McCaw attributes far greater &ldquo;intelligence&rdquo; to government than is deserved.
Be that as it may, she speculates that disclosure might spur a rush toward safe-haven assets including bonds and gold.
On the other hand, she said precious metals might lose their luster if all of a sudden there would be an influx of metal arriving from outer space.
Beyond that, she speculates &ldquo;there might be extreme price volatility in financial markets due to catastrophising or euphoria, and a collapse in confidence if market participants feel uncertain on how to price assets using any of the familiar methods.&rdquo;
She left out the part about government insiders trading on inside information &mdash; which seems like the surest outcome of all!
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />What Goes Into the Mailbag?
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;Hi, I&rsquo;m quite disappointed you didn&rsquo;t feature my reply about 9/11,&rdquo; a reader writes.
&ldquo;You guys should consider incorporating a few more reader responses in your daily 5 Bullets.&rdquo;
Dave responds: Sorry to disappoint in this instance &mdash; although we&rsquo;re heartened to see that you follow our scribblings so closely!
There are many variables that go into deciding which reader emails we include in the issues, and which don&rsquo;t make the cut.
If there&rsquo;s a lot going on in the news and the markets &mdash; which has been the case lately &mdash; we&rsquo;ll tend to showcase less reader mail unless there&rsquo;s a truly hot topic.
Other variables include informational value, entertainment value and whether the reader&rsquo;s musings inspire a tangent on my part.
In your own case, I didn&rsquo;t want to get too far afield from our financial beat. We had a longtimer write in response to my issue-length exploration of <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/usd1-5-trillion">the military-industrial complex</a>. He had a handful of interesting points and then proceeded to assert that 9/11 was an inside job.
I wasn&rsquo;t about to suppress that portion of his email but neither was I going to open up a days-long debate about it. So I briefly said my piece and dropped the matter.
The exclusion of your email had nothing to do with whether you had something worthwhile to say &mdash; and I encourage you to keep writing!