This morning, we&rsquo;re broadcasting more never-before-seen footage from Paradigm&rsquo;s meeting of the minds in Baltimore on December 12.
In this ten-minute segment, colleague Chris Cimorelli of our Microcap Millionaire service explains how the next revolutionary tech stock also happens to be&hellip;
&hellip; the best-performing stock of all time. 
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A quantum leap in computing is on the horizon, Chris tells us, comparing this game-changing scenario to the transistor&rsquo;s replacement of the vacuum tube. But on a much grander scale.
While other Big Tech companies are in the race, Chris reveals why ONE company is poised to lead the quantum revolution.
Uncover this groundbreaking information before the race truly escalates in 2025&hellip;
Best regards,
Emily Clancy Paradigm Pressroom&rsquo;s 5 Bullets

chris-presentation

mobile masthead 5MIN

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

A quantum leap in computing is on the horizon, colleague Chris Cimorelli explains. 

The Race to Quantum Computing 

<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" />Only 40 Copies Sold
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> In 2008, as financial markets collapsed and investors screeched, &ldquo;Sell!&rdquo; James Altucher was quietly urging investors to do the opposite.
&ldquo;I begged my publishers not to publish my book,&rdquo; he recalls. The book in question &mdash; The Forever Portfolio &mdash; was a blueprint for finding &ldquo;unstoppable trends and quietly buy[ing] the companies riding those waves.&rdquo;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/5lXgt6jB3OMNNyFakH1apA/7e469261b5f5677104a447f979039b9c/Forever-Portfolio.png" alt="The Forever Portfolio" width="350px" />
The result? &ldquo;Life-changing returns&rdquo; that most people missed because, as James puts it: &ldquo;No one wants to be optimistic during a full-blown meltdown.&rdquo;
As you can probably predict, James&rsquo; sentiment was not well received. &ldquo;It was optimistic and people hated me for it,&rdquo; he admits. &ldquo;I sold like 40 copies that year.&rdquo;
But those 40 buyers? &ldquo;In 2025, those 40 people who bought the book are probably pretty glad they did,&rdquo; he says.
Because the stocks he named &mdash; Google, Meta, Costco and more &mdash; went on to deliver &ldquo;peak gains as high as 2,314%... 3,767%... even 14,961%.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> The secret, James says, was seeing the world not as it was, but as it was becoming. &ldquo;The unique position we were in in 2008&rdquo; gave him the clarity to see what others missed.
James&rsquo; book, in fact, was packed with predictions that seemed outlandish at the time&hellip;
&ldquo;Chapter 2: &lsquo;Computer viruses will live forever.&rsquo;In 2008, bots were this weird underground threat. Today? Malware is AI-generated, decentralized and sold as a service. Your phone is already infected. An estimated 50% of the internet is bots.
&ldquo;Chapter 3: &lsquo;Inoculate your portfolio against a global pandemic.&rsquo; Yeah. That happened. Twelve years later. The world shut down, the markets cracked and suddenly people were Googling &lsquo;How to buy Moderna stock&rsquo; from their basement office-slash-toilet.
&ldquo;Chapter 4: &lsquo;Diamonds, chocolate and Botox will always sell.&rsquo; I mean, look around. We&rsquo;re on Ozempic and flexing at Barry&rsquo;s Bootcamp while impulse-buying $18 chocolate bars made with &lsquo;ancestral cacao.&rsquo; Luxury didn&rsquo;t die &mdash; it got direct-to-consumer and charged you for shipping.&rdquo;
James even predicted that tattoo removal would become a billion-dollar business &mdash; &ldquo;regret is a feature, not a bug,&rdquo; he says. And that companies managing persistent problems (like Alzheimer&rsquo;s or digital addiction) would be smart bets: &ldquo;The world doesn&rsquo;t usually fix things &mdash; it manages them. Investing in the management and the potential for a cure is where the asymmetrical bets are,&rdquo; he says.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> If you ask James, the mainstream media is almost always on the wrong side of history.
&ldquo;Whenever there&rsquo;s a big opportunity in the market,&rdquo; he emphasizes, &ldquo;all the talking heads seem to miss it.&rdquo;
In 2008, &ldquo;The mainstream media was still screaming SELL from the top of their lungs. But I was saying BUY.&rdquo;
The reaction? &ldquo;The media harassed me. [They] said I was out of touch&hellip; tone-deaf&hellip; and stupid. Once again, they were all wrong.&rdquo;
James highlights how many of his picks, including Eli Lilly, Mastercard and Starbucks, crushed the market. &ldquo;Several of the stocks ended up rising 1,000%&hellip; 2,500%&hellip; and even 10,000%.&rdquo;
Now, in 2025, James sees history rhyming&hellip;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />&ldquo;Thanks to the recent market volatility, we&rsquo;re sitting on a rare second chance to make the same kind of gains,&rdquo; says James.
He&rsquo;s building a new &ldquo;forever portfolio&rdquo; &mdash; not just for survival. &ldquo;Back then, I wanted to build a portfolio that let you sleep at night. Now I want to build a portfolio that lets you wake up excited.&rdquo;
Seventeen years after the world told him he was crazy, James&rsquo; optimism &mdash; and his knack for spotting the next big thing &mdash; has been vindicated.
As he puts it, &ldquo;I bring all this up because today I&rsquo;m seeing another chance at historic gains like the ones in 2008.&rdquo; The only question is: Who&rsquo;s listening this time around?

[James Altucher&rsquo;s message is clear: Don&rsquo;t let fear or media noise drown out real opportunity.
&ldquo;In some ways, this is the best market setup I&rsquo;ve ever seen,&rdquo; James said during his &ldquo;2025&rsquo;s Ultimate Money Move&rdquo; summit yesterday.
You still have time to view it. <a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2435318">The REPLAY link is live</a> &mdash; for now &mdash; and you can catch up on everything you missed, including&hellip;
<ul>
<li>Why most investors are going to pile into the WRONG stocks in the coming weeks as the market moves higher</li>
<li>The urgent catalyst set to trigger a frenzy in a new class of SUPERSTOCKS, set to return gains as high as 1,000% over the next year</li>
<li>And the name and ticker of a FREE stock you can buy now.</li>
</ul>
&ldquo;I have personally invested $50,000 in this stock,&rdquo; says James. &ldquo;And I have no intention of selling until it&rsquo;s up half a million dollars.&rdquo;
You don&rsquo;t have to do ANYTHING to get this free stock except to <a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2435318">tune in.</a>
&ldquo;The first Forever Portfolio was a survival plan,&rdquo; James concludes. &ldquo;This one is a permission slip. To live better. And finally stop checking your phone during weddings.&rdquo;]

<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" />GOOG: &ldquo;Firing on All Cylinders&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />&ldquo;Google might [be] the most underappreciated Big Tech stock on the planet,&rdquo; says Davis Wilson at The Million Mission e-letter.
On Thursday, Alphabet (GOOG) reported strong Q1 results, with revenue hitting $90.23 billion (beating $89.12 billion estimates) and EPS at $2.81, crushing the $2.01 forecast. The stock jumped 4% after-hours, yet its full potential remains overlooked, according to Davis&hellip;
<ol>
<li>Core business (search, YouTube, cloud, ads): Generates $300 billion-plus annual revenue with 35% margins. Valued conservatively at 20x earnings, this segment alone could be worth $2.1 trillion.</li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li value="2">Waymo and DeepMind: Self-driving Waymo vehicles operate commercially in multiple U.S. cities, while DeepMind leads AI innovation. Analysts project Waymo&rsquo;s spinoff value at $350&ndash;850 billion. &ldquo;Yet the market is currently assigning zero value to Waymo and DeepMind,&rdquo; says Davis. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s a massive disconnect.&rdquo;</li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li value="3">Other bets (high-speed internet, health tech): Estimated at $50 billion.</li>
</ol>
Combined, Alphabet&rsquo;s parts suggest a $2.75 trillion valuation versus its $2 trillion market cap. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s a 27.5% discount to my conservatively estimated sum-of-the-parts valuation,&rdquo; Davis says.
&ldquo;And the stock is still trading at just 19x earnings &mdash; cheaper than the S&amp;P 500, despite superior business lines, massive scale and a fortress balance sheet.
&ldquo;The bottom line is Google just proved it&rsquo;s still firing on all cylinders,&rdquo; he concludes. &ldquo;Its core business is thriving, and its moonshots are gaining real-world traction.
&ldquo;Yet the market continues to ignore the value of its emerging businesses, especially Waymo and AI,&rdquo; Davis notes. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s why GOOG remains one of my top picks.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Looking at my screen today, GOOG shares are up another 1.50% &mdash; in sympathy with the tech-heavy Nasdaq which has gained 35 points to 17,200. On the flip side, the Dow is down 0.60% to 39,840 while the S&amp;P 500 is down 0.10% to 5,480.
At the same time, oil is up slightly to $62.80 for a barrel of West Texas crude. Precious metals? The price of gold is down 1.80% to $3,288.10 per ounce, and silver is down 1.85% to $32.88.
Crypto, however, is perking up: Bitcoin is up 1.70% to $95,160 while Ethereum is up 2.60% to $1,800.
<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" />28-Day Maximum
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />The Trump administration is using emergency powers to speed up environmental reviews for oil, gas and mining projects. 
The goal is to cut approval times from years to just 28 days maximum. The plan, announced Wednesday, focuses on oil, gas, coal, uranium projects, critical minerals like lithium and copper as well as geothermal and hydropower ventures. (Wind and solar projects are excluded.)
Companies can now submit a standardized form to request emergency processing. The Department of the Interior will use alternative compliance methods and expedited consultations to meet aggressive timelines.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum says the move is vital: &ldquo;The United States cannot afford to wait. We are cutting through unnecessary delays to fast-track the development of American energy and critical minerals &mdash; resources that are essential to our economy, our military readiness and our global competitiveness.&rdquo;
The new rules will&hellip;
<ul>
<li>Cut environmental assessments from about a year to two weeks</li>
<li>Shorten environmental impact statements from years to less than a month</li>
<li>Reduce public comment periods for some projects.</li>
</ul>
The policy uses emergency provisions in laws including the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act. The administration&rsquo;s ability to defend its emergency rationale in court will likely determine the policy&rsquo;s longevity.
Mining groups are praising the initiative. Rich Nolan of the National Mining Association emphasizes China&rsquo;s dominance in critical minerals, noting that U.S. mine development is among the slowest in the world &mdash; a timeline the new 28-day policy aims to disrupt.
[Note: As these sweeping changes take effect, Paradigm&rsquo;s macro expert Jim Rickards sees a rare window of opportunity emerging for American investors.
President Trump&rsquo;s administration is moments away from unlocking a BRAND-NEW opportunity that Jim calls your &ldquo;American birthright.&rdquo;
And this is so urgent that Jim is convening an online strategy session this coming Tuesday, April 29 at 2 p.m. ET to give you all the details.
When you join Jim on Tuesday, he&rsquo;ll show you a patented method that could accelerate your gains from this American birthright&hellip; And he&rsquo;ll discuss THREE NEW OPPORTUNITIES to target up to 10x your money &mdash; or more &mdash; in a matter of weeks.
<a href="https://signups.dailyreckoning.com/2435319">Click here to reserve your seat</a> for the &ldquo;American Wealth Summit&rdquo; with Jim Rickards.]
<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" />Whistleblowers Topple &ldquo;Mr. Davos&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Klaus Schwab, the 87-year-old founder of the World Economic Forum (WEF), has resigned amid explosive allegations of financial misconduct and ethical breaches. 
It&rsquo;s a dramatic fall for the man synonymous with the elite Davos summit. You know, zis guy&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/4VNt8Vg676AO2MpxugSkio/ce9cc316e90db2e45aa3b7b45d12668b/Villian.png" alt="villian" width="350px" />
The claims, detailed in a whistleblower letter to the WEF&rsquo;s board last week, allege Schwab misused funds for personal luxuries &mdash; including, of course, private massages and cash withdrawals. While his wife, Hilde, allegedly exploited WEF coffers for lavish travel while tightly controlling access to Villa Mundi, a WEF-owned Lake Geneva property.
The anonymous letter, reportedly from current and former employees, further accuses Schwab of massaging data for the WEF&rsquo;s influential Global Competitiveness Report to &ldquo;curry favour with certain governments,&rdquo; The Guardian reports.
Thus, ol&rsquo; Klaus stepped down on Monday after the board &mdash; including figures like Al Gore and BlackRock&rsquo;s Larry Fink *lol* &mdash; held an emergency meeting to discuss the allegations. Schwab denied wrongdoing, but he allegedly resisted the board&rsquo;s push for an independent inquiry. Before abruptly resigning.
Schwab&rsquo;s departure ends a 54-year reign&hellip; of terror? The latest controversy revives past complaints about a toxic workplace culture at the WEF, including unresolved sexual harassment claims.
All told: <a href="https://5minforecast.com/2023/01/17/davos-whitewashing-the-great-reset/">Couldn&rsquo;t have happened to a nicer guy!</a> If only there were a German word to describe what I&rsquo;m feeling right now&hellip;
<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: Real (ID) Pain in the Neck
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />&ldquo;I was finally going to capitulate and get my <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/not-since-covid-has-this-happened#4">Real ID</a> when my driver's license was up for renewal last fall,&rdquo; says a longtime reader.
&ldquo;I went into my local Tag office &mdash; in Oklahoma, we don't have to go to the DMV &mdash; with all of my identification in hand (birth certificate, Social Security card and even old passports).
&ldquo;Because I am divorced and remarried, I was told I need a copy of my original marriage certificate (from 38 years ago) and my divorce decree (from 20 years ago) to prove my name changes.
&ldquo;I may have those somewhere, but I have no idea where they are. I contacted the county courts. One of them suggested I go to the courthouse to request copies in-person. I live in a different state, for crying out loud!
&ldquo;Thank goodness I've only been divorced once,&rdquo; she concludes. &ldquo;Keep up the good fight!&rdquo;
You, too! And enjoy the weekend&hellip;
Best regards,
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/signatures/emily-clancy.png" alt="Emily Clancy" width="250px" align="left" />
Emily Clancy Associate editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

2008

In 2008, as financial markets collapsed and investors screeched, “Sell!” James Altucher was quietly urging investors to do the opposite.

Not Since 2008… 

<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" />Altucher: &ldquo;A Major Pivot Point&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> The U.S. stock market just registered two consecutive up days for the first time since Donald Trump&rsquo;s &ldquo;Liberation Day&rdquo; announcement on April 2.
After another ugly day on Monday &mdash; the S&amp;P 500 dropping 2.4% &mdash; three things happened in quick succession&hellip;
<ul>
<li>Trump and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent both signaled that the 145% tariffs on China would likely be dialed down</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Trump also said he had &ldquo;no intention&rdquo; of firing Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Meanwhile, after a rotten quarter at Tesla, Elon Musk said he would be cutting back on the time he&rsquo;s devoting to the &ldquo;Department of Government Efficiency.&rdquo;</li>
</ul>
That&rsquo;s all it took for the S&amp;P 500 to stage a two-day rally of 4.2% Tuesday and yesterday.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> In other words, Wall Street was breathing a sigh of relief that things are getting back to some sort of pre-Liberation Day &ldquo;normal.&rdquo;
The problem with that narrative is that whatever constituted the old &ldquo;normal&rdquo; is gone.
Maybe the trade war is simmering down, maybe the tussle between Trump and the Fed is temporarily on ice, maybe Musk realizes his time and attention have limits.
But the problems that earned Trump a popular-vote win last November &mdash; namely a rising cost of living and a shrinking middle class &mdash; haven&rsquo;t gone away.
Trump and his team seek to address those problems. You might or might not agree with their approach to those problems &mdash; and their approach can change from week to week and day to day &mdash; but the problems can no longer just be swept under the rug.
Wall Street&rsquo;s rally yesterday and the day before? Really, it was a rally of denial.
Indeed it was the ultimate in &ldquo;normalcy bias&rdquo; &mdash; a belief that the post-COVID economic recovery will go on forever, as will the stupendous growth of the Magnificent 7 stocks.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> This week, each in his own way, Paradigm&rsquo;s two best-known gurus helped their readers come to grips with the fact the old &ldquo;normal&rdquo; is gone.
A short time ago, our hedge fund and private equity veteran James Altucher wrapped up his briefing titled 2025&rsquo;s Ultimate Money Move.
Ahead of the event, James told readers he was appalled: &ldquo;Investors are pouring their money back into the stocks that have led the market higher for the past decade&rdquo; &mdash; that is, the Teslas, the Nvidias, the Apples.
It&rsquo;s understandable, he says: &ldquo;Our lizard brains are wired to follow the crowd.&rdquo;
But the crowd is headed for deep, deep trouble: &ldquo;The fact is,&rdquo; James goes on, &ldquo;we are at a major pivot point in this market.
&ldquo;There is an urgent catalyst that could kick off in a matter of days &mdash; a major policy change in Washington, D.C. that will change everything for businesses in America. And it could send one special group of stocks up 1,000% or more this year.&rdquo;
James says he hasn&rsquo;t seen a setup this lucrative since the 2008 financial crisis. &ldquo;I know that sounds weird &mdash; we&rsquo;re just a few weeks from all-time highs,&rdquo; he acknowledges. &ldquo;But there&rsquo;s a very particular group of investments that are setting up for a massive move.&rdquo;
If you watched the event and acted on James&rsquo; guidance &mdash; or if you already belong to James&rsquo; premium advisory Microcap Millionaire &mdash; you&rsquo;re already armed with the knowledge you need to seize the moment.

But if not, you should know we&rsquo;re talking about the potential for generational wealth &mdash; transforming a $10,000 grubstake into a $1.4 million fortune in less than two decades.
A replay of the event is now available if you missed it. <a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2434841">You can watch right away at this link</a> &mdash; as long as you bear in mind that the urgent catalyst James has in mind is already playing out. By early next week, it might be too late to act. <a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2434841">So you&rsquo;ll want to hear James out right away &mdash; click 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" />Rickards: A &ldquo;Completely Phony&rdquo; Tariff Debate
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Meanwhile, our macro maven Jim Rickards gathered his research team yesterday for an exclusive webcast from Jekyll Island, Georgia &mdash; birthplace of the Federal Reserve more than a century ago.
Some 8,900 of your fellow readers looked in. (You can see the replay <a href="https://paradigmpressgroup.com/jekyll-island-2025">right here</a>.)
Everything was on the table &mdash; tariffs, of course, along with Jim&rsquo;s &ldquo;American Birthright&rdquo; thesis, the relevance of the Federal Reserve in the Trump 47 era, geopolitical flashpoints and the much-ballyhooed &ldquo;Mar-a-Lago Accord&rdquo; aimed at reshaping the global monetary system.
As you might imagine, tariffs were front and center &mdash; not least because, as Jim sees it, the debate over tariffs is &ldquo;completely phony.&rdquo;
There&rsquo;s a black-and-white quality to the debate &mdash; they&rsquo;re always good, or always bad.
Jim says it&rsquo;s more subtle than that: Tariffs are valuable for countries that consume more than they produce &mdash; which has certainly been the case in the United States for several decades.
But they can be destructive for countries that produce more than they consume &mdash; such as the United States a century ago. That&rsquo;s why the infamous Smoot-Hawley tariffs enacted in 1930 were so disastrous; at that time America was a production machine.
Under current circumstances, Jim believes the Trump tariff regime will be a plus &mdash; creating more well-paying jobs while not resulting in higher prices for consumers.
If you&rsquo;re not familiar with Jim&rsquo;s thinking about tariffs, yesterday&rsquo;s event is a great place to start &mdash; not least because as soon as he&rsquo;s done, Jim&rsquo;s fellow panelists spell out four names and ticker symbols that stand to benefit from the tariff agenda.
<a href="https://paradigmpressgroup.com/jekyll-island-2025">Watch here: The tariff portion of the discussion is covered first in a breezy half-hour</a>.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />From there, the discussion moved on to a theme that&rsquo;s near and dear to Jim&rsquo;s newest readers &mdash; the $150 trillion &ldquo;American birthright.&rdquo;
That&rsquo;s the amount of mineral wealth on federal lands that the Trump administration is poised to unlock after a key Supreme Court ruling last year.
Key point: $150 trillion is a sum that dwarfs the national debt, currently $36.2 trillion (but set to rise as soon as Congress gets around to raising the debt ceiling).
In February, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent got a lot of buzz when he promised the administration was hatching a scheme to &ldquo;monetize the asset side of the U.S. balance sheet for the American people.&rdquo;
Some people mistook that remark for &ldquo;revaluing&rdquo; the gold held by the U.S. Treasury &mdash; still valued at $42.22 an ounce, a relic of the chaos that ensued when President Nixon cut the dollar&rsquo;s last tie to gold in 1971.
Bessent quickly shot down that notion &mdash; which means he&rsquo;s talking about the vast mineral wealth on federal lands, mostly west of the Mississippi.
Metals are in abundance as well as oil and natural gas. When it comes to energy, Jim says, &ldquo;We haven&rsquo;t even come close to tapping what we&rsquo;ve got.&rdquo;
Here again, Jim and his team were generous with names and ticker symbols &mdash; I counted three, but it was going by mighty quickly. <a href="https://paradigmpressgroup.com/jekyll-island-2025">But you can watch the replay</a>, scrolling back and forth so you can write down anything you missed.
<a href="https://paradigmpressgroup.com/jekyll-island-2025">Once more, here&rsquo;s the link</a>. As I said earlier this week, the purpose of this event was not to sell you one of Jim&rsquo;s premium trading services. It&rsquo;s simply to help you get a better grasp on events that are changing at a dizzying speed.
Meanwhile, guess what? Tariffs are back in the news &mdash; and weighing on Wall Street. With that, I&rsquo;ll turn it over to Emily for the balance of today&rsquo;s edition&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" />Trade Talks? What Trade Talks?
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />&ldquo;China and the U.S. have not engaged in any consultations or negotiations regarding tariffs,&rdquo; says a Chinese spokesman, pushing back against President Trump&rsquo;s claim that both countries are negotiating to end the trade war.
Trump hinted tariffs might come down soon, but his team sent mixed signals on that score. Meanwhile, Beijing clearly wants the U.S. to make the first move &mdash; &ldquo;fight to the death&rdquo; language has been issued.
Regardless, Mr. Market is shaking off China&rsquo;s statement; the three major U.S. stock indexes are solidly in the green at the time of writing. The techie Nasdaq is up 1.60%, about 20 points under 17,000. The S&amp;P 500 is up 1.20% to 5,440 while the DJIA is up 0.55% to 39,830.
Oil, in the meantime, is up 0.60% to $62.65 for a barrel of WTI. Gold is rallying &mdash; up 1.30% to $3,337 per ounce. But that&rsquo;s still about $160 below the yellow metal&rsquo;s historic high-water mark on Tuesday. Silver, on the other hand, is down 0.40% to $33.40.
In tandem, Bitcoin and Ethereum are struggling in the red; the flagship crypto is hanging out around $93,500. ETH is down 0.35% to $1,775.
For the major economic numbers of the day, durable goods orders surged 9.2% in March, marking the third straight monthly jump and smashing expectations. But hold up: The number is totally skewed by a spike in commercial aircraft orders.
Existing home sales, meanwhile, slid 5.9% last month with inventory rising to 1.33 million homes. The median price of a home? A record-high $403,700 in March. The housing dip highlights ongoing affordability headwinds. Too much mortgage at the end of the month&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" />Hot and Juicy Redhead 
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Wendy&rsquo;s social media team proved they&rsquo;re still the undisputed champions of cheeky banter after ribbing Katy Perry&rsquo;s recent space voyage. 
When the pop star returned from her 11-minute Blue Origin flight, Wendy&rsquo;s X-tweeted a joke that quickly went viral&hellip;

<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/aGuqNoLaGFnmEq6zaS1tE/f2c308a45d4f5a054e875a78d36cbb45/Wendys.png" alt="wendys" width="450px" />

Source: X
The brand then doubled down with a punny nod to Perry&rsquo;s 2008 hit, tweeting, &ldquo;I kissed the ground and I liked it,&rdquo; while quipping about moon-based Biggie Bag shortages
Despite the sass, Wendy&rsquo;s insists there&rsquo;s &ldquo;no beef&rdquo; with Perry, telling Entertainment Weekly: &ldquo;We always bring a little spice to our socials, but Wendy&rsquo;s has a ton of respect for Katy Perry and her out-of-this-world talent.&rdquo;
*groan*
While Wendy&rsquo;s roasts dominate online discourse, contributors question the ethics of space tourism itself, sparking a debate about publicity versus progress&hellip;
<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" />Let&rsquo;s Give &rsquo;Em Something to Talk About
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;Thanks, Emily, for exposing the Blue Origin stunt for what it was,&rdquo; says a frequent contributor after reading our weekend &ldquo;AstroNOTS&rdquo; issue.
&ldquo;This stunt provides Bezos with tremendous promotion with all the name-brand &lsquo;femstronauts.&rsquo; Wishful thinking these women would match whatever astronomical amount was spent to give to some deserving charity. *Sigh*&rdquo;
On the contrary, a new contributor writes: &ldquo;Emily, yours is the only critique of Blue Origin&rsquo;s flight that has the credibility to warrant my response,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;Publicity stunt? No argument. Gratuitous? Clearly.&rdquo;
[But&hellip;]
&ldquo;Can we be a little more objective?
&ldquo;Space tourism has been a goal of commercial players in this space (pun intended) for some time; however, it is still in nascent stages. There remains a need to increase the comfort level of the general public.
&ldquo;Not only are these flights expected revenue-generators in the future, data is gathered from each mission, including the effects on human bodies which are NOT necessarily conditioned for the dynamics experienced.
&ldquo;These are just a couple of the overarching benefits I see from the Blue Origin flight and others like it. They will enable the future of commercial space travel.
&ldquo;Bottom line: Given that the public can become complacent (i.e. after the NASA programs of the 1960s), add a hook, raise the profile and give &rsquo;em something to talk about.&rdquo;
Finally, she adds: &ldquo;Had the participants been all male, would we be having this conversation?&rdquo;
Emily: Fair point.
Scrutiny, in my opinion, was inevitable &mdash; depending whether the mission felt like a leap forward or a PR moonshot.
And if you caught my weekend piece, you already know where I stand!
Take care, and we&rsquo;ll catch up with you tomorrow&hellip;
Best regards,
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/signatures/emily-clancy.png" alt="Emily Clancy" width="250px" align="left" />
Emily Clancy Associate editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

WallSt-Comic

Wall Street’s breathing a sigh of relief that things are getting back to some sort of pre-Liberation Day “normal.” The problem is the old “normal” is gone. 

Wall Street In Denial

<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" />&ldquo;A Major Loser&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Let&rsquo;s take a few moments to unpack the narrative: You&rsquo;ve no doubt heard about why the stock market fell out of bed (again) yesterday.
&ldquo;Stocks got slammed again Tuesday,&rdquo; says Yahoo Finance, &ldquo;after President Trump issued more insults at Fed Chair Jerome Powell.&rdquo;
Trump called Powell &ldquo;a major loser&rdquo; and demanded the Fed cut short-term interest rates &ldquo;NOW.&rdquo;
&ldquo;Investors are beginning to worry about the independence of the U.S. central bank,&rdquo; harrumphs the Financial Times, &ldquo;as the president increases the volume of his attacks, threatening decades of monetary policy as well as the dollar&rsquo;s status as the world&rsquo;s reserve currency.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Reality check: The Fed&rsquo;s vaunted &ldquo;independence&rdquo; has been a joke for many decades.
When inflation was roaring higher in 2021&ndash;22, Joe Biden made clear that he expected Powell&rsquo;s Fed to get it back under control: &ldquo;A critical job in making sure that the elevated prices don't become entrenched rests with the Federal Reserve."
Back in the 1960s, President Lyndon Johnson shoved Fed Chair William McChesney Martin into a wall to reinforce his wishes for lower interest rates.
A few years later, Richard Nixon leaned on Fed Chair Arthur Burns to open the monetary spigots to ensure Nixon&rsquo;s re-election in 1972 &mdash; an act that set the stage for near-runaway inflation during the Jimmy Carter years.
As legend has it, a German reporter asked him why he pursued such a reckless policy. Burns replied that a Fed chairman must do what the president wants or else &ldquo;the central bank would lose its independence.&rdquo;
So&hellip; contrary to what the mainstream says, Mr. Market was not freaked out yesterday at the prospect of the Fed losing its &ldquo;independence.&rdquo; Rather, Mr. Market was freaked out that his illusion of Fed &ldquo;independence&rdquo; was laid bare for all the world to see.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;Look, investors are terrified,&rdquo; says Paradigm&rsquo;s hedge fund and private equity veteran James Altucher. &ldquo;The entire market is whipsawing like a penny stock. And people are frozen in fear.
&ldquo;But sitting on the sidelines is the absolute worst thing you could do right now &mdash; because a generational opportunity is sitting before us.&rdquo;
In the coming days, James anticipates an event he says &ldquo;is 100% certain to happen.
&ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t seen anything like this&hellip; in 17 years.&rdquo;
To help you seize the moment, James is hosting an exclusive event this Thursday at 11:00 a.m. EDT. We ask that you sign up in advance &mdash; but <a href="https://signups.dailyreckoning.com/2433924">signup is as simple as clicking on this link</a>. We&rsquo;ll email you all the follow-up information you&rsquo;ll need to be ready Thursday.
<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 Great Dollar Shortage Is Back
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> There&rsquo;s still another wrinkle to the abnormal sell-off in the bond market this month.
As we&rsquo;ve chronicled the last couple of weeks, scared money fleeing out of stocks typically floods into U.S. Treasuries because of their presumed safe-haven status. That&rsquo;s how it worked during the 2020 COVID panic and the 2008 financial crisis.
But that&rsquo;s not what happened this time. Stocks and bonds sold off hard together.
Here too, mainstream narratives are all about Trump (and the tariffs), stripping out any historical context.
We can&rsquo;t say it often enough: The Biden administration&rsquo;s unprecedented act of freezing Russia&rsquo;s U.S. Treasury holdings did at least as much to undermine global confidence in Treasuries as Trump&rsquo;s tariff regime &mdash; just not as suddenly.
Beyond that, there&rsquo;s a general recognition now that Uncle Sam will never get his fiscal act together &mdash; not after a quarter-century of &ldquo;forever wars,&rdquo; bank bailouts and the mad COVID spending.
But Jim Rickards says there&rsquo;s even more to the story.
Jim and his team of experts are gathering today in Jekyll Island, Georgia &mdash; where the concept of the Federal Reserve was first hatched among secretive elites in 1910. As you might expect, the bond market is one of the hot topics.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />&ldquo;It is true that China (and others) are selling U.S. Treasuries, but that is not a sign of dumping or getting out of U.S. dollars. Quite the opposite,&rdquo; Jim wrote his Strategic Intelligence readers this week.
&ldquo;The real explanation is that there is a global shortage of dollars and dollar-denominated collateral such as Treasury bills. China is selling Treasuries, but it&rsquo;s out of desperation to get dollars to prop up its currency and its banking system. China wishes it had more dollars and more Treasuries, but it can&rsquo;t afford them due to the dollar shortage.&rdquo;
The dollar shortage Jim describes isn&rsquo;t new; it&rsquo;s been ongoing in one form or another since 2016. We last had occasion to visit the issue in depth <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/dollars-dollars-everywhere">in the fall of 2023</a>.
&ldquo;This points to the real problem,&rdquo; Jim says. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re on the brink of a global liquidity crisis possibly worse than 2020 and 2008. It has to do with fear in the banking system and some mismanagement by the U.S. Treasury. It&rsquo;s not about tariffs; it&rsquo;s about credit.
&ldquo;It&rsquo;s not too late to reduce equity exposure and increase allocations to cash and gold. That move will see you through.&rdquo;
For sure, Jim and crew will dive deeper into the topic tomorrow at 2:00 p.m. EDT during a briefing just for you, titled The Final Secret of Jekyll Island.
Everything you need to know about how we got here in 2025, and what to expect the rest of the year &mdash; the Rickards team will cover it all. This is a free event and we won&rsquo;t try to sell you a premium trading service. We just want you to have a better handle on all the cross-currents that are making this year so, umm, interesting.
<a href="https://paradigmpressgroup.com/jekyll-island-2025">Check out tomorrow&rsquo;s agenda at this link</a>. We&rsquo;ll email you a link to the livestream shortly before it gets underway.
<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" />Rebound Day
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Whether it&rsquo;s just an oversold bounce or something more meaningful, the major U.S. stock indexes are rallying after yesterday&rsquo;s sell-off.
Stock futures started taking off last night amid rumors that the Trump administration was about to reach a trade deal with Vietnam &mdash; which would be significant because the White House views much of Vietnam&rsquo;s export trade as originating in China.
At this point, any deal with anyone would instill some measure of confidence that the administration has a plan and it&rsquo;s executing the plan.
But even in the absence of a done deal and a definitive announcement&hellip; the S&amp;P 500 has recovered more than half of yesterday&rsquo;s losses. As we write, the index is up 1.8% to 5,253. That&rsquo;s down about 14.5% from the S&amp;P&rsquo;s record close on Feb. 19.
Bonds sold off as well yesterday, but those too are staging a rebound. The yield on a 10-year Treasury note is 4.39%.
Gold futures popped over $3,500 overnight and have sunk steadily since. At last check the bid in the spot market is $3,431, still a tad higher than at this time 24 hours ago. Silver is a dime away from $33.
Elsewhere in the commodity complex, crude is up nearly a buck to $64 on the nose.
At last, Bitcoin seems to be enjoying some safe-haven buying alongside gold &mdash; surpassing $90,000 for the first time since early March.
<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="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> We present the following with no further comment&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/3Gv6JjsaRU2rxF0OPoKo0q/679868129f74296d4d0aa2c120aa772d/FortKnox.png" alt="fort knox" 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: The TSA
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />After our update in yesterday&rsquo;s edition on the Real ID requirements coming into effect for air travelers last month, a reader weighs in&hellip;
&ldquo;Reading Bullet No. 4 made me reflect on the millions of shoeless, beltless travelers (like the faceless school children falling into the Pink Floyd meat grinder in the movie The Wall) stumbling their way through the TSA obscene search lines.
&ldquo;The overriding question; How many hijackings have there been since 911, as a percentage of the number of flights? Why should I think one more star on my driver's license is going to have any effect on anything except the extra income to driver's license bureaus? Oh, and more loss of privacy since my face is now in a national database?
&ldquo;Rep. Massie may well be right, but who (in the deep state) really cares what he says?&rdquo;
Dave responds: And where the hell are the DOGE boys when you need them?
Best regards,
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/signatures/dave-gonigam.png" alt="Dave Gonigam" width="250px" align="left" />
Dave Gonigam Managing editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets
P.S. Apologies for the rather abbreviated nature of today&rsquo;s edition. Your editor is battling stomach flu so severe it prevented me from joining the Rickards crew at Jekyll Island. Off to get some more rest&hellip;

image (100)

The Fed’s vaunted “independence” has been a joke for many decades.

Fed Chair in the Hot Seat

<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" /> Not Since COVID Has This Happened
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> It doesn&rsquo;t show up on Bloomberg&rsquo;s homepage or the front page of The Wall Street Journal. But the signs are everywhere, beneath the surface.
Whether it&rsquo;s tariff uncertainty or a recession that&rsquo;s been brewing for months or both&hellip; the movement of goods cross-border is slowing dramatically.
Result: Trucking activity at the hubs that process goods from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach has slowed to pandemic-era levels.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/5mJn8DxJoA9lU9xfutXojx/429fb6709afe02b549a1e4e4b7145328/Craig.png" alt="craig tweet" width="540px" />
Or consider this: Effective today, DHL has suspended all shipments of goods worth over $800 to U.S. consumers &ldquo;until further notice.&rdquo;
This one is definitely tariff-related. The company cites a &ldquo;significant increase&rdquo; in red tape at U.S Customs.
Business-to-business shipments will carry on, &ldquo;though they may also face delays.&rdquo;
What changed? Since April 5, goods worth over $800 have been subject to additional processing at customs; previously the threshold was $2,500.
The company says the change &ldquo;has caused a surge in formal customs clearances, which we are handling around the clock.&rdquo;
Again, none of this is front-page stuff &mdash; yet. But we figured it was worth a heads-up.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;What if I told you I know exactly how Trump&rsquo;s tariffs are going to play out?&rdquo; asks Paradigm&rsquo;s AI-and-crypto authority James Altucher.
&ldquo;The exact stocks that will crumble&hellip; and the exact ones that will lead the market higher.&rdquo;
Bold claim, we know. But this week, &ldquo;a single market event (one that&rsquo;s 100% guaranteed to happen) could send a massive shock through the market,&rdquo; he says.
&ldquo;Bigger than anything we have seen so far this year. If I&rsquo;m right, this will be a transformative moneymaking moment.&rdquo;
We&rsquo;re talking about the potential for life-changing wealth when most people have no idea what to expect next. &ldquo;And I do not want you to be left behind,&rdquo; says James.
Again, we&rsquo;re talking about something that&rsquo;s going down this week, guaranteed. If you don&rsquo;t want to miss out, <a href="https://signups.dailyreckoning.com/2433422">follow this link and James will start to clue you in on what he calls 2025&rsquo;s Ultimate Money Move</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" />The Weaker Dollar &mdash; Just As Trump Wants It
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />&ldquo;History shows that when the dollar is too strong, the U.S. will set out to weaken it,&rdquo; says Paradigm&rsquo;s macroeconomics maven Jim Rickards.
Jim spent much of last week in Japan to &mdash; among other things &mdash; deliver a keynote speech at a private investors conference about the role of gold in the global monetary system.
Over the years Japan&rsquo;s currency, the yen, has gone through many ups and downs relative to the dollar. Right now, Donald Trump wants a weaker dollar &mdash; in hopes of making U.S. exports more affordable for foreigners, including the Japanese.
For all the turmoil in the stock and bond markets since Trump&rsquo;s big tariff announcement on April 2, the dollar is doing what Trump wants. The U.S. dollar index, measuring the dollar against a basket of six major currencies including the yen &mdash; has sunk from 104.25 to 98.27.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;History shows that the Japanese are willing to accommodate such efforts at dollar devaluation for a variety of reasons,&rdquo; Jim says &mdash; &ldquo;which include geopolitical considerations as much as economic ones.&rdquo;
While Jim was in Japan last week, Japanese officials ventured to the White House to see if they could strike a deal after Trump&rsquo;s &ldquo;Liberation Day&rdquo; announcement.
No deal yet, but as Jim sees it, &ldquo;they will not object to plans to revalue the yen against the U.S. dollar.&rdquo;
This week, Jim is headed to Jekyll Island, Georgia &mdash; birthplace of the Federal Reserve &mdash; for a comprehensive debriefing with his research team. And you&rsquo;ll have the chance to be a fly on the wall.
We&rsquo;re hosting an exclusive livestream event this coming Wednesday at 2:00 p.m. EDT.
The Final Secret of Jekyll Island, this event is called. It&rsquo;ll cover everything you ever wanted to know about how the markets got here so far in 2025&hellip; and where they&rsquo;re going for the rest of the year.
<a id="3"></a>
We won&rsquo;t try to sell you one of Jim&rsquo;s premium services during this event; this is strictly for your enlightenment.
We&rsquo;ll email you a link to the livestream shortly before we get underway Wednesday afternoon. In the meantime, <a href="https://paradigmpressgroup.com/jekyll-island-2025">you can review the agenda at this link</a>.
<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" />Who&rsquo;s Afraid of a Google Breakup?
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />&ldquo;If Meta or Alphabet get broken up by regulators, it&rsquo;s not the end of the world,&rdquo; writes Davis Wilson at our sister e-letter The Million Mission.
A week ago today, the Federal Trade Commission&rsquo;s antitrust case against Facebook parent Meta went to trial &mdash; Mark Zuckerberg&rsquo;s attempts to ingratiate himself with the Trump administration coming to naught.
Then on Thursday, a federal judge labeled Google an illegal monopolist when it comes to online advertising &mdash; the second time that&rsquo;s happened in eight months.
Both cases might well end with the firms forced to spin off or divest core businesses. &ldquo;While nothing is imminent,&rdquo; says Davis, &ldquo;the potential is real, and investors need to start thinking about the upside.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> You read that right. Upside.
&ldquo;If Meta or Alphabet were forced to divest Instagram, WhatsApp, YouTube or parts of their ad businesses, here&rsquo;s what would likely happen,&rdquo; says Davis&hellip;
&ldquo;Shareholders wouldn&rsquo;t lose value. They&rsquo;d receive shares in the new entities. Just like a stock split or spinoff, existing shareholders would retain ownership in each piece of the business.
&ldquo;The total value of your investment would initially stay the same.
&ldquo;For example, if Meta is worth $500 per share and Instagram is spun off as a $100 per share entity, Meta&rsquo;s stock might drop to $400. But you now own both Meta ($400) and Instagram ($100). You haven&rsquo;t lost value&hellip; it&rsquo;s just split.
&ldquo;Same with Alphabet. If it spun off YouTube or its ad exchange business, shareholders would receive stakes in those standalone companies.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />&ldquo;And here&rsquo;s the kicker: Breakups often unlock value,&rdquo; Davis adds.
Case in point: eBay spinning off PayPal a decade ago. &ldquo;At the time, analysts thought the standalone PayPal would struggle. Instead, it crushed expectations and more than doubled in the years that followed.&rdquo;
Or if you want to go way back in technological history, how about the breakup of AT&amp;T in the 1980s? &ldquo;It created multiple &lsquo;Baby Bells,&rsquo;&rdquo; Davis reminds us &mdash; &ldquo;and long-term investors made a killing as each company found its own way to grow.&rdquo;
Back in the present, Davis is keen on the prospects of both Meta (META) and Alphabet (GOOG).
&ldquo;Their core businesses are growing,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;They dominate their respective markets. And they&rsquo;re pouring money into AI and next-gen technologies.&rdquo;
And the breakup risk? &ldquo;To me, it&rsquo;s not really a risk. It&rsquo;s a potential reward.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> In the meantime, the fear trade is back in play today &ndash; stocks down, gold up.
Gold has roared another 2.5% higher, over $3,400 for the first time. Silver&rsquo;s up too, but not nearly as much &ndash; less than 1% to $32.81.
The S&amp;P 500 is down over 2% to 5,169. That&rsquo;s still better than the April 8 low under 5,000 &ndash; but right now the index is on track for its fourth-straight losing session. The losses in the Dow are over 2% and the Nasdaq nearly 3%.
<a id="4"></a>
Crude is selling off in sympathy with stocks, a barrel of West Texas Intermediate down 2.7% and back below $63.
Bonds are selling off, though not as much as stocks. The 10-year Treasury yield sits at 4.36%.
<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" />&ldquo;A Tool for Control of Americans&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> And now a 5 Bullets business travel alert: It took the better part of 20 years, but the &ldquo;Real ID&rdquo; requirements to board an airplane are about to come into force.
When last we visited the matter in late 2022, the feds had once again pushed back the enforcement deadline of the Real ID Act &mdash; a post-9/11 law requiring that you have a driver&rsquo;s license or other form of ID compliant with the law&rsquo;s requirements to board a domestic flight.
That is, the photo must be compatible with facial-recognition software and the feds must be allowed access to state driver&rsquo;s license databases.
The first deadline to comply was 2008. In all, the deadline was pushed back seven times. It wasn&rsquo;t until 2020 that all 50 states began issuing compliant IDs.
In December 2022, the feds set a deadline of May 7, 2025 &mdash; about 2&frac12; weeks from now.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />It appears this time, the deadline will stick &mdash; a de facto national ID card being ushered in by the supposedly pro-freedom Trump administration.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem made it official a few days ago&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/2Rv5FFEnv1YYr4dZBhvkJ5/8a91830e78cae6a21457dc4efa1b6334/Eric.png" alt="eric tweet" width="540px" />
Noem is a real piece of work, roasted on social media as &ldquo;Commando Barbie&rdquo; for foolish photo ops in which she displays a wanton disregard for NRA gun-safety rules (&ldquo;Always keep the gun pointed in a safe direction&rdquo;)...
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/4FUfu8l5wPVlcGTQTISIrS/86b0a2740cb8a30725eda5ec2094b065/Kristi.png" alt="kristi tweet" width="540px" />
&hellip; because it&rsquo;s more important that she cultivate her &ldquo;badass MILF&rdquo; chic.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />&ldquo;Real ID isn&rsquo;t needed and won&rsquo;t stop terrorists from hijacking planes,&rdquo; tweets Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky.)
&ldquo;Most of the 9/11 hijackers held Saudi, UAE, Egyptian or Lebanese passports. Real ID is a national standard and database of IDs that is primarily a tool for control of Americans.&rdquo;
Perhaps it could be worse: &ldquo;Section 202 of the Real ID Act (which was written by the sponsor of the Patriot Act) gives unfettered discretion to the secretary of Homeland Security to require ANYTHING as a condition for you to get a driver&rsquo;s license,&rdquo; tweets Kentucky State Rep. T.J. Roberts.
&ldquo;Imagine if Kamala Harris won. She surely would have reappointed [Alejandro] Mayorkas. He surely would have required you disclose your political affiliations, the church you attend, your biometric data or any other thing you&rsquo;d prefer to keep private.&rdquo;
Anyway, it looks as if the deadline&rsquo;s gonna stick this time &mdash; May 7.
<blockquote>➢ It pains me to write about this knowing that Saturday was not only Patriots&rsquo; Day but indeed the 250th anniversary of Lexington and Concord and &ldquo;the shot heard round the world.&rdquo; What would Paul Revere think?</blockquote>
<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: Yes, It&rsquo;s More Than Tariffs
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />&ldquo;Dave, I agree,&rdquo; a reader writes after our most recent assessment of <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/nothing-normal-about-this">the tumult in the bond market</a>.
&ldquo;While Trump gleefully demolishes trust in America, relying on that calamitous factor alone is an oversimplification of why international actors are selling off U.S. treasuries. Our elected representatives have mismanaged the federal budget for decades. It's more than not understanding math; they don't care. Have you ever considered why?
&ldquo;The ballooning federal debt isn't just a symptom of fiscal irresponsibility; it's a calculated tool enabling the well-connected to privatize gains and socialize losses. Do you think Trump and his cabal of cronies are going to get their snouts out of the trough? That's not going to happen.
&ldquo;Each round of deficit spending pumps billions into private hands &mdash; contracts, subsidies, bailouts &mdash; all benefiting the powerful insiders. Remember the parade of corporate elites kissing the ring and paying tribute after the king's coronation? Corporate and government parasites deftly convert public funds into private assets, effectively laundering taxpayer money into personal wealth. Meanwhile, we peasants are left footing an ever-increasing bill.
&ldquo;This gravy train persists &mdash; and the debt grows &mdash; precisely because those who benefit most want it to. Trump and his puppets in Congress show no genuine interest in reducing debt because they and their key patrons &mdash; the wealthiest Americans &mdash; are profiting immensely from the status quo. Why do you think Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer sided with the Republicans and their spend-a-palooza continuing resolution?
&ldquo;Until we confront the fundamental issue &mdash; the concentration of wealth and power &mdash; any discussion of debt reduction remains merely rhetorical. So I expect I'll continue to see more.&rdquo;
Dave responds: Well said. And if it&rsquo;s specific targets you&rsquo;re looking for&hellip; nothing changes until <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/luigi-mangione-isnt-the-problem">the health care cartel</a> is smashed and <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/a-totalitarian-bureaucracy-within-our-shores">the military-industrial complex</a> is brought to heel.
I&rsquo;m not holding my breath.
Best regards,
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/signatures/dave-gonigam.png" alt="Dave Gonigam" width="250px" align="left" />
Dave Gonigam Managing editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

shutterstock 2600808129

Whether it’s tariff uncertainty or a recession that’s been brewing for months or both… the movement of goods cross-border is slowing dramatically.

Not Since COVID Has This Happened

<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" /> What If &ldquo;Command&rdquo; Currencies Collapse?
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />In a world where fiat currencies face increasing pressure, Paradigm&rsquo;s macro authority Jim Rickards has consistently emphasized the importance of gold. And his latest gold forecast is nothing short of jaw-dropping&hellip;
But before we get to that, Jim&rsquo;s prediction is not based on speculation; instead, it&rsquo;s the result of detailed modeling and historical precedents.
First, Jim explains that during financial crises, gold prices often follow a predictable pattern. Initially, the price of gold drops alongside stocks as investors liquidate assets to cover margin calls or meet liquidity needs.
&ldquo;You sell what you can,&rdquo; Jim notes, highlighting the panic-driven behavior that dominates markets during such times.
However, this initial sell-off is typically followed by a sharp rebound as &ldquo;strong hands&rdquo; step in to buy gold at discounted prices.
It&rsquo;s important to point out that even if stocks moderate this week &mdash; providing some relief from recent downturns &mdash; Jim&rsquo;s fundamental thesis supporting gold&rsquo;s rise remains unchanged.
And as you&rsquo;ll see below, Jim has evidence that this cycle is playing out as we speak&hellip;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;What if confidence in command currencies collapses due to some combination of excessive money creation, extreme levels of dollar debt, a new financial crisis, war or natural disaster?&rdquo; Jim posits.
If confidence in fiat currencies collapses, central banks may have no choice, he says, but to return to a gold standard.
In such a scenario, the &ldquo;implied non-deflationary price of gold&rdquo; would need to be recalibrated to maintain equilibrium between gold reserves and the money supply.
To wit, M1 is the most liquid part of the U.S. money supply, meaning it&rsquo;s the easiest to convert into cash.
It includes physical cash (bills and coins), bank reserves held in vaults and deposits like checking accounts.
Currently, the U.S. M1 money supply totals $17.9 trillion.
As for gold, &ldquo;the U.S. Treasury reserves [total] 8,100 metric tonnes (261.5 million troy ounces),&rdquo; says Jim.
If the government were to return to a gold standard today, according to Federal Reserve rules from 1913&ndash;1946, the legal requirement would be that 40% of M1 money supply be backed by gold.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> All to say, $7.2 trillion worth of gold would be necessary. &ldquo;Applying the $7.2 trillion valuation to 261.5 million troy ounces yields a gold price of $27,533 per ounce,&rdquo; Jim notes.
Although no forecast is guaranteed, Jim believes this scenario is well within the realm of possibility given current macroeconomic trends. &ldquo;This isn&rsquo;t a guess,&rdquo; he adds.
Beyond the Fed&rsquo;s 20th Century model, Jim highlights real-world factors driving gold prices higher.
<ul>
<li>On the supply side, global gold production has been declining steadily since 2017, with miners struggling to find high-quality ore deposits. This stagnation in supply creates upward pressure on prices when demand increases</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>On the demand side, central banks have been significant buyers of gold, with purchases surging by 1,000% between 2010&ndash;2022. This trend shows no signs of slowing down; central banks acquired 800 metric tonnes of gold in 2023 alone. Jim notes that much of this demand stems from concerns about the stability of fiat currencies as well as geopolitical risks.</li>
</ul>
For individual investors, Jim&rsquo;s advice is straightforward: act now. Gold&rsquo;s price trajectory follows an exponential pattern where percentage gains become easier as the base price rises.
For instance, moving from $2,000 to $3,000 per ounce represents a 50% gain, but moving from $14,000 to $15,000 per ounce is only a 7% increase.
&ldquo;Those $1,000 pops get even easier as we approach my calculated gold price of $27,533,&rdquo; he explains.
The implication is clear: gold buyers today stand to benefit most as they accumulate more gold at lower prices and enjoy higher percentage returns during the early stages of a rally.
Jim&rsquo;s analysis paints a compelling picture for gold&rsquo;s future. For investors, the message is clear: moments of market panic often present opportunities to buy gold before the price resumes its upward trajectory.
Whether driven by geopolitical crises or fundamental supply-demand dynamics, gold remains an essential asset for preserving wealth during uncertain times.

As Jim summarizes: &ldquo;Get your gold while you can.&rdquo;
[You have an unclaimed package from Jim Rickards: It&rsquo;s valued at $400 and waiting for you&hellip; but supplies are limited and may soon run out.
To secure your package &mdash; an assortment of items Jim has hand-selected to protect you from the all-out financial trade war &mdash; <a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2432692">watch this short video message for instructions.</a>
And submit your claim before the deadline at 11:59 p.m. EDT on FRIDAY. <a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2432692">Act quickly,</a> or you may lose this exclusive offer for good.]

<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" />Be Careful What You Wish For
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />In a speech at the Economic Club of Chicago on Wednesday, Fed Chair Jay Powell hinted at no further rate cuts. 
Conversely, President Trump has been pounding the table (via social media), demanding rate cuts &mdash; on the assumption that once the Fed cuts short-term rates, long-term rates will follow in sympathy.
But as we mentioned in December and January, the Fed did three cuts last fall and long-term rates ROSE &mdash; something that hadn&rsquo;t happened in 40 years &mdash; likely because the bond market sniffed out that federal spending and the national debt were spiraling out of control.
And here we are again this month, with long-term rates rising at a time they &ldquo;should&rdquo; be falling. Here&rsquo;s the thing: Trump is wishing for something that won&rsquo;t necessarily get him what he wants.
Also not getting what it wants? Wall Street&hellip;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Taking a look at stocks today, the Big Board is down 1.10% to 39,225. But the tech-heavy Nasdaq is only slightly in the red, down 0.10%,and clawing its way to 16,285. Meanwhile, the only major U.S. index in the green, the S&amp;P 500, is up 0.35% to 5,295.
Treasury yields are climbing higher again after a few days&rsquo; retreat, the 10-year note at 4.32%.
Turning to commodities, the price of crude is up 2.70% to $64.15 for a barrel of WTI. Precious metals, however, are taking a hit. The yellow metal is down 1% to $3,310 per ounce, and silver is down 2.15% to $32.25.
And Bitcoin and Ethereum, at the time of writing, are at $84,650 and $1,585 respectively.
<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" />Tariffs Supercharge AI Innovation
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />&ldquo;The tariff shock is forcing companies to rediscover what made American manufacturing great in the first place: technological superiority,&rdquo; says Paradigm&rsquo;s science-and-technology investor Ray Blanco.
&ldquo;For decades, American companies were addicted to cheap foreign labor &mdash; chasing ever-cheaper labor around the globe instead of investing in technological innovation at home.
&ldquo;Now, it will be addicted to domestic AI,&rdquo; he adds. &ldquo;For reshoring to make economic sense, companies must embrace automation on an unprecedented scale.
&ldquo;[Companies] won&rsquo;t just recreate their overseas labor-intensive processes,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;Instead, they&rsquo;ll invest in cutting-edge AI vision systems for quality control.
&ldquo;We&rsquo;re talking about AI-powered factories that require minimal human intervention &mdash; manufacturing that can operate 24/7 with a fraction of the labor costs.
&ldquo;They&rsquo;ll also deploy autonomous robots for materials handling and implement machine learning for predictive maintenance. They&rsquo;ll use AI for just-in-time inventory optimization.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;The companies providing these technologies stand to see explosive growth as reshoring accelerates,&rdquo; notes Ray.
&ldquo;While everyone fixates on tariffs, they're missing the real story: AI is still on track to add more than $15 trillion to the global economy over the next few years.
&ldquo;While tariffs may reshape where physical goods are made, they have little impact on software, cloud services and intellectual property &mdash; precisely the areas where American AI dominance is strongest.
&ldquo;Even more promising are the AI innovators building platforms that can be exported globally &ndash; the digital infrastructure that will power not just American factories, but the world&rsquo;s transition to intelligent automation.&rdquo;
Ray concludes: &ldquo;Trump&rsquo;s tariffs might be the best thing that&rsquo;s EVER happened to AI.
&ldquo;For now, remember that periods of maximum pessimism often coincide with the greatest investment opportunities. We&rsquo;re looking for specific recommendations to play this trend.&rdquo;
Read 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" /> Stealth Energy Dynasty
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;Tesla is an AI energy empire in disguise,&rdquo; says Paradigm&rsquo;s AI expert James Altucher.
&ldquo;Here&rsquo;s what everyone misses: By 2027, Tesla will make more money from AI energy than from cars,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;The real money is in AI energy infrastructure. And Tesla is already way ahead&hellip;
<ul>
<li>&ldquo;DOJO: Tesla&rsquo;s supercomputer. This isn&rsquo;t ChatGPT for Teslas. It&rsquo;s the brain. It trains itself. It powers autonomy in cars, robots, energy systems. It&rsquo;s building its own intelligence, every day</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>OPTICASTER: It&rsquo;s Tesla&rsquo;s AI that manages energy distribution in real time. It knows when to store energy, when to use it and when to trade it. It&rsquo;s like having a hedge fund manager for your electricity bill</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>AUTOBIDDER: Imagine AI trading electricity the way Wall Street trades stocks &mdash; except with 100% uptime and no emotion. It&rsquo;s already being used by energy companies and even Supercharger networks to buy and sell stored energy in real-time markets</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>POWERHUB: Think of it as the command center. It&rsquo;s an AI dashboard that tells you where your power is going, where it should go and how to make your grid smarter</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>OPTIMUS: The AI-trained humanoid robot that will literally install the future. Picture this: Optimus building solar farms in the desert. Optimus repairing wind turbines in a storm. Optimus cleaning and maintaining your entire energy infrastructure without sleep or pay raises.</li>
</ul>
&ldquo;So what&rsquo;s the bottom line?&rdquo; asks James. &ldquo;In 2023, Tesla&rsquo;s energy profits were 6.5% of gross. In 2024? 25%... Energy revenue up 67%. Auto revenue down 7%.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;At this growth rate, Tesla will become the Amazon Web Services of energy by 2027,&rdquo; James forecasts. &ldquo;Except instead of selling server time, they&rsquo;re selling electricity... AI... autonomous tech... and maybe even the keys to Mars,&rdquo; he adds.
&ldquo;None of this includes the upside from&hellip;
<ul>
<li>Selling AI chips: the A15 chip</li>
<li>Offering AI-as-a-service from Dojo</li>
<li>Scaling Optimus</li>
</ul>
&ldquo;If you&rsquo;re still thinking about Teslas as cars, you&rsquo;re using a flip phone in the iPhone era,&rdquo; he emphasizes.
&ldquo;My guess? At today&rsquo;s price, TSLA is trading at more than 20x projected 2029 earnings &mdash; and that&rsquo;s without factoring in any potential upside from Tesla&rsquo;s robot army.
&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll say it again: Tesla is not a car company,&rdquo; James summarizes. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s the foundation of the next civilization.&rdquo;
<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" />Mini-Me Mania
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Social media&rsquo;s newest obsession: Turning yourself into a plastic-wrapped, AI-generated action figure. 
Just upload a photo, feed ChatGPT some prompts about your ideal packaging and voil&agrave; &mdash; you&rsquo;re now a collectible doll with accessories of your choosing.
First exhibit?

<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/684bpj4qApuhq4V95w8kOU/84b3381933279f6af5f3ec95d897fa7c/JeromePowell.png" alt="Jermome Powell" width="400px" />

What&rsquo;s missing? A scroll with a Trump nastygram&hellip; 
But let&rsquo;s not pretend AI runs on good vibes and unicorn dust&hellip; No, as we&rsquo;ve spotlighted for years now, AI requires a tremendous amount of energy.
Cambridge University Professor Gina Neff points out, for instance, that ChatGPT alone guzzles more electricity annually than 117 countries.
Then there&rsquo;s the &ldquo;slop&rdquo; factor. These AI tools blend designs, references and especially letters into a monster mashup.
Exhibit B: Take a closer look at the dollar bill. Gadzooks, it&rsquo;s George Washington(ish) sans wooden teeth!
Meanwhile, the Federal &ldquo;Reserver&rdquo; seal is absolute gibberish. Is that cyrillic lettering? And a spider instead of an eagle?
According to my Gen Z daughter, this AI doll trend seems to be most popular among Millennials. As the top age range of this group approaches middle age, this could be the digital equivalent of a midlife crisis.
When a sports car might be more energy-efficient.
Have a wonderful Thursday! Dave will be back with more fresh takes tomorrow&hellip;
Best regards,
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/signatures/emily-clancy.png" alt="Emily Clancy" width="250px" align="left" />
Emily Clancy Associate editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

27533

“What if confidence in command currencies collapses?” Jim Rickards asks. The solution: gold. 

The $27,533 Gold Solution

Jesse

After a brief respite, Mr. Market is getting jerked around again by trade-war headlines.

Widespread Panic

<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 Mainstream Wakes Up &mdash; and Fouls Up
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> As the saying goes, never believe a rumor in Washington until it&rsquo;s been officially denied. 
Late yesterday, Bloomberg published the following:
<blockquote>Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent played down the recent selloff in the bond market, rejecting speculation that foreign nations were dumping their holdings of US Treasuries, while flagging that his department has tools to address dislocation if needed.</blockquote>
<blockquote>&lsquo;I don&rsquo;t think there&rsquo;s a dumping&rsquo; by foreign investors, Bessent said in an interview Monday with Bloomberg Television while on a visit to Buenos Aires, Argentina.</blockquote>
<a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/the-real-reason-for-the-tariff-pause">Last Thursday</a>, we spilled a fair amount of digital ink on the proposition that foreigners were dumping their Treasuries &mdash; casting a no-confidence vote against an asset class that for many decades was thought to be a &ldquo;safe haven.&rdquo;
True or not, it was indisputable that Treasuries were not a safe haven in the aftermath of Donald Trump&rsquo;s &ldquo;Liberation Day&rdquo; announcement. Typically when the stock market sells off hard, hot money that&rsquo;s fleeing stocks will flood into Uncle Sam&rsquo;s debt.
But that&rsquo;s not what happened last week. Stocks and bonds sold off hard together.
It was this rupture in the bond market &mdash; not the stock market &mdash; that spooked the Trump administration and prompted the 90-day pause on much of its tariff regime.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Since our Thursday write-up, we see the mainstream picking up on this theme &mdash; but, of course, getting it totally wrong.
The turmoil in the bond market &ldquo;reflects deeper worries as Trump&rsquo;s tariffs threats and erratic policy moves have made America seem hostile and unstable,&rdquo; says The Associated Press &mdash; &ldquo;fears that are not likely to go away even after the tariff turmoil ends.&rdquo;
Reflecting on the safe-haven reputation of Treasuries, New York Times reporter Peter Goodman says the trouble in the bond market &ldquo;revealed the extent to which President Trump has shaken faith in that basic proposition, challenging the previously unimpeachable solidity of U.S. government debt.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> For the mainstream, it&rsquo;s all about Trump and tariffs because of course. But as we said last week, it&rsquo;s about so much more.
Treasuries&rsquo; safe-haven reputation with foreigners was previously dealt a huge blow by the Biden administration. When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Washington froze the Treasuries owned by Russia&rsquo;s central bank &mdash; later confiscating the interest payments and handing them to Ukraine.
Every government on the face of the planet that had less-than-friendly relations with Washington logically wondered: Are we next?
It is no coincidence that since 2022, global central banks have been buying gold &mdash; an asset that lies beyond Washington&rsquo;s reach &mdash; at a record pace.
And there&rsquo;s still another factor in play -&ndash; one that goes much further back in history. Read on&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" />Nothing &ldquo;Normal&rdquo; About This
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Rewind again to last Thursday: Even though the Trump administration had declared its 90-day pause 24 hours earlier, the turbulence in the bond market persisted.
Treasury prices continued to fall &mdash; pushing Treasury yields higher. For a while, the yield on a 10-year T-note surpassed 4.5% &mdash; up dramatically in less than a week from under 4.0%.
This too is something that under &ldquo;normal&rdquo; circumstances shouldn&rsquo;t have happened.
What was it that was still spooking the bond market?
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />The answer is the gargantuan growth of the national debt &mdash; growth that the U.S. House voted last Thursday to accelerate.
First, a chart for perspective. This is the national debt. You can see how it started taking off in the 2000s to fund the &ldquo;forever wars&rdquo;... went on a higher trajectory after the 2008 financial crisis&hellip; and went on a still higher trajectory after COVID.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/LJaTAhcjtXyqYPO2RGpNj/587e38fd97dd7fdf8a7192283967189a/5Bullets_National_Debt_0415.png" alt="National Debt" width="540px" />
Which brings us to the present moment: As we&rsquo;ve mentioned periodically in recent months, the Trump tax cuts &mdash; aka the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 &mdash; are set to expire at the end of this year.
The law was given an expiration date because of the peculiar way budget math works in Washington. The Congressional Budget Office evaluates big tax cuts and big new spending programs by how much they&rsquo;ll cost over the next 10 years.
To keep these initiatives from costing &ldquo;too much,&rdquo; lawmakers usually give them an expiration date. Thus the architects of the Trump tax cuts agreed to sunset them after eight years. Reverting to Obama-era tax rates in 2026-27 made the weird budget math all work out over the 10-year &ldquo;budget window.&rdquo;
Obviously the president and the Republican majority in Congress would like to make these tax cuts permanent. But the budget-window custom &mdash; a phenomenon dating back to the Budget Act of 1974 &mdash; makes that a challenging task.
On Saturday April 5, the Senate passed a resolution effectively chucking this budget-window convention &mdash; clearing the way to make the tax cuts permanent.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />This past Thursday, the House passed the same resolution. And the bond market freaked out anew.
Several Republican budget hawks resisted. They wanted spending cuts to match or exceed the amount of the tax cuts.
But House Speaker Mike Johnson once again exercised iron discipline over his slender majority.
Only two Republicans held out &mdash; Indiana&rsquo;s Victoria Spartz and the courageous Kentuckian Thomas Massie.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1VJyDYWSXMkg9rtt00DWXv/11b8b738ec5bbf9efbdeb5a0214e32c2/Thomas-Tweet.png" alt="thomas tweet" width="540px" />
&ldquo;This is really a complete evisceration of the budget resolution rules,&rdquo; says demographer Neil Howe. &ldquo;The whole idea was to keep this within a budget discipline and the 10-year rule was the one that&rsquo;s always been traditionally used: Everything has to balance within 10 years.&rdquo;
Mr. Howe is best known for coining the term &ldquo;Millennial&rdquo; along with his late collaborator William Strauss. But he&rsquo;s also a D.C. budget wonk from back in the day, working with fiscal-hawk think tanks like the Concord Coalition. He knows this stuff backwards and forwards.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Key point, and it goes back to that first chart: Congress now has &ldquo;a free ticket to borrow $3-5 trillion more over the next 10 years than the established budget rules would have allowed,&rdquo; Mr. Howe said last week on his Trend Watch podcast.
&ldquo;And this means continually widening the projected deficit as a share of GDP rather than closing it.&rdquo;
Here, we&rsquo;ll re-up a chart we&rsquo;ve shared several times in recent months. It shows that the annual budget deficit in fiscal year 2024 equaled 6.4% of America&rsquo;s annual economic output as measured by GDP.
Outside of World War II, the global financial crisis and COVID, the number has never been this bad. There&rsquo;s no such crisis now. It&rsquo;s unprecedented.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/5r9Ere3nCHsbBPteKM5Fvc/070021cd1f61c0323e2dbd5ff4bf8102/FMF_5Bullets_Chart_1011.png" alt="torn money" width="540px" />
And with half of fiscal year 2025 already in the books, this year&rsquo;s number is on track to be worse.
That&rsquo;s not &ldquo;normal.&rdquo; But the story doesn&rsquo;t end there &ndash; as you&rsquo;ll soon see&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" />Bessent Is Trapped
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Next key point: The bill passed by Congress blows up Treasury Secretary Bessent&rsquo;s vaunted &ldquo;3-3-3 plan&rdquo; to revive the economy.
The first and perhaps most important plank of that plan is to shrink the deficit to 3% of GDP by 2028.
Again, the deficit was 6.4% of GDP in fiscal year 2024 and will be higher in fiscal year 2025. And as we mentioned <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/avoiding-the-t-word#4">on Friday</a>, Elon Musk has dialed back his initial DOGE goal of $2 trillion in budget savings to a paltry $150 billion.
Unless Congress finds some sort of spending discipline &mdash; and how likely is that? &mdash; the line on that first chart of the national debt is set to go hyperbolic.
We said in January that Bessent&rsquo;s 3-3-3 plan <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/scott-bessents-3-3-3-666">would be a tough row to hoe</a>. Now it&rsquo;s impossible. He&rsquo;s trapped and can&rsquo;t get out.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/6L3gRNMpViIuh3vHhH1G3H/0bb73347f0a92f154452885b2005f8dd/ScottBessent.png" alt="scott bessent" width="450px" />
That&rsquo;s why the bond market didn&rsquo;t stabilize last Thursday.
True, it&rsquo;s stabilized a bit since then in the absence of any new shocks. Even so, the yield on a 10-year Treasury this morning is 4.36%. In more &ldquo;normal&rdquo; times it wouldn&rsquo;t be anywhere near this high.
These aren&rsquo;t normal times. Treasuries have lost their luster as a safe haven. But now you know that the story is much more complex than just the tariffs. It&rsquo;s a storm that&rsquo;s been brewing throughout the 21st century.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> We reiterate our guidance from last week: Gold is the new safe haven. It&rsquo;s no coincidence that gold broke over $3,200 an ounce for the first time when the House voted last Thursday &ndash; and it&rsquo;s still there today.
Even the mainstream is glomming onto gold: Analysts at UBS are calling for $3,500 by year-end. Goldman Sachs is even more ambitious &mdash; $3,700 by year-end and $4,000 by mid-2026.
Hesitant to buy something when it&rsquo;s at all-time highs? Buy silver.
At $32.16 an ounce it takes 100 ounces of silver to equal one ounce of gold &mdash; a rare occurrence that makes silver a real bargain relative to gold.
With the debt on its present trajectory, there&rsquo;s nothing to stop silver from eventually reclaiming its 2011 high of $50 &mdash; or even its 2011 high adjusted for inflation, which is $70.
<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" />Biggest Winner, Biggest Loser
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> With the stock market&rsquo;s spate of volatility winding down for the moment, it&rsquo;s not too early to assess winners and losers.
As Paradigm&rsquo;s macroeconomics authority Jim Rickards sees it, the biggest winner is Warren Buffett.
&ldquo;He quietly sold off equities in 2023 and 2024 and accumulated a $325 billion pile of cash,&rdquo; Jim says. &ldquo;Now, he not only survived the storm but he&rsquo;s getting ready to go shopping for good companies that have fallen even more than the market as a whole.&rdquo;
The biggest loser? Germany.
&ldquo;They were in sad shape before the trade war because they spent 14 years closing down every coal-fired power plant and almost every nuclear plant based on the phony climate change hoax,&rdquo; says Jim. &ldquo;Then they boycotted Russian energy.
&ldquo;How do you power an industrial economy that runs on energy when you have no energy except for high-priced imports? You don&rsquo;t. Germany is de-industrializing. Its major companies are moving operations to Hungary and Mexico.
&ldquo;Now they have been slammed with tariffs on the manufactured goods they do still make, but their ability to negotiate is blunted by the leadership of the EU, which is even more delusional than the German leaders.
&ldquo;It&rsquo;s sad to see a great country and technological powerhouse go down the drain,&rdquo; Jim concludes. &ldquo;But that&rsquo;s exactly where their incompetent globalist leadership is taking them.&rdquo;
In the near-term, however, Germany&rsquo;s benchmark DAX index has recovered all its post-&rdquo;Liberation Day&rdquo; losses. Go figure&hellip;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> In the absence of any market-moving headlines, today might turn out to be a U.S. stock-market milestone.
Recall that yesterday our chart hound Greg Guenthner said the last time the S&amp;P 500 moved less than 1% within the trading day was March 25. It&rsquo;s an extraordinary amount of up-and-down movement and it began well before the tariff announcement on April 2.
Lo and behold, calm is prevailing today: No big swings either way. At last check the S&amp;P 500 is up a third of a percent at 5,424. That&rsquo;s down 11.7% from the index&rsquo;s record close on February 19&hellip; and up 8.8% from its closing low a week ago today.
The big banks continue to report bang-up earnings &mdash; today it was Citi and Bank of America&rsquo;s turn. Both are up about 4% on the day.
Like the S&amp;P 500, crude is looking calm, down 32 cents at $61.21.
Bitcoin is trying to break out of its trading range of recent days, now over $85,000.
<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="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />On this Tax Day, we leave you with the following&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1GFm5mUYFcbZMOdZhS6XuG/a468ae6d0b39b9c3ffd1d173b817e536/taxation.png" alt="taxation" width="540px" />
Best regards,
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/signatures/dave-gonigam.png" alt="Dave Gonigam" width="250px" align="left" />
Dave Gonigam Managing editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

ScottBessent

We see the mainstream picking up on this theme — the rupture of the bond market — but, of course, getting it totally wrong.

This. Is. Not. Normal. 

Nothing “Normal” About This

<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" />Mr. Market&rsquo;s Daring Bet
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Mr. Market is laying down a daring bet today.
In case you weren&rsquo;t glued to the news over the weekend, Customs and Border Protection posted a notice late Friday saying that many electronics would be exempt from the new tariffs &ndash; including electronics from China.
But on the Sunday talk show circuit, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said those goods would nonetheless face separate tariffs in another month or two.
Then the president himself weighed in. &ldquo;There was no tariff &lsquo;exception&rsquo; announced on Friday,&rdquo; he posted on his Truth Social site. Instead, those goods will be subjected to a different tariff regime involving semiconductors.
Clear as mud, right?
And yet, Wall Street is on the rally tracks today. At last check, the S&amp;P 500 is up nearly 1.5%. Between today&rsquo;s action as well as Friday&rsquo;s, all of Thursday&rsquo;s 3.4% loss has been recovered.
No, that&rsquo;s not an all-clear signal.
For the moment, Wall Street is betting on &ldquo;less tariff action&rdquo; &mdash; and potentially setting itself up for another severe downdraft when that bet doesn&rsquo;t pay off.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;While everyone is worried about a market crash, what is worse than a crash and quick recovery is a long, slow grind down,&rdquo; says Paradigm&rsquo;s macro maven Jim Rickards.
&ldquo;That does not mean a one-day crash of 10% or more. It could mean a slow grind down perhaps 20% or 30% over six months or even longer.
&ldquo;A quick crash can recover quickly. With a slow grind, many investors tell themselves it will come back or &lsquo;buy the dips&rsquo; or hang in there. Then it will grind down some more until the retail investor finally capitulates with large losses.&rdquo;

Jim&rsquo;s guidance: &ldquo;Investors should lighten up on equity exposure to reduce losses during this stock market decline&rdquo; &mdash; because as he sees it, &ldquo;the next 12 months could be a rough ride for those who aren&rsquo;t prepared.&rdquo;
Jim&rsquo;s been expecting chaos just like this ever since Trump&rsquo;s election. And he&rsquo;s been crafting a detailed strategy to play the trade war.
Like it or not, &ldquo;Trump is igniting an economic power shift that will trigger one of the biggest money-making opportunities of our lifetime,&rdquo; Jim says.
We&rsquo;re talking about the potential for 1,000% gains before the end of this year. <a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2431363">Follow this link to learn more &ndash; because Jim says &ldquo;I&rsquo;m here to ensure you </a><a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2431363">do not </a><a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2431363">become a victim.&rdquo;</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" />It&rsquo;s Not All About Tariffs
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Now for a vivid reminder from Paradigm trading pro Greg Guenthner: &ldquo;The market&rsquo;s foundation was cracking even before Trump&rsquo;s tariff announcement.
&ldquo;Yet most traders are still clinging to the idea that we&rsquo;re in a temporary pullback, believing the bull will get back up and start charging again. It won&rsquo;t.&rdquo;
The problem didn&rsquo;t start with &ldquo;Liberation Day&rdquo; on April 2. It started more than a week earlier on March 25 &mdash; at the very moment the S&amp;P 500 bumped up against its 200-day moving average. It was a crucial test for the index &mdash; and it failed that test.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/PjatbVLNZp8E2Z4qbbfje/1581c59404559a4767fc8e6646faec54/5Bullets_RunningScared_041025.png" alt="running scared" width="540px" />
That&rsquo;s why the monster rally last Wednesday&hellip; and the uptick Friday and today&hellip; are not an all-clear signal. Greg reminds us of a saying among chart watchers: Nothing good happens below the 200-day moving average. 
&ldquo;That&rsquo;s certainly been the case this month,&rdquo; he adds. &ldquo;The new lows list is miles longer than the new highs. And we haven&rsquo;t experienced a trading day with an intraday move less than 1% since the S&amp;P was rejected at its 200-day moving average back on March 25th.
&ldquo;Prognosis: expect bear market action to continue, complete with failed rallies and larger-than-average intraday swings.&rdquo;
What can you do? For one thing, &ldquo;Use big relief rallies like we saw last Wednesday as an opportunity to &lsquo;get right&rsquo; with any broken plays that might be weighing you down,&rdquo; Greg advises. &ldquo;Sell longs into strength and aggressively take profits on these big upside days&hellip;
&ldquo;If you can preserve your capital now, you&rsquo;ll have an excellent shot at winning big when stocks retest their lows, or when the averages are able to break through resistance and mount a sustainable rally.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />As the day wears on, the Monday-morning rally is losing a little of its oomph. The S&amp;P&rsquo;s earlier 1.5% gain is looking more like 1% now. The Nasdaq is likewise up 1%; the Dow&rsquo;s gain is a tad weaker.
Among today&rsquo;s big gainers are MP Materials Corp (MP) &mdash; up 22% as China has further tightened its controls on exports of rare-earth elements. Meanwhile, the big banks continue to kick off earnings season &mdash; Goldman Sachs up nearly 2% after handily beating analyst expectations.
The tension in the bond market remains elevated, with the yield on a 10-year Treasury note still over 4.4% <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/the-real-reason-for-the-tariff-pause">for reasons we explored in-depth last Thursday</a>. (And there&rsquo;s another disturbing wrinkle to the story; hopefully we can get to it tomorrow.)
Precious metals are selling off, but gold is still holding the line on $3,200 and silver on $32. The gold-silver ratio continues to hover around 100, a historically high figure that makes silver a true bargain relative to gold. Mining stocks are moving up, the HUI index at another best-since-2013 reading of 395.
Crude rallied after we hit &ldquo;send&rdquo; on Friday, and it&rsquo;s hanging on to most of those gains today at $61.32.
Bitcoin is on the high end of its recent trading range at $84,613.
<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" />Trump&rsquo;s Quagmire
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Donald Trump continues to fail what Jim Rickards calls his &ldquo;Vietnam moment.&rdquo;
Jim generally gives the president high marks for his first three months. &ldquo;Trump&rsquo;s one blind spot,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;is Ukraine.&rdquo;
Recall it was Democrat Lyndon Johnson who dramatically escalated Washington&rsquo;s involvement in Vietnam &mdash; but it became Republican Richard Nixon&rsquo;s war for five more years. Jim says Trump risks something similar in Ukraine. Especially with posts like this on Friday&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/3m0SbVYwxdDwMDlsD14pwe/144e360235cd2f0e2c1e0bacfda16399/TrumpTweet.png" alt="trump tweet" width="540px" />
Trump very much wants a cease-fire, publicly saying last month he&rsquo;s &ldquo;pissed off&rdquo; with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
But as Jim told his Strategic Intelligence readers last week, Putin feels no pressure to agree to a cease-fire as long as Moscow continues winning the war.
The problem is that Trump is &ldquo;being misled by neocon warmongers in his own Cabinet,&rdquo; says Jim &mdash; &ldquo;such as National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and his subordinates.
&ldquo;Putin&rsquo;s terms for Ukraine have been clear since before the war began &mdash; demilitarization, de-Nazification, neutrality, and no NATO membership. The only changes have been the amount of territory that Russia will add to the Russian Federation&hellip;
&ldquo;Trump should just agree with Putin, sign a treaty and go home&hellip; What began as Biden&rsquo;s War will soon become Trump&rsquo;s War if he doesn&rsquo;t get some good advice and end it now.&rdquo;
<a id="4"></a>
This just in: Trump still isn&rsquo;t getting good advice. The following is not the statement of someone who &ldquo;has the cards.&rdquo;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1wUlOHgVtPFWMoJsvC2f98/2049ef3d0e0ee6b94a2919e0da226853/Trump-Tweet2.png" alt="trump tweet2" width="540px" />
<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" />Tick-Tock: Time Change Flip-Flop
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> The good news is that the president is using his bully pulpit to try to do away with time change. The bad news is he now wants year-round daylight saving time.
He posted the following on Friday&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/10vLO6aHvLmD6vNYiK8RZ4/573640615fada6724688755c11478b25/Trump-tweet3.png" alt="trump tweet3" width="540px" />
Longtime readers know by now that most every March and November I lament the changing of the clocks.
It&rsquo;s not just the personal toll it takes on my aging carcass. It&rsquo;s also the leap in workplace accidents, car crashes and heart attacks the week after time change &ndash; and the persuasive evidence that DST does nothing to conserve energy, as it was once touted.
In 2020, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, along with several other groups, published a position paper in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine.
Its recommendation &mdash; year-round standard time, because that&rsquo;s what would be &ldquo;best aligned with human circadian biology and has the potential to produce beneficial effects for public health and safety.&rdquo;
Which happens to be what the president advocated for in a post late last year.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/46FWipGu2bVt6ATKkxoYRW/13919ac0e2cc0f774ca80cdd573da7e0/Trump-tweet4.png" alt="trump tweet4" width="540px" />
Note the 100% flip-flop he&rsquo;s now performed. What changed?
Well, as we noted in our most recent DST writeup <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/deal-of-the-decade#4">last month</a>, there&rsquo;s a host of special interests that love the longer evenings &mdash; oil producers and refiners, convenience stores, golf courses, outdoor-equipment makers and so on.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />The president is old enough that he should remember the failed experiment with year-round DST conducted amid the Arab oil embargo in 1974. 
Everyone hated it because kids were going to school in the dark. Here&rsquo;s a clipping from The Washington Post in early January of that year&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/124KYGpjPAV4LgxrKPHued/41f3faa51ef49b5147e009d6619d1061/Post.png" alt="Post" width="540px" />
The Senate Commerce Committee held a hearing on the issue last Thursday. According to Politico, &ldquo;Chair Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said there&rsquo;s general consensus that the twice-annual changing of the clocks should end, but there&rsquo;s disagreement on whether to switch to daylight saving time or standard time.&rdquo;
To be continued&hellip;
<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: Trump&rsquo;s Third Term
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />&ldquo;Please stop promoting the video by Jim Rickards about sovereign wealth funds as explaining how Trump can have a third term,&rdquo; a reader implores.
&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve seen this before a few times. The video makes no effort to explain the connection. A third term is not even addressed in the video &hellip; unless someone on your staff is cynical enough to think all it would take is enormous popularity of Trump, and presenting the sovereign wealth case is all you need to say.
&ldquo;Let that person know, please, that y&rsquo;all can&rsquo;t assume most folks to be in agreement with that airy dismissal of our constitution or its intent. The 12th and 22nd amendments don&rsquo;t allow a third term, and a constitutional amendment, even with the wind of enormous popularity behind it, is unlikely to be ratified by 2028.
&ldquo;To be fair, what about an extra-constitutional presidency? It might be possible in a civil war environment. If that&rsquo;s the line of thought, then let&rsquo;s get your predictions in the right order, and state them clearly so we don&rsquo;t have to puzzle over what you might have in mind.&rdquo;
Dave responds: I confess I&rsquo;m not altogether certain which video you&rsquo;re talking about.
What I can tell you is that Jim recently performed a deep dive about an American sovereign wealth fund for readers of Rickards&rsquo; Insider Intel. It&rsquo;s important enough that it deserves a wider hearing &mdash; perhaps in the form of a special guest essay next week. Stay tuned.
As for a third Trump term, Jim has said for the last week in at least two of his publications that the 22nd Amendment specifies no one can be elected president more than twice.
Thus, the most likely path to a Trump third term would be J.D. Vance at the top of the ticket in 2028 and Trump as the running mate. Once inaugurated as president, Vance would resign and Trump would begin his third term.
Now here&rsquo;s a real mind-bender: Barack Obama could conceivably do the same thing.
<a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/co-president-obama">Jim even broached that possibility in this space last summer</a> when it became apparent Kamala Harris would be at the top of the 2024 ticket. Obviously it didn&rsquo;t play out that way &mdash; but who&rsquo;s to say it couldn&rsquo;t next time around?
A Trump-Obama 2028 showdown?
I&rsquo;ll cast my vote for the giant meteor&hellip;
Best regards,
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/signatures/dave-gonigam.png" alt="Dave Gonigam" width="250px" align="left" />
Dave Gonigam Managing editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

5 bullets hero Businessman balancing on a wire with sky clouds cityscape background

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Wall Street is betting on “less tariff action” — and potentially setting itself up for another severe downdraft when that bet doesn’t pay off.

Wall Street’s (Risky) Tariff Bet

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Forget tariffs for a moment. "Amidst the chaos, one asset class is showing remarkable resilience,” says Paradigm’s own James Altucher 

Avoiding the T-word

<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 Real Reason for the Tariff Pause
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> It was Jan. 7, 1993 &mdash; two weeks before Bill Clinton would be sworn in as the 42nd president.
His economic policy team was gathered in Little Rock. At some point during the six-hour meeting, Clinton burst into one of his frequent foulmouthed tirades: &ldquo;You mean to tell me that the success of my program and my re-election hinges on the Federal Reserve and a bunch of ****ing bond traders?&rdquo;
To a great degree, yes. Especially those bond traders.
In a 13-month stretch from October 1993&ndash;November 1994, the yield on a 10-year U.S. Treasury note climbed from 5.2% to over 8%. That was the bond market expressing zero confidence that Washington would ever get its fiscal house in order.
Clinton adviser James Carville: "I used to think that if there was reincarnation, I wanted to come back as the president or the pope or as a .400 baseball hitter. But now I would like to come back as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody."
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Fast-forward 32 years to yesterday&hellip; and another baby boomer president learned the lesson anew.
As you&rsquo;ve no doubt heard, Donald Trump put a 90-day pause on the &ldquo;reciprocal&rdquo; tariffs against every country but China. (The total tariff on Chinese imports to the United States is now 145%,)
The mainstream narrative is that after weeks of Trump and his advisers saying they didn&rsquo;t care about a falling stock market because the richest 10% of Americans own 88% of all stocks&hellip; Trump caved yesterday once the S&amp;P 500 fell 20% from its February peak.
But it wasn&rsquo;t the stock market freaking him out. It was the bond market.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Nobody paid attention &mdash; because it didn&rsquo;t feed the mainstream narrative &mdash; but Trump himself said as much yesterday.
&ldquo;The bond market is very tricky, I was watching it&hellip; people were getting a little queasy.&rdquo;
The MOVE Index is a measure of volatility in bonds &mdash; comparable to the VIX for stocks. Anytime the MOVE index surpasses 140, it typically signals some sort of imminent dislocation in financial markets.
Yesterday the MOVE Index hit 172.
That&rsquo;s happened only three times before &mdash; the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank two years ago&hellip; the collapse of Lehman Bros. in 2008&hellip; and the collapse of the hedge fund Long Term Capital Management in 1998.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Going by Wall Street&rsquo;s conventional wisdom, the bond market &ldquo;shouldn&rsquo;t&rdquo; have blown up yesterday.
A CNBC article republished at the NBC News website described the action as &ldquo;confounding.&rdquo;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/2lVm1noIZRkr1DQyiYBmyZ/a3e3af2fb7ae83baff948326fe4ede17/NBCNews.png" alt="CNBC News" width="540px" />
Usually amid a stock-market rout, hot money floods into Treasuries because of their perceived safety.
As the thinking goes, when you lend money to Uncle Sam, you know he&rsquo;ll pay you back. Even if he pays you back in depreciating fiat currency, that&rsquo;s a better bet at a time the stock market is going to hell.
That&rsquo;s exactly what happened during the global financial crisis in 2008. Anyone sitting on long-term Treasuries was able to ride out the crisis in style and make up for some of their stock losses. (A substantial position in long-term Treasuries saved your editor&rsquo;s bacon in 2008.)
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />But before the tariff reversal yesterday afternoon, both the stock market and the bond market were going to hell at the same time.
Reminder: Falling bond prices translate to rising bond yields. The yield on a 10-year Treasury note leaped from 3.99% as of last Friday&rsquo;s close to a peak of 4.51% yesterday.
In bond market terms, that&rsquo;s not just an earthquake. That&rsquo;s Fukushima &mdash; an earthquake, a tsunami and a nuclear reactor meltdown.
As the bond market fell apart, so did the Trump administration&rsquo;s hopes that its policies would drive down longer-term interest rates &mdash; making it easier for businesses and consumers to borrow and especially to lessen the burden of financing Uncle Sam&rsquo;s colossal debt load.
(We&rsquo;ll come back to the part about the government&rsquo;s debt load shortly&hellip;)
But forget the mainstream and forget conventional wisdom: The bond-market train wreck is &ldquo;confounding&rdquo; only to someone who hasn&rsquo;t been paying attention. As you&rsquo;ll see momentarily&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" />The World &ldquo;Nopes out&rdquo; of Treasuries
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> That the bond market was going haywire was beyond dispute. Exactly why is open to interpretation.
By some accounts, the &ldquo;basis trade&rdquo; was blowing up. The basis trade is something hedge funds do to exploit the tiny gaps between the price of U.S. Treasuries and the price of Treasury futures. These hedge funds employ enormous amounts of leverage to achieve outsized profits.
But a sudden jump in bond yields can wreck these basis trades in short order. As the thinking goes, some big player &mdash; maybe Ken Griffin&rsquo;s Citadel, maybe someone else &mdash; was in deep doo-doo and owed beaucoup bucks to someone else and didn&rsquo;t have the ready cash.
Perhaps that &ldquo;someone else&rdquo; also lacked ready cash to pay their counterparties&hellip; and so on, and so on. That&rsquo;s a recipe for &ldquo;contagion&rdquo; and a 2008-style disaster at warp speed.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> That&rsquo;s one possibility. The other is that foreign holders of Treasuries exercised a vote of no confidence in the U.S. government.
That&rsquo;s the possibility broached yesterday by Fox Business reporter Charlie Gasparino. &ldquo;And who are those people dumping our bonds? Japan, the biggest holder of bonds, was selling bonds,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s what I&rsquo;m getting from some very big money managers. China, maybe to some extent, but it was largely Japan and others.
&ldquo;If you have a mass sale of bonds, that means people are losing confidence in the U.S. economy, on the ability to do deals with us; and from what I understand, this is what forced the hand of this 90-day reprieve.&rdquo;
We&rsquo;ll take Gasparino&rsquo;s hypothesis one step further.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />If it was foreigners dumping Treasuries, that&rsquo;s because foreigners see the tariffs as a &ldquo;last straw&rdquo; piled on top of an enormous haystack that&rsquo;s been accumulating for years.
Begin with the sheer size of the national debt &mdash; $36.2 trillion.
That&rsquo;s 120% the size of America&rsquo;s annual economic output&ndash; far beyond the &ldquo;point of no return&rdquo; when the scale of the debt chokes off any prospect of meaningful economic growth in the future. Weak economic growth translates to weak tax revenue, which only makes the debt load worse and worse.
Meanwhile, the efforts of the DOGE boys have yet to put a significant dent in this chart &mdash; which we can&rsquo;t share often enough. Since 2020, federal spending has gone onto a permanently higher trajectory. We&rsquo;re not going back to some sort of pre-pandemic &ldquo;normal.&rdquo;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1hahbVFl8Sccb7v2vMMRvg/87c0453ed1fdd25cc06ddefaad7eab7c/5_Bullets_Chart_091124.png" alt="no going back to normal" width="540px" />
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Beyond the sheer size of the debt, there&rsquo;s the fact U.S. Treasuries have become a weapon of economic warfare.
This too we can&rsquo;t say often enough: The Biden administration&rsquo;s unprecedented sanctions on Russia &mdash; freezing the Russian central bank&rsquo;s Treasuries &mdash; undermined foreigners&rsquo; confidence in Treasuries as a &ldquo;safe&rdquo; asset.
And now that the Trump administration is using tariffs not as a way to &ldquo;level the playing field&rdquo; with trading partners but rather to get concessions on everything from fentanyl to migrants to punishing the buyers of Venezuelan oil&hellip;&nbsp;
&hellip; is it any wonder a critical mass of foreigners might be &ldquo;noping out&rdquo; of U.S. Treasuries for good?
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> It&rsquo;s no coincidence that as stocks and bonds both sold off yesterday, the real &ldquo;safe haven&rdquo; was gold.
Gold soared over $100 in a day &mdash; something keen observers of the precious metals markets can&rsquo;t recall happening before. Gold was where the hot money was flowing.
Year-to-date, gold is up 18% while the S&amp;P 500 is down 10% and long-term Treasuries are flat after this week&rsquo;s sell-off. (I ditched my own long-term Treasuries last year and I don&rsquo;t expect to buy them again until at least the 2050s, assuming I live that long.)
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/iUcbY3dhbuOPPdPQJCMHU/50c19cd0ae4ea4a8a8757fc108c12830/5Bullets_Chart_TheNewSafeHaven_041025.png" alt="the new safe haven" width="540px" />
Yes, gold is back near all-time highs this morning at $3,148 &mdash; up another $66 on the day! And while it might pull back to $2,800&ndash;2,900 during this spring and early summer, the long-term path is still much, much higher.
If you already have 10% of your portfolio allocated to gold, as Paradigm&rsquo;s macro maven Jim Rickards has long recommended, good on you.
If not, don&rsquo;t be intimidated by the all-time high. Just dollar-cost average: Buy a little bit at a time, every week or every month, until you get to your 10%.
Because like it or not, Treasuries just aren&rsquo;t the safe haven they used to be&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" />The Reversal After Reversal Day
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />After ripping 9.3% higher on the day yesterday, the stock market is down 3.2% as we write today. Good times.
The S&amp;P 500 rests at 5,285, down 6.5% from where it stood before the &ldquo;Liberation Day&rdquo; announcement eight days ago. The Dow&rsquo;s losses on the day are narrower, the Nasdaq&rsquo;s steeper.
Despite yesterday&rsquo;s monster rally, the biggest since the 2008 financial crisis, &ldquo;not much has changed,&rdquo; ventures Paradigm chart hound Greg Guenthner.
The major U.S. indexes &ldquo;remain below their respective 200-day moving averages. The tariff situation has evolved, but it hasn&rsquo;t gone away (and won&rsquo;t anytime soon). Volatility remains elevated.
&ldquo;Taking all this into account, I do not believe this market will sprint back to new highs right away.&rdquo;
That doesn&rsquo;t necessarily mean a crash &mdash; but it does likely mean a lot of sideways chop.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Elsewhere, crude is back below $60. Yesterday it traded as low as $55 and as high as $62.50. 
The White House no doubt welcomes lower oil prices. But if they get much lower than this, some wells will cease to be profitable and their operators will cap them. Which would have the effect of constraining supply and pushing prices back higher.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />As it happens, a downtrend in energy prices helped bring the official inflation number to its lowest in six months.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics says inflation is now running 2.4% year-over-year. On the one hand, that&rsquo;s down sharply from 3.0% only two months earlier. On the other hand, it&rsquo;s no better than it was last fall.
It helped that gasoline prices tumbled 6.3% between February and March. Overall energy costs &mdash; fuel, heat, electricity &mdash; fell 2.4%.
As we wrap up the day&rsquo;s market action, let&rsquo;s not forget silver is still a bargain relative to gold at $31.11. The gold price is still 100x higher as it&rsquo;s been since late last week. The only other time that&rsquo;s been the case was during the market meltdown of 2020.
Bitcoin hovers around $80,000.
<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" />AI Needs Electricity (No Way! Really?)
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Took long enough: The International Energy Agency has issued a report saying AI will place extreme demands on power grids worldwide, and especially in the United States.
We&rsquo;ve been on the case in these virtual pages since early 2024: The U.S. power grid was <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/the-monster-that-ate-the-power-grid-ai">already in rough shape</a> before AI datacenters started growing like topsy.
Now the IEA &mdash; an information clearinghouse for 31 member governments including all of North America and much of Europe &mdash; is finally getting around to acknowledging that &ldquo;the rise of AI has huge implications for energy.&rdquo;
A few interesting tidbits emerge in its new AI report: America will capture the biggest share of growing AI power demand. &ldquo;By the end of the decade,&rdquo; says a Wall Street Journal summary, &ldquo;the country is expected to consume more electricity for AI-driven data processing than for the production of aluminium, steel, cement and chemicals combined&hellip;&rdquo;
Investment implications? &ldquo;To meet rising demand, a diverse mix of energy sources will be tapped,&rdquo; the Journal continues. &ldquo;Renewables and natural gas are expected to play a leading role.&rdquo;
The IEA is all aboard the climate-change train so of course it&rsquo;s going to tout renewables. But it&rsquo;s onto something with natural gas: Gas is the only way to quickly spin up added capacity. Nuclear is viable, yes &mdash; but construction is slow and the industry needs juice now.
<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="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Before we go, an oldie but goodie&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/5eLj2HZsM2JcfeqrYwgJSA/9a77f6e6b57146ef9c6d0d75ae713716/Meme-4-10.png" alt="meme" width="540px" />
Best regards,
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/signatures/dave-gonigam.png" alt="Dave Gonigam" width="250px" align="left" />
Dave Gonigam Managing editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

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Going by Wall Street’s conventional wisdom, the bond market “shouldn’t” have blown up Wednesday. 