Good morning and welcome back to another meet. Kevin Report We are coming to you from a beautiful boardroom and I am anything but bored because we have plenty of beautiful things to talk about today. All right, so let's get started first thing: I Want to look at five year break evens and down at 236 pretty much in line with yesterday. Financial Conditions Index Goldman Sachs Sitting at 99.72 also roughly in line with our figures.

Yesterday today, we are looking at the 10-year The 10-year Treasury Uh, much like yesterday at a pretty low levels levels that we haven't seen this slow in over six months. we're at 3.281 This is quite substantially low. Uh, now that should help us see a reduction in some real estate pricing which would be fantastic or uh, sorry, a reduction in some mortgage rates for Real Estate which could be that, uh, at the beginning of that floor being created under real estate prices Have regularly been saying that my goal is once the 10-year treasury Falls below about 2.75 It's probably a sign that we're getting close to buy time I Think we are getting closer to that buy time? Uh, however, I Still think we have a single risk factor I mean I Suppose we have two risk factors left. One big factor left is are we going to see a surge in inventory? So far, that has not been the case though generally inventory does not surge until April and May So TBD And so far we are not yet seeing that.

And then of course would inflation end up proving to be sticky, leading rates to go right back up again? we'll see, hopefully not. It seems like the market is much more concerned today with recessionary woes than uh, than basically, uh, inflation sticking around for too much longer. Which is a fantastic thing on one hand, because we know that the one thing holding this Federal Reserve back is inflation. That's it.

There would be no fat hiking cycle if there were no inflation. and I Think that is extremely important to remember as we go through the videos of the day. No inflation means no Fed rate hikes. Simple.

It also means no high rates. All right, let's go ahead and hit some uh, some of the topics that we have to talk about today. Uh, we've got a few. We've got both politics and uh, and of course, uh, multiple different uh topics on the actual economy.

So we'll go ahead and sort of mix these up a little bit and do these in various different ways. Uh, first what I'm going to do is I will talk about Ukraine Then we'll talk about the JP Morgan recession and then we'll talk about uh Trump And then we'll get into the uh, uh, Supply uh, chain the new supply chain issue. This is kind of an interesting one, so we'll talk about that in a moment. Uh, hopefully everything sounds and looks okay.

I Set up a little mobile Studio Here we've got two beautiful lights. We've got a beautiful camera that's a little wobbly right now. We've got a beautiful microphone and a beautiful cup of coffee that I got for free at the front desk. They were so nice because the coffee shop isn't even open yet.

Um, yes, yes. All right. Very well. That's about my first sip of coffee this morning too.

I'm kind of dying on the inside. All right folks, let's get started. Uh, okay. First, we'll start with Russia Russia Russia Standby stand by for Russia Russia Russia Russia Russia Okay, where are ya here we go? It's got him all right.

Well folks, the stakes are rising again in Russia. Not only are passports are now being confiscated from officials within Russia to prevent defections as reported by the Financial Times, this is clearly a sign that at least some within the Russian uh leadership are worried that underlings might decide. You know what? I've had enough. it's time to leave.

Apparently there is so much a fear by the way of not just affections, but potential sabotage within the actual country that now there is a report circulating by the Independent that take a look at this. Putin is potentially hiding. Uh, that is the wrong screen. There we go.

Hold on. There we go. That's the screen I Want and we're gonna do it. No, no one of these buttons will work.

Dang it. Hold on. There is a way to do this. Uh uh darn that looks better.

Can I make it? Yeah, no. I can't figure out which button. Ah I got it. Sorry for that delay there.

Uh, Okay, there there we go look at that. The Independent is now reporting that the Kremlin is literally creating a replica offices to help avoid the potential assassination of Vladimir Putin. But this segment is not only going to be about Russia freaking out, it is also about Ukraine and the suggestion they make to being willing to negotiate again, but also the threat of World War III. So a lot to cover.

First, take a look at this. Vladimir Putin apparently installs perfect replicas of his Kremlin office to avoid assassination attempts. A former bodyguard of the Russian President as said that Russian President or sorry that former Bodyguard by the way, a 35 year old served as an engineer in the federal guard Service uh, the presidential Communications unit and said he has fled Russia over the war in Ukraine So he's already gone and now he's leaking intelligence essentially. although is it still considered a leak if you're not an Insider But anyway, apparently leaking Insight that Vladimir Putin has perfect replicas of his office.

He's installed these replicas in order to confuse foreign intelligence. so there are no assassination attempts or I suppose no successful assassination attempts. This is the first attempt to confuse a foreign intelligence so that there are no assassin attempt assassination attempts. Uh, this individual told uh.

opposition groups I Highly doubt that by the way. I Highly doubt this is the first attempt to confuse foreign intelligence. Maybe this is just the one they were willing to quote-unquote leak I have found that most things in politics that get leaked by the way are almost intentionally leaked because that way you could say oh uh origin to me to reveal that but it still gets revealed anyway. Oh no, our uh uh one tool to disguise the president has been leaked.

oh no, whatever will we do but it is being used used at least over here as as a way of looking at potential some uh anti-russian propaganda to say the the Russians are losing it. uh after all I mean they did arrest the Uh or one of the writers for the Wall Street Journal uh the day after he published a piece talking about how the Russian economy was starting to fail, that they're running out of money and not only are they running out of money, but that their Val the currency. their currency has been devalued by over 20 percent. And get this in a report just yesterday by the Financial Times, we find that Russia has maybe two to six months left of parts for their aircraft.

Now that's scary. and I'm not just talking about military aircraft I'm talking about commercial aircraft see commercial aircraft which 97 of the aircraft flying in Russia used by Russian companies like Aeroflot 97 of them are using Western Machinery In other words, Western aircraft. Whether those are Brazilian Uh, European or American Airbus Boeing Embraer Whatever. These companies provide software updates and parts for planes.

and let me tell you, as a jet owner, there is nothing that needs more parts and more maintenance and more updates and more manuals than a freaking jet. It's really expensive and if you stop maintaining the darn thing, the birds start becoming inoperable. Not because they can't fly, but because you shouldn't fly them because so much crap is wrong with them. So then you just park them at a hanger and you start having less planes that you can actually fly.

In fact, there are these classifications for Russian planes. These classifications actually for all planes for inspections that planes have to undergo and we have some stats on Uh the Russian numbers. The Uh: there is a C check. A C check is to be conducted every two years.

It is a structural check of the plane. There are 159 Boeing and airbuses due for sea checks in 2020. Three, there is a Delta check that is due every 10 years. It is a major inspection.

It is probably the largest inspection for a plane every 10 years. It basically goes through every piece of the plane to check for corrosion and Uh, there are 85 planes in Russia with D checks do recently in December A CEO of the Aeroflot Russian Airlines Pjsc said they have two to six months of Parts left and they're slowly just taking planes out of service. So Russia is literally crumbling from the inside out as this award is progressing. But not only uh, do we have the uh, this, uh, this Russian crumbling, but of course we have more lashing out by Vladimir Putin suggesting that.

well, uh, the U.S not supported the revolution in Ukraine in 2014. we wouldn't be in this situation. So in other words, this Harkens all the way back to the days of the Obama Administration and when Russia first invaded Crimea Now this starts scratching, leading us to want to at least scratch our heads about the potential nuclear perils that we now face. We're going to talk about this in just a moment.

But first, we have to remember that: wait a second. Wait a second. What is Ukraine suggesting right now Ukraine is suggesting hey, you know what? We are willing to negotiate with Russia but we're only willing to negotiate with Russia once again. Uh, which we have not negotiated or attempted to negotiate with Russia since last April It has literally been a year since they have tried to negotiate with Russia, which that's frustrating because it suggests there's literally no even attempt at peace talks right now.

Which is scary because as there are no attempts of peace talks World War III and a nuclear World War III is coming closer and closer and closer. It's absolutely ridiculous. So what is Ukraine saying right now? Well Ukraine is saying hey, hey hey we will gladly negotiate with Russia right after we take you a Crimea back Yes, I Kid you not, That is what Ukraine said today from Kiev military officials Kiev However, you want to say it today said we will gladly negotiate with Russia after we take Ukraine or Crimea back. Well come on folks, that is a big ask right there.

First of all, not not necessarily a big asking negotiations. I mean that certainly could be considered a big asking negotiations, but you're basically saying we're going to take all the 10 tanks we have, they have more I'm being facetious because we're waiting for more tanks to arrive from Poland and Germany and they're arriving very slowly in the United Kingdom We're going to take these tanks we have. We're going to go try to pull out through Cribena to take it back as if Russia is not going to be able to substantially fight back in. Crimea it is a very big ask to say oh, we'll be willing to negotiate as soon as we take.

Crimea I Mean hey, you know what? Look, if they could take Crimea back and then they can negotiate with Russia and Russia takes over or Russia gives up rather and negotiates fine, then you were right. I Just think you've set a very, very high bar to being willing to negotiate again. and unfortunately, that leads us down the path of potentially nuclear warfare. which we're going to talk about that in Finland in just a moment.

But I'd like to remind you of this chart right here: What country provides the most Aid to Ukraine Is it the Nots country of the European Union given that is a union of many different countries or is it the United States Oh, that's right. it's the United States providing over 78. We're probably well over 80 billion dollars now in either humanitarian direct Financial or military aid to Ukraine which is more than twice what the European Union has provided. Here are some of the examples of the Arsenal that we have provided: Patriot Missiles javelins Stinger Missiles anti-aircraft missiles, howitzers, explosive drones Phoenix ghost drones Bradley's uh Harpoon coastal defense systems ground support Vehicles including 1700 Humvees This is from the Council of Foreign relations.

This is a lot of spending now. In Fairness: As a percentage of GDP, the country's most near to the conflict are investing the most into this Uh that includes Estonia Latvia Lithuania and Poland uh In Fairness. We want to mention that now, what about this threat of nuclear warfare And what does all of it have to do with potentially uh, well, um, the rise of Finland Finland after all just joined NATO Uh, that's a little bit of a oopsy-doopsies because we are basically telling Putin hey, not only are we unwilling to negotiate with you, but we don't really care if we have to confront nuclear Peril As you potentially move more nuclear weapons into Belarus you've already abandoned the start treaty. We're going back to the Cold War era.

We're going back to the Cuban Missile Crisis. We're basically you are now pointing strategic nuclear weapons from Belarus potentially at Poland Okay, it's a problem. It's a risk and a danger. Not only that, but look at this.

here's a piece right here: Finland joins NATO Finland officially becomes the 31st a member of the Uh North Atlantic Treaty Organization on Tuesday marking a major shift in the security landscape in Northeastern Europe that adds some 830 miles to the alliance uh front with Russia. Now the problem with this is now. uh, we have Russia even more pissed suggesting that they're potentially going to scale up forces near Finland if Finland ends up putting Ornado ends up putting any troops and equipment on the border of Russia Now remember this: you can take a train. A very short train from Saint Petersburg to Finland youth circuiting NATO troops put on the edge of Finland Looking into Russia Russia is going to feel pretty dang threatened.

This is one of the reasons they've started moving nuclear weapons, strategic weapons into Belarus as an attempt to try to deter exactly this type of NATO expansion. Well, the NATO expansion has happened anyway. Some quotes here from data or from rather Russia's Deputy Foreign minister. We will strengthen our military capabilities in the west and North West if members of NATO deploy forces and Equipment unfinished territory.

Yeah, I don't even know what accent that is. Anyway, this is this is exactly the reason why you need to get life insurance in as little as five minutes. Paid promotion prior to Tuesday Russia shared about a 755 miles of land border with five NATO members. Finland's Ascension more than doubles the border with Russia NATO's border with Russia has now been doubled.

Think about that. Obviously, this is deemed to be good for a Finland Uh. Remember that an attack on one is an attack on all. We had a scare once as a stray missile accidentally fell in the Polish territory and Article 4 was invoked uh to evaluate whether or not this was actually a violation of potentially Article Five The Finnish Defense Force also operates weapon systems like other NATO members, including F-18 fighter jets, German designed leopard battle tanks, K-9 howitzers amongst other weapons.

There are obviously three ways: Finland benefits here: Reserve Forces Tech access and artillery forces artillery forces being the some of the largest in Europe over in Finland with some 1500 artillery weapons uh sitting in Finland Finland also has about 900 000 reservists, they can muster up wartime strength of about 200 000 standing troops. The mindset here is that Sweden is obviously a next to join Uh, that is Uh. Then of course going to lead to thoughts that Turkey and Hungary might potentially end up joining Uh. This kind of expansion is likely to continue pushing the following right here, which we talk about via the Foreign Affairs article confronting the Nuclear Peril I'm not going to go through this entire piece because part of it they talk about implementing Global fail-saves to prevent catastrophe I'm saying that up front because the argument of this article is the reason we should be worried about Russian expansion of their desire to Uh continue to promote Uh, the deployment of Uh or should I say the the positioning of nuclear weapons is the potential for an accident? look: Vladimir Putin has already announced that short-range tactical nukes are going to Belarus China is expanding its nuclear weapons program on time and keep in mind Russia's got like 5 900 Warheads Uh, that might be as much as 6 000 Now the United States has maybe around five thousand.

Four hundred Five thousand Five hundred. So Russia technically is slightly more than ours. I I Think ours are probably of better quality and we have probably many more functional, but China only has 300. But all of this is urging a lot of countries to expand the proliferation of nukes not reduce.

We're supposed to be under nuclear non-proliferation agreements, which means non-expansion agreements. We won't build more nukes. Well, now everybody's like, well, Russia is playing with their nukes so we want to play with our nukes as well. This is obviously a problem, especially since conversations between Moscow and Russia are basically at zero.

Dialogue is basically Frozen. That's a problem. It's a problem because wait a minute. Wait a minute.

We're supposed to be trying to implement diplomacy, not just fighting to try to end this war. Well, so far, there's basically no diplomacy. That's a fancy word by the way, for talking your way out of a crisis. There's a growing danger of that nuclear weapons could be used based on faulty judgment, false warnings of attack, or other miscalculation, aided by cyber attacks, and this is a global threat.

Foreign Affairs Magazine is basically telling us the reason every American and every individual in the world should be nervous about the expansion and proliferation of nuclear weapons is not necessarily because we actually think Putin is going to have the balls to use a nuclear weapon, or that Xi Jinping is going to do it or that Biden is going to do it. It's actually that what if somebody somehow cyber attacks and somehow impersonates uh, a leader through artificial intelligence uh, you know, generated video generated voice combined with cyber attacks to potentially lead uh, a Minutemen who are are on standby to launch nuclear weapons to essentially launch nuclear weapons? Okay, that is the fear. That is why Foreign Affairs is talking about figuring out how can we have fail safes to prevent this kind of disaster. This is bad.

It's very, very bad. Okay, we do not want uh, this sort of expansion because remember the available strategies to reduce the nuclear threat uh have been built since the Cuban Missile Crisis, but unfortunately, those continue to close and it becomes hard to imagine says Foreign Affairs magazine. Then a new Treaty of nuclear arms can be negotiated between the United, States and Russia. Unrestricted nuclear competition between Washington and Moscow will now overlap not only with China's expanding nuclear Arsenal, but growing threats from North, Korea and Iran and also be compounded by those of India and Pakistan both also nuclear armed countries to advance their capabilities.

even while some U.S allies consider whether to acquire their own. Remember, a lot of countries in Europe say that they don't want nukes anymore, but now all of a sudden maybe people want nukes. It's a problem. It's a big problem, and if the world is going to survive, every nuclear-armed country has to work to strengthen its defenses against those cyber threats we talked about.

The problem is what if we don't and what if that Cyber attack happens? Listen to this. A number of factors have contributed to heightened nuclear blunder risks, including faster and more powerful Delivery Systems In other words, these these missiles can fly faster than ever before the rise of cyber threats and the dependence on launch systems and digital technologies that might be dated as well as even if we have Advanced Digital Technologies uh for launch systems, What if the other countries don't it's a disaster. The Biden Administration has given a priority to nuclear security, committing to a Fail-Safe review in October of 2022. But what about the other countries? The question: What's everybody else going to do? But again, folks, it's not just this.

let's hop on over to what do we have here? Uh, we have Xi Jinping meeting with a an annual macaron of France and there's this idea that maybe Emmanuel Macron who's landed with this is the French President who's landed in Beijing Hopefully he doesn't talk about social security uh or the retirement age going up in Beijing He might cause some riots, but it might be too soon to joke about. But anyway, in Beijing he's landed to talk to Xi Jinping There's this idea that Macron, it might be a willing to talk to Xi Jinping about uh, the cooperation with Russia uh and maybe urge Xi Jinping to make it clear that China is not going to supply lethal weapons to Russia uh I I Don't know if he hasn't realized this yet, but it's too late for that. China has already been delivering lethal weapons to Russia so it's too late to urge China not to do that. I I'm unclear if China has or if the French president has missed that boat.

Uh, but anyway, this shows you some of the concerns around Rising threats not only around nuclear war, but also around the rising threat that the prices for the programs on Building Your wealth may be going up. Well, actually will be going up on April 12th. Maybe going up soon very soon. In your case, that is on the 12th.

We'll be seeing the prices for the programs on Building Your Wealth going up again. You can now use Buy Now, Pay Later to join them. You can go to meet Kevin.com to see all about them. Uh, you can also scroll down to see my Affiliates or sponsors including short form or life insurance or free stocks.

And of course you can use Buy Now Pay Later Now to join the Programs by Building Growth. Right now, we are about about 33 percent of individuals who are signing up are using uh Buy Now Pay Later to sign up Uh for the Programs on Building Growth's lifetime Access a link down below and we'd love to see you there. But of course this threat of a nuclear conflict is, uh, very concerning. I Personally believe that we, you know I I Hate to say this because I don't want to sound political, but let me just put it this way.

there is one person who is making it absolutely clear that we need to do everything in our power to negotiate with Putin and Zielinski as soon as possible And like him or not, that person's name is Donald Trump that person is I'm not saying I would vote for them in the next election I'm just simply saying they are the ones that that person is pounding the table begging for negotiation. And so far, what do we have? China Pretending to negotiate. Macron's not going to get anything done Biden's not doing anything. All we're doing is sending more money and more weapons to Ukraine and uh, basically joining more people into uh into NATO while at the same time Putin's worry about getting assassinated in his own Kremlin So he's making replica offices and sending more nukes to various different areas like Belarus To me, that's scary I Wish we had more people waking up to the real threat of World War III and waking up and demanding a negotiated settlement as soon as possible.

What's the point of holding on to every inch of your damn land? if it is now a Badland A Wasteland Leveled worthless A Chernobyl There's no point. give up some of it. negotiate something. Give Russia a buffer End The death and destruction.

Land is not worth people dying, especially if that land is going to be dead devastated. Anyway, it's stupid. It needs to end anyway. that's my take on this Ukrainian disaster.

All right. Next up, let's take a listen a little bit here. Uh, getting too angry here. Let's get a take a listen over here to what potentially she and Bishi stand by foreign stages of ringing out some of the effects of of all that easy money and we know what happens when you stay at zero middle middle stage not not end.

And this is could be the tougher part ahead. But do you think this inflation is already here? Yes, Well, this inflation's happening. but this inflation's happening because the economy is already slowed down a lot and we're probably on the verge of at least a small recession. So if inflation is still above the Fed's target, if it's two and a half, three percent, ah, why would you pinwheel? during a weak economy, you very much still have an inflation problem, we argue.

Andrew What do you think it's still five percent? I Think it's five-ish maybe? High Force Yeah, right this moment to where down from nine headed to probably below just so slightly below three. but in wait is that it? I Think in 2024, you'll see below three. but I think by late this year, early next year we will be in a smaller session. Smile.

Uh, below average. I Do think the labor market holds up relatively well compared to Pastor sessions it lags, it will lag a little longer than usual and the Damage will be a little less than usual the labor market. But we're already seeing, especially with the credit crunch that has happened with the banks that were just talked about. Then we've seen that the Feds shouldn't raise any more then, so that should be good that I Well, No.

I See, that's the thing. I Think that's right. Yeah, and they're wrong. It's not a mistake if it's being done deliberately and I think we're at the stage where the FED knows that a small recession is probably necessary.

What does that mean for stocks, Then it's not good. It's it's a big Challenge and we are cautious and there are spots that we you know we'd recommend. Healthcare Um, the communication sector. We thought Banks would be a good place for this year, but now they're costing.

Why is it if it's a deliberate move that makes sense for the FED to slow things out, Why do they still need to slow things down? If if we're going to below three percent anyway, why would you still hurt demand If you already basically accomplished, the target of inflation is two or two, two and a half percent and we're not making a very good case for for what the the FED bases its decisions on I Think the FED bases its decisions on what policies necessary to hit that Target and to hit that Target within a reasonable amount of time and inflation being this high for for two years now, even though it's on its way down on its own, it's on its way down. Even if the FED doesn't move from terribly high levels, it's on its way down above its Target And I Believe the the leg is really just recession driven, so that's a cyclical decline in inflation. Just like you're seeing a cyclical decline in interest rates. It's not clear what inflation is going to be over the next several years or even real interest rates over the next several years.

So estimates: earnings estimates for 2023 are now down significantly. but for 2024, they're still pretty high up 12. You think those have to come down. Those definitely have to come down.

And that's the usual case. Earnings estimates have been grinding downward. I Think during the earnings season, that's a that will start in the next couple of weeks. banks will take down their their or guidance for the year given that their cost of capital, their deposits, their debt, their cost of equity, but especially the cost of deposits has just surged.

Uh, they will take down their earnings estimates. There is a credit crunch that will affect things like investment spending, even inventory, greater inventory liquidation. This is why I Think a smaller session on the good side of the economy is in progress a little bit more to go. It will relieve inflation, but it leaves the question what will service and wage inflation be over the next several years productivity's been poor.

It suggests the inflation problem still with us, right? David Bianco Thank you My pleasure, Thank you coming up the death. Um interesting. Uh, it looked like uh, there was a little bit choppy. Uh, hopefully the audio was okay.

on the CNBC part. It doesn't seem like my part is choppy, which I think is very interesting. Uh, but maybe if somebody can give me a little bit of comment there, it looks like uh, just looking at it. the CNBC part was choppy.

Uh, but again, looks like the audio was okay for it. But anyway. um I might have to move to a different area. Even though I'm plugged into Ethernet, you would think it would be okay.

but uh, it is not all right. So um, interesting comment there on potentially a shallow uh recession. I mean that's that's not I mean nothing terribly groundbreaking there in that uh CNBC chat there I wonder if I can lower the quality on CNBC Now Odd. Okay, all right.

so uh. next topic that we're going to talk about as I'd like to talk about the JP Morgan uh argument of recession so we'll close this. um I'll leave that there for a moment. Okay, good.

so uh. audio I'm hoping is okay. Hopefully everything sounds okay if somebody could give me a heads up, but that would be nice. but I am just going to continue by making the assumption that everything is fine.

Let's do this. a little adjustment here. A good old traveling makes a studio a little bit more entertaining. Audio is great.

Okay, fantastic. Thank you very much. Okay next. JP Morgan This This should be a fun one.

Actually, this should be a very, very entertaining piece. All right here we go: No yeah, I Ethernet it in I Actually would I refuse to use Wi-Fi So I find I just walk around the hotel until I find ethernet I Technically have a hundred up and 100 down right now, but um yeah, that CNBC stream was not. that. That throughput was not very good, but it looks like this is okay so we'll stick with this.

Okay, all right here we go. Let's pull this. Oh yeah, here it Is it gonna be this one? No. this one.

this one. Okay, good, true. Well folks, the JP Morgan recession argument is out. They are going to give us a breakdown of whether they think this Federal Reserve pivot is going to be good for stocks or bad for stocks.

They are going to compare to history to show us how historically have Federal Reserve pivots fared for stocks. Have they been good? Have they been bad? Are there different types of pivots? hint yes and what kind of pivot could we be facing Before we talk about the JP Morgan analysis on a pivot though, I have to remind you of something important and that is Costco What has Kevin been banging the table on for? well, basically all year and basically the last six months Kevin has been banging the table about this idea that we are going to see a massive slowdown in Staples and that stocks that have performed very well with a the consumer staple stocks that have performed very well the McDonald's the Costcos. The Johnson and Johnson are likely to suffer as their sales will likely plummet and their margins will get squeezed. Well folks, it has finally happened.

These Costco failure has begun and this is not to bag on. Costco. Costco is a phenomenal company. They have brilliantly figured out how to make money and I mean brilliantly figured out how to make money.

They know they don't make money off of selling food. In fact, if you go to some of their earning statements, that's an older one finding. Uh, let me see here. if we go to an earning statement from Costco an older one that I have handy here.

what do we find? We find that the vast majority of their bottom line comes from membership revenues. They make about 10 on the crap they sell you and about 98 on the memberships that they have. Which when you then look at the bottom line: the net income uh, before taxes for Costco uh in Feb and for the 12 weeks ending Feb 12 2023 was sitting at about one uh, 0.98 billion dollars of that about a billion. So more than half came from membership revenues because the margins are so high on the membership revenues.

So it's it. Shouldn't be surprising that Costco has brilliantly figured out how to make money off of you. It is not on the stuff, it is on the membership. That is what makes this company wildly profitable.

It is just like McDonald's McDonald's doesn't actually make the bulk of their money on selling you McNuggets They make the bulk of their money by selling McDonald's owners known as franchisors. McNuggets That's how McDonald's makes most of their money substantially. Unfortunately, these flight to safety staple stocks are getting hit and I Want to start with this by telling you that in my opinion this is where Starks get hit the worst and the hardest before I tell you about the JP Morgan piece which led to JB Morgan piece on the FED pivot is mind-blowing But what just happened? Take a look at this: Costco sales once you take out a foreign exchange and gas benefits E-commerce sales in the last five weeks, folks. Negative: 12.7 That is.

if you now take inflation off of that, they're down like 20 on E-commerce But then again, E-commerce for Costco. Come on. Okay, fine. Let's ignore E-commerce Well, now you're down 1.5 percent in the US down 2.4 in Canada Add inflation in.

Guess what? You're down about 10 10 percent inflation adjusted in real terms in the last five weeks, in Canada in the last 31 weeks or Canada and the U.S in the last 31 weeks, you're also on a real basis that is inflation-adjusted Basis Negative: If you don't provide uh, the uh the uh adjustment for foreign exchange and gas. What we find is that the five weeks ending April 2nd saw an increase of only half of a percent from last year. They're basically flat. There is no growth left at Costco.

Even with inflation, there is no growth left. So what gets hit next? What gets hit next is nothing other than margin. That's the way it works. Margin gets hit next now.

Beyond This We need to talk about this JPMorgan recession piece because it's Huge! JP Morgan is basically telling you as soon as possible you should Hedge for the FED pivot that is approaching Because guess what? It is a problem and you should be prepared for the FED pivot. But wait a minute. What? Fed pivot? Because Kevin Aren't there different types of fed pivots? Yes! And in this segment, we are going to talk about those particular pieces now. I Want to be very, very clear? We have to remember that there is a 69 off coupon code for the programs on Building your wealth linked down below.

That makes me very happy when you check it out because it is what enables me to come back every single day. And it is what makes me frantically look for Content updates every single day and quality information like this. So if you like what you're about to hear, think about how you can get an expansion of this lifetime access to not just the lectures on Building Your World, but the course member live streams linked down below and you're guaranteed the best price going for it. So what do we have here? Well, we have Market implied Fed rate expectations showing the market is expecting a pivot to be delivered over the next two to three meetings by the Federal Reserve Looking at market performance around previous Fed: Cuts suggests that near-term upside is limited if Market implied timing is correct post: Cuts Markets have sold off strong if Cuts were delivered ahead of recessions, while markets performed well if Cuts were delivered preemptively and managed to re-accelerate growth.

From today's point of view, it's hard to construct a sustainable bull case. and further downside appears more likely. we believe the case for putting on hedges in this juncture is very strong, especially if these are funded by shorting upside that's called selling calls by the way. Thus, what you learn about in the stocks and site Group by the way.

thus reflecting the asymmetrical risk we see in near-term equity markets. Okay, fantastic. Now what does this mean? Okay, let me try to simplify this very quickly. So here's what this means: There are two different types of pivots and this is very important to understand because I have been pounding the table over the FED pivot for the last six months and I've been yelling at this idea about there's a difference between the FED pivot and the FED U-turn and today, folks JP Morgan Finally, Finally, finally, somebody else acknowledged that there are two different types of pivots.

I Am so grateful that finally, somebody has acknowledged that there is a different type of pivot. Because what I keep seeing on YouTube is this moronic chart that doesn't show you that there are two types of pivots. This is the only chart you see. This is the only chart it shows Fed pivot and then a big minus sign.

But they forget the U-turn pivots. And so I've obviously made many videos talking about how the u-turns are blatant. u-turns are actually where these little X's are. These green x's and the u-turns tend to mark a bottom in stocks.

which means stocks rally after the u-turn So what's the difference between a pivot and a U-turn Well, thank the Lord Finally somebody, and this somebody being JP Morgan has put together a phenomenal piece to explain it to us. now. I'm going to read their piece first to you after I read their piece to you I am going to translate it to English but I think both of them are very important. Okay, so we believe the upcoming Fed meeting on May 3rd or on June 14th could turn out to be a pivotal moment for the near-term direction of markets.

So in other words, expect an inflection point coming to markets very, very soon. This is going to be important. Okay, Market implied rates are showing a 45 probability of rate hikes or an 11 basis point. Uh hike for May Okay, we can't hike by 11 BP But when they say that that's just what what the average is right? So they're basically saying 45 percent times 0.25 is about 11.

that's roughly what they're trying to say here. Okay, the cuts from July onward would then occur with the market pricing in 2.6 cuts by the year end. JP Morgan Thinks there's going to be a hike of 25 basis points in May before the potential pivot starting as soon as June or July JP Morgan is expecting 200 000 jobs in the jobs report tomorrow. Fine, that doesn't matter so much now.

Powell has indicated in March a dove a shift would not be a reflection of conviction around inflation Dynamics but a recognition that tighter credit conditions could contribute to slowing growth. So I wrote on this I'm torn on that I actually do not think the Federal Reserve will pivot at all ever until inflation is convincingly on the path down. That is very clear to me. It's very clear to me because the Federal Reserve is a necessitating that inflation expectations remain low.

By the way. Unemployment claims. Uh, just coming out now. Unemployment claims coming in at 228.

That is above the survey of 200 000 that suggests a weaker economy. Continuing claims coming in at 1.823 million versus the survey of 1.7 million. Both of these numbers higher than expected. A Holy Crap.

The prior revision. Holy crap. The prior revision was. Now we have the unemployment claims of last month move from 198k to 246.

that is a a massive 25 revision to the prior number and the continuing claims for the prior month were moved from 1.689 to 1.817 million. In other words, the economy already much weaker than the data is showing. Much weaker than the data is showing. That is Recessionary News.

Recessionary News Okay Recessionary News Just out in the midst of recording this. Now continuing on here, looking past the pivots. Okay, so let me finish the thought here. So finishing the thought of me being torn on this I don't think the FED pivots until they are convinced inflation is down.

That will be become. That will become very, very important when I explain the two different types of pivots. Using JPMorgan as an aide here, looking at past pivots suggests that the Steep yield curve inversion we are seeing now would have triggered a rate cut already had it not been for this highly unusual inflation. That's important.

Very important to remember because what they're saying is at this point the yield curve is already so inverted. We are in such a recessionary environment. The FED has beaten this economy to the ground so heavily. they have taken our neck and driven it into the mud for so long that we're already choking with a lack of oxygen that ordinarily the FED would have cut by now.

So JP Morgan Can't even get it straight here. On one hand, they're like, well, ordinarily, they would have cut by now, but they're not cutting because inflation is high, Exactly. This is why this Dove a shift has everything to do with inflation. Dynamics So JP Morgan Kind of contradicting themselves right here a little bit, but that's just my opinion.

But then again, I I I I Like to uh, add criticism and commentary. The reason we expect a strong risk-off reaction in June If The Fed does not indicate a pivot is that the FED may have already over tightened, increasing the likelihood of a deep recession. All right. So the first lesson that you need to take away from this JPM piece.

The first thing that you need to take away. We're going to go through this order. So actually I should say first we talked about Costco That's the weakening of Staples. This is why you want to be finding pricing power style stocks.

You can learn more about those at Meet Kevin.com Pricingpower stocks. Meet Kevin.com To learn more about this, uh, then you're going to learn about the JPMorgan argument that if the FED does not pivot by June markets price in in more severe recession. This is actually compounded by data that we just got minutes ago about unemployment claims. We use the UI even though that stands for unemployment insurance that tends to be a a away the government refers to unemployment.

But anyway, all right, so that means potentially over tightening, right? So that's over tightening. Okay, but you're going to learn something else now. So JP Morgan assumes a lag time of six months. This suggests we have only seen about half of the pain of rate hikes now.

I Want you to think about that from a banking crisis point of view? From a banking crisis point of view, we have only seen half of the rate hikes about 2.5 percent. Which means that the banking crisis or, uh, the crimp on economy on the economy could be just 50 percent progressed now. In Fairness, Uh, worth Sort of hedging this on the banking crisis side. Banking crisis does, though, benefit from lower T yields.

Uh, and those T yields have been falling, which helps prevent a continuation of the banking crisis. That's why in my opinion, we haven't actually seen the banking crisis continue and more Banks defaulting because bonds have risen. Remember, bonds rise in price when yields fall. Just just remember that.

Bottom line right there. We don't have to fully explain it right now. Uh, okay. good.

so there's going to be in more. There's a lot in this piece. Okay, uh, by the way, but shout out to stream Yard Uh. Stream Yards.

Really cool. They're letting me stream this in a hotel right now. Uh, not only that, but I'll be able to edit this video using the stream yard platform later. It's really cool.

So not only can you record video with it, you throw up banners, throw up the little ticker at the bottom that you see I could throw up comments as well like there's somebody here watching on strip. Oh I saw on that strip on on Twitch Uh, Chillix says I'm in the hospital watching well I hope you recover whatever your problem is and now you're sending a little prince Emoji Fantastic! So anyway, check out House. um sorry Stream Yard big on Metcavin.com Paid promotion there. So what do we have here? We have the lag time.

Uh, then we have talk about commercial real estate losses. potentially 350 to 400 billion dollars of commercial real estate losses, which would approach the level of losses seen in the great financial crisis. But that's not even the fun part. Ready for the fun part, this is the fun part this is.

this is a lot. I urge you to buckle up I'm going to make this as simple as possible and so if somebody says highlight me bro I will do that All right, Buckle up. but this could be the most important video that you watch on the FED pivot. and if somebody once again comes and starts complaining and saying stocks are definitely going to go down in the FED pivot, I'm going to choke them and I'm going to make them get life insurance and then I'm going to choke them.

Uh, anyway. all right, listen to this. actually. I'm going to make this.

a little simpler. You see this chart. Okay, this chart says that in the blue line, stocks go up after the FED pivot. where is the Fed pivot.

It's right here in the middle. see where I put the P fed pivot f p fed pivot middle. Okay, so that means there's an inflection point here and here. Let's actually draw that in green here.

and here is where the inflection point is right where the FED pivot is. So why is it that on one hand stocks go up and in the others fed pivot stocks go down. What's the difference? Again, this could potentially be the most important video you watch on understanding the FED pivot? Let's explain it using JP Morgan's words. Then I will use my own.

By January of 2024, the market is expecting 3.5 rate Cuts or 85 basis points of rate cuts a JP As JP Morgan Macro strategist pointed out, if the FED had cut rates at the speed it was cutting because the economy had already entered into a recession in 1990, 2001, and 2007 when it started easing as a reaction to Market stress or mild slowdowns. Uh, in 87, 89, 95, 98 growth eventually picked up. Okay, I'm going to translate this because this is complicated. Basically, they're saying the FED pivoted once in 90, 2001 and 2007.

then you had these different fed pivots. We're going to talk about those in a moment and they hear they talk about. There's a distinction between the pivots. There's a mid-cycle pivot or a pre-recession pivot, and both of those lead to different reactions in the market.

So pre-cycle and mid-cycle Okay, let's start here with this pre-recession A pre-recession pivot is the typical pivot people talk about. A pre-recession pivot is bad. This is when the FED has lost control, lost the lead. This is when the FED has no control.

When the FED has lost control, it means they have over tightened. And because they have over tightened and the FED has once again screwed up and they have lost control. The FED may actually have created a recession without conquering inflation. Which ultimately is the worst case scenario.

A pre-recession pivot is bad. So a PRP is actually this red line here. n A P R P Stocks go down in a pre-recession pivot stocks go down, however in a mid-cycle pivot. In other words, Kevin's U-turn which I've been banging the table about for Actually, since January of 2022.

Since January of 2022, I've been saying, wait for the FED U-turn The FED U-turn will be glorious. The FED U-turn has happened in 87, in 89 as they mentioned in the 90s during the soft Landing. But more importantly, it happened in 87, 2003, and 2009. the FED U-turn is what you want.

The FED U-turn is the Fed saying. Okay, basically we're going to turn the money printers on because we have the end of the tightening cycle is here. We may have tightened too far. Inflation has been conquered, and because inflation is conquered, we are going to turn the money printers on like crazy and prevent a nasty recession.

We're going to cut bigly and we're going to go back to quantitative Easing. Okay, that then leads to the following chart in a U-turn scenario. In three months after a U-turn scenario, stonks, my friends. stonks go up.

Almost every sector of stocks goes up after a Fed u-turn which is a mid-cycle pivot. However, almost every sector of the stock market goes down in a pre-recession pivot. This is the most important distinction. and I think probably one of the most important videos.

Uh, and that's why it will feature every single sponsor that Kevin could possibly think about From 12 free stocks with Weeble by going to Kevin.com Free phenomenal platform from Life Insurance you can get into those five minutes by going to Kevin.com Life and of course Streamyard. How I stream this video make him an FM stream. So what do we know about this? Well, what we know about this is the following: JP Morgan And their opinion is that we are actually more likely to see a pre-recession rate cut. In other words, JP Morgan is taking the bearish point of view.

JP Morgan does not believe inflation will be solved Timely So let's go to our conclusion page here. Okay, so let's zoom out on the conclusion page. Let's do number four: JPMorgan Believes we are going to get a pre-recession pivot. The bad pivot.

That's bad for pretty much all stocks. and it's likely If The Fed does not control inflation. That would be bad. It's the stagflationary recession.

Higher for longer. it's painful. Stay in cash. Uh yeah.

Protect yourself. Okay, then there is the other potential. This is the Kevin belief. Okay, so it's either JP Morgan or Kevin here.

Okay, if you believe them, maybe we can still have a cup of coffee together. But if you believe me, we can go skiing together. All right. Kevin Believes, You know I do flip flop a lot.

but I think on really important things I don't Uh. I have maintained Kevin has believed since January of 2022 that a massive fed U-turn will come as soon as inflation proves transitory. Okay, we're still just now in that process. Labor inflation is basically gone.

Look at any earnings call from Chipotle Starbucks Uber Lyft Darden Uh, McDonald's any of the recent earnings calls cloudflare that we've been looking at in terms of of of of people actually earning wages. wages have capped. Wage growth is slowing Substantially inflation is going to go away. The substantial Uh supply chain shortages that we had are going to turn into massive supply chain gluts.

A glut, by the way, is Uh is a massive amount of uh of uh of of Supply Someone here commented, hey, and you're a mod too. That's it. You're D modded because you have a different opinion than I'm just kidding I'm not going to do that. It's fine.

Somebody here writes two-year experience Kevin Hey man, that's an insult. It's like 13 years. Okay, come on man. Okay, 13 years of experience versus 100 year old JPM All right, let's make this.

let's let's just uh. let's just make a comparison over here. Okay, you ready for this comparison January of 2022 Kevin meets with JPM strategists for dinner. Those strategists include: people who used to work at the Fed Kevin says we are going into recession I'm selling bye JPM says we see a 15 chance of recession Okay, that was January of 2022 actually happened I have proof actually happened uh I had a fight over that dinner table and as the only person pounding the table going, you need to wait for the FED U-turn Basically okay, now there's a chance the stock market May bottom before the U-turn because the U-turn is so clearly uh, established now.

But the point is, that was my opinion in January of 2022. I was very clear about that. I've always been very clear about that and my opinion has not changed on that. Okay, I Just believe the bottom will come before the actual U-turn this cycle.

Uh, just based on my estimations now. Yeah, I could be wrong now. Kevin is saying yes. Still recession Shallow recession.

but shallow. But we will have the FED U-turn because inflation proves to be transitory. JP Morgan is saying okay. fine.

Yes, we're going to go into a recession, but inflation won't be transitory. So pick your side. pick your side. It's totally fine.

Like I still I still like you? Uh and and like I mean I Went to Peter Schiff's House. What do you think Peter Schiff uh uh. thinks about all this I mean I think it's obvious you could watch the interview. So I think it's very obvious that people have different opinions and you can still get along with other people.

But let's be very clear. this is what we're looking ahead at: either a U-turn or a pivot. It's very simple and if you want my perspectives first, make sure you join those programs of building your wealth. I Get regular emails of people say Kevin I watch you every day because you give me so many trade ideas and I made so much money listening to your content.

uh, whether it's in the course member lives or otherwise and so thank you and shout out to those people. Uh, obviously no guarantees I mean yes, I'm a licensed financial advisor but I can't give you personalized Financial advice I can't do it for you if I could do it for you Okay, you know we'd all be rich. Um, but uh, but I could definitely share my insights as much as possible. So uh, let's let's just put a conclusion on this because I think it's it's pretty pretty powerful.

JPMorgan Finally, after a year, we finally have an institution responding to this fraudulent argument that the pivot only exists in a bad. Direction Finally, finally, we have the realization that there are two forms of a pivot. I've been screaming it for months and finally we have institutional analysis on it. Thank God.

Oh, you know what we should do, let's do a quick poll. I Think this would be really cool? So what we're going to do is we are going to pull the live audience now. remember I like to stream daily I I Really try my hardest to start at 4 20 a.m Pacific time I am usually late, but that is my goal I'm going to now run a poll to those of you in the audience. You turn positive uh or uh, let's do fed u-turn good for stocks or PRP pre-recession pivot bad for stocks, pre-r pivot Uh, you turn.

Let's write a poll and in about a minute I'm only going to give about 60 seconds to see what your thoughts are on the poll. the poll is Live Now Go to the chat, answer the poll question I Don't mind taking the L if I'm if I'm wrong, but at least I'll give you my opinion. Uh so again. uh I'm convinced that inflation is coming down I am also convinced that the fat has overtyped I am also convinced that the FED is probably going to go with the 25 basis point.

Uh, hike. I Believe the FED is going to keep doing that because I I believe this. Okay, I'm gonna pretend to be Jay Powell Uh and uh. And then we're going to go through the poll results.

Okay, ready if I'm Jay Powell This is my opinion and this is not going to sound anything like Jerome Powell but I'm going to use I don't know. probably a general templates or something like that because it's funny To me, it doesn't have to be funny to you. Um, J pair and I know we have to keep inflation expectations anchored. So I'm just going to keep saying that there's upside risk and um, we're gonna just, uh, do another hike.

Uh, because psychologically, we're gonna get to five percent and then once we're at five percent, uh, we we will have about lots of time and we'll have hopefully gotten lots of reports to convince us that inflation is down and then maybe we'll Purge But after we purge, we can never go up again because we don't want to repeat the mistakes of the 70s or 80s. Uh, we don't go to Aaron Burr markets and we technically don't want to power Vocal markets because I want my face on Mount Rushmore And if I could stick a shaft, Landing I will go down as a hero. So therefore, as Jerome power I would uh, really like inflation to be transitory. but I'm going to trick people into thinking I'm going to hike us into Oblivion but I'm basically just going to cut rates on Sunday five percent to zero and uh.

and and we'll go back to the Moon. All right, that's that's my take. Terrible, terrible impression. Uh, it's that's okay.

All right now. the results of the poll. Uh, out of 6 000 of you watching, only 809 of you voted. What are you doing? Are you sitting on the toilet like unable to push a button? It's fine I respect you anyway.

I Understand people turn me on just to listen to me. Ooh, all right, you turn 60 percent pre-recession pivot bad for stocks 39 out of 820 votes. Okay, pretty good. I'm sure that's statistically significant.

so all right, that ends now. JPMorgan recession piece and my thoughts on shape. Oh, all right. uh, we've got more to cover.

Oh man. I got a time again. Ow, it's a power Trump It's just bad. That's what it is.

It's just bad I don't even know what it is I'm I'm not a I'm not a a I'm not good at accents I Think what happens is like you could start an accent well, but keeping it long is hard. It starts decaying. uh I I My favorite is German Yeah, it's been Deutsche and I am very happy. That's not even very good.

Uh, but I'm German so I'm allowed to make fun of the German accent. uh Yaya uh. The next topic that we have to cover is uh oh uh. Okay, so we have uh two, two more big stories that we have to cover.

uh one. We have to give my obviously, uh, excellent perspectives on the Trump situation. Uh, because there are a lot of attorneys talking about it that I think are wrong. they're missing the boat.

They're really a lot of people I think are missing the boat and then we're going to talk about deflation. Okay, you ready for those? keeping it long is hard. The comments: the comments: Okay So yeah. All right.

So the next piece is uh I'm gonna keep this brief on Trump give me like eight minutes please. And then we're gonna get into the deflation piece which I think is very important as well. Uh, but I think both are important. All right.

All right here we go. Oh, that's the wrong button by for Kevin to figure out the right button. Where did I put it? Oh there it is all right. Well folks, everyone has an opinion about the Trump Indictment lawyers and non-lawyers alike and I've heard a lot of the opinions.

I've read almost every single op-ed piece on this and I am very surprised that almost everybody seems to be missing an extremely obvious and the most dangerous argument against Donald Trump I'm going to talk about that after: I Quickly summarize where we stand so I can save you as much time as possible so we can minimize the amount of time that we have to talk about. Donald Trump and we could go back to learning how to build wealth. So first, where do we stand and then second, what is everybody missing? Because there's a very key argument that everybody is missing Bragg told us about it and everybody is missing it. He didn't highlight it very well and that's because quite frankly I think Bragg doesn't know how to put together a very good legal case.

I think he's throwing spaghetti against the wall, but there's a piece of spaghetti that might actually stick. So first, Where Do We Stand Oh, here's it comes. Sean Connery Stand by all right Here we go on the left. People say this is the left.

Okay, I'm gonna have to. I'm gonna have to signpost this every time. on the left people say Donald Trump paid thirty thousand dollars to pay off the National Enquirer who ended up paying off a doorman who had a story alleging that Donald Trump had a child from an affair. That child part of the story We don't know if it's true or not.

The left says that. Donald Trump then paid 150 000 and another one hundred thirty thousand dollars to silence two women with whom which he cheated which of course he denies. The left is arguing that Justice is now finally being served, that no one is above the law. And don't worry, even though Manhattan 76 to 78 of the time Hillary Biden votes Democratic we are confident Donald Trump will get a fair election.

The left also says that New York City is the financial capital of the world, so we must prosecute Financial crimes. In fact, in a New York Times which obviously leans left opinion editorial by the former Chief Assistant District Attorney who leans left for Manhattan and the left-leaning Special Counsel which means attorney to the House Judiciary Committee On the first impeachment trial against Trump which means they lean left, they just wrote an op-ed saying hey, come on Donald Trump is the 30th person we are Prosecuting this year for falsifying documents So don't worry, this is not a political Witch Hunt This is just what we do. That's what the left is saying. Okay, the the right is saying the following: The statute of Limitations has expired.

Although some New York state laws have actually potentially extended those statutes of limitations, then they say this is a political Witch Hunt And quite frankly, it probably is not a political Witch Hunt Anymore, it is now a witch trial. Yeah, Okay, so it's a Witch Hunt that has evolved to do a witch trial. Others say the state can't prosecute this. Donald Trump was a federal candidate.

Some people who are a little bit more torn like the left-leaning economists say this is a very weak case. Not only is this a weak case, but it creates more divisiveness. in America It casts more doubt on the judicial system by Republicans and The Economist Calling this a mistake is not even an American publication they're from England The Wall Street Journal and they're left leading the Wall Street Journal. A right-leaning paper calls this a quote novel interpretation to which of course, the left-leaning opinion editorialists in the New York Times State This is not novel.

This is normal. Even CNN says this is super weak. thanks. Sean McGuire Statement of Facts: Okay, it's important.

The statement of facts, basically a whole strung together story about how Donald Trump at least in part, knew that he was paying people off. In fact, in a surreptitiously recorded statement Donald Trump asked if he should pay a hundred fifty thousand dollars in cash essentially to pay off woman number one who is Karen McDougall She was a Playboy model. She was once deemed number two to Pamela Anderson. In other words, she's very attractive.

good for her. Donald Trump instead of paying cash. Ultimately settled for paying in check because that's what Michael Cohen who now has turned on Donald Trump recommended and Michael Cohen has gone to jail to prison for being convicted of campaign finance and violations. So these are the arguments we hear.

We hear the statement of facts. We don't have To rehash all of this. We know this the last thing I'd like to say uh and then I want to get into what everybody is missing. The last thing is just a reminder that this is a an argument being made about the potential violation of a misdemeanor or by violating the falsifying of business records that is a misdemeanor crime.

But when it is used in a way to cover up another crime, that misdemeanor elevates to a classy felony the lowest available felony which Manhattan has a history of a demoting 50 of their felonies to misdemeanors and then only convicting fifty percent of the remaining felonies. Which means they only have about a 25 felony conviction rate. With that said, I'll just curious you some g