Kerry Lutz's--Financial Survival Network

No crash immediately ahead. The economy is like a giant aircraft carrier, it takes a lot of time turn around. Too much growth and too much money coming in. Twelve percent chance of a rate hike in December, despite their repeated denials to the contrary. Gold is heading upward with a resistance point of $1825. Miners are now leading the metals, which is what you want to see, especially at turning points. Dow Jones US Gold Mining Index has been leading for quite a while, a very positive sign. They led on the way down and are leading on the way up. And rate hikes are going to be the next catalyst. Tons of money being thrown at the economy. Pent-up demand is going to make the economic numbers soar. Optimism yes, but it might not yet quite be time. Better to be a little early. When gold hits $1950 it’s off to the races. This is going to launch and explode high. Gold to S&P at a 7 year low.

Gerald is holding a freedom rally in Kingston on Memorial Day. Join him there. It’s time for people to stand up for what they believe in. Beware of vaxx passports. What about declining sperm counts? Gerald says, “Big Pharma is nothing more than a bunch of drug pushers.” He is a man born of freedom and was not put on this planet to take orders from garbage peddlers to serve their whims. 

He believes that markets will keep going higher in a Biden Bounce. Once interest rates go up, the whole thing implodes. Housing bust coming? Fake inflation numbers. Housing price increases don’t go into CPI. They deliberately hide the true inflation rate so they can have unlimited free money and put a lid on Social Security benefit increases. No real estate crash is coming because individuals are buying up houses to get out of the big cities. Millennials are now buying too. There’s never been anything like this before. 

The NYC Office vacancy rate is over 14%, a record high. They’re subleasing to get out. Big law firms no longer need all that space. Now they’re working from their homes. Commercial RE in all major cities is coming down big time. Ground level retail is empty. New York City is not coming back from this along with the other big cities. People are fleeing the big cities. Lots of empty ugly space. Newcomers to Kingston, Gerald’s hometown are fleeing NYC crime and the Coronavirus. 

Go to TrendsJournal.com  Just $129 per year. 

As Miles Franklins’ owner Andy Schectman says, ‘Price is a tool of deception.” What a difference a week makes. Comex has become a delivery market, all to the group known as the others, such as family offices and sovereign wealth funds. April deliveries were 20,000 contracts, or 2 million ounces. Big money is misdirecting the public to corner the market. 

On February 2 during the height of the #silversqueeze. All the major bullion dealers were shut down for the weekend. During this 48 hour dealers are hedged, but that weekend the hedge ran out and Andy was 35000 ounces naked into Sunday. In this environment the next morning someone dump $45 billion worth of paper to drive down the price. 90 million ounces has been back doored out of SLV. No one in the midst of the greatest bull market in history would sell this much metal ever. At the same time 55 million has been drained from the Comex. Metals is coming out of everywhere. Problems are blowing up all over the world. Andy has been working 18 hours per day for the past several months. Higher demand will lead to higher prices. 

One day there will be nothing to sell and people will wonder how it happened. 

Daniel Goodman is a Professional Day Trader and specifically looks for Real Estate Investments, Day trading stocks, options and futures, and long term investments in the stock market



1. When I think of good debt, the first thing that comes to mind is a mortgage. That is providing you shelter, a place to live, and everything wonderful about having a home. Yes it’s not fun making payments for five years and not seeing your principal drop too much because of the interest that you’re paying, but if you’re paying anywhere around 5% interest or less, you’re doing very well! Overtime that home will become more valuable. And therefore you have more equity. And if you need to, you can borrow money off your home, or refinance it and pull money out. This is a beautiful thing. However, only do this if you can afford to make the payments! Or else, you will lose your home and be forced to sell it.
 
Getting a loan for a business, is also considered good debt. Because hopefully, or at least your intentions are that this business will make you money. And paying off the loan will be small potatoes compared to the money you are bringing in from the business. Bottom line, you borrowed money from the bank or lender for the purpose of making “a lot more money“ then you owe them. Again, this is not something that’s going to happen overnight and you will be debt-free in a week.
 
Another type of good debt can be a “no interest“ financing plan. For example, you go to Best Buy (they have fabulous no interest deals) and you need to buy a washer, dryer, new oven range, and vacuum cleaner for your new home. If you get approved with their line of credit, depending on the dollar amount, you might be able to get five years of no interest!  That’s good debt! All those appliances you bought are must need items. You need to wash your clothes and dry them, vacuum your floor to keep it clean, and cook your food. Of course, please make sure you can afford the monthly payments before signing.

Let’s talk about some bad debt.

You just got approved for a new credit card, with a $20,000 limit!  You have an 800 credit score, and no dings on your credit, and make enough money, and that’s why you were approved with a nice starting limit! So you go out and buy yourself a new Rolex watch and clothing to go with your new job promotion!

Unfortunately, the promotion doesn’t work out the next week. The company had to lay off a lot of people. Well, now you have bad debt!! If you can’t return those items, then you have to figure out a way to pay off the new bill before the 25% interest on your credit card starts hitting you. Because you don’t need a watch or fancy clothing. A watch and clothing will not cook your food or make it taste better. It might make you feel better wearing these items, but it won’t keep a roof over your head either. These are nonessential items!
 
A credit card is only used for two reasons: for emergencies and you are prepared to pay the high interest rate that comes with it, or the benefits such as points that add up to perks and things like that. But when you use the credit card for points and perks, you have to have cash in the bank to pay it off right away before the interest hits you.

Try your best to only charge your credit card if you can afford to pay it back right away.

2. The benefits of having good debt is having equity in your home. Owning a home with equity allows you to borrow off of it when needed. If you refinance it, you might even get a better interest rate on top of it. Let’s say you have $500,000 in equity in your home. You make more than enough money to take $500,000 out of your home and still pay the interest and the new principal. If you refinance it and get an amazing interest rate at 2.75% because you have exceptional credit and a perfect application across-the-board, you can invest that $500,000 into something that could pay you, let’s say 7%. One possibility would be to buy a condo using that $500,000 with zero debt after the purchase. You have no mortgage on the condo. You can rent it out and even if you get 6% a year on your money, you’re still making 3.25% after paying your interest on the refinance of your home.
 
Let’s let’s say you basically  broke even. Let’s say the condo only pays you 3% on your money by renting it out, you now have another property and soon that property will have equity in it. As you can see, if you play the real estate game with good debt versus bad debt, it can pay off in a beautiful way. And this is how most real estate mogul‘s start building their portfolio.

3. Good debt can be bad. Pretty much the only way good debt is bad, is if you have over leveraged yourself. If you keep borrowing and borrowing and borrowing, and you don’t have a job that will pay off these good debts, you’ll be forced to sell everything to pay the bank back. For example, if you borrow equity from your home to buy another home, that’s fine as long as that new mortgage is paid. Usually it’s paid by renting it out and having tenants and you are now a landlord. Once that home has equity you can borrow off that home to buy another home. And do the same thing. However, if you have no savings account and no liquid assets to pay those mortgages, and if for some reason your tenants leave, you’re in big trouble. And even worse, if the value of your home drops, you might not even be able to sell your home and pay back your debt in full.
 
So please be careful taking on leverage and multiple mortgages!!

4. A Person should only have as much good debt as they can afford. Good debt is a luxury. But needs to be treated with respect and not fooled around with it.
 
You can own as many homes, appliances, and anything you need, just as long as you can pay for it. Otherwise it all becomes bad debt.

Still a little more upside to go in the stocks. On a relative basis, the last couple of months the tech sector has been giving some yellow flags. Eric expects it to spike to a new high. It’s been giving a couple of warning signs. It held at 12,200, which means 14,000 could be around the corner. It’s probably an intermediate peak in mid-April, but not the final peak. 

Gold is now at the ideal entry point, once it hit 1670’s. The double low reaffirmed the buy signal. He’s looking for a significant peak in mid-May. Silver should hit a new cycle high as well. The bottom appears to be in and a good rally in early April and a second rally to follow. 

Bond market has adhered to a 4 year cycle. Peak in prices came in mid 2020, with resulting low in interest rates. Interest rates in mid 2021 should see a secondary high in bond prices. Economic optimism might hit a bump in the road before it resumes the trend. 

Oil prices heading towards a significant peak. Then it should back down. We might be seeing a retest of the recent high. But a top nonetheless. 

US Dollar, Eric has been looking for it to set a final low in 2121. On an intermediate basis it spiked over 93 and set an intermediate top. Now it should work its way down with major support at the 88-89 range. Could have a signifcant impact on gold and other markets too. 

Interest rates rising for now what will the effect be? Buyers haven’t seemed to notice. One a $300k mortgage their payment has gone up $60-70 per month. Buyers need to prepared for higher insurance, taxes, utilities, etc. Texas had their freeze and they’re still trying to get rid of the claims backlog. Many lost power for days. 

What’s going on in the Real Estate market? Inventory around nation the nation is extremely low. 1 month’s inventory currently. More people are staying put than ever before. Elderly aren’t downsizing. New homebuyers are purchasing larger homes. Out of state buyers snapping up high priced homes. Prices are going up and lots of cash sales happening. New home construction is on the upsurge. There’s wait lists galore. 

Investing in Real Estate to cash in inflation. People have waited for a good deal. People were waiting for lower mortgage rates. They bet wrong. Now they’re trying to beat higher rates and trying to get more. 

Over 55 communities are increasing greatly. Lots of golf carts. People over 60 downsizing to these communities. 

Foreclosures also coming to a head. The moratorium is coming to an end. There’s still a number of homes that are on chopping block. This could see an increase in inventory eventually. It’s all in flux. 

There’s a point at which even the banks cannot drive the price lower. You get to a point where you can’t allow too large a divergence or you risk the system imploding. We’ve seen it numerous times, most recently March 2020 and again last week. Many technical and fundamental reasons why it’s probably going higher. Dollar peaked. Bond market double topped. At some point the down trend lines end. Coupon code LUTZ and save 50% off your first month at tfmetalsreport.com.

Carl Gould is a worldwide leading authority on business and entrepreneurship. His company, 7 Stage Advisors helps organizations grow to the next level. He is an entrepreneur who built three multi-million dollar businesses by age 40. 7 Stage Advisors, has mentored the launch of over five thousand businesses. Some of the companies he’s helped are companies like Allstate, American Idol , USA Olympic Track, IBM, McGraw-Hill and the US Army. 

Gould created the farthest-reaching business mentoring organization in the world, and his methodologies are in practice in 35 countries. He has trained, certified or accredited over 7,000 Business Coaches and Mentors since 2002. 

Carl has written multiple books on the subject of business strategy, leadership and sustainable growth. He co-authored “Blueprint for Success” with Stephen R. Covey and Ken Blanchard; and his best-selling book, “The 7 Stages of Small Business Success”, lays out the formula for HyperGrowth. 

Pandemic Advice

1 - Stay open no matter what. You’ll do whatever it takes to service your community. 

2 - People follow authority and thought leaders.

3 - Don’t over discount. In this pandemic banks and individuals had excess funds available and pent up demand.

4 - Create the VIP experience for clients to do 1 day adventure and indulgence. Touchless contactless service available to all. 

A major increase in inflation is ahead and the Fed isn’t gonna do anything about it. A lot of people are oblivious to this fact and they’re in for a shock as is the stock market. This should be good news for gold and the mining sector. Powell is talking the talk, but he’s not about to walk the walk. He says that it will be temporary and therefore, it doesn’t warrant a  response. The stage is set for a conflict between inflation and the stock market. Will asset value inflation continue onward and upward. The coming bout of inflation, gasoline up 60%. It will add two percent all by itself. Supply chain disruptions mean less vehicle sales and reduction of discounts. The chip shortage is severe. Issues at the ports, not enough trucks or dock capacity to handle it. We could see the headline CPI jump as much as 3.5% and the core rate will follow it. If an when the 10 year gets above 2%, yields will then drop, temporarily. 

Is the economy overheating?

-- soaring home prices

-- huge jump in March auto sales 

-- jobs growth blew away expectations

-- 10-year yield over 1.7%

-- SuperMario video game from the 1980s sells for $600,000

-- Stocks hit all-time highs on the jobs report

What happens if inflation and interest rates spike at some time? 

Where is the Fed when you need them the most? 

Does government have to shift to tightening this year? 

Is all news, good and bad, good news for the markets? 

FSN community member Joe brought this to my attention.The promise is fast easy business loans with minimal documentationGive them 3 months of checking account statements and they’ll handle the rest.

But there’s always a catch. This is literally payday lending for small business. I had to check it out and find out what the scam is.

I do a google search and there’s a million of these companies. So I decide, let’s test it out and see what the deal is. I go to Lending Tree and type in business loans. I fill out the form and no sooner do I hit the submiit key and they’re already call. 

The game is on. Their small business lending expert is a very articulate young man/woman who knows all the right buzz words. I explain that I have a high credit score, no judgments or liens. A couple of bucks in the bank, pay everyone on time, even now. I’m looking for expansion capital to build a new studio and set up a real broadcast channel. I need $75k, but of course it depends upon the rate. I can always self-finance. 

Then the fun begins. These are modern day legal loan sharks. They can give me the money from 7-12 months, but I want 18. Sorry we can’t do that. And we’re gonna take our payments from your bank, some weekly, some daily and some whenever they feel like it. All for a paltry interest rate of 30% to 85% per annum and perhaps higher. 

But here’s the catch, they never tell you what the rate. In their word, “You just need to know your cost of money, how much you’ll be paying back…” Because they know if they were to tell you the real interest rate, you’d slam the phone down and block them from ever calling you again. I did 7-8 times all with similar results. They kept calling and emailing until I told them to lose my number and dnc me. After the 3rd or 4th one I would tell them my parameters, no rate higher than 10 percent, monthly payments, 18 months minimum. They always promised they would get it done and then they’d come up with 40 percent interest rates or more. Complete scammers.

And they never mention it, but I’m sure they require a personal guarantee. Some states still have usury laws, but only for personal loans or credit cards. There has always been an exception for corporate loans accompanied by a pg, even if the the corp was formed just to avoid the usury cap. 

Beware of these scumbags. You’re much better off going to friends and family or taking out credit card advances. Or if you’re a student, even though it’s not permitted, using some of you subsidized student loans to fund your start-up. Anything but these shylocks. 

One year ago we had the most rapid decline in history and the fast rise in history. What does the market do after a crash/purge. RC believes the market is heading higher for the next 5-10 years. Just because it has done it in the past, doesn’t mean that it won’t happen now. 700 million people have their money in the market. Collectively, they have a pretty good view of what’s coming. The idea that the end is near is at best exhausting and at worst makes you fearful. A little knowledge of history is a good thing. Go with probablity and history first, but don’t throw caution to the wind. The market has been leading the world and the economy for more than a century. There’s a collective unconsciousness guiding us in the market. 

Stock markets took off again in March: Dow added 6.6% to 32982, S&P 500 up 4.3%, Nasdaq finished flat, Russell 2000 up another 1%, TSX added 3.9% TSX.V down a big 6.5%. VIX down to a calmer 18.95. Dollar was up 2.5% to 93.24 and Euro down 2.8% to. 10 Year yield skyrocketed to 1.74%. Bitcoin went parabolic again up 23.4% to a record 58804. Gold off 1.5% to 1709. Silver off 8.6% to 24.41. PT pretty much flat. PD rose 13.4%  for the month to 2528. Dr. Copper down 4.2% to $4.01, breaking $4 per pound. WTI off 3.8% to 59.16. Brent off 3.9% to 63.54. Natgas off 5.8% to a still anemic 2.66. Uranium ran up impressive 11.7% to $31.13. 

Ratios: Au/Ag 70 - Pt/Au .69 - Pt/Pd .47 - BRT/WTI 1.07 WT/HH 22.7 and AU/WTI coming back down to earth 28.9.

Wayne Winegarden opines, "If the fight for $15 minimum wage is successful, it will impose far more costs than benefits. Not only are minimum wage proponents distorting the population impacted, but they also fail to understand the economic trade-offs required. To understand the trade-offs, it is helpful to review the financials of a typical retail business, which is the sector where the vast majority of minimum wage workers are employed. Based on the average annual revenue of a small retailer ($262,092), and the average cost structure, a pro-forma financial statement of a small retailer looks something like Table 1, which illustrates that based on the current costs of running a retail store, the average small retailer earns about $43,000 in profits annually."

The lockdowns implemented by a number of states to control covid have been devastating to small businesses across the nation. Smaller businesses have gotten the short end of the stick. Many businesses have closed. Some entrepreneurs will rise from the ashes and others won’t. Unless you’ve got the cash to start a new business, it will be very difficult. The last man standing will be the winner. As an entrepreneur you need to shift and need to plan for the next pandemic. Chapter 11 could be your best friend. Many businesses who could have gotten aid under the CARES Act. Much of the public often didn’t understand how to take advantage of the program. There’s a lack of interpretive advisors who can help you actually apply the programs to your needs.