Hello Antagonist community.
I’m launching a new feature today. Every Saturday, you’ll receive a 3-4 minute blurb that I’m calling “Over the Weekend.”
It will include a selection of the most interesting things that I read, listened to, or viewed this week. I’ll provide a summary and links to the sources so you can check them out “Over the Weekend.”
Also, I would absolutely love to hear what you think of the content and any suggestions you have.
1. It’s fine for me…but not for thee.
Members of Congress continue to outperform the market and most investors. Many, many of their trades are highly suspect and resemble insider trading.
It’s common for politicians to place huge trades—that result in huge profits—right before significant news is released to the public.
Unusual Whales does an excellent job of reporting these suspicious trades, but the SEC seems content to ignore them. Of course, if you or I made similar moves, we’d likely be under investigation.
Below is a link to the Twitter thread, and here is the full report. Unusual Whales also conducted the same analysis last year, and the findings were similar.
2. The Fed’s estimates are wrong. That’s shocking! (said no one ever)
Darius Dale joined the MacroVoices podcast, and it’s well worth a listen. Darius is the founder and CEO of 42 Macro, a macroeconomic risk management and investment research firm.
Darius’ insights are phenomenal. A year ago, he correctly forecasted that 2022 would be a terrible year for stocks. Now he believes that while a U.S. recession is imminent, we won’t see it until the last half of the year at the earliest.
According to Darius, the economy and inflation aren’t going to slow down as quickly as the Fed is projecting. As a result, the central bank will tighten to levels even more than what’s priced into the market right now. It will also make the Fed reluctant to ease toward the second half of the year.
Darius believes that the combination of the Fed’s tightening and its reluctance to pull back when it should will result in a harsher recession than what most investors are expecting.
You can hear more of Darius’ insights—and download his 150-page PowerPoint presentation—on the MacroVoices website.
3. The best visual of just how bad 2022 was.
In the January edition of The Antagonist, I explained that the combined performance of stocks and Treasury bonds in 2022 was the worst ever. That’s not hyperbole.
This chart shows how last year was an anomaly of historic proportions. Look how much the red dot (representing 2022) was an outlier compared to every other year.
4. Rental numbers can be deceiving.
Multifamily vacancy rates have remained unchanged, but that doesn’t tell the whole story. National supply and demand have actually fallen to their lowest levels since 2009.
How are both down?
Because even though demand plummeted in Q4 2022, builders are struggling to complete apartment units due to construction delays. Hence the unchanged vacancy rates.
These datapoints are from
and Moody’s Analytics.5. Wait…that’s not funny…it’s true!
That’s a wrap.
That’s it for the first edition of “Over the Weekend.” If you enjoyed it, please share it!
If someone sent this post to you, but you’re not yet a subscriber, don’t miss the next edition. Sign up for The Antagonist below. You’ll receive research and recommendations on how to achieve your financial goals sooner.
Thanks for reading, and have a great weekend!
Jason Milton
Twitter: Antagonist_News
great and interesting insights