Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance

One of my favorite investors that I love reading and following, Harris Kupperman, has offered up his latest thoughts on the market this week.

Harris is the founder of Praetorian Capital, a hedge fund focused on using macro trends to guide stock selection.

Harris is one of my favorite follows and I find his opinions – especially on macro and commodities – to be extremely resourceful. I’m certain my readers will find the same. I was excited when he offered up his latest thoughts, published below (slightly edited for grammar, bold emphasis is QTR’s).

Whenever someone takes the other side of my trade, I want to put myself in their shoes. Is this a worthwhile opponent with a differentiated view? Am I stepping into a trap? Or are they doing something for totally uneconomic reasons? I need to know my enemy.

“Yes, I know my enemies
They’re the teachers who taught me to fight me
Compromise, conformity, assimilation, submission
Ignorance, hypocrisy, brutality, the elite
All of which are American dreams…”
– Rage Against the Machine

Naturally, I prefer the situations where my opponents are being absolute complete fuckwits—totally disengaged from valuation-based decision-making. Those are the opportunities where I want to wave it in with both hands.

Think back to peak ESG idiocy; I’m a hired mercenary, my only mission is to make my investors as much money as possible. Meanwhile, a surprisingly large number of institutional firms are run by their marketing departments—incredulously, those guys decided that their ESG score was far more important than performance. Suddenly, the guys with the big capital didn’t even seem to care if they lost money. I was still playing chess and they were playing dominos. Many allocators simply hit the sell button on non-ESG positions—smashing equity prices to obscene levels. Millions of retirees were looted by their fiduciaries, while being told that their sacrifice would improve the weather. Meanwhile, I was there buying as much as my balance sheet could bear. It was one of the silliest wealth transfers of my career. I still look back at that moment and giggle like a little kid. It’s not supposed to be that easy in finance. Your opponents aren’t supposed to be hateful of performance. Disdain, sure, that happens, but hateful was a whole new experience for me. Ever since, I’ve spent my free time trying to find the next moment when investors fixate on the wrong thing.

Of course, it’s rarely that easy. Often, I see the opportunities, but also wonder what I’m missing. Equities are usually approximately fairly-valued. If something is sort of mispriced, I assume there’s a divergence of views around an accepted framework, and when something is a few standard deviations off the mark, I genuinely wonder if I’m the one who’s lost the narrative. However, I frequently find that there are occasions where investors trade with different rulebooks than my own. These are the situations where opportunities are rife for structural reasons, often for extended periods of time. Let’s look at two prior occurrences so that you’ll understand the opportunity at play here.

Think back over the last decade and look at value stocks. At first, it was a slow drip, then an undertow, followed by a complete torrent of selling—that selling has never really subsided. As value-based funds have underperformed, they’ve gotten redemptions, forcing more selling and more underperformance. This underperformance then leads to market cap weighted index funds selling additional shares, leading to more underperformance and more redemptions. The vicious cycle has continued for a decade now, and still seems to be ongoing in many ways. Amazing opportunities have been created in its wake.

As a side note, my brain literally hurts to think about how many shares have been bought back in the various value sectors like coal companies, often at less than three times cash flow. Who could still be selling these shares this cheaply? Yet, the Venn Diagram of value investor outflows has a strong intersection of ESG idiocy and performance chasing. At some point, this will resolve itself, likely in a positive way for value names, but I’m amazed that it continues even today.

Trust me, value investors don’t want to sell things at 3 times cash flow. I know these guys, they are my friends, and it hurts them deeply in their souls when they’re forced to make sales. However, they show up in the morning, look at their redemptions, and are required to sell something. It’s been ongoing for a decade now. Despite tens of billions in buybacks amongst value names, the buybacks cannot seem to overcome the forced selling by value investors. While we may be nearing the end of this process, it’s only because the companies involved have retired so many shares that they’re starting to run out of free-float to buy. Honestly, I think there’s substantial opportunity here.

Let’s look at another instance when valuation-irrational investors created opportunity. Remember when an army of meme bros showed up in 2020 and 2021? These guys also didn’t care about valuations, except instead of selling cheap assets, they bought the most insanely expensive ones. They gravitated to frauds and Ponzi Schemes, lifting whole sectors to insane prices, often by chasing call options at already silly implied volatilities. This wave of valuation agnostic investors caught many formerly staid investors unaware, particularly as short selling had previously been a core component of most strategies. Look, the individual retail meme investor is undercapitalized and positively braindead, but millions of them are sentient in the way that a cloud of locusts is sentient. They probed at vulnerable situations and stampeded the shorts. This created innumerable opportunities, as the rules had once again changed.

At my fund, I bought highly liquid Ponzi Schemes like Bitcoin, while joining into almost every short squeeze I could find. In particular I realized that if the locusts were chasing call options, the corollary was that deeply OTM put option premiums would also inflate to crazy IV levels, and I sold those, even if they were on a well-diversified basket of Ponzi Schemes and outright frauds. Unfortunately, that wave of mispricing was short-lived, but for over a year, it really was too easy to take money out of the markets, whole sectors went wonky with mispriced opportunity.

Finance is rarely static. If something has worked for a few years, it usually stops working for the next few years. With all the meme bros forced to get jobs again, I’ve once again wondered who’s the sucker at the table. Who’s in the arena trying stuff, yet totally valuation agnostic? Who literally doesn’t care what price he buys or sells securities at? These are the guys that I want to fade. They’re my enemy.

I’m going to generalize a bit and probably offend a bunch of you; but I’ve never been scared of that around here. Simply put, I think we’ve hit peak pod-shop. The idea that you can run a highly levered, yet fully hedged portfolio, with negligible volatility seems illogical. Pod-shops have grown massive and have completely distorted the market—often as multiple pod bros tend to have the same trades on, bullying a stock in the direction that they favor, stampeding everyone in their way. These guys live and die on rate of change. They use almost real-time data, data that I mostly ignore as a longer-term investor. If this week’s credit card runs are inflecting up, they buy more, if they’re inflecting down, they short more of it. They frequently play quarters, often playing intra-quarter. Pods seek momentum and trend; they don’t seek fair value. Maybe that works in an aggregate sense, and maybe it doesn’t. However, I feel confident in saying that many of these guys are valuation agnostic. Instead, they use pair trades, explicitly so that they can ignore valuation, and focus their books on rate of change. Meanwhile, given their size, and the cohesive group-think amongst supposedly competing funds, they tend to overwhelm markets and have optimized their strategies to take advantage of the self-fulfilling nature of the momentum that they generate. Of course, strategies like this work, unless someone takes the other side.

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In my realm of value investing, I’m genuinely amazed at how these pods will short high-quality, rapidly growing businesses at under five times cash flow—just because the next quarter will be weak. I don’t understand how that strategy makes money, except during highly truncated bear-raids, yet the pods keep playing at it as they fixate on short-term rates of change. Then right after the negative print, they often accelerate their short selling, pressuring the stock in the pre-market and further spooking the longs. They want to take a bad quarter and stampede things, so that they can cover. Even then, sometimes they don’t cover until the data stops inflecting negatively. Then they cover en masse.

I see this group as the newest and greatest source of Alpha in the markets. While I figure that most of these pod-shops will eventually liquidate in a cataclysm of margin calls, I intend to harness them for as long as possible before then. They’re the new meme bros, and they’re the new ESG mandates. They’re the idiots in the room, the pinata that we’re all supposed to swing the bat at. They’ve had it too easy, as too many traders focus on price action, and then get bullied by the pods as they paint the tape. Too many long-side traders still believe that mainstream media is actually reporting, as opposed to reading a script that’s paid for by pods. Not enough guys are willing to trust their research and stand in there, absorbing cheap stock from the pod bros who are shorting it.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – AUGUST 12: Tim Commerford, Brad Wilk, and Zack de la Rocha of Rage Against the Machine perform at Madison Square Garden on August 12, 2022 in New York City. (Photo by Astrida Valigorsky/Getty Images)

These pods came of age during a time when value investors were getting liquidated—all the pods had to do was push a bit and the liquidations would intensify. No one had fresh capital to buy and defend their names. I now think that the tide is finally turning. I’ve seen the pods get stuffed over and over during the past few quarters as the buybacks are intensifying, the free-floats are consolidating, and the redemptions are slowing. I think this is finally the pivot. As for me, I’m willing to stand my ground, hold my levels and absorb incredibly cheap paper, knowing that I may need to suffer through a bad quarter or two. That’s the very essence of value investing. These pods aren’t used to that, they’re used to using violence to shake someone’s convictions.  I feel that as other traders realize that these pods are inch-deep aggression, they’ll also be more willing to stand and fight. If they cannot penetrate your levels, they’ll abandon the mission. Their strict risk-control, with tight stop losses, is their undoing. It really is an idiotic model. They’re my new enemy.

“’Cause I’ll rip the mic, rip the stage, rip the system
I was born to rage against ’em
Now action must be taken
We don’t need the key, we’ll break in”
– Rage Against the Machine

If someone is laying into your company at less than five times earnings, then it’s probably a pod. They’re going to bully you, that’s what they do. I’m not scared, as I know the trick now. I’ll let them short into me. I trust my research. I don’t live on rate of change; I live on valuation. I can suffer through a bad quarter or two and use their vigorous sales to buy more. Like all great surges in valuation-agnostic investing, this one too will wane. Until then, I believe that this is the clearest opportunity out there—though, I fear that it will be fleeting. Until then, I intend to rack up skins.

Happy hunting friends…

Please read QTR and Harris’ full disclaimers here. 

Bezos Earth Fund Vice Chair Lauren Sánchez announced this week at the multi-day Aspen Ideas: Climate event at the Miami Beach Convention Center that the fund will invest tens of millions of dollars in advancing the science and technology surrounding “alternative proteins.” 

Sánchez said a $60 million investment will establish Bezos Centers for Sustainable Protein as part of the Bezos Earth Fund’s $1 billion initiative to transform the food supply chain. 

Bezos Earth Fund stated in a press release, “The Centers will target major technological barriers to reducing cost, increasing quality, and boosting nutritional benefit of alternative proteins by advancing science and technology.” 

Sánchez said, “We need to feed 10 billion people with healthy, sustainable food throughout this century while protecting our planet. We can do it, and it will require a ton of innovation.” 

“Our world is poised for transformation, for a future not constrained by compromise. Solutions to our greatest challenges often come from the quiet persistence of those willing to question, reimagine, and innovate,” she added. 

Under the guise of climate change, the World Economic Forum and some billionaire members have been obsessed with resetting the global food supply chain. They attempt to transition the world’s population from a meat-based diet to insects, fake meat, and plant-based foods. 

Also… 

Corporate media has been trying to convince the masses… 

Pay attention to Europe’s farmers. They’re rising up by the tens of thousands against the climate cult in Brussels, which is trying to kill small farms through disastrous ‘greenhouse gas pollution’ measures. The move by the government and elites to crush farmers is an attempt to seize control over the food supply. 

THE PITCHFORK PROTESTS IN FRANCE CONTINUE TO ESCALATE.

Outside the Palace of Versailles, French farmers are protesting the EU’s FARM-TO-FORK POLICIES designed to destroy Europe’s agriculture industry.pic.twitter.com/tpEzStMiIN

— Steve Hanke (@steve_hanke) March 6, 2024

Say no to fake meat and insects. Buy local. 

Authored by Amie Dahnke via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A high dose of vitamin D could improve the function of insulin-producing beta cells in children and young adults recently diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes.

The discovery, published in JAMA Network Open, could mean that a more cost-effective way of managing the disease affecting 1.45 million Americans has been on pharmacy shelves all along.

“Type 1 diabetes affects millions of people and treatment options can often be costly,” Dr. Benjamin Nwosu, chief of endocrinology and director of the diabetes center at Cohen Children’s Medical Center and the principal author of the research paper, said in a press release. “It is exciting to know that vitamin D could protect the beta cells of the pancreas and increase the natural production of good and functional insulin in these patients.”

People with Type 1 diabetes do not make enough insulin, the hormone responsible for producing and moving blood sugar into the body’s cells for energy. Without enough insulin, blood sugar can’t get into the cells and stays trapped in the bloodstream, which causes diabetes symptoms. Complications of Type 1 diabetes include heart disease, stroke, circulatory problems, eye issues, nerve damage, kidney disease, and gum disease.

How Vitamin D Helps Manage Type 1 Diabetes

Dr. Nwosu and his team uncovered vitamin D’s effects on diabetes by conducting a 12-month trial with 36 youths between the ages of 10 and 21. The average age of the participants was 13. Most of the participants were boys (24).

During the trial, Dr. Nwosu and his team randomly provided the participants with either a dose of ergocalciferol—a form of vitamin D, also known as vitamin D2—or a placebo. The research team found that taking the vitamin D supplement helped the body reduce the proinsulin to C-peptide ratio and delayed the loss of C-peptide more than the placebo. When C-peptide is present, the body is still producing insulin; in other words, the young people’s bodies made insulin that worked the way it was supposed to work.

Dr. Nwosu said slowing down C-peptide loss and improving the function of insulin-producing cells could extend the “honeymoon phase” of Type 1 diabetes.

The “honeymoon phase” is the critical time of Type 1 diabetes when treatment options determine the long-term outlook of the disease, especially for a young person. Typically, after the honeymoon phase, beta cells, which are located in the pancreas, retain between 3o percent and 50 percent of their function, according to Dr. Nwosu’s research. The beta cells can continue to produce insulin for years after the initial diagnosis, which is why prolonging the partial remission phase can help reduce long-term complications of the disease.

Vitamin D Could Benefit Type 1 Diabetics, but More Treatment Needed

The discovery builds upon Dr. Nwosu’s previous work, which showed that high doses of vitamin D are safe and effective in improving glucose control. Dr. Nwosu’s research has also shown that vitamin D prolongs the remission phase of Type 1 diabetes in children and adolescents.

Dr. Nwosu and his team noted that while vitamin D supplementation could elongate the honeymoon phase, more treatment options are likely necessary for those managing Type 1 diabetes.

“Repurposing commonly used supplements such as vitamin D, which is known to be safe and effective for other ailments, presents an opportunity to continue developing other therapies needed to treat type 1 diabetes,” Dr. Charles Shleien, senior vice president and chair of pediatric services at Northwell Health, said in the press release.

Vitamin D is a readily available supplement that comes in several forms. Ergocalciferol, or vitamin D2, is particularly common and has little to no side effects. Too much vitamin D could cause high calcium levels, which can lead to nausea, vomiting, constipation, unusual tiredness, and potential mental or mood changes, but this only happens with extremely high levels of vitamin D of about 10,000 international units (IUs) per day for an extended period.

Individuals with Type 1 diabetes or prediabetes need to connect with their physician or health care provider before beginning any new type of medication or supplement.

When Wawa keeps shutting down locations in Philadelphia – where it is beloved – one can’t help but wonder just how bad things are getting in the city.  

But that’s exactly what’s happening, with the chain announcing this week it would be closing yet another city location – this time at 2000 Hamilton Street, near the Spring Garden/Fairmount Whole Foods and Rodin Plaza. 

This shutdown the company is blaming on its landlord, however, stating that the owner of the property reportedly “did not give the company a chance to renew its lease”, according to CBS News.

Regardless it marks at least the 4th shut down in Center City for Wawa over the last couple years. The chain appears to be packing it up and calling it quits on the city of Philadelphia altogether. Back in 2023, we noted that the company was shuttering its location at Headhouse Square, located in the middle of Society Hill, an otherwise affluent neighborhood on extending north from the tourist-area of South Street.

A statement from the company at the time, reported by Fox 29, warned of two different two strong-armed robberies over the last week at the TD Bank which is adjacent to the Wawa. The CVS located across the street from the Wawa also closed down. 

Wawa said in a statement that it “Constantly conducts careful and extensive evaluations of business performance and operational challenges of all stores on an ongoing basis.”

Recall back in October 2022 we wrote about Wawa closing 2 other locations in Philadelphia. Locations at 12th and Market and 19th and Market in Philadelphia have both shuttered. 

“We are very sorry we can’t be there for our friends and neighbors at these two locations, but we continue to serve the community from our other nearby stores and our commitment to the greater region remains strong. Philadelphia is our hometown and that’s something that will never change,” the chain said last year. 

We noted last month that the PA-based chain was targeting its most aggressive growth in history…by moving south. The company plans on moving to the South and Midwest, with plans to open in Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina, and Georgia.

It’ll also open 160 new stores in locations like Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana, the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote in February. 

Company CEO Chris Gheysens detailed the company’s plans to open about 100 new stores every year, with an eye on having 2,000 stores by the year 2030. He is calling it “the most aggressive growth” in the company’s history. 

Authored by T.L.Davis via Substack,

The election elixir provides for the soothing of anger, the time needed to quell hostile attitudes, time that can round off of sharp edges and provide for a more thoughtful, considered path forward. Political victories dissipate the vitriol. When a republic is functioning well, this a blessing to calm inflamed tempers, but when a republic is overthrown from within, it becomes a game played by politicians to defy the will of the people and dull the anger at betrayal that rightfully belongs to them.

A poll came out recently by Rasmussen that states up to 57% of Democrats want congress to refuse to certify the election if Trump wins.

By their own definition, they want their elected officials to engage in insurrection.

With no challenges as to the veracity of the election, they simply want him to be prevented from being seated.

When I write about the inevitable breakup of the union, this is what I’m talking about. It’s not just on one side. It’s not just the South reliving some confederate dreams. There is a dividing point between what Americans believe the nation should be. There are states that hate the population centers with due cause. Now the book White Rural Rage offers those population centers justification for hating those in the rural areas. Hate fuels all conflict and if it doesn’t exist, there are people dedicated to creating it for the purpose of division.

But I don’t think the nation comes apart from politics. It’s a catalyst, but not a prime driver. That comes, typically, from economics, usually destroyed in one way or another by war. In the case of the United States, it’s being driven by economics alone, an unrestrained and growing debt exacerbated today by Biden’s 7.5 trillion dollar budget calling for 5.5 trillion dollars in tax increases. Even by that math, there’s a 2 trillion dollar deficit on top the already established 2-2.5 trillion dollar deficits into the future, growing as they go.

Biden et al, thinks they can gain some popularity by heaping that 5.5 trillion dollar tax increase on the wealthy, but common sense dictates that the wealthy will never pay a dime, so it’s just a boomerang 5.5 trillion dollar tax increase on the working poor.

Forget middle class, that’s been eliminated by inflation and phased out through subsequent generations.

There are videos of Millennials complaining that despite college educations and a couple of jobs, they still can’t make house payments, or even buy a house.

They’ve been phased out of the middle class, but they don’t realize it.

It’s hard to think of the United States as fragile.

All of history prior to the 1970s suggested that we were not. It wasn’t until I saw it losing its understanding of what made it strong that I began to feel it could be brought down internally, by those who ran it. It took a while longer, during the Tea Party era, when I realized that none of the politicians would or could do anything about it. Some can make it worse faster, but none of them seemed interested in solving any of the people’s issues. Letting that fester for another decade and allowing illegitimate people into the system without calling them on it and pushing them aside, like Obama, brought us to a place where there is no interest in the republic, only in power. We speak to them about the constitution and we might as well be describing something on the back of a cereal box.

We are now fragile on several different planes, economic, politic, military and society. It’s all just a boiling caldron of hostility and punishment. Most good people know no other way to be and become victims of the powerful. The way institutions have treated illegals versus citizens, criminals versus veterans tell the whole story. Clinging to the way things have been, trusting people we have trusted, doctors, lawyers, cops even soldiers is only going to lead us to annihilation, because they use that trust to devise ways to destroy us.

I don’t like to think of the United States the way I suggest it must be thought of, but it has to change. Forces beyond our control will continue to victimize us if we let them. The simple answer is to resist. I know that there are few who really understand it, that it has to come apart in order to rebuild. The communists/globalists won’t wait for us to get a grip on it before they move. They like the chaos they are fomenting, because it does keep us off balance and unsure of the next steps.

We have to find the resolve and we have to find it quickly and we have to walk boldly toward our future, a new future, or we won’t have one.

*  *  *

Visit us at twelveround.com for contemporary novels of freedom Rebel and Rogue (links to electronic versions in the description) Literary Westerns (like those done by Cormac McCarthy and Larry McMurtry) Shadow Soldier, Home to Texas and Deputized. Also, the film Lies of Omission can be purchased as a DVD or a there’s a link to a free version on Tubi TV.

Higher rates didn’t matter to long-duration (tech) stocks yesterday, but apparently, absent macro data today, it does (bond prices and stock prices fell together)…

Source: Bloomberg

Mid-week, mid-month, and mid-way between earnings meant a pause in the euphoria today with Small Caps leading and Nasdaq lagging…until about 30 minutes before the close when a massive sell-program hit (ahead of tomorrow’s PPI and Retail Sales?). The Dow and Small Caps managed to bounce back to modest gains while Nasdaq and S&P ended red…

The sell program that suddenly hit at around 1525ET was the largest in over three weeks…

Source: Bloomberg

While the S&P 500 was down today, it has now been 266 days without a 2% daily drop…

Source: Bloomberg

Nasdaq reversed yesterday’s relative outperformance to Small Caps…

Source: Bloomberg

A peak under the hood of the market today does reveal a more dynamic picture… Pro-cyclical sectors like Energy and Materials are outperforming today, while Tech is the worst performing subsector.

Source: Bloomberg

Notably, 5 of the Magnificent 7 are underperforming today and while they recovered from their lows, the Mag7 basket was lower on the day, finding resistance at the post-payrolls print open…

Source: Bloomberg

NVDA continues to lead in March and TSLA lag…

Source: Bloomberg

‘Most Shorted’ stocks were insta-squeezed up to Friday’s close at today’s open, then faded back…

Source: Bloomberg

Bank stocks opened ‘hot’ but ended ‘not’… on the day that The Fed’s BTFP expires…

Source: Bloomberg

Treasury yields were higher across the curve once again (all up uniformly around 4bps), continuing the recent weakness…

Source: Bloomberg

One of today’s biggest stories was the record net inflow into BTC ETFs yesterday – above $1BN for the first time since inception…

Source: Bloomberg

And that helped send Bitcoin to new record highs above $73,000, bouncing back hard from yesterday’s CPI-driven dive…

Source: Bloomberg

Bitcoin $73K .. like clockwork pic.twitter.com/mb9ZTrRI9b

— PlanB (@100trillionUSD) March 13, 2024

Gold also rallied today, erasing yesterday’s losses…

Source: Bloomberg

Oil prices also surged back today, up to Friday’s pre-payrolls highs…

Source: Bloomberg

And worse still for President Biden, wholesale gasoline prices are soaring (another big draw today), which means pump prices are going to start rising very soon…

Source: Bloomberg

Finally, we’re sorry but this doesn’t get old…

Source: Bloomberg

There’s only one way this ends… and it won’t be with ‘happy tissues‘…

Authored by Jeff Louderback via The Epoch Times,

New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers and former Minnesota governor and professional wrestler Jesse Ventura are among the potential running mates for independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the New York Times reported on March 12.

Citing “two people familiar with the discussions,” the New York Times wrote that Mr. Kennedy “recently approached” Mr. Rodgers and Mr. Ventura about the vice president’s role, “and both have welcomed the overtures.”

Mr. Kennedy has talked to Mr. Rodgers “pretty continuously” over the last month, according to the story. The candidate has kept in touch with Mr. Ventura since the former governor introduced him at a February voter rally in Tucson, Arizona.

Stefanie Spear, who is the campaign press secretary, told The Epoch Times on March 12 that “Mr. Kennedy did share with the New York Times that he’s considering Aaron Rodgers and Jesse Ventura as running mates along with others on a short list.”

Ms. Spear added that Mr. Kennedy will name his running mate in the upcoming weeks.

Former Democrat presidential candidates Andrew Yang and Tulsi Gabbard declined the opportunity to join Mr. Kennedy’s ticket, according to the New York Times.

Mr. Kennedy has also reportedly talked to Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) about becoming his running mate.

Last week, Mr. Kennedy endorsed Mr. Paul to replace Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) as the Senate Minority Leader after Mr. McConnell announced he would step down from the post at the end of the year.

CNN reported early on March 13 that Mr. Kennedy’s shortlist also includes motivational speaker Tony Robbins, Discovery Channel Host Mike Rowe, and civil rights attorney Tricia Lindsay. The Washington Post included the aforementioned names plus former Republican Massachusetts senator and U.S. Ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa, Scott Brown.

In April 2023, Mr. Kennedy entered the Democrat presidential primary to challenge President Joe Biden for the party’s 2024 nomination. Claiming that the Democrat National Committee was “rigging the primary” to stop candidates from opposing President Biden, Mr. Kennedy said last October that he would run as an independent.

This year, Mr. Kennedy’s campaign has shifted its focus to ballot access. He currently has qualified for the ballot as an independent in New Hampshire, Utah, and Nevada.

Mr. Kennedy also qualified for the ballot in Hawaii under the “We the People” party.

In January, Mr. Kennedy’s campaign said it had filed paperwork in six states to create a political party. The move was made to get his name on the ballots with fewer voter signatures than those states require for candidates not affiliated with a party.

The “We the People” party was established in five states: California, Delaware, Hawaii, Mississippi, and North Carolina. The “Texas Independent Party” was also formed.

A statement by Mr. Kennedy’s campaign reported that filing for political party status in the six states reduced the number of signatures required for him to gain ballot access by about 330,000.

Ballot access guidelines have created a sense of urgency to name a running mate. More than 20 states require independent and third-party candidates to have a vice presidential pick before collecting and submitting signatures.

Like Mr. Kennedy, Mr. Ventura is an outspoken critic of COVID-19 vaccine mandates and safety.

Mr. Ventura, 72, gained acclaim in the 1970s and 1980s as a professional wrestler known as Jesse “the Body” Ventura. He appeared in movies and television shows before entering the Minnesota gubernatorial race as a Reform Party headliner. He was a longshot candidate but prevailed and served one term.

Former pro wrestler Jesse Ventura in Washington on Oct. 4, 2013. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)

In an interview on a YouTube podcast last December, Mr. Ventura was asked if he would accept an offer to run on Mr. Kennedy’s ticket.

“I would give it serious consideration. I won’t tell you yes or no. It will depend on my personal life. Would I want to commit myself at 72 for one year of hell (campaigning) and then four years (in office)?” Mr. Ventura said with a grin.

Mr. Rodgers, who spent his entire career as a quarterback for the Green Bay Packers before joining the New York Jets last season, remains under contract with the Jets. He has not publicly commented about joining Mr. Kennedy’s ticket, but the four-time NFL MVP endorsed him earlier this year and has stumped for him on podcasts.

The 40-year-old Rodgers is still under contract with the Jets after tearing his Achilles tendon in the 2023 season opener and being sidelined the rest of the year. The Jets are owned by Woody Johnson, a prominent donor to former President Donald Trump who served as U.S. Ambassador to Britain under President Trump.

Since the COVID-19 vaccine was introduced, Mr. Rodgers has been outspoken about health issues that can result from taking the shot. He told podcaster Joe Rogan that he has lost friends and sponsorship deals because of his decision not to get vaccinated.

Quarterback Aaron Rodgers of the New York Jets talks to reporters after training camp at Atlantic Health Jets Training Center in Florham Park, N.J., on July 26, 2023. (Rich Schultz/Getty Images)

Earlier this year, Mr. Rodgers challenged Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce and Dr. Anthony Fauci to a debate.

Mr. Rodgers referred to Mr. Kelce, who signed an endorsement deal with vaccine manufacturer Pfizer, as “Mr. Pfizer.”

Dr. Fauci served as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases from 1984 to 2022 and was chief medical adviser to the president from 2021 to 2022.

When Mr. Kennedy announces his running mate, it will mark another challenge met to help gain ballot access.

“In some states, the signature gathering window is not open. New York is one of those and is one of the most difficult with ballot access requirements,” Ms. Spear told The Epoch Times.

“We need our VP pick and our electors, and we have to gather 45,000 valid signatures. That means we will collect 72,000 since we have a 60 percent buffer in every state,” she added.

The window for gathering signatures in New York opens on April 16 and closes on May 28, Ms. Spear noted.

“Mississippi, North Carolina, and Oklahoma are the next three states we will most likely check off our list,” Ms. Spear added. “We are confident that Mr. Kennedy will be on the ballot in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. We have a strategist, petitioners, attorneys, and the overall momentum of the campaign.”

Instead of leaving the comfort of their couch and burning a few hundred calories to visit the doctor’s office to refill Eli Lilly’s new GLP-1 medication, the pharmaceutical giant has teamed up with Amazon to offer obese Americans an online direct-to-consumer ordering service. 

According to Reuters, Lilly’s anti-obesity therapy Zepbound will be available on Amazon Pharmacy starting Wednesday. This is the second online pharmacy to partner with LillyDirect and can provide two-day deliveries with Prime membership. 

LillyDirect launched in January and aims to make Zepbound easier for patients to access. And why is that? Because this will increase sales and is great for share price and stakeholders. This process eliminates the doctor and local pharmacies. 

The marriage of big pharma and Amazon comes as the popularity of Zepbound and other GLP-1 medications soars nationwide. This also means that the demand for telemedicine services is rising. 

John Love, Vice President of Amazon Pharmacy, told CNBC in an interview that the company is exploring ways to expedite drug delivery to Americans in under two days. 

“We actually don’t think that’s a high enough bar. We’re still getting started,” Love said, adding, “But this is what I think makes us an attractive partner and collaborator for all sorts of folks like Lilly, payers, providers who are looking for a different type of pharmacy.” 

Amazon Chief Medical Officer Dr. Vin Gupta told CNBC that in addition to fast shipping, Amazon Pharmacy will offer 24/7 access to clinical pharmacists for patients. 

Amazon Pharmacy has also partnered with Novo Nordisk to sell Wegovy. 

It’s evident that big pharma, the government, and mega-corporations would rather hook the obese population on GLP-1 medications instead of promoting and selling healthy lifestyles. Why is that? Because there’s no money in being healthy. Selling pen injectors for more than a thousand dollars a pop is big money. 

By Michael Every of Rabobank

Sein-tral Banking

As a regular Global Daily reader recently commented to me, “In Canada, we have a new comedy show that has launched over the past few months: The Bank of Canada’s Policy Rate Announcement Press Conferences. Journalists basically ask, “When rate cuts?” in a myriad of creative ways, and the Governor, smirking and rolling his eyes along with his Senior Deputy for all to see, responds with equally creative iterations of the punchline “not telling ya!””

My response is that this comedy show seems to be widely franchised, like Seinfeld – and is like Seinfeld. It’s “about nothing” the more you listen. More importantly, it remains to be seen if it’s “no rate cuts for you!” or if we are “cuts worthy” and get “serenity now!” in a Festivus for the Rest of Us – which is being accompanied by global airing of grievances and feats of strength already.

On the latest data, US CPI was 0.3% m-o-m headline, 0.4% core, so 3.2% y-o-y headline, 3.8% core, and 3.9% core services, up from 3.6% the previous month…. and yet the punchline didn’t change: “stock traders bracing for worst brush off hot CPI“, as Bloomberg put it.

New Zealand inflation today were also not friendly across the board. Food prices were down, but fuel and rent both up; that’s with the economy likely in recession. Markets were again little moved. After all, rate cuts are still starting in June regardless say central banks (which is why it’s “about nothing”) – though note our Fed watcher Philip Marey says the risks are increasingly toward later, not sooner.

For now, central banks, like the Seinfeld cast, are competing to hold back from indulging their natural urges – in this case, to cut rates. They know services inflation is still too high, and that they can’t rely on permanent goods deflation. They know cutting too soon could cement inflation above 2%, meaning even more loss of reputation. So, like the king of no reputation, George Costanza, they are doing the exact opposite of what their inner voice tells them to do, and holding firm a bit longer.

But they also know that this risks tipping the economy into a deep downturn – and they must not double dip! Doing so risks them then crying, “You’re killing independent George!”

For now, they may think they can cut once or twice and then wait and see with no harm done. However, they don’t want an economy that thinks sustained high rates are as ridiculous as Jerry’s puffy shirt to fall over as a result. And they forget markets and rate cuts are like Kramer and Kenny Rogers chicken: once they start, they can’t stop; one or two promised cuts rapidly becomes seven priced in, easing policy far too much.

As such, central banks are having difficulty meaning what they appear to say and saying what they appear to mean. As with Jerry and the pen:

JERRY: What kind of pen is that?

JACK: This pen?

JERRY: Yeah.

JACK: This is an astronaut pen. It writes upside down. They use this in space.

JERRY: Wow! That’s the astronaut pen. I heard about that. Where did you get it?

JACK: Oh it was a gift.

JERRY: Cause sometimes I write in bed and I have to turn and lean on my elbow to make the pen works.

JACK: Take the pen.

JERRY: Oh no.

JACK: Go ahead.

JERRY: I couldn’t

JACK: Come on, take the pen!

JERRY: I can’t take it.

JACK: Do me a personal favor!

JERRY: No, I’m not…

JACK: Take the pen!

JERRY: I cannot take it!

JACK: Take the pen!

JERRY: Are you sure?

JACK: Positive! Take the pen!

JERRY: O.K. Thank you very much. Thank you. Gee, boy!

HELEN: Jack, what are you doing?

JACK: Stop it!

JERRY: Thanks again.

JACK: Come on! (Leaving)

HELEN: (as soon as the door’s closed) What did you take his pen for?

JERRY: What, he gave it to me!

HELEN: You didn’t have to take it.

MORTY: Oh my God! She’s gotta make a big deal out of everything.

JERRY: He offered it to me.

HELEN: Because you made such a big fuss about it.

JERRY: I liked it. Should I have said I didn’t like it?

HELEN: You shouldn’t have said anything. What did you expect him to do?

JERRY: He could have said: “Thank you, I like it too” and put it back in his pocket.

HELEN: He loves that pen.

MORTY: Oh come on!

HELEN: He talks about it all the time. Every time he takes it out he goes on and on about how it writes upside down, how the astronauts use it.

JERRY: If he likes it so much, he never should have offered it.

HELEN: He didn’t think you’d accept.

JERRY: Well, he was wrong.

That kind of conversation now happens after every rate decision and press conference. Did they say what they mean? Did they mean what they say? Should we accept what they are offering? Should we return it?

And meanwhile, the airing of grievances and feats of strength are upon us:

The annual US intelligence threat assessment talks of an “increasingly fragile world order”; yet the latest Pentagon budget includes real terms spending cuts, a sharp rise in civilian bureaucrats in the Navy, a drop in active sailors, and a cut in submarine production that undermines the AUKUS treaty supposed to anchor security for Australia.

McKinsey, who might lose US government contracts for helping China with its state-capitalism, just won a deal to help US Air Force strategy: because management consultants know all about defense. Will it involve selling off US planes and letting China or Mexico fly them instead?

Mercedes Benz’s CEO is lobbying against proposed EU tariffs on Chinese EVs produced by mercantilist state capitalism, because he favors “free trade” (and selling cars in China).

BRICS+ buddies India and China just saw the former send 10,000 more troops to their contested mountain border and dare Beijing to “bat an eyelid”.

And dissident Russian troops have invaded Russia. That’s twice it’s now invaded itself, if you include the Prigozhin episode.

After a solid 3Y auction and a sloppy 10Y, moments ago the Treasury closed out the week’s coupon issuance with the final bond sale of the week when it sold 30Y paper in what was a stellar auction.

The 29-Year, 11-Month reopening priced at a high yield of 4.331%, down from last month’s 4.360% and stopped through the 4.352% When Issued by 2.1bps, the biggest stop through since Jan 2023, and the 4th in a row as the market appears to have substantial appetite for duration.

The bid to cover was also stellar, jumping to 2.47 from 2.40, the highest since June.

The internals were also strong with Indirects awarded 69.3%, down from 70.7% in Feb but aside for that outlier, the highest since June and well above the six-auction average of 66.1%. And with Directs awarded 16.8%, above the recent average of 13.2%, Dealers were left holding 13.9%, the lowest since August 2023.

Overall, this was a stellar auction, and a fitting end to a week where yields have moved notably higher. Not surprisingly, yields dropped after news of the solid bond sale hit, but even so yields were still about 3bps higher on the day following concerns that Japanese bond yields are about to soar after the BOJ hikes rates next week.