*** GLOBAL MARKETS - Fiat Games ***
MARKET UPDATES & QUARTERLY LETTERS
Periodically we publish Market Updates designed to inform investors about current market conditions. We tend to only release these when markets turmoil or reach apparent inflection points or experience increased volatility, causing concern. This approach allows us to provide information to investors but avoid becoming 'white noise' from publishing too frequently.
Central bank intervention and steadily up-trending markets have reduced the frequency of Updates (which has been good news!) as the two factors combine to inflate asset values which in turn put the public to sleep. But ... increasingly, the visibility of both these monetary tricks and institutional corruption is reaching more and more people. Thus, central bank tricks may no longer work as well, volatility will increase, as might the frequency of our Updates!
Our Quarterly Letters can be found below, along with any Market Updates sent in between letters. At the bottom, in the dark section you can find our letter from 2014 which identified many of the issues affecting us right now, in particular Russia and Ukraine. For archived Updates and/or copies of our detailed Quarterly Letters which cover the evolution of critical issues affecting today's markets and the future of your investments, please call us or e-mail us at info@f3advisors.com .
Central bank intervention and steadily up-trending markets have reduced the frequency of Updates (which has been good news!) as the two factors combine to inflate asset values which in turn put the public to sleep. But ... increasingly, the visibility of both these monetary tricks and institutional corruption is reaching more and more people. Thus, central bank tricks may no longer work as well, volatility will increase, as might the frequency of our Updates!
Our Quarterly Letters can be found below, along with any Market Updates sent in between letters. At the bottom, in the dark section you can find our letter from 2014 which identified many of the issues affecting us right now, in particular Russia and Ukraine. For archived Updates and/or copies of our detailed Quarterly Letters which cover the evolution of critical issues affecting today's markets and the future of your investments, please call us or e-mail us at info@f3advisors.com .
Quarterly Letter
2026 Q2 - Rock & Roll
Markets rolled on in Q2, bolstered by the $40B/mo infusion former Fed Chair Powell started last December, stated to be temporary until tax April 2026 Season, but continued through quarter end. Federal debt was outdone by AI hyperscalers issuance of stunning amounts of corporate debt as Chicken Little promotes an AI win-at-all-costs-or-face-doom mandate. The rest of the market, and the economy, saw improved activity as on-shoring and debt-financed business flourished. Q3 earnings and forecasts, along with insight on any degree to which AI debt and circular financing shenanigans are sustainable, should drive market direction from here.
Quarterly Letter
2026 Q1 - Dump & Pump
Q1 traversed yet another rollercoaster ride of market hysteria followed by a Trump Administration call to 'Buy Stocks' rally. The level of absurdity increases by the day as market manipulation by politicians and their entrenched bureaucracies escalates to a laughingstock level. Tariff threats, a two-day non-war in Venezuela, a new war with Iran, and inflationary insanity capture headlines, but underneath it all more debt and more monetary units rage. Any pretense of balancing budgets is long gone.
The AI circular financing nonsense has yet to leave a mark on investor behavior as all dips continue to be bought. As we went to print with our Q1 letter, we swung from solidly in the red at quarter end, to firmly in the black three weeks later! Tune in to our recap and forecast here.
Quarterly Letter
2025 Q4 - Fiat Under Fire
2025 finished with modest gains, decent numbers in major indices and strength abroad in particular in emerging markets ... and ... precious metals caught fire. The Fiat world is roiling as central banks of almost every country move to out-print each other, outpace the rest of the world through AI, and not end up on the waste heap that has hosted every other fiat empire before. Geopolitical shenanigans are all about capturing the world's resources. Nothing is what it seems, but then media coverage never addresses any real agendas. We'll give it a shot here.
Market Update
2025 12 26 - Silver Bells
The fiat fiasco may well be in trouble. The new precious metals exchange in the Far East seems to have throttled the manipulations that have been fined for years in the Western hubs of London and New York. The world seems to have had enough of western fiat that prints into battleships and missile. The Silver Bells of Christmas may have passed, but the warning bells in the silver markets are ringing loudly.
Market Update
Dalio's Changing Economic World Order
Without labeling it a Fourth Turning, Ray Dalio's 'forecast' from a few years back illustrates quite well where we find ourselves. Our views agree with much of Ray's lesson. We think the precious metals markets (and many other inflating assets) agree, too.
Quarterly Letter
2025 Q3 - Gold vs the AI Pump
The Changing of the Guard did nothing to stop the fiat pump. Bessent replaced Yellen, Trump replaced Biden and the rhetoric changed, but the deficit, debt and fiat currency destruction continued its exponential climb to an eventual peak. Gold is speaking louder than the swamprats in DC, while the AI pump finally begins to reveal its shady accounting and ludicrious development plans to a broader group of analysts who can actually think past the blather. Our Q3 letter offers a detailed look at market valuations priced in both gold and fiat, as well as stretched valuations and the AI game.
Quarterly Letter
2025 Q2 - Another Bailout
Stock carnage bottomed in April when Trump's Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent pumped more debt out to finance even more deficits. Investors need to weigh potential market risks from Tariff twists against Trump's own propensity to pump stocks as a substitute for anesthesia. The Covid fiasco was met with a truly unprecedented debt explosion, leading to Bidenflation (on the normal lag between stimulus and price surges). Thus far, Trump has again talked the talk, and cast aside walking the walk to instead pump fiat deficits to the moon ... this time to the benefit of Tech oligarchs and the investors riding their job-demolishing, money-and-identity tracking devices. Markets celebrate building Catherine Austin Fitts' 'pan-opticon'. The stock ride can continue, personal liberties perhaps may not. Gold weighs in loudly, as it always tends to do during volatile periods in history.
Quarterly Letter
2025 Q1 - Tariff Tantrum
Well, markets do not like uncertainty, right? Q1 was a testament to that long standing Wall Street adage! Trump's disruptive style has thrown the business sector into a frenzy as everyone tries to figure out what goods and services will cost, and what impact the new environment will have on customer spending. Debt continues to skyrocket at national and personal levels, and commodities suggest they might be an up and coming cycle preference. Wild times.
Market Update
2025 03 07 - Fiat, Folly & Fraud!
Always the hysteria ...
Like Banshees the swamp creatures shriek and shame, as DOGE moves to gut the Fed-financed (& Treasury) fiat that, created out of thin air, plows into the coffers of shady institutions like US A I D. As with most Washingtonian psyops, the name of the institution serves only to mock or confuse. 'AID' has nothing to do with the connotation it suggests - 'helping other' - but rather finances NGOs who are likewise named to suggest the same objective. Instead, the institution itself, and the NGOs that receive the funneled fiat, engage in instigation that topples societies and countries across the globe. Yes, some of the NGOs do help some people along the way, but plenty of others do the opposite.
Treasury kingpin Janet Yellen financed anything and everything until her final day on duty. This update shows the entire market move from Halloween 2023 thru now was largely her doing, leaving the country backed into a corner financially, and having 'investors' convinced that there was only one direction: Up. Is there? Or will the chickens (what is left of them) come home to roost? Tune in here for a look.
Like Banshees the swamp creatures shriek and shame, as DOGE moves to gut the Fed-financed (& Treasury) fiat that, created out of thin air, plows into the coffers of shady institutions like US A I D. As with most Washingtonian psyops, the name of the institution serves only to mock or confuse. 'AID' has nothing to do with the connotation it suggests - 'helping other' - but rather finances NGOs who are likewise named to suggest the same objective. Instead, the institution itself, and the NGOs that receive the funneled fiat, engage in instigation that topples societies and countries across the globe. Yes, some of the NGOs do help some people along the way, but plenty of others do the opposite.
Treasury kingpin Janet Yellen financed anything and everything until her final day on duty. This update shows the entire market move from Halloween 2023 thru now was largely her doing, leaving the country backed into a corner financially, and having 'investors' convinced that there was only one direction: Up. Is there? Or will the chickens (what is left of them) come home to roost? Tune in here for a look.
Quarterly Letter
2024 Q4 - Yellen's Set-up
The villain of our Q3 letter, esteemed Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, followed through in the last days of her administration by handing successor Scott Bessent the dubious privilege of determining whether to continue her quarterly refinancing (borrowing) pace of $800 Billion. (4 x $800B = $3.2T). 'Markets' continued to elevate with all the debt-based fiat money pumping into every suspect intiative that DOGE is now attacking as the new administration looks to cut off the endless 'funding'. Bessent punted, essentially buying some time, but markets remain elevated aloft, with the task for investors to figure out how stock prices can remain on an upward trajectory with company revenues being reduced. Read about Q4 as we will find out the response to Yellen's set-up as 2025 unfolds!
Quarterly Letter
2024 Q3 - Banana Republic
October closed with a continued fiat-pump, and we rolled into the U.S. in essentially Banana Republic form. Fourth Turnings culminate in such a manner,.
Election results left some supporters pleased, some forlorn, but the whole debacle cast a visible cloud over election integrity. 20 million votes disappeared from the 2020 count, halts to counting occurred in some of the most contested areas of 2020 and 2022, and the states that do not require ID deviated statistically significantly from the parts that do require it.
The Fed Chairman cut rates again, stated he would not resign if asked and set up a confrontation with the incoming administration. Included as advisors to the new administration are Ron Paul (author of 'End the Fed') and Judy Shelton, a sound-money, pro-gold advocate.
Nonetheless, there was a result declared in the election, and 0.25% rate cut, and markets resumed climbing stretching valuations further. The levels are fully dependent on the egregious quarterly debt-financing the Treasury Secretary launched around Halloween 2023. We've stretched past the patterns observed in our letter, suggesting a bit more upside may be possible. The usual Wall Street games that force other investors to pile into equities at highs is underway.
We don't know how this will play out (or rather the timing of a reversal to sanity), but we do know that more than ever, portfolio positioning for paper assets and contingency strategies call for thoughtfulness and steady hands.
Election results left some supporters pleased, some forlorn, but the whole debacle cast a visible cloud over election integrity. 20 million votes disappeared from the 2020 count, halts to counting occurred in some of the most contested areas of 2020 and 2022, and the states that do not require ID deviated statistically significantly from the parts that do require it.
The Fed Chairman cut rates again, stated he would not resign if asked and set up a confrontation with the incoming administration. Included as advisors to the new administration are Ron Paul (author of 'End the Fed') and Judy Shelton, a sound-money, pro-gold advocate.
Nonetheless, there was a result declared in the election, and 0.25% rate cut, and markets resumed climbing stretching valuations further. The levels are fully dependent on the egregious quarterly debt-financing the Treasury Secretary launched around Halloween 2023. We've stretched past the patterns observed in our letter, suggesting a bit more upside may be possible. The usual Wall Street games that force other investors to pile into equities at highs is underway.
We don't know how this will play out (or rather the timing of a reversal to sanity), but we do know that more than ever, portfolio positioning for paper assets and contingency strategies call for thoughtfulness and steady hands.
Quarterly Letter
2024 Q2 - Central Bank Hijinx
The Central Banks coordinated pollution of more and more currency units took a hit to the chin in early August. Japan had to raise rates ... by a measly 0.15% ... and the Fed pretended it had to keep rates high in the U.S. at 5%+ despite the real economy crumbling in various regions. The Fed references strong data, skipping over the fact that the Jobs #s are phony, inflation data is blatantly ridiculous, and the little people who they state they are serving are being slaughtered with taxes, tuition, mortgage and car loan payments, grocery bills and surging electricity costs.
Nonetheless, the traders the central banks server found they had to cancel out all of their trades where the borrowed for nothing (in Japanese yen) and plowed money into assets in countries with higher rates and their stock markets (U.S.) BOOM. The stunning money spent on the forced immigration into western countries, and wars escalating worldwide has plowed into U.S. companies serving those interests. Until now. The visible corruption everywhere has shaken faith in institutions and governments that do anything but serving their people. Hang on for the resolution to this mess, and the election circus in the U.S. Since elections in France, UK, Venezuela, and numerous other countries have been absurd, expect nothing less in the U.S.
Nonetheless, the traders the central banks server found they had to cancel out all of their trades where the borrowed for nothing (in Japanese yen) and plowed money into assets in countries with higher rates and their stock markets (U.S.) BOOM. The stunning money spent on the forced immigration into western countries, and wars escalating worldwide has plowed into U.S. companies serving those interests. Until now. The visible corruption everywhere has shaken faith in institutions and governments that do anything but serving their people. Hang on for the resolution to this mess, and the election circus in the U.S. Since elections in France, UK, Venezuela, and numerous other countries have been absurd, expect nothing less in the U.S.
Quarterly Letter
2024 Q1 - Yellen's Debt Pump
The risk-asset ramp continues on the back of Secretary Yellen's debt binge. Reminiscent of the market ramp directly into Covid in 2020, market advances with next to no pull-backs were the norm until March 31st. April brought a different story however, and markets are technically positioned to either deliver one more ramp up past the Quarter-end highs, or instead decline notably. We see argument for both, perhaps the first followed by the latter. Debt-based fiat does nothing if not distort reality, paper over inefficiency and corruption, and finance misfeasance (which we can easily find just about everywhere). There is a (s)Election to unfold in some bizarre manner, a border invasion with which to grapple, and a World War to hopefully avoid. In case you have not noticed, markets can ignore all of them ... until they don't. Have a read of our latest pull-no-punches update, and say a few prayers that the insanity can be pushed back! In the meantime, we'll do what we can with client assets including encouragement to not have all one's wealth in 'paper'. It does not deserve that respect!
2022 YE Redux??
2023 Q4 - Quarterly Letter
2023 closed with a fourth quarter surge, on the heels of Treasury Secretary Yellen's actions to issue staggering new amounts of debt (essentially funding massive deficits). From Halloween, when nine of the seventeen key indices we track were negative year-to-date, risk assets surged virtually straight up. With 2024 an election year, almost certain stimulus efforts will be offset with the cessation of Yellen's March back-door bank bail-out. Consumers are still spending, but many economic indicators show deterioration under the surface. Our letter lays out the good, the bad, and of course the ugly. Caution is still the word in our view.
2023 Q3
2023 Q3 - Quarterly Letter
Contrary to current mainstream narrative, the advance of a few of the most widely followed indices is far from robust, hollowing out rather quickly when you look under the hood. Real headwinds persist. Those include: geopolitical tinderboxes, economic warfare between the BRICS and the fiat-central-bank old-world G7 countries, stubborn inflation, and surging interest rates (that have not only slowed the majority of companies included in the major indices, but greatly hobbled the banking system). Another backdoor bail-out saved the day, not seen by most people who instead must focus on daily life and navigating the side effects of central planning. Q3 earnings and forecasts will set the trend for the finish to 2023,and should reveal whether 2023 has been a Bear Market Rally from last October's lows (which would then be re-visited), or whether the Fed has magically pulled another fiat-rabbit from Americans' money hat. Please read our letter for more detail.
2023 09 28
2023 09 28 - Market Update - SHOWTIME?
2023 reads like a classic Bear Market Rally, yet with a modern twist: yet another central bank back-door bank bailout. Are you seeing the follies of the fiat monetary system in which we live? It can go on longer of course, but we if it follows classic form, we may be near an inflection point. Things to consider as we ready for Q3 earnings and forecasts ...
2023 Q2
2023 Q2 - The Games Continue!
Games continue INDEED! Our long-standing view is that the asset markets cannot rise indefinitely without a relentless supply of new money, devaluing the dollar, and used to supply new dollars to be bid into asset markets and/or to suppress interest rates. Pull up a market chart, and you'll find the lows of March ... to the day ... turned into a rally that has not subsided since. What happened that day? Another back-door bank bail-out. The banks, failing because of monetary manipulations that exploded because of the rate hikes, had $700 Billion + of losses essentially stop-gapped by Yellen and the new Bank Term Facility Program. Poof, problem gone. Effectively, it was what would have been a real risk or loss to real investors, removed by the Treasury with collaboration by our banker-friendly Fed. The pressures caused by Quantitative Tightening with the left hand (money supply reduction) were offset instantly by more money printed with the right hand. The thesis stands. Essentially 7 stocks lifted the big two indices ... the rest are more representative of economic cooling or recession. Plenty of charts, a sober look, and information in this quarter's lever. We remain cautious. The 7% mortgage rates and car loans have not yet spoken.
2023 Q1
2023 Q1 - Games?
By appearances, the boot seems to have been lifted as suggested in Q4 ... at least temporarily.
But Q1 of 2023 also saw the mathematical limitations of the Fed's monetary manipulations come home to roost. The vast sums of money generated during the print-new-money COVID bail-out piled into banks. By regulation, much of it was invested by the banks into long term 'quality' bonds at historically low rates, with banks reaching out to long maturity terms to try to earn just a few scraps. The inflation subsequently caused then required the Fed to raise rates hyper-aggressively in 2022, further causing the value of those long bonds to be smashed. Banks resisted raising rates to savers/depositors ... so the depositors left, focing the sale of those bonds at substantial losses. The Fed's answer? Print money to 'inject liquidity' to its banks, and raise the FDIC limits to infinity. Mathematical limitations were greeted by nonsensical knee jerks, lots of Fed blathering, and zero accountability for their own role in the systemic mess the Fed created. A lot is going on, and the backdrop is very similar to the end of 2021 before the bottom dropped out. It is worth knowing to anyone no longer resigned to trusting monetary authorities and interested in fortifying themselves in the event 'nonsense' becomes no longer viable.
But Q1 of 2023 also saw the mathematical limitations of the Fed's monetary manipulations come home to roost. The vast sums of money generated during the print-new-money COVID bail-out piled into banks. By regulation, much of it was invested by the banks into long term 'quality' bonds at historically low rates, with banks reaching out to long maturity terms to try to earn just a few scraps. The inflation subsequently caused then required the Fed to raise rates hyper-aggressively in 2022, further causing the value of those long bonds to be smashed. Banks resisted raising rates to savers/depositors ... so the depositors left, focing the sale of those bonds at substantial losses. The Fed's answer? Print money to 'inject liquidity' to its banks, and raise the FDIC limits to infinity. Mathematical limitations were greeted by nonsensical knee jerks, lots of Fed blathering, and zero accountability for their own role in the systemic mess the Fed created. A lot is going on, and the backdrop is very similar to the end of 2021 before the bottom dropped out. It is worth knowing to anyone no longer resigned to trusting monetary authorities and interested in fortifying themselves in the event 'nonsense' becomes no longer viable.
2022 Q4
2022 Q4 - Boot Lifted?
The proverbial boot lifted from asset markets’ necks as deteriorating economic conditions prompted the Fed-trained participants to hope for a cease in the money tightening and rate hikes. A combination of this learned hope (despite its impact on the future fiscal health of the country) and substantial price declines brought in some buying in Q4. Consumers remain resilient, despite personal savings depleting and credit card balances rising, and January 2023 will likely shed light on both the health of the Consumer and the intentions of the Federal Reserve. It will be a neat trick to dial up the ‘soft landing’ being promoted. Historical patterns are a tug-of-war presently, pitting stock market recoveries that precede economic recoveries against the age-old trend for markets to not bottom until several quarters after the Fed actually ‘pivots’. A pivot is not the narrative Wall Street is shopping (a slower rate of hikes), it is an actual decrease in rates. It is possible January brings yet another Bear Market rally. Read our Q4 letter for full coverage.
2022 Q3
2022 Q3
Q3 continued the ‘monetary hi-jinx’ lesson that the first two quarters of 2022 drove home: no new money printed plus increasing costs to borrow (rising rates) equals lower asset prices. Simple. We first saw this simple math equation in Q4 of 2018, after which the ‘tightening’ was swiftly reversed and replaced with new printing and rate suppression … hence, upward direction in the prices of stocks and groceries all the way until the end of 2021.
The central banks across the world largely maintain they will continue to raise rates and reduce money supply. Time will tell whether they will blink, or markets may face protracted declines.
The central banks across the world largely maintain they will continue to raise rates and reduce money supply. Time will tell whether they will blink, or markets may face protracted declines.
2022 Q2
Q2 followed straight on the heels of Q1, and built on the premise that Q4 2018 proved that asset prices can rise only when the central banks print money without reducing the flow (never mind ceasing it altogether or reducing it as they began to do June 1st). In the US, that is the Fed of course.
The official Bear Market has been reached, major indices dropped -20%+, and we may have entered a regime of Bear Market rallies ahead … time will tell, but Wall Street will look to convince everyone the bottom is in. Maybe it will be, maybe it won’t be. Earnings declines should continue into Q4, and likely beyond. Here is the Q2 Letter:
Market Update Holidays
Volatile markets come from removal of money printing combined with the increase in rates. Big institutions have a LOT of shares to off load, and that is one of the factors that causes strong Bear Market rallies. When day to day investors and traders all lean ‘short’, strong market rallies cause them to buy back shares. Combine that with retail investors who hope that we have seen the bottom and … EVERYONE is buying!!! Except of course the big institutions. They may buy initially to help pump euphoric price rises … but they use those to then sell their large quantities of shares.
Is this a Bear Market? It sure could be. There are no signs of rate reductions or a return to money printing any time soon, so rallies are great opportunities to offload a lot of shares. There is no better time to do offload than into a holiday! When you send everyone to the grills with a feeling of hope or complacency, it’s a gift to those looking for better prices at which to sell.
We’ll find out if the Memorial Day pump is legit or not soon enough. Pay attention, and for more color, here’s a Market Update:
Q1 2022
Q1 was a brutal confirmation that the asset markets don't levitate without the Fed stealing more money from the future. Moreover, several bogeymen have been pulled forth, spicing some new hysteria into the void created by the fading Covid hysteria. We seem to be unable to escape for even a short month or two without a new batch of it served up. The public is beginning to awaken to the rampant corruption throughout major US institutions, and the unending trick of throwing hysteria and new money at everything. The latest chapter, Ukraine/Russia, obscures the fact that Ukraine long ago became a prime location for laundering aid back into the pockets of corrupt US politicians and their families. We first wrote about that in our Q1 2014 letter, which can be found here. Same issues, same people, Act 2.
Q4 2021
Year end followed the customary 'Santa Rally' although largely on the back of the biggest stocks. It is a bit thin underneath. The Fed announced it would dial back its money printing escapades and hike interest rates to combat the inflation that their relentless money printing created in the first place. In Q4 2018, the Fed proved it could not raise rates nor cease money printing without asset prices getting knocked down, a simple truthful revelation of the dependencies they've caused that require constant infusion of cheap money, with new money piled on top of that. We'll see how it plays out, skeptical of their ability to pull it off.
Originally Published Q1 2014
2014 Q1 - Think Ukraine is a New Matter? Think Again
If you think the 'war' in Ukraine is a current matter, and it even remotely matches what the 'news' and politicians speak about, think again. Ukraine has been a controlled territory rife with corruption for a long time, much of it belonging to the West. It affects not only markets, but has the potential to impact the lives and health of people worldwide, not just those residing in the midst of today's destruction. Our Q2 2014 Letter addressed all of this.
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