You are a free subscriber to Me and the Money Printer. To upgrade to paid and receive the daily Capital Wave Report - which features our Red-Green market signals, subscribe here.
Good morning: Trump sent Iran a 15-point peace plan through Pakistan’s army chief last night. Oil fell off a cliff… WTI crashed to $87, and Brent fell below $100. Then this morning, Iran said the whole thing is a trick, and they’d prefer to negotiate with JD Vance. I’ll discuss… Next, Moody’s just bumped recession probability to 48.6%. Oil shock plus tariff uncertainty plus a Fed that’s frozen in place. Austan Goolsbee, Chicago’s Finest, says he doesn’t even know if they can cut again. And then there’s private credit. Ares Management became the 8th fund to gate investors last night… a $10.7 billion fund, capped redemptions at 5%. Apollo gated a fund the day before. Blackstone’s BCRED posted its first loss in three years. Morgan Stanley is warning about an 8% default rate. And Larry Fink went on the BBC and told investors who want their money back: “Those are the rules, live with it.” We’re going deep on this one today. Plus, I am walking through why I like silver now… And the mechanics of the January crash… That’s the show… Bring your NFTS… I will shoot my Money Printer Pro piece next… So if you’d like to see that - after watching this… please check us out… All other things are below… The Slides Are Here
The Transcript is BelowGood morning, everybody. March 25th, it’s a Wednesday. I hope everybody’s having a very good day. We’re going to dive right into it as we always do because we are about about it. My daughter hates that term. Welcome to the Morning Burr. Hey, we have new slides. We really cleaned ourselves up. I am proud of us. Well, it is week four of the Iran conflict and everything has escalated at once, only to de-escalate a little bit this morning. But really the key thing to be focusing on is that the United States has reportedly sent a 15-point plan to Iran through Pakistani channels. Oil is crashing 4% after hours, down about 6% at the moment. Iran suspects a trick. Talks could come as soon as tomorrow. The U.S. Senate blocked war powers 53 to 47. There was a Kuwait airport drone attack as well, and the IDF is striking Tehran. Moody’s has increased its recession odds to nearly 50%, and the private credit crisis continues to get worse. Morgan Stanley is warning of an 8% default rate. We are going to talk a lot about what happened with Ares, and of course, what’s happening with interest rate expectations. This morning in the market, pre-market numbers were up about 0.8%. The S&P 500 was at 5661, now about 5668. Can’t stay on top of everything, can we? This is the Peace Plan Rally, or at least that’s what they’re going to call it as we move microscopic numbers, but it is what it is. This is a very good day for VWAP trading, looking for reversions, looking to see how algorithms and institutions handle this news. The VIX is back under 25, but remember, 24 is still elevated, down 3.5%, once again replying to those headlines. WTI crude down around $87. Brent crude at $98. So we’re back under $100. Bitcoin — that is a serious move. Just going to say it. The fact that we are back above 71,000, that’s signaling positive, more improving liquidity conditions. The 10-year note at 4.10, gold sitting around that $4,500 level, and platinum at $1,900. We’re going to talk a little bit about gold and silver momentarily because I do think silver is at its bottom, and I do like this area now to start speculating and analyzing ways to trade and get into gold. I’ll explain why, and it has a lot to do with a report that I was reading two nights ago from the Bank for International Settlements. I’m going to dig deeper into that later today, but for right now, we’ll start with the easier part. Gold’s at $4,500, silver around $73. I am content to call a floor on silver around $65. Now, I want to point something out very simply. Silver prices moved higher for all of the reasons that we laid out in the Hedge of Tomorrow report back in March 2024 — monetary expansion, ongoing demand for metals. And here’s the thing: without that move on gold to $5,500 and silver to $120, people who read that report two years ago would see silver is up about 200% from those levels and they would be very content with those returns. The issue is that silver has fallen from $120 to $73 since January 30th. A couple of things to highlight here. First off, silver prices went crazy because of speculation and because of a market mechanism. We’re going to discuss that in a second. I just want to highlight something that is very important: all of those fundamental issues that we discussed, the industrial metal application and the fact that it was kind of the poor man’s investment for the rise in gold prices, it all still holds. It still is a good thesis. But once again, silver prices went from $20 to $25 to $75 in roughly two years, and people are upset because others are calling this a bear market for silver. Technically it is, but who cares because it’s still up 200% in two years. What happened to silver? I went through the Bank for International Settlements report. Nobody else has to do this ever. And again, if someone tells you that they read the BIS quarterly review, they are either crazy, lying, or going through something. Maybe I’m going through something. But that said, the thing that happened here was the ETFs. A financial product was responsible, according to the Bank for International Settlements, for that crash in silver back in January. Our momentum signal went negative on the 28th of January. Silver and gold crashed two days later, and momentum broke down the following week. An ETF, so everybody knows — and one of the most prominent ones that you likely know is the SLV, that’s a trust. Forgive me. How about let’s just do a standard ETF so that everybody understands. A standard ETF would be something as simple as the SPY. The SPY is a basket of instruments, a basket of stocks that you can purchase like a stock. It’s simple. But a leveraged ETF like the SPXL, which is a triple leveraged ETF of the S&P 500, says what if we did that but on steroids? A double leveraged silver ETF — and what ticker would that be? AGQ. This is the thing that blew up. A double leveraged ETF uses borrowed money to double your gains. So if silver goes up 2%, you make 4%. If silver goes up 5%, you make 10% and you feel like a genius. But here’s the thing that the brochure around AGQ doesn’t tell you: when it goes the other way, you lose double too. If silver drops 2%, you lose 4%. If silver drops 20%, you lose 40%. And because these products have to rebalance each day, they automatically sell into a market that is falling just to stay in balance. That selling pushes prices lower, which forces more rebalancing, which forces more selling. It is a doom loop. Here’s the thing about silver. Silver prices had doubled in 2025. We were back here with our recommendation on silver around $25. That’s where the original report came from. It then gained another 50% in January alone. And the Bank for International Settlements said that the retail investors were the primary purchasers. Why does this matter? They were the ones piling into things like AGQ, while institutional investors were actually holding steady or taking gains along the way up. This is a huge warning sign in very plain sight — the idea that retail is just chasing these premiums. The big problem was these ETFs were trading at premiums to what is known as their net asset value, the real sum of their parts. This is one of the reasons why I’m always cautious about trading things that are linked to futures. When we got into speculation during the Ukraine war, the Teucrium wheat fund broke above its net asset value because demand was so one-sided that the arbitrage mechanisms in the market couldn’t keep up. And if buying pressure outpaces the system designed to keep it in check, that’s not a market anymore. That is a crowd chasing returns. So three things all happened at the exact same time back around January 29th, January 30th. Leveraged ETFs started their automatic selling. Exchanges started to raise margin requirements in the middle of a crash, forcing traders to either put up more cash or liquidate their positions. And retail investors got margin called. They had to dump positions into a market that was already in free fall. Silver lost 30% in a day. It was the largest drop since the 1980s. The BIS estimates that a drop of that size would have required leveraged ETFs to sell about 3% of the entire silver futures market in a single day just to rebalance. And if you add margin liquidation on top of that, that is where the avalanche came from. You’ll recall, I famously back on January 26th, after this moved up the way it did, threw my hands up and said, guys, I’m selling all of this — anything linked to paper on silver. I held my physical positions. But when things stop making sense, when things start dislocating from net asset values, when things are completely detached from any underlying fundamentals, remember — the purpose of a market is to sell. Add on the fact that we had a negative signal on the 28th, and by the 30th, it was not shocking to see this market absolutely behave the way that it can behave in periods of significant stress. All right, so gold is at $4,558. That leverage in silver has been unwound. And that’s kind of where I want to start looking at names like Silver Wheaton, some of the gold miners, some of these other names. We’re going to keep a very close eye on momentum in the materials space. In order for me to really start to identify where I want to be, I want to look down in some of these names and maybe sell spreads — selling credit spreads, looking to find a place where I’m comfortable buying the stock. What I might focus on, and I’ll do a little bit of a video on this later today as well, is selling credit spreads. I will pick a place where I sell a put, buy a put under that level, and if the stock falls under that point, I’m going to take possession of it. If it doesn’t, I’m going to pocket the premium and move on. This is a good strategy. I’m aiming for an 80% probability of success and at least a 20% return, and we can manage these things along the way. That’s one of the things that we do at Insider Buying Report — we focus on CEOs and CFOs on stocks that we want to own, see where they’re buying, and look to sell spreads under where they are purchasing their stocks. On the oil front, the E&P space is still very intriguing. You saw Devon Energy pushing above $50 yesterday. I’ve been talking about Devon as really my preferred play, but we pulled back a little bit. And this is one of those spots right now where I think I’ve got to think about maybe taking some gains. Truist just upgraded Devon, and we’re seeing a little bit of a pullback here. A lot of the new speculation, the noise, the retail may start to exit as well. And I have my eye very closely on the momentum gauge for energy over at Money Printer Pro. If that starts to go in the opposite direction, I’m not sticking around. I’m going to take whatever gains I have out of the E&P space, which is upstream oil and gas, and put it back into my existing midstream holdings, which, again, I continue to always argue and advocate: there is always money in the midstream. Trump sent the 15-point plan to Pakistan to send to Iran. Talks could happen as soon as Thursday and WTI pulled back on the news. Iran suspects a trick. They want J.D. Vance over Witkoff or Kushner, and they have denied direct talks. The Senate, of course, blocked war powers. Kuwait got hit with a drone, and the IDF is targeting infrastructure. CEOs are telling us quite a bit. The CEO of Shell pointed out that Europe could feel energy shortages by next month. Big hits on jet fuel, big hits on diesel coming next, then gasoline as summer driving starts. Diesel is important because once again, the refinery networks in the Middle East have been targeted. And here in the United States, we need access to more heavy sulfur crude in order to meet the demand of what our refineries have. The WTI and some of these lighter, sweeter crudes in Texas create a refinery mismatch. So we’ll continue to keep an eye on this. Diesel fuel is obviously the backbone of the U.S. economy. Everything touches a truck here in the U.S., so that will be very critical. Larry Fink pointing out that $150 per barrel has profound implications. A stark and steep recession would be the projection, and that’s critical. We go back to the 1991 years, back to those huge spikes we saw in ‘07, ‘08. Once again, higher energy prices trickle across the entire global supply chain. The world is built around oil, not the other way around. Years of $100 oil would remain a threat. He has two scenarios. One, oil falls below pre-war levels, Iran reintegrates and growth recovers — but that’s a huge if. Or, years of $100 to $150 oil, a stark recession, and countries sprint toward solar and other renewables. And that is a very good point. Once again, the key thing to always keep in mind is that when prices elevate, incentives are put in place to create alternatives. Solar is unique. We may see another revival in the alternative energy space. If you’re focusing on that, we always look at Brookfield Infrastructure and Brookfield Renewable. Those businesses, particularly in the renewable space, are the best-in-class assets in our opinion. On top of this, ground forces have been ordered to the Middle East. Two thousand soldiers ordered, two battalions plus enabling units, joining 5,000 Marines already on the way. That’s 7,000 combat troops in theater. The target allegedly is Kharg Island. Ninety percent of Iran’s oil exports come through there, and they are also sending the 82nd. That is not for peacekeeping purposes. Nearly one in two are odds of a recession. Moody’s coming out with recession probability of 48.6%, which is way too precise for me. Goldman at 30%. Wilmington at 45%. EY at 40%. Everybody’s going up on this expectation. Oil shock plus tariff chaos plus Fed paralysis means zero rate relief is in sight. But I will remind you that in the post-2008 world, we’ve had recessions last about a whopping 16 minutes. Because it’s not really about recession focus — it’s really about ensuring there is ample capital in the plumbing of the system. And every time that system cracks and they inject more capital into it, surprise, surprise, we end up avoiding a recession. So even if energy prices are elevated and for some reason the Federal Reserve decides, you know what, we’re going to pump money into the economy — or Congress gets drunk one morning and says, hey, let’s just add $2 trillion in stimulus — guess what’s going to happen? We’re not going to have a recession. So keep an eye on monetary and fiscal policy. We talk about recessions all the time. We’ve had this conversation about soft landings over and over again. It is kind of the boy who cries wolf. But at the end of the day, there’s so much money sloshing around, and there’s such a significant focus on government spending in the post-COVID era, that that level of spending has been what is responsible for keeping us out of a recession. Oh, and by the way, if we ever do have a recession like we pretty much did in 2022–2023, they’ll just change the definition of it. Remember, they did that last time. So we’ll see. As you can tell, I’m always a skeptic. Ares making it eight. Congratulations, guys. Welcome to the party, pal. This is one of my favorite companies — ARES and ARCC in the BDC space. But here we go. Ares’s $10.7 billion private credit fund capped at 5% after 11.6% was requested. Apollo gated a day earlier. B-CRED posted its first loss in three years, down 0.4%. And of course, as you know, Moody’s cut FS/KKR to junk status the other day. In Canada, $30 billion in private real estate funds have been gated — that’s 40% of the total — and it just keeps coming. You see the list on the right. It all started with Blue Owl and the Tampa Bay Lightning losing a game 6-2, then BlackRock, Stone Ridge, Morgan Stanley, Apollo, all of the usual suspects, and of course Cliffwater, which we discussed in a recent piece both in the Money Printer and Money Printer Pro — how that $33 billion fund was the quote-unquote canary in the coal mine, according to analysts. That said, Larry Fink’s got something to say about it. The zero loss fantasy, according to CNBC, stating that the 8% default rate takes private credit from a zero loss fantasy to a normal credit class. So it is a painful but healthy reset. Shadow defaults continue to rise. I’m going to go into depth on this today because there is way more money sloshing around offshore in shadow markets than I ever imagined. Once again, if you read the Bank for International Settlements quarterly review for March 2026, my eyes — I just stared at the wall for a good hour on some of the things that are going on. So I’m going to do a video on that today, the five big takeaways, the five things that made my eyes pop. One of the key things today was obviously what we discussed with silver, but the private credit side, particularly on the AI side, is absolutely staggering. Goldman’s worst case scenario is $105 billion in losses. That’s a 5% to 6% cutback in new lending in the private sector. And the reality is this: what investors are going to just start loading up on private credit? What fiduciary is going to tell people, hey, now’s the time to start going into private credit? People would obviously be concerned about that. So as I noted in a recent article, one of the key things here is the loss of trust at the institutional level. Some of these funds may survive, but they’re not going to be able to bring in new capital, and the relationships that they have with existing RIAs and other institutions are impacted. This is one of the things that happened during the 2008 crisis, although these are very different events. Some of those real estate funds that persisted and survived post-2008, 2009, basically spent the next three to four years just selling off assets in a quiet spiral down the toilet. It just ultimately did not end well and they ultimately shut down. That said, Larry Fink wants you to know there’s a reason you’re not getting your money back if you want to stand in line. He said there are rules and you better live with it. He says this is not a 90-page or 68-page prospectus — it was a one-page prospectus. Well, once again, a reminder that very few people read anything that they sign these days. So yes, BlackRock, Blackstone, everybody else is going to say, hey, these are the rules that you agreed to. But that said, that is not going to benefit the long term for these fund managers who are basically telling people, yeah, you can’t get your money back. Sorry. On the signal front, we’re still red. We’ve seen improvement. This is one of those days where we’re looking at volume weighted average price, looking for the market to potentially squeeze a little bit higher today just because it needs some relief, some short covering. Pay very close attention to volume, the RSI, and the MFI. On the S&P 500, the money flow index is the key thing to watch. That is a momentum oscillator that combines price and volume. If the RSI is moving higher but the MFI is moving lower, that is signaling that we have a lower volume rally, and that can signal the possibility of reversals to the downside. If you want to keep up with the number of stocks that are breaking out versus breaking down, including the new names hitting the breakout list and the stocks falling off the breakdown list, obviously please become a member of Money Printer Pro. Energy is the only sector that is positive at the moment, but it is not just over yet. Come on, there’s got to be something that’s going to be improving, right? This morning, technology is flat. Technology is equal, and the NASDAQ is looking like it’s about to squeeze. We’ve been bearish on the NASDAQ for 31 days. It would be wonderful to see this come to a close. All right, everybody. If you’re not a member, once again, Me and the Money Printer is free. This is the free show. We do this every morning before 8:30 goes out, and then I do a follow-up with Money Printer Pro readers. We go through the platform, look for opportunities. Postcards from the Edge of the World goes out once a week on Saturday or Sunday with a portfolio update on Wednesday or Thursday. This is geopolitical risk and global market stories. The portfolio has done very well this year — I believe we’re beating the S&P 500 by about nine percentage points. That’s the S&P negative, plus heavy, heavy dividend focus. Insider Buying Report is available as well. We have opened up InsiderStockBuys.com. That is now available for anyone who is interested. Other places will charge you $50 a month for the platform. We have not just a platform, but also custom emails and analysis that provides up-to-date insights on CFO and CEO insider buying, and we’re only charging $9.99 a month because we want to make this accessible and continue to provide education on the insider buying space. All right, everybody. 8:10, I’m going to wrap it up. I hope you all have a great trading day. If you have any questions, obviously there is a comment section below. Do me a favor, share this with your friends. Like and share. YouTube channel, hey, it’s there. And you know, maybe you go watch my show and you get distracted and instead just watch Wu-Tang Clan. I’d be fine with that too. I hope everybody has a great day. We’ll catch up on the other side. Take care. Keywords: Iran conflict, 15-point peace plan, Pakistan, oil crash, WTI, Brent crude, VWAP, VIX, Bitcoin, gold, silver, Bank for International Settlements, BIS quarterly review, leveraged ETFs, AGQ, SLV, net asset value, doom loop, margin call, rebalancing, retail investors, Silver Wheaton, gold miners, credit spreads, E&P, Devon Energy, midstream, Kharg Island, 82nd Airborne, recession odds, Moody’s, Goldman Sachs, Larry Fink, private credit crisis, Ares, ARCC, Apollo, B-CRED, FS/KKR, Blue Owl, BlackRock, Cliffwater, shadow defaults, gating, redemptions, BDC, money flow index, MFI, RSI, NASDAQ, S&P 500, Capital Wave, momentum, energy sector, Shell, diesel, refinery mismatch, Brookfield, solar, renewables, Money Printer Pro, Insider Buying Report, Postcards from the Edge of the World YouTube Description: Week four of the Iran conflict and the tape is whipsawing on every headline. The U.S. has reportedly sent a 15-point peace plan through Pakistani channels, crashing oil 6% overnight, but Iran suspects a trick and talks remain uncertain. Meanwhile, the Senate blocked war powers 53-47, the IDF struck Tehran, and 7,000 U.S. combat troops including the 82nd Airborne are heading to theater with Kharg Island — 90% of Iran’s oil exports — as the alleged target. We break down what really happened to silver: the BIS quarterly review reveals how leveraged ETFs like AGQ created a doom loop that wiped 30% off silver in a single day, the largest drop since the 1980s. Retail investors piling into leveraged products at premiums to net asset value got margin called while institutions had already taken profits on the way up. With that leverage now unwound, we explain why $65 silver looks like a floor and how to position using credit spreads on miners. The private credit crisis deepens. Ares gates its $10.7 billion fund at 5% after 11.6% redemption requests. Apollo gated a day earlier. Moody’s cut FS/KKR to junk. $30 billion in Canadian real estate funds are locked. Morgan Stanley warns of 8% default rates, and Goldman’s worst case is $105 billion in losses. Larry Fink calls it the end of the “zero loss fantasy.” We discuss why the real damage is the loss of institutional trust and what that means for capital formation going forward. Recession odds are surging — Moody’s at 48.6%, Goldman at 30%, EY at 40% — but in a post-2008 world where every crack gets plugged with liquidity, how real is the threat? Plus: VWAP trading setups, RSI vs. MFI divergence signals, and why energy remains the only positive sector for the 31st straight day. Subscribe for daily Capital Wave readings and momentum analysis at MoneyPrinterPro.com. About Me and the Money Printer Me and the Money Printer is a daily publication covering the financial markets through three critical equations. We track liquidity (money in the financial system), momentum (where money is moving in the system), and insider buying (where Smart Money at companies is moving their money). Combining these elements with a deep understanding of central banking and how the global system works has allowed us to navigate financial cycles and boost our probability of success as investors and traders. This insight is based on roughly 17 years of intensive academic work at four universities, extensive collaboration with market experts, and the joy of trial and error in research. You can take a free look at our worldview and thesis right here. Disclaimer Nothing in this email should be considered personalized financial advice. While we may answer your general customer questions, we are not licensed under securities laws to guide your investment situation. Do not consider any communication between you and Florida Republic employees as financial advice. The communication in this letter is for information and educational purposes unless otherwise strictly worded as a recommendation. Model portfolios are tracked to showcase a variety of academic, fundamental, and technical tools, and insight is provided to help readers gain knowledge and experience. Readers should not trade if they cannot handle a loss and should not trade more than they can afford to lose. There are large amounts of risk in the equity markets. Consider consulting with a professional before making decisions with your money.
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
0 Response to "The Morning BRRR - March 25"
Post a Comment