From the creators of The Daily Reckoning, I.O.U.S.A, Empire of Debt and The Daily Missive
From the creators of The Daily Reckoning, I.O.U.S.A, Empire of Debt and The Daily Missive
November 19, 2025 • Addison Wiggin
On the next Grey Swan Live!…
November 19, 2025 • Addison Wiggin
We’ve lived through the greatest borrowing binge in modern history, and yet the national mood feels poorer, more brittle, less confident.
There’s a familiar pattern here: the higher the noise, the more critical it becomes to tune it out. The markets will surge and swoon, the political class will posture, and commentators will insist that this time is different.
Our biggest concern, meanwhile, is that with a collapsing stock market, economic anxiety will reach fever highs. And with it the political divide in the country will become even more performative, expressive and violent.
Civil society cannot sustain a credit crisis.
The real work — the only work that actually matters — happens at the level of your own finances, your own decisions, your own family. No administration, blue or red, can insulate you from a balance sheet that doesn’t balance.
November 18, 2025 • Addison Wiggin
November 17, 2025 • Addison Wiggin
November 20, 2025 • Addison Wiggin
With Japanese yields soaring, the returns on the carry trade are lower. Carry trades are likely getting unwound, pushing Japanese bond yields even higher.
The unwinding of the carry trade also helps explain why many individual stocks listed on the New York Stock Exchange have crashed by 40-50% from their recent highs. Investors are selling the target assets of the trade in order to pay back their yen-based loans before their profits get squeezed.
November 19, 2025 • Addison Wiggin
November 18, 2025 • Addison Wiggin
November 19, 2025 • Ian King
On November 10, Coinbase announced a new platform that lets users buy crypto tokens before they list on the exchange.
The company calls it: “a more sustainable and transparent way for projects to distribute tokens.”
In other words, we’re moving into ICO 2.0. But this time there will be more rules.
November 18, 2025 • Mark Jeftovic
Bitcoin isn’t a trade and trying to time it with chart patterns generally does not work.
I’ve never really felt like technical analysis carried much real predictive edge in general and when it comes to BTC, I’ve seen too many failed “death crosses” to change my opinion.
The one that just triggered in mid-November as bitcoin flirted with $90,000 is just the latest.
What really matters? It’s a monetary regime change – if market participants are trading anything it’s getting rid of a currency (“it’s the denominator, stupid”) for a store of value – and we’re seeing it in spades with Bitcoin and gold.
November 17, 2025 • Andrew Packer
The market seems to know something about private credit that we don’t. And in a big enough liquidity event for private credit, investors will have to sell off more liquid assets if they want capital.
That’s the danger private credit poses today, exactly at a time when rules are being eased to make it easier for retail investors like us to buy into this asset class.
I’m in the camp that this smells like a way to keep the party going by providing another source of liquidity – the passive investment flows from your regular 401(k) contributions. The smell takes on a sour note as this sector starts to falter.
Perhaps today’s selloff is simply a reaction to declining interest rates, the growth of private credit, and a few inevitable deals that have gone sour recently.
November 17, 2025 • Addison Wiggin
Credit default swaps (CDS) are a tool that measures the cost to insure against a company’s debt.
A soaring CDS suggests that investors are demanding a higher return. The implication? That debt isn’t as safe as it may appear.
It’s also a sign that the liquidity crisis and dangers in the private credit market are starting to show up in the mega-cap companies that are raising debt to invest in AI and data centers. And if that starts a slowdown, it could mean that the stock market hits the brakes.
November 14, 2025 • Addison Wiggin
I’m obviously very biased against socialism. I don’t think socialism has solutions to these problems. I don’t think Mamdani particularly has solutions. I don’t think you can socialize housing. If you just impose rent controls, then you probably have even less housing, and eventually, it’s even more expensive.
But to Mamdani’s credit, he at least talked about these problems. So my cop-out answer is always to say: The first step is to talk about the problems, even if you don’t know what to do about them. There’s been a failure of, let’s say, the center left-center right establishment to even talk about them.
November 14, 2025 • Addison Wiggin
According to Global Markets Investor, 655 large U.S. companies have already gone bankrupt this year, the most in 15 years. Not yet a “recession,” per se, but a perceptibly slow tightening of the vise.
Credit conditions are stiff. Debt is heavy. Tariffs are pushing up costs. Consumers are fatigued. The Fed may pause in December.
Industrials lead the pack, followed by consumer discretionary and healthcare.
November 14, 2025 • Addison Wiggin
Stocks have developed a habit of selling off into the weekend before rebounding this year.
One big explanation might be that traders don’t want to be leveraged going into two days where the market’s closed in New York – but stay open online.
Any random Trump tweet can and has moved the market!
Ostensibly, if the weekend is quiet, stocks can recoup their Thursday/Friday declines.
November 13, 2025 • Andrew Packer
What we’ve seen since 2008 is nothing short of a theft of the commons. Except it happened in little pieces that seemed unrelated at the time. But if we look at the story holistically, it all comes together.
When we step back and view the entire picture, what emerges is not just a story of market excesses and economic shifts. What we see is the gutting of middle America – be it intentional or otherwise.
Now the question is – are we going to see the restoration of the American middle class in the coming years… or are we going to watch everything devolve into a modern redux of the War Between the States, more commonly but mistakenly known as the American Civil War?
November 13, 2025 • Addison Wiggin
Today’s Washington isn’t governed so much as stage-managed.
Politicians don’t solve problems; they perform them.
The current fixation is affordability — a word that will be repeated ad nauseam from now through the 2026 midterms, until it becomes as meaningless as “bipartisan.”
The script hasn’t changed in decades: promise relief, pass a law that raises costs, blame capitalism, hold hearings, fundraise, repeat.
November 13, 2025 • Addison Wiggin
Yes, Nvidia’s profits are up 500%, and its share price followed suit — a rare case where the story actually matches the math. But that’s the exception, not the rule.
Beneath the headlines, we’re starting to see the kind of financial gymnastics — circular lending, balance-sheet origami, and creative “partnerships” — that usually signal the boom is running out of breath.
If history rhymes, it looks like we’re closing in on the tail end of a mania.
