🇨🇦 The Canada Post is Failing

It's going the way of the American Post Office: somehow continually deeply in the red despite possessing monopolies.

That strike they mentioned only really lasted a couple weeks. There was a deal in a couple months. The normal service is protected—for now.

📨 I N T E L R U N N E R 📨

🇺🇸 Will the Supreme Court rule in favor of Trump's tariffs?

There's a 32% chance at the moment, according to Polymarket. The oral arguments didn't go great...

🎱 I N T E L R U N N E R 🎱

🇺🇸 The Bull-Bear Spread Climbs to Cycle Highs

It's above 45% for the first time since December 2024.

In other words, this is as bullish as it's gotten under Trump.

🐂 I N T E L R U N N E R 🐻

🇺🇸 Bitcoin, gold, and silver couldn't be more differently positioned in terms of momentum...

🥇 Gold and silver are way overbought. Gold's daily RSI is at 89 and the MACD is at 70. 84 RSI on the weekly. The monthly is 96 RSI. It's overbought.

🥈 Silver's at 74 RSI on the daily (or after yesterday's retreat), 90.5 on the weekly, and 95 on the monthly. They're overbought.

💰 Bitcoin, on the other hand, is oversold. 39 RSI & -745 MACD on the daily. 38 & -1,142 on the weekly. Monthly, 51 & -3,136. O-ver-sold.

🌐 I N T E L R U N N E R 🌐

🪙 Bitcoin and the ISM Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI)

This chart plots the Z-scores of Bitcoin's price and the ISM-PMI from 2011 through early 2026.

Synchronous peaks in 2013, 2017-18, and 2021. Congruent troughs in 2015, 2019, and 2022.

The essence of the point is that Bitcoin is very much a part of the macro environment and its cycles are essentially interactions of business & liquidity cycles.

📈 I N T E L R U N N E R 📈

🇺🇸 Discernment of Truth in Foreign Policy News Across Generations [Gallup]

Question: When you get news and information about US foreign policy, do you generally find it difficult or easy to determine what is true and what is not?

Naturally, Boomers are the most confident in their perception of reality. They're also the most reliant on TV news. It's not a coincidence that they're seeking out the least nuanced, most slanted presentations of the news and they think it's shooting fish in a barrel to identify the truth in modern "news."

Gen Z is, once again, the wisest, most circumspect generation. They're also the least likely to consume TV news.

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🇬🇧 The Find Out Now poll taken on Wednesday, January 28th in the United Kingdom

In brackets, the delta since July 23rd (the last half year):

• Reform – 29% [-5]
• Green – 19% [+9]
• Conservative – 17% [+1]
• Labour – 17% [-3]
• Liberal Democrat – 11% [-3]
• Scottish National – 3% [0]
• Plaid Cymru – 1% [0]

Bet you didn't think Reform & Green would be the leading parties for the next election...

Reform has shed a bit in the last six months. In my opinion, that's down to becoming a Conservative refugee camp and taking on their baggage. The Greens seem to have drawn even more support from the bases of Labour & the Lib Dems.

It's going to be a different sort of election, but I suspect in the end, the Brits will find it's really all quite similar...

✅ I N T E L R U N N E R ❌

🇺🇸 The TS Lombard Liquidity Index has turned up.

This is an important development and likely a good sign for short-to-medium-term relief in risk markets.

📊 I N T E L R U N N E R 📊

🇮🇳 Percentage of Rural Households Who Defecate in the Open

25.9% of rural Indian households shit in the street, on the banks of the river—anywhere really.

That's the point. Emphasizing your caste by shitting everywhere because it's beneath you to put a bathroom on your property.

Meanwhile, the actual developed world cries out "if you're shitting in the street, nothing is beneath you."

This is the same problem that's shitting up the shores of Lake Ontario.

💩 I N T E L R U N N E R 💩

🇺🇸 The prediction market for Trump v. Slaughter sees an 83% chance that the Supreme Court will overturn or narrow Humphrey's Executor vs. the United States. [Polymarket]

This is the latest in the counter-administrative state initiative that's been going on since the first Trump Administration. This would mean the presidency reclaims control over firing people working in the Executive Branch.

If they can manage to pull this one out (despite Kavanaugh & Barrett being almost as stupid as the Three Musketeers), that will be a great day for our crippled republic and its fabled Constitution.

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🇺🇸 The price of a gallon of gasoline is up 4-5 cents year-to-date. We're averaging $2.87 in America as of yesterday.

Year over year, a gallon of gas is down 7.9%.

Obviously Trump is getting a lot of help from the price of oil on this. We shall see if prices so low can be sustained with the economy—and commodities broadly—heating up again.

⛽️ I N T E L R U N N E R ⛽️

🇺🇸 Kevin Warsh has conquered the day. The monetarist is the heir apparent to Jerome Powell.

He will take office as Federal Reserve Chairman this summer if approved.

Discussion: Implications of the Next Fed Chairman [NFU, Dec 22 2025]

🦅 I N T E L R U N N E R 🦅

🇺🇸 The FOMC statement this week registered as "materially more hawkish" than December, according to Augur's LLM.

The Fed is in an interesting situation, no? Stocks, ATHs; gold & silver, ATHs; housing, unaffordable; debt across the board, ATHs; trillion dollar deficit; yields, stuck; money supply, ATH; CPI, stuck at 3%; unemployment & difficulty finding a job, rising; bank reserves, precariously depleted; reverse repo facility, same.

There's really no way forward besides beginning the painful process of extricating ourselves from decades of bad policy, starting with the Fed's balance sheet.

Let us hope Warsh actually follows through on that and doesn't Greenspan out...

🦅 I N T E L R U N N E R 🦅