AI Technology Taking Heat

When ChatGPT hit the scene a few months back, the rip-roaring rally for anything artificial intelligence related was on.

Fast forward to today, and said rally has flamed out rather quickly. Not only have the artificial intelligence-related stocks begun to give back their gains received during the rally, but there is a national backlash swirling across the US.

In Washington, both Congress and the President are questioning whether artificial intelligence is a good thing. President Biden recently said, "Technology companies have a responsibility to make sure their products are safe before making them public." He was asked if AI was dangerous and responded, "It remains to be seen. Could be."

Even Congress is looking into AI and its safety. A nonbinding measure was recently introduced by Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., which will direct the house to look into artificial intelligence.

Interestingly enough, the bill was actually written by the chatbot ChatGPT, which really put AI in the spotlight.

ChatGPT became a household name and really started the AI rally on Wall Street after it was announced the popular website BuzzFeed was planning to use the chatbot to write articles and create content. This occurred on January 26th, 2023. AI technology began to come under fire at the end of March, early April 2023.

Although, even at the beginning of the ChatGPT explosion, some experts and journalists were already calling out ChatGPT for returning historically inaccurate information when asked basic questions. These mistakes raised concerns, even during the beginning of the AI hype, about how trustworthy artificially intelligent machines' answers would be.

The answer is only as reliable as where the answers are originally coming from. Continue reading "AI Technology Taking Heat"

Opportunity To Get Ahead Of The Curve?

At the end of March, interest rates now sit at 6.32% average across the country for a 30-year fixed rate mortgage. While this is lower than a few weeks ago, they are still much higher than a year ago.

The cause is that the Federal Reserve has been raising rates aggressively over the last year to fight persistently high inflation. The Fed's goal of raising rates is to slow the economy and bring inflation back down to a normalized level or target goal of 2%.

Raising rates makes large capital expenditures for businesses or individual households more expensive, thus creating a situation where it is no longer affordable or makes good business sense to make those investments.

Fewer large investments or fewer new homes being built because the financing costs of making those purchases are too high will eventually slow the economy and thus bring inflation down.

While we all want inflation to come down quickly, it takes time for high-interest rates to flow through the system and change business leaders' and households' decision-making.

Furthermore, there is a rather big delay with the economic data that tells us how the economy is performing and whether or not large investments, home purchases, and overall spending is slowing.

This all means that when we realize business leaders-consumers have changed their minds about what investments and purchases are worth making, the economy is already slipping.

If we now look strictly at the household side of the equation, it seems clear that this group is heading toward tough times in the not-so-distant future, thus making the idea of a new home purchase much less likely.

First, we have high inflation. This is making everything across the board more expensive. Consumers' average cost of living is increasing, whether it be groceries, child care, transportation, or clothing. Continue reading "Opportunity To Get Ahead Of The Curve?"

ETFs For Rising Consumer Debt

According to The New York Federal Reserve, consumer debt is at record highs.

At the end of 2022, U.S. consumer debt across all categories totaled $16.9 trillion. That was an increase of $1.3 trillion from one year ago. What's more alarming is that in 2019, the total U.S. consumer debt was $14.14 trillion.

So, while higher interest rates likely fueled some of the increase from 2021 to 2022, increasing consumer debt had occurred even before the Federal Reserve began its rate hikes.

What is concerning about the increasing consumer debt is what it says about the future of our economy. In 2017, the International Monetary Fund released a report that showed a correlation between rising consumer debt and the economy's health. The IMF concluded that rising consumer debt was good for the economy in the short term.

For example, the more consumers take out auto loans, the more the automotive industry, from the auto parts manufacturers to the big auto manufacturers to even the auto dealers, will experience an increase in labor needs. This increase reduces unemployment, which increases overall economic activity and spurs the economy.

Consumer debt rises related to the housing industry have the same effect but on an even larger scale. It's been reported that for every new home built in the U.S., 1.5 new jobs are created.

The IMF study clearly says that while consumer debt is increasing, there are economic benefits. But, in three to five years, those positive effects are reversed. The report states that growth is slower than it would have been if the debt had not increased, and more importantly, the odds of a financial crisis increased.

The IMF went into detail about how much consumer debt needs to grow in order to raise the likelihood of a financial crisis. Their calculations indicate that a five percent increase in the ratio of household debt to the gross domestic product over a three-year period forecasts a 1.25 percentage point decline in inflation-adjusted growth three years in the future. Continue reading "ETFs For Rising Consumer Debt"

ETFs To Play The Banking Situation

With the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, everyone is looking at the banking industry. Some think it has more room to fall, while others believe now is the best buying opportunity we have seen in a decade.

At this time, I believe it is too hard to pick which direction banks or the market overall is heading.

My reason for saying that is that very few people fully understand the real risk to the banking system at this time.

A few weeks ago, Wall Street banking analysts gave banks good stock ratings. Janet Yellen, the head of the Treasury Department, recently said the banking industry was healthy. Even Jerome Powell, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, recently sat in front of congress and testified that the banking system was solid and well-capitalized.

Well, that certainly wasn't the case for SVB.

While I understand that when Janet Yellen or Fed Chairman Powell make these statements, they are speaking about the whole industry, not one-off banks, as we saw during the financial crisis in 07-08, it only takes a few small cracks in the system to open the flood gates.

And when the 15th largest bank in the U.S. fails, it's hard to ignore that crack, despite the argument that SVB is different from most other banks because they lend to riskier clients in the form of 'start-up' businesses.

The argument that SVB is and was different may make sense, but if that is true, how do you explain Credit Suisse needing a $50 billion loan from the Swiss National Bank?

Finally, for years we have been told that the banks, both here in the U.S. and worldwide, have parts on their balance sheets that are referred to as 'black boxes.' These are certain businesses or investments that we, outsiders, will never get to see. We will never know what those parts of the bank's business look like, and thus, how can we fully understand how healthy or sick a bank is until it's too late?

Maybe you understand the banks better than I do and still want to invest in them, whether long or short; let me give you some exchange-traded funds that you can buy to profit from a bank industry move in either direction. Continue reading "ETFs To Play The Banking Situation"

Trade With Jim Cramer With New ETF

Anyone who regularly watches or has only seen Jim Cramer’s TV show “Mad Money” even just once notices that the former fund manager, now a TV personality, makes a ton of stock recommendations while on air.

So many that it is hard to keep up with what companies he likes and which ones he would sell.

Luckily, you will now never have to worry about trying to keep track of his stock picks while he is on air. Two new Exchange Traded Funds will keep track of his stock picks for you and not only keep track of them but give you an accessible, one-stop investment vehicle you can use to follow his advice.

The Tuttle Long Cramer Tracker ETF (LJIM) buys stocks that Jim Cramer tells his viewers on “Mad Money” that he likes. The fund managers also follow Jim on Twitter, so if he tweets that he is optimistic about a stock, the fund can also track those picks. Furthermore, LJIM will also short stocks that Cramer expresses a negative opinion on.

LJIM began trading on March 2nd of, 2023, with an expense ratio of 1.2%. The fund already has over $254 million in assets. The top ten holdings represent 31% of the fund.

However, the fund prospectus explains that LJIM will have a portfolio of between 20 to 50 stocks.

Therefore, the heavy concentration will likely always be present with LJIM. Finally, the balance between each stock held is very close, with most holdings representing just slightly above or below the 3% mark.

The fund holds a very diverse group of stocks. The largest sector is technology, with 18% of assets. Then electronic technology makes up 14.78% of assets. Health technology, consumer services, and finance round out the top five sectors in LJIM.

LJIM is a worthy investment if you are a disciple of Jim Cramer and want to own the stocks he recommends to TV viewers and social media followers. Continue reading "Trade With Jim Cramer With New ETF"