CRAP - First HARD DATA "Rolls Over" -- BAD NEWS.

drama is back in focus today with the

NASDAQ selling off. But honestly, no

matter when you watch these videos, the

market's either going to be up or down.

What matters more is what's going on

with tariffs. What is the latest update?

And what's going on with that Atlanta

Fed GDP measure? Because the last GDP

measure we got from the Atlanta Fed was

in that negative 2.4% range. However,

the Atlanta Fed provided a note on Laton

of all places suggesting that the

adjusted Atlanta Fed model was probably

closer to

04%. But even 4% is a substantial right

down from where we had been previously,

which was well over 2 and a half to even

3% uh towards uh you know the early

portion of the year. In fact, you could

see that right here. Well, the Atlanta

Fed after the durable data released this

morning came out with a new update and

the current update released today, March

26th, uh, is that GDP is growing at

negative

1.8%. However, the Atlanta Fed is now

providing a gold adjusted GDP now uh,

report and they provide why they are

providing all of these updates. if you

really care to read all their formulas

and all this junk over here. They had a

really good LinkedIn summary of this,

but basically when they

remove, you know, gold and sort of

adjust for these rapid changes in gold

imports and exports that are going on,

you actually get a GDP now forecast

which probably more closely aligns with

actual GDP of around.2%.

Well, I don't know about you, but if our

GDP is only growing at 02%. That's

pretty damn miserable. That is very low.

And I'll tell you why it's very bad. In

2007, we were told that GDP was growing

at.7%. Everything was fine.

But what ended up happening is about a

year later they revised your GDP down

over one percentage point and you

actually had negative GDP and oh my gosh

you were actually in a recession the

whole time. So this makes it possible

that we already are in a recession. We

just don't recognize it yet. Now you

have people like Kathy Wood say it's

just a rolling recession. But this GDP

estimate, even gold adjusted, is a

little bit of a slap in the face to some

of the uncertainties that are

essentially being caused, at least in

some part, I'm not saying Trump is

entirely responsible, but at least in

some part being caused by these this

Trump tariff uncertainty. We saw that

actually in the durable data this

morning. And there's some nuance to the

data. And so I want to explain some of

that data a little bit because it does

get complicated uh and uh it's worth

just breaking it down.

Today was the first day we actually had

a bit of a real data hit. So far, we've

had hits because of soft data, but now

we're actually starting to have some

real hard data hits. And how are we

seeing it? Well, we're seeing it when

you actually look very closely at the

data. First, this morning, durables

data, like durable goods like washing

machines and cars, even Xcars, that

actually beat for the preliminary read

for February. So in other words, people

still bought more of these goods in

February than economists expected.

Economists expected, you know, negative

1% actually I think negative.1% or 1%.

Either way, they expected a negative

read. Uh and we ended up getting a

positive.9% read. So obviously a little

bit better on the durables data. Okay.

So where's the bad news in this Kevin?

Well, it's capital good orders. See,

durables and a shipments are things that

have already either been paid for or

already being bought. Orders are a

little interesting because

orders are something that could still be

cancelled or uh it could be a sort of a

more of a future read. In other words,

there's a delay between a capital goods

order and a capital goods shipment. For

example, shipments beat also 0.9 versus2

expected. So, you're getting a beat on

shipments for February, but what about

orders? Some a little bit more of a

leading hard data read. Well, capital

good orders missed. They came in at.3

versus2% expected. So, all these numbers

can get really confusing, but let's put

a little bottom line on that. What's

happening is businesses are actually

starting to say, you know what, let's

wait. Now, I've warned about this

before. I've warned and it's my

unpopular opinion that companies are

going to substantially delay their

massive Trump kneebending capital

expenditures because they could be

truthful and say they're going to invest

all this money over the next four years,

but then they could also be a little sly

about that or slick about it and say and

we'll start that project in two years

when we're in the deep dark recession

and it's cheaper for us to build that

factory then or we don't build the

factory at all and we U-turn on it

without committing to anything up front

other and you know, getting the pleasure

of Donald Trump exempting you from

tariffs because you're like, $500

billion coming your way,

master. And then when the circumstances

change, you're like, you know, just

kidding. Um, we're in a recession. We

ain't doing that.

Uh, in which case, Donald Trump would

have way less leverage to to punish you

back anyway because the economy would be

weaker and he sort of needs you anyway.

Hey, quick house hack pitch. Here we go.

Minute 45. Then back to the data.

$171,000 of of wedge value we made.

Didn't pay a dime of taxes on it because

we bought a house for

$57,000 that's worth about $760 right

now. And it looked like nasty. Who was

going to live in that? No soul is going

to live in this. It's disgusting. It's

like rot and feces and nasty. It's

disgusting. You know, and the house act

comes along and makes it beautiful

again. and and just remodels and

renovates everything. So, we get paid

money for

that. And the more people invest in our

5% bond, which we just doubled the

people investing in our bond over the

last week, which is crazy. I think

people are diversifying from the stock

market. You could be a nonacredited

investor now, too. You get a 5% yield.

You get upside if our valuation goes up.

Uh you get 100% of the upside. You get

5% per year. And we buy, fix, build, and

manage the real estate for you. And we

do it in a transparent manner.

Transparent manner. All of the

properties are are listed. Like that's

our building. That's our house. Like

these are our properties. You can see

them all over at househack.com. It's

kind of cool. So I encourage you to

check that out. Househack.com. At least

think about like people ask me like

Kevin, well, you know, what's the

deadline to invest? We're not trying to

pressure anybody to invest right now.

Like if it's good for you as a

diversifier, do it. uh you know that's

your personal decision. Read all the

information about it, the circulars and

preps or whatever. But we see it as the

sooner you invest, the sooner you a

diversify and b get a 5% yield, which is

kind of cool because you get both the

upside of private equity stock downside

protection uh and and the yield. But I

mean really, if you think about it, to

sum you up on my pop unpopular opinion

video that I made, why would you build a

factory in the United States only to

return to free trade at some point in

the future and then all of a sudden you

were absolutely uncompetitive? You are

probably the most uncompetitive factory

that you could have possibly built. You

really need government grants to make

you competitive again. Otherwise, it

won't be a sustainable US worker job.

It'll temporarily be sustainable, but

then guess what

happens? You end up going like that

company goes bankrupt or that factory or

facility or whatever it is gets shut

down because you just end up outsourcing

back to a globalist economy

again. That was my opinion. But then I

read an economist piece this morning and

the piece almost reads like I wrote it,

which is a problem because I I don't I

don't want to sound biased in this uh

but uh I just want you to see it

yourself. So here it is. The economist.

This is a screenshot from him. The chill

that extends beyond the manufacturing

industry. Okay. So now this is

interesting. The chill that extends

beyond the manufacturing industry. Okay.

David French of the National Retail

Foundation or Federation notes his

members would like to nail down their

sourcing arrangements. Can they rely on

production networks that run through

Mexico or factories in or factories in

Southeast Asia a safer bet? Purchasing

managers do not want to make rash moves

until the dust settles on new tariff on

the new tariff landscape, whatever it

may be. And the uncertainty is delaying

other investment decisions as well.

Tariffs on building materials and

consumer goods add uncertainty to

opening new store, Mr. French says. But

companies know how to flatter the

president. Many of their announcements

concerning spending plans uh were

already in train before Donald Trump

took office, the economist here says.

Moreover, every for every announced

deal, others are languishing. Recent

recent surveys from the Federal Reserve

branches in New York and Philadelphia

registered sharp declines in

manufacturers outlook for the economy

over the next year and a half. This is

basically where they're saying while

Trump is announcing all of these deals,

a lot of them may have already been in

the works anyway. We're not talking

about all the deals that are getting

cancelled. Like in a moment, we're going

to talk about how Microsoft is

cancelling even more data centers

uh than than the first time we heard the

story.

So now this is really interesting

because The Economist is now doubling

down on this argument and they just

wrote this piece. But this unpopular

opinion that I made a few weeks ago,

it's starting to sound very familiar.

Starting to sound like I wrote this. I

didn't. I swear. Uh but it sort of makes

it seem clear that other companies and

economists are saying the same thing

that yeah, why would we invest right

now? Why don't we just wait? And that

could probably reiterate why these

tariffs are so damaging. You know,

Bloomberg Intelligence actually had a

really interesting piece on software

this morning where they suggested that

uh you know, only a fraction of the

federal government's software spending

uh is is or the federal government

software spending only represents a

fraction of all software spending in the

United States. But when you lump all of

the downstream effects together of what

the government is responsible for, like

one department using software to then

allocate funding to universities who

then have their own software, you could

potentially argue that up to 40% of the

app software market is exposed to

government cuts, which is really bad for

software businesses because now you're

talking about negative licensing seeds,

negative growth on software companies

that already have pretty rich

valuations. Not great. Donald Trump also

talked about auto tariffs coming as soon

as today, copper tariffs coming,

potentially fewer exceptions now than

expected. I mean, Trump is kind of the

definition of an actual flip-flopper.

You know, one day

it's, you know, April 2nd is going to be

Liberation Day. We're going to have the

largest tariffs we've ever seen. The

next day is, yeah, we're there going to

be a lot of exceptions. You know, some

countries won't have any tariffs at all,

and a lot of companies won't have any

tariffs at all. Oh, by the way, look at

Hyundai. They're announcing a factory,

and yay, they're going to be exempt from

tariffs. Good boy, Hyundai. And then

today, it's Yeah, we're actually going

to have a lot fewer exceptions than we

expected. So, guess what that means? Oh,

stock market down. Oh, wow. Even just in

the time that I've been yapping here,

it's u it's falling even more.

1.96% on the cues. Tesla down uh what is

this? 6.6%. You know, this morning we

were playing with these lines a little

bit on the alpha report. I suggested if

we were to go down at the open, we would

go down to 489 in the alpha report. It's

exactly what happened. Uh now, we broke

that line as well. And now we're just

off a cliff. We'll have to see where the

next stop here is. Uh, I didn't think it

would be a full 3% to get us down to

479, but boy, now it feels like we're

bleeding to that direction. We're down

2%. I don't know. Uh, and then on Tesla,

I thought, uh, you know, we would end up

coming hit to hit 274 uh, in a down

scenario, which we did, and then got

rejected by it. As we're getting

rejected by it, we ended up losing even

the 271 soft line, which puts 260 back

in play for Tesla. A little challenging

here. Uh but anyway, that's just some of

the TA that we talk about in the course

member live streams or the alpha report,

which remember you can get those over at

weekaven.com. So now all of a sudden,

you're seeing some of the hard data

start to roll over. Remember, a lot of

this is still February data. The fact

that we're seeing orders weakening in

the face of more of these uncertainties

is problematic. Now, the economist

suggests we only have about a 25% risk

of recession, that we're not in a

recession right now. Again, people

dispute whether or not we're in a

recession right now or not, but it's

really clear that growth is slowing.

You've even got Fed uh you know, Fed

member from I think it's the St. Louis

Fred uh Muslim. No, St. Louis, isn't

that? Yeah. No, St. Louis. They were St.

Louis growth does appear to have slowed

probably because businesses and people

are worried, you know, worried about,

you know, tariff impact and Qashqari

reiterated that this morning as well.

Alo, a lot of Fed speak, this talk about

tariffs or a threat uh that grows the

longer it affects confidence. So, in

other words, if we just U-turned on all

tariffs right now, maybe we could go

back up. But if we keep doing this, no

tariffs, lots of tariffs, the most

tariffs ever, fewer tariffs, more

tariffs, all you're really doing is just

destroying GDP growth because

everybody's like, "Let's just wait.

People aren't going to buy machinery." I

mean, like, if I was a business owner

right now, thinking, "Okay, I'm going to

I'm going to sit here and let's say I'm

a a kitchen carpenter, okay? Because

that's what my father was, uh, and a

kitchen designer, and I need to decide,

do I want to buy a new CNC for my uh,

warehouse?" You know, uh, I probably

wouldn't make that purchasing decision

right now. say,

"Well, I'll decide in six months and I

could still take the tax deduction this

year as long as I do it before December

31st. Why would I make that decision in

March? I'll just

wait." That doesn't mean you're bearish

on your business. It just means you're

like, "Ah, I'll just make do for a

little while longer." But if everybody

starts doing that, that's why you get

the Atlanta Fed GDP so negative and and

how dangerous it is, how rapidly you

could really screw up the economy. Now,

of course, the Trump administration

suggests that this is just a detox

period. Fine. But I'll tell you, if we

go into a deep dirty recession, you're

going to

have detoxes is going to feel like a

depression because so many people will

lose their jobs. So far though, no big

layoffs yet. Hopefully that keeps going.

Maybe that's because corporate balance

sheets are so strong and they are. The

biggest companies are the most

profitable and most

cashrich compared to any time in

history which is good because it creates

an insulative blanket. The question is

when when do we pierce that insulated

blanket and consider that what is it 45%

somewhere around 45% of jobs in the

United States come from small

businesses. Now, Bloomberg suggests

that, oh, well, the sales recession's

already been priced into the Russell

2000 small caps. Okay, now we're going

to call it a sales recession, not an

actual recession. It's not an actual

recession. It's just a sales

recession. Whatever. I don't know if I

buy that. So, I'm a little concerned

about that.

And

so I think it was Barclays this morning

that said we're kind of like in a

roarshack economy right now where if you

hold up, you know, Roshchack test, like

the ink blotss, they hold it up and

they're like, "What do you see?" One

person's like, "I see a dog." One

person's like, "I see a house and a

million dollars of cash." People like,

"All right, well, I thought we were on

animals, but I guess we're talking about

something totally different." So Barlays

says this because there's so much data

for both bulls and bears.

This morning in the alpha report, I

actually called this market the

checkerboard market where it's sort of

like there's so much white and black or,

you know, red and white or whatever

colors you want to use. It's sort of

like, yeah, I mean, there's there's that

all over the freaking place yet. You

just don't have a clear board. So, we

don't know. We don't know who's winning

right now. Mel, though, I'll give you an

update on the um the bull bear

scale. Technically, by the way, that is

the bear bull scale. And so the bearbull

scale right now uh for me sits at about

29. Now I have to be careful because

there are people that just don't

understand nuance in the comments and

they're like, "Oh, one day Kevin's

bullish, one day Kevin's bearish." You

know, that's not true. It's not a light

switch. And I try to be like the reason

I created the bare bull scale and I try

to be so transparent with everything

that I'm responding to is because

there's so much nuance involved. You

know, I've been sitting two and a half

for quite a while now. probably couple

months here since probably about midFeb

I turned under five so bearish back you

know in June of last year it was more

like July of last year mid July of last

year we went under five so went more

bearish

uh and and then we've we've been

bouncing around this sort of like 2 and

1 half to 4 and a.5% uh number range

based on data so you know last week I'm

two and a half then we get you know

really good data on Monday we actually

did get good data on Monday and a

softening of the tariffs that we heard

about on Friday. And I'm like, okay, you

know, maybe we're

32. Then we get some mixed data again

this morning. I'm like, h, we're we are

still bobbing around that three level,

but I'm sitting around a 29, right? So,

I'm kind of taking this data and sort of

adjusting where I am. And and all the

data I look at just keeps pushing me

closer and closer to the bare side. You

know, 29 is pretty bearish. It's not

like sell everything bearish, but I

don't like the Atlanta Feds sitting

close to zero because that's just going

to get revised negative just like what

happened historically. You know, I don't

think this time is different. I like

looking at history and in in prior

recessions, we usually revise down into

a

recession. So, that's why I lean more on

the bearish side. Uh, and and I can't

wait to be Mr. Buy the dip again. But

the thing is, it's it's I feel like I

always lose because if as soon as I turn

bearish or as soon as I turn bullish

again, everybody's going to be so jaded

about stocks. Like I think it was the

Barclays this morning, they're like,

"Oh, you know, stocks sold off, so now

they're reasonably valued." And I'm

like, 5% off all-time highs now makes

them reasonably valued. Okay, let's

agree to disagree for a moment that

they're reasonably valued. How about

this? I don't want to buy reasonably

valued stocks. I want to buy undervalued

stocks. I want to buy the cheapest,

dirtiest stocks that you could buy at a

massive discount. I want Restoration

Hardware all over my face. I want

Restoration Hardware. Why? Because I

actually think it's going to fall even

more, but they're trading for like a

half peg right now. We did a full

analysis on them and I'm going to keep

analyzing them. They're getting price

cut like crazy by Wall Street analysts.

Like Guggenheim cuts the price. Great.

The more these these analysts cut the

price targets, the happier I am. I

cannot wait to buy Restoration Hardware

stock at at a discount. It already is at

a huge discount, but I want even more. I

want a bloody discount. That's what I

want. It's kind of like what we do with

House Hack. I want deals that are so

nasty that nobody wants to buy them and

then we can get really fat wedges on

them. Look at this.

$171,000 of of wedge value we made.

Didn't pay a dime of taxes on it because

we bought a house for

$57,000. That's worth about $760 right

now. And it looked like nasty. Who wants

Who's going to live in that? No soul is

going to live in this. It's disgusting.

It's like rot and feces and nasty. It's

disgusting, you know. when the house act

comes along and makes it beautiful

again and and just remodels and

renovates everything. So, we get paid

money for

that. And the more people invest in our

5% bond, which we just doubled the

people investing in our bond over the

last week, which is crazy. I think

people are diversifying from the stock

market. You could be a nonacredited

investor now, too. You get a 5% yield.

You get upside if our valuation goes up.

uh you get 100% of the upside, you get

5% per year and we buy, fix, build and

manage the real estate for you and we do

it in a transparent manner transparent

manner. All of the properties are are

listed like that's our building. That's

our house. Like these are our

properties. You can see them all over at

househack.com. It's kind of cool. So I

encourage you to check that out.

Househack.com. At least think about like

people ask me like Kevin, well you know

what's the deadline to invest? We're not

trying to pressure anybody to invest

right now. like if it's good for you as

a diversifier, do it. Uh, you know,

that's your personal decision. Read all

the information about it, the circulars

and PPMs or whatever. But we see it as

the sooner you invest, the sooner you a

diversify and b get a 5% yield, which is

kind of cool because you get both the

upside of private equity stock, downside

protection, uh, and and the yield. I

think it's awesome. So, uh, okay. So,

this gives me uh this is sort of a bit

of my

thought on uh what's going on with

tariffs and the economy and the bull

bear scale. I'm not I'm just not ready

to to get in there and say, "Oh, I want

to buy everything." See, Barclays wrote,

"Making sense of it all. US equity

markets are more reasonably valued after

the pullback." Well, honestly, like part

of that is redundant. Like, no duh. If

something's at $100 and then it drops to

$95, congratulations, Sherlock. It's

more reasonably valued. Like, you didn't

really tell us anything. So, I feel like

even Wall Street people are really,

really

confused. And I think that's why you're

getting some of the risk shaving that

we've seen. Uh, where you get this

environment of, okay, we got a bit of a

bounce again. Let's use that as an

opportunity to take some risk off the

table again. And uh and this is this is

a feature of recessions, recessionary

environments where you get these really

volatile, oh the worst is over, the

correction's over, you know, buy the

dip, buy the dip, and and it all comes

up, but then people are like, cool, that

was

fun. Take my money

now. Uh so we'll see. But uh that's my

take on uh on tariffs, the Fed uh and

the economy this morning. Why not

advertise these things that you told us

here? I feel like nobody else knows

about this. We'll we'll try a little

advertising and see how it goes.

Congratulations, man. You have done so

much. People love you. People look up to

you. Kevin Praath there, financial

analyst and YouTuber. Meet Kevin. Always

great to get your take.