In today’s episode, host Kip breaks down a rollercoaster week in the markets as February wraps up with a downturn—but that’s not the whole story. Kip explores why, despite a rocky finish to the month, he’s bullish heading into March and April, historically two of the best months for investors. You’ll hear Kip address the recent inflation concerns and why a spike in the Producer Price Index might not be cause for alarm. He explains how strong corporate health, all-time high liquidity, and robust home equity levels set today’s market apart from past crises—making comparisons to 2008 more myth than reality. Tune into today's podcast to learn more.

Don’t look back, the market is closed. Good Friday afternoon, everyone. Kip Herriage here with the Daily VRA Investing Podcast. Hope you had a good day today. Hope your week one was a good one as well. Let’s get right to it. A bit of a down way to finish the month, is it not? But again, February, especially the back end of February, proved to be kind of what we expected it to be, or we knew it to be anyway. Not that great of a finish.

We had a good rally Tuesday, Wednesday And it all, you know, it all went away on Thursday and Friday. But here are the things that matter most we’ll cover today. Right in February, uh, we broke a string of, I think, 9 straight months the S&P 500 has been higher. Only slightly lower in February. Of course, most stocks felt it a lot more than the broad markets did. But then now we, now we enter, starting on Monday, March and April, two of the best months of the year. Look, There are a lot of people concerned about Iran and what’s going to happen there. Frankly, we’re now in a window, like in a lunar phase, where I think it raises the chances that something like that might happen.

[00:01:08]:
But no, we don’t expect that to happen this weekend. Don’t really see signs. They are in negotiations, talking about working things out. I can tell you The vast majority Americans do not want to see the U.S. go to war with Iran. Again, we think this is leverage from Trump more than anything else, and if something were to happen, it would be further down the line. So don’t expect anything this weekend. I expect next week’s market to have a much different feel to it, much more bullish, as it should be.

Look, we got off to a bad start today because the PPI data— Producer Price Indexes came in up 0.5% And, uh, the estimate was 3/10, right? So, you know, it doesn’t sound like a whole lot, but, you know, as is— listen to the economists, listen to these Wall Street talking heads— inflation’s back. Look, we do have higher oil prices. They have rallied. So it’s not a surprise to see inflation up a bit. But my question would be, and this is what I saw nobody put two and two together on today, if inflation’s our worry again now, right? And it shouldn’t be, but if it is, Why did the 10-year yield drop back below 4% for the first time in months? The 10-year yield right now finished at the lows of the day, 3.96%. So that’s down 55 basis points. So if that’s the case, if inflation’s back, why aren’t we seeing it in the bond market? It’s because this is not— this is maybe a countertrend inflationary spike, very short-lived. Our, our theme here for a very long time has been that we’re going to have lower rates.

That’s happening. Again, when Trump was inaugurated, the 10-year was 4.8%. Again, 3.96% now. It’s a pretty big move lower in a year. And that because of Trump being president, number one, we didn’t have any inflation in his first term. We’re not going to have it this time. Trump knows how to control that. And the rest of the control is going to come due to the innovation revolution.

[00:03:06]:
That’s the whole key to innovation, right? It’s the, uh, the productivity from it drives the price of everything we’re forced to buy lower. And we fully expect that to be the case. So no, we are not concerned about, uh, about inflation, and we’re not concerned that it’s going to make any kind of a comeback. The, the other concern today— again, Iran’s out there, uh, this inflation concern, which really shouldn’t be, is there— is the, uh these credit, the credit risk in the market. Again, AI and credit risk, um, they’re, they’re bubbling, but this is from a very low level, extraordinarily low level. You have to remember the big picture. In the United States, the corporate health has never been stronger. It literally never been stronger.

To point that out and to make a very clear point that, that credit and liquidity is not a problem Market cap— excuse me, debt-to-market cap for the S&P 500 is at 53-year lows. Companies just don’t have debt. Now, there are these very specific credit market companies that do take on a lot of debt. Well, as far as I’m concerned, that’s their problem. But this is not pervasive. It’s not a systemic issue. This affects a very small part of the— very small part of the U.S. economy.

And no, this is not a warning sign, uh, that like Bear Stearns, right? As they said this week, uh, Bear Stearns before 2007-2008. No, this is not like that. And I’m sorry, but you should be laughed out of the room if you dare make that comparison. We could hardly be in a more different time than we are now, 2007-2008. As a reminder, we have $23 trillion of M2 money supply in this country. That’s cash and cash equivalents. That’s all-time high. That total is $119 trillion globally, all-time high.

[00:05:04]:
Cash liquidity is everywhere. Also, again, for those saying another 2007-2008 is coming, as we’ll repeat for the millionth time, we have between $38 now and $39 trillion in home equity. All-time high. Over 40% of Americans have no mortgage. They paid off their homes. The average home equity in the United States is now 71%. Again, these are all all-time highs. Liquidity is everywhere.

Credit problems may be very, very small sector-specific, but they are not endemic. They’re not systemic. And again, to even offer that really should, you should be put in the penalty box. You know, we just saw the great hockey match, right? US-Canada. They have their penalty box. I think if you’re on television or any major medium, print or otherwise, and if you put out there that these remind you of the housing crisis, the warmup to 2007, 2008, you should be put in the penalty box and not be allowed to go on TV or write a publication that will be printed anywhere for at least 6 months, and I think a year is probably even better. That’s how far off base these folks are. Look, we pay attention to all this.

If we start seeing this impact anything in the largest part of the economy, we’ll tell you. We’re not seeing it. And again, rates would not be going lower if most of that was a problem. We’d see concerns. It would show up there first. Not seeing it. Bank stocks today is one of the reasons the markets are down today. Bank stocks down 5% on the day.

[00:06:44]:
Uh, and we look, we did finish lower, but remember, we also finished well off the lows. It’s a good smart money hour. Now, NASDAQ finished down 210 points. At one point it was down 360 points. Dow Jones finished down 521. At one point it was down 820. So we recouped, I call it about, what, about a third of our losses. And again, I, we do expect next, next week to be better.

Uh, just to repeat, March and April, two investments of the year, and we have a lot of reason to be bullish. Our big three remain They remain unchanged. Every, every dip that we’ve had has been a buying opportunity in the last 3 years, and this is why it remains. For our new listeners, great to have you with us. Through our big 3 remain the Trump economic miracle, the innovation revolution, and an absolute ocean of liquidity. We’re now starting to see real momentum in the economy. If you’re listening to your TV, you’re not going to hear it. But trucking is really starting to grow.

We’re seeing early signs of a boom in trucking. Starts with flatbeds and it goes from there. Those are now going parabolic. They always started off. The Transportation Index is just off an all-time high. Remember, we had all-time highs in the trannies last month, excuse me, earlier this month. And we also had a Dow Theory buy signal, also had that last month. That’s when the industrials and the transports hit an all-time high at the same time.

[00:08:10]:
Dow 30 buy signals are long-term buy signals. Those are both in place now. So this is a slippery February, a banana peel month if you want to call it that. And now starting next week, it should be very, very different. Again, Iran, not much we can do about that. And the rest is going to take care of itself. We have great buying opportunities in these tech stocks. Again, we’ve been pointing this out this week.

IGV, the, uh, software ETF— IGV is the symbol. Uh, now today it was down 1.2%, but at one point it was over 3— down 3% today. And again, it’s coming off of extraordinarily low levels, what we call extreme oversold on steroids. It also traded down to a quadruple bottom. And to a level of oversold on RSI we had not seen in 8 years. Okay, so that was, that was the bottom. Again, it was quadruple bottom. We’re up significantly from those lows, and we’re going to repeat as we wrote this morning, the software stocks, which again led lower— they led lower starting 4 months ago, right? Took a lot of tech with them.

Now that they’re leading higher, this is a clear first-in First out buy signal. They led lower and now they’re leading higher. This is textbook bull market action in what remains a rotational theme that has been extraordinarily strong. It’s why our internals have held up so well. We pointed this out yesterday. Internals were positive yesterday, both for NYSE and negative, even with the sharp losses we had today. They were lower, but not by much. I’ll share in a moment.

[00:09:49]:
Also, here’s this— you probably wouldn’t guess what I’m about to tell you with losses like we had today and yesterday. 9 of the 11 S&P 500 sectors finished higher on the day. Again, this is very specific downside action taking place again in bank stocks, uh, and a residue from what happened yesterday with NVIDIA’s earnings, which is again big time oversold. I probably was talking about the way Nvidia, which is a 10-bagger for us. We’ve longed for a long time. Our price target is $325 by year-end. Last trade now $178. We continue to recommend buying Nvidia as we have for some time.

Um, also today, uh, a title again, title to cover this yesterday, we saw it again today, uh, GDX gold miner ETF closed at another all-time high. Back-to-back days. GDXJ, the junior gold miner ETF, closed at another all-time high. Both were up 1.5% today, which means back-to-back days for both of these of all-time highs. And what was really my favorite tell— this is— I love telling this story, bear with me. When GDX, when the gold miners are leading gold higher, that’s a massive buy signal. That, that, that’s been in place for the entire year, right? That’s been telling you this group is going higher. Another tell, another relative strength chart that we love, is when the junior miners are outperforming the senior gold miners.

That also has been in place all year, and that’s what’s happening now. So again, these are big buy signals, not just for the miners but for gold, for silver. Again, nice day today. Uh, look, pretty soon we’re gonna be back to all-time highs in gold, right? Up, uh, 2.2% today, uh, $102 to $5,296. Remember, the highs are just over $5,600. We’re about $350 $50 away from an all-time high again. Silver today up even bigger, 7.8% today, up $6.75 an ounce at $94.36. Remember the highs there, $121.

[00:11:51]:
Uh, might take a little longer to get there, but I don’t think long. I think we’re going to be at new all-time highs very soon. Why do I think that? Because in order to get to $15,000 an ounce for gold, we’ve got to go back to new all-time highs here at $5,300. In order to get to our new all-time highs, our target of $300 an ounce for silver, we’ve got to get past $121. So these moves higher are going to continue. And I just got to put this out there. I’m going to sound like a braggart for doing it, but I don’t care. Every now and then you got to put some things out there.

For the third time this week, Grok, the AI program Grok, replied to someone’s request on Twitter, X, saying, what’s his— what’s this guy’s track record like? How good is he? And I shared this in this morning’s letter, uh, so I’m going to read it here now. Uh, this— I, I just— this doesn’t happen often. I don’t see Grok do this with other investment advisors and market strategists. So give me a second. To the person’s question on X, how accurate is Kip Herridge? Here was Grok’s reply. First, on gold and silver, Kip has been consistently uh, bullish on gold and silver since 2003. That’s correct. Gold was $350 then, it’s now $5,200.

Silver was $5 then, it’s now $97. His 2020 call for $5,000 gold has played out. We’re now there. His $75 silver call has also played out. We’re there. Remember, we made this forecast long ago. Over the last 5 years Harold just stuck to his long-term bull case, raising targets progressively, now saying $15,000 gold. Here’s what Grok says to that.

[00:13:31]:
Um, he’s— while he’s directionally accurate for his long-term calls, $15,000 an ounce remains far above consensus. You think? Yeah, consensus is like $6,000. Yeah, we’re, we’re a bit above it. Hey, we were at $5,000 an ounce when silver— $5,000 an ounce gold when gold was $1,000 an ounce. So we were a bit above consensus then as well. But just a shout out to Grok, 3 times in a week, uh, giving us a hat tip for our correct market calls. I, I’ll take it. I will take it because that’s all based in, in what we put out there officially.

You can’t make that up. Uh, Grok pulls from stuff you put on Twitter all the way back to 2009, which is, which is when I joined Twitter anyway. Um, So yeah, uh, the, the, the metals look great. Also, I’ll make this point: until NVIDIA’s reports, the semis have been leading higher from the April 7th lows. Granted, the last 2 days were lower for the semis. Let’s see where we close today. Semis today, uh, down 1.6%, again at 1 point over 3%, so a good rally. But these are, these are minor 2-day moves compared to what semis have done.

But when the semis and gold and Bitcoin are leading high— remember that the lows for Bitcoin were just below $6,000, right? Well, we’re at $65,000 now, so we’re above those lows. If this move higher in Bitcoin continues, as we fully expect, as this gold higher has continued— it’s exactly what we thought would happen from that shakeout it had— and as, uh, as gold semis, gold, Bitcoin Gold clearly going higher as these three— these are our liquidity indicators, these are our risk-on indicators. I think we’re going to get back to some normalcy next week. Again, the symbolizing gold’s been doing nothing but flashing, uh, buy signals, again, from a liquidity point of view. And we expect Bitcoin— we think the lows are in. And, uh, again, we’re looking for a very good March here. Uh, what else? Right, uh, it’s, it’s been, been a long week. Let’s get right to— I already told you the internals.

[00:15:35]:
I Again, here are the bottom line numbers. NYSE, 1.5 to 1 negative advance decline, not— no big deal. NASDAQ, right at 2 to 1 negative advance decline. Volume, only 54.5% down volume in NYSE, only 59.8% on NASDAQ. Remember, they’re positive across the board. Finally, we had 100 more stocks hitting a 52-week high today than 52-week low. Again, these are internals that just don’t point to a market that wants to go lower. Look, there are no guarantees.

Something could go wrong with Iran. You never know what’s going to happen. That’s what you never ever can— you know, you can just never say we can guarantee this because we can’t. This is why we look at our VRA system, which remains at 10 out of 12 screens bullish. We look at the internals, we look at our leading indicators and tell us what they’re doing, and, uh, the big picture. Whereas again, we’re talking about primary trend versus counter-trend action. These down days are counter-trend. Our primary trend remains bull market.

This is a generational bull market. There’s— we’ve been saying this for over 3 years. There’s literally no chance in hell that I’m backing away from that call now, not with everything we’re seeing. Uh, and by these shakeouts, you’re buying opportunities. That, that’s what’s been the case for 3 years. It remains the case today. Uh, Trump’s Trump’s economic miracle, again, this is the first quarter it’s gonna positively impact, all in place, the US economy. We continue to look for 5% GDP growth, if not in the first quarter, second quarter this year.

[00:17:08]:
I think in between, I would think before the end of the second quarter, we’re gonna have 5% GDP growth. And again, rates are going in the direction we want. Inflation, outside of PPI today, It’s going in the direction we want. We got the right president at the right time. And, uh, I think frankly Iran’s got some people spooked, and I understand that. Uh, but again, these credit market worries are not something— certainly not now based on what we’re seeing now— not, not nothing that we’re concerned with. And, uh, these tech— great tech earnings. Tyler just reminded me, Mag 7 beat earnings estimates by better than 5%, coming in 27.2% earning growth.

That, that was for Q1, all right? And yet the stocks are selling off. Again, we think the lows are in there, uh, high confidence call there. All right, folks, uh, what else today? I gave you Bitcoin, uh, sector watch, we did that. I think that’s everything. I think that’s it. Hey, we always appreciate you being here. If you’re new with us, want to join us, check us out for 2 free weeks at vrayinsider.com. Again, vrayinsider.com.

Again, have a great weekend, folks. We’ll see you back here again Monday. After the close.