Markets Hold Near Highs as Investors Navigate Fed Policy and Rotation

J.D.: Let's bring in our first guest. He is making his Taking Stock debut. The great Jim Thorne, chief market strategist at Wellington-Altus. Great to have you here.

Jim: J.D. How are we competing against this?

J.D.: That's tough. That's tough to do. I know.

Jim: This is a tough crowd. It is. But you know what? Listen, we got this whole crowd - as far as you and I are concerned, They are all here for the show, and they're all here for you as well. Listen, for the most part, despite these little days of profit taking, we're still basically at all time highs, despite the backdrop of uncertainty, geopolitics, what's going on with the fed? What do you see when you look up at price action these days? Jim?

Jim: Hey, it's options week J.D. so it's insanity this week, but we're going higher. We touch 7000 this week and we're going to finish this year at 8000 risk on rotate. Use the charts as your friend and just check the noise. Check your biases at the door and drive on. Secular bull market.

J.D.: How do you go about separating signal from noise? You mentioned the charts. Are there key indicators that you're looking for? And ultimately there is a lot of noise. There are a lot of shiny things for traders and investors to see. But how do you stick to the fundamentals?

Jim: Plan your work and work your plan. Sell parabolic charts. Look at the charts. Find the stocks you like. Find the things you like, and realize that we're in a period of time where we can get exuberance on the upside in the downside. Buy low, sell high. I know that sounds profound, but that's what you got to do.

J.D.: You say sell the parabolic moves. We've had a lot of them. Take your pick your sector or big stocks. Flashy stock of choice. But how about gold and silver?

Jim: Gold. Silver. The memory companies. Right. Uranium. All of them that have had massive runs. You just sell them. You love the theme but you take what the market's giving you and then you go shift. What does everybody hate? They hate Bitcoin. They hate crypto. Now, if you don't have the fundamental story on crypto right now and you don't see this as an opportunity, then don't buy it when it's $200K. All right.

J.D.: What did you see out of the Federal Reserve yesterday? This is the third to last meeting for Jerome Powell as chairman of the central bank. We knew what the decision on the short end of the yield curve was going to be. But we also had two dissenters as well. Sets up a kind of interesting backdrop for the next seven meetings in 2026. Jim: The fed is incompetent. They need to structurally change. And if we go back to the 1980s, we are shifting from a Keynesian world to a supply side where we're shifting from MIT and Yale to the University of Chicago. So the majority of people on Wall Street in the fed are Keynesian. And what's happening with and Trump and Ludwig is it's a supply side economics. They want to run it hot. And when you shift the supply curve out, prices come down. And this is blowing people's minds.

J.D.: You mentioned President Trump. What do you see as he dukes it out right now on the public stage with the Canadian Prime Minister, Mr. Carney? Talk about what an important trading policy.

Jim: I'm a man without a country here.

J.D.: I'm sorry to hear that, but it is an important one for a lot of investors for cross-border trade. What do you make of what's been what's been..

Jim: Canada needs the United States. We've got to come to a deal where Canada can be treated inside the United States in the new trading environment. That's what has to happen. A lot of this is performative, but I will tell you, Canada needs the United States. There's going to be a deal. And I said, I think Carney knows it, and this is just theater.

J.D.: Jim Thorn, chief market strategist at Wellington-Altus. This interview was not political theater. This was the good stuff right here. for being on the show. Really good to have you.