The Weekend Edition is pulled from the daily Stansberry Digest.

The latest inflation reading is out...

On January 12, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics published its Consumer Price Index ("CPI") data for December. As expected, it showed inflation continuing to cool...

Headline CPI – which measures a basket of goods and services paid for by consumers – was up 6.5% from a year ago... but continues a downward trend since a peak of more than 9% in June.

More telling is that in the final month of 2022, headline CPI fell 0.1 points from November. That's the largest month-over-month ("MOM") decline since April 2020, led by a steep drop in gas prices.

The markets expected a report like this. So with expectations already baked in, the major U.S. indexes didn't move all that much after the numbers were released. And according to Stansberry NewsWire analyst Kevin Sanford, this latest inflation reading "could force the Fed's hand." As he wrote...

This marked the sixth consecutive month where the annual CPI number has remained below its June peak. It's also the lowest reading since October 2021.

Take a look...

This should give the Federal Reserve room to slow the pace of interest-rate hikes going forward. Even more, if the MOM inflation changes continue to cool, the central bank could hit the pause button on rate hikes sooner than expected...

At this point, slowing inflation is the consensus thought.

The big question is what a possible recession looks like ahead as a potential consequence of the Fed's inflation-fighting policy. As our colleague Mike DiBiase wrote in the January 4 Stansberry Digest, we're in the eye of a financial hurricane right now. There are many reasons to think as much.

But now, I'm going to consider something that might ruffle a few feathers...

Maybe the Fed really is going to pull off that mythical "soft landing" it has been talking about.

Even if you don't think a soft landing is possible, it's worth thinking about...

Of course, the mere phrase "soft landing" is open for interpretation and could mean different things to different people. The most common definition would be headline inflation returning to "normal" levels without a painful recession or surging unemployment.

We haven't seen major job losses yet outside of the tech industry. National data recently showed companies are still looking to hire for roughly 10.5 million positions. There are 1.7 available jobs for every unemployed person, and the economy has matched the lowest level of unemployment in half a century, at 3.5% overall. And amid this rosy picture, inflation numbers have been coming down since the summer.

Remember, the Fed is trying to find that elusive balance between "price stability" and "maximum employment." So maybe the Fed's fast and furious rate-hike policies of 2022 will actually work...

Also, the folks in Washington, D.C. could jump at the slightest opportunity to claim all is going great with inflation. It doesn't matter what the details show... People would believe the spin.

However, here's a "second level" thought on all of this...

Even if inflation comes down throughout the year... and job losses don't pile up, but the glut of vacancies dwindles... the job market is still going to be "tight" and skewed in workers' favor.

That means wage and salary inflation could continue for a while. That isn't the worst for everyday Americans who can stand out to employers. But rising labor costs wouldn't be a trend that encourages business growth.

The natural response to this would be for prices of just about everything to grow higher than usual so companies can keep pace with increased labor costs. And on it goes...

So soft landing or deep recession, inflation still stinks – and is insidious.

Moving on, one of our most popular editors recently went on air to share a bold prediction...

I'm talking about Ten Stock Trader editor Greg Diamond's brand-new event. More than 30,000 people signed up to listen to him share his 2023 outlook...

Greg explained his investing strategy in what he believes will be another volatile year – one in which a rare market event could send some stocks soaring and others crashing.

This is something that has occurred just three times in the past 25 years. And as Greg told his viewers during the event, it's something that could double your money on multiple trades if you understand what's coming.

Without spoiling all the details, I want to share one highlight from Greg's presentation...

It made me chuckle at first, reminisce, then think real hard.

Greg shares the following chart with his viewers. It was first created by an Ohio pig farmer back in the late 1800s. This man was doing well, but he lost everything in an 1873 market panic and a hog cholera epidemic. The experience left him struggling to make sense of how it happened.

Eventually, the pig farmer settled on the above framework to make sense of the world. As Greg said during his presentation...

In doing so, he stumbled onto a secret of the markets that would go on to make him rich... and also make the handful of people who studied his work in the years afterward multimillionaires... through bull and bear markets.

In short, he discovered the power of cycles... and how these cycles affect prices.

Ten years after the Civil War, this farmer ended up putting together a timeline that predicts the stock market all the way out to 2059... and when there would be periods to make money and times that panics might occur...

Long after he died, this farmer keeps getting it right...

Look back at his diagram. 1965 was the year of a big market peak before it plummeted 73%. Greg calls 1999 a "cash panic" when people paid any price for dot-com stocks. And we know what the years following 2019 have felt like...

This might sound like hocus-pocus or be too mysterious to be real financial advice. But as Greg has shown lately – and throughout his career on Wall Street, where he used to trade for a $65 billion pension fund – it's not.

As you'll hear in Greg's brand-new presentation, he's a believer in market cycles. His study of them is what led him to call a top in the market at the end of 2021 and start of 2022. And it's what's informing his views once again at the beginning of 2023.

In short, this year could be the start of a "period to make money." However, Greg warns that more pain could be ahead before the greatest opportunities present themselves. It's not as simple as finding the right points on this chart. There's a strategy involved...

If you weren't able to tune in on the night of Greg's event, click here to watch a replay for a limited time. Just for tuning in, you'll get a free trade recommendation. (When he shared a free recommendation last year, it went up 60% in just one week.)

And even if you don't do anything else but watch, you will hear much more detail about a unique view on the markets, investing, and trading from one of our most popular editors. It's well worth your time.

All the best,

Corey McLaughlin

Editor's note: Greg believes we're in for another volatile year for the markets... But he says it comes with a huge moneymaking opportunity. A rare market event that has happened just three times in 25 years could soon ripple through stocks... and uproot the wealth of those who don't know what's coming.

That's why Greg recently went on air to share how investors like you can position yourselves to profit before this inflection point hits. If you missed this brand-new presentation, click here to watch the full replay.