Canadian Tariff Stupidity, U.S. Economy Sliding

Nat Gas ,HEM

Canadian Tariff Stupidity

For now Trump has suspended the Canadian tariffs as announced about Mexico too. Meanwhile pure stupidity and political posturing goes on. I see in the news pulling all the U.S. liquor off the shelves. The government controlled liquor boards already bought and paid for this. It will do nothing to hurt the U.S., but once agan only hurt Canadians. Seems like a good political stunt to splash it all over the news though. However, Canadian governments are not giving you a choice to buy Canadian, they are dictating it.

Premier Ford is implementing an export tariff on electricity, just plain stupidity but a political stunt because most Canadians don't know how it works. Export tariffs are paid by the exporter so these will be paid by Canadian electrical producers, not U.S. importers. However it is a way Ford can implement a tax under the 'bad Trump' narrative.

Furthermore this just pushes the Canadian electrical producers out of the market as the U.S. simply won't buy the Canadian electricity at a higher price. Sure we export more to the U.S. than import, but not this time of year. This might have been a factor in the hot summer when electricity demand is high, but not now. Canadian electricity producers will lose a lot of revenue.

The Canadian economy added just 1,100 jobs last month, the agency said today, well below the 76,000 jobs added in January. Economists polled by Reuters ahead of Friday had expected an increase of 20,000 new positions for the month.

Canada continues to just replace full time jobs with part time. The agency’s figures show a loss of 19,700 full-time roles in February, offset by a gain of 20,800 part-time jobs.

U.S. Economy Teetering

Employers added 151,000 jobs in February, a touch below 160,000 forecasts. Numbers held in because the report is based on mid-month surveys of businesses and households, got a boost as the effects of mid-January's harsh weather and Los Angeles wildfires reversed. Further, DOGE-led federal workforce cuts hadn't yet gathered steam by mid-February.

However, beneath the numbers, the details were bleak. The birth death rate model added 136,000 of the reported jobs. The household data also showed that the number of people working part-time for lack of a full-time opportunity jumped 460,000 to 4.937 million.

The household survey, which is used to derive the unemployment rate, showed that the ranks of the employed tumbled by 588,000.

And yesterday - Layoffs announced by U.S.-employers jumped to levels not seen since the last two recessions amid mass federal government job cuts, canceled contracts and fears of trade wars. Global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas said on Thursday that planned job cuts vaulted 245% to 172,017 last month, the highest level since July 2020,

U.S. Auto sales were expected to improve in February after a weak January but not so. Sales estimates for February are down -2.3% at 1,221,863 units. As I mentioned before, auto sales get hit first in a recession and than housing. I am watching closely here and so far sales declines are not a big deal unless the trend continues as I expect it will

U.S. businesses created just 77,000 new jobs in February, ADP said Wednesday , a sign the economy is slowing The increase was the smallest since last summer. Economists polled by the Wall Street Journal had forecast a gain of 148,000 new jobs in the ADP survey.

The U.S. international trade deficit widened 34% in January to $131.4 billion, the Commerce Department said Thursday. It’s the widest deficit going back to the start of the series in 1992. A lot of this was a surge with imports before tariffs, we will have to see how it averages out in the months ahead.

Natural Gas Storage Plummeting

Storage levels are down at 5 year lows for this time of year and the lowest level in at least the last three years. This is important because we are now seeing stronger summer demand for electrical generation to power a booming data center spectacle. This makes it more difficult to refill storage during the summer months.

I have not bothered with this chart because nothig happenning. However, that is the point, Trump can say 'drill baby drill', but nobody is doing so.

Great News with HEM this week, but you would not know by the stock price

Hemostemix Inc. - - TSXV:HEM OTC:HMTXF - - - Recent Price - $0.14

Entry Price - $0.215 - - - - - - - — Opinion – strong buy

This week Hemostemix made more sales and is deploying AI to access treatments.

Hemostemix has sold 15 ACP-01 therapy convertible debentures for proceeds of $517,230 (U.S.), subject to the approval of the TSX Venture Exchange. "Year to date, this sums to forward sales of $1,149,983, which is gratifying, as it generates non-dilutive working capital for our company and its shareholders," stated Thomas Smeenk, chief executive officer.

Hemostemix to use AI through Firefly, more from the news releaase below

Hemostemix Inc. has arranged a collaboration with Firefly Neuroscience Inc., an artificial intelligence (AI) company developing innovative solutions that improve brain health outcomes for patients with neurological and mental disorders.

Hemostemix and Firefly will study brain wave activity in up to 100 patients before and after treatment with ACP-01 at baseline, three months and six months after treatment (phase 1).

Hemostemix's phase 1 clinical trial of vascular dementia is in line with Firefly's collaborations with globally recognized companies, such as Bright Minds, Novartis and Takeda.

Through the collaboration, Hemostemix will leverage Firefly's proprietary database of 77,000 EEG (electroencephalogram) brain scans across 12 disorders. Hemostemix and Firefly will work together to generate an exploratory end point to objectively prove that intrathecal injection of ACP-01 is a safe, preliminarily efficacious and clinically relevant treatment for vascular dementia.

"We are proud that BNA continues to be at the forefront of EEG innovation, and we agree with Hemostemix that its study of ACP-01 dose response in subjects suffering from vascular dementia has the potential to exemplify how our proprietary technology may transform complex brain data into actionable insights for clinicians and researchers," said Greg Lipschitz, executive chairman of Firefly. "

Design of Hemostemix's vascular dementia phase 1 clinical trial of ACP-01

The phase 1 clinical trial will evaluate the safety, tolerability and preliminary efficacy of intrathecal injection of ACP-01 directly into the cerebrospinal fluid of subjects who suffer from vascular dementia:

• Primary end points include incidence of safety and adverse events; feasibility of ACP-01 delivery through intrathecal injection; safe dosage; and tolerability

• Secondary end points include cognitive functional assessment; global clinical dementia rating; quality-of-life assessment; and standardized MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) metric analyses of brain volume and blood flow.

• Exploratory end points include Firefly's BNA readout pretreatment and at three months and six months after treatment.

In January, 2025, Firefly highlighted two impactful studies that demonstrated the utility of its AI-based BNA advanced resting electroencephalogram (EEG) and cognitive EEG (ERP) data analytics. As illustrated by the two studies, Firefly's enhanced BNA system uniquely provided objective measures of the efficacy of treatment and cognitive change.

"There is limited data on the use of ACP-01 in dementia; however, the specificity of ACP-01 in promotion of angiogenesis, the molecular up-regulation of brain neurotrophic factors and specific chemokines strongly suggest ACP-01 may be efficacious as a treatment for vascular dementia," stated Dr. Fraser Henderson, chief medical officer of Hemostemix.

I thought this stock would keep more momentum but it has given up everything. There is several tests of $0.14 so it looks like a bottom, but a drop to $0.13 would completely fill the gap. Whether 14 or 13 cents, I think the stock is an awesome buy here.

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