March 31, 2022

* dollar selling ends in overnight markets 

Good day….And a Tub Thumpin’ Thursday to one and all… well I couldn’t grt my laptop fixed yesterday, but we nailed down the problem.  My touch pad went bad, and by having a Surface laptop, I can remove the screen and it becomes a tablet…with a pop up keyboard which is easier to use than an iPad. So here I am using m Surface as a tablet… it doesn’t mean that I will be able to write a regular length letter today…. It just means I didn’t bag you today as I said I would do yesterday! Chicago greets me this morning with their great song… Movin’ in….

Well the dollar seems to be on a slippery slope so far this week…. The euro is still climbing higher, and the BBDXY lost another 3index points yesterday to end the day at 1,188.14….too early to be a think about a selling trend for the dollar, just take it as it is.

Gold finally found a bid yesterday and gained $12.90 on the day  to close at $1,933.90, while Silver gained 11-cents to end the day at $24.95…

The price of Oil was up on the day and ended the day with a $107 handle… The 10-year’s yield dropped again indicating that someone of size is buying bonds…

And that’s all I’m going to say about that!

In the overnight markets last night…. The selling of the dollar ended, and the gins in the currencies were lessened….Gold is down $3.20 this morning, and Silver is down 5-cents to start the day today. The price of Oil dropped $6 in the overnight markets after it was announced that President Biden was going to announce that 1 Million barrels of Oil ,per day, will be released from our Oil reserves…. OK…. Aren’t your reserves supposed to be used in a crisis? I guess it all depends on your definition of a  crisis….eh?

I would have to say that I guess that’s better than the idea I heard  talked about last week that included monthly checks of $100 to citizens to help defray the costs of gas… That idea was just plain stupid if you  asked me!

Ok earlier this week we saw the 10-year’s yield @2.50%…. If you calculated the difference in yields the loss to those bond holders would be in the millions…and now there’s no where for them to run….. They have tom sit and watch bond yields continue to move higher with every rate hike the Fed/cabal/ Cartel makes. I’ll let that sink in to bond holders that didn’t listen to my warnings on bonds….

Bill Bonner wrote yester day “this may not sound like a lot, but the rise in yields worldwide, has already caused bond investors to lose about $5 Trillion.”

So…guess which currency is the best performing currency vs the dollar in March? If you guessed the Russian ruble.. You win that kewpie doll!  Ever since  Russian President Putin announced that he would price Russian oil in rubles the daily beatings of rubles has abated…

In the US Data Cupboard the other day, we saw the home price index rise again in January, just like I said it would …. Today’s cupboard has the ADP Employment report and a final revision for GDP (4^th qtr)…  Remember now that the March Jobs Jamboree will be on Friday..

To recap… the dollar continued to get sold yesterday, but in the overnight markets the selling stopped… Gold is down $3 in the early trading today, and the Russian ruvle is the best performing currency this month… Chuck is not a fan of releasing Oil reserves..

For What It’s Worth… I found this article in Ed Steer’s letter this morning and it’s about rising inflation in  Germany and it ca be found on www.zerohedge.com…

Or, here’s  your snippet: “Say what you will about Germans, they have a distinct hate-hate relationship with hyperinflation, having been one of the very few “developed” nations to experience it in the not too distant past courtesy of Rudy von Havenstein’s application of “Modern Money Theory” to the Weimar Republic back in 1921 with less than stellar results. Well, Germany may soon enjoy double (and triple) digit price gains quite soon.

When asked by Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung about the possibility of double-digit inflation rates, Volker Wieland, a member of the German government’s council of economic advisers said that “it can’t be ruled out, especially if Russia stops oil and gas deliveries or if there’s a total import embargo, then I think inflation rates in this magnitude would be conceivable.”

Now if only Germany hadn’t allowed its energy policy to be determined by a petulant, publicity obsessed Swedish teenager, and if the country actually had some strategic views on how to maintain at least some energy independence, none of this would have happened (as we warned last summer in “Will ESG Trigger Energy Hyperinflation“). Unfortunately that wasn’t the case.

Surprisingly, Wieland didn’t fully lay the blame for Germany’s upcoming hyperinflation on Putin sand said that the “future path of inflation is very strongly linked to what the ECB does.” adding that “personally, I would be in favor of acting more quickly and of raising interest rates briskly.” Which is a great idea, if only the ECB didn’t have a rather catastrophic track record of hiking rates into an economic debacle and sparking historic sovereign debt crises in the process.

ECB sarcasm aside – which is not easy as one can never be sarcastic enough about the world’s most clueless ‘buy only’ hedge fund central bank – the reason why the topic of double-digit German inflation emerged is because earlier today analysts were shocked (again) when German headline inflation printed 7.6% YoY in March, sharply above consensus expectations of 6.8%, and up from 5.5% in December.”

Chuck again… yes…older Germans will be longing for the days of the old Bundesbank and their fears of inflation….

Market Prices 3/31/2022: American Style: A$ .7492, kiwi .6937, C$ .7985, euro 1.1095, sterling 1.3127, Swiss 1.0810, European Style: Rand 14.5131, krone 8.7419, SEK 9.3148, forint 333.86, zloty 4.1949,

Koruna 22.0303, RUB 85.43, yen 121.75, sing 1.3540, HKD 7.8294

INR 75.43, China 6.3508, peso 119.88, BRL 4.7611, BBDXY 1,191.06,

Dollar Index 98.23, Oil $101.05, 10-year 2.31%, Silver $24.90,

Platinum $990.00, Palladium $2,548.00, Copper $4.74, and Gold $1,930.70

That’s it for today… very strange typing on a tablet….talk about strange, did you see the score of the Cardinals game VS the Nationals yesterday? Cardinals won 29-8… The Cardinals hadn’t scored that many runs all spring combined before yesterday….Our Blues won for a second game in a row last night, maybe they’ve worked out their funk the were in. I have to start getting my ducks lined up for my return home on Saturday… In the famous word of good friend Duane… I don’t want to go home! And keeping Duane in mind, his fave band takes us the finish line today…Steely Dan and their song : FM… I hope you have a Tub Thumpin’ Thursday today, and please Be Good To Yourself !

Chuck Butler