August 30, 2022
* Currencies & Metals get sold on Monday
* What’s really happening with the economy?
Good day… And a Tom Terrific Tuesday to you! Well, from the first game in Cincinnati last night it was apparent that the Cardinals brought their bats! They beat the Reds 13-4., hitting the 13-run pool! Peggy Jordan, was a woman that taught me how to trade currencies, she used to run the 13-run pool at Mark Twain Bank… I never won it! UGH! There were two hour and a half rain delays last night, and what I thought would be an early night, turned into the night owl again! UGH! But Albert Pujols hit home run number 694 last night. He needs 6 more to reach 700… the games are counting down, along with available at bats…. Will he make it? Three Dog Night greet me this morning with their song: Easy To Be Hard… When I was a young man, I saved my money to buy the Three Dog Night Live at the Forum album… I would get in trouble for turning the record player up too loud, playing that album!
Do kids, for the most part, even save money, first of all, and second, save money to buy something they want? Or, do their parents, just buy it for them and make life easy for them? I’m guessing that’s the case, although I haven’t seen the data on that! HA!
Well, the dollar kind of wandered about yesterday, finally ending the day up one index point, in the BBDXY… The BBDXY ended the day at 1,293… There are all kinds of people out in the newsletter, article writing world that don’t think that we as a country are heading in the right direction… I believe, in talking to people, that more and more people are coming to the realization that the media and Gov’t lie to us about the status of the country, and that “something is not right”… these Americans, for the most part, don’t know how to express what they are feeling in terms of economics, but dagnabit they are darn sure there’s something wrong… And the Gov’t isn’t telling us what it is…The Gov’t denies the recession, they deny that the deficit is too large, they deny that, oh, Chuck, stop… It’s just not worth it to get all riled up in the morning any longer, you don’t have co-workers to share you feeling with any longer!
Ok, so Gold fought back yesterday, as it was getting sold in the morning and was down $14, Gold found a bid and starting coming back about mid-morning, and ended the day down only $1.50, to close at $1,738.20. Silver also fought back from its early morning loss of 14-cents to close the day at $18.87…
I had a dear reader send me a note yesterday, and just say, “I can’t believe the way Gold and Silver are getting priced these days”…
In the overnight markets last night, the dollar buying ended abruptly, with the BBDXY losing 4 index points overnight. The euro has climbed back above 1.0. but Gold & Siver are getting sold this morning, with Gold down $5 and Silver down 14-cents in the early trading. In an answer to that question above, I can say that the markets are looking at the rate differential that the dollar enjoys and will continue to widen if what the Fed Heads say is true, and the markets refuse to look at the “net rate” that takes into consideration, the inflation rate.
But it’s not just the so-called rate differential that’s playing on the field here… We also have the price manipulators, who have seen this weakness in Gold & Silver, and have decided to “pile on”… Now, in football that’s a penalty, piling on, but in metals, whatever the price manipulators want to do, they get away with…
To me, these recent trials for market manipulation are just window dressing to appease the masses that the Gov’t is looking out for them, when in reality, they aren’t. For it is my contention, and always has been, I’ve never wavered on this thought… That the Gov’t is behind the price manipulation. They have always since the days right after cutting the dollar loose from Gold, have worried that people would find Gold more valuable than the dollar and the Gov’t couldn’t have that.
So, in some back room full of cigar smoke, and pictures of dogs playing poker on the walls, the Gov’t cut a deal with the bullion banks that if they carried through the price manipulation the Gov’t would look the other way when it came to, “really prosecuting price manipulation”…
Remember years ago when Bart Chilton, the president of the CFPB, the organization that regulates Commodities, said he would look into the Silver price manipulation, and then weeks later, he said that he couldn’t find anything… I believe that Chilton received a memo from the Gov’t telling him to zip it, and make this all go away… Chilton was a smarter guy than what he appeared to be, and he probably found Silver manipulation, but had to put it under his hat, and walk away…
The things that really bothers me about the Bullion Banks and their price manipulation is that they have clients in the bank that hold Gold & Silver, so they deliberately punish their own clients’ portfolio values? I guess they do, and they smile while they do it… Now that’s what I don’t get, about this whole price manipulation scheme…
OK, let’s talk about something else this morning… Well, here’s another bone of contention I have with the Gov’t, and it’s the lies they keep spewing about the economy… I found this next piece on CNBC.com this morning, and think everyone should listen to what this guy says, because I do! here you go! “People are not being sensitive enough to this economic slowdown and what it’s going to be mean for corporate earnings and profit margins,” the Bleakley Advisory Group chief investment officer told CNBC’s “Fast Money” on Monday.
The National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index dropped into negative territory in August. This is the eight month in a row builder confidence fell. In a news release, NAHB chief economist Robert Dietz said, “Tighter monetary policy from the Federal Reserve and persistently elevated construction costs have brought on a housing recession.”
Chuck again… Peter Bookvaar was the fellow speaking there, and I follow him on twitter, which always gives me some insight as to what’s going on … I’m just saying…
The U.S. Data Cupboard has the S&P/ Case Shiller Home Price Index (HPI) for June this morning… This data set has seen weakened prints the previous months, and I don’t expect June’s report to be any different. We’ll also see the stupid Consumer Confidence report, which is nothing more than a pulse taken of the stock market, and when this report was compiled, the stock market was having a bear market rally, so expect this report to show an improvement, for this month…
The other things we’ll see are the Job Openings and Job Quits for July… I always find the Job Quits number to be interesting…
To recap… The dollar continued to get bought, albeit at a lesser rate, yesterday, but then got sold in the overnight markets last night, with the BBDXY losing 4 index points. Gold & Silver still can’t find a bid, that the price manipulators don’t offset.. And Chuck gives us the skinny on how he believes the price manipulators get away with what they do…
For What It’s Worth… I’ve told you all for years how I’m addicted to the 5 Minute Forecast each day. Dave Gonigam is the lead person on the letter, and I met him some years ago now, at a Show. A very nice guy, and quite witty I must say! Well, he wrote something yesterday that I pulled or the FWIW article today, and you can find the whole article here: Biden’s Bailout (Student Loan Forgiveness) – 5 Min Forecast
Or, here’s your snippet:”But here’s the point, one that will be highly relevant this winter not just to Europeans but to Americans: Natural gas is quickly becoming a global market like oil.
Until very recently, transport of natural gas was limited mostly to pipelines — which made it at most a regional thing, maybe a continental thing. Shipping it over the ocean requires…
1. A specialized departure terminal where the gas is supercooled into a liquid state — where it takes up a lot less space. This is LNG, or liquefied natural gas
2. Specialized tanker ships that can accommodate LNG
3. A specialized arrival terminal where the LNG is returned to a gaseous state and pumped into a pipeline.
For a long time, and for reasons you can readily understand, LNG was much more costly than plain ol’ natgas in a pipeline.
Then Russia invaded Ukraine… Western governments imposed sanctions on Russia… and European leaders committed themselves for better or worse to a crash program of swearing off Russian gas imports.
Suddenly, American LNG started looking more attractive.
At the same time, Asian customers are also stepping up for imports of American LNG — setting off a bidding war with the Europeans.
If you suspect all these LNG exports overseas will end up making your own natgas more costly here at home… you’re absolutely right. “When you heat your house,” says Byron, “you are now competing with Rotterdam and Shanghai.””
Chuck again… Like I said last week, Europe has 3 months to figure out how they will heat homes this winter… And let’s hope that same problems isn’t plaguing us here in the US.
Market Prices 8/30/2022: American Style: A$ .6945, kiwi .6186, C$.7695, euro 1.0038, sterling 1.1728, Swiss $1.0302, European Style: rand 16.7879, krone 9.7284, SEK 10.6131, forint 405.18, zloty 4.7171, koruna 24.4881, RUB 60.65, yen 138.09, sing 1.3947, HKD 7.8484, INR 79.45, China 6.0293, peso 19.93, BRL 5.0293, BBDXY 1,289.60, Dollar Index 108.37, Oil $94.27, 10-year 3.06%, Silver $18.71, Platinum $865.00, Palladium $2,127.00, Copper $3.70, and Gold… $1,733.51
That’s it for today… I tried to sit outside to watch the baseball game last night, but the air was very “muggy”, and I thought, “go inside you dummy!”, and I did… Cards and Reds go at it again tonight, let’s hope their didn’t wear out their bats last night! August is coming to an end tomorrow… And for once, I’m not happy to see it go, for the weather has been fantabulous in August this year for us in the MidWest… The luck of the draw has me once again going to my oncologist on a Friday this month… So, you all have that going for you! HA! No getting out of not having the Pfennig show up in your email box a day this week because of a doctor’s appt.! I’ll start my cooking for the BBQ on Saturday on Friday morning… And finish it around noon on Saturday… This year’s BBQ won’t be as Big as the ones we used to have before Covid. I guess people found other things to do this weekend, after not having the Butler BBQ for two years! Apparently, they’ve forgotten how yummy all the food is and what a great time we have in the backyard and the pool! Oh well, we’ll have lots of fun any way! Gladys Knight and the Pips take us to the finish line today with her version of the Marin Gaye song: I Heard It Through The Grapevine… I hope you have a Tom Terrific Tuesday today, and please Be Good To Yourself!
Chuck Butler