- The dollar drifts yesterday, but gets sold last night
- Copper is soaring again…
Good Day… And a Wonderful Wednesday to you! It’s cold outside and from what I heard last night it will be even colder tomorrow! YUCK! This is getting to me already! Don’t want to leave the warm house, and therefore I’m cabin stuck! And now, we don’t know when we’re heading to Florida, as Kathy nixed the 12/30 flight I had earmarked… UGH! But I’ll get there eventually and leave all this cold air behind! I just finished another book last night, and now am looking for my next read… What will it be?… The Stephan Kummer Trio greets me this morning playing their version of: When My Heart Finds Christmas…
Well, the dollar continued to range trade between 1,217 and 1,219 yesterday, finally settling the day at 1,217… Same level as the previous day’s close… The dollar was sliding all last week, and then suddenly stopped on Monday this week… I know, there’s a ton of data to be printed in the coming days, but we all know that most of it will be soft to bad for the dollar, so what are the dollar bugs waiting for? Take it down now! Don’t wait until you get caught with your pants down!
Gold, was still seeing the SPTs at work yesterday, the physical Gold buyers tried to keep Gold’s head above water, but the paper trades out did them and Gold lost $12 on the day to end the day at $4,206… Silver saw much of the same in trading but in this case the physical buyers out do the paper trades and Silver gained 38-cents to close the day at $58.41…
The price of Oil slid back to a $58 handle… I read a report yesterday that talked about how here in the State of Missouri, gas prices have fallen below $3… And in some cases, below $2! Right on time for the Christmas holiday, where money is tight, and a lot of folks need all the help they can muster…
And the ten year Treasury’s yield dropped a bit to a 4.08% yield…
In the overnight markets last night, the dollar finally found some direction, and the BBDXY starts the day at 1,213 down 4 index points from yesterday. The rate cut talk has increased and now the interest rate futures are 87% sure that the FOMC will cut rates next week on 12/10… I know, I know, I switched the days of the rate cut, as I used to say it would come on 12/11, because that’s what I found on the Fed’s web site… But it’s really 12/10… So, se la vie!
Gold is starting the day getting bought, but the buying is not mania-like, just a normal trading pattern, that Gold has missed so often when the SPTs are off counting their money that won with the last short paper engineered takedown. Gold is up $6 to start the day… Silver, which outshone Gold yesterday, is up 18-cents to start the day…
I wanted to mention that Copper is really taking off again, as Silver drags it along with Silver’s ride higher… The last time I talked about Copper, I talked about how a shortage in Copper was really driving the price higher, and so it is the same reason it’s soaring higher right now. I found this on Bloomberg.com this morning regarding Copper: “Year-to-date, copper is up 30% on the LME as investors pile in – both on the lucrative U.S. arbitrage trade that is fueling shortages elsewhere, and on long-term structural demand from the “Next AI Trade” and major power-grid build-outs.
Commenting on copper markets, super-bull Kostas Bintas of Mercuria told Bloomberg that the U.S. tariff arbitrage is draining global inventories and is about to ignite another leg higher in prices.
“This is the big one,” Bintas told the media outlet in an interview during an industry conference in Shanghai. “If the world keeps going like this we will be left without copper cathodes in the rest of the world.”
Chuck again… I think I’ve told you that I have a friend that sells electrical things like industrial lighting and such, and he was complaining about the Copper price rising last year when I saw him. With Copper at 5.34, he’ll really be complaining this year!
The price of Oil bumped higher in its current range trade to trade with a $59 handle… The 10-year Treasury’s yield dropped a little more overnight and starts the day with a 4.06% yield… The rate cut that’s coming, is in play here. I had been really confused as to why the bond boys were taking the yield higher last week, but then I figured out that the bond boys were looking way ahead… And now their focus has come back to the present time…
Circling the wagons around, we find Silver champing at the bit and taking out the short players one by one… The SPTs are like the wolf that’s always at the door, but I think that they are losing the battle, with the physical buyers of Silver and ETFs knocking them for a loop… This battle will eventually be lost by the SPTs, but they’ll go down fighting, so dont’ panic whenever you see a coordinated downward more in Silver… You what I’ve always told you: That a star burns brightest right before it burns out, and this is what the SPTs look like to me right now…
And the Bank of America (BOA) came out and said that December is going to be a tough row to hoe for the dollar with all of the data that’s backed up gets released, and the data will not be good for the dollar… Hey! They’re singing my song there! You don’t think they read the Pfennig, do you?
Back to reality here… In the currency roundup this morning you will find China’s renminbi trading with a 7.06 handle… The Peoples Bank of China (PBOC) has allowed the renminbi to gain VS the dollar by a large margin this year… It’s part of their long-term plan to devalue the dollar… Remember, China doesn’t do things at the drop of a hat pace, they take their time and let the pieces fall where they will, which is usually in their favor… My dad used to tell me… “Chuck, China is a sleeping Giant, and we, as a country, had better not awake them.”
Well, too late… China has been awakened and they are building infrastructure, open markets, bond liquidity, a payment system to rival SWIFT, and all sorts of other things that go with a rising Empire… Think back to the industrial age when the U.S. came out on top, this is what China looks like today, awaken, and jostled out of bed, and ready to take on the world…
I talked about how gas prices are dropping around the nation above, but what gives here? The price of Oil continues to trade near the $60 handle, and there’s been no real change there, but gas prices are coming down? As I said above, that’s got to be Manna from Heaven for the middle-class folks…
Time to go buy a new gas guzzler I guess… HA! I used to drive a BIG gas guzzler, and I would talk about it, and readers would chastise me for driving a Big gas guzzler… Hey! I would tell them I can afford the gas, so this is what I love to drive!
The Indian rupee just hit a $90 handle… They have seen better days there, but not now, as the trading world sees the tariffs on India as a real problem, and have sold rupees. The selling of rupees started as small moves, but now the small moves have all come together, and you have the rupee trading at multi-year lows VS the dollar… Good thing, the rupee isn’t part of the BBDXY!
The U.S. Data Cupboard today has the ADP Employment Report for this month, and like I said yesterday, this will be looked at by the markets for signs of labor weakness… And I repeat myself here, but The ADP Employment Report should be used by the markets as the “go-to report” on labor, instead of the BLS’s pile of lies and hedonic adjustments… But then that’s just me… The markets seem to like the BLS’s lies and then their admission of lies and their downward revisions to their previous reports… Who wouldn’t like that? I kid of course…
To recap… The dollar drifted yesterday, but got sold overnight, as the FOMC rate cut day draws near, and the dollar will be debased once more… Gold saw the SPTs yesterday, and Silver did too, but Silver won the day… Copper is soaring and the shortage in the metal is to blame… And the Chinese renminbi is getting noticed… And Chuck is complaining about the cold weather already!
For What It’s Worth… Well, this morning, I have for you an excerpt from my friend Dave Gonigam’s 5 Bullets… It’s about the dollar and it can be found here: www.paradigmpressroom.com
Or, here’s your snippet: “There’s a lot of noise and misunderstanding when it comes to the dollar surrendering its status as the world’s reserve currency.
Your editor has been following the “de-dollarization” phenomenon since 2014 — the ongoing effort among governments in the Global South to get out from under the dollar’s influence.
A lot of internet screamers try to convince you there will be ONE BIG ANNOUNCEMENT any day now in which the dollar will collapse and life as you know it will be over. (The “Operation Sandman” rumors of 2023 were an especially silly example.)
The reality is that de-dollarization is a process, not an event.
Paradigm macro maven Jim Rickards reminds us that it took 30 years for the British pound to surrender its status as the globe’s reserve currency to the dollar — from the outbreak of World War I in 1914 to the Bretton Woods agreement of 1944.
The transition from the French franc to the pound during the 19th century also took many years — as did the transition from the Dutch guilder to the franc in the 18th century.
A quarter of the way into the 21st century it’s still hard to envision what the new reserve currency might be: The euro was never a credible competitor to the dollar and China’s government imposes so many restrictions on the yuan that it can’t mount a credible challenge, either.
At best, economists can merely foresee that the dollar’s share of global transactions will continue its steady decline.
But this much is already apparent: The BRICS nations are developing an alternative payments system, bypassing the dollar, with gold as its foundation.
Between that and continued central bank gold buying (see the chart above)… the dollar price of gold can only go higher from here. Act accordingly.
And don’t overlook silver.”
Chuck Again… I know that Dave reads the Pfennig from time to time, and so I hope he gets a kick out of seeing his words, used here in the Pfennig…
Market Prices 12/3/2025: American Style: A$ .6588, kiwi .5750, C$.7173, euro 1.1669, sterling 1.3301, Swiss $1.2498, European Style: rand 17.0822, krone 10.0764, SEK 9.3844, forint 326.27, zloty 3.6227, koruna 20.6906, RUB 77.87, yen 155.41, sing 1.2943, HKD 7.7842, INR 90.91, China 7.0636, peso 18.25, BRL 5.3217, BBDXY 1,213, Dollar Index 98.94, Oil $59.41, 10-year 4.06%, Silver $58.59, Platinum $1,654.00, Palladium $1.476.00, Copper $ 5.34, and Gold… $4,314
That’s it for today… Well, let me the first to thank out loud, a long time reader, and friend, James Marquart for entering and sponsoring, not only me, but Dennis Miller also, to be named a “Kentucky Colonels… A certificate is in the mail to me… I’m so excited about this that I’m giggling like a schoolgirl! I was alone at home last night, and watched my beloved Mizzou Tigers basketball team lose a game to Notre Dame… It was their first loss of the new season, so, lick your wounds and come home Tigers… I hit the jackpot asking for help with a gift idea for Kathy… Thank you, Lynn and Lisa… you are stars! The Stephan Kummer Trio takes us to the finish line today, as they play: I’ve Got My Love To Keep Me Warm… I hope you have a Wonderful Wednesday today, and Please Be Good To Yourself!
Chuck Butler