- currencies, metals, dollar, bonds all see manipulation on Tuesday
- Who or What’s going to save the power grid?
Good Day… And a Tom Terrific Tuesday to you! Another beautiful day down here in the south… I hear that it was 60 degrees in St. Louis yesterday… The January Thaw is in play there… As I always remind them when they tell me it was warm back home… “But there’s no ocean, no baseball, no fresh seafood, should I go on? I didn’t think so… I’m hooked on curling at the winter Olympics… The U.S. doubles team lost the Gold yesterday, and they had a real chance to win it! UGH! Lee Michaels greets me this morning with his great 70’s song: Do You Know What I Mean?
Well, the selling of the dollar stopped, for one day, even though it did show a 1 index point loss in the BBDXY, it was down 3 index points to start the day, so a brief rally there… The euro held onto the 1.19 handle yesterday, and the Chinese renminbi was allowed to gain another figure VS the dollar and ended yesterday with a 6.91 handle… On side note, did you hear that the Peoples Bank of China has been telling its downstream banks to back off of Treasury bond buying? Well, it was only a matter of time before the PBOC laid down the law…
The price of Oil remained trading with $64 handle yesterday… There were reports that U.S. Oilfields have backed off their drilling… Interesting right? I mean didn’t I tell you weeks ago that the breakeven price for drillers with Oil was much higher than the price was trading at now? Well, I read a piece of the price of Oil that said that industry observers say that the price of Oil could rally to $74 in 2026… So, keep that in mind before you go out and buy a gas guzzler!
And the 10-year saw its yield drop to 4.14%, as the bond boys got on board with the idea that new Fed/Cabal/ Cartel chairman to be, Warsh, will cut rates….
In the overnight markets last night… the dollar drifted lower by one index point in the BBDXY… The euro remains above the 1.19 level, and the Swiss franc is really pushing the envelope VS the dollar these days, as safe havens are en vogue…
Gold & Silver are back on the rally tracks after being subjected to the SPTs yesterday… Gold is up $33 to start the day, and Silver is back at attempting to wipe out the losing futures in the $85-90 range, as it is up $2.91 to start the day and sits right below the range that I told you would be difficult for Silver to take out. Gold was sold short yesterday and ended up down, as did Silver, but they are right back at rallying this morning… I guess we’ll see what the Jobs report does for these two…
Copper is kicking tail and taking names later this morning, and is back above $6 to start our day… The shortage of Copper is still there, and the industrial metal needs a price adjustment for sure! And I’ll repeat what my dad taught me about shortages… There’s no such thing as a shortage; it’s in need of a price adjustment… Man, he was a smart man… I guess that’s where I get my penchant for looking for answers to things… Thanks Dad!
The price of Oil has bumped higher to the $65 handle this morning… Apparently, the Israeli Prime Minister is scheduled to meet with the POTUS today… And that has the Oil traders on edge…
And the 10-year saw buying yesterday that was quite strong… Which leads me to believe that the Fed Heads were in or having some other entity do their dirty deeds. So, the 10-year starts today with a 4.13% yield. Forgive me if I seem jaded toward these price adjustments in the metals, dollar and Treasuries… They are all manipulated and free price discovery is non-existent… UGH!
Well, my friend, and editor of the daily letter 5 Bullets, Dave Gonigam, reminded everyone yesterday that he first talked about the strains on the power grid from the demands for power from AI in 2022… And I thought that I had done that too… But in case I didn’t, here’s a piece I got off the Oilprice.com site: “International Energy Agency says global electricity demand is growing at its fastest pace in 15 years, set to rise more than 3.5% annually through 2030.
While renewables, nuclear, and natural gas are expanding rapidly, grid infrastructure is becoming the key bottleneck, with over 2,500 GW of power and load projects stuck in connection queues worldwide.
Grid investment must rise about 50% above current levels to keep pace, to keep up with grid constraints
In fact one power grid had to resort to using 20% from Coal… Without Coal, the grid would have had black outs.. So AI might end up saving us time and money, but will put so much strain on the power grid, that the savings might not be worth it… I’m just saying..
Also on Oilprice.com they talked about how China continues to use Coal, petrol, and natural gas to fues their electric grid… I think they have their priorities straight… But then, that’s just me thinking out loud…
OK, onto other things… OK, in a case of “Who are you going to believe?” The talking heads from the Gov’t tell us that the tariffs aren’t hurting the U.S. consumer… and then a different report tells us that the tariffs added $1,000 to the average consumer last year…. YIKES! I’ll tell you this and you probably won’t believe it, but through the years, the Gov’t talking heads have lied to you about just about everything.. And this is no different…
Today is the Jobs Jamboree… And the revision of their Birth/Death model that adds jobs out of thin air each month… Zerohedge.com thinks that a revision of 1 Million jobs will be on the table… That would be disastrous for the dollar, but then that’s just me… See? Even the jobs data is manipulated… And then revised much later so that the markets can’t really react to the revision… But this time it could be a different reaction… I guess we’ll have to wait-n-see, eh?
The U.S. Data Cupboard yesterday had the delayed print of Dec. Retail Sales… And it wasn’t good… U.S. retail sales for December came in flat at 0.0%, and consumer delinquency rates climbed to 4.8%—the highest level in nearly a decade. This consumer delinquency rate is a new feature of the Retail Sales report and is quite telling don’t you think? This soft data was probably most responsible for the selling that took place in Gold & Silver yesterday…
I really think that the markets need to get together and make a call… The bond boys bought bonds with the thought that interest rates will be going lower, while Gold & Silver got sold because the markets think that the rate cuts will be on hold because of the soft data… UGH!
Today we’ll see the Jobs Jamboree for January… Right now, the forecasts are for 55,000 jobs created in January. I can’t see the BLS allowing a report of 55,000 jobs created in January to be printed without their messaging and cooking the books…
To recap… The selling of the dollar stopped for a day, and there was some profit taking in Gold & Silver played a part in their performance on Tuesday. Soft data (Retail Sales) played a part in the weakness in the metals too. Chuck talks about the power grid this morning… it’s really on his mind these days! And all markets are manipulated and the examples of each were illustrated yesterday….
For What It’s Worth: Well, the well was dry this morning, so I turned to Ed Steer’s letter and in it he had highlighted a report from Zerohedge.com that goes into those delinquencies I talked about above and it can be found here: US Consumer Debt Delinquencies Soar To Highest Since 2017 While Office Delinquencies Hit Record High | ZeroHedge
Or, here’s your snippet: “It will come as a surprise to exactly nobody that the Fed’s latest quarterly Household Debt and Credit report (for Q4 2025) reported total household debt balances increased by $191 billion in the fourth quarter of 2025, a 1% rise from 2025 Q3, to a new all-time high. Balances now stand at $18.8 trillion and have increased by $4.6 trillion since the end of 2019, just before the pandemic recession.
Mortgage balances shown on consumer credit reports grew by $98 billion during the fourth quarter of 2025 and totaled $13.17 trillion at the end of December.
Balances on home equity lines of credit (HELOC) rose by $12 billion, the 15th consecutive quarterly increase. There is now $433 billion in outstanding HELOC balances, $116 billion above the low reached in 2022Q1. In total, non-housing balances increased by $81 billion, a 1.6% increase from 2025Q3.
Credit card balances rose by $44 billion during the fourth quarter and now total $1.28 trillion outstanding, up 5.5% since last year.
Student loan balances increased by $11 billion and now stand at $1.66 trillion.
Auto loan balances edged up by $12 billion to $1.66 trillion.
Other balances, which include retail cards and consumer finance loans, rose by $14 billion and now total $564 billion.
New debt originations were also solid in the quarter:
The volume of mortgage originations, which includes both refinance and purchase originations, increased with $524 billion newly originated in 2025 Q4, an uptick from the $512 billion seen in the previous quarter. It was the highest since 2022 when rates were far lower.
There were $181 billion in new auto loans and leases appearing on credit reports during the fourth quarter, a small dip from the $184 billion observed in 2025 Q3.
Aggregate limits on credit cards continued to rise, with a $95 billion (1.6%) uptick in the fourth quarter.
Home equity lines of credit (HELOC) limits rose by $25 billion (2.5%), continuing an expansion in HELOC limits that began in 2022.”
Chuck again… It sounds like all hell is about to break loose… This is not good for the U.S. consumer’s financial situation… I’m just saying…. Got Gold?
Market Prices 2/11/2026: American Style: A$ .7112, kiwi .6062, C$ .7383, euro 1.1996, sterling 1.3689, Swiss $1.3063, European Style: rand 15.887, krone 9.4642, SEK 8.8669, forint 318.93, zloty 35899, koruna 20.3047, RUB 77.27, yen 153.56, sing 1.2624, HKD 7.8168, INR 90.70, China 6.9104, peso 17.20, BRL 5.1791, BBDXY 1,180, Dollar Index 96.69, Oil $65.39, 10-year 4.13%, Silver $83.86, Platinum $2,181.00, Palladium $1.725.00, Copper $6.06, and Gold… $5,059
That’s it for today… One week to go before I go home for an infusion and to see my darling granddaughter, Delaney Grace perform in the musical Mama Mia, as the lead… I’ll return, on my own, on Saturday in time for the first Spring Training game 2/21… I’ll be at the game by myself, but no worries I’ve done that before! And then a couple of days later my buddies from home come down to spend a week with me and go to games… That’s when I’ll be on my traditional spring vacation… So, it’s coming soon! I’m really not into figure skating, but that kid from the U.S. Malinin, is better than anyone else so just go ahead and give him the Gold now…. The Blues Magoos take us to the finish line today with their song: (We Ain’t Got) Nothing Yet… I hope you have a Tom Terrific Tuesday today, and Please Be Good To Yourself!
Chuck Butler