May 8, 2019
* the dollar begins to feel the pinch of failed Trade Talks…
* Chuck talks about how Gold is a Store of Wealth…
Good Day.. And a Wonderful Wednesday to you! Blues win, Blues Win… Blues Win! Ok, in case you didn’t catch that, our Blues won Game 7 of their series with Dallas, and now move onto the Western Conference Finals… It took 2 overtimes to get the win, but there it was, and we took it! And a St. Louis born player scored the winning goal! It wasn’t such a happy night for my beloved Cardinals or the Lindbergh High School Flyers Water Polo team, who lost in triple overtime to a private school… My son Andrew has built a program at a public school that rivals those of private schools and everyone associated with the team is very proud of him… I know I am! Little Feat greet me this morning with their song: Fat Man In the Bathtub…
Well, with little data to go on yesterday, other than Consumer Credit, which I’ll talk about later, the currencies were allowed to gain a bit on the dollar yesterday. The dollar bugs are feeling the pinch from the Trade Talks between China and the U.S. In case you’ve been living under a rock, these talks aren’t going to peachy… And that has pushed President Trump to announce that he will raise the tariffs on Chinese goods, because no deal has taken place.
The stock jockeys were feeling that pinch too… But Gold & Silver sure didn’t… As Gold was able to sneak past the manipulators and gain more than $6 on the day! And is up more than $4 in the early trading today… The price of Gold is still below $1,300, and well below the maginot line of $1,350 that some Gold analysts said that it would be be flying past soon… Well, I’m waiting… and so are tons of Gold holders… Not that they want to sell, but they want their Gold holdings to have a more representative price!
This is an important discussion right here, right now so your complete attention is required, please… Gold (& Silver) are stores of wealth, they’ve never been worthless, and are a hedge VS a falling dollar and inflation… Once you own Gold, you put it away, and forget about it… You’ve stored your wealth… In the East they get it… And that’s how they treat their Gold holdings… Here in the U.S. for the most part, we treat Gold as a commodity to buy and sell on a whim… I would love for the West to take on more of an Asian attitude with regards to Gold…
So… these Trade Talks seem to be a real bugaboo for the dollar… And it should be! I’m telling you now, so you can listen to me later… These trade tariffs are going to bring the Global economies to their knees… It matters not if a country is a part of the China/ U.S. talks, they will be effected negatively… You can bank on that! And the consumer gets caught with their guard down, and when they look up, the cost of just about everything they buy, is more expensive, because of tariffs…
The reporting of inflation in this country is a joke… it really is folks… later this week the stupid CPI will print and it will show that consumer inflation is well below the Fed’s 2.00% target rate… But that’s not reality, folks… Inflation is all around us and we just don’t take the time to figure these things out… For instance, the other night I went to the Panera Bread Co. (We call it Bread co) and bought some broccoli cheddar soup and and sandwich… When I got it home, and took out the container that held my soup, I noticed right away how much smaller it was compared to a few years ago… But the cost was even more… But where’s the inflation there? Not much, unless you could put a measurement on the size of contatiners… It’s like that all over the grocery store folks… And that’s inflation, because, you may spend the same, but you’re buying less in quantity, and you’ll have to go back to the story more often thean you did before… Got Gold?
And then you come across the piece of information that I shared with you on Monday… That 73% of Americans die with debt of more than $60,000… And you start to shiver… And think is that someone I know? It has to be, because we don’t insulate ourselves completely from Debt… I’ve said this before, and I don’t take this lightly, but I read a book many years ago, that has the title: Debt is Slavery…
Of course not all debt is bad, but that’s old school… For in days past, if a consumer bought something on credit, it was always paid off… But then we began to realize that lenders would lend us much more money for just about anything, and we went to town on spending with money we don’t have, with no ability or will to ever pay it all back… Shame, shame…
To recap… No data, and nothing but Trade Talk failures to trade on, has the dollar feeling the pinch… Not the hurting kind of pinch that the stock jockeys felt yesterday, and in fact the currencies are trading in the same clothes as yesterday today… This is shorter than usual today, as Chuck was up all night with a stomach problem…
For What It’s Worth… Well, since I was so adamant about debt today, this article came at me from the MarketWatch people and is about how lenders are going to be able to apply pressure to debt holders and it can be found here: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/debt-collectors-could-be-allowed-to-call-text-and-email-you-every-day-2019-05-08
Or, here’s your snippet: “Debt collectors could soon be making a comeback.
Delinquent consumers could get phone calls up to seven times a week, and an unlimited number of texts and emails from debt collectors under the rule proposed by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released this week, making it the first major update in more than 40 years.
The new proposal states that once a debt collector speaks to a consumer, however, they’re not allowed to call again for a week. There is no limit to how many emails or text messages they can send under the proposed rule. Consumers will have to opt out or unsubscribe to texts and emails.
This rule opens the door to increased contact by debt collectors to new channels or existing channels that they haven’t utilized to date like emails and text messages. That’s very dangerous to consumers,” Joanna Darcus, a debt attorney at the National Consumer Law Center in Boston.”
Chuck again… Well, the article goes further to explain that consumers will be able to push back, but how many will?
Currencies today 5/8/19 American Style: A$.7006, kiwi .6591, C$.7428, euro 1.1202, sterling 1.3013, Swiss $.9825, European Style: rand 14.3550, krone 8.7716, SEK 9.5941, forint 289.32, zloty 3.8295, koruna 22.9585, RUB 65.25, yen 110.08, sing 1.3620, HKD 7.8486, INR 69.75, China 6.7710, peso 19.08, BRL 3.9721, Dollar Index 97.52, Oil $61.40, 10-year 2.43%, Silver $14.92, Platinum $867.32, Palladium $1,320.11, and Gold… $1,289.10
That’s it for today… Sorry the letter is shorter than usual, I was up all night with a stomach problem… The first one I’ve had in a long time, so I’m not complaining, but… I was supposed to be going to the day game at Busch stadium to see my beloved Cardinals today, and this stomach problem is not going to allow me to do that… UGH! In fact, as soon as I hit “send” I’m going back to sleep, to recover the sleep I lost last night! My darling granddaughter, Delaney Grace, is in Alabama at Space Camp… Pretty cool for her… Rod Stewart takes us to the finish line today with his rock classic song: Maggie May… And I hope you have a Wonderful Wednesday, and please Be Good To Yourself!
Chuck Butler