- The dollar soars, and the currencies & metals get taken to the woodshed!
- A return to the Gold Standard?
Good Day… And a Tom Terrific Tuesday to you! And… I hope you had a 3-day weekend, with it being Veterans Day yesterday… I don’t mean to bore you with the same story I tell each year on Veterans Day, but here it is…. My dad was a veteran of WWII… He rarely said anything about his time in Germany, but he did tell me that it was hell on earth, and that’s about it… He also told me about moving beer from town to town in the gasoline tanks of the trucks… YUCK! But, as he said, it was all they could get… My beloved Mizzou Tigers pulled a rabbit out of the hat on Saturday night, and beat Oklahoma… Lucky, lucky, lucky… Or as my son said, “Cheater’s proof”…. The Stephen Kummer Trio greets me this morning with their version of the song: The Christmas Song
Well, the manipulation of the markets continued last week, and through yesterday…. Yes, the FOMC did debase the dollar another 25 Basis Points last week, but that didn’t stop the PPT from buying dollars, and getting everyone else to buy dollars… Last Tuesday, the BBDXY was 1,254… Friday last week the BBDXY was 1,267, and after yesterday, the BBDXY closed at 1,274… Up 7 index points on Monday, when the markets were not fully staffed… And the short paper traders saw to it that Gold took on to the Mid-section… The engineered takedown took Gold down $64 on the day, and that was after a late afternoon rally, that brought Gold to 1.219… Gold was down $74 at one point yesterday…
Silver saw the same treatment as Gold… Silver finished last week at $31.28, and then after yesterday’s takedown, Silver saw a loss of 30-cents to close the day at $30.74… I just shake my head in disgust at what these guys do the values on the asset classes… But, as I always point out, these are much cheaper buying opportunities…
The 10-year’s yield got manipulated downward late last week, after going as high as 4.40% last week, it saw nothing but buying, most likely from the Fed Heads to keep yields in check, the 10-year closed yesterday at 4.32%…
And all the reporters out there will talk about is how the Trump election has scared the market participants as they’re not sure what to expect…. They don’t have the intestinal fortitude to tell it like it is (Aaron Neville) and do some investigative journalism and find out that it was mainly short paper trading in the metals, PPT buying in the dollar, and Fed manipulating yields in bons…
Last Thursday, Gold was up $47 and Silver was up 84-cents, and I thought to myself… Well, they are back! But then on Friday, all hell broke loose, and those gains were wiped out yesterday…
And the price of Oil fell out of bed yesterday, losing $3 to trade at the end of the day with a $67 handle…
In the overnight markets last night…. The dollar buying continued throughout the night, with the BBDXY gaining 2 more index points to start our day today at 1,276… Gold is trying to recover from the engineered takedown yesterday, but is failing and is down $9 to start the day today, while Silver is down one penny to start the day today… The price of Oil bumped higher to trade with a $68 this morning, and the 10-year’s yield is back to rising this morning as it trades with a 4.39% yield…
I don’t know when this assault on the metals will end, but the short Gold paper Traders do, I’m sure they have a point where they will call of the dogs, and sit back and watch as short time traders all panic and sell which is their number 2 goal… The first goal of course is to make Bou coup bucks, which they have certainly done this time…
Well, did you hear about the massive new monetary metals depository in Eagle, Idaho, said to be the largest such vault in the United States west of New York, a vault even larger than the U.S. gold repository at Fort Knox, Kentucky.? Well, now you have! So, going forward, you’ll be able to have the depository hold your Metals in safety, and able to have them delivered to you when you are ready for them… This is competition for the Perth Mint, and other vaults around the world…
That public service announcement has been brought to by Battle Bank… to get on their list, simply go to their website at: www.battlebank.com
So, the dollar has been debased 75 Basis Points since this summer… And the dollar continues to gain? What on earth is happening here? Well, There’s stranger things in life that have happened, but I can’t think of them right now… Maybe it’ll be delayed reaction? Any way… This has got to be recorded for history folks…
You know, my readership has gone down tremendously since I TIAA Bank showed me the door in 2016… And I don’t know why… I wish when readers left, they sent me a note telling me why…. If I continue to lose readers like I have these past 8 years, in 5 years, I’ll only be writing to friends (maybe), family (maybe), and myself… I’m not whining here, just make a point about letting me know, when you decide to leave me… Please…
Remember Judy Shelton? Ms. Shelton was the Gold Bug that was nominated to be a Fed Head, but because she advocated for a return to the Gold Standard, she was not approved, and went back to being a strong advocate for the Gold Standard, on her own… Over at www.shiffgold.com they ran an article that saw July Shelton returning to the forefront… She recently said, ” that a return to sound money requires going back to gold.”
And then there was this in the Financial Times: “Gold, it seems, just can’t be ignored any more. The prospect of falling US interest rates, a decline in the dollar and worries about America’s debt sustainability should lead to more institutional and retail money flocking into gold… There is even talk that the long-mooted new currency set up by the expanded Brics countries will be backed by a number of assets, including gold. A century on from the demise of the [Classical] Gold Standard, which collapsed in the interwar years amid a breakdown in central bank cooperation over how to manage the metal, gold is quietly becoming a more important feature of our financial system rather than an outmoded 20th-century relic.”
Chuck again… Seems to me that this rhetoric about a return to the Gold Standard is getting more airtime this time around than the previous times… We heard that the BRICS would introduce a common currency that will be backed by something, most likely Gold… And there are more stories about a return to the Gold Standard than you can shake a stick at… In fact, there was one this past weekend about how the Euro Wanna Bes… Have become the Gold Standard Wanna Bes…. I’m just saying
OK… Well, I’m lost without news articles about the countries that I follow, the economies, and their dolt Central Banks… So, with that in mind, I’ll head to the Big Finish and call it a day… But one thing I do see without any words written about is the Petrol Currencies getting whacked even more… Currencies like the pound sterling, real, peso, krone, etc. are all seeing extra selling… And the one currency that continues to get whacked because of the Trump victory is the Chinese renminbi….
The U.S. Data Cupboard doesn’t have anything for us today that’s real economic data… And tomorrow we will be subjected to the STUPID CPI for last month…. You already know how I hold the STUPID CPI in such high regard (NOT!) and i’ll bet a shiny quarter that even the STUPID CPI will show an increase in inflation last moth…
To recap… After an impressive recovery for Gold & Silver last Thursday, it’s been all downhill from there… And yesterday, the short paper traders did one of their engineered takedowns, Chuck is so disgusted with these guys…
The PPT has stepped in to buy dollars alongside with the dollar bugs, to send the dollar soaring, in the face of a 75 Basis Points debasing that has taken place since summer…. And there’s a new metals depository in Idaho… Sounds cool…
For What It’s Worth…. Well, this should sound very familiar to you dear reader, as this is Brian Lundien writing for Money Metals, saying the same things I kept saying last week, but just like when you talk to your kids, they always listen more to someone else, I thought this would be good…. And it can be found here: The Metals Get Mauled (moneymetals.com)
Or, here’s your snippet: “A clear-cut win by Trump negates the risk of political turmoil and sends gold and silver plunging.
But this bull market was never built on geopolitical risk — it’s a decades-long trend of ever-easier money and ever-greater debt that has sent gold to record heights.
The markets will soon realize that the current situation is irreversible and unsolvable by any administration… and the metals bull market will resume in force.
Over the past six months, in interviews and conversations with friends and media in Canada and elsewhere in the world, I was consistently asked how the U.S. presidential election would affect gold.
My answer was always the same: Not a whit.
I would explain that because the debt situation in the U.S. had gotten so completely out of hand…and because neither party was inclined or even able to solve it at this point…far higher gold prices would result no matter who was elected.
Obviously, I should have cautioned that a clear-cut win by Trump would evaporate any perceived geopolitical risk being factored into the gold price by some speculators and, therefore, result in a short-term sell-off.
That’s exactly what’s happened. As I wrote this on Wednesday, gold was off $77 (2.8%), and silver was leveraging the move to the downside with a drop of $1.48 (4.5%).
A move of this magnitude is obviously being driven by traders shorting the metals with wild abandon. I sincerely doubt that much of the big money that’s moved into gold over the past year was motivated by concerns over this election.
Thus, this short-term trade seems destined to reverse soon.
And, if you’ve read anything I’ve been writing for the last few years, you will not be surprised to learn that I view this as a long-term opportunity.
It’s a mixed bag in the post-election markets. With the Dow jumping over 3% and the Dollar Index soaring, investors are obviously considering that lower taxes and looser regulation will unleash the U.S. economy.
But with Treasury yields also rising strongly, they also seem to recognize that higher tariffs will be inflationary.”
Chuck again… See? I told you he was saying the same things I said last week about the plunge in metals prices, and the soaring of the dollar…. So… It’s back to the task at hand…
Market Prices 11/12/2024: American Style: A$ .6580, kiwi .5948, C$ 7231, euro 1.0622, sterling 1.2810, Swiss $1.1347, European Style: rand 18.0809, krone 11.0519, SEK 10.8662, forint 388.42, zloty 4.0979, koruna 23.6633, RUB 98.08, yen 154.24, sing 1.3380, HKD 7.7785, INR 84.39, China 7.2301, peso 20.41, BRL 5.7831, BBDXY 1,276, Dollar Index 105.83, Oil $68.79, 10-year 4.39%, Silver $30.73, Platinum $955.00, Palladium $964.00 Copper $4.17, and Gold… $2,610.43
That’s it for Today… My visit to my oncologist was fine, my blood level is still a little low, but has recovered nicely, albeit slowly, quite a bit from my blood loss in July… That seems like ages ago to me now…. I’m set to revisit MDAnderson next month on 12/19… That’s as soon as they could get me in… I told them what happens if I die before then? They didn’t respond… I’m very concerned about my beloved Mizzou Tigers’ game this coming Saturday in S. Carolina… Go Tigers! My Tigers have an outside chance of reaching 10-wins this year… But it will take a victory on the road this week to give them a good chance…. The Stephen Kummer Trio takes us to the finish line today with their version of (my favorite Christmas song): The Christmas Waltz… I hope you have a Tom Terrific Tuesday today, and please Be Good To Yourself!
Chuck Butler