Author: admin

• The dollar continues to get bought, by whom?
• RBNZ cuts their OCR with inflation still strong….

Good Day… And a Wonderful Wednesday to you! Yesterday the weather changed here where I live, and got back to “autumn weather”… I sat outside and read for a long time yesterday, enjoying the cooler temps…  I didn’t sit out to watch the baseball games last night, as in previous nights, as it was a little chilly out… And longtime readers know that I abhor cold weather, and the chilly weather is just a prelude to cold weather!  See? I’m already getting ready for it, and it’s only Rocktober 8th!  Steely Dan greets me this morning with their song: Black Cow… 

Well, there was a brief return to the underlying weak trend for the dollar, but at the end of the day, whether it was intervention, or just dollar bugs being knuckleheads, the dollar gained a bit more. The BBDXY ended the day up 4 index points to 1,208… 

This brief foray back for the dollar to get bought, has the currencies running for the hills… It is my thought that the dollar is like a star burning out, it burns the brightest right before it goes out…  

I told you yesterday morning that Gold & Silver were at small losses on the day that they were easily turned around, and for Gold it was easily turned around, as Gold gained $25 on the day to close at $3,986…  However, Silver is another story, as it saw the SPTs take a pound of flesh of Silver’s price, and Silver closed the day down 79-cents to close at $47.88…  

The SPTs are dastardly, right? They took Silver down and didn’t care that Silver was on a march to $50! They showed us that they still have the con…  I don’t like that one bit, I’ve seen Silver get taken down before, but this time it seems personal…  I’m just saying…

The price of Oil bumped higher and ended the day trading with a $62 handle…. And bonds were a mixed-bag-o-yields…  There was some news that the latest U.S. Treasury 3-year note auction, held on October 7, 2025, resulted in a high yield of 3.576%, an increase from the previous auction’s 3.485%. The auction’s “coverage” (bid-to-cover ratio) and the percentage taken by non-dealers were 2.47 and 79% respectively, indicating a relatively low demand for the auction.  This was taken from the Treasury Direct site…  

But on Bloomberg.com the writer there tried to explain the drop of the yield of the 10-year, by saying that the 3-auction went off without a hitch…  Hmmm…  The 10-year Treasury ended the day with a 4.14% yield, down from the yesterday morning’s 4.17% yield…  So, who’s right here, Treasury Direct, or Bloomber.com?   Seems that they both are correct, so move along Chuck, there are not the droids were looking for! 

In the overnight markets last night.. Hold the horses! Call out to everyone! Gold has already surpassed $4,000 this morning!  Gold is up $59 to start the day today, and Silver is up $1.18 to $49.06!!!! I told you the other day that Morgan Stanley had changed their investment portfolio mix to add Gold, and that this could be the next phase for Gold’s rise… And it certainly looks like physical demand is soaring, and the ETF’s are being bought hand over fist… I have to wonder when the supply of physical Gold begins to dwindle, and that will push the price of Gold even higher!  

And the SPT’s are leaving Silver to trade on its own devices, which is a good thing! Silver is up $1.18 this morning, and looking like it really wants to push the $50 envelope across the desk…  I’m just saying…

And all this metals buying in the face of more buying of the dollar this morning… The BBDXY is up 2 index points to 1,210… I didn’t see this dollar rally in my wildest imagination… I really thought that the Gov’t Shutdown would bring about dollar selling, because this shutdown isn’t good for the economy…  But, Opposites still rule here…  Who’s doing all this dollar buying? An Inquiring mind needs to know so he can ridicule them to death! I would call them names, and their mothers too! Nah… I’m not that kind of person, but I would think about it! 

The price of Oil remained trading with a $62 handle overnight and the 10-year Treasury saw its yield drop to 4.10%…  I guess the bond boys have finally come to the conclusion that the Fed Heads will cut rates a couple more times..  I thought the bond boys were looking ahead and seeing the inflation that these rate cuts will bring and sell bonds.. I guess I was wrong about the bond boys.. 

The once Prudent Central Bank, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, decided to cut their internal rate 50 Basis Points to 2.50%… They did this with inflation still above their target rate of 1-3%…  The RBNZ calls their internal rate the OCR…  and they have decided to go with their forecasts that inflation will come down in 2026, so they cut the OCR…  Yes, the RBNZ used to be considered by me of course, a Prudent Central Bank, but that was way back a long time ago… UGH! And yes, kiwi has been sold due to the rate cut announcement… 

Across the Tasman, the Aussie dollar is rallying on the RBNZ news…  Interesting, very interesting… 

The Fed Heads out speaking are all talking about additional rate cuts for the U.S. of which I’m thinking that they will rue the day that they said those words aloud and in front of people…  But, as we’ve seen the Fed Heads don’t have a problem with cutting rates with inflation rising… They too will rue the day they cut rates when the public is screaming that inflation is out of control… 

And yesterday it was reported on CNBC.com that the Fed Fed Heads had revised up their forecast for inflation and unemployment… And they are still thinking of cutting rates more?  Their inflation forecast out one year is 3.4% (currently 2.7%)  and for Unemployment to rise to 41% that’s up 2% from their previous forecast… And they believe that 47.7% of Americans will be looking for a job a year from now….  YIKES! That’s nearly 50%, or ½ of Americans that are able to work not working…  Uh-Oh! And again, I’ll ask the question… And the Fed Heads are cutting rates? Heavens to Murgatroyd!  As Popeye would say… 

On a side bar, a dear reader sent me a note that included a ton of old sayings / phrases that are no longer used by people… And Heavens to Murgatroyd was one them! So, there, I used it again! 

OK, back to the task at hand…  

Do you recall me telling you about the map of favored Trade partners and that the one from 2000 showed that the U.S. had most of the world as a trading partner, and China had very little to show for trading partners, but then the map from 2020, showed the exact opposite of the 2000 findings… China had taken over most of the world and the U.S. was left with the U.K.?   Well, this note came to me from the good folks at GATA and they took it from Reuters… 

” Kenya has completed converting three railway construction dollar-denominated loans from China into yuan in order to save on interest payments, its Finance Minister John Mbadi said today.” 

Chuck again… yes, the Kenyans got to swap out their adjustable-rate loans to a low-interest rate loan denominated in renminbi…  Those sneaky Chinese, eh?  Well, they were given an open door and they barged through it, what else would anyone expect? 

Circling back to the SPTs… Here’s what I’ve been thinking lately…  What’s going to happen to those short positions when they have to be closed?  BIG LOSSES!  And one would think, because I do, that these BIG LOSSES will be a determinate of the SPTs of going back in short again…  I’m just saying… 

The euro is getting sold because of the dollar strength, but also sold because of the problems in France… The latest PM resigned one day after taking the job!  The previous PM was given a job in the defense sector, and he quit the next day too…  This is sort of like a very bad team that can’t find anyone to manage the team…  The President Macron, is in deep dookie folks… And France’s problems are spilling over to the Eurozone, and visa vie the euro… 

And CoAmerica and 5^th 3^rd Banks announced a merger… An $11 Billion price tag on the deal…  And that leads me to believe that there will be more bank buys in the future…  I just have one tip for the bank employees… Don’t believe the management when they start talking about Synergy…  They are lying through their collective teeth!

The U.S. Data Cupboard is still empty with the Gov’t shutdown, and the only thing that qualifies as Data is Fed Head speakers… One of which was Fed President Williams, who waxed poetically to an audience in Amsterdam, and told them the Fed Heads have a lot of challenges coming down the river… 

Chuck again… Yes, you do Mr. Williams! And just like the Fed Heads that came before you, you will fail miserably… I’m just throwing that out there so you can get your ducks in a row ahead of the failures… 

To recap… The dollar buying continued yesterday after a brief dip… Chuck has to ask the question again, “who in their right mind would be buying dollars right now?  France has problems that are carrying over to the euro’s price… and Gold did turnaround its early morning loss yesterday, but Silver was not allowed to turnaround, and lost ground… 

For What It’s Worth…  Well first we had Morgan Stanley announce their addition of Gold to their client’s investment portfolios, and now we have Bridgewater calling for Gold to be added to their client’s portfolios. That story can be found here: Ray Dalio urges 10–15% gold allocation amid US stock market ‘heart attack’ fears

Or, here’s your snippet: “Billionaire investor Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates, has issued a stark warning: the US stock market could be headed for a “heart attack”. His analogy points to record-high equity valuations and ballooning US debt that risks crowding out future spending—similar to how plaque clogs arteries.

Dalio cited record-high equity valuations and mounting US government debt as key factors contributing to potential instability. He stated that as the US spends more to service its debt, it “squeezes out other spending”, drawing a parallel to plaque accumulation in a human circulatory system. Dalio’s comments, delivered at an Abu Dhabi Finance Week event, come as geopolitical tensions escalate and economic uncertainties persist.

Dalio’s prescription for investors? Rebalance portfolios and allocate 10–15% to gold. He argues that gold is a time-tested store of value, offering diversification and protection when traditional assets stumble. “A well-diversified portfolio would have somewhere between 10% and 15% in gold,” he noted, emphasizing its role as a crisis hedge.

Dalio argued that gold’s lack of correlation with other asset classes makes it especially valuable when markets are volatile, as its price tends to rise when other investments falter. This strategic allocation is intended to help preserve wealth amid uncertain economic conditions.”

Chuck again.. Yes, this was a main point of my presentations years ago, when telling people how to diversify their investment portfolios to reduce the overall risk in the portfolio… And the point that Gold & Silver have no correlation to the other assets in the portfolio, made them excellent diversifying tools! 

Market Prices 10/8/2025: American Style: A$ .6675, kiwi .5778, C$ .7173, euro 1.1636, sterling 1.3414, Swiss $1.2500, European Style: rand 17.1761, krone 9.9625, SEK 9.4255, forint 337.28, zloty 3.6551, koruna 20.9510, RUB 81.35, yen 152.66, sing 1.2952, HKD 7.7821, INR 88.79, China 7.1214, peso 18.37, BRL 5.3506, BBDXY 1,210, Dollar Index 98.84, Oil $62.65, 10-year 4.10%, Silver $49.06, Platinum $1,665.00, Palladium $1,414.00, Copper $5.13, and Gold… $4,045

That’s it for today… Well, the Mariners are one game away from moving on, and the Yankees woke up and won a game VS the Blue Jays…  Their series is 1-2… 3 games are needed to win to take the series and move on…  So, the Yankees are still in deep dookie… I’m ready to get on the plane and head to San Diego! But that comes tomorrow morning…  I read yesterday that some airports are closing because of the Gov’t shutdown… I sure hope that doesn’t come to St. Louis or San Diego, although if San Diego shut down after I had landed, that would be fine with me, I’ll just stay in a place that has an average temp of 72 degrees daily!  The Babys take us to the finish line today with their song: Midnight Rendezvous… I hope you have a Wonderful Wednesday today and Please Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler

• Gold & Silver have banner days on Monday
• The U.S. Consumer is tapped out…

Good Day… And a Tom Terrific Tuesday to you! Well, the baseball playoffs are headed to a new city to continue as 2 games in one city have been played… The Yankees are in trouble, down 0-2 games, and the Phillies are really in trouble, as they lost both games in their home park.  The Blue Jays have made the Yankees look like a t-ball team, so far… We’ll see if that continues in the Bronx… I know you didn’t sign up for a sports letter, but baseball is so important to me, so I promise I’ll quit now…  The band Sweet greets me this morning with their song: Love Is Like Oxygen… 

Well, the dollar’s day of getting bought came to an end yesterday afternoon. The dollar, which was up to 1,206 yesterday morning, ended the day at 1,204 in the BBDXY…  The underlying weak trend is like an underwater current, pulling it back…  I really have no idea why anyone would be buying dollars right now…  And the good folks at GATA sent me this note from Moneymetals.com where the writer, Mike Maharrey asked the question, “Who in his right mind would hold dollars now?  

He doesn’t mean that you’re not of the right mind to hold dollars for gas, groceries and giggles, but to hold them in your investment portfolio, with dollar denominated investments and money markets…  Yes, there are all kinds of investment analysts out there that claim that the POTUS is ready to unleash his plan to get America going again, with his order to start digging up the rare earth minerals that the world needs for their AI and computers, iPhones, etc.  

But I’ve been hearing about this plan for months now… Is it going to happen? Well, it may…. eventually, but I’m from Missouri, and you’ll have to show me! 

Gold kicked some major tail yesterday and didn’t even bother to collect names afterward!  Left to its own devices, Gold gained $74 yesterday to close at $3,961… Silver had a good day, but nothing compared to Gold’s gain… Silver gained 56-cents on the day to close at $48.57…  Gold, which I told you about yesterday, had been added to Morgan Stanley’s investment portfolio allocation… So that meant all the clients that paid good money to Morgan Stanley, would sell 20% of their bond portfolio and buy Gold…  Could we already be seeing some of that buying?  Probably… 

This from Moneymetals.com on Silver, pay attention here folks this is important! “The silver move is being fueled by what may be a physical shortage, as indicated by a condition called “backwardation.” Normally, the price of the metal in the future is a bit more expensive to account for the cost of funds. This is known as “contango.”

But right now, the price of silver on the December contract, for instance, is currently sitting below the spot market price.

Backwardation is unusual and it implies very strong demand in the spot market for physical metal.”

Chuck again… Yes, and I’ve been writing about a Silver shortage for years now, but when the physical demand goes through the roof, then the supply of Silver finally gets scrutinized, and begins getting priced the way it should be, with short supply…  I’m just saying…

And seeing some of that selling of bonds, as they slipped on Monday, with the 10-year Treasury ending the day trading with a 4.16% yield…  And the price of Oil rebounded yesterday, and ended the day trading with a $61 handle… 

In the overnight markets last night…  There was more dollar buying… Who’s crazy enough to buy dollars right now? I keep asking myself that question… More rate cuts are coming, inflation is eating away at investments, and of course there’s that 200 lb Gorilla in the room, our debt… But again, I think logically, and logically it doesn’t make sense to buy dollars, so therefore, I just don’t know what these folks or entities are thinking… 

There seems to be some profit taking in the metals this morning, as Gold is down $4, and Silver is down 13-cents, no biggie, and these losses can easily be turned around today…  But with no data to direct the markets who knows what they are trading on these days… The price of Oil remained trading with a $61 handle, and the 10-year Treasury saw its yield bump higher to a 4.17% yield… 

I read a report over the weekend, that talked about how the U.S. consumer is spent, because of the increases in prices of EVERYTHING!  And Credit Card debt of U.S. Consumers is exploding higher at a very bad time to be taking on debt… 

Bill Bonner had this in his Monday letter yesterday, “Average American Household Debt Just Hit $138,000 As Borrowing Costs Squeeze Budgets Tighter

Record-breaking debt levels are squeezing American families as credit card balances hit $1.21 trillion with punishing 20% interest rates.”

Chuck again… 20% interest rates! How long can that go on before consumers begin to default on their credit cards?  Not much longer in my mind, not with inflation rising, and their disposable income dwindling…  This is becoming the nightmare on Elm Street, and with jobs being replaced by AI, what’s to become of the middle class?  

In addition, I came across this ditty: “A total of 249,152 individual Chapter 7 bankruptcy filings were made in the first nine months of this year in the United States, which is a 15 percent jump compared to the same period last year,” This according to the American Bankruptcy Assn.  

Speaking of AI… I read yesterday that the AI Bubble is now larger than the dot.com bubble of 1999… That’s scary…  But bound to get even bigger before the air is let out of this bubble…  

But… Jeff Bezos thinks that AI might be a bubble… though it might be a “good” one.  he continues… “This is an industrial bubble, as opposed to a financial bubble. The ones that are industrial are not nearly as bad; they can even be good. Because when the dust settles and you see who are the winners — society benefits from those inventions.”

So, believe who you want to believe, to me this is scary…  I’ll say no more…

Well, with the Gov’t shutdown, there’s no data in the Data Cupboard again this morning and it looks like this shutdown is going to last a few more days…   

The euro is hanging out in the 1.16 handle these days, and the rest of the currencies are off their recent lofty levels. The Chinese renminbi trading is on holiday (The Harvest Moon Celebration), and the Aussie dollar has slipped below 66-cents… So, all-in-all, the currencies are reacting to this brief dollar rally…  And the slippage in the price of Oil hasn’t helped the Petrol Currencies any, so they are searching for something else to help them gain. 

One of the Petrol Currencies, The Russian ruble, has been pushed around and is being treated like a red headed stepchild (no red heads were hurt here!)  But when the currency is from a country that most of the world thinks is “evil”… Well, what do you expect for the ruble? And with the price of Oil slipping, the thought that the ruble is an “oil play”, it sure makes those of us that think that look a little silly… I’m just saying

To recap.. Gold had a banner day, and Silver had a good day yesterday… The dollar lost its footing during the day, Chuck has lots to say about the dollar this morning, so go back and read the letter in full to find out what he said!  Bill Bonner visits the Pfennig this morning, and so does Jef Bezos! 

For What It’s Worth… This came to me this past weekend and I immediately circled it to use here… It’s a report about the bankruptcy of a major auto parts company, and how this could be the canary in the coal mine, and it can be found here: Wall Street’s Check Engine Light | Paradigm Pressroom’s 5 Bullets

Or, here’s your snippet: “Sometimes the most important financial warnings come from the less glamorous corners of the economy. That’s why the bankruptcy of privately held U.S. auto parts maker First Brands Group is more than just another corporate failure — it’s a flashing red light for investors.

First Brands filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy this week, listing liabilities between $10–50 billion. The company, known for aftermarket staples like Fram filters, Trico wiper blades and Raybestos brakes, gorged on debt-fueled acquisitions in recent years. When credit markets were loose, that strategy worked. Once confidence evaporated, it unraveled fast.

Behind the headlines, the accounting looks shady. According to court filings and a statement from Charles Moore, First Brands’ new chief restructuring officer, investigators are probing “whether receivables may have been factored more than once” — meaning the same invoice could have been pledged multiple times to raise cash, Financial Times reports.

This “double pledging” is a serious red flag, suggesting the company was essentially borrowing against phantom assets

Moore also disclosed that inventory collateral may have been “commingled” across different loans — another troubling sign.

Put simply, lenders may not have clear claims to the assets they thought they owned. One creditor, SouthState Bank, even seized $27 million in what it called the “last remaining liquidity” of First Brands’ subsidiaries before the bankruptcy filing.

The result: a multibillion-dollar hole in Wall Street balance sheets, with creditors ranging from UBS-backed hedge funds to regional banks. More than a dozen affiliates tied to First Brands, including Carnaby Capital Holdings, also filed for bankruptcy.”

Chuck again…  I truly believe that we’ll be hearing or reading about quite a few of these mega corporations’ Bankruptcies going forward…   This is a very long article so on go to it if you have the allocated time to read it… 

Market Prices 10/7/2025: American Style: A$ .6589, kiwi .5806, C$ .7165, euro 1.1659, sterling 1.3406, Swiss $1.2526, European Style: rand 17.2145, krone 9.9544, SEK 9.3859, forint 336.74, zloty 3.6490, koruna 20.8624, RUB 82.11, yen 150.87, sing 1.2934, HKD 7.7832, INR 88.77, China 7.1214, peso 18.39, BRL 5.3113, BBDXY 1,207, Dollar Index 98.43, Oil $61.75, 10-year 4.17%, Silver $48.44, Platinum $1,622.00, Palladium $1,344.00, Copper $5.06, and Gold… $3,957

That’s it for today…  Well, I had a sigh of relief yesterday when I tried on my suit that I had to have taken in. I had gained a few pounds since the tailor took in the pants and jacket… But it fit fine!  So, whew!  I will have to have a suit for the wedding this weekend… I do not plan on wearing a tie… it’s been since 2015 that I last gave a presentation to an audience that I wore a tie… And I’m sure the ties that I have are so out of date!  My wife asked me yesterday if I thought going on a hot air balloon was fun idea… I wasn’t sure if you say it was a “fun idea”, especially if I have to stand for an hour… So, I think she’ll go, and I’ll stay a land lover…  Remember, no Pfennig Tomorrow and Monday, I’ll talk to you next Tuesday…Three Dog Night takes us to the finish line today with their song: Easy To Be Hard… I hope you have a Tom Terrific Tuesday today, and Please Be Good To Yourself! 

Chuck Butler

• currencies and metals rally overnight!
• No jobs report, no problemo…

Good Day… And a Marvelous Monday to you! This will be a short week for me, as I will be boarding a plane on Thursday to head to San Diego… I’m excited to go to San Diego again, I have nothing but good memories from the area…The Del Coronado, the zoo, the gas lamp district…  I’ve stayed in La Jolla, too… OK…  enough of the travel agent talk… The baseball playoffs started their next round… Of course, the Dodger and Yankees are a part of them. I like The Blue Jays… We’ll see, eh? Neil Young greets me this morning with his song: Southern Man 

Of course, that song by Neil Young, brought about a number one hit for Lynyrd Synyrd: Sweet Home Alabama… 

Well, Thursday every week, seems to be “the designated day to take the metals down”…  Jere’s Ed Steer and his thoughts on the movement… “One must have been pretty much born last night not to know exactly what happened yesterday — and it certainly had nothing to do with ‘profit taking’ …as no profit-maximizing seller ever sell like that…EVER!!!

With gold about to break above $3,900 spot…and above that mark already in the December contract, gold’s current front month — and silver at $48.01 on the ‘ask’ side at its 9:30 a.m. EDT high tick…the collusive commercial traders of whatever stripe put the hammer down.” – Ed Steer

Chuck again… Well, Gold finished Thursday down $9 but $40 off its high on the day, and Silver finished down 32-cents, and $1.04 off its high on the day… The SPTs saw these two metals heading to the moon, and rushed to deal with them… And they did!

Friday saw Gold & Silver rebound without the SPTs.. Gold gained $20 to close the week at $3,887, and Silver gained 99-cents to close the week at $48.09… The SPTs were absent yesterday, they must’ve thought they had a done a good job of scaring investors away… But NOOOOOOO! You can’t keep a good investment down!  

The dollar ended the week about the same level it started the week with the BBDXY at 1,201…  The currencies seem to be stuck in the mud with the dollar hanging on to the 1,200 level in the BBDXY, for life… They’ll pick up once the dollar bugs give up the ship and the dollar does a further dive into the weak trend.  That’s my opinion, and of course I could be wrong… But when has that happened?  As if, Chuck, you’ve been wrong many times! 

The price of Oil ended the week trading with a $60 handle… The supply of Oil is going to increase and that has the Oil traders scared…  The 10-year Treasury bumped a little higher on Friday and ended the week trading with a 4.12% yield… 

Before I go any further this morning, I wanted to point out something that appeared on YAHOO Finance, let’s see if you’ve heard this from someone before… 

“No jobs report leaves Fed flying blind. Markets still expect rate cuts”…   So, a little reminder of what I wrote last Thursday… “This comes at a time when the Fed Heads are making rate cut decisions to shore up the labor market… Without reports, what will the Fed Heads do? Shoot from the hip, that’s what I think they’ll do… Cut rates blindly.. Oh brother!”  From A Pfennig For Your Thoughts 10/2/25…  Now, you don’t think that Yahoo Finance reads the Pfennig do you?  

In the overnight markets last night… All hell has been released! The dollar is being bought like funnel cakes at a State Fair, and Gold has risen last the $3,900 figure! The dollar is up along with Gold? What the heck is going on here? The Gov’t is still shutdown, the U.S. debt is still $37 Trillion, inflation is still strong, and the dollar is getting bought? I wonder sometimes if the dollar bugs really understand the dire straits that the dollar is in right now?  For they don’t seem to care and buying dollars is in their DNA…  

Gold, like I just said is over $3,900 this morning as it has gained $50 in the early trading… I read a piece this morning that said that Wall Street is resigned to accepting Gold at $4,000, so it’s in the cards…  Silver is also kicking some tail and taking names later this morning, as it is up 31-cents at $48.45…  So, it’s a half good, half bad day in my mind… 

The price of Copper is really ticking higher… First of all, I noticed Copper inching higher while doing the currency roundup last week… And this morning, Copper pushed past $5.00… Again, supply is real problem in Copper, and finally it’s being recorded in the price…  Remember the piece that I wrote about a week or so ago regarding the problems with a coal mine in Indonesia?  Well, the effects took a bit longer to get priced for Copper, but eventually they come around… 

The price of Oil is still trading with a $60 handle… Here it’s a glut of supply that affected the price of this commodity… Well, the thought of a glut of supply that is, our friends (NOT!) at OPEC haven’t actually increased their production just yet, but they will and the Oil traders are looking ahead… 

The 10-year Treasury starts the week trading with a 4.15% yield… Thats up 5 basis points since Friday, so the bond boys are looking at the Gov’t shutdown like it’s going to gon on for some time, I think… 

The good folks at GATA sent me this note on Friday and I held onto it all weekend to include this morning… Here’s a snippet of the article: “Morgan Stanley just blinked.

After decades of worshiping at the altar of 60/40 (stocks/bonds), they shifted to 60/20/20 (stocks/bonds/gold).

Gold now has a real seat at the table.

Nobody likes to go first — not in markets, not in start-ups, not in fashion.

But once the ice breaks, the floodgates can open.

And MS isn’t fringe.

They’re blue-chip.

With a global reach and balance sheet that commands attention.”

Well, what can go wrong here?  A Big Casino Bank / Brokerage firm like Morgan Stanley has told all its clients that their investment portfolio mix is wrong, and they now need to allocate a portion of the portfolio to Gold…    Isn’t that something that Me & Frank Trotter were telling people at investment shows and in writing, over a decade ago?  Back then Gold was climbing and only about $1,000…  and now that Gold has increased in price to near $4,000 M.S. Is jumping on the band wagon… 

Oh well…  can you blame them? But I ask the question, where were they 20 years ago, or 10 or 15 years ago? 

Circling back to the dollar for a minute… The dollar seemed to be stuck around 1,200 in the BBDXY… I think that the dollar bugs just didn’t know what to expect from the Gov’t shutdown… I could tell them, but would they listen? NO!   The underlying trend for the dollar is weak, and that’s where it will go (weaker) when the dollar bugs realize what’s going on… It may take them a bit; they’re not exactly propeller heads… I’m just saying…

Well, there was no Jobs Jamboree last Friday, no joy in Mudville…  I said last week that the Fed was flying blind… But are they? “The September employment report was unlikely to bring good news, based on a variety of other public and private surveys of the jobs market.

The U.S. economy was forecast to show a paltry 51,000 increase in new jobs before the employment report was postponed. The unemployment rate was expected to hover at the current level of 4.3%

 he Fed Heads know and we know that: Businesses are no longer hiring aggressively. Job creation has slowed sharply since the spring and employment even fell in June for the first time in 4½ years. In short, it’s not a good time to look for a job.

“The chill in the labor market is unlikely to thaw for workers anytime soon, and you don’t necessarily need the survey data to tell you that,” said Elizabeth Renter, senior economist at NerdWallet.” – courtesy of MarketWatch

The U.S Data Cupboard does not exist while the Gov’t is shutdown…  All we have on the docket is a bunch of Fed Heads speakers this week… Spreading their lies, I might add…  I read another piece this past weekend where they used the phrase that the Fed was “flying blind”… Another Pfennig Reader, I guess!  HA!

To recap… Gold & Sliver saw SPTs on Thursday last week, but recovered on Friday, and Gold is within’ spittin’ distance of $4,000…   The dollar seems to stuck around 1,200, for now… Chuck thinks that the dollar bugs don’t know what to expect with the Gov’t shutdown… I could tell them, but would they listen? NO!  Morgan Stanley told clients to allocate 20% of their investment portfolios in Gold…  Very interesting change of heart by M.S. Eh? 

For What It’s Worth…  Longtime readers know that I call the Consumer Confidence Index “STUPID”, and that is because historically, the index is simply a report on how Consumers feel about the stock market… But this report says that has changed and we need to pay attention to the report going forward… It can be found here: US consumer confidence declines again as Americans fret over prices, job market – ABC News

Or, here’s your snippet: “U.S. consumer confidence declined again in September as Americans’ pessimism over inflation and the weakening job market continued to grow.

The Conference Board said Tuesday that its consumer confidence index fell by 3.6 points to 94.2 in September, down from August’s 97.8. That’s a bigger drop than analysts were expecting and the lowest reading since April, when President Donald Trump rolled out his sweeping tariff policy.

A measure of Americans’ short-term expectations for their income, business conditions and the job market fell to 73.4, remaining well below 80, the marker that can signal a recession ahead. Consumers’ assessments of their current economic situation dipped by 7 points to 125.4.

Write-in responses to the survey showed that references to prices and inflation rose this month, regaining its top position as consumers’ main concern about the economy. Mentions of tariffs declined this month but remain elevated, the Conference Board said.

Government data released earlier this month showed that inflation rose in August as the price of gas, groceries and airfares jumped.

Consumer prices increased 2.9% last month from a year earlier, the Labor Department said, up from 2.7% the previous month and the biggest jump since January. Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, core prices rose 3.1%, the same as in July.

While unemployment and layoffs remain historically low, there has been noticeable deterioration in the labor market this year and mounting evidence that people are having difficulty finding jobs.”

Chuck again… So, things change, and I adapt, what do you do sir?  And I came across this piece by YAHOO Finance: “Hiring plans among US employers for the year through September were at their lowest since 2009, according to a new report, underscoring the labor market’s stagnant state.

The weaker planned headcount was largely fueled by a steep drop in seasonal hiring announcements, the global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas said in a report Thursday.”

Oh, me, oh my…  

Market prices 10/6/2025: American Style: A$.6599, kiwi .5821, C$ .7163, euro 1.1676, sterling 1.3429, Swiss $1.2531, European Style: rand 17.2446, krone 9.9569, SEK 9. 4103, forint 333.42, zloty 3.6421, koruna 20.8217, RUB 83.15, yen 150.26, sing 1.2936, HKD 7.7835, INR 88.78, China 7.1214, peso 18.43, BRL 5.3372, BBDXY 1,206, Dollar Index 97.57, Oil $60.88, 10-year 4.15%, Silver $48.36, Platinum $1,613.00, Palladium $1,291.00, Copper $5.05, and Gold… $3,937

That’s it for today…  Tonight, the moon will be a Super Moon, and a Harvest Moon all in one! I recall the first time I ever saw a Super Moon, and I thought, is the moon going to run into earth?  Silly me, eh?  There must have been some alcohol involved!  I spent Saturday sitting outside watching a ton of football and baseball games, it was channel surfing at its best! Then we attended our subdivision’s Octoberfest… it was good to catch up with some of our original homeowners… Again, no Pfennig on Thursday this week, and Monday of next week… I’m NOT taking my laptop to San Diego!  Chicago takes us to the finish line today with their great version of the song: I’m A Man…  the late guitarist, Terry Kath, really shows how good he was in this song… I hope you have a Marvelous Monday today, and Please Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler

• dollar & metals see intervention on Wed
• Ed Steer drops by the Pfennig today…

Good Day… and a Tub Thumpin” Thursday to one and all… The Team from Cleveland got back to even their series, the Padres did the same with the Cubs, and so did the Yankees… They will play a game 3 today, to decide which team moves on in the Playoffs… I wanted to send out a BIG Thank You to my good friend, Duane, who helped me immensely yesterday! I put my world famous bacon wrapped Turkey in the Big Green Egg yesterday, and by golly it turned out to be the best I’ve ever cooked… So tender, juicy and flavorful… YUM! The night before I did a T-Bone on the Blackstone grill, and it too was Yummy!  I have to make for myself this week, and so, I decided to use my outside grills to accomplish that!  The O’Jays greet me this morning with their song; Back Stabbers…

Ahh.. It was a long time ago, but I still feel the scar of the back stabbing that was done in 1998…  But it’s water under the bridge now, but each time I hear this song playing, I think back to 1998….  

The dollar was sinking yesterday, and then suddenly it wasn’t, and ended the day flat as a pancake (Head East)… The BBDXY ended the day at 1,200 the same level it traded at the previous close…  The data yesterday wasn’t anything that the dollar bugs could hang their hats on, so to me, it was some entity intervening and buying dollars to bring it back to neutral on the day. 

Gold was up $17 in the early trading yesterday, but then it wasn’t up $17, and had to fight hard to keep its head above water. Gold closed yesterday up $5 at $3,865, and Silver gained 67-cents to close at $47.37… I’m seeing more pundits writing about how Gold has made an impressive run higher in price, but investors need to be concerned about this run…   I’m not one of them, although shouldn’t you always be aware of the risk in price of anything you own?   I’m just saying…

The price of Oil remained trading with a $61 handle yesterday,  as I said yesterday, our friends (NOT!) as OPEC is set to announce an increase of production, and that has the Oil traders worried that there soon could be too much supply…  

The 10-year Treasury is seeing some volatility with the yield up to this week, rising nearly every day, and now this week its yield has been dropping… The 10-year’s yield closed yesterday at 4.10%… 

In the overnight markets last night…  The dollar stopped getting bought last night, and the BBDXY is down 1 index point again this morning, to 1,199…  The underlying weak trend is digging in folks… Are you ready?  This Gov’t shutdown is the latest blast at the dollar’s armor, which right now looks like an all dented up piece of metal… I’m just saying… 

Gold is up $20 to start the day today… I guess we’ll see I the SPTs start sniffing around, eh?  Silver is also up this morning 20-cents… So, the physical buyers of these two are really pushing the envelope across the desk of higher prices… 

The price of Oil remained trading with a $61 handle overnight, and the 10-year Treasury is trading with a 4.10% yield to start the day today…  

Good friend, Dennis Miller, sent me a note yesterday, too late for yesterday’s Pfennig, so here it is today… But first, I spent a lot of time talking about the strong 2^nd QTR GDP print last week and how it was pumped higher by Gov’t Spending… So, when he saw, Bill Bonner, write about the spending he sent me his quote…

Here’s Bill Bonner from his daily letter, “Alas, US economic growth is a phantom…a statistical artifice caused by the fact that Americans are getting fewer products from abroad. If you look at the first two quarters of the year, you see that housing went down. Both imports and exports went down. “

Chuck again… phony money, goosing up phony GDP…  

And Lola is back at making calls that will eventually come true, because? Because what Lola wants, Lola gets…  Here’s Goldman Sachs aka Lola on Gold: “Gold prices will gain an additional 6% by the middle of 2026 as fresh demand from key groups of buyers will drive the yellow metal to new record highs, according to Goldman Sachs Research led by analyst Lina Thomas.

The research team predicts the gold price will rise to $4,000 per ounce by the middle of next year

Chuck again… $4,000 by the middle of next year? Most of the calls I’m seeing being made regarding Gold are calling for Gold to rise to $4,000 by year end…  I’m just saying…

Ed Steer had something to say about how Silver is really trading at very high prices when bought with currency other than the dollar… Here’s Ed this morning: “With silver now above US$47 spot…it’s sitting at $66 in Canadian fiat — and pushing $72 ‘down under’ in Australian funny money. I remember buying my first ounce of gold back in 1968 for less than that — and wish I still had it.

As myself and others mentioned some years back, silver will become the ‘new gold’ at some point — and one has to suspect that that moment has already arrived…both at home here in North America — and abroad. An ounce of gold is already mostly out of reach for Joe six-pack, but silver…even at $100+…will be no big deal for anyone — and everyone will be able to afford a few ounces.” – Ed Steer 10/2/2025

You can find Ed at: www.edsteergoldsilver.com  I rely on Ed’s expertise in the metals quite a bit, and you should probably too!

As I said above, yesterday’s Data prints were not the stuff that you would use to buy dollars…  First off, the Case/ Shiller Home Price Index showed that home prices were cheaper again in July… Then the STUPID Consumer Confidence printed and showed that the index number had fallen for a 2^nd Straight month… Hmmmm…  And then we saw the Job Openings which came in at 7.2 Million..  

Speaking of Data prints… The ADP Employment Report that showed that payrolls dropped last month so much that they were negative 32,000… The trend is there that payrolls will continue to drop, I’m sorry to report…  The ADP report that showed that only 54,000 jobs were added in August was revised downward by 3,000 jobs, no biggie, but shows the direction that the job market is taken on… 

Tomorrow, if there’s a deal made in D.C. To continue to spend money we don’t have, then the BLS will issue their take on the Jobs market for Sept…  The report comes as the funding impasse in Washington, D.C., has led to the first government closure since late 2018 into early 2019. Failing a deal over the next two days, the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ non-farm payrolls report for September will not be released, nor will the Labor Department put out the weekly jobless claims count on Thursday. The last time the BLS payrolls report was delayed was in 2013.

This comes at a time when the Fed Heads are making rate cut decisions to shore up the labor market… Without reports, what will the Fed Heads do? Shoot from the hip, that’s what I think they’ll do… Cut rates blindly.. Oh brother! 

I read a report / article yesterday that talked about how the U.S. is already in a recession… Harry Truman is credited with this quote: “It’s a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it’s a depression when you lose yours.”  

And with the Gov’t shutdown, up to 750,000 people will be laid off each week… I want to see the BLS account for that!  

To recap…  the dollar was down to start the day yesterday, but ended up with a mini-rally to bring it back to neutral at the end of the day… Gold had a good day going early in the morning, and then it wasn’t so good… Gold saw the SPTs take out Gold’s rally… Silver saw some SPTs but for the most part rallied through the day. Lola says that Gold is still going to go higher in price, and we all know that whatever Lola wants, Lola gets…. And spending phony money to prop up phony GDP…

For What It’s Worth…  I’ve been on the BLS’s case regarding their Jobs numbers for a very long time now, seeing that the jobs market was not as hale as the BLS would have us believe, and calling the BLS broken… Well, this article takes the BLS to the woodshed, and it can be found here: U.S. employment data is broken… and it’s misdirecting the markets and the Fed | Kitco News

Or, here’s your snippet: “The U.S. government shutdown means Wednesday’s ADP employment report – which undershot expectations by over 50,000 jobs – may be the only national snapshot of American jobs that markets receive for some time.

But according to a growing number of economists and market analysts, the government’s premier measure of U.S. employment is antiquated, inaccurate, and serves only to mislead markets and policymakers rather than informing them – and recent policy changes have made nonfarm payrolls less meaningful than ever before.

BLS takes the L

Kevin Grady, president of Phoenix Futures and Options, told Kitco News in a recent interview that serious market participants have very good reasons to discount the jobs data.

“What’s happening now is that people are starting to say, ‘I have to look at the trend, I can’t look at the specific jobs data that’s coming out,’ because we know the next job number that’s coming out is not going to be correct. It’s not going to be accurate,” he said. “We can’t take that like, ‘This is the number, we agree, this is it.’ Everybody has to take the numbers with a grain of salt.”

The markets were salty indeed when the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) announced on Sept. 9 that the preliminary revisions to U.S. employment subtracted 911,000 jobs – three times more than the 10-year average and the worst print on record.”

Chuck again… So, see? I’m not the only one out there that points out the BLS’s additions to the surveys… 

Market Prices 10/2/2025: American Style: A$ .6606, kiwi .5827, C$ .7172, euro 1.1752, sterling 1.3473, Swiss $1.2565, European Style: rand 17.1862, krone 9.9403, SEK 9.3643, forint 330.71, zloty 3.6221, koruna 20.6326, RUB 81.23, yen 146.27, sing 1.2871, HKD 7.7814, INR 88.66, China 7.1214, peso 18.36, BRL 5.3293, BBDXY 1,199, Dollar Index 97.57, Oil $61.44, 10-year 4.10%, Silver $47.57, Platinum $1,595.00, Palladium $1,288.00, Copper $4.96, and Gold… $3,885

That’s it for today, A couple of very tight, low-scoring games that saw late rallies to widen the score ruled yesterday…  this should be good today, with all the game 3’s in play…  I forgot to mention above that the Dodgers made quick work of the Reds, so they move on… Our Blues are going through their pre-season schedule, and open the regular season on Rocktober 9th… Next Thursday, Good luck to our Blues!  I’ll be traveling to San Diego next Thursday for a wedding… I had to take my most recently bought suit to the tailor to have it taken in… The little oriental lady said to me, “You have lost a lot of weight, no?” I said yes…  At one time in my life, I thought I would be retiring and moving to San Diego… I used to tell people that I own  shack on the beach and sell bait during the morning, and then go visiting all the bars on the beach and stumble home to my shack and do it all over again the next day… Cancer changed that plan… Spirit takes us to the finish line today with their song: Nature’s Way… I hope you have a Tub Thumpin’ Thursday today, and Please Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler

• The dollar continues to get sold, slow and steady..
• The Government shuts down…

Good Day… And a Wonderful Wednesday to you! Well, bust my buttons! The U.S. Gov’t Did indeed shut down last night! Now, the question will be, for how long will they be shut down? I have the full skinny on it in the FWIW section today, so don’t miss it! I was the kiss of death yesterday when I said I would be rooting for the Padres and the team from Cleveland (Wahoos) I would much rather call them that than the stupid name they changed to from the Indians… They both lost their opening games in a best of 3 series, so they need to win today to stay alive!  We renewed our ROMEO lunch group yesterday… A fun time was had by all!  The Doobie Brothers greet me this morning with their song: Another Park, Another Saturday…

Yesterday morning both Gold and Silver were being taken down… But for Gold that didn’t last long, as it rallied back and around lunch time it got back to a positive gain on the day… Silver tried to grab onto Gold’s coattails, but Silver spent the day with a negative number… Gold finished the day up $15 and closed at $3,860… Silver ended the day down 27-cents to close at $46.70  

I’ve seen quite a few of the Casino Banks that like to spout off about Gold, telling their clients that Gold will be $4,000 by year end….  That seems reasonable to me, but I’m looking at the dollar, because as the dollar gets sold, it is reflected in Gold gains…  The dollar yesterday, continued to get sold, with the BBDXY losing 2 index points and ending the day at 1,200… The index was below 1200 at about noon time yesterday, but some buying in the afternoon kept the index from falling further… 

The price of Oil remained trading with a $62 handle yesterday, and the 10-year Treasury held Steady Eddie with a yield of 4.14%

In the overnight markets last night… More of the same dollar selling with the BBDXY starting today down 2 index points at 1,198… The currencies are beginng to look healthier with this slow but steady dollar selling.  The euro is still hanging out in the 1.17 handle, as the government shutdown has the dollar reeling this morning… Gold is up $17 to start our day today, and Silver is up 46-cents…  The government shutdown is going to add to the reasons to buy and own the metals… I’m just saying… 

I saw a cartoon yesterday that made me laugh out loud… it showed a broker at his desk, on the phone, and behind him is the company: Hedge Fund, Specializing in highly complex derivatives, and Exotic Financial Instruments Indiscriminating Investors… And the broker on the phone says… But Gold!  

The price of Oil is getting sold because of the government shutdown… OPEC+ is to discuss fast tracking its latest round of supply hikes in three monthly installments of about 500,000 barrels a day to recoup market share. This news and the government shutdown has the price of oil down to a $61 handle this morning… And the Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel must be in the bond market, managing the yields lower this morning, as the 10-year’s yield has fallen to 4.11%

The government shutdown is causing many problems with reports on everything from Oil to housing to be missing this morning…  We did get the ADP Employment report already this morning and it showed that the economy LOST 32,000 jobs in September!  That’s right, I said Lost 32,000 jobs in Sept… This has got to send the dollar to woodshed today, as the ADP report is a harbinger for what the BLS will have in store for us on Friday…  That is if they actually report what the surveys tell them and not add their hedonic adjustments… 

I overslept this morning, not hearing the alarm… I was really snoozing! But that’s OK, because this way I’m writing while the ADP Employment Report gets printed…  Better late than never, right?  

All the newswires this morning are all about the government shutdown, that I’m still at the roadside waiting for the next bus, and wondering what the end game is for the lawmakers… I think that they want to show the other side of the aisle who’s the boss, and who’s got the con…  And that’s a bad thing for the U.S. economy…

So, I’ll just wrap this up with bow and send it out this morning… Nothing but government shutdown stuff to write about, is boring to me… and probably to you too!  So, just put this down to a short-and-sweet Pfennig this morning… 

The U.S. Data Cupboard today had the ADP Employment Report for Sept… This will be looked at closed for any signs of layoffs….  We’ll also see the ISM (manufacturing index) for Sept, and I’m sure it will remain below the 50 mark…  So, there’s that…  

Yesterday’s Data Cupboard had the Case/ Shiller Home Price Index for July… I know, I know it’s very stale data, but it’s what we get… Home prices across the top 20 cities in the U.S. fell by 0.07% MoM, the fifth straight monthly drop in prices.  The higher mortgage rates that I talked about yesterday are in play here… 

Don’t forget that this Friday will the Jobs Jamboree, with the Gov’t shutting down and laying off employees it just happened last night, so it won’t be a part of the BLS’s labor report for Sept… 

To Recap… Both Gold & Silver started Tuesday seeing short selling, and losses in the morning… Gold turned its loss around into a $15 gain, but Silver couldn’t get its head above water and ended the day with a loss… The U.S. Gov’t shutdown last night, and if this goes too long, it will affect the dollar, and the employment rolls…  

For What It’s Worth… I pre billed this above… But just friendly neighborhood spider man: reminder that this is the skinny on the Gov’t Shutdown and it can be found here: U.S. government shuts down as Trump and Congress fail to reach a funding deal

Or, here’s your snippet: “WASHINGTON — The U.S. government officially shut down at midnight after Congress and the White House failed to reach an agreement on how to extend federal funding.

President Donald Trump’s Republican Party controls both chambers of Congress, but it needs Democratic support to pass a bill in the Senate, where 60 votes are required. And the two parties failed to craft a bipartisan bill, with the Senate rejecting both a GOP proposal and a Democratic proposal just hours before the shutdown deadline.

It’s the first government shutdown since 2018, in Trump’s first term, which was the longest ever at 34 days, lasting into early 2019. There is no clear path to a resolution, with the two sides fundamentally at odds over how to resolve the impasse.

Federal employees will go without pay for the duration of a shutdown, while members of Congress and Trump will still receive their salaries. About 750,000 employees will be furloughed each day, the Congressional Budget Office said, while others who work essential jobs, like Transportation Security Administration agents, air traffic controllers, federal law enforcement officers and members of the military, will be forced to work without pay.

Under federal law, they are all scheduled to receive back pay once the government reopens, even for the time some didn’t work. Compensation for furloughed workers will cost taxpayers $400 million, according to the CBO.”

Chuck again… I have a bone to pick with the lawmakers.. Why on earth would they continue receiving their pay, while the Gov’t is shutdown… Who caused the shutdown? They DID! I serious here, reading that really ticked me off!

Market Prices 10/1/2025: American Style: A$.6624, kiwi .5827, C$ .7180, euro 1.1754, sterling 1.3518, Swiss $1.2543, European Style: rand 17.1619, krone 9.9250, SEK 9.3517, forint 330.91, zloty 3.6219, koruna 20.6495, RUB 81.27, yen 146.82, sing 1.2870, HKD 7.7818, INR 88.69, China 7.1214, peso 18.27, BRL 5.3041, BBDXY 1,198, Dollar Index 97.54, Oil $61.93, 10-year 4.11%, Silver $47.16, Platinum $1.576.00, Palladium $1,266.00, Copper $4.85, and Gold… $3,867

That’s it for today… Welcome to Rocktober…  Any time I refer to the 10^th month of the year, I call it Rocktober!   And all month long I’ll have to look at the red wavy line under Rocktober, because spell check doesn’t like it! Day 3 was all by myself was good, no worries, no problems… I heard from Kathy yesterday evening, she was playing musical bingo with her friends…  Sounded like she was having fun…  probably not as much fun as I had with my pals yesterday! But maybe…you never know!  I’m awaiting a delivery this morning, and it’s got me a bit excited to get it… The Moody Blues take us to the finish line today with their song; Nights In White Satin   I hope you have a Wonderful Wednesday today, and Please Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler

• currencies & metals rally on Monday so strong to write home about!
• Jim Grant visits the Pfennig this morning

Good Day… And a Tom Terrific Tuesday to you! No baseball for me to watch last night, but 4 games today… I tried to watch the Monday Night Football Game, but it didn’t hold my interest very long… I went to the grocery store yesterday for a few things, and ended up spending $100… Inflation is a real killer, eh? I picked up my dinner, some fried Chicken, which happens to be my all-time favorite food to eat! My mom used to make some yummy fried chicken for Sunday dinners.. I can’t find anyone to cook fried chicken any longer, they claim it’s too messy… So, I buy it from the grocery store! Sam & Dave greet me this morning with their hit 60’s song: Hold On, I’m Coming… 

Well, the dollar continued to go deeper in the underlying weak trend yesterday, and the BBDXY ended the day down 2 index points at 1,202… The euro, which for a brief time last week before the dollar went on its 2-day rally, was trading over 1.18, but has since been sent back to do its time in the 1.17 handle…  But the story yesterday was not about the currencies… It was about the metals… Gold kicked some tail and took names later by gaining $95, and Silver did the same by gaining $1.87… Gold closed the day at $3,845, and Silver at $46.97… There was the usual SPT trading the metals short, but the overall strength of the physical buying of the two prevailed… 

Oil traders must have woke up and said, what the heck is going on with he price of Oil trading over $65?  And they proceeded to get the price of Oil back to a $63 handle… The 10-year Treasury must have seen some buying by the Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel yesterday because the yield dropped to 4.14% (from 4.18%) to end the day yesterday…

In the overnight markets last night… inch by inch, step by step, the monster nears… that old story is what I’m thinking about with the dollar… The BBDXY is down 1 index point this morning and starts the day at 1,201.  The selling of the dollar has been quite tepid… But… It’s selling and going in the right direction as far as I’m concerned…  The euro is hanging out in the 1.17 handle these days, and that’s something I want to talk a bit about… 

I used to point out to people when they would tell me that the dollar was strong, that if that was true, then why is the euro who has a boat load of problems, at whatever level it was at the time, like now it’s 1.17…   If the dollar was strong, the euro would be at parity with the dollar, or even lower, like it was after first getting issued back in 1999…  Yes, I was the currency trader for the brand spanking new online back, EverBank back then…  That’s so last century, Chuck! 

The SPTs are out in force this morning and selling Gold & Silver as I write… Gold is currency down $18, and Silver is down 69-cents…  I just don’t know what their endgame is, the SPTs… I realize they profit from this short-selling scheme, but there’s got to be something else driving them to continually take down the metals when It appears that the metals are ready for a moon shot… One of these days, Alice! To the Moon! 

Well, yesterday, I told you that the Bank of Mexico had cut their rates 25 Basis Points and pointed to additional rate cuts coming… What the heck are these guys smoking?  Don’t they have a inkling that for investors to buy pesos, they need a “risk premium”?  I’ve long said that the peso needed a much higher interest rate to entice investors to buy and invest in pesos, because of the country’s past sins with the currency… Don’t recall them?  I suggest your Google their past sins, for I don’t feel like going back over them again this morning…  

So, I would think that the peso will begin to weaken… The price of Oil helps the peso remain well bid, but that well bid status could very easily go right out the window with rate cuts… I’m just saying…

Russia reported their latest GDP last week, and they reported that their GDP only grew at 1% in the 1^st half of this year… I’m still surprised that they garnered 1% growth, given the economic sanctions on their economy…  And with the price of Oil range bound and not moving higher, the ruble has seen better days…  Remember, the ruble is a play on Oil… So, if you’re like me, and you think that the price of Oil won’t stay range bound forever… Wink, wink..

Long time readers know that I have a special place in my heart and mind for Jim Grant, of the Grant’s Interest Rate Observer, said something the other day that rang a bell with me… he said that “The fed should be hiking rates” He then quoted a former Fed/ Caba/Cartel chairman who said, “it  is the Fed’s job to “take away the punch bowl just as the party gets going.”  Jim Grant points out that the “party has been going strong”…  I mention this because it is I who also said that the rate should be hiked not cut, so it’s a big slap on the back for me, to have Jim Grant agree with me! I’m just saying…

Circling back to Silver this morning… I was impressed by the Open interest contracts on the COMEX as of 9/1/2025…  Not because there was a drop in the number, but because of the reason that Silver kept rising… Here’s the skinny: “Having soared to over 184,000 Comex contracts by June 17, open interest declined to 154,000 on September 1. Meanwhile the price continued rising strongly to $40. A falling open interest and rising price can happen only in a vicious bear squeeze on the establishment shorts — Alasdair Macleod, from the good folks at GATA… 

There have been rumors bandied about that the SPT’s are dwindling… You would be hard pressed to admit that on Wednesday & Thursday last week, when the SPTs ruled the roost… But this price action in Silver really plays into the thought that there’s a bear squeeze going on…  Let’s hope it continues!  

And yesterday, I told you about how the Fed Heads’s preferred calc of inflation, has inched higher again…  I found this on Moneymetals.com “Gene Ludwig served as Comptroller of the Currency under President Bill Clinton, and he recently wrote a book titled “The Mismeasurement of America: How Outdated Government Statistics Mask the Economic Struggle of Everyday Americans.” He asserts that the CPI is “not tremendously relevant to the lived experience of middle and low-income Americans.”

The CPI encompasses some 80,000 goods and services, from baby formula to college tuition. However, most people don’t purchase the vast majority of the things captured by the CPI.

“If we’re going to have a number that is relevant to them, it’s got to be a smaller group of items that matter to their lives.”

“The problem with this dependence on a single indicator is that not all Americans experience inflation the same way. The CPI includes many items beyond the reach of working families, such as sports tickets, air travel, second homes and golf carts. If the costs of basic necessities such as rent and medical care rise faster than those of nonessential goods, the index may not truly reflect the reality many households face.”

Chuck again… And isn’t that what I’ve been preaching for decades about? That inflation isn’t the same for everyone…  What I use my disposable income on will be completely different from your use your disposable income on…  But groceries? We all need groceries…  And most of us need gas to fuel our cars to go to the grocery store, and then we all have different giggles… But the point I’m making is that the basket of goods that are used to calculate inflation needs to be pared down and then go back to not adding the hedonic adjustments!  And oh, by the way, John Williams who still calculates inflation the way they did before President Clinton and Big Al Greenspan conspired to make CPI lower, and John says that CPI is really 13.5%… Now, that sounds right to me!

Well, there some states in the U.S. that are developing digital Gold & Silver payment systems… And then there is Florida, who passed a law this past spring that removed the sales and use taxes for Gold & Silver and made them legal tender… 

Sound money advocates have paid particular attention to Florida’s new legal tender law, both praising it as a model for other states and maligning its regulatory provisions.

Earlier this year, Florida lawmakers removed sales and use taxes on gold and silver, including bullion coins that qualify as legal tender, while imposing new regulations on precious metal businesses and custodians in the state to protect consumers, reduce financial fraud and deter money-laundering.”

The good folks at GATA sent me this note… I thank them immensely for keeping me up to snuff on the goings on in Gold & Silver… 

I wanted to point something out to you dear readers here… The FOMC cut their internal short-term rate 25 Basis points… And usually, the longer bonds i.e. the 10-year that used to price mortgages, move downward too… But they didn’t this time, and since the rate cuts was announced the 10-year’s yield has risen, which means that mortgage rates have also risen… Last week we saw that sales of existing homes had fallen in number sold… and that can be tied to the rising mortgage rate…   

Of course, these mortgage rates aren’t anything like I paid when I first bought a house many years ago…  I paid 13% and it was tied to the 90-day T-Bill Rate… By the time I sold that first house and bought my second one, the rate was much lower, thank goodness, but still those first few years were difficult to manage… 

The U.S. Data Cupboard today has the Case/ Shiller Home Price Index for July (I know it’s really stale, but it’s there) We will also see the STUPID Consumer Confidence report for this month… At least the STUPID CC is timely!  

To recap… The dollar returned the underlying weak trend last Friday, and continued to stay there yesterday, losing 2 index points in the BBDXY.  Chuck talks to us about the Mexican Rate Cut, and mortgage rates here in the U.S.  Gold & Silver had banner days yesterday… The SPT’s were there, but they couldn’t dent the armor that Gold & Silver were wearing..

For What It’s Worth… This article came to me from the good folks at GATA, and it’s about how the commodities (Gold & Silver) are now being priced differently, and it can be found here: ROSS NORMAN – Is gold defying gravity ?

Or, here’s your snippet: “As I see it, you have two options: either to believe the laws of gravity have been suspended, or to accept that gold and other precious metals exist within an entirely new paradigm. Simply claiming that the markets are massively overpriced and will return to “normal” marks you as a dinosaur who has yet to understand that fundamental changes have occurred.

So, can the laws of gravity be suspended? The answer is no. Anyone who knows me is aware that I am not nearly as smart as I like to pretend, so I will admit I had a little assistance from AI, which states:

“The laws of gravity cannot be suspended, blocked, or turned off based on current scientific understanding. Gravity is not a force that can be shielded or neutralized by any known material or technology; it results from the curvature of spacetime caused by mass, according to general relativity, and acts universally on all matter.”

Getting to the point, it is crucial to understand exactly what this new reality entails, because when it changes, so will gold. I believe precious metals sit at the crossroads of shifting geopolitical and economic tensions. The unipolar world, where everything revolved around the US dollar and US treasuries, has vanished—alongside globalization. Today, we live in a bipolar world where the West has weaponized access to its markets, payment channels, and monetary systems against those that do not align with it. Sanctions and the seizure of foreign assets are viewed by many parts of the world as acts of aggression that have undermined trust in institutions once thought above such politics. Irrespective of which side you support, the fact remains that a new iron curtain has emerged. Notably, there is growing momentum within the EU to use the frozen Russian central bank assets—approximately €200 billion held primarily at Euroclear—for Ukraine’s benefit through new financial instruments or loans.

The more the West asserts its influence, the more others seek alternatives. It’s simple. And this is not just about finding a safe haven asset that is independent, cannot be inflated away, is universally trusted, and is no one else’s promise to pay—it is more than that. This is the response from dissenting nations; it is the weaponization of access to certain commodities. In my view, the price gains are not simply the result of shifts in reserve management but are compounded by supply chain constraints and increased hoarding. In that context, a doubling of the gold price in two years, a 58% rise in silver prices year-to-date, 74% in platinum, and 39% in palladium starts to make sense. The illiquidity, tightness, and high borrowing costs (leasing) of these precious metals only confirm this perspective.”

Chuck again… yes, we’re coming to an end of the credit cycle, where it leads us is a BIG question… I truly believe that it will lead to collapse of the financial system of the U.S.  What do you believe?  Are you with me on this? This reminds me of the scene from the movie Animal House… “”Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!”  LOL!  

On a sidebar.. Once a long time ago, I added this line from the movie, and a young lady in our accounting area, stopped me as I walked by to tell me that it wasn’t the Germans who bombed Pearl Harbor, it was the Japanese… I started to explain it to her, but then I just kept walking and said, ‘Thanks!” HAHAHAHAHA

Market Prices 9/30/2025: American Style: A$.6606, kiwi .5792, C$ .7239, euro 1.1739, sterling 1.3432, Swiss $1.2533, European Style: rand 17.2660, krone 9.9854, SEK 9.4185, forint 332.62, zloty 3.6378, koruna 20.7272, RUB 82.35, yen 148.05, sing 1.2901, HKD 7.7804, INR 88.79, China 7.1194, peso 18.34, BRL 5.3223, BBDXY 1,201, Dollar Index 97.83, Oil $62.99, 10-year 4.14%, Silver $46.26, Platinum $1,564.00, Palladium $1,262.00, Copper $4.85, and Gold… $3.817

That’s it for today…  Well, I’m all by myself again, as Katy has gone to Florida to take care of business with our place there…   She left Sunday, and won’t be back until Friday night… Hello Pizza Man Pizza? Yes, please deliver me a large, extra cheese! Not really, I went to the grocery store yesterday to buy me some food for dinners this week. My days of eating Pizza all the time are over… Unless I want to balloon up in weight again! Not happening!  So, I’m going to root for the Padres in the NL and the Indians, I mean the team from Cleveland… in the baseball playoffs… The Moody Blues take us to the finish line today with their song: Ride My Seesaw…  I hope you have a Tom Terrific Tuesday today, and Please Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler

• currencies and metals rally on Friday
• And in the overnight markets metals are soaring!

Good Day… And a Marvelous Monday to you! What a weekend for yours truly… I got my infusion Thursday, and I woke up Friday morning, not sick.. YAHOO!  I’m thankful for all of you who sent me a note, telling me the infusion would be OK, and those that said a prayer for that outcome… I truly believe in the power of prayer… I’m just saying…  This will be an extra-long Pfennig today, as I started writing it this weekend, and found I had a lot to talk about! My beloved Cardinals finished their regular season yesterday, with the final game of the year for them VS the Cubs… a long season is ahead for The Cardinals, for sure! The great Al Stewart greets me this morning with his song: Time Passages… 

The dollar really booked some gains on Wednesday and Thursday last week, with the BBDXY rising from 1,1996 on Wednesday morning to 1,208 on Thursday evening.   But, the dollar returned to the underlying weak trend on Friday when the PCE data print showed that inflation had risen in August to 2.7% (really? They expect us to believe that inflation is only 2.7%?)  And that brought the 2 more rate cuts scenario back and put them directly on the burner…  The BBDXY ended the week on Friday at 1,204… 

I didn’t get why the dollar bugs were buying dollars on Wednesday and Thursday, for they pointed to some words by the el jefe, Jay Powell, who said some things about how the markets had gotten ahead of themselves with their rate cuts thoughts…  I mean, he was just trying to calm down the markets, but the market participants, being what they are, didn’t take it that way, and bought dollars, thinking that he said that there would be no more rate cuts…  He didn’t say that!  And that’s why I just didn’t get why the dollar bugs were buying dollars… 

Gold saw major short paper trading on Wednesday and Thursday… I won’t go into their selling, I’ll just tell you that Gold climbed back on the rally horse, on Friday, after the PCE data print, and would have closed much higher than it did, if not for the SPTs showing up late in the afternoon… Gold ended the week up $ 10 and closing the week at $3,758. Silver, was another story… While Gold was getting axed by the SPTs, Silver was enjoying a turn on Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride and gained 88-cents on Thursday! And closed the day above $45!!   Silver closed the week well above the  The Actual close at week’s end for Silver was $45.99.

Can you believe how quickly Silver is climbing to $50? It’s like it’s attached to a moon rocket!  To Infinity & Beyond (Buzz Lightyear) 

On a sidebar here… the last time Silver touched at $50, a writer from Forbes called me and asked me what was going on with Silver… I gave her a long dissertation on why Silver was rising, and that it was the regular guy’s Gold…  And the interview ended up being on the front cover of the magazine, with the quote: “Silver, the new Gold”… or something like that…  Silver soon went to $50 and then it wasn’t $50 any longer…  The powers that be took it down quickly.. It’s been since April 2011 that Silver has last gotten to $50… So, strap yourself in, keep all arms and legs inside and get ready for the ride of your life!  

The thing that really frustrates me is that Gold was up over $30 during the day, and Silver was up over $1.28…  Here’s Ed Steer’s take on this… “It was another day where gold was the underperformer. But in the case of all four of the precious metals, the collusive commercial shorts stepped in to the limit the gains in everything — and even had the audacity to close silver a penny below $46 spot.”

The price of Oil really jumped higher last week, and ended the week trading with a $66 handle… I couldn’t find anything out there on the newswires regarding Oil, so I’ll put it down as a supply concern… The 10-year Treasury continued to get sold, and see its yield rise as it ended the week with a 4.18% yield… 

And Copper was soaring in price late last week, until it wasn’t any longer… But still it ended the week at $4.76…  here’s the skinny on what’s going on in Copper from Bloomberg.com “Freeport-McMoRan Inc. declared force majeure at its Grasberg mine in Indonesia after a massive mud flow killed two employees and left five missing.

The declaration may cause Freeport to not meet supply contracts for the mine, and the company lowered its copper and gold production guidance for the quarter.

The incident has strained the global copper market, which is already experiencing supply disruptions and soaring demand due to the clean-energy transition and artificial intelligence boom.

Chuck again… I have a friend that is a big shot at a lighting company out East, and he’s always complaining about the price of Copper… I bet he’s having a cow right now…  I’m just saying…

In the overnight markets last night… The underlying weak trend for the dollar came into play overnight. The BBDXY starts our day/ week at 1,203, and all the talk on the newswires is that there is a chance of a Government Shutdown… And that talk has Gold at a new record high this morning, as the problems within the U.S. multiply, and Gold is up $65 to start our day today… Silver is also moving higher this morning. Silver is up 96-cents to start our day/ week today…  Gold is $3,825, and Silver is $47.08… This is quite the morning for the metals, and I have a feeling that the SPTs will be out to manage the prices of the metals this morning… I hope not, but the wolf is always at the door…

The price of Oil remained trading with a $65 handle overnight, and the 10-year Treasury is holding steady trading with a 4.18% yield. 

A Government Shutdown? Really? Haven’t we already come to 80-something events like this in our past, and every time, an 11^th hour deal is made to kick the debt can down the road again and let the future lawmakers deal with it? Yes, we have, and this time will be no different, in my mind… But the show must go on, right? The drama and intrigue will come to a crescendo and then we’ll just pick up the pieces and go on with life…  But if this is what takes to get Gold to new all-time record levels, then so be it!

The Bank of Mexico cut their internal rate 25 Basis Points to 7.5% this is the lowest rate for Mexico since 2022… And they were being copycats, for they cut rates while inflation is still a problem in Mexico…  The bank also indicated this rate cut would most likely see more coming…  The peso didn’t respond to the rate cut, which was strange… 

The currencies have been through the gauntlet of a strong dollar, weak dollar, strong dollar, and all the shenanigans that goes with that trading… I guess I’m about the only person out there that writes, that thinks the currencies are still a play… I still believe that to properly diversify your investment portfolio you have to have a portion of the portfolio outside of your home currency… The in the U.S. it’s the dollar, in Europe it’s the euro, and so on… along with a portion of your investment portfolio, in Gold & Silver, then you have a reduced risk investment portfolio… 

But these days, it’s all about the stock jockeys… I read this weekend that U.S. investors now own more stocks than ever before… To me, that’s risky! But then I’m so conservative with investments that I can only see this scenario collapsing like the dot come scenario collapsed, or all of the economic collapses I the history of the world…  John Law comes to mind, the tulip collapse, and others that I’ve read about and studied through the years…  I’m just saying… diversify your investment portfolio before it’s too late! 

There was an awful auction of the 7-year treasury last week…  Here’s the skinny on the auction: The bid to cover was just 2.395, a big drop from 2.489 in August and the lowest since March 2023.

But it was the internals that were especially bad: Indirects, aka foreign buyers, plunged from 77.5% to 56.4%, the biggest monthly drop in 4 years. Worse, this was the lowest foreign demand since March 2021, when as veteran bond traders will recall, the US had a near-failed 7Y auction.

I’m worried about the debt financing folks…  And eventually this will spill over to the dollar trading, which I’m also concerned with, as it will put additional pressure on the dollar, and propel it in the weak dollar trend… Just a reminder that the U.S. sells Treasuries to finance its debt…  Can you see why I’m worried?

Circling the wagons back to Gold this morning… This from Bloomberg.com  “Bullion doesn’t look overpriced relative to the dollar and Treasuries, which “ought to contain a level of Fed-related premium, given the nature of the risk” from the central bank’s potential loss of independence, Barclays Plc. strategists including Themistoklis Fiotakis and Lefteris Farmakis said in a note on Sunday. “This makes it a surprisingly good value hedge.”

Chuck again…  I liked that they thought that Gold was not overpriced relative to the dollar and treasuries!  That’s something that I think investors should take hold of and run with it!  Why on earth would you not?  

I’m reading a message this morning, that talks about how a good number of people in the U.S. can’t afford to buy physical Gold… But they can have the latest iPhone, the biggest TV screen, the newest car, whatever…  C’mon think about that, investment options that don’t involve stocks and bonds… Now, that’s novel if you ask me! 

The U.S. Data Cupboard last week had the 3^rd revision to 2^nd QTR GDP…  And once again, I feel that I need to explain that GDP in the U.S. is NOT that strong (3.3%). Because the number is skewed by Gov’t spending…  

Bill Bonner had this in his Wednesday letter last week: “But there is no evidence of such growth anywhere in the economic record. Just the opposite. The Fed never, ever had rates as low as they were in the 2008-2023 period. And yet, growth rates declined from the 3 and 4 percents of the 1990s to the 1 and 2 percents of the 2008-2025 period.”

Chuck again… In addition, last week, Personal Income and Spending for Aug printed, and Spending was really strong as the back-to-school sales helped.  We also saw that the Fed/Cabal/Cartel’s favorite flavor of inflation calculation printed for Aug, and it showed inflation rising at a 2.7% clip, up from July’ 2.5% clip…  And that was the reason the dollar saw some selling on Friday, as I described above. 

This week’s Data Cupboard will come to a crescendo on Friday when the Jobs Jamboree takes place for Sept. It will be interesting to see the new BLS head honcho’s flavor of hedonic adjustments, and what will the number be?

To recap… The dollar went on a brief rally on Wednesday and Thursday of last week, but returned to the underlying weak dollar trend on Friday, after PCE showed that inflation rose in Aug, and that put the rate cuts back on the burner… 

For What It’s Worth… Well, as long as inflation is the topic on everyone’s mind, I’ll continue to give you data that confirms that there should have been a rate hike instead of a rate cut… This article is about consumer inflation and it can be found here: Grocery prices are rising again, as ground beef and coffee hit record highs

Or, here’s your snippet: “About half of all Americans say the cost of groceries is a major source of stress in their life and the latest inflation data shows that pressure isn’t easing.

Grocery prices rose 0.6 percent from July to August, the steepest one-month gain in roughly three years, according to the Consumer Price Index. They’re now 2.7 percent higher than a year ago and up nearly 30 percent from before the pandemic.

Grocery inflation has cooled considerably since the summer of 2022, when it peaked above 13 percent year-over-year, but President Trump’s tariffs and tighter immigration rules are clouding the outlook.

So far, Trump’s trade policies haven’t pushed up consumer prices as much as many economists feared, but some items including coffee are starting to feel the grind.

Coffee prices surged 3.6 percent in August, the biggest monthly jump since 2011, leaving them 20.9% higher than a year ago. Recent droughts in Brazil and Vietnam explain part of the increase, but the latest spike comes on the heels of Trump’s 50 percent tariff on Brazil, the world’s largest coffee exporter.

The U.S. is also highly reliant on imports — and immigrant labor — for its fresh fruits and vegetables. Tomato prices rose 4.5 percent last month, lettuce 3.5 percent and bananas 2.1 percent, the CPI shows. Overall, fresh vegetable prices climbed 3 percent in August, the largest monthly increase since 2020.

Limited cattle supply has continued to put upward pressure on beef prices, which are at record highs. Meanwhile, egg prices — though down roughly 40 percent from their March peak — remain up from a year ago amid lingering bird flu disruptions.

Coffee

Price Increase: +20.9 percent from August 2024 to August 2025

Average Price: $8.87 per pound in August 2025 (Coffee, 100%, ground roast)”

Chuck again… And the propeller heads tell us that inflation is only 2.7%?   I’m so disgusted with the Gov’t for their reporting and telling us lies…  I’m just saying…

Market Prices 9/29/2025: American Style: A$ .6561, kiwi .5787, C$ .7177, euro 1.1713, sterling 1.3429, Swiss $ 1.2528, European Style: rand 17.2932, krone 9.9731, SEK 9.4206, forint 334.16, zloty 3.3416, koruna 20.7749, RUB 82.92, yen 148.78, sing 1.2910, HKD 7.7813, INR 88.76, China 7.1216, peso 18.36, BRL 5.3440, BBDXY 1,203, Dollar Index 98.04, Oil $65.28, 10—year 4.18%, Silver $47.08, Platinum $1,603.00, Palladium $1,304.00, Copper $4.81, and Gold… $3,825

That’s it for today, and more than I usually have, but that’s OK, because I didn’t write on Thursday last week…  So far, so good, with me, with regard to the last infusion… I’m feeling like I did the previous infusions before the one in August that sent me for a trip to sicks Ville… I now wonder what was in that infusion.  Not the normal stuff for sure!  I’m now off the steroids, and can get back to normal sleep patterns and eating… I didn’t gain a lot of weight on the drugs, which was a concerted effort by me to not gain, although my eating did increase a lot!  My beloved Mizzou Tigers will be put to the test when they next play, with a game against Big Bad Alabama… The Ozark Mountain Daredevils take us to the finish line today with their song: Jackie Blue… I hope you have a Marvelous Monday today, and Please Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler

• currencies drift on Tuesday, while Gold sees short selling…
• What has Jay Powell said now?

Good Day… And a Wonderful Wednesday to you! Another late game last night… I know that to live on the West Coast, these games start at normal time, but here in the Midwest, where the Cardinals fans want to see their team play, they come on at late times for us that have to get up early the next day… UGH! My beloved Cardinals come back to the Midwest after the next game in S.F. And finish with playing the Cubs… I made an egregious error yesterday when I said that my Mizzou Tigers will play Boston College this Saturday… That was wrong… They will play UMass… UGH! I hate it when I make errors! Aliota, Haynes, Jeremiah greet me this morning with their classic rock song: Lakeshore Drive…

Well, the dollar didn’t move much yesterday and ended the day with the BBDXY at 1,195… Same level it’s been since last Friday… But the euro traded above the 1.18 handle yesterday, as this waiting for the dollar to make its next downward move became too long of a wait for the dollar/ euro traders… I made too much of deal out of Gold & Silver trading on their own devices, void of SPT’s, that I must have woke the SPTs up as they went after Gold, as it neared $3,800… Gold was sold yesterday after Gold had rallied by $38… And they brought Gold’s price down to $3,765, which happened to be a gain from the previous close of $3,748… 

Silver saw the SPT’s also, and its gain on the day was watered down… Silver closed the day at $44.10, down 2-cents on the day…  The wolf is always at the door, and even when they leave Gold & Silver to trade on their own devices for 2 trading days, they came back with a boat load of short paper trades, just remind us all that they are always there… 

The price of Oil moved higher in the $63 handle yesterday… And the 10-year Treasury saw some additional Fed Head manipulation and it’s yield back off to 4.11%..  This is a big tug-o-war between the bond boys and the Fed Heads…  In the end, I would think the bond boys would win, but that’s just me thinking back to my days as a bond trader… 

In the overnight markets last night… Well, the dollar rallied overnight, the BBDXY starts today at 1,200… That’s up 5 index points overnight, and that’s a BIG gain for the dollar, which I’m sure rallied on the news from Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel Chairman, Jay Powell, who told the markets yesterday that the FOMC will have to be very careful about further rate cuts… That indicated to the markets that this latest rate cut just might be a one and done… And that has the dollar bugs crawling out of the wall boards and dancing on the kitchen tile… 

The euro fell back below the 1.18 figure, and the currencies that looked so healthy yesterday, and heading back to their respective sick beds… 

Gold is up $5 to start our day today, and Silver is flat as a pancake (Head East)…  The SPTs really did a number on these two metals yesterday, so I’m sure it with trepidation that Gold Bugs dip their toes back into the waters that are infested with the dirty dog, SPTs… 

The price of Oil has bumped higher to a $64 handle this morning, and the 10-year Treasury starts the day at 4.13% yield… 

Yesterday, I took it out on the Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel and their lack of credibility… Here’s another thing that came to mind later in the day…. Powell said the Fed expects to cut two more times this year, but added the Fed is continuing to sell off some of the bonds it owns on its balance sheet. Quantitative Easing (QE) is when the Fed buys bonds, essentially putting more money into the system. Quantitative Tightening (QT) is when the Fed sells bonds, which technically puts upward pressure on interest rates and withdraws money from the system.  So, which one is the Fed Heads doing right now? We’ve seen them in buying bonds to keep the yields from rising… But they say they are selling bonds…  What a conundrum…  

And regarding our debt…  I’ve talked about the Unfunded Liabilities in the past, but now is a good time to revisit them…  I’ve seen the total of Unfunded Liabilities (UL’s) range from $70 Trillion to $200 Trillion… It all depends on what items you want to add to the calc. I personally prefer to take the higher number, because, well, because that’s probably nearer to the truth than the lower number…   Social Security and Medicare are the 200lb Gorillas in the room, and the payroll taxes to fund these two have not been near sufficient to fully fund them…   And remember when I used to tell you that 10,000 baby boomers will retire every day for the next 10 years? Well, that’s still happening… And they want their Social Security payments that they made through the years of working…

What’s the country going to do?  not pay them.?  that would be political suicide… And we all know that politicians need to feel loved, and re-elected! For how will they amass their large sums of money back home doing nothing?  

Here’s the real problem for the U.S. going forward… To fund these programs, the programs will have to be either changed, or… They could take the easy way out, and print money to fund them…  I shudder thinking about the amount of dollars that would have to be printed to fully fund these programs…  Spoiler alert… Social Security is short $22 Trillion, right now, and Medicare is short $50 Trillion, right now…  YIKES! 

In Grant Williams latest letter: Things That Make You Go Hmmm…  he says that all this money printing and rising debt is pushing the U.S. toward a “doom loop”…  Uh-Oh… Grant also reminds us that “the bond market can be forgiving until it isn’t… And if the revolt does come, it won’t be because of politics or geopolitics. It will be because of math. Cold, hard, relentless math.”

The math doesn’t work now, but everyone doesn’t realize it… yet…  The Empire is collapsing… 

And to that end, this from YAHOO Finance: “Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said there is “no risk-free path” for the central bank’s next policy move as inflation remains elevated and the job market weakens.

It’s “a challenging situation,” Powell said during a speech in Rhode Island on Tuesday, reiterating that the Fed must balance its dual goals of maximum employment and price stability.”

Chuck again… yes, it IS A Challenging Situation, Jay… But that’s what they have you there to do, tackle them… But in my opinion, you just whiffed at the running back through the hole and he’s on his way to the end zone…  

So, we as a country are in a “doom loop”, we don’t have the math to grow anything but more debt, and the Central Bank is in a challenging position…  Would you buy stock in this company?  I ask that, because I’ve always said that a currency is the “stock of the country issuing it”…  I wouldn’t touch that stock with your ten-foot pole! And neither should you, but I can’t stop you from buying dollars, all I can do is issue warnings and hope you get the message… 

I know, I know, I’m beginning to sound like the new Mr. Gloom and Doom… I really wish I didn’t have to be the bearer of bad news… I would rather be the happy-go-lucky guy that doesn’t seem to have a care in the world… I would get invited to parties, and be the life of the event… But that’s not to be… I am saddled with being the new Mr. Gloom and Doom… Oh well, I think I portray the role very nicely… 

So, let me tell you a story…  about currency trends… I told you yesterday in that video that I shared from 13 years ago, that I truly believe in currency trends…  A weak dollar trend, is followed by a strong dollar trend, and so on, and each trend starts with a fundamental reason, and doesn’t end until that fundamental reason is reversed or well on the way to reversal… The strong dollar trend has been in place since 2013 or 14…  depending on when you want to actually say the dollar has reversed the trend…  So, for 11 years the strong dollar trend has ruled the roost…  And for 11 years, I’ve switched from writing about currencies every single day to writing more about Gold & Silver and currencies on the side… 

But the strong dollar trend is reversing now… Mark your calendars, for Summer 2025, as when the weak dollar trend began… So, get set in the saddle because this is going to be wild ride…  The U.S. Gov’t has no option but to allow the dollar to weaken significantly, to allow inflation into the economy and inflate the debts lower…  Want proof that the strong dollar trend is abating?  On June 5th, the BBDXY traded at 1,211… The BBDXY closed yesterday at 1,195…  That’s a BIG move folks… and yes, it took it all summer to get lower, but as I told you the other day, the currency trends will take longer to play out with all the shenanigans that the currency traders are now playing… 

So, are you ready? Have you diversified your investment portfolio to include currencies and metals?  You do realize don’t you, that by doing that you reduce the overall risk of your investment portfolio?  That’s a fact, Jack!  If you don’t believe me, look up Harry Markowitz… and check out his modern portfolio theory…  I’m just saying… 

The U.S. Data Cupboard yesterday  didn’t have any real economic data for us, and neither does today… So the Data Cupboard is a BIG Zero. Tomorrow’s Data Cupboard will be HUGE, with the Weekly Initial Jobless Claims, the 3rd revision of 2nd QTR GDP, Industriial Production, and the first look at the Trade Deficit for Aug…  

And this is where I remind you that there will be no Pfennig tomorrow, as I will be going to see my oncologiist, bright and early Thursday morning…  You have been warned… or better yet, you have been give a day away from me! 

To Recap… The dollar drifted again yesterday, and ended the day with the BBDXY at 1,195… Same closing level as Friday, and Monday…  Chuck reminds us that that the dollar’s downfall will be slow to move… But the underlying weak trend for the dollar is in place now, are you diversified?   And Chuck proclaims himself to be the new Mr. Gloom and Doom… 

For What It’s Worth…  The good folks at GATA sent me this and in it the article explains that China is aware of the price manipulation of the U.S in Gold, and it can  and the article is on the GATA site, so unless you are a subscriber to GATA, you can’t read it all… But not to worry, I have it for you here:

Or, here’s your snippet: “As early as 2010, U.S. embassy cables released by WikiLeaks revealed that Chinese state-controlled media outlets had been reporting on gold market rigging by the U.S. for years.

Central bank intelligence: The Bank of Russia, which has coordinated with China on financial matters, has also long been aware of Western gold price suppression policies. This awareness was revealed in a speech by a Bank of Russia deputy chairman who mentioned the work of the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee (GATA), an organization dedicated to exposing market manipulation.

Suspicious market patterns: Observers have noted that gold market anomalies, such as significant short-selling of paper gold contracts on Western exchanges, do not align with supply-and-demand fundamentals. This suggests that prices are being suppressed.

China’s strategic response

Rather than confronting this manipulation directly, China has been implementing a long-term strategy involving several key moves:

Aggressive gold accumulation: The People’s Bank of China (PBoC) has been a leading buyer of gold for years, rapidly increasing its reserves. Since 2022, a significant portion of these purchases have been unreported in official International Monetary Fund (IMF) statistics.

De-dollarization: China is actively reducing its reliance on the U.S. dollar, particularly since the freezing of Russian foreign reserves in 2022. It is shedding U.S. Treasury holdings and encouraging its trading partners to settle transactions in local currencies, with gold often used as an implicit monetary anchor.”

Chuck again… Well, bust my buttons, I was not aware that China was onto our Manipulation of Gold… See? You learn something new ever day!  

Market Prices 9/24/2025; American Style: A$ .6602, kiwi .5834, C% .7207. Euro 1.1748, sterling 1.3458, Swiss $1.2583, European Style: rand 17.3149, krone 9.9439, SEK 9.3872, forint 333.17, zloty 3.6309, koruna 20.6838, RUB 83.73, yen 148.49, sing 1.2874, HKD 7.7773, INR 88.69, China 7.1274, peso 18.40, BRL 5.2823, BBDXY 1,200, Dollar Index 97.75, OIl $64.12, 10-year 4.13%, Silver $44.07, Platinum $1,470.00, Palladium $1,236.00, Copper $4.60, and Gold… $3,770

That’s if for today and this week… Like I said yesterday, I’m somewhat concerned about my reaction to the chemo infusion I’ll receive tomorrow… If I have another adverse reaction to it, then the game is over for me… Because this is the last Chance Saloon…  I guess I’ll have to suck it up, and deal with it if it hits me like it did two months ago… But that’ll mean I don’t write every day…  Because last time, I was so sick that I couldn’t get out of my chair!  I lost major weight, and was below 200lbs for the first time since I was in High School!   So, no more of that!  Not that I didn’t mind losing weight, but losing it that fast wasn’t healthy…    Ok… enough of my whining and crying… The Killers takes us to the finish line this morning with their song: Somebody Told Me… I Hope you have a Wonderful Wednesday today, and Please Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler

• currencies and metals rally on Monday
• The Fed’s credibility is Gone with the wind…

Good Day… And a Tom Terrific Tuesday to you! Well, I completely forgot about yesterday being the first full day of Autumn when penning the Pfennig in the a.m.  So, welcome to Autumn… The Boys of Summer (Henley) are gone… Baseball will soon enter its playoff time… And then the teams in the playoffs will dwindle down until there are just two teams left, and the World Series! These playoff games should be quite interesting, to me, that is… Little Feat greets me this morning with their live version of the song: Dixie Chicken…

The days will be growing shorter, in terms of daylight, and the days will become crisper… time to get the firepit out and get ready for sitting out by the fire! I have one of those solo stoves, that don’t produce smoke… I love it, except that I used to really enjoy watching the middle of the fire and watching the logs burn…  See? I’m strange, eh? 

Well, the dollar kind of drifted lower yesterday, with the BBDXY ending the day at 1,195… That was the same level as Friday’s close, but yesterday at one point, the BBDXY was up to 1,198…. So, the conviction to get the dollar higher wasn’t there, and the dollar bugs went back to their respective holes in the wall board… 

I said yesterday that if Gold & Silver were left to their own devices that we would be amazed at their performances… Well, we came very close to letting them trade on their own devices as Gold gained $62, and Silver gained 99-cents… Gold closed the day at $3,748, and get this… Silver closed at $44.12-That’s right, $44 reached in one day’s trading… I’ll say this again… Silver is on its way to $50…  Anyone want to take the under bet? I’m just kidding, I don’t bet money, except a shiny quarter ever now and then… 

Besides if I lost, I would have to Venmo the money to you, and finding you in Venmo would probably take me all day…  Remember, I’m not even your last choice as a Tech Guy… I know enough to get me in trouble… I’m just saying…

The price of Oil remained trading with a $62 handle again yesterday, and the 10-year Treasury’s yield continues to inch higher, closing yesterday with a 4.15% yield… 

In the overnight markets last night…  The dollar has seen a bit of buying with the BBDXY starting today at 1,196… The currencies look healthier this morning than they have in some time, so there’s that…  I don’t know who would be buying the dollar, except the Fed Heads, or Treasury, so there’s that to think about… Why would anyone with a sane mind think it to be a good idea to buy dollars, when the Fed / Cabal/ Cartel have entered a new easing period for interest rates, inflation is sticky and rising again, and the debt of the nation is unsustainable?   I’m just saying… 

The price of Gold is kicking tail and taking names later this morning, as it nears $3,800… Gold is up $35 to start our day today, and Silver is up 24-cents… I said yesterday that “left to their own devices these metals would amaze us with their performance”… And that’s exactly what’s been going on these last 3 trading days… Friday, Monday, and today so far…   

One of the things that has helped the Gold price continue to amaze is the HUGE flows of investments into the Gold ETF…   To each his own I say, but to me, you don’t really own Gold unless you can hold it…  I’m just saying…   The ETF for Gold is a method to own the price of Gold, you can get your physical Gold out of an ETF if you so desire, but it will be like getting a tooth pulled without Novocain!  I’m just saying..

The price of Oil has bumped higher to a $63 handle this morning, and the 10-year saw some trimming of its yield to 4.13% this morning…  I would think that mini drop in yield represents the Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel in shaving some of the yield off so that it doesn’t get too high…  Think about that for a minute… Who or what entity has the wherewithal to manipulate bond yields in their favor?   There’s only one…  Sad to say, that it’s the Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel…  They print; they buy…   In the video I mention below, I made a BIG Point of saying that the Fed printed money to buy bonds back then… They’re still in the bond buying business even though they say they aren’t… 

Well, I have something from the archives for you today…  In 2012, I was in Vancouver to speak, and a friend of EverBank, Jeff Clark came to me and asked me to a quick interview on camera… Of course, I said yes…  Now, please keep in mind that this was 13 years ago… I was HUGE at that time, I still had all my teeth, and my eye had just been taken out the previous year, so I was still working to get it to open right…  But with no further ado…  here’s the link: Chuck Butler – EverBank

I hope you get a kick out that… 

Yesterday, I told you about the new Fed Head, Stephen Miran, who had voted for a 50 Basis Points rate cut, but was out voted for a 25 Basis Point rate cut… Well, Mr. Miran doubled down yesterday and called for his fellow Fed heads to cut rates 200 Basis Points!  See? Didn’t I josh yesterday that he should just say “take rates to zero”!  This guy is a “plant” by the POTUS to influence the other Fed Heads to go down his road of major rate cuts…   

Hey! Maybe the economy could use a rate cut, but what the economy doesn’t need is inflation soaring again, and that’s exactly what this is all about, getting inflation soaring to help with the debt…  Bill Bonner coined the term: Inflate or Die…  And the Fed Heads have chosen their method of death by a thousand cuts and that is with inflation…  Money supply is still strong, and that along with weaker rates will invite inflation into the economy without RSVPing… 

Circling back to dollar, and the Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel for a minute…  The credibility of the Fed Heads has gone to hell in a hand basket, and it’s their own fault, for they brought this scenario for them to everyone’s attention, with their meddling in the markets, their insistence that inflation was only temporary, and their manipulating bond yields, and their blatant disregard for the middle class’s struggles with inflation… The list is long here, and I won’t detail all of the items that the Fed Heads have taken on, but I did list the ones that I think are very important… 

So, what we have here is a Central Bank that is rogue… And that’s not a good thing, folks…  I recall a time when the Fed Heads were invisible to the public, and that they worked in the background, not ruffling feathers, not giving speeches to opine their opinions, not a major manipulator of markets…  But that scenario was thrown by the waysides by Big Al Greenspan…  And since Big Al, every Fed Chairman has been a mere shadow of the great Fed Chairmen of the past… I’m just saying

And this Central Bank will be a major part of the downfall of the dollar, along with the debt, the debt servicing, and Chaotic White House…  C’mon give me a reason why the dollar isn’t going to fall to depths it hasn’t seen in a while… 

The U.S. Data Cupboard didn’t have anything for us yesterday, just a bunch of Fed Heads spouting off about this, that and the other thing… Today, we’ll see the flash preliminary Trade Deficit for the first two weeks of September… it should be a doozy, and companies and businesses have been buying as much as they can ahead of tariffs… 

To recap… The dollar drifted lower yesterday, after a brief rally during the morning session… Gold & Silver had banner days with Gold going over $3,700 and Silver going over $44 on the day… Miran double down on his call for bigger rate cuts… What? He’s trying to ingratiate himself to the Stock Jockeys… Anything wrong with that? YES!!!! Can you say, soaring inflation? 

For What It’s Worth… I found this article on Bloomberg.com last night, because the football game on TV couldn’t hold my attention… And it’s about Gold & Silver and it can be found here: Gold (XAUUSD) Holds Just Below Record as Traders Wait for Rate-Path Clues – Bloomberg

Or, here’s your snippet; “Gold powered to a record in the week’s opening session after flows into exchange-traded funds hit a three-year high, with investors betting that the Federal Reserve’s rate-cutting cycle has further to run. Silver also rose, with year-to-date gains topping 50%.

The more expensive metal spiked to an all-time high above $3,700 an ounce, building on a run of five weekly gains, as the Fed cut rates and flagged further easing through to year-end. On Friday, bullion-backed ETFs surged 0.9%, the most in percentage terms since 2022, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Investors Buy Most Gold ETFs in More Than Three Years

Holdings grew nearly 27 tons on Friday, giving fresh legs to bullion’s rally.

Gold and silver have been among the year’s best performing major commodities on a broad confluence of supportive factors, as the Fed eases policy, central banks bolster their reserve holdings, and lingering geopolitical tensions sustain a bid for havens. Major banks including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. have flagged their expectations for further gains.

“Technical’s are looking pretty strong, and expectations are rising for deeper rate cuts,” said Soni Kumari, commodity strategist at ANZ Group Holdings Ltd. In silver, “resistance at $43 an ounce was broken, while gold powered through $3,708 an ounce — suggesting prices will continue to push higher.”

This week, traders will parse data including US personal consumption expenditures for August. The Fed’s preferred measure of underlying inflation likely grew at a slower pace, which may strengthen the case for more cuts. In addition, Fed Chair Jerome Powell is due to speak on the outlook on Tuesday.”

Chuck Again…  It’s all good news on the wires about Gold & Silver’s move yesterday, but as the report says these two have been on a roll for some time now, not just yesterday..  Are Cab Drivers talking about owning/ buying Gold yet? I’m just wondering, for when they do begin talking about their Gold, it’ll be time to worry about pull back, but until then… Onward and Upward!

Market Prices 9/23/2025: American Style: A$ .6608, kiwi .5864, C$ .7231, euro 1.1792, sterling 1.3511, Swiss $1.2612, European Style: rand 17.3205, krone 9.8973, SEK 9.3285, forint 330.70, zloty 3.6087, koruna 20.5509, RUB 83.62, yen 1.4782, sing 1.2835, HKD 7.7756, INR 88.75, China 7.1117, peso 18.32, BRL 5.3438, BBDXY 1,196, Dollar Index 97.36, Oil $63.01, 10-year 4.13%, Silver $44.36, Platinum $1,468.00, Palladium $1,237.00, Copper $4.63, and Gold… $3,783

That’s it for today… My beloved Cardinals are in S. F. So the game last night came on later, and I couldn’t say awake to watch them… I did make it for 4 innings… My trip to the PCP yesterday was good… The Doc said I looked great, considering all that I’ve been through… And then I told him about the recent adverse reaction I had with the last infusion, and he said, “another notch in your belt”! I’m already getting antsy about this Thursday, when I see my oncologist, she’ll want me back on the infusions… If I have another adverse reaction to the drug, then I’m up a creek without a paddle… This is the last chance saloon for me with chemo… As I told you months ago, there is no new chemo for me to take… So, fingers crossed, eh? Steve Miller takes us to the finish line today with his song: Living In The USA… I hope you have a Tom Terrific Tuesday today, and Please Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler

• currencies and metals rally last Friday & overnight last night
• The U.S. is happy with China’s currency rally

Good Day… And a Marvelous Monday to you! Well, my beloved Cardinals played their last home game of the season yesterday… and they won the series with the Brewers 2-1…  they’ll finish on the road… And then head their separate ways, with some of them not coming back to St. Louis for next season…  One of which, is the future HALL of Famer, Nolan Arenado, who received a standing ovation from the crowd when taken out of the game… War greets me this morning with their classic rock song, and one that I sing out loud to: Cisco Kid… 

The dollar got sold on Friday last week, with the BBDXY ending the week at 1,195… The euro ended the week trading with a 1.17 handle, as there were some comments late last week regarding the European Economy not doing so well…  Do you recall me telling you last week that the Chinese renminbi was rallying VS the dollar?  Well, over the weekend U.S. Treasury Sec. Scott Bessent had this to say about the rally of the renminbi… “US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent suggested he’s fine with how China’s yuan has moved against the dollar this year, while pointing out its depreciation against the euro presents a challenge for European economies.

“Well, they haven’t done it to the US,” Bessent said of descriptions of China having engaged in “opportunistic devaluation” this year. “The RMB is actually stronger this year versus the dollar,” he said, referring to the renminbi, China’s official name for its currency. “It’s at an all-time low versus the euro, which is a problem for the Europeans.”

To me, that was very interesting that he said that about the renminbi… For years, past Presidents often complained about how cheap the renminbi was… So, now, it’s rallying, and everyone in D.C. Is happy about it…  

Also, on Bloomberg.com over the weekend there was a comment about how volatility in currencies has gone by the wayside… Here’s the comment: “Advancements in electronic trading may be crushing volatility in the currency market, making prolonged wild swings a thing of the past.”

Chuck again…  Man, am I glad that I no longer was the lead trader of currencies on the trading desk at EverBank, when I used to work…  All this means is that the new weak dollar trend that I’ve talked about will take longer to get really rolling…  So, patience will be virtue for currency traders, or investors…  Because… just because the dollar’s weakness will be evident, it will take a while for it to be imminent… 

Gold ended last week on a high note, gaining $40 on Friday, and ending the week at $3,686…  And Silver too, had a good day on Friday, gaining $1.27 to end the week at $43.13… There were no SPTs in that were seen, for either metal…  Instead, they focused their attention on Palladium, which ended the week down $22 at 1,174.00…

Speaking of Gold…  Bill Bonner had this is his daily letter that he took from Barons: “Gold prices extended their extraordinary gains, with bullion prices surpassing their inflation-adjusted record set more than four decades ago.

Spot gold prices rose 0.1% on the session to $3,656.40 an ounce, topping the inflation-adjusted record of $3,498.77 an ounce established in 1980.

The gains followed another set of economic data suggesting mounting stagflation risks in the world’s biggest economy. Weekly jobless claims figures were at the highest levels in four years, according to the Labor Department, while headline inflation quickened to 2.9%, the highest level of the year.”

Chuck again… yes, we’ve finally passed the inflation adjusted price of Gold from 1980… Amazing, isn’t it?  Well, not that amazing considering that we have a Stupid Fed/Cabal/ Cartel cutting interest rates while inflation is rising… What dope does that? Well, we all know who that dope is… Shame, shame, shame, (in my best Gomer Pyle voice) 

The price of Oil slipped going into the weekend and had to settle trading with a $62 handle… And I told you last week that the bond boys are not believing the call for 2 more rate cuts this year, and ever since the rate cut announcement last week the yield on the 10-year Treasury has risen, and it ended the week trading with a 4.13% yield… 

In the overnight markets last night… the dollar’s brief rally was interrupted at a point during the night, but the BBDXY shows that the interruption was brief, and so the index starts today at 1,197…  I read a piece from a technical guy the other day, and he gave some levels for us to keep in mind for the old Dollar Index. (who still uses that?)  He said that the dollar was in deep dookie, and we should keep our attention on two levels.. The Dollar Index is currently at 97.47…  Should the index fall below 96, then the weak trend is confirmed, and if the index falls below 90, then the rout and future collapse of the dollar will be in…  Something to think about, eh?

The price of Gold is soaring this morning in the early trading… Gold Is up $39 to start our day/ week today, and is trading over the $3,700 figure… Silver, too, is soaring, and is up 53-cents to start our day/ week today…  If the SPTs stay away, this could be a day to remember for Gold & Silver… I’m just saying… Because in my opinion, if left to their own devices, we would be amazed at the levels of Gold & Silver… 

The price of Oil remained trading with a $62 handle overnight, and the 10-year is still at 4.13% yield this morning… 

Well… I got to thinking the other day, that I’ve been harping about the growing Debt for decades now, with no change to the deficit spending, we are now at $37.5 Trillion…  I thought to myself… “why do I keep harping about this because I’m not getting any traction on changing our direction”…  And then I came across this quote from a man with far more gray matter than I… Ray Dalio… This is from Bloomberg.com: “Ray Dalio said the US is unable to cut back on runaway spending that is piling up debt and putting the monetary order at risk.

“You’re seeing the threat to the monetary order,” Dalio said on a panel during the Future China Global Forum in Singapore on Friday. “Other factors together will determine whether we’re seeing the end of the entire US empire.”

Regarding the U.S Empire… I truly believe that it began its demise at the turn of the century… And continues to head down this path that many empires in history have already traveled…  Debt up the wazzoo, amies all over the world, inflation that won’t go away, and… Leaders who are blinded by the light (Springstein) and don’t see what’s going on, and even if they did see what’s going on, they don’t have a clue about how the past Empires collapsed…  I’m just saying…

Did you hear about the new Fed Head, Stephen Miran, the Potus’s pick by the way, dissented on the 25 Basis Points rate cut… and instead voted for a 50 Basis Point rate cut… Shoot Rudy, why didn’t he just say, “cut them to zero!?”  Because that’s what the POTUS wants…   Don’t worry, be happy, about inflation, that is the pipeline and will be given a free run at the economy with lower interest rates… 

And this very discouraging message came to me this past weekend…  China’s holdings of U.S. Treasuries just hit a 17-year low…  The Chinese are divesting themselves from automatically buying the debt from the U.S.  and this, my friend, will be very damaging to our futures… I’m just saying…

C’mon, Chuck you are a ball of love and happiness this morning.. Can’t you tell us something good? Well, I did tell you the good news on Gold, right? And I did tell you about the good news on Silver, right?   And all the other things I’ve talked about today, are just reasons to buy more Gold and Silver…  So, don’t blame me for all the bad news about the economy, debt, and dolts! They are easy Pickins… 

Spell check doesn’t like the way I spelled Pickins… But I don’t care!  I’ve got my arms in the air, and I don’t care!

Late last week, the U.S. Data Cupboard had the Initial Weekly Jobless Claims, which the previous week showed that 264,000 claims were filed… But last week the number of claims fell to 231,000, but don’t think that this is a turn in the momentum as I think it was just a outlier figure…  We also saw the Leading indicators for Aug, and they had widened the negative number from -.1  to -.5… And that, my friends is a Huge jump upward… And that doesn’t bode well for the economy going forward…

The U.S. Data Cupboard this week is pretty barren until we reach Thursday, when a boatload of data will be printed… Until then we’ll see a plethora of Fed Heads speaking, and some housing data, but the real economic data comes on Thursday, of which I won’t be able to write to you on Thursday, as I will be visiting my oncologist bright and early in the A.M.  So, mark your calendars accordingly! HA! I will remind you on Wednesday, for sure… The 2^nd QTR GDP will receive its 3^rd revision on Thursday… Just remember this about GDP… Gov’t spending is a major part of the data set, and last week I told you about how the U.S. Gov’t has really ratcheted up the spending, so when the GDP prints at 3%+, just know that it’s trumped up, and full of Gov’t spending… I’m just saying… 

To recap… The week ended last week with a down note for the dollar, and an up note for the metals…  Ray Dalio visits the Pfennig this morning, and Chuck is full of seashells and balloons (NOT!) this morning… Leading Indicators are showing that we’re heading in the wrong direction… And our debt and deficit spending is causing the U.S. Empire to head down the road of all the other Empires in history that have collapsed…

For What It’s Worth…  I saw this on Ed Steer’s letter last week, and saved it for all of you who own Silver… And it can be found here: UBS says silver poised for all-time high as investors flock to precious metals By Investing.com

Or, here’s your snippet: “Investing.com — Silver prices have surged to $42 an ounce, a 14-year high, on the back of record gold prices and a wave of investment inflows.

Following the rally, UBS has raised its forecasts for the metal, saying it could reach all-time highs in the coming year.

The bank now forecasts silver to trade at $44 an ounce by the end of 2025 and climb to $47 by mid-2026, aligning its outlook with a recent upgrade to gold.

“We flag that silver prices could reach an all-time high—a view that supports a long position in the metal or selling its downside risk for yield enhancement,” strategists Dominic Schnider and Wayne Gordon said in a note.

The rally comes despite sluggish global industrial activity, with investors drawn to silver by the same macro forces propelling gold.

UBS pointed to geopolitical tensions, U.S. fiscal deficits, slower growth, and the prospect of Federal Reserve rate cuts as drivers of demand.

Silver’s strong correlation with gold, typically between 0.5 and 1.0, has amplified these effects.

Exchange-traded fund (ETF) inflows underline this trend. UBS highlights that silver-backed ETFs have added more than 20 million ounces this quarter alone, bringing this year’s total close to 80 million ounces.

While significant, holdings remain more than 200 million ounces below their pandemic-era peak in 2021.

Looking ahead, strategists see silver benefiting further as monetary conditions ease and investors look ahead to a cyclical recovery. The team expects the gold-silver ratio to decline toward 80, supporting relative outperformance for silver.”

Chuck again…  as I always say, be careful when a dealer writes a glowing article about something they sell, it means they have a boat load of supply and want to get rid of it….  But something is different about this message, that I agree with, and that is that Silver is on its way to $50, and only the STPs will impede its progress… 

Market Prices 9/22/2025: American Style: A$ .6595, kiwi .5861, C$ .7242, euro 1.1777, sterling 1.3497, Swiss $1.2600, European Style: rand 17.2789, krone 9.9281, SEK 9.3853, forint 330.49, zloty 3.6166, koruna 20.5959, RUB 83.55, yen 147.85, sing 1.2829, HKD 7.7707, INR 88.31, China 7.1124, peso 18.39, BRL 5.3343, BBDXY 1,197, Dollar Index 97.47, Oil $62.37, 10-year 4.13%, Silver $43.69, Platinum $1,418.00, Palladium $1,172.00, Copper $4.64, and Gold… $3,725

That’s it for today… I’m heading out very soon this morning to the see my PCP… Every 6 mos., he wants to see me… I’m thinking that he will be happy that I gained some weight since I last saw him… He was the first to tell me to stop losing weight!  So, the letter will be out earlier than usual today, for I got up with the farmers while it was still dark-thirty out, to write, so I could get out of here and to the Medical Center..  My beloved Mizzou Tigers won last Saturday VS the Gamecocks of S. Carolina… It was a real nail biter for me, but the offensive line took over the game, and it was no longer a nail biter at the end…. Little Evie was here on Saturday and Saturday night… She will be 6 in Rocktober, but she thinks she’s 16!  I cringe for my son, Andrew, who will have to deal with her at 16!  Trooper takes us to the finish line today with their 60’s song: Round, Round We Go… I hope you have a Marvelous Monday today, and Please Be Good To Yourself… 

Chuck Butler