Author: admin

• currencies and metals both rally on Tuesday
• Is The U.S. coming out of the woods?

Good Day… And a Wonderful Wednesday to you! Today was the “day that music died” and no it wasn’t because of the Grammys…(although in my mind it would do the trick)  It marked the day that Buddy Holley, The Big Bopper and Richie Valens died in a plane crash… They were all too young to die… I almost forgot about it when I was writing the Pfennig this morning… I’m watching the ocean still coming from the north, which means it’s still chilly outside, in the 60’s today so winter is over here… It was nasty for here for a couple of days for sure! John Lennon greets me this morning with his song: #9 Dream… (some of John’s best work, in my opinion) 

The selling of the dollar continued yesterday, with the BBDXY losing 4 index points to 1,1887 , and the euro recovered to trade over the 1.18 handle again, and the rest of the currencies all looking much better at the end of the day.  Gold continued its advance from the overnight session during the day yesterday, gaining $269 to close at $4,969, and Silver gained $5.92 to close at $85.22…  Both were higher during the day, but the SPTs had to put their short paper trades in to keep Gold below $5000…  Silver was up over $8 at one point yesterday, only to see short sales whittle it down…  

The price of Oil rallied after seeing 3 days of selling, and end the day trading with a $64 handle, and the reason behind the rally was the winter storms that most of the country suffered through last week, really put a damper on supplies…  And the 10-year Treasury saw a bit of buying and its yield inched downward to 4.27%… 

I’m trying  desperately to not slap myself on the back, but C’mon folks, give it up for me here, I did tell you that Gold’s (Silver) drop would only last a short time… Some of you believed me, and I’m betting that some of you panicked and sold and said, “he’s full of B……”  Oh well, we move along…

Speaking of Gold…  my friend, Rich Checkan, had this to say in his daily work at Asset Strategies Inc.  “With gold trading near all‑time highs, investors who stay on the sidelines risk missing the bigger story.

Today’s record prices are not a reason to avoid gold—they’re a signal of deep, structural stress in the global financial system. Persistent inflation, rising geopolitical risk, ballooning government debt, and ongoing concerns around global currencies are all driving investors toward tangible stores of value.

In other words, gold isn’t just going up. It’s repricing the risk in the system.”

Chuck again…  You tell ’em Rich! 

And this from kitco.com…”After their biggest collapse in recent history, gold and silver are finding their way back into the light, posting their biggest one-day gains on record.

Spot gold last traded at $4,916 an ounce, up more than 5% on the day; meanwhile, spot silver last traded at $87.82 an ounce, up 11%.

Some analysts note that the recovery in the precious metals confirms a growing consensus that the recent selling pressure is related to short-term speculative positioning and momentum rather than a fundamental shift in the marketplace.”

Chuck again, do you get the picture that I’ve been painting for 3 days now?  These last two snippets should do the trick if you still didn’t see that nothing has changed about the reason we bought Gold (Silver)…

In the overnight markets last night… The dollar drifted and didn’t move too much, so we start today with the BBDXY at 1,189..  Gold & Silver have put the engineered takedown combined with a correction, and short timers jumping ship like rats, behind them as they continue yesterday’s recovery.. Gold is up $126 to start our day today, and Silver is up $4.78..  I don’t know about you, but I sure did a sigh of relief when there two metals recovered yesterday… The SPTs could have really put the kyboshes on these two, by going after them every day, but they backed off for now and that’s a good thing. 

The price of Oil dipped to traded with a $63 handle overnight, and the 10-year’s yield is 4.27% to start the day today… I had my days mixed up again yesterday, and said the Treasury’s refunding was yesterday, when in fact, it is today… I still believe that the Treasury will opt for refunding with shorter term bills and notes… I guess we’ll see, eh?

Well, recall when I told you of the POTUS’s plan to open Federal lands previously off limits to miners, and get the mining companies to go for it, to take over our dependency of raw earth materials from China?  And I said that I would have to be shown this whole process before I believed it? Well, the POTUS has now opened up what’s going to be called the “project vault” which won’t be just for the Gov’t’s holdings of rare earth materials, but also the public’s holdings.. So, it does appear that it’s on its way to becoming a real benefit to the U.S. economy…   

James Rickards says that the size of this project will be worth Trillions…  Pay down our debt, to more reasonable levels, and make America Great Again….   Well, there’s still a lot to be played out here, and as the Gov’t has shown, when they get involved things get wonky…  So, we’ve got that going for us.. 

Shoot Rudy, last week, I even bought US rare eaths… So, I’m somewhat a believer at this point…  This would be the end of all the doom and gloom that has hung over our economy like a dark storm cloud for so long now, and all my thoughts about a failing financial system, and our problems financing out debt and so on and so forth…  Now, this will not be an overnight sensation, it will take a few years to all play out, until then the dark clouds will remain over the U.S. economy…. I’m just saying…

And just when it appears that armeggedon will arrive on our shores, things will change… that is if everything works out in the POTUS’s favor…  

Ok, enough of that talk! Let’s talk about the labor market, which the Fed Heads have pointed toward to give them a reason for cutting rates recently…  Fed Gov. Waller had this to say: “Waller argued in a statement on Friday that the labor market is still in rough shape.

He pointed out that the economy only added 600,000 new jobs in 2025, down from the prior 10-year average of 1.9 million. And even that 600,000 gain last year could prove illusory once the government updates the data to be more accurate.

“Last year’s data will be revised downward soon to likely show that there was virtually no growth in payroll employment in 2025. Zero. Zip. Nada,” Waller said.”

Chuck again…  Yes, Waller and Miren were the two Fed Governors that voted against leaving the rates unchanged at the last FOMC meeting. These two instead, vote for a 50 Basis Points rate cut…   But I did like that he said out loud that referred that the BLS’s numbers aren’t trustworthy, and will be revised lower in the future… 

The U.S. Data Cupboard, I messed up yesterday, saying that the ADP Employment Report would print, knowing all too well that it prints on Wednesdays… Geesh, sometimes I’m just a dolt!  So, the ADP Employment Report will print this morning…  And that’s it for data today and tomorrow and will the Data Cupboard will be empty until Friday’s Jobs Jamboree…  

To recap… The selling of Gold & Silver ended in the overnight markets the previous night, and then continued through the day on Tuesday, until late in the trading session, when the SPTs sold Gold & Silver short, and pared down their daily gains… Their daily gains were still very good, and strong, but well off their highs for the day.  The dollar got sold and has returned to the underlying weak trend…  And Chuck talks about rate earths, mining and what it will do for us ….

For What It’s Worth… This is a very sobering article folks… only read it if you’ve put away all the sharp objects… I’m serious here… This is an article that goes through the job losses of AI and asks the question what will we do? And it can be found here: AI Revolution: The Case for Universal Basic Income

Or, here’s your very long snippet: “Something fundamental has shifted, and pretending otherwise is nothing short of denial. The AI revolution is here, and it’s gutting entire sectors with hurricane force. This isn’t an industrial transition, nor a replay of mechanization or globalization. It is a technological rupture of a different magnitude. Machines replacing not only muscle but cognition itself: judgment, pattern recognition, reasoning. And it’s advancing at a pace that outstrips legislation, labor markets, and political capacity, moving faster than most in government are willing to admit.

The most sobering warning comes from Geoffrey Hinton, one of the architects of modern AI. Hinton hasn’t joined the hype merchants. Instead, he has joined the alarmists. His claim is troubling: AI capability is effectively doubling every seven months. Not every decade. Not every few years. Every seven months.

At that pace, change doesn’t arrive gradually but in overwhelming waves. First, it replaces what we dismiss as “menial” cognitive work — call centers, customer service, scheduling, transcription. That phase is already underway. Then it moves into clerical roles, basic accounting, paralegal research, routine journalism, marketing copy, and compliance work. Those jobs are next. After that, no profession is spared, not even software engineering itself.

Hinton insists that within a few years, AI systems will complete monthlong programming projects in hours. When that happens, junior developers will be removed rather than retrained. Teams will shrink. Entire layers will vanish. If the people who build the systems can be replaced by the systems, then no white-collar profession should feel insulated.

Lay out the timeline honestly, and it becomes terrifying. In 2026, AI replaces support roles. In 2027, it consumes administrative and clerical work. By 2028, it’s performing serious professional tasks at scale. By the early 2030s, much of white-collar America may no longer be necessary to the current economic structure.

This brings us to the politically radioactive part: The United States has no plan. None. No labor transition strategy. No reskilling conveyor belt capable of operating at this speed. No serious public conversation about income decoupled from employment. Just vague chatter about “innovation,” paired with the familiar promise that new jobs will somehow appear, as they always have.

We must dispense with the dangerous fiction and start facing the brutal reality.

A society where tens of millions are unemployable is not a sign of free-market success but a powder keg. You can’t preach personal responsibility to a population for whom responsibility has been rendered economically irrelevant.

You can’t defend social order while ignoring the conditions that make order possible.”

Chuck again…  This guy goes on to talk about Universal Income… Something I’m not in favor of, but when you read this you might come around to his way of thinking… This is our future, folks…What will the U.S. finances look like in 2030? No jobs, no taxes paid to the Gov’t…. AYE, AYE, AYE…  I’m at this point so glad that I was born and worked and retired long before this hits, but my kids and grandkids will have to deal with it… Sorry…. I wasn’t a programmer, so don’t blame me! 

Market Prices 2/5/2026: American Style: A$ .7027, kiwi .6024, C$ .7323, euro 1.1815, sterling 1.3719, Swiss $1.2888, European Style: rand 15.9555, krone 9.6512, SEK 8.9476, forint 322.13, zloty 3.5750, koruna 20.6135, RUB 76.72, yen 156.67, sing 1.2715, HKD 7.8123, INR 90.42, China 6.9325, peso 17.24, BRL 5.2284, BBDXY 1,189, Dollar Index 97.50, Oil $63.33, 10-year 4.27%, Silver $90.05, Platinum $2303.00, Palladium $1,846.00. Copper $6.06, and Gold… $5,055

That’s it for today…  Well, winter is over down here, as I sat outside yesterday, read and soaked in some Vitamin D…  We had a couple of days there that were not Florida like… But that’s over now… Thank goodness! Well, at least for me in S. Florida it’s over…  200 miles north of here, are still quite chilly..  I received a text yesterday from my friend, and former colleague, Ty Keough, who informed me that he’s in Puerto Vallarta and he didn’t have to turn on his heat!  Always good to hear from Ty!  Pitchers and catchers report in less than two weeks… And our Stl U. Billikens got down 13 points last night and then stormed back in the 2^nd half to win and keep their win streak alive! They are fun to watch, as it’s a different player taking he scoring lead each game!  Procol Harum takes us to the finish line today with their mega hit song: Whiter Shade of Pale….  I hope you have a Wonderful Wednesday today, and Please Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler   

• currencies and metals rally overnight
• Oil price retreats with no war…

Good Day… And a Tom Terrific Tuesday to you! Friday this week is the circus that surrounds the Jobs Jamboree… That should hole the market’s attention for a few minutes on Friday! They are such a fickle group, so who knows? The SPTs and short timers were still selling Gold & Silver yesterday, so no healing in those two just yet, but I do believe it will come… Again, I’m going to shout this from the roof tops… “Nothing has changed” except the selling now holds court over the metals. 10cc greets me this morning with their song: the Things We Do For Love.. 

The dollar continued its brief rally based on the thought in the markets of “no more rate cuts”, with the b

BBDXY gaining 3 index points on the day. Do I need to remind you that the dollar’s weak trend is not a ONE-WAY Street? I didn’t think so, but I did any way…. But in the meantime, what’s a poor boy to do? Well, I suggest that you do either of two things…. 1. Batten down the hatches and wait for the storm to blow over or 2. Back up the truck and buy currencies at cheaper prices… 

Gold lost $230 yesterday, and Silver lost $6.03…  The SPTs and short timers are trying to show you that what goes up big, must come down big…   I found this on kitco.com “Although gold and silver have seen extreme selling pressure, the fundamental outlook for the precious metals has not changed.

“Metal prices didn’t just correct on Friday – they deleveraged. Gold fell 10%, exceeding the largest intraday drop since the 2008 global financial crisis and the biggest daily decline since the early 1980s. Meanwhile, silver collapsed 30%,” the analysts said. “These extreme moves tells you this was not fundamentally driven; it was about positioning.”

Chuck again… I highlighted the statement above because that’s what I keep saying over and over again with no luck in turning Gold & Silver’s selling around.. 

In the overnight markets last night…  The selling of Gold & Silver ended last night, thank goodness! Gold is up $262 to start our day today, and Silver is up $8.  The turnaround has brought the “risk” back into the markets, and that is basically here because of Gold & Silver…  The overnight markets said, “enough is enough and bought physical metals at the cheaper prices, which you should have been doing!   But we procrastinate, and say, “I’ll do that tomorrow”, and then tomorrow comes, and we forget what we were supposed to do… I get it… So, that’s why I continue to harp on you to diversify your investment portfolio currencies and metals…. 

The dollar buying stopped overnight too and the BBDXY is down 2 index points to start our day today, with he currencies recovering a bit… The Chinese renminbi was allowed take another step in the right direction and starts today trading with a 6.93 handle… that’s quite a bit lower than a couple of months ago…  Longtime reader, Bob, sent me a note that he found that says something that I used to tell audiences in my presentations, and that is that “China’s Xi wants to move the renminbi to achieve reserve status for the currency”…   Yes, a wider distribution of not only the currency but the bond market is required fundamentals of a reserve currency, which the dollar holds tentatively now… 

I’ve explained this before, but it bears repeating now… China is not interested in short term moves, they look into the future and have long term visions of how things will be… So, don’t expect China to be rapidly making the renminbi widely distributed, and open up their bond markets… They will take their time and come about their mission on their timetable… 

I also used to tell audiences that I thought to achieve the reserve status for the renminbi, they would need to attach gold conversion in some percentage to the renminbi … Well, I told you months ago that the Chinese were doing just that in some form… So, it’s all coming into focus now…  

The price of Oil remained in trading in the $62 handle overnight, and the 10-year Treasury is inching higher with its yield again.. This morning’s yield is 4.28%

Yesterday, I told you that the price of Oil had remained at $62, but failed to mention that on Friday it dropped $3 because the U.S. held off attacking Iran… Apparently, the Oil guys had thought that the U.S. would attack Iran, thus slowing the Oil flow out of the country…  

More from Oilprice.com… “Winter Storm Fern exposed deep structural fragility in the U.S. power grid, with outages affecting up to a million customers despite years of warnings from reliability watchdogs.”

Chuck again… I know, I switched from Oil to electric on a dime there, but it’s still energy.. And the cold weather really put the grid guys on high alert…  I’ve been pointing out the problem with all the AI… strain on the electrical grid… And now this polar vortex that has taken control of 1/3rd of the country…. Shoot Rudy, the polar vortex, even touched us down in South Florida! I actually had to turn on the heat in our place for the first time since we’ve owned it…  The overnight lows hadn’t been seen here in over 15 years, far before I came south…  Back to the high 60’s today, and 70’s tomorrow, should at least put a smile on most S. Floridians faces… I know it will mine, for I’ll be able to go outside and read in the sun! 

The game of tug-o-war between the SPTs and China is going to play out a few more times as this plays out, in my humble opinion, but sooner or later the SPTs will give up the ship rather than but heads with China every time they try to take the metals down… 

On Friday this week, we’ll see the Jobs Jamboree… I wonder if the BLS will add thousands of jobs out of thin air, or will they leave the surveys alone?  I would bet a shiny quarter on the former of the two options here…  The BLS gets chastised by the POTUS, it gets its chief el jefe fired, but they still play games with the surveys from companies that tell what they did with labor during the previous month.  There’s no way, that the BLS will allow a bad report at this point.. 

I’ve said this previously, but it bears repeating… The U.S. economy is working in some parts and not working in other parts… The observers call this a “K economy” Well in my humble opinion, the spikes in the K will flatten out as the year goes on…  that is as long as the POTUS’s plan to mine the heck out of Federal land and turn our economy’s dire straits into happy days are here again….. I told you about it a few months ago, as James Rickards reported it, but like I said then, I’m from Missouri, they are going to have to show me”…. 

The other thing that will go on and happen later today, is the refinancing announcement by the Treasury…  They have a large refinancing today, and it will be interesting to see if the Treasury opts for a spread-out issuance, or will he bulk up the T-Bills and other short bonds?  I think with all the questions going around the merry-go-round these days regarding rate cuts (yes or no?) The Treasury will not want to go out too long…. Yes, interest rates are much lower this year than in the past few years, but the debt servicing costs will continue to take a HUGE bite of our finances, given that the size of the issuance continues to grow… 

The U.S. Data Cupboard doesn’t have much on the docket today and only has the ADP Employment Report for our viewing tomorrow morning, it is NOT forecast to show a recovery in jobs during December…  I read a report on the hill.com   that talked about how AI is going to cause major job losses going forward… I think that call centers are already going in the automated direction, along with clerical staff, and others… It’s already started in my humble opinion…  I’ll have that for you in tomorrow’s FWIW, so make sure you come back to read it!

To recap… The selling of Gold & Silver continued on Monday… Chuck is waiting for the Chinese to step in from of this selling bus and say no mas!  Chuck repeats his thought that everyone that owns Gold & Silver should take to heart and that is: that nothing has changed in the fundamentals as to why you bought Gold…. the U.S. didn’t attack Iran and so the price of Oil drops… And what Chuck has been waiting for started last night… 

For What It’s Worth… I found this on Kitco.com and it’s about the recent pull-back of the metals and then goes about talking about how it should be short-lived…  This is a very long article but I carved out the piece I wanted you to read… if you have the time to read it all, then you can find the article here: Gold and silver prices set to consolidate after a parabolic spike | Kitco News

Or, here’s your very long snippet: “Roughly $9–10 trillion of U.S. Treasury debt will mature in 2026, forcing markets, not policymakers, to decide what long-dated capital is worth in a country running persistent primary deficits with no political appetite for restraint from either side of the aisle.

Inflation will rise even further when the money supply expands beyond productive output. Politicians have lost all discipline because government continually votes to raise budgets and prolong a problem the Fed is powerless to stop.

The debt crisis has been rapidly snowballing in magnitude, with those in power having zero intention of stopping it from destroying the dollar’s purchasing power further.

Following the U.S. government shutdown in Q4 2025, what began to shift is not the existence of debt but how it is considered. Capital is no longer free, duration is no longer ignored, and credibility is no longer assumed. None of this is sudden, or even radical. It is simply arithmetic reasserting itself after decades of being deferred.

After deciding to research how the financial system functions over twenty years ago, I discovered that the system was living on borrowed time – financially, politically, and institutionally.

The sharply rising gold price could be telling us that 2026 may be the year when the bill comes due, while global investors simultaneously decide they need hard assets as a hedge against an obvious dollar destructive policy choice.

A weaker dollar drives more gold and silver buying, as more gold and silver buying validates the dollar diversification trade. Therefore, central banks are set to continue piling in with record purchases, and now private investors are following with Wall Street’s blessing.

After spending years of mostly telling clients silver was too industrial to be considered “precious,” and holding gold “paid no interest,” Bank of America has a $170 silver price target, while Citi just upgraded their short-term forecast to $150 from $100. In October, BofA raised its gold forecast to $5000, then raised it to $6000 coming into the new year.

The explosive moves in the precious metals complex we are experiencing is not merely just another bull market rally. Gold blowing through $5000/oz and silver clearing $100/oz so quickly represents a fundamental breakdown in confidence in the world monetary system that has been building since the 2008 financial crisis.

The extraordinary rise in both precious metals is the marketplace screaming that the global sovereign debt spiral has reached terminal velocity intermixed with increasing geopolitical turmoil, while generalist investment institutions and retail investors have only recently returned the precious metals mining space after leaving en masse in 2012.

Their recent return to this tiny sector is evidenced by several important benchmark precious metals sector ratio trades set to break out above significant 12-year resistance levels from long-term accumulative bases.”

Chuck again… yes, it was like he was writing about the pull-back in metals and then thought, “but the dollar is in trouble and that means the metals will rally”…   I find that sometimes I’m writing about something and then I think of something else, and I lose all conscientiousness with what I was doing!  I’m such a dolt sometimes! HA! 

Market Prices 2/3/2026: American Style: A$ .7011, kiwi .6039, C$ .7320, euro 1.1796, sterling 1.3689, Swiss $1.2863, European Style: rand 15.9808, krone 9.6816, SEK 8.9429, forint 322.67, zloty 3.5820, koruna 20.6150, RUB 76.88, yen 155.88, sing 1.2707, HKD 7.8127, INR 90.26, China 6.9379, peso 17.31, BRL 5.2316, BBDXY 1,189, Dollar Index 97.56, Oil $62.55, 10-year 4.28%, Silver $87.50, Platinum $2,245.00, Palladium $1,828.00, Copper $6.06, and Gold… $4,923

That’s it for today…  Man, that was frustrating to watch last night, as our Blues blew a 5-1 lead and lost to the Predators 6-5… For a period there, I thought that the Blues were playing their best hockey of the year, and then suddenly they weren’t! The Billikens play tonight and put their 14-game win streak on the line…  On Groundhog day, Phil saw his shadow, so 6 more weeks of winter…  (Don’t get too upset, he’s only right 35% of the time!) Only 2 weeks until pitchers and catchers report for Spring Training… I bet they are hoping for warmer weather for their start! It looks like on the weather calendar that “sunny and 80” won’t be in the cards this early spring, but sunny and 70’s will be in its place… Bob Dylan takes us to the finish line today with his song: Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door…  I hope you have a Tom Terrific Tuesday today

• POTUS names his Fed Chief…
• The markets see no more rate cuts…

Good Day… And a Marvelous Monday to you! And Welcome to February… Well Armageddon ruled  the metals the last two days of last week… By now I’m sure you’ve heard that Gold lost a total on the two days of $524 to end the week at $4,571… Silver was not spared as it lost $31.40 to end the week at $85.40…  I hope you had a wonderful weekend that ended with the alarm clock going off this morning… I would imagine that many a short timer in the metals, panicked and sold on Friday into the weakness..    I guess they never heard of the trading mantra of: Buy into weakness and sell into strength… Earth, Wind & Fire greet me this morning with their (make you wanna dance) song: September

What caused this major sell off of the metals? Well, POTUS named his choice for Fed Chairman on Friday and the markets freaked out… Keven Warsh is the name of the fellow picked to be the next chairman when either Jerome Powell steps down, or his term ends in May…  So, there’s all kinds of stuff going on here with this Kevin Warsh…  His history tells us that he’s a Hawk, and would tend to vote hawkish when he was a Fed member a few years ago…  At first glance, I thought and the markets thought that Warsh was chosen because he would toe the line with POTUS and work to get interest rates down near to zero again… But then someone pulled out Warsh’s history of voting, showing that he was a HAWK, and then all hell broke loose in the dollar, and metals… 

It was also the options maturity data on Friday that didn’t help things, and brought the SPTs into the markets under the cover of the expiration data… 

You know that everyone was talking about a pull back of the metals and then they would form a new base and return to rallying each day again…  So, this didn’t surprise me, the severity of it did, but not the pull back… Gold reached $5600 on Thursday morning before the SPTs went to work and it finished $215 away from its high… at $5,379… And Silver was also sold short on Thursday and finished $6.04 away from its high at $116… at $115.46 This was to be expected given the lofty levels that Gold & Silver had reached and was reaching higher on Thursday morning… 

But Friday was like I said, “Armageddon”… Monday’s price action will give us some indication of which way these two will go… Will there be more short timers panicking and selling? Or will they realize that they are selling into weakness and stop? 

The short timers, and the SPTs really did a number on the metals on Friday… But why?  Well, like I said above the Kevin Warsh announcement was the straw that broke the camel’s back…  The short timers were not any help, as one sale begot another sale and so on…  I say, well, if that’s what it takes to get all those that bought Gold & Silver for the wrong reason to be gone, then so be it! 

In the overnight markets last night… well, as soon as the markets opened overseas last night, Gold & Silver continued to get sold, so apparently all the short timers got the memo too late on Friday,  to execute their sales…  I really thought that China would step in overnight and say, “We’ve Got this” and buy boat loads of the metals… Maybe that’s still coming, but it isn’t here yet. The dollar is flat this morning as the foreigners saw the gain in the dollar last Friday, and didn’t want any part of raising it more… 

The price of oil remains trading with a $62 handle overnight, and the 10-year Treasury is at 4.24% to start our day and week today. 

The short timers were one side of the selling… the other was the SPTs…  These dastardly dudes were out in force, as Ed Steer said in his Saturday letter, “The Empire Strikes Back!”…. Here’s something else that Ed had to say: “BlackRock issued a warning five or so years ago to all those short SLV that there might come a time when there wouldn’t be enough metal for them to cover. That would only be true if JPMorgan decides not to supply it to whatever entity requires it. However, we appear to be far beyond that point now, as the short position in SLV will never be covered through the deposit of physical silver, as it just doesn’t exit — and never will. And if it does exist, it will only be available at a price far higher than what’s being quoted in the public domain now.”  www.edsteergoldsilver.com

The STPs were getting hit with some monstrous margin calls, and they had to do something to keep from paying these margin calls, so the performed an engineered take down in Gold & Silver, and covered their shorts that were leaking blood…  This was a planned takedown folks..  They are still there despite all the comments about how their power had been reduced, their demise had been greatly exaggerated…

And the dollar? It rallied like there was no tomorrow on the Kevin Warsh announcement… The dollar bugs saw the word “Hawk” and they genuflected….  The BBDXY ended the week at 1,1888, up 10 index points on Friday… So, one guy did all this damage in just having his name bandied about…  I shake my head in disbelief…  Keep your currencies and metals diversification, and batten down the hatches for now, this storm will pass, I’m sure of that, there are just too many things wrong with the dollar and the U.S. position on things that I see this all turning around soon..  I just hope I’m right! 

I mean, regardless of price, what has actually changed in the global economy to reverse Gold’s long-term trend? Nothing, absolutely nothing, say it again! (Edwin Starr) Yes, there’s been some irrational exuberance especially with Silver, which had gained 60% in just 3 weeks, but this short covering was also too much in my opinion…  So, load up on cheaper priced Gold & Silver would be my thinking at this point….  I’m just saying… 

I came across this in Ed Steer’s letter that can be found here: www.edsteergoldsilver.co  And to me this is very interesting because of the FWIW article I gave you a week or so ago from Doug Casey spelling out the risks of owning metals in an ETF, of paper Gold & Silver… here’s Ed… “One other thing that’s gold and silver related that I harp on in every Saturday column — and is getting more conspicuous as the months go by, is the lack of deposits into all the world’s gold and silver ETFs. In the last four weeks, there have only been 2,608 million troy ounces of gold added — and in silver a very counterintuitive 54.080 million troy ounces have been withdrawn.

And this is happening with both gold and silver at record highs in what should be a raging bull market in everything precious metals-related.

Compared to where they were in the last bull market, the amount of gold in these depositories should be at least 2x what it is now — and in silver…around 3x. Why this dichotomy exists, is one of the great unexplained mysteries of our time.”

Chuck again… The Trusts for these ETFs are failing miserably at making certain that they have the physical metal to match their ETF holdings… What would happen if everyone that owned an ETF decided to take delivery of their metals? 

The U.S. Data Cupboard last week had a PPI day on Friday, and PPI (Wholesale inflation ) showed that PPI rose .5 in Dec., and 3.0% YTD… That is the largest monthly move in PPI since, well for a long time… And gives us a look at what our inflation could be in the future…  I read somewhere that inflation could be over 6% in the STUPID CPI (we all know that this is held down) later this year…  If the STUPID CPI is over 6% then real inflation will be in the double digits.., Try to put some food on the table with that kind of inflation! 

And in other news… The POTUS named his new Fed Chairman of choice, and it is Keven Warsh…  So, let’s see, inflation is going to go higher and now we’ll have a Fed Chairman that will push for much lower interest rates…  See where I’m going with this?  I think you do, but if you don’t, think about how our economy will have much lower interest rates, exploding money supply, and inflation taking a hunk of flesh from our wallets….  This is NOT the way you go about dealing with your problems…  But then, I’m just preaching to the choir, right? But, at first glance, he (Kevin Warsh) is a wolf in sheep’s skin…  He’s going to side with the POTUS who wants lower rates and that’s that, no matter how he voted in his previous stint as a Fed Head… 

To recap… The dollar rallied like there’s no tomorrow and Gold & Silver saw selling on two fronts (The SPTs and the short timers) and at the end of the day/ week, we were looking at vastly differently levels for these assets…  All the talk was about how the POTUS named his successor to Fed Chairman Powell, in Kevin Warsh, who used to be a Fed Gov. And always had a “hawkish” vote in those days… The markets thought back and said, “he’s a HAWK!”  and the Fed Rate cuts went out the window in the eyes of the dollar bugs… The dollar gained 10 index points on Friday, and Gold & Silver were sold down the river all day and again last night… 

For What Its Worth… I found this on FXStreet.com and like I said the other day, I’ll highlight them more often as they are very kind to post the Pfennig each day… This is about Gold.. What’s going on with it, and why is it gapping higher in price these days? And it can be found here: Gold is not rallying it is replacing faith

Or, here’s your very long snippet: “Gold did not creep higher. It kicked the door in.

After blowing through $ 5,500 in early Asia, bullion is no longer trading like a commodity. It is trading like a referendum. Not on inflation. Not on rates. On trust.

Gold is not yet pressing north of $ 6,000. What is pressing higher is the narrative ceiling. When prices clear $5500 this decisively, the next leg is no longer spot-driven but expectation-driven. This is the phase in which forecasts begin to chase price rather than guide it. You should expect a flurry of revised calls above $6000 and even $6500 as desks are forced to admit they under-modelled a trade that refused to wait for permission.

This move is not about growth, CPI prints, or whether the Fed trims or holds. Gold is responding to something more structural and more uncomfortable. The slow realization that the anchors of the system are lighter than advertised.

Gold is the inverse of confidence. When belief in policy coherence weakens, gold ceases to behave like a hedge and instead acts as an alternative. That is what we are watching now. This is not a fear of recession. There is doubt about fiat stewardship.

The rally has been two years in the making, and prices have more than doubled over that period. But what has changed recently is not the story. It is the participation. This is no longer a central bank-only trade. The private sector has arrived, and it is not renting exposure. It is buying with intent.

Family offices are not trading gold. They are warehousing it. This is not a quarterly allocation tweak. It is balance sheet thinking. When gold becomes a generational insurance asset rather than a tactical hedge, price targets stop acting like ceilings and start behaving like mile markers.

The debasement trade is no longer whispered in macro circles. It has become visible in flows. Investors are not running toward risk. They are stepping away from promises.”

Chuck again… this article is very long and very good so if you have the time, please click on the link above and read it… Then you’ll have a whole different outlook on Gold and its future of which, Jim Rickards says it will reach $10,000…  I have my fears of that, because… What will our financial future look like with Gold at $10,000?  Something to think about, for sure!

Market Prices 2/2/2026: American Style: A$ .6953, kiwi .6013, C$ .7331, euro 1.1855, sterling 1.3692, Swiss 1.2884, European Style: rand 16.02, krone 9.6714, SEK 8.9252, forint 321.46, zloty 3.8587, koruna 20.4975, RUB 76.68, yen 154.96, sing 1.2798, HKD 7.8102, INR 91.51, China 6.9436, peso 17.36, BRL 5.2548, BBDXY 1,188, Dollar Index 97.50, Oil $62.11, 10-year 4.24%, Silver $83.58, Platinum $ 2, 135.00, Palladium $1,760.00. Copper $5.88, and Gold… $4,778

That’s it for today… I need to get this out front and center early so there are no misunderstandings… I will be going on my traditional Spring Vacation 2/26/2026 to 3/5/2026…  There won’t’ be a Pfennig those days while I’m on vacation. I love traditions, as you all know, and I’m a stickler for Traditions… So, I keep to all my times away religiously….  There also won’t be a Pfennig on Feb 18 and 19… As I travel back home to receive an infusion…. So, have you got all that? Good! Fingers crossed that the arctic weather they are now receiving at home has been abated by 2/18!  On Friday, 2/20 I will go to see my darling granddaughter, Delaney Grace perform as the lead in the play Mama Mia! She will be the star that I always knew she would be…My beloved Mizzou Tigers won on Saturday, and the Stl U. Billikens won on Friday night… Poco takes us the finish line today with their song: You Better Think Twice… I hope you have a Marvelous Monday today, and Please Be Good To Yourself! 

Chuck Butler

• the metals keep booking large moves
• Powell isn’t impressed with Gold’s move?

Good Day… And a Tub Thumpin’ Thursday to one and all! Well, I shouldn’t have said anything about trading in the metals yesterday morning was back to normal, because… The rest of the day was NOT normal! As Gold gained $244 and Silver gained $4.47… Simply crazy, but to me it shows what the metals would have been doing when the SPTs controlled the asset class… Not the way I usually start the letter today, but yesterday was so crazy that I had to lead off like this… The Moody Blues greet me this morning with their song: Driftwood

Well, as I said yesterday when reporting that the dollar selling had stopped, that the PPT and their treasure trove of money, was buying the dollar to prop it up and save it… This went on all day yesterday, and in the end the BBDXY gained 5 index points… So, the drop in the dollar will have to endure days like yesterday, when the PPT comes in to save it… But, just like the SPTs and the metals this gives you a chance to buy more currency when you diversify your investment portfolio… Yes, that’s how I’ve always looked at dollar rallies as long as I’ve been around currencies, which is since 1992…   And writing the Pfennig since 1993… or some form of it… 

So, the dollar gained ground yesterday, and so did Gold & Silver…  So, apparently, the metals don’t need for the dollar to weaken for them to gain, and that should have been the whole theme of the metals rally that’s been going on. But, the metals gaining is a sign that the dollar is getting weaker…  I’m just saying…

The price of Oil bumped higher to a $63 handle yesterday…  This from Oilprice.com : “Oil Prices Continue to Rise As US Crude Oil Inventories Drop” The cold weather in the U.S. isn’t helping any either…  The 10-year remained at 4.25% yesterday, with no interference from the Fed Heads…

Speaking about the Fed Heads… The FOMC decided to keep rates unchanged at their culmination of their 2-day meeting.  In the press conference following the meeting chairman Powell said that “We still see inflation as “somewhat elevated,” but said the job market is showing “some signs of stabilization” and removed language that “downside risks to employment rose in recent months.”

Well, this was the first time the Fed Heads even mentioned that inflation wasn’t going away…  It’s a start….  But apparently, they hadn’t seen the headlines on layoffs… UPS says they will cut 30,000 jobs, and Amazon said they would cut 16,000 jobs.. And those are just two that have announced job cuts… 

And inflation? Long ago I found a website that calculated inflation the correct way without hedonic adjustment and then forgot about it until… a dear reader told me about it. Then I went to my web browser and searched the history of sites I had saved… and there it was www.chapwoodindex.com  And they show inflation to have been: The  Index shows that the average inflation over the last 5 years is between 8.1% and 12.9% in the top 10 cities…   

I’ve said all along that rates should not have been cut, until inflation is below 2%… And even then 2% inflation each year will do major damage on your wallet… I’m just saying…

In the overnight markets last night… Well, the dollar drifted a bit higher, but Gold and Silver are back to pushing the envelope across the desk… Gold is up $118 and Silver is up $2.85 to start our day today… More explosive moves from these two are becoming the norm…  

The price of Oil bumped higher again last night and trades this morning with a $64 handle… I’m really impressed with Oil’s resurgence…  And the yield on the 10-year Treasury bond is 4.25% to start our day today… No interference here bond boys, so if you want to take the yield higher, you have a green light… i’m just saying

I had a nice chat with good friend, and former Big Boss, Frank Trotter yesterday… I really need to get him to agree to write sometimes… he’s such a great mind, and writer… Please?  

Ok, with inflation on the rise, and the dollar hanging by fingertips, the commodities are staging a comeback… The price of Oil is up $5 since the start of the new year, Gold is up 23% since the start of the new year… And I told you last week that this will be the year for commodities…  Well, if commodities are hip, then the Commodity currencies will be too,,, Countries like Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Norway, etc. will be bought because if Commodities are getting bought, then these countries will see renewed inflation in their respective economies, and require rate hikes…

And I’ll mention something that I first brought to your attention, probably 10 years ago… And that is the relationship of the Singapore dollar and the Chinese renminbi… I don’t know if you’ve noticed in the currency roundup or not, but the Sing dollar has really rallied lately, and so has the Chinese renminbi… You see Singapore has to mimic the moves of the renminbi because they are in competition for exports of pharmaceuticals and other things… So, if the renminbi gains so will the Sing dollar…  

The Aussie dollar (A$) is already seeing inflation rising, and I saw this “The A$ appreciated after hotter-than-expected Australian inflation data, released on Wednesday, lifted the odds of a Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) rate hike as early as next week.  And the A$ has climbed above the 70-cent level already! This was from the FXSTREET.com… They are always good about posting my Pfennig, so as much as I can I’ll be highlighting them!

And the dollar? Did you hear that the POTUS said that the dollar is still a “safe haven”?  This from Dave Gonigam’s 5 Bullets yesterday, “Asked yesterday in Iowa whether he was worried about the dollar’s recent drop relative to other major currencies, he said, “No, I think it’s great.

“I mean, the value of the dollar, look at the business we are doing. No, the dollar is — the dollar is doing great.”

And just like that, what had already been a precipitous slide in the U.S. dollar Index since mid-January turned into a rout.” 

Chuck again, I mean C’mon POTUS get real! Apparently he hadn’t heard about the story I told you about yesterday, where the IMF is making plans for a long selloff of the dollar… ”

And another preposterous statement by one of our leaders… from Kitco.com: ” The entire world has been captivated by gold’s and silver’s surging momentum as prices hit record high after record high; however, the Federal Reserve Chair is not very impressed with the precious metals’ accomplishments.

Many analysts have attributed gold’s and silver’s unprecedented start to the new year, in part, to growing uncertainty surrounding the Federal Reserve’s political independence; however, during his monetary policy press conference, Powell dismissed those concerns.

“The argument can be made that we are losing credibility, but that simply is not the case. If you look at where inflation expectations are, our credibility is right where it needs to be,” he said. “We don’t get spun up over particular asset change prices, although we do monitor them, of course.”

Chuck again… no loss of credibility? I shake my head in disbelief that he would say that… And he’s not impressed with Gold’s run? There’s loss of credibility right there!

The U.S. Data Cupboard is a hodgepodge of different data today… the usual Weekly Initial Jobess Claims will print, then the STUPID 3rd QTR Productivity will print, and then Factory Orders will try erase the memory of a negative -1.3% in the previous report… 

Tomorrow’s Cupboard will all be about PPI… (wholesale inflation)  

To recap… Yesterday, was nothing but ordinary as Gold registered its largest one-day gain of $244 and Silver had a banner day too! The dollar rallied after getting sold for so many days in a row… Chuck believes that the PPT intervened and saved the dollar … for now that is…  And the POTUS believes that the dollar is still a safe haven…  Don’t ask me what he’s thinking… 

For What It’s Worth… This article came to me from Bloomberg… And its about the Japanese Gov’t Bond selloff late last week, and that I brought to your attention earlier this week, and it can be found here: Japan Bond Market Crash Raises Alarm for Global Interest Rates – Bloomberg

Or, here’s your snippet: “Days after Japanese bonds crashed, sending tremors through global financial markets, traders were still stunned by the speed and breadth of it all. A quarter-point surge in yields “in a single session,” marveled Pramol Dhawan, a fund manager at Pacific Investment Management Co., “let that sink in.”

In the Japanese government bond market of old, it would take weeks — sometimes months — for yields to eke out, tick by tick, a move of that magnitude. For most of the 21st century, the JGB market was so steady — and interest rates were stuck at such rock-bottom levels — that Tokyo was viewed by investors around the world as a source of both cheap funding and of stability during times of global turmoil.

Last week’s selloff, accompanied by dramatic swings in the yen, made clear that those days are over. Inflation, long dormant in Japan, has taken hold and, moreover, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is pushing fiscal stimulus plans that would swell a government debt pile that is already uncomfortably large. As a result, investors have been frantically sending bond yields up to levels once unthinkable — more than 4% on the longest-dated JGBs. That’s exerting upward pressure on interest rates from the US to Britain and Germany.

Traders are braced for more disorderly market swings as Japan hurtles toward a Feb. 8 snap election for which both Takaichi and her rivals have campaigned on looser budgets. An even bigger worry for global markets over the long term is that the new normal of higher Japanese yields will prompt domestic investors to bring much more of their money back home. Some $5 trillion of the country’s capital is deployed overseas, and that’s even before accounting for the yen that foreign funds have borrowed for their wagers in financial assets around the world.

“It’s a new era,” said Masayuki Koguchi, executive chief fund manager at Mitsubishi UFJ Asset Management, one of the nation’s biggest investment firms. “I don’t think Japan’s yields have gone far enough yet. This is just the beginning — there’s a chance that bigger shocks will happen.”

T. Rowe Price’s Arif Husain describes Japan’s rising rates as a financial San Andreas faultline, with each tremor leading to feverish speculation over when the big one will come. The selloffs in the $7.3 trillion JGB market have been getting wilder and more frequent since the Bank of Japan ended its experiment with negative interest rates in March 2024, with nine occasions where losses were over two standard deviations worse than the average over the period.

Even by those standards, Tuesday’s selloff stood out. The plummet in ultra-long debt wiped out $41 billion across the Japanese yield” 

Chuck again… And that should be a warning sign for Global bonds…  I’m just saying…

Market Prices 1/29/2026: American Style: A$ .7039, kiwi .6060, C$ .7379, euro 1.1942, sterling 1.3789, Swiss $1.3057, European Style: rand 15.7843, krone 9.5736, SEK 8.8466, forint 318.89, zloty 3.5198, koruna 20.3500, RUB 75.73, yen 153.41, sing 1.2653, 7.8013, INR 91.95, China 6.9463, peso 17.17, 

BRL 5.2007, BBDXY 1,179, Dollar Index 96.39, Oil $64.77, 10-year 4.25%, Silver $ 119.65, Platinum $2.736.00, Palladium $2.062.00, Copper $6.27, and Gold… $5.534

That’s it for today and this week…  This weekend will be the end of January, so one month down in 2026, and we continue to get closer the return of Pitchers and Catchers at Spring Training here in Jupiter, Fla.  That is for my beloved Cardinals… I recall when the Cardinals trained in St. Petersburgh, FLa, Al Lang Stadium was where the Cardinals played their games, and the hitting cages (not really cages) were just outside on the backside of the stadium… We could walk right up and watch the players go through hitting practice… Those were the days my friend, we thought they’d never end, we’d sing and dance forever and a day… Chicago takes us to the finish line today with my 2^nd favorite Chicago song: Beginnings… The first time I heard that song, I was so glad that I had ears that could hear that beautiful music… I hope you have a Tub Thumpin’ Thursday today, and Please Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler

• Currencies and metals rally strongly on Tuesday!
• What’s up China’s sleeve? Chuck explains…

Good Day… and a Wonderful Wednesday to you! I apologize for the mix-up in the Pfennig yesterday… It wasn’t until I had sent it out that I realized that I had somehow used last Monday’s Pfennig! UGH! Thanks to Mike K. For pointing that out to me, he was the first to point it out to me, and at first, I denied the problem, but upon further review… I realized what I had done… And I greatly apologize for that!  Today is Chris Gaffney’s birthday…  If I was still on the trading desk, I would remind him that he’s halfway to the next 10-year marker of..  Oh, no I won’t tell you his age, but he is 10-years younger than me…. wink, wink…Head East greets me this morning with their great song from the Flat As A Pancake album: Never Been Any Reason… 

Well, the dollar got hammered yesterday… Aren’t you glad you diversified?  The BBDXY lost 14 index points… That’s the largest downward move I’ve seen in the BBDXY since I started using it! The old Dollar Index, still used by most followers of the dollar, but still unaware that it has an overweighting of euros, fell to 96.21… The euro closed the day trading within spittin’ distance of 1.20…  Apparently, the unknown tariffs are causing things to pile up on the dollar… 

We do have a  2-day FOMC meeting culminating today… Time to put away the board games and restack the cards, to hear what chairman Jerome Powell has to say at the end of the meeting…  I had said yesterday, that I thought there would be no rate cut at this meeting… But… Jim Rickards thinks the FOMC will cut rates today… So, there’s still a chance that the Fed Heads could opt to debase the dollar some more, and that’s another reason to sell the dollar, along with our creeping every so higher debt… 

OK, well yesterday was Gold’s day to shine… Gold, which was up $109 in the early morning, finished the day up $170 to close the day at $5,181… And Silver also shined yesterday, up $7.31, to close at $112.33… I had told you yesterday that there were “no worries” about the engineered takedown by the STPs on Monday, and I was sure glad that the metals proved me correct!

The price of Oil bumped higher again this time end the day trading with a $62 handle..  Apparently, the POTUS has sent an armada to the mid-East to block Iranian Oil from getting shipped out… I read that this could be construed as an act of war…  And since most of Iran’s oil goes to China, then that means that the act of war could be with China…  Please tell me that this is all wrong, and that I had a nightmare about this…. 

And the 10-year’s yield was allowed to gain 1 basis point yesterday to 4.23%… I have to give some kudos to the Fed Heads for keeping a lid on the 10-year’s yield… I don’t like it, but they’ve been true to their undertaking, and to that I applaud them, for they’ve put the fear of God in the bond traders that were trying to get the yield higher… 

In The overnight markets last night… The dollar selling stopped, just like that! The PPT must have intervened to save the dollar’s fall… The fall yesterday was very pronounced and evidence that the dollar is in real trouble and in need of intervention… And the PPT saw that and bought dollars. The BBDXY is up 4 index point overnight, and starts the day at 1,178…  This is what we’ll see from time to time in this new weak dollar trend. Remember that the trend is your friend, and not a ONE-WAY Street!  There will be times when the dollar will be en vouge, but it won’t last long and will return to the underlying weak trend soon… Alasdair Macleod says that “the dollar is dying, the coffin is being made ready and embalming fluids are in stock. And China is allowing the U.S. to make mistakes after mistakes…”  I agree, the dollar will suffer a long illness, but I doubt it will go away altogether….  You can find Alastair at www.macleodfinance.com  

So, my suggestion that you diversify your investment portfolio is bang on, and you should look to do that right away… again, contact my friend, and former colleague, Tim Smith at : GlobalMarkets@Battlebank.com they should be up and running soon.  

The price of Gold is up $24 to start the day today, and Silver is up 10-cents… More like the types of gains the two used to have before all these crazy trading days…  I think Gold & Silver have the momentum going for it right now, and all of you have played sports in your younger days, know how powerful momentum can be…  And this momentum will carry Gold & Silver a long way, in my humble opinion… 

Well, have you heard about a story that’s going around about how Gold’s rise in price is all in the POTUS’s plan?  OK, let me spell it out…  You see the Gold currently (supposedly) held at Ft. Knox is Valued at $42.50…  and Treasury Sec. Bessent has called for a revalue at today’s rate..  They could use the profit generated by the revalue to fund the POTUS’s sovereign wealth fund… So, why wouldn’t he want to see Gold continue its rise?  I know, I know, this is a conspiracy theory that will have to be proven, but the one thing we do know as fact is that the POTUS has long wanted a weaker dollar… And with the dollar falling right now, the run to Gold is even stronger…. I’m just saying…

The price of Oil remained in the $62 handle overnight.. The new method of storing Oil on tankers is gaining interest among Oil producing countries… But this is only temporary folks, these tankers need to get to sea, and get to their destination, without interference… I’m just saying…

And the 10-year’s yield has bumped higher to a 4.25% yield this morning… So far no sign of the Fed Heads performing their yield control exercises, so we have that going for us this early morning… 

Did I mention above that today is Chris Gaffney’s birthday?  He took over for me when I was told to retire by TIAA… I taught him everything I knew! HA!  This June it will be 10-years since I last worked a day on a trading desk… And 10 years that I’ve been retired… So, Happy Birthday Chris, I hope you have a grand day!

OK, This is serious stuff folks… China and Hong Kong signed an agreement to, oh shoot Rudy, I’ll let the folks at Chinadaily.com tell you: “The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and Shanghai signed a cooperation agreement on Monday to foster gold trading, putting flesh on the bones of a coordinated push to elevate China’s two major financial centers in the global gold market.

Officials and industry experts said they expect the deal to promote long-term interconnectivity opportunities, with a more integrated renminbi-based Asian gold market in the making.

The landmark deal comes at a critical juncture when “the strategic importance of gold has become even more pronounced amid heightened geopolitical uncertainty, inflationary pressures and ongoing restructuring of the international monetary system,” Hui said at the forum.

Chuck again… I’ll tell you what the Chinese have up their sleeves…  Basically, they see the dollar weakening so much that it will put pressure on the fiat currency system, and since they own so many dollar denominated Treasuries, they want to prevent the renminbi from getting caught up in the dollar’s demise… So, they will look to back the renminbi with Gold… Something akin to the old Bretton Woods Agreement… To do that they will need distribution centers around the world that convert renminbi to Gold when presented… And the Chinese have already signed Hong Kong and Saudi Arabia…  This will take a long time so don’t look for it to happen overnight… I’m just laying the bricks of a foundation that will be needed to protect China from the mistakes of the U.S.   

The U.S. Data Cupboard yesterday had the Case/ Shiller Home Price Index that I had said would probably show another increase, and it did, it did, I did see a putty tat! And the STUPID Consumer Confidence for this month, fell 10 ticks, from 94.2 to 84.2… WOW! A 10 tick downward move for this piece of data, in which its usually a pulse of the stock market, but with all the other stuff going in this country, I can see consumers not being so cheery…  And this is a 12-year low for the data… YIKES!

Today’s Cupboard only has the FOMC meeting announcement for this afternoon… What are you gonna do boys and girls? I guess we’ll find out later today… 

To recap… dollar seller took an axe to chop down the dollar yesterday as it lost a ton of ground to the currencies and metals… There are a pile of reasons for the dollar to get sold like that, and the reasons keep building each day… Gold shined yesterday as it was up $170 and Silver also shined closing up $7.31. Chuck talks about a stroy going around about how the POTUS wants to see Gold continue to rise…  And BMO issues a report that calls for some very lofty numbers for Gold & Silver, if you’re a metals holder than you won’t wan to have missed that!

For What It’s Worth…  Well, after my spiel the other day about listening to pundits’ talk about how they see the metals going in the next year, I have this for you today… And this forecast is not a willy-nilly forecast, they are calling for large increases, and it can be found here: BMO bullish scenario sees gold at $8,650 and silver at $220 by 2027 | Kitco News

Or, here’s your snippet: “Surging momentum in gold and silver reflects a shifting order in the global marketplace, as uncertainty over the future of government balance sheets and fiat currency resilience dominates investor sentiment, according to one Canadian bank.

In their latest precious metals note, commodity analysts at BMO Capital Markets embarked on a bullish thought experiment, examining the current drivers for gold and what they mean for prices through the rest of the year.

The analysts note that gold’s push above $5,000 an ounce in the first month of the year puts prices above their first-quarter forecasts from December.

“The world has changed. A call on gold and precious metals is a call on the future state of the world and the nature of the transition that gets us there,” the analysts said. “This calls us to consider bull case scenario for prices over the years in which a new world order is established, with potentially two more dominant spheres of influence, where nations in between are pushed to choose sides.”

While gold has been driven to new all-time highs as investors once again embrace the ‘Sell America’ trade, with the U.S. dollar and bond market struggling, BMO analysts noted that this is a global issue supporting broad-based demand for gold.

“Last week saw a huge sell-off Japanese bonds with accompanying dramatic swings in the yen, further raising concerns about traditional safe haven assets,” the analysts said. “For this bull case scenario, we stretch our model input assumptions to reflect a world where investors of all forms continue to add gold at a rate similar to, or even above, the rate seen over the first year of Trump’s second term. If we assume average quarterly central bank purchases of ~8Moz, quarterly ETF flows of ~4–5Moz, and ongoing erosion in real yields and the US dollar, this brings us to a bull case scenario for gold prices of ~$6,350/oz by Q4 2026 and ~$8,650/oz by Q4 2027.”

Chuck again… All I’m saying about this is that for the metals to get this high by the end of next year then the dollar will have to have fallen by a precipitous amount… Have you diversified your investment portfolio with currencies and Gold / Silver?  If not, apparently, it’s not too late… It’s late, yes, but not too late… 

Market Prices 1/28/2026: American Style: A$ .6999, kiwi .6030, C$ .7369, euro 1.1969, sterling 1.3770, Swiss $1.3002, European Style: rand 15.9021, krone 9.6391, SEK 8.8350, forint 318.25, zloty 3.5116, koruna 20.3110, RUB 76.25, yen 152.62, sing 1.2617, HKD 7.8020, INR 91.78, China 6.9459, peso 17.18, BRL 5.1970, BBDXY 1,174, Dollar Index 96.20, Oil $62.42, 10-year 4.25%, Silver $112.43, $2,652.00, Palladium $1,984.00, Copper $5.97, and Gold… $5,255

That’s it for today… Whew! What a day yesterday in the metals and dollars…  We haven’t seen many like them right? Did I mention that today is Chris Gaffney’s Birthday? Oh, I did… sorry, just making sure I didn’t miss mentioning it! The StL U Billikens made a 2^nd half comeback hold and beat George Washington U last night, while my beloved Mizou Tigers couldn’t hit free throws and got smoked at Alabama last night…  The Billikens’ game was great as they fought back from a 15-point deficit… Our Blues lost last night on home ice… That’s not a good thing… Ok, Hamilton, Joe, Frank and Reynolds take us to the finish line today with their song: Fallin’ In Love…  I hope you have a Wonderful Wednesday today, and Please Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler

• The dollar continues to get sold…
• The metals are back on the rally tracks this morning

Good Day… And a Tom Terrific Tuesday to you! Well, that was quite the snowstorm that went through St. Louis Saturday and Sunday, eh? Back home wasn’t the only area that got hammered over the weekend with snow and cold… Be careful out there driving in and shoveling snow… All I can say is that it was sunny and 85 yesterday down here… Not to rub it in, but to illustrate why I have come here every winter since 2016…  Of course, later that year, I was told that I needed to retire…  That’s a long story that I don’t care to rehash today…  But I do remember cleaning out my office on a Sunday, when no one else was around, and then taking all my books, and personal things down to my car and leaving the garage for the last time… I turned up my radio real loud, and sang along with the songs, so it was good thing no one else was there!  Poco greets me this morning with their great song: Rose of Cimarron… A great morning song!

Well, Durable Goods printed yesterday, and surprised on the Up side, but the UP was supplied with aircraft sales, and other items that we won’t see on the list for another 3 years… Gold & Sliver didn’t let the strong data get in their way of a strong rally… The only thing that could get in the way were the SPTs… And they made sure that everyone knew that they still existed…  Throw in some profit taking from the short-timers and the strong rally in both was watered down greatly… Gold rose $28, but you may recall me telling you yesterday that Gold was up $109 in the morning… Silver saw that kind of trading that Gold saw, gaining $1.25, and this was after being up more than $6 in the morning…  Gold ended the day at $5,011, and Silver ended the day at $105.62

Here’s Ed Steer’s take on the trading in metals yesterday, “With another epic margin call for the shorts in the works, ‘da boyz’ did what they had to do — and they didn’t take any prisoners in all four. It certainly looks like they’re trying to turn the precious metals market lower…but I doubt they’ll have any more success than they’ve had recently…which ain’t much.

It should be pointed out that the DXY bottomed out minutes after 11 a.m. — and despite its ensuing rally, the precious metals continued to power higher — and the engineered price declines came two hours after that. It was yet another day where the moves in the DXY were mostly irrelevant, compared to what was unfolding in the precious metals arena in the precious metals arena.  Not all of it, mind you…but most of it.” = Ed Steer at edsteer@goldsilver.com 

The dollar ended the day with the BBDXY trading at 1,187…  That’s down 1 more index point from where it started in the morning, at 1,188…  The wildness of the Japanese bond market had really thrown the bond boys for a loop… The Japanese 10-year Gov’t Bond yield had hit a moon shot last Friday, gaining 25 basis points in one day to 2.34%…  That’s a crazy move in bonds, folks… I’ve seen months go by before seeing a bond yield gain 25 Basis Points! I would guess all those hedge funds and bond desks that were long Japanese bonds were cussing them on Friday…

I talk about this because this is the culprit that the Gov’t and dollar bugs hung their hats on with regards to why the dollar had fallen so greatly in recent days… I say hogwash! I’ll give them a basis point or two, but 8 index points since last Thursday tells me that the dollar is getting sold on a wide basis…  And that tells me that my call for a the beginning of a weak dollar trend is here in earnest…  Of course, we could see the PPT step in and attempt to put a floor under the dollar…  But how many times can they do that until the markets see the move for what it is, an attempt to save the dollar, before they go hog-wild in selling the dollar?

The price of Oil dipped yesterday and ended the day trading with a $60 handle… And our U.S. treasury 10-year saw some selling and the yield on the bond ended the day with a 4.22% yield. 

In the overnight markets last night… Well, the IMF issued a statement yesterday that they were preparing for a deep run of selling the dollar…  Well, they are getting their preparations a run for their money… The BBDXY is down 5 index points to start our day, and the “Sell America” feeling is really starting to take hold.  The currencies are all looking much better these days, and the Petrol currencies get an extra boost with the price of Oil higher…  The euro this morning is 1.1905… It’s been a month of Sundays since the euro was this strong…  You’re not too late to diversify your investment portfolio with currencies so that all the dollar denominated investments get some diversity…  Again, my friend, and former colleague, Tim Smith runs the currency / metals desk at Battle Bank… And you can send him an email and find out what he has up his sleeve (not like Bullwinkle!) you can find him here: GlobalMarkets@Battlebank.com    

Gold & Silver shrugged off the STP’s engineered take down yesterday, and are back on the rally tracks this morning with Gold up $76 and Silver up $8 to start our day….  There’s just no amount of short trading that can keep these two down right now… Platinum and Palladium have really been getting bought too, with Palladium trading over $2,000, and Platinum over $2,600! Copper is attempting to mount a rally, but the SPTs continue to keep a lid on the industrial metal. 

The price of Oil remained trading with a $60 handle overnight, and the 10-year Treasury’s yield remained at 4.22% overnight, so no changes here. I can’t blame the bond boys that want to take the 10-year’s yield higher, for every time they do, the Fed Heads come in a do some yield control…  Keep at it boys, sooner or later the Fed Heads will give up! 

Yesterday, I told you that the FOMC had been in keeping a lid on the 10-year’s yield…  Then I talked about how Japanese yen had rallied VS the dollar…  Her’s Wolf Street with their take on all that: “On around midday Friday came the latest step, a “rate check,” with which Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent attempted to put a floor under the yen that had plunged against the dollar, and push back down long-term US Treasury yields that had surged, as he saw the turmoil in the Japanese bond market, and the plunge of the yen, bleeding over into the US.

The New York Fed, at the request of the Treasury Department and acting as fiscal agent for the Treasury Department, asked its primary dealers what exchange rate they would get if the NY Fed started buying yen through them. This “rate check” was a signal that the US government is ready to intervene in the currency market to support the yen against the USD.”

Chuck Again… Well, even if the Treasury didn’t actually intervene in the currency market, they did …  When the rest of the world knows that the U.S. is looking to sell dollars and buy yen… They say, “we’ll sell dollars too, and buy Gold”…

I found this on FXSTREET.COM… These are the nice people that repost the Pfennig each day that I write it… I have no idea how many people read it there, but it helps get the word out!  Any old way here is the article: “The US Dollar (USD) ended the week near a four-month low of around 97.80, maintaining a weak tone amid risk aversion in financial markets. Concerns escalated after US President Donald Trump threatened to impose 10% tariffs on eight European countries, which would increase over time unless Denmark agrees to sell Greenland to the US. Tensions remained high until Trump, along with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, announced a framework for a future deal regarding Greenland on Wednesday.”

Chuck again… The FXSTREET.com has been a source of information for me for a very long time.  So, they reiterated what I had chronicled as to the reasons for the dollar’s weakness, but like I always say, it’s sometimes good to hear another voice singing from the same song sheet! 

Stop me if you’ve hears this before, but Germany is telling the U.S. that they want their physical Gold… Here’s the good folks at GATA with their post: “Germany has been urged to withdraw gold worth more than L100 billion from American vaults because Donald Trump’s unpredictability has made keeping it there too “risky.”

The country stores 1,236 tons of gold, roughly the same weight as three Air Force 1 jets, at the U.S. Federal Reserve in New York, worth around E164 billion (E122 billion).”

Chuck again… Good luck with that request… Do you recall all the hullabaloo that went on the last time Germany asked for some of their Gold to be returned? This has got to be coming about because of all the problems the U.S. returning that bit of Gold to Germany…  Their claim that “Trump’s too unpredictable” is hogwash and window dressing for the real problem… 

The U.S. Data Cupboard yesterday had the beefed-up Durable Goods Orders I talked about at the start today… I still say that going from negative 1.2% the previous month, to a 5.34%, isn’t for real… and I stand by that! 

Today’s Cupboard has the STUPID Consumer Confidence for this month (real live data, YAHOO!) and the Case/Shiller Home Price Index for Nov… I would think that this data would still show home prices increasing… But maybe not… I guess we’ll see, eh?

For What It’s Worth…. This article comes to me via The Guardian, and it’s about how he POTUS turmoil has really propelled Gold higher and it can be found here: Gold price jumps above $5,000 an ounce for first time amid Trump turmoil | Gold | The Guardian

Or, here’s your snippet: “The price of gold has jumped above $5,000 an ounce for the first time as Donald Trump’s chaotic policies and proclamations drive more investors to seek safe harbour in the precious metal.

Gold reached a record high of $5,100 (£3,723) on Monday morning, before easing back to settle up 2.2% at $5,091.

The moment came after Trump threatened Canada with 100% tariffs if Ottawa made “a deal with China”, and after the US president’s showdown with Europe over the future of Greenland.

With global financial markets already jittery, there are also rising fears of another US shutdown after Democrats threatened funding for the Department of Homeland Security after federal immigration agents killed a man in Minneapolis on Saturday.

Monday’s milestone is the latest in an extraordinary and historic run for gold, the price of which has jump by almost 90% since Trump’s second inauguration a little over a year ago.”

Chuck again… Well, Gold was in need badly of a another type of fuel to get it going again, and it’s found it according to the Guardian… 

Market prices 1/27/2006: American Style: A$ .6944, kiwi .5991, C$ .7303, euro 1.1905, sterling 1.3727, Swiss $1.2953, European Style: rand 16.0082, krone 9.7278, SEK 8.8959, forint 319.90, koruna 20.3845,  RUB 76.41, yen 153.88, sing 1.2859, HKD 7.80003, INR 91.72, China 6.9547, peso 17.31, BRL 5.2681, BBDXY 1,184, Dollar Index 96.67, Oil $60.50, 10-year 4.22%, Silver $111.38, Platinum $2,698.00, Palladium $2.050.00, Copper $5.87, and Gold… $5,087.90

That’s it for today… Well, back home they won’t see temps above the freezing level until next week… Did someone say something about global warming? Our StL U. Billikens (#21 in the rankings) play tonight, as does my beloved Mizzou Tigers…  The Tigers beat OU last Saturday with 2 buzzer beaters in the same game! I’ll have one game on the TV and the other on my laptop or phone…  They seem to be playing games on the same days, UGH! The teams are set for the Super Bowl in the NFL… The Seahawks and the Patriots… The two combatants played in the Super Bowl against each other a few years ago… So, this is the rematch… I still don’t know why Seattle opted to pass on the goal line instead of handing the ball off to the beast (Marshawn Lynch) and win the game… Woody Hayes used to say that two out of three things with a pass are bad outcomes… And he was right! In this case that is… The great Nina Simone takes us to the finish line today with her song: Feeling Good… I  hope you have a Tom Terrific Tuesday today and Please Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler

Currencies and metals rally big time1

Sorry Charlie, no rate cut this week

Good Day… And a Marvelous Monday to you! Our StL U. Billikens won their game on Friday evening by a wide margin and moved to 19-1 so far this year… They are on a roll! Back home, they got hammered with icy cold temps and lots of snow this past weekend, and the snow hasn’t stopped! I’m so glad to be in the far South of Florida right now… We had mid 70’s and sun this past weekend, quite the difference of what they had back home. The great Wilson Pickett greets me this morning with his song: 634-5789…  He was “something” to watch and hear perform back in the 60’s… I’m just saying… 

Well, GDP was revised upward and the dollar got sent down the river for sale… Wait, What?  Yes, the “opposites” that we’ve experienced in the markets for some time now, came to a head on Friday with the BBDXY losing nearly 9 index points and ended the week at 1,192… The dollar hasn’t been this low since 2022, and this time looks like it’s going to go much lower… The euro has inched close to the 1.18 handle, and the rest of the currencies are all following the Big Dog euro, down the street to chase the dollar… 

This came through from Kitvco.com : “The private sector is following the trend set by central banks by diversifying into gold, prompting Goldman Sachs to raise its year-end gold price target by more than 10%.

Just weeks after setting a year-end target of $4,900 per ounce, the banking giant announced on Wednesday that it was raising its December 2026 price target to $5,400 an ounce. “

Well, you know what I always contend, right?  That whatever LOLA wants, LOLA gets…  For new readers LOLA is what I’ve dubbed Goldman Sachs…  

I always turn to Ed Steer to tell me what’s going in with the SPTs… he had this to say regarding the shorts in Silver: “BlackRock issued a warning five or so years ago to all those short SLV that there might come a time when there wouldn’t be enough metal for them to cover. That would only be true if JPMorgan decides not to supply it to whatever entity requires it. However, we appear to be far beyond that point now, as the short position in SLV will never be covered through the deposit of physical silver, as it just doesn’t exit — and never will. And if it does exist, it will only be available at a price far higher than what’s being quoted in the public domain now. Those short SLV shares are in equal dire straits as those short silver in the COMEX futures market — and I suspect that they’re the same entities.” Ed Steer from : edsteergoldsilver.com 

It’s always interesting in the metals… This guys says this, and that guy says that, and lots of guys are in the middle saying something else… Everybody has a position to trade, if you ask me… And that’s why they come out and say what they say… For instance, LOLA says Gold will reach $5,400 in 2026…  They must be very long Gold and need to sell it… So, always take what I provide you in comments about the metals with however many grains of salt that you wish….  

The price of Oil bumped higher again on Friday, and ended the week with a $61 handle… Things are getting interesting in Oil, and we need to keep an eye on it… I only see out of one eye, so that should be easy for me!

The yield in the 10-year Treasury saw a lot of Fed yield control late last week, and its yield ended the week with a 4.23% yield. The yield in the 10-year would be much higher if the Fed Heads would leave it alone, but they know better, right? NOT! They are a bunch of knuckleheads and don’t every think otherwise! 

In the overnight markets last night… Well, all hell has broken loose.. Gold is up $109 and Silver is up over $6… Gold has surpassed the $5,000 level, and Silver has gone past the $100 level… This move has come too far too fast, if you ask me, I’m not one to want an asset to go to the moon in a short time…  I Would prefer it to take the slow, steady route to the moon… But, it is what it is, and even through I called for the two metals to reach these levels, them reaching them so fast, isn’t a third world problem… it does mean that the route on the dollar on…

The dollar got sold down the river again last night, and the BBDXY is down 4 index points at 1,188… Sell American, including the dollar is the theme in the markets right now, and I can’t blame them… The dollar has held on to its lofty figure for way too long, with all the fundamentals against it… I’m just saying…

The price of Oil remained trading with a $61 handle overnight, I think the world is finding out that the glut in Oil story is just that… And demand is stronger than expected thus depleting the smaller Oil supplies….   

And the 10-year Treasury is seeing some buying (from whom?) and its yield drop to 4.21% this morning… So, we start the week with the prospects of an FOMC rate cut on Wednesday… But I doubt seriously if the FOMC opts for a rate cut at this meeting… 

So, I was bang on with my call that the dollar’s recent rally would be short lived…  Greenland, political fears, and the idea that more rates (just not this week) are on their way, has really sent the dollar to the woodshed… And once it begins to drop, it will continue to do so… I’m just saying…   

Makes you kinda wish you had gone ahead and diversified your investment portfolio, doesn’t it?  I would think it does!   

I read that the currency markets are on edge to start the week due to their fears of intervention by the Bank of Japan (BOJ)…  The dollar fell so much late last week that the EVEN the Japanese yen rallied VS the dollar.. Currency traders are fearing that the BOJ will intervene to stop this upward movement in yen… 

I’ve always said that the markets have deeper pockets than a Central Bank… That is as long as the markets have the cajónes to challenge the Central Bank

Circling the wagons here on the currencies for a brief minute… Shoot Rudy, even the Japanese yen is rallying VS the dollar this morning… This reminds me of the last weak dollar trend that started in 2/2002 and ended 9 years later. During this time, you could throw a dart at the roster of currencies and probably pick a winner…  I don’t think this time will be as easy, for a lot of countries have debt coming out their ear holes..  So, you’ll have to use that “stock of a country” criteria I’ve explained in previous Pfennigs… 

Here in theU.S. the PPT never gets challenged for their forays into keeping the dollar from falling off a cliff, .. I truly believe that the PPT is in cahoots with the Gov’t and gets their marching orders from them….  Maybe I’m wrong about that but I doubt it!

Well, Gov’t spending hasn’t slowed down, and won’t either…  Just last week,  The US government sold $654 billion in Treasuries last week across 9 auctions. $500 billion were T-Bills with maturities from 4 to 26 weeks, mostly replacing maturing debt.

Furthermore, $154 billion in notes and bonds were issued, including $50 billion in 10-year notes. Since 2020, T-Bills outstanding have now surged ~$4 trillion, or +160%. As a % of marketable Treasury securities, T-Bills now reflect 22%, near the highest since 2021.

So the Gov’t / Treasury isn’t changing their strategy so far, this fiscal year for the U.S. I complained about the short-term T-bills coming due in hoards this year and will have to be reissued with higher interest rates/ discounts… So, apparently, no one at the Gov’t / Treasury reads my letter…  Too Bad, So Sad… 

The U.S. Data Cupboard late last week was chock-full-o-data… On Thursday, the Weekly Initial Jobless Claims came in at the lowest level in years, 200,000… So, the hyped-up labor problem has abated… We saw that 3^rd QTR GDP was 4.4%… Sounds pretty good, eh? Well, remember that Gov’t spending is a BIG part of the GDP calc, and the Gov’t spending is off the board!  We also saw Personal Income +.3% and personal Spending +.5%…  The thing that I think most economist miss here with spending is that prices for everything is inflated higher, and that will cause spending to be larger… I’m just saying….

Today we’ll see the Durable Good Orders for Nov… They are so far behind that this data is worthless to me… you know, they used to print Capital Goods orders at the same time, but they no longer print it… Why, you ask? Because it never showed that Corp were putting their earnings back into the Company… Instead, they Companies buy their own stock… And that’s a different problem altogether and I don’t have the time or space to get into that right now!

To recap… It’s all about the metals these days, folks… Either you’re in them, or you’re not… I sure hope you’re in them…  The dollar is getting sent down the river for sale, and Chuck thinks this is just the beginning… 

For What It’s Worth… In keeping with the idea that either you’re in metals or you’re not, this article is about a guy that bought a boat load of Silver before the rally, and you can find it here: Meet The Man Who Bought $1 Billion In Physical Silver Before The Rally | ZeroHedge

Or, here’s your snippet: “The precious metals complex resumed its upward trajectory overnight. Shortly after the US equity cash open, silver surged above $100 per ounce for the first time on record, while gold approached the $5,000 per ounce level.

As Rick Privorotsky, head of Delta One at Goldman Sachs, noted to clients earlier, flows suggest some speculative participation, but the dominant driver remains structural: “There is clearly hot money involved, but first and foremost gold is a central bank trade… a slow erosion of the dollar’s exorbitant privilege rather than a sudden loss of confidence…”

What first came to mind as silver broke above the $100 level was Warren Buffett’s late-1990s bet on the precious metal. Berkshire Hathaway accumulated 129.7 million ounces of physical silver, or about 4,000 metric tons, ahead of the Dot Com bubble crash. The position was disposed of around 2006, generating a substantial profit for Berkshire.

Fast forward to October 2024, and we rolled out the Zero Hedge silver/gold coins and bars. At the time, silver was in the low $30s, while gold hovered around $2,600.

But on an even grander scale, several months later in early 2025, David Bateman, the founder of Entrata, revealed on X that he had purchased “close to a billion dollars in precious metals over the past six months.

To be exact, Bateman told his followers on X that he bought “1.5% of the annual global silver supply (12.69 million ounces).”

Earlier today, shortly after silver jumped above $100. He posted on X, “Congrats everyone on $100 silver. Couldn’t have happened to a better group of degenerate mildly autistic misfits.”

Bateman’s trade could easily be up more than 250%, though he did not disclose his cost basis at the time. Either way, it stands out as one heck of a trade. As for readers who purchased ZeroHedge coins and bars of gold and silver, the hedge has clearly paid off.”

Chuck again… The article goes on to tell the reasons he put this hedge on…. and it’s all the reasons that I’ve talked about for years now…  So, I also feel vindicated… I’m just saying…

Market Prices 1/26/2025: American Style: A$ ,6920, kiwi .5971, C$ .7318, euro 1.1865, sterling 1.3671, Swiss $1.2858, European Style: rand 16.0214, krone 9.770, SEK 8.9415, forint 321.49, zloty 3.5477, koruna 20.4505, RUB 76.31, yen 153.95, sing 1.2699, HKD 7.7947, INR 91.95, China 6.9542, peso 17.39, BRL 5.2579, BBDXY 1,188, Dollar Index 97.15, Oil $61.15, 10-year 4.21%, Silver $ 108.89, Platinum $2,389.00, Palladium $ 2, 151.00, Copper $5.97, and Gold….$ 5,091

That’s it for today… Today is my youngest sister’s birthday… Happy Birthday Joanie!  I hope your day is GRAND!  I had 4 sisters at one time… They used to dress me up and make me play stupid games with them… I only have 2 sisters left… And they live in Houston, Texas, very far from me….  The snowstorm that hit my hometown last weekend was like the old days… I truly believe in weather patterns, and I believe that we’re beginning a new colder weather pattern… Remember the covers of TIME magazine in the 70’s calling for a new ice age? Oh well, The band 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

• The dollar selling stops
• Ray Dalio visits the Pfennig today

Good Day… And a Tub Thumpin’ Thursday to one and all! We’ve gone into a rainy period down here with yesterday, today and tomorrow all filled with rain. UGH! A day without sunshine is a day without a meal, very empty… Florida is supposed to be the “sunshine state”… not the “monsoon state”! I truly have no idea how the folks in the Northwest deal with all the rain they get!   I wouldn’t last that’s for sure!  The Outlaws greet me this morning with their great song: Green Grass And High Tides… This is a over 9-minute song on the album but when performed live it would go on for at least 20 minutes! 

Well, the dollar sellers were going along just selling dollars yesterday, when suddenly there were frantically trying to keep control of the trading. The dollar selling quickly turned to dollar buying (on no news), which immediately got me thinking that the PPT must have entered the market and kept the dollar from falling down the rabbit hole… The BBDXY started the day at 1,204 and the selling brought it to 1,202, before turning around and ending the day at 1,206… UGH!   

The price of Oil bumped higher to end the day trading with a $60 handle (Still a long way from the break-even price of $80)  And the 10-year’s yield stopped rising yesterday, after the POTUS promised no military action to take Greenland and ended the day with a 4.25% yield. 

The price of Gold rallied on Wednesday, while the price of Silver saw a ton of SPTs.. And lost ground on the day… Gold closed at $4,832, and Silver at $93.22…  The SPTS have to let us know that they are still around and that makes me very angry!  For instance, Gold was $55 higher at one point in the day, and Silver was higher at $2.38… See? Yes, Gold was allowed to gain on the day, but the SPTs had taken their slice of flesh… And Silver just continues to be in the middle of the price war between the SPTs and China…  I’m pinning my flag to the mast of China on that one!

In The overnight markets last night… The dollar drifted lower a bit with the BBDXY starting this morning at 1,205… I really dislike the fact that the dollar has a “savior” in the PPT and the exchange stabilization fund… Why can’t the powers that be just let the markets decide which way the dollar goes?  Well, with inflation still kicking our tails at the Grocery store, and everywhere else, having a weak currency allows inflation to be imported into the economy… That’s why…. But in my mind, if something needs to be weakened because of fundamentals, then so be it! 

Gold is down and Silver is up this morning, a reversal of recent price action… Kitco.com shows Gold down $5 to start the day, but my records I show Gold flat at $,4,827…  And Silver is up 28-cents to start the day today… Don’t know what Kitco.com is smoking, but I’m going with my numbers! 

The price of Oil is bouncing between $59 and $60 these days, and this morning it has chosen the $59 handle…  And the “sell America” is really building steam folks… this is not good either! A Dutch firm issued a statement that they would sell their total Treasury holdings ($100 Million) just as a warning shot across the bow of the U.S.  and their Treasury issuance… With that the 10-year Treasury’s yield starts the day trading with a 4.25% yield…

I want to circle the wagons and go back to something I talked about last week and that is the rise in yield in Japanese Gov’t bonds (JGBs)…  The world is spinning right now about this rise in yield… The Japanese Gov’t Bond 10-year reached 2.35% yesterday… I know you’re saying that’s not much…  But it is, considering that Japan’s interest rates have been zero percent for two decades! 2.35% in Japan is HUGE! 

I’ve explained in the past that most of Japan’s debt is self-financed, by issuing the bonds and the Japanese people would buy them…. The citizens own a very large chunk of JGB’s, so right now they are sitting on large losses in their bonds, should they need to sell them into the market. Remember, when yields rise in bonds, the price of the bond goes down, and vice versa…  

The other thing that’s getting wiped out by the rise in JGB’s, is the carry trade… For years, Japanese housewives would sell yen and buy a higher yielding currency, and use their JGB as collateral…  But all of that is coming to an end too… 

This year is starting out very strange, don’t you think? Japanese bond yields are rising, Gold & Silver can’t be stopped, and the dollar is starting out the year on a down note… I didn’t even mention the weaker stock market too, but then I’m not even your last pick for a stock jockey! 

I’ve told you about my fondness of the writings by Ray Dalio and so he had something to say yesterday that I think all should hear: “Ray Dalio says global ‘capital wars’ favor gold over US bonds

The U.S. Dollar’s reign as the world’s favored reserve currency is under increasing pressure as trade wars discourage foreign central banks from buying U.S. debt, pushing Treasury yields higher.

“The monetary order is breaking down,” said Dalio in an interview with CNBC today. “Fiat currencies and debt as a store of wealth is not being held by central banks in the same way.”

Chuck again… yes, when there’s a Capital war countries decide to not hold other country’s debt and currency, and instead flock to hard assets… i.e. Gold… 

And I told you yesterday about Michael Checkan’s tale of the Taels that I would search for and print again in the Pfennig…  Instead, Michael and Rich Checkan sent me the pdf of the tale, and after reading it again I thought, “this is very long and would take up a full Pfennig: so, I’m going to give you the PDF so you can click on it and read it… This is very important that you do read it, for it tells the story of one refugee with Gold, and the other refugee with paper currency that was now worthless..  So, if you were wondering what that PDF at the beginning of the letter was, it’s the Tale of the Taels PDF. Just scroll back to the top and click on the PDF and it will come alive for you… 

The U.S. Data Cupboard finally gets something to look at today… First up is the Weekly Initial Jobless Claims, then Personal Income and Spending for Nov… (like this isn’t stale…) then the first revision of 3^rd QTR GDP, ad finally the PCE for Nov.  I don’t like stale bread, and I don’t like stale cookies, and I don’t especially like stale economic data… I mean they might as well just skip printing it and try to catch up so that the next time around the data is fresh!  Oh, well, it is what it is…. 

To recap… The dollar was getting sold yesterday, until it wasn’t, indicating that some dollar intervention had entered the markets… Gold rallied for the day, but Silver got whacked by over a $!  Ray Dalio says we as a coutnry are in a Capital War…  (Chuck listens to Ray Dalio)  And Japanese bond yields are rising and that has effects all over the globe including the U.S. And Chuck gives us the Tale of Taels as told by Michael Checkan…  

For What It’s Worth…  Well, I saw this article and it caught my eye and attention for sure for it’s a head of an Investment firm saying that commodities will be the king of the hill investments this year, and if can be found here: Bond fears are boosting gold prices, 2026 gains will be found in commodities rather than tech – UBS’ Michael Zinn | Kitco News

Or, here’s your snippet: ” Geopolitical and macroeconomic fears are pushing sovereign yields into dangerously high territory – with gold the chief beneficiary – while commodities, small caps and international equities will likely steal Big Tech’s thunder ahead of the midterms, according to Michael Zinn, managing director and senior portfolio manager at UBS.

In a Tuesday interview with BNN Bloomberg, when Zinn was asked how concerned he was about the ongoing market impacts of U.S. threats toward Greenland, he said markets appear more concerned with fixed income yields in Japan.

“This seems like it’s going to be a year of policy uncertainty and that’s just another example of it,” he said. “It’s a midterm election here in the United States. I would say that wasn’t necessarily on our bingo card a week or two ago. I think what’s driving markets, maybe a little more profoundly today is what’s going on in Japan, where we are seeing yields surge a little bit. That, I think, is a little bit more of a concern, because rising bond yields in Japan have been tugging on global yields for a while now.”

“Days like today, where they push the top end of the ranges and push U.S. rates to the top ends of their ranges, those begin to discourage investors from taking risks and encourage them to go into other things like gold.”

 Zinn said he wasn’t seeing much improvement in market conditions toward the end of Tuesday’s trading, with U.S. and Japanese 10-year yields remaining high and stocks languishing near session lows. “You’re seeing gold near its high of the day,” he noted. “That probably means investors might be advised to be a little bit patient, see how this works out.”

“We think this is all landing in a fundamentally pretty strong backdrop,” he added. “I don’t think this is going to haunt us for the rest of the year by any means. But these kinds of yield-spawned sell-offs can be sharp declines, and you want to just be mindful of patience sometimes being rewarded.”

Turning to which sectors may perform well in 2026, Zinn said the opportunities will be found less in tech and more in commodities.

“It’s a change in the music, I think, from the previous couple of years,” he said. “Of course, in the past, tech has been leading the charge, and the Mag 7, of course, have been on the top of everyone’s favorite playlist. This year does feel a little different.”

Chuck again… Yes, at least the start of the year seems a bit different in my eye, so I agree with Mr. Zinn….  And if he’s correct that commodities will be the big winners this year, then the commodity currencies will be popular…  They include the A$, kiwi, C$, RUB, BRL, and some lesser ones…  

Market Prices 1/22/2026: American Style: A$ .6805, kiwi .5875, C$ .7234, euro 1.1702, sterling 1.3421, Swiss $1.2610, European Style: rand 16.2110, krone 9.8971, SEK 9.2580, forint 327.40, zloty 3.5920, koruna 20.7818, RUB 75.71, yen 158.65 sing 1.2837, HKD 7.7975, INR 91.62, China 6.9774, peso 17.48, BRL 5.3165, BBDXY 1,205, Dollar Index 98.77, Oil $59.83, 10-year 4.25%, Silver $93.92, Platinum $2,508.00, Palladium $1,876, Copper $5.76, and Gold… $4,830

That’s it for today and this week… A short week for me, (YAY!)  The Stl U. Billikens have an afternoon affaire at St. Bonaventure tomorrow… I sure hope they worked on finishing out a game on the road… I really like this Billikens team this year, they all score and that’s a good thing! Only 19 more days until Pitchers and Catchers report for Spring Training! Our Blues still can’t put together a win streak of more than 2 games… And when they lose they just can’t generate any scoring… So, that’s a problem they need to correct…  The Troggs takes us to the finish line today with their song that I heard on TV Commercial the other day: With a Girl Like You I hope you have a Tub Thumpin’ Thursday today and Please Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler

• Currencies and metals rally on Tuesday
• Blackrock CEO says our debt is a problem… (where’s he been?”)

Good Day… And a Wonderful Wednesday to you! Well, winter is now over for down here, as the forecast for the next 10 days is for sun and mid 70’s… I like a bit warmer, but I’ll take mid 70’s over 20 degrees back home! I guess I’ve mentioned a time or two over the years that I totally dislike Cold weather! Our Stl U. Billikens won their game last night almost gave it away but held on, and my beloved Mizzou Tigers lost at home!  Little Feat greet me this morning with their great song: Dixie Chicken…

.Well, I mentioned yesterday that the Greenland talk was really doing a number on the dollar… I failed to mention that the “talk” was also pushing the yields on bonds higher, as now not only the BRICs are turning away from the auction window, but now the Europeans are too!  So, bonds get sold, and yields go up, and there’s no one left to buy the bonds at the auction window, and that will cause yields to go higher as the Treasury has to make them look attractive… So, the 10-year ended yesterday trading with a 4.28% yield… And bound to go higher as the days go on as long as the rhetoric remains the same from the POTUS….

And what else do you think the POTUS can do now? He’s gone too far down this dark alley to stop now, if he were to say “oh I was just kidding”, the credibility of the POTUS and further the Treasury, would get thrown out the window…

So, the dollar had a bad day yesterday, with most of its selling came in the overnight markets… We started the day with the BBDXY down 4 index points at 1,204… And the BBDXY ended the day at 1,204… So, as you can see the overnight markets did a number on the dollar and propped up the metals

Speaking of the metals… Silver had a day where the SPTs were trying to guide the price lower, but at the end of the day, Silver had fought back to gain all the ground it had lost during the day, and ended the day flat at $94.47… All the while Silver was fighting for its right to gain, Gold kept on gaining as the day went on… Gold ended the day up $112 to close at $4,764… 

The price of Oil remained trading with a $ 59 handle yesterday…   I think that the markets (Dollar, bonds, metals) are getting all the attention these days, and Oil is an afterthought… But that won’t last in my eye! 

In the overnight markets last night… The selling of the dollar stopped, for now that is, and the BBDXY starts today at 1,204…  Gold on the other hand is up $1.01, and Silver is up 49-cents…  Silver is going to see many attempts to get it over the $100 figure going forward, and it will also see many attempts to stop that rise… Silver is going to be caught in the middle… But, in the end the buyers will win, in my humble opinion… Gold is on everyone’s mind these days… 

The folks at Battle Bank announced that they will do loans VS Gold holdings… That way, you’ll be able to retain your Gold, but have some cash from your Gold’s rise in price that has been so astronomical…  I don’t believe they are onboarding new clients just yet, as they are still testing, but you can send the an email and tell them you are interested here: GlobalMarkets@Battlebank.com 

Well, I read an article that I came across yesterday that was an interview with Larry Fink the CEO of Blackrock… In the article Mr. Fink is yelling from the rooftops about the U.S.’s debt…  (where have you been buddy?) This from TheStreet.com…. “BlackRock (BLK) CEO Larry Fink feels the market’s attention could soon shift toward the ballooning U.S. national debt.

With U.S. debt now soaring over $38 trillion, Fink believes that markets are underestimating the moment when fiscal policy, not monetary policy, becomes a major problem.”      

Chuck again… There’s a point when everyone becomes aware of our debt, and that to service the debt will be our downfall, is when everyone abandons dollars for they will have become monopoly money, (worthless) I hate to be the bearer of this bad news… so don’t shoot the messenger! 

The U.S. is still has the strongest economy… but for how much longer?  AI is supposed to save us, right?  I shake my head in disbelief…   In the year 2000 the U.S. was the number 1 economy on the Globe… And Japan was # 2… China was # 6 but 20 years later China is now #2, and Japan is #4, and falling fast!  Germany was #3 in 2000 and again in 2020… Steady as she goes….  I point all this out to show that a country’s economy can sink or swim very quickly…  

And talk about having too much on one’s plate to take on another problem… The POTUS is talking about putting a cap on the interest rates that credit cards can charge…  Now getting the Gov’t involved in private business has never worked out to everyone’s advantage, and we even have history on a previous POTUS doing something similar… 

Back in the early 80’s President Carter, in his last year in office, announce Credit Controls, in an effort to cool down the economy, bring inflation under control and restrict borrowing…  The whole shootin’ match backfired on the Gov’t… The economy fell over 8%, the Unemployment Rate rose to 8.2%, and it felt like our country was going down a rabbit hole that it wouldn’t emerge from… 

You see these Credit Card companies and banks that issue cards, are making unsecured loans… So, they need the higher rates to make up for the loans that default with nothing behind them for the issuer to recover… If you limit their interest rate charges, they will cut the amount of people that they approve to have a CC…  So, spending goes down and the economy goes with it..  So, be careful of what you wish for… I’m just saying

I got some of that info from my friend Dave Gonigam’s 5 Bullets email that is sent out each day… 

I’ve carried on way too long today about gloom and doom… 

The currencies have been perking up with the dollar back on the selling block. Even the Norwegian krone is showing some life… The Chinese renminbi was at a 6.95 handle yesterday, but bumped up to 6.96 today… China’s had a run of good economic reports, so the Peoples Bank of China has allowed the currency to gain VS the dollar.  With the bump higher in the price of Oil the Petrol Currencies are getting bought. The Russia ruble is prime example of that. The A$ has been inching higher too, and there are also those currencies still in doom mode, like the Japanese yen,  and the Indiian rupee to name a few… 

The U.S. Data Cupboard is still wanting for real economic data, which won’t be found until tomorrow… 

n other data, this from the BBC: “China said its economy expanded by 5% last year, meeting Beijing’s official target as a record trade surplus boosted growth.

The world’s second-largest economy reached its goal despite growth slowing to 4.5% in the final three months of 2025.”

Chuck again, China also reported a new record for their Trade Surplus…  Even with cutting off exports to the U.S., China has found other avenues for their exports… 

Boy did a make a colossal error yesterday, calling this week a FOMC week! What a dolt! The FOMC doesn’t meet until next Wednesday… I guess I was looking at next week’s calendar and too it for this week… excuses! As the old football coach used to say: “Excuses never won a ballgame for any team” I didn’t learn much from him, as I was too scared of him to ask him a question, but I did learn that tidbit! 

To recap… The dollar is getting sold overseas along with bonds as the Greenland talk keeps getting louder… The metals are having banner days because of the same talk.  Chuck talks about our debt, and capping interest rates so he was quite wordy this morning!

For What It’s Worth…. The Good Folks at GATA sent me this, that they found on Bloomberg.com regarding Russia’s Gold Holdings making up for their lost assets and it can be found here: Russia Gains $216 Billion in Gold Rally, Replacing Lost Assets – Bloomberg

Or, here’s your snippet: “Russia has reaped a windfall from a surge in gold prices since the start of its war in Ukraine, generating gains on a scale comparable to the sovereign reserves frozen in Europe over President Vladimir Putin’s invasion.

The value of the Bank of Russia’s gold holdings has increased by more than $216 billion since February 2022, according to Bloomberg calculations. At the same time, the central bank has largely refrained from both major purchases of the metal and using its gold reserves during that period, despite the loss of access to foreign securities and currencies blocked under sanctions.

In December, European Union countries approved extending a freeze on around €210 billion ($244 billion) of Russian sovereign assets held in the bloc.

The increase in the value of bullion restores most of Russia’s lost financial capacity, even if it doesn’t return the blocked reserves. While securities and cash immobilized in Europe cannot be sold or pledged, gold can still be monetized if needed.”

Chuck again…  See? Gold to the rescue once again! I read a long piece the other day about Turkish people using Gold instead of the currency to get around…   A long time ago, I printed a story from good friend, Michael Checkin of ASI fortune and fame, about how he was involved in Vietnam during the time when the people had to report to the Gov’t what they owned, and those that had Gold were much better off than any ones not owning Gold… I’m going to have to search for that and reprint it for it was so good! 

Market Prices 1/21/2026: American Style: A$.6750, kiwi .5848, C$ .7231, euro 1.1717,  sterling 1.3416, Swiss $1.2643, European Style: rand 16.3512, krone 9.9400, SEK 9.1060, forint 329.16, zloty 3.6087, koruna 20.7826, RUB 77.49, yen 157.89, sing 1.2821, HKD 7.7974, INR 91.70, China 6.9630, peso 17.54, BRL 5.3657, BBDXY 1,204, Dollar Index 98.57, Oil $60.35, 10-year 4.29%, Silver $94.96, Platinum $2,476.00, Palladium $1,878.00, Copper $5.86, and Gold… $4,865

That’s it for today… I’m really, deep down, not a gloom and doom guy.. I may sound like one in the Pfennig from time to time, but someone needs to be honest with you and tell you what’s really going on… I doubt your Wealth Advisor, broker, counselor, would do that… I’m Just saying…. What would you do if you learned that something was going on or about to happen, would you tell everyone you knew?  I’ve been getting outside by the Pool to read sitting in the sun and that makes me feel good… Well, the countdown to spring training has begun. My beloved Cardinals Pitchers and Catchers wil report here in Jupiter, Fla on Feb 11..   That’s less than a month away, and I’m getting all lathered up already! Chicago takes us to the finish line today with their song: 25 or 6 to 4…. I hope you have a Wonderful Wednesday today, and Please Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler

• metals end the week on a down note
• But kick some tail yesterday and last night!

Good Day… And a Tom Terrific Tuesday to you! I hope you had yesterday off work, I sure did! The metals markets didn’t, and that ended up being a good thing! The NFL Conference Championships games are set for this coming weekend. My Bills got hosed by the referees in their loss! Good Games at least. Our Stl Univ Billikens continued their winning ways on Saturday, and my beloved Mizzou Tigers lost on the road in Baton Rouge… UGH! The Rolling Stones greet me this morning with their song: Can’t You Hear Me Knocking?

Yesterday, being a national Holiday in the U.S. meant the stock and bond markets were closed but the metals now traded globally, were doing their very best to make the holiday one to remember! Gold, without intervention, gained $74 on the day to close at $4,672, and Silver gained $4.18 to close at $94.47… These moves were so pronounced to the upside that I fear what the SPTs do to the metals today…  Before I retired last night, I checked to see what the metals were doing, and Silver had already given back $1.21… The STPs are so brazen now that they don’t have to disguise their short selling…. But the Chinese said, “oh no you don’t”… 

Remember last week when I went all postal on TD Securities and their “new short Silver trades”?

I got the biggest kick out of an email that long-time reader and friend, Craig sent to me late last week… Ok, let me set this up…  about two weeks ago, I pointed out that TD Securities were getting back into a short position in Silver and they were calling for Silver to fall to $40.. I also said that I hoped that TD Secs got their A&$^ handed to them…  And guess what? They did! Here’s the title of an article on Kitco.com: “TD Securities takes a second hit on silver short, losing $606k.” I laughed until I cried! Serves them right! 

Apparently, TD Secs put a lot of eggs in the rebalancing basket that didn’t pan out, and now they are getting margin calls out the ears!  

In my humble opinion, I see Silver reaching the $100 figure this coming spring…  so, the folks at TDS had better take those short contracts and tear them up… 

In the overnight markets last night…  Well, the selling stopped I the metals as the Chinese said, “Oh, no you don’t” to the SPTs. Gold is up $55 to start the day, and Silver is up 96-cents… The dollar got ambushed overnight, and the weakness it showed in yesterday’s activity carried over to the overnight markets and the BBDXY starts the day down 4 index points from where it closed yesterday, and that makes the dollar down 7 index points from where it closed last Friday. 

This ends the brief rally that the dollar was in prior to yesterday.  Didn’t I tell you that the dollar’s rally would be short-lived? Sometimes, even I get what’s going on right!  HA! All this Greenland talk really has the metals roaring and the dollar sinking… 

The price of Oil remains trading with a $59 handle to start the day today.  And the 10-year Treasury has really taken off for higher ground… Its yield sits at 4.29% this morning… Yes, I said 4.29%… That’s going the wrong way for the Fed Heads and I’m surprised that they haven’t stepped in to do some yield control… 

In keeping with the BRICS and their desire to unload Treasuries… Business Insider reported that China’s holdings of US treasuries fell to $682.6 billion in November last year, down from $688.7 billion in October, this is a 17-year low…  China instead is filling their coiffures with physical Gold… 

China is doing it why not Americans? Because Americans believe in the dollar and their investment advisors / brokers won’t even begin to tell them that they need to diversify into currencies and metals…   I should know, because I’ve been extolling the benefits of a diversified investment portfolio for over 40 years, and there are still investors that don’t diversify…  

And one of the reasons you might want to be diversified was talked about yesterday in Bill Bonner’s daily letter when he said, “about $105 trillion total debt in the US. Or, about $1.5 million per family. At 4% interest, that would saddle the family with monthly payments — interest only — of about $5,000 per month…or about half of the average family’s take home income.”

Chuck again… YIKES! So why do I think this is a bad thing for the economy to have all that debt? Because to keep the debt cycle going it needs more debt, and more debt etc. and then who’s going to pay for debt servicing?  You guessed right if you said you and me…  in taxes, and then there goes the disposable income being used instead for taxes…  And then… oh, and the bond yields are rising again, which makes this arrangement tricky at best… 

To finance the debt, we must sell Treasuries…  When will other countries no longer finance our debt, things will get real hairy… I think the kindness of strangers is at the edge of being no more, and then the U.S. would have to print dollars to buy their own Treasuries…. And we’ve done that before, only to have money supply explode and bring about inflation that we as a country hadn’t seen since the mid-to-late 70’s.. This time there will be no saviors come riding in on a white horse to save the U.S. economy from collapsing…

And what will you have at your disposal to keep the food on the table, heat in winter, clothes on your children? Gold & Silver…  I’ll say no more…

Speaking of Oil and its price… I found this on X (Twitter) and it speaks volumes… “In the ever-volatile world of oil markets, few voices carry as much weight as that of Harold Hamm, the billionaire wildcatter and founder of Continental Resources. He argued that U.S. shale drillers require oil prices around $80 per barrel to viably develop higher-cost fields beyond the Permian Basin.”

See why I’ve held onto Oil producing countries, Canada and Russia?  The price of Oil will eventually go back to its breakeven price, and I’m counting on that!  

Speaking of the currencies… I’ve read many an article lately calling for the currencies of the world to all collapse…  All at once? C’mon give me a break here… Throw me a bone! Sure, currencies will collapse under the weight of their self-imposed debt debacle, but that’s sometime in the future. Let’s not let that get in the way of a diversifying your investment portfolio with some good ones…  What? You want me to do your homework for you? Well, maybe I’ll give you one off the top…  Singapore (no debt, low yield, but strong manufacuring and exports)…   

I’ve always contended that a currency is the “stock of the country”, and you set your value criteria on the country much like you do a stock when you are looking to buy it…  Debt, yield, leadership, etc.  And when you do this you end up with a handful of currencies for you to look to buy…

Battle Bank has this recent post on LinkedIn: “You know what most Americans are overexposed to?

No, it’s not cable news reruns. It’s USD.

– Your travel plans: dollars.

– Your vacation home: dollars.

– The grandkids’ birthday gifts? All dollars.

When everything in your financial life depends on a single currency, that’s not stability — that’s risk in disguise. “

Chuck again… yes, Frank Trotter and I used to extoll the virtues of diversification with currencies and metals, and now Frank is continuing that mantra at Battle Bank…  if you haven’t already checked them out here you go: www.battlebank.com

The U.S. Data Cupboard doesn’t have much for us today or tomorrow… But Wednesday will bring the latest FOMC Meeting and rate announcement… No one is talking about this meeting, and that concerns me a bit… Will the Fed Heads cut rates again this month, or will they delay the inevitable? Rate cuts are coming, so why not make them now and get them over with?   I’m just saying…

To recap… The week ended last on a down note in Gold & Silver, but yesterday’s price movement was spectacular for metals owners… Chuck is concerned about what the SPTs will do today, after yesterday’s gains. $80 is the break even for the oil producers, so why is it $11 below that figure?  Chuck believes that the price of Oil will return to is break even price, eventually…  And Chuck talks about how the debt is going to be our ruin as an economy…   

For What It’s Worth… This came to me by way of the good folks at GATA… They found it here: telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/01/15/trumps-role-in-staggering-rise-of-worlds-oldest-currency/

Or, here’s your snippet: “Sell the dollar, buy gold. Few investment strategies have worked better than this over the first year of Donald Trump’s second presidency, and it looks set to continue that way.

In the past year the dollar has undergone its worst overall devaluation since the 1970s. At the same time, the price of gold has surged nearly 75% to record highs.

No commodity acts better than gold as insurance against inflation, financial instability, and geopolitical turmoil.

Call it Trump Derangement Syndrome if you like, but financial markets are increasingly betting on all three.

Almost everything the Trump White House does seems deliberately designed to undermine the dollar, last weekend’s renewed attack on the independence of the Federal Reserve being only the latest example.”

Chuck again… Ahh, back to normal TWIW articles! I remember following Bill Bonner’s trade of the decade in the early 2000’s… Sell dollars, buy Gold…  I’m forever grateful to Bill for that reccomendation… I’ve been a Gold Bug since then… I remember at our usual Friday watering hole, many years ago, telling the boys to buy Gold, and they all looked at me like a deer in headlights… Then a few years later the boys were discussing what they should buy, and my good friend, Duane, said, “if we had listened to Chuck we would all be much richer!”…   I got the biggest kick out of that and will remember it for years to come for sure! 

Market Prices 1/20/2026: American Style: A$.6733, kiwi .5836, C$ .7234, euro 1.1727,  sterling 1.3466, Swiss $1.2659, European Style: rand 16.7332, krone 10.0125, SEK 9.1282,  forint 328.98, zloty 3.6057, koruna 20.7467, RUB 77.85, yen 157.85, sing 1.2824, HKD 7.7983, INR 90.97, China 6.9541, peso 17.61, BRL 5.3656, BBDXY 1,204, BBDXY 98.49, Oil $59.57, 10-year 4.29%, Silver $95,43, Platinum $2,417.00, Palladium $1,888.00, Copper $5.85, and Gold… $4,728

That’s it for today… Today is my good friend Kevin’s Birthday! Happy Birthday Webbie! I hope your day is grande! You have now caught up with Kathy! In age that is…  Duane, you’re next!  Congrats to Indiana U. For their win in the National Championship Game for college football last night….  I really thought that Miami had a chance, but that was not to be.. Well, we’re one month away from the start of Spring Training games… They start earlier every year, and end earlier too!  Spring Training games will be over before my birthday! I hope that nothing happened to me health-wise so I can celebrate my birthday this year… Last year, I celebrated my 70^th birthday in hospital! Boy was that fun…. NOT! Dion takes us to the finish line today with his hit song: Runaround Sue….  I hope you have a Tom Terrific Tuesday today, and Please Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler