Author: admin

• The dollar gets sold on economic reports
• We revisit the Great Mogambo Guru!

Good Day… And a Tub Thumpin’ Thursday to one and all! I have a special treat for your reading pleasure that will take place tomorrow.  I will give the final piece of Frank Trotter’s article on Currency Diversification in a special Friday Pfennig tomorrow. I didn’t want to carry that last piece over the weekend, so we’ll end it tomorrow… I can’t thank enough for doing this for me and you… He even mentions little old me! Thank you Frank!

No skipping ahead allowed! HA! In observance of the late Great Mogambo Guru… here’s snippet from one of his letters: “”Since before the time of the Pharaohs, all nations have contended with the same financial forces in existence today. They had (in one form or another) money, debt, and taxes.

They all had government spending. And every single one of these nations, in all of history, was eventually ruined by its government. Their money was debased to the point of worthlessness by the government spending too much to do too much, and then the country collapsed.

Why should we expect to be any different?”

Chuck again…  Richard Daughty ( The Great Mogambo Guru) was a friend of mine and I think about him a lot, still after all these years he’s been gone to play his banjo in heaven… 

Well, all that to tell you that the dollar lost 3 index Points yesterday after the ADP Employment Reported that only 38,000 jobs were created in August…  And then piling on The Fed/Cabal/ Cartel’s Beige Book, which give us the pulse of the Fed Regions across the country said the Outlook: The overall economic outlook remained positive, but businesses expressed heightened uncertainty regarding future energy prices, policy shifts, and international conflicts ahead of the upcoming September 15–16 FOMC interest rate meeting”

And Gold/Silver finally saw some daylight yesterday with Gold gaining $63 on the day to close at $4,388 and Silver gained $1.59 to close at $65.45. I was happy to see that the STPs didn’t bring the two metals down again yesterday… But the data was so skewed toward a weak dollar that I guess they decided to sit this song out… 

They didn’t sit out altogether though, Gold/Silver had posted even stronger gains on the day, but the SPTs made sure they stayed within a range, and knocked them down a bit… The SPTs wanted to make certain that all the damage they had done was not wiped out in one day’s trading… No, it will take a few days to make up lost ground for Gold/ Silver… 

The price of Oil bumped higher to end the day trading with a $91 handle… The POTUS was talking about IRAN yesterday and said that the U.S. had destroyed things… but, in my opinion, they haven’t destroyed the power of the minds of the Iranians… So, And the Strait of Hormuz is still zipped up like a winter coat on a sub 0 day and that leads me to believe that the price of Oil is going to eventually revisit $100…  UGH!

And the 10-year Treasury saw a bit of buying and the yield dropped to 4.78% yesterday… I guess I should have kept my mouth shut about it asking if it was going to 5%, eh?

But the U.S. Gov’t bond rout isn’t the only country experiencing a bond rout… I told the other day that Japanese 10-year’s yield had risen to 3%, the first time since 1996…  This from CNBC.com this morning: “Government bonds sold off globally on Wednesday, extending a rout that has driven borrowing costs to multi-decade highs.

Gold/ Silver continued to see daylight as both have rallied overnight, with Gold up $48 to start the day today, and Silver, up $52-cents… So, our Tub Thumpin’ Thursday might just turn out to be a good one for these two… 

The price of Oil bumped higher overnight to start this morning with a $91 handle in its price… And the 10-year saw a bit of slippage again last night and starts today with a yield of: 4.77% … yield control by the Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel must be the culprit here…  I still believe that the 5% yield on the 10-year is achievable… the charts even show this to be true, as that’s where they are heading, up and up and away (The 5^th Dimension)

 Circling the wagons on the bond rout… The yield on German 10-year bunds, the benchmark for the euro area, was 4 basis points higher at 3.378% on Wednesday — its highest level since 2011. Japan’s 10-year yield stood at 3.016%, after crossing 3% for the first time in three decades on Tuesday.

The 10-year Treasury yield touched its highest level since November 2023 at 4.814%, as British 10-year gilts marked a fresh post-2008 high of 5.25%, before both retreated slightly.

Investors have been rattled by the resurgence of inflationary pressures, particularly as a fresh wave of conflict in the Middle East drives oil prices higher. That has added to longstanding concerns about the fiscal positions and high debt loads of major economies from the U.S. to Japan and France.”

But John Williams president of the Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel NYC, said “that here in the U.S. that it’s not a bond rout; the rise indicates that the economy is strong!” Yes, he actually said that on live TV… So, once again, idiocy comes to us from all angles… 

In the overnight markets last night…  the dollar continued to get sold and the BBDXY starts this morning down 3 index points to 1,192…  Strong economy? I mean, it only leaves one to imagine where the dollar might have fallen to yesterday if not for the “invisible hand” saving the dollar from falling off the proverbial cliff…  The PPT in action folks… right before your eyes and mine one… 

There will be no Pfennig next Tuesday 9/8… I’ll be meeting with the doctor that will be performing the Mohs surgery on my cancer spot… So, once again a pop-up Dr. Appt comes my way… 

And it took about 3 weeks, but the euro finally rose back above 1.16… Let’s face it here, the euro as Frank said yesterday isn’t anyone’s idea of a perfect currency, but it retains its status as the offset currency to the dollar, and with that title comes strength when the dollar gets sold… 

The U.S. Data Cupboard today has the Trade Balance for July… And the usual Weekly Initial Jobless Claims to see this morning…  Neither one is a major dollar mover most times that is… 

To recap… The ADP Employment Report and the Fed’s Beige Book split the duties of bringing the dollar down yesterday 3 index points in the BBDXY… Gold / Silver saw daylight yesterday, and that made Chuck happy… But, always keep in mind that the wolf is always at the door, ready to pounce on helpless sheeple…  I’m just saying… 

For What It’s Worth… Tomorrow will be the final installment of Frank Trotter’s Currency Article title: What’s On The Other Side? A Serious Look At Currency Investing…  And can be found in its entirety here: https://battlebank.com/battle-bulletin/whats-on-the-other-side-of-every-trade-a-serious-look-at-currency-investing/?refid=10002

We pick his up with his discussion on currencies we as diversifiers would look to own with kiwi… here’s Frank

A Word About the Kiwi

New Zealand’s dollar is routinely comingled with the commodity currency bloc, filed alongside the Aussie and the loonie as if the three were interchangeable. The grouping is correct as far as it goes but misleading past that point. The kiwi is genuinely commodity linked: Dairy, meat and horticulture dominate exports, dairy auction prices move the currency, and China’s appetite sets the tone as New Zealand’s largest trading partner. But the kiwi’s commodities are soft, not hard. New Zealand sells protein and produce, not energy and metals, so it participates only partially in the hard-asset cycles that drive the loonie and the Aussie. Add a chronically deficit-prone current account, a small and shallow float, and a central bank with a history of aggressive swings, and the kiwi becomes the most fragile member of the family.

The year 2025 demonstrated the distinction. While the Aussie gained against a falling dollar, the kiwi actually lost ground, sinking a bit as the Reserve Bank of New Zealand slashed its cash rate to 2.25% in response to a shrinking economy, a second-quarter GDP contraction of 0.9% and unemployment at a five-year high. Two commodity currencies, one dollar bear market, opposite outcomes. The lesson is that the commodity label is a necessary screen, not a sufficient one. The fiscal, monetary and external filters still have to be applied, and on those filters New Zealand currently fails where Australia passes.

Gold: The Currency Without a Central Bank

No serious discussion of currencies can end with paper. Gold is the one money in the system that no committee can print, and its price is best understood not as a commodity quote but as the inverse of confidence in the entire fiat complex. With that reading, the recent message is unambiguous. Gold surged roughly 65% in 2025, its largest annual gain in over four decades, and by mid-2026 it traded above $4,100 per ounce. Central banks, the same reserve managers that absorbed the 2022 lesson about the political conditionality of dollar assets, bought at elevated rates for a third consecutive year.”

Chuck again… tomorrow we’ll see the final installment of the article… Can’t wait! Well. Actually I can since I’ve already read the article in its entirety when it was first sent to me… 

Currencies 9/3/2026: American Style: A$ .7191, kiwi .5868, C$ .7243, euro 1.1607, sterling 1.3497, Swiss $1.2363, European Style: rand 16.0451, krone 9.3081, SEK 9.4399, forint 316.29, zloty 3.7252, koruna 20.8582, RUB 86.07, yen 156.12, sing 1.2682, HKD 7.8416, INR 94.69, China 6.7204, peso 17.01, BRL 5.0912, BBDXY 1,192, Dollar Index 99.12, Oil $91.61, 10-year 4.77%, Silver $65.97, Platinum $1,771.00, Palladium $1,385.00, Copper $660, and Gold… $4,435.00

That’s it for today… I’m juggling two articles in the air right now, and it’s too early in the morning for me to do that! But I think I have sorted it out now… My beloved Cardinals’ bats had come alive on Tuesday night, but went back to being absent last night for 5 innings. But they fought back and, in the end, they beat the mighty Dodgers in 10 innings.   Since there’s no Salary Cap in Baseball, a team, like the Dodgers, can pay the best players the highest money that’s in their coffers… Dire Straits takes us to the finish line today with their great song: Brothers In Arms… I hope you have a Tub Thumpin’ Thursday today and Please, oh Please Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler

• odds of a rate hike in Sept rise to ..68%
• The RBNZ hikes their OCR!

Good Day… And a Wonderful Day to you!  Well, if you don’t get my friend Dennis Miller’s weekly letter, you should sign up just so you can read what he wrote about this week…. It’s about being over medicated… And I know I am a prime candidate for that! So, if you are of the older set of people you could find out that you too are overmedicated! I couldn’t stay up for my beloved Cardinals game last night, but checked the score when I woke up in the middle of the night… and they had beaten the mighty Dodgers 13-6! The bats came alive! But now they have to face two of the best pitchers in the game for the next 2 games… UGH! The great Al Stewart greets me this morning with his song: Song on the Radio… 

Well, the odds for a rate hike went higher yesterday, and ended the day at .68%… The dollar finally moved on the day, and the BBDXY gained 2 index points to 1,198… The odds had reached as high as 72% but calmed back down at the close. 

So, according to the odds makers, the rate hike is in the cards for this month, (not yet in my mind) but in their simple minds the believe it to be true, so I won’t stop them from believing it! And all those bad things I talked about that come with a rate hike will take place, maybe not immediately, but eventually we’ll see them creep up and take over the economy. Especially if the FOMC follows that Sept rate hike with another one at their next meeting 6 weeks later…

I’m beating around the bush talking about Gold/Silver this morning because the SPTs had a field day selling them short… Gold lost $124 and lost another figure on its price to close at $4,325… Silver lost $2.40 on the day to close at $64.24…  They did it! The successfully got the short sales to negate any attempt to physically buy Gold/Silver back into the game… It’s a real shame… But what’s a mother to do?

The price of Oil continues its march to higher levels with a $6 gain yesterday, with $3 coming after the early morning gain of $3, and closing with a $90 handle…  And the 10-year Treasury also continued to rise ending the day with a 4.80%… You don’t think that the 10-year would rise past 5% do you?   I wouldn’t put it past bond traders to match the FOMC’s rate hikes… The bond boys have been trying to get the Fed Heads off of their duffs and do something, and now that it appears to the odds makers that the Fed Heads will finally do something, the shackles have been removed from the bond boys and they can finally get bond yield where they feel they need to be… 

In The overnight markets last night…  There wasn’t much movement in any asset class overnight. The dollar remained at 1,198 in the BBDXY, the 10-year is still 4.80%, Oil is trading with an $89 handle, and Gold and Silver are pretty much flat so far, with them leaning toward positive gains today…  Besides a rate hike by the RBNZ, last night was what I would call a “nothing burger”… 

Remember a couple of months ago when I would complain that there was nothing but Strait of Hormuz news to be found? Well, now, its moved on to the odds of a rate hike… But soon, it will change once again to the fighting between the U.S. and Iran… As they both took time off from lobbying missiles at each other, so that they could refurbish their supplies…  And now the fighting starts again… 

I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not but the Aussie dollar (A$) has shaken of the disappointment of a Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) leaving rates unchanged at their last meeting, when I signs pointed to a rate hike coming, and has rallied nicely VS the dollar and its kissin’ cousin across the Tasman, kiwi…  So, if the A$ rallied on disappointment, what’s it going to do when the RBA does get off their duffs and hikes rates?  I can only imagine… 

My friends at FXSTEET.com posted this about Australia: “Australia’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) rose 0.4% QoQ in the second quarter (Q2) of 2026 compared with the 0.3% growth in the first quarter, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) showed on Wednesday. This reading came in stronger than the expectations of 0.3% expansion.”  

Chuck again… So, Australia’s economy is growing again, and if it picks up momentum then they’ll be right as rain… 

And looky there The Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) hiked their OCR (official cash rate) 25 Basis Points last night (Wednesday already for them) to 2.75%… Man, are they behind Australia there… 

I can tell you that one currency has not reacted favorably to the price of Oil rising again… And it’s a Petrol Currency!  The Russian ruble is going the opposite way that you would think they would go when the price of Oil rises about $10 in the last month!  They’ve tried to hike rates to the highest around, and they have Oil going their way, but they still can’t get past the war with Ukraine…. 

So, I would ask currency traders where they place the line of demarcation here… I mean the U.S. is in a war and yet the dollar gets bought, while the ruble gets sold…. 

The Petrol Currencies sans the ruble, are holding their ground VS the dollar, as the price of Oil rises again. The new leader of the pack (Shangra Las) is the Norwegian krone… Sorry ruble, but you’re in no condition to be the leader of the Petrol Currencies… Long ago in a galaxy far away, the U.S. sterling was the leader, but then that was lost to the ruble, who has now lost the title to Norway… 

Well, the Japanese yen was back in the news column yesterday, when U.S. Treasury Sec. Bessent, said “neener, neener, neener, I know something that the markets don’t know” (ok I made up the first part, but he was boasting that he knew something the markets didn’t, and that is that the Bank of Japan is working on saving the yen… Well, in my opinion they can do anything they want to do, raise interest rates, allow Gov’t bonds to rise in yield (The 10-year JGB rose to 3% yesterday after this little ditty by Bessent, the first time since 1996!) and anything else they think of but… They can’t sell Treasuries to buy yen…  I think that was agreement made between the U.S. and Japan when the U.S. intervened on their behalf in late July… 

The games people play, every night and every day, never saying what they mean, never meaning what they say now… (Joe South) That’s the U.S. Gov’t in a nutshell, and has been the same going all the way back as far as can remember…  

The U.S. Data Cupboard yesterday saw Job Opening remain at 7.3 Million in August from July… Today, we’ll see the color of the ADP Employment Report for August… The forecasts are calling for just 47,000 jobs created last month… That’s not a good number… I’m just saying… 

To recap… The dollar finally moved on the news that the odds of a rate hike in September had moved higher to .68%… Gold / Silver saw the SPTs in force show who’s the boss as they sold Gold/Silver short. Gold lost $124 and Silver lost $2.40… It’s gotten really bad, when will this short selling stop? And the Aussie economy is growing… And the RBNZ hiked rates 25 Basis points (1/4%) last night… 

For What It’s Worth… OK, this is the 4^th in the series that Frank Trotter titled: What’s on the Other Side of Every Trade? A Serious Look at Currency Investing

And yesterday we stopped at: one Currency doesn’t make a diversification and we pick it up there… And as always you can find the article in its entirety here: https://battlebank.com/battle-bulletin/whats-on-the-other-side-of-every-trade-a-serious-look-at-currency-investing/?refid=10002 and while you’re there you can sign up for a Battle Bank account!

“What Actually Drives Relative Currency Values

Currency prediction has a deserved reputation for difficulty over short horizons. Over multiyear horizons, relative valuations generally respond to identifiable forces, and the investor’s job is to weigh them together rather than fixate on any one factor. And yes, I’ll use the word “relative” often since that’s the key element.

Relative inflation. Purchasing power parity is a poor timing tool and a good anchor. Persistent inflation differentials eventually pull exchange rates toward lower inflation. A currency whose domestic purchasing power erodes at 4% annually while another erodes at 1% fights a three-percentage-point headwind every year until the differential closes.

The relative fiscal situation. Deficits matter as a percentage of GDP, and they matter more when they’re structural rather than cyclical. A government borrowing 6% to 7% of GDP at full employment, as the United States has been doing and is forecast to do, is signaling that the gap will be closed by growth it cannot manufacture, austerity it will not choose or monetary accommodation it will eventually demand. Markets price that third possibility into the currency. Much of the dollar’s 2025 slide traces to exactly this reassessment of American fiscal credibility.

The relative national debt position. Flow is the deficit; stock is the debt. Gross debt above 100% of GDP does not doom a currency immediately, as Japan long demonstrated, but it removes room for error and raises the temptation toward financial repression, where rates are held below inflation to erode the debt quietly at the expense of anyone holding the currency. Countries with low debt ratios retain policy freedom, and policy freedom is what a currency holder is ultimately buying.

The global view of risk and credit standing. Currencies carry reputations. The franc and yen have historically attracted crisis capital; the dollar did, too, until recently. That reputation is now shifting under the dollar’s feet. In early 2026, Deutsche Bank’s head of FX research went so far as to call the dollar’s safe-haven status a myth, observing that the dollar has decorrelated from equity sell-offs. The freezing of Russian central bank reserves in 2022 taught every reserve manager on earth that access to dollar assets is conditional on political alignment, and the resulting migration into gold and alternative reserves is a slow-moving repricing of American credit standing with years left to run.

Total float and share of global economic activity. Liquidity is a value in itself. The dollar and euro dominate global payments and reserves, which grants them a durability premium and their holders an exit door in any crisis. Smaller floats like the krone swing more widely precisely because the pool is shallow. One possible strategy is to hold the deep currencies for stability and the shallow, well-governed ones for value and size positions accordingly.

Interest rate differentials. In the short run, this is often the dominant driver. Capital flows toward yield, and a currency where local rates are relatively higher, combined with sober fiscal and other financial management, tends to appreciate against a currency backed by a low-rate environment. Following the Federal Reserve’s 2025 cuts, Norway emerged as the highest-yielding G10 currency, a fact State Street cited in maintaining its positive stance on the krone. But rate differentials are the weather, while the fundamentals above are the climate. Chasing carry into a deteriorating currency is how investors get paid in pennies and charged in dollars.

Where We Have Felt Confident: Commodity Producers and Fiscal Adults

Applying the above filters over the years has repeatedly led us to the same short list: currencies of countries that produce real things the world must buy and countries that run their public finances like adults. Sometimes the same country checks both boxes.

The Norwegian krone. Norway is the developed world’s cleanest expression of fiscal responsibility paired with good fortune in terms of natural resources. Its sovereign wealth fund, built from oil and gas revenue, exceeds $1.7 trillion for a nation of 5.5 million people. The state is, in net terms, a creditor of historic proportions. The krone spent much of the past decade undervalued and out of favor, then gained about 13% against the dollar in 2025 as energy revenues, top-of-class G10 yields and the dollar’s troubles converged. A shallow float means volatility, but the underlying balance sheet is the strongest in the developed world.

The Australian dollar. Australia exports iron ore, natural gas, coal, gold and food into Asia’s growth, and its public debt ratio remains modest by G7 standards. The Aussie is a classic commodity currency, rising with global risk appetite and resource demand. It lagged the European currencies in 2025, gaining mid-single digits, then extended toward the 0.70 to 0.71 range in early 2026 as the Reserve Bank of Australia held a firmer line than the Fed and commodity prices stayed elevated.

 The euro against the U.S. dollar. The euro is nobody’s idea of a perfect currency, and skeptics like Doug Casey dismiss it outright as a committee construction of bankrupt welfare states. But currency investing is relative, and the relevant question is not whether the euro is sound in the abstract but whether the eurozone’s aggregate fiscal position, external balance and monetary conduct compare favorably with America’s right now. On deficits, the comparison currently favors Europe. The euro’s 13.1% gain in 2025, carrying it to an all-time high in trade-weighted terms, reflected that relative judgment, along with the sheer depth of euro markets as the only alternative parking lot for reserve-scale capital.

The Swiss franc. Switzerland pairs perpetual current account surpluses with low public debt, low inflation and an institutional culture that treats debasement as a moral failing. The franc gained over 14% against the dollar in 2025, extending a century-long record of relative appreciation. Counter to the interest rate differential argument, the cost of that virtue is near-zero yield and a central bank that periodically resists further strength. What the franc pays is preservation, and over long stretches, preservation against the dollar has been worth several percent a year all by itself.”

Chuck Again… Tomorrow, we’ll pick it with kiwi… hasn’t this been a real eye-opener for you regarding currencies?  

Market Prices 9/2/2026: American Style: A$ .7139, kiwi .5821, C$ .7180, euro 1.1580, sterling 1.3485, Swiss $1.2278, European Style: rand 16.0913, krone 9.3332, SEK 9.6823, forint 317.66, zloty 3.7368, koruna 20.8949, RUB 86.96, yen 159.76, sing 1.2733,  HKD 7.8426, INR 94.97, China 6.7222, peso 16.99, BRL 5.1536, BBDXY 1,198, Dollar Index 99.79, Oil $89.63, 10-year 4.80%, Silver $64.36, Platinum $1,739.00, Palladium $1,341.00, Copper $660, and Gold… $4,327

That’s it for today… Well, I learned a bit more about the cancerous spot on my head yesterday. Soon I’ll be going to have a Mohs surgery on it… Not a biggie, no worries on my part, my head has had so many cuts and wounds on it, with the first one being a fence wire stuck in my head when I was about 10… and the list goes on… Hey! Maybe that iron fence wire is the cause of the way I reason things out and think? HA! I kept that to myself all these years, thinking that someone would think that’s why I am what I am!   I didn’t get any stitches; my mom just cleaned it out and put a bandage on it… but it was in my head quite a bit!  Sorry, didn’t mean to freak you out there… 10CC Takes us to the Finish Line today with their song: I’m Not In Love… I hope you have a wonderful Wednesday, no matter what the SPTs have going on today, and Please Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler

• The dollar gets sold yesterday but comes back overnight
• Rate hike or not, you decide…

Good Day… And a Tom Terrific Tuesday to you! And Welcome to September.. How many readers caught my, “I’ll see you in September in yesterday’s close?”  Well, one of the spots on my head did turn out to be cancerous… So, some cutting and scraping is in my future… Always a good time going with me! NOT! My beloved Cardinals limped out to LA to play the mighty Dodgers, with night games that I won’t be able to stay up for, even on steroids! Simple Minds greet me this morning with their song; Don’t You Forget About Me    

Well, sometimes I do feel like everyone forgets about me… But then that’s what I get for retiring…. UGH!

I wish the SPTs would forget about Gold/ Silver FOREVER! Yesterday that were taking their pounds of flesh from the two metals, when  funny thing (not funny ha-ha) happened on the way to the forum… Gold/Silver fought back with some strong rallies heading in the close… But Gold fell short and ended the day down $7 while Silver, gained 17-cents. Gold closed at $4449 and Silver at $66.67…

The SPTs decided that they needed to keep the rallied at a minimum and have gone right back to work at the open this morning selling Gold short by $65 and Silver by $1.68… I can hear those dastardly evil beings all laughing and saying, “let’s see them rally their way out of this”… UGH!

The dollar saw it drop by 2 index points yesterday, but has gained 1 of them back to start our day… The BBDXY sits at 1,197, which to me is interesting because it was announced yesterday that the odds of a FOMC rate hike in Sept had risen from 57% on Friday, when all the damage was done, to 66% yesterday… But the dollar’s gain was limited… Hmmm… These are things that make you go Hmmm (sorry Grant Williams, I just had to use that!)  

What will these dollar traders do if the FOMC leaves rates unchanged in Sept? They will genuflect and then cough up a few index points but, point to the next FOMC meeting for their cure to the feeling in their stomachs… 

And don’t think that it hasn’t happened before, when the odds pointed to a rate move only to have the FOMC disappoint. I don’t have enough fingers to count on how many times this happened in the past… So, mull that over a bit, toss it around in your mind, and then come out with your own idea of whether the FOMC will hike rates or not… 

I mean they didn’t just say, “We’ll be hiking rates at the next meeting”… Warsh beat around the bush and said, ” He stated that policymakers must be confident inflation is clearly returning to the 2% target, warning that otherwise the central bank has “work to do” Now, I ask the question again, do you really think the FOMC is going to hike rates a couple of weeks?

Because if you’re like me and on the fence about this stupid rate hike business, then you’ll want to back up the truck and look to buy Gold/Silver and currencies you can, because they should come storming back once the writing is on the wall… I’m just saying… 

And in the overnight markets last night, the dollar bumped higher to 1.197, and Gold/Silver got whacked again… I truly don’t believe this is the end of the commodity rally… The price of Oil rose again overnight and starts today trading in an $87 handle… While the 10-year Treasury also bumped up overnight and starts today at 4.78% yield.

I normally get up in the morning walk over to my writing desk and turn and put all my devices on chargers, turn on my iPad and tune into my music and then turn on my laptop, and immediately go to my currencies page to see what the euro is doing… For if it’s up then the dollar is getting sold, and vice-versa… This morning, I viewed the euro, and it was up, and so I thought, OK, the rest of the currencies are following along… BUT NOOOOOO! They were not following the euro’s lead, so currency traders are not following the normal script… Yet… But maybe the euro is trading on its own devices… 

No way the euro is a creature of a kind, the kind that attaches itself as the offset currency to the dollar, and that’s that! So, whatever is on the currency trader’s minds this morning is the $64 question…

I see that I was bang on once again regarding the Intervention in Japanese yen and its return to being sold again… The yen trades at 160 this morning, right back where it was when the $10 Billion of euros were sold to buy yen by the U.S. Treasury… I reasoned that first and foremost, intervention rarely ever makes a dent in market perception, and second that Japan is a basket case… And it wouldn’t take long for traders to get right back to selling yen once the dust cleared…

I think I stated that I wouldn’t tough yen with your ten-foot pole! And still won’t! 

Circling the wagons on dollar and FOMC talk again… This Friday, we’ll see the BLS’s Jobs Jamboree… Tomorrow, we get a hint from the ADP Employment Report, but that’s just a hint, not a harbinger…  But the BLS Jobs Jamboree will hold the hammer on whether the FOMC sees that rates need to be hiked now or not, in my humble opinion… For, if they are weak, then the rate hike gets put on the back burner to simmer some more, but if the BLS sees fit to lie to us once more and show they are strong, then the rate hike’s heat gets turned up… That’s my Pfennig for Your Thoughts today… 

Today’s U.S. Data Cupboard has the ISM for August, and it’s forecast to slip a bit from 53.9 to 53.5… No biggie… And certainly not a market mover or FOMC mover… We’ll also see the labor report of how many job openings there were in August… Should be about 7.4 Million… Tomorrow, like I said, we’ll see the ADP Employment Report… Can’t wait! NOT!

To recap, the SPTs are taking their pounds of flesh again, and seeing if the physical buyers can rally Gold/ Silver today… The dollar remained around were it went to last Friday, when the FOMC rate hike odds were .57%, when they rose to .66% yesterday,… Chuck thinks that’s interesting for sure.. 

For What It’s Worth… Well, this is part 3 of Frank Trotters’ article on diversification and currencies that can be found in its entirety here: https://battlebank.com/battle-bulletin/whats-on-the-other-side-of-every-trade-a-serious-look-at-currency-investing/?refid=10002

We left off yesterday with the thought that currencies are not in your portfolio to make you rich… They are there to contribute to a diversified portfolio, and to protect you a bit from a falling dollar… 

So, we pick it up: “One Currency Is Not Diversification

Here’s the uncomfortable arithmetic for the typical investor. Own the S&P 500, a bond ladder, a money market fund and a house, and you may believe you’re diversified across hundreds of positions. But measured in currency terms, for the most part you own one position at 100% weight. Since nearly every asset you hold is priced in this currency, and your future liabilities are denominated in it, the concentration feels natural. But it is still concentration.

The argument to ignore currencies writes itself when the dollar is strong, as it was for most of 2011 through 2024. During those years, unhedged foreign exposure was a drag, and dollar concentration looked like wisdom.

But then 2025 arrived with a new administration and new policies, and the same concentration subtracted double digits of global purchasing power in 12 months. Morningstar noted that through September 2025, the dollar had depreciated 13.1% against the euro and about 14% against the franc. An American with no foreign currency exposure did not avoid the currency market that year. They simply took the losing side of it, in size, without ever placing the trade consciously.

What Actually Drives Relative Currency Values

Currency prediction has a deserved reputation for difficulty over short horizons. Over multiyear horizons, relative valuations generally respond to identifiable forces, and the investor’s job is to weigh them together rather than fixate on any one factor. And yes, I’ll use the word “relative” often since that’s the key element.

Relative inflation. Purchasing power parity is a poor timing tool and a good anchor. Persistent inflation differentials eventually pull exchange rates toward lower inflation. A currency whose domestic purchasing power erodes at 4% annually while another erodes at 1% fights a three-percentage-point headwind every year until the differential closes.

The relative fiscal situation. Deficits matter as a percentage of GDP, and they matter more when they’re structural rather than cyclical. A government borrowing 6% to 7% of GDP at full employment, as the United States has been doing and is forecast to do, is signaling that the gap will be closed by growth it cannot manufacture, austerity it will not choose or monetary accommodation it will eventually demand. Markets price that third possibility into the currency. Much of the dollar’s 2025 slide traces to exactly this reassessment of American fiscal credibility.

The relative national debt position. Flow is the deficit; stock is the debt. Gross debt above 100% of GDP does not doom a currency immediately, as Japan long demonstrated, but it removes room for error and raises the temptation toward financial repression, where rates are held below inflation to erode the debt quietly at the expense of anyone holding the currency. Countries with low debt ratios retain policy freedom, and policy freedom is what a currency holder is ultimately buying.”

Chuck again… I very good piece by my good friend, and former Big Boss, Frank Trotter, the head honcho at Battle Bank… I aways say that a currency is the stock of a country… You look at it the same way you do your due diligence on a stock you’re interested in buying…. 

Market Prices 9/1/2026: American Style: A$.7146, kiwi .5897, C$ .7206, euro 1.1597, sterling 1.3536, Swiss $1.2305, European Style: rand 16.1526, krone 9.3336, SEK 9.5877, forint 315.95, zloty 3.7362, koruna 20.8299,   RUB 85.60, yen 160.06, sing 1.2731, HKD 7.8409, INR 94.95, China 6.7220, peso 16.99, BRL 5.1853, BBDXY 1,197, Dollar Index 99.58, Oil $87.79, 10-year 4.78%, Silver $64.78, Platinum $1,774.00, Palladium $1,351.00, Copper $659, and Gold $4.384

That’s it for today… I really was wordy about the rate hike possibility this morning wasn’t I? I mean it just gets my dander up that this something that should have been done months ago, but the Fed Heads sat on their respective hands and did nothing…. absolutely nothing, say it again! (Edwin Starr) Had a great lunch with my classmates yesterday… They are all so funny to be around… And heat has returned to our area with the high today to be 101…Too hot for me to sit outside and read, so no Vitamin D for me today! The next three days are supposed to be over 100, so it looks like I’ll be stuck inside… UGH!  Mitch Ryder And The Detroit Wheels take us to the finish line today with their song: Jenny Take A Ride… A good oldie… I hope you have a Tom Terrific Tuesday today, and Please Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler

• The dollar rises on the PCE data
• Do I have a Treat for you today!

Good Day… and a Tub Thumpin’ Thursday to one and all! Well, have I got a treat for you today… You’ll find it in the FWIW section, but… no skipping ahead…. Do Not pass Go, do not receive $200… I’m finally getting over my stomach problems, thank God! First, I had a nasty cold, and that went right into stomach problems, I can’t catch a break! Oh, woe is me, right? Hey! I lived through it and what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger!  To greet me this morning is the band Live… and they are playing one of my fave songs: Lightening Crashes

In the early 2000’s, I listened to Live’s CD Throwing Copper so much that I think I wore the CD out! Oh, those were the days… We had just started Everbank and it felt alike lot the wild west…  I’m beating around the bush here because, the dollar rose yesterday on false pretenses, and that’s all I’ll say about that…. (not really, you know me too well) 

OK, here we go.. The dollar gained 2 index points yesterday and at one point it was up 4 index points in the BBDXY before calmer heads took over… The dollar gained after a slew of data, especially the PCE showed that inflation still rose, but that lighted the rate hike lovers fire and the dollar was off…. of course, the Fed Heads need to hike rates, but traders all acted like this was the first time they heard that! 

Oh my! The Fed/Cabal/Cartel is going to hike rates what’s a mother to do? Well, they bought dollars…. 

Gold tried to fight the SPTs but had no luck and ended up losing $64 on the day and drop below $4,600 at $4,595… Silver attempted the same thing but was taken to the wood shed by the SPTs and it lost 37-cents to close at $68.24… The new lines in the sand are $4,600 for Gold and $69 for Silver… Let’s see how long it takes for the physical buyers to take those lines in the sand out… 

The price of Oil saw some non-believers of the fake story that was going round and caused the price see some weakness, but the trend and buy Oil and see its price rise to $81.69… The 10-year Treasury bond didn’t see any “yield control” and so the selling returned with the yield rising to 4.66%

In the overnight markets…. the dollar didn’t move off of the 1,194 figure it closed yesterday… But Gold/Silver has had the snot kicked out of them by 1. The SPTs and 2. The rising PCE

Gold is down $6 to start our day but added to yesterday’s loss Gold is down $72 and that’s significant…. Silver too, is down this morning, this time it’s 37-cents… Copper too got whacked… but else is new?

So, the PCE got higher in July… And the Fed Heads are still not of the frame of mind to hike rates…. But the bond boys are, as the 10-year’s yield firmed yesterday and overnight.. This morning its yield sits at 4.67%…

And the price of Oil is gaining more non-believers of the bag-o-lies the U.S. told regarding 15 tankers leaving the Strait, when observers said that there weren’t any tankers leaving…  The price of Oil has an $82 handle to it this morning… 

So, they tell me that the PCE (the fed head’s favorite inflation calc) rose to 3.7% and still not a word about inflation rising from the leaders of this country….  I just don’t get it… 

The dollar should be getting beaten like a rented mule because the Fed is sitting on their respective hands, but it’s not… And this is the time you’d be on the ball if you’ve already diversified your investment portfolio with currencies and metals…. But for those of you haven’t diversified, you still have time, and this little dollar blip upward would be an excellent time… I just saying… 

I’ll end this here, as my thought that my stomach problems were over was that, just a thought… 

The U.S. Data Cupboard yesterday showed July Durable Goods Orders were up 1.1% (That’s good) and the PCE… Oh, and the 2^nd QTR GDP remained at 1.5%… Maybe, just maybe because you never know (Andujar) the second QTR will be better… 

To recap.. The dollar got some wind its sails when the PCE showed that rate cut will be in the cards at the next meeting, as it rose to 3.7%…  and the belief that 15 tankers made it out of the strait, as the U.S. claims, is becoming a statement that people cannot believer.. 

For What it’s Worth… This is a great article written by my good friend, and former Big Boss, and now the head honcho at Battle Bank, Frank Trotter.. It’s long so I won’t be able to give you all of it, so you’ll have to go here to read the rest, and trust me, you’ll want to! https://battlebank.com/battle-bulletin/whats-on-the-other-side-of-every-trade-a-serious-look-at-currency-investing/?refid=10002

Or, here’s your snippet, that will be just a tongue wetter but what I have is good!  Here’s Frank:

“Every investor holds a currency position, whether they know it or not.

For example, an American who keeps everything in U.S.-dollar-denominated stocks, bonds and bank deposits has made a concentrated bet on a single piece of paper issued by a single government. For most of the past 15 years, that bet paid off handsomely and invisibly. In the early 2000s and over the past few years, it stopped paying.

The U.S. Dollar Index fell roughly 9.5% in 2025, its worst annual performance since 2017, and it posted the weakest first half since 1973. The euro gained about 13.1% against the dollar, the Swiss franc over 14% and the Norwegian krone over 13%. Investors who assumed currency was background noise discovered it was a very loud instrument.

This Battle Bulletin is about treating currencies as what they are: a distinct asset class with its own drivers, its own risks and its own role in a properly diversified portfolio. This is not a case for speculation or leverage. It is a case for understanding relative value among the world’s major monies and for refusing to let one government’s fiscal choices determine the fate of everything you own.

Of course, all investments carry risk of loss. The value of stocks, bonds, currencies and precious metals can decline. This bulletin is a backgrounder for your consideration, not a personalized recommendation. Discuss this with your financial advisor and always do your own research prior to making any investment.

Let’s Start With the Investable Universe

Not all currencies deserve consideration. Of the roughly 180 circulating currencies in the world, the serious investor should confine attention to the 20 or so largest. Within that group, your focus is best allocated to currencies that float with relatively little management. The currency’s price tells you something only if the price is allowed to move. The Chinese renminbi trades inside a band administered by the People’s Bank of China. The Hong Kong dollar is pegged. The Saudi riyal is pegged. The Danish krone shadows the euro by design. Whatever their other merits, these currencies are policy instruments, and holding them means trusting a bureaucracy to maintain an arrangement that history says bureaucracies eventually abandon, usually at the worst possible moment for the holder.”

Chuck Again… On second thought, I think I’ll use some more of this article for Monday and every day after that as long as it takes! I’ve always told Frank he was an excellent writer… 

Market Prices 8/27/2026: American Style: A$ .7191, kiwi .5949, C$ .7209, euro 1.1642, sterling 1.3579, Swiss $1.2423, European Style: rand 15.9912, RUB 86.34, yen 159.43, sing 1.2717, HKD 7.8383, INR 95.54, China 6.7210, peso 16.98, BRL 5.1483, BBDXY 1,194, Dollar Index 99.19, Oil $82.21, ten-year 4.67%, Silver $68.22, Platinum $1,826.00, Palladium $1,338.00, Copper $6.66, and Gold… $4,589

That’s It For Today and this week… I’m really not of myself this morning, I can’t seem to concentrate on anything, my mind is taken up by what’s wrong with my body now…. This is getting ridiculous! My beloved Cardinals took another one on the chin last night… Maybe all the naysayers that said the Cardinals would be a very bad team this year, are finally getting some love…. and now… I have connection problems! UGH! I never seem to come out on top…. Iron Butterfly takes us to the finish line today with their very long song: In-A-Gadda-DA-VIDA… A classic rock song for sure! I hope you have a Tub Thumpin’ Thursday today and Please Be Good To Yourself!

• the dollar is drifting awaiting data today I guess…
• Oil is caught up in a fish tale…

Good Day… And a Wonderful Wednesday to you! Again, I apologize for yesterday’s surprise very shortened letter…  The dermatologist cut two of the growths on my head off to send off for biopsies, and froze the others, for now…. We’ll see what the biopsies say…. Jackson Brown greets me this morning with his song: Ready Or Not…

I sure wasn’t ready to have the doctor cut those two growths off. Even trying to numb them they hurt like… Well, they hurt!  The dollar couldn’t find terra firma yesterday, and it slid to 1,192 in the BBDXY… 

Gold found a way to gain on the day but had to live with a lot of SPT’s doing their thing… Gold gained $7 to close at $4,659 and Silver saw the same path to gaining on the day that Gold did… Silver gained 58-cents to close at $66.80

The 10-year Treasury is seeing some buying and bond traders have taken the news from the Gulf, hook, line and sinker… Apparently the U.S. told the news agencies that 15 tankers made it through the Strait, but the counters there deny the news…. 

In the overnight markets last night…. The dollar continued to drift… Only this time it gained 1 index point in the BBDXY and starts today at 1,1192… Gold is seeing some big time selling this morning, must be the SPTs out early, eh? Silver is flat to up some pennies, and it looks like they will be dependent on the data today… 

The price of Oil remained trading with an $80 handle overnight, and the 10-year Treasury has to shake off that situation I described above… its yield starts the day at 4.63%

My friend and editor of the 5 Bullets letter, David Gonigam, agrees with me that the STUPID CPI is just that. Of course, he doesn’t say that exactly, but he titled Bullet 1 yesterday “The totally Fake Inflation Numbers”…  In this bullet he had a piece of the great John Williams of Shadow Stats and now I’m going to borrow them…. 

“Starting in 1980, there have been about 20 changes” to the way CPI is calculated, said Mr. Williams.

“Every change has lowered the CPI compared to how it would have been calculated before.”

As you might recall if you were around then, inflation felt out of control in late 1979 and early 1980.

The peak was a staggering 14.6% in March 1980 — when Pink Floyd topped the charts with “Another Brick in the Wall, Part II” and Dustin Hoffman was the big box office draw in Kramer vs. Kramer.

Key point: Inflation rates that high threatened to destroy the Social Security program in short order: No way could it keep up with cost-of-living adjustments that steep.

And so began that process of 20 changes in the way the official inflation rate is calculated, every one of them bringing the number down.”

Chuck Again… you know I call them “hedonic adjustments”…  Oh, and by the way the BLS says inflation is 3.4%, but calculating them the way they were calculated in 1980 before the hedonic adjustments, John Williams says inflation is actually 11.4%…  The BLS wants you to believe that inflation is getting better….  Yeah, right!

One of the 20 adjustments made was that the BLS would substitute items in the basket they used that had gotten too expensive and replace them with something cheaper, thus keeping inflation from rising…  great eh?

Oh, and guess what gets off the ground tomorrow? Give up? OK, it’s the big circus, the Jackson Hole boondoggle… Ok, this meeting of the minds( I use that loosely) has brought us rate cuts, QE, and Operation Twist through the years, so it’s not a waste of time, but in most years it’s simply a boondoggle… I’ll keep a lookout for any significant news here and report it next week… 

I need to go to the BIG Finish because that piece on inflation.. is making by blood pressure rise…

The U.S. Data Cupboard yesterday had the Case/Shiller Home Price Index for June and it increased, surprisingly to me, .5%… Today’s Data Cupboard has the July prints of Durable Goods, the 2^nd revision of 2^nd QTR GDP, and the PCE, the Fed Heads favorite inflation calculator… 

To recap… The dollar drifted most of the day, but did lose 1 index point, as Gold & Silver fought with the SPTs all day but did gain on the day, Gold by $7 and Silver by 58-cents… And Oil traders have taken a story by the U.S. hook, line and sinker to cause Oil to drop in price… 

For What It’s Worth… long-time reader, Bob, sent me a link to this story, and since so much has been talked about Bessent’s announcement last week to double down on bond buying, I thought it good for the FWIW today and it can be found here: Druckenmiller slams Bessent bond buyback plan as price management

Or, here’s your snippet: “The billionaire investor, an early mentor of the Treasury secretary, argued in a WSJ op-ed that governments defending prices against fundamentals always lose

Druckenmiller slammed Bessent’s bond buyback plan as “price management” doomed to fail.

Stanley Druckenmiller, the billionaire founder of Duquesne Family Office and an early mentor of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, called the Treasury’s decision to double long-end bond buybacks a “mistake” driven by “price management” that will ultimately fail.

In a Wall Street Journal opinion piece published Monday, Druckenmiller argued that markets were correct to view last week’s announcement — which doubled long-end buyback lots to $4 billion — as an attempt to suppress yields rather than manage liquidity. The announcement came Wednesday, after the 30-year yield climbed to its highest point in roughly two decades; a brief rally followed before yields turned back up.

“Governments defending prices against fundamentals always lose,” Druckenmiller wrote. “The long-term Treasury yield is the most important price in the world. It is also the only fiscal disciplinarian the U.S. has left.”

Druckenmiller cautioned that any effort to hold down long bond yields could pull the Treasury into an escalating cycle of ever-bigger purchases, eroding the institutional credibility that underpins the market. He also noted the timing of the operations.

“These enlarged operations happen to run through the final stretch of a midterm campaign,” he wrote. “Debt management that even appears to follow the political calendar spends the one asset that took two centuries to accumulate: the credibility of the Treasury market. That asset doesn’t regain its value so easily.”

He disputed the Treasury’s framing of the buybacks as a liquidity tool, contending that nothing in current market conditions justified the intervention. Druckenmiller pointed out that the 10-year yield was roughly in line with nominal economic growth, a configuration he described as supportive of borrowing rather than a brake on it.

“The bond market wasn’t being a vigilante, as some would argue,” he wrote. “It was being a pushover that had finally begun to clear its throat, and Treasury moved to quiet even that.”

Druckenmiller, who worked alongside both Bessent and George Soros at Soros Fund Management, said the only durable path to lower long-term yields was deficit reduction, not buybacks. His prescription centered on restructuring entitlements — adjusting qualification thresholds, benefit formulas, and program eligibility in ways that would take effect gradually so as to cushion the impact on both beneficiaries and taxpayers.

“You can’t buy your way out of a solvency conversation with liquidity tools,” he wrote. “A credible fiscal package would do more for the long end of the curve than a buyback program 1,000 times this size.”

The Treasury did not respond to a request for comment, according to Reuters.”

Chuck Again… I know, I know that was a long snippet, but I wanted you to hear what legendary investor Stanley Druckenmiller had to say…

Market Prices 8/26/2026: American Style: A$ .7186, kiwi .5959, C$ .7243, euro 1.1673, sterling 1.3683, Swiss $1.2442, European style: rand 15.9104, krone 9.3234, SEK 9.4941, forint 308.41, zloty 3.6801, koruna 20.5301,  RUB 84.15, yen 159.01, sing 1.2698, HKD 7.8383, INR 95.41, China 6.7220, peso 16.92, BRL 5.1456, BBDXY 1,192, Dollar Index 98.96, Oil $ 80.48, 10-year 4.63%, Silver $68.87, Platinum $1,863.00, Palladium $1,356.00, Copper $6.80, and Gold… $4,628

That’s it for today… Well, now I sit and wait for the news on those biopsies that will be made… My darling daughter, Dawn, stopped by last night and came out back to talk to me… I was so pleased that she came out to talk to me… Normally, the kids would rather talk to their Mom than me….  My beloved Cardinals got thumped by the Orioles last night, it was ugly! I actually turned it off after it was 12-1…. I guess that’s what they call a game that you wash out of your mind and move on to today’s game…. Marmalade takes us to the finish line today with their great 60’s song: Reflections Of My Life….  I hope you have a Wonderful Wednesday today, and Please Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler

Good Day… And a Tom Terrific Tuesday to you! I received word yesterday that my dermatologist had an opening this morning… So, I took it! I’ve had these spots on my head that won’t go away… You may recall me going through this a few years ago, and I thought they were gone…. But not to be… 

So, all I have time for this morning is to give you the recap from yesterday… I apologize, but, in my life I’ve found that when you need to see a doctor and the call you to come in, you go in… Period…

The dollar didn’t do much yesterday and spent the day at 1,193… Gold was going along very nicely and it was up over $60 when the SPTS decided it was getting too close to $4,700… and it closed at $4,652 up $48 on the day… Silver saw problems as soon as the SPTs arrived at their desks, and closed up 11-cents to $66.22

The price of Oil remained trading with an $85 handle, and the 10-year also remained at its price yesterday morning of a 4.71% yield… 

You’re on your own now… This is all I have time for this morning and believe me it’s quite early!

I’ll talk to you tomorrow, that is as long as they don’t find something awry….  with me, there’s always a possibility, but I doubt it this time…

I hope you have a Tom Terrific Tuesday today, and Please Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler

• Bessent sends the dollar down the slippery slope
• and gives Gold/Silver bugs freedom to gain!

Good Day… And Marvelous Monday to you! Well, things sure changed after the Treasury Sec. Talked last week… He certainly is a market mover! My beloved Cardinals come limping home after a 3-city road trip and falling flat on their faces in Philly… The weather cooled off to more temperate levels this past weekend… I got outside to read a bit, but I had a very ugly weekend health wise, as my stomach is now the things that’s causing me trouble… The Rolling Stones greet me this morning with their song: Can’t You Hear Me Knocking

I have a bit of other things to talk about first up this morning, so let’s get to them and then we can find out where the markets closed on Friday and the overnight markets… OK? Of course that’s OK, because I’m doing the writing!

OK, we HAVE to start off this letter with a brief dissertation on what the U.S. is doing now with regards to bonds… Treasury Sec. Bessent told the markets last week two things, and those two things really riled up the markets… First, he said that the Treasury will buy “double the amount of bonds”….  he’ talking about the 10–30-year bonds and he’s going to be doing QE on steroids… But only it’s not real QE because the money he gets to buy all those bonds won’t be by the creation of dollars by the Fed Heads, it will be from the sale of short-term bonds (At a loss) … 

I saw a quote by a pundit that said, “he’s applying a Band-Aid to a bullet wound” And that about wraps up his first statement to the markets… Oh, and the BBDXY dropped like a rock on his words…. 

The second thing he said was that “There’s nothing magic about the $40 trillion number, And we can grow our way out of that.”

Oh, my, what fantasy world does he live in? Didn’t the great Ronald Reagan say that he would get the economy to grow out of our debt then?” (that may have worked then because the debt was only $2.6 Trillion) 

Oh, and we did go over $40 Trillion last week and that was only 5 months after we reached $39 Trillion! 

So… as I told you things have changed… The BBDXY ended the week at 1,193… And Gold/Silver went on a buying rampage… Gold ended the week at $4,604 and Silver at $69.11

I’d like to think that Gold/Silver are now well on their second legs of their respective rallies…. But, I’ll have to see more buying and volume to sway me! 

And the price of Oil ended the week with an $87 handle, and so far, the yield of the 10-year is holding steady Eddie ahead of the double buying, the Treasury announced last week. The 10-year’s yield ended the week at 4.73%… 

In the overnight markets last night… The dollar got sold some more but in the early hours it came back and the  BBDXU sits at 1,193 to start the day/week..  Gold and Silver are at it again, and Gold is up $53 and Silver is up 24=cents to start the day and week… Ok, so I’ve seen enough, Gold/Silver are on their second leg of the rally now… so far there’s no sign of the PPT…  for the dollar, and that’s a good thing! 

The price of Oil slid a bit overnight and starts the day/week with a $85 handle, while the 10-year still is resisting the buying of the bond news and opens the week at 4.71% yield… 

Bessent must think about what he said regarding the $40 Trillion debt! 

I don’t think he really thinks the economic growth would wipe out the $40 Trillion debt… But, he had to say that to calm the markets down a bit before they sent Gold/Silver to the moon! And the dollar on a very slippery slope… 

Well, with the dollar losing ground faster than a speeding bullet, the euro has come back after getting sold for yen by the U.S. Treasury… The euro ended the week at 1.1678 and taking the rest of the currencies long for the ride… Shoot Rudy, even the Russian ruble had a good day for once in a Blue Moon…  Ahh, Blue Moon, you saw me standing alone. Without a dream in my heart, Without a love of my own….  What a great song!

The Aussie dollar (A$) was drifting after the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) left their Official Cash Rate (interest rate) unchanged at their last meeting, probably due to what the RBA though the A$ would do if they raised rates again…. Well, they didn’t have to raise them as the A$ has taken off to higher ground anyway! I think what’s probably going on here is Japanese investors doing a new carry trade, using the A$… 

Back in the last weak dollar trend, the carry trade using the A$ as the currency they borrowed… or bought outright…  saw the A$ go over $1.00 and it dragged kiwi along for the ride as it too was used because the interest rates in these two nations were much higher than in Japan… not to say that history will repeat here, but… it will be at the scene of the crime…

Of course, the dollar needs to be in a weak trend… and it appears that it is entering one… I know, I know I said they were entering one a month or so ago… And this could be just a return to the underlying weak trend… Either way, it’s going in the right direction considering our problem Debt and the financing of it… 

There’s always the PPT to put up roadblocks on the falling dollars….  That’s why I always say that Trend is not a ONE-WAY STREET! There can be volatility while the trend continues…  I say this to tell all that took my suggestion a month or so ago to begin to diversify, not to panic and sell your currencies when there’s volatility, you’ll hear about it first right here in the Pfennig!

And now… The POTUS is threatening to bomb… Bond sellers….  I’m not kidding here… the POTUS told a reporter last week : “We have many types of intervention. That’s one. The ultimate intervention is our military. And, uh, if we have to use that, we will.”

Oh my, oh my, oh my… I can’t say what’s going through my mind right now… But what did Einstein say about repeating something over and over again thinking that the end result will change?   I’m just saying…

Circling back for a minute on Bessent and the Treasury… I can’t believe that they can’t see that THIS is one of the reasons that the world keeps selling the dollar… The Treasury decided that this was easier than reducing the size of bond issuance (to finance the debt)…  Well, it took 5 months to go from $39 Trillion to $40 Trillion in debt… at that rate we would be at $50 Trillion by the time that Spring Training Starts!. I don’t think that will happen but there’s a chance… And you’re telling me that there’s a chance?  HA!

The U.S .Data Cupboard is a mixed-bag-o-data this week, with nothing really today or tomorrow, but Wednesday will be the pick day of the week with tons of data to print… So, the dollar isn’t going to get any help from a trumped-up data report so, the dollar is on it’s own today and tomorrow… And that could be a very bad thing for the dollar, in my humble opinion… 

To recap… Gold/Silver had banner days as the week went on last week, and on Friday Gold climbed above $4,600 and Silver above $69… The dollar got sold for a basket of hopes and lies…. The U.S. Treasury Sec. Said that the treasury will buy double the bonds issued in the future for the 10-30 year bonds…  This is not QE, from what they say… (whoever said that we can believe what they say!) They will sell short-term bonds to pay for the bonds they buy… So, no creation of dollars to pay for them…  Now, do we really believe this?

For What It’s Worth… So, that got me thinking about what will happen if the bond intervention fails to work? To bring yields back down? And then I saw this and you can find it here: The Treasury’s bond-market intervention isn’t working. So what comes next? | Morningstar

Or, here’s your snippet: “‘It’s fair to say that at some point – at some time – there will be a crisis,’ says billionaire John Arnold, a former star Enron trader and the founder of philanthropy Arnold Ventures

The Treasury Department’s efforts to calm the bond-market selloff haven’t yet worked as well as hoped.

You can’t just sweep $40 trillion in U.S. national debt under a rug and forget about it.

That’s the bond market’s message to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in recent days, following his sudden efforts to calm an alarming selloff in long-term U.S. government bonds that recently pushed yields up a two-decade high.

Bessent outlined plans to buy more long-dated Treasurys this fall, promised to use the agency’s large “tool kit” to support the market and talked of coming new measures to contain the growing U.S. debt load.

Now, the question for traders is whether anything will get done to manage America’s growing debt pile, or if the bond market ends up calling the shots.

“It’s fair to say that at some point – at some time – there will be a crisis,” said John Arnold, a billionaire former Enron energy trader and the founder of philanthropy Arnold Ventures.”

Chuck Again…  That’s a good question regarding the bond market ending up calling the shots… Because… They already are!

Market Prices 8/24/2026: American Style: A$.7161, kiwi .5961, C$ .7169, euro 1.1664, sterling 1.3633, Swiss $1.2464, European Style: rand 16. 0056, krone 9.3186, SEK 9.5029, forint 310.81, zloty 3.6740, koruna 20.6639,    RUB 83.22, yen 159.11, sing 1.2706, HKD 7.8366, INR 95.74, China 6.7238, peso 16.92, BRL 5.1496, BBDXY 1,193, Dollar Index 98.98, Oil $85.39, 10-year 4.71%, Silver $69.35, Platinum $1,888.00, Palladium $1,371.00,    Copper $6.68, and Gold… $4,657

That’s it for today… I’m here all week so try the veal! Bessent is going to try his “toolkit”… Good luck! This is the last week of August, and with August being the last full month of summer, it’ll be time for the kids to go back to school soon…. When I was a young school child, we always went back to school the day after Labor Day… but these days? Some have already started! YIKES! What happened to family vacations? Aye, Aye, Aye…. The Moody Blues takes us to the finish line today with a song from their Seventh Sojourn album (one of my faves): Isn’t Life Strange…. I hope you have a Marvelous Monday today, and Please Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler

• The dollar recovers for a short time
• Oil and euros move the krone…

Good Day… And a Wonder Dog Wednesday to you! My beloved Cardinals got back to winning last night in Cincinnati 3-0.. Good pitching , received timely hitting and that was that! I really don’t like the Reds because of the brawl they started with the Cardinals years ago… and the damage they did to our backup catcher who had to retire afterwards….  Ok, don’t get me all riled up so early, move on…. The temps have backed off BIG TIME here and I was able to sit outside and watch the game… Jo Jo Gunne greets me this morning with their song: Run Run Run…. 

Well, the dollar didn’t do much yesterday except gain 1 index point to leave it at 1,201 in the BBDXY… But the dollars lack of performance didn’t carry over to Gold/Silver as they were attacked right from the get-go yesterday by the SPTs who wouldn’t let up on their attack all through the day… Gold lost $85 and Silver lost $2.45… I would say that the SPTs had some pent-up frustration, that their last engineered attack on Gold/Silver didn’t scare away investors for Gold / Silver fought back to reach $4,400 and $65 respectively…. 

It’s really sad that they go through these engineered takedowns , don’t you agree? I mean, I’m holding on to my Gold/Silver for they haven’t shook me with these takedowns…  I’ve talked to folks through the years don’t believe these takedowns exist, that it’s just Gold/Silver holders selling at specific levels… I tell they, they may be selling, but they wouldn’t have the effect on the price like the SPTs do with their arms full of short contracts showing up at the window…. 

The price of Oil bumped higher yesterday, to end the day trading with an $85 handle, and the 10-year Treasury, which had seen its yield rise to 4.74% yesterday morning, saw the Fed Heads implement some of their “yield control” and brought the yield down to 4.71%…. 

In the overnight markets last night…. The dollar got sold overnight, as the situation in the Strait of Hormuz just keeps getting darker…. I know, the dollar got bought while the war went on, but now things are clearer and minus a nuclear bomb the U.S. must pull out of the region and stop bleeding money that we don’t have….  So, the dollar sits at 1,198 this morning in the BBDXY… down 3 index points and looking very peeked…  Time for the PPT? Only the shadow knows that.. 

Well, the price of Gold is up $30 to start our day…  and Silver is up 26-cents…. The thing that gets me so riled up with the SPTs is that they have become so brazen in the takedown, and no longer attempt to fly under the radar… The SPTs just seem to do whatever they want and there’s no regulators that will stop them… 

The price of Oil remained trading with an $85 handle overnight, and the 10-year Treasury is seeing some buying to start our day. I Know it’s strange but stranger things have gone on here… The yield to start our day is 4.69%… 

Regarding the SPTs, they didn’t let Copper get off free yesterday and they clobbered it to bring it to $6.52…  Just a week ago this metal was $6.79… The boys have really done to Copper that they’ve done to Gold/Silver for decades now…

There’s lots of articles out there regarding the yen intervention by the U.S… But, believe me that my description of what happened from day one is bang on (except the U.S. sold euros, not dollars to buy yen)  And that is that the U.S. seeing that Japan is the largest holder of Treasuries, and that they are liquid enough that they would be sold by the Bank of Japan to support the yen… And the U.S. couldn’t stand the thought of the BOJ selling their Treasury stash… So, the U.S. joined the BOJ and supported the yen… A lot of good they did, the markets will get back to selling yen as soon as the dust settles in the East….

And circling back to the dollar… Really, I mean let’s talk about the euro…  The Eurozone has their own debt problems but the pale in comparison to the U.S. and Japan, so when the dollar gets sold, the euro responds favorably first…  And I told you last week that it would take some time for the traders to get back to buying euros after $10 Billion of them were sold to buy yen…. And this morning, the euro has a 1.16 handle… So, I guess it’s time… 

And with the euro finally getting past the 1.15 level, it gives trades the freedom to buy Norwegian krone again… The krone is an Oil play, but they also are a euro-play… And when both the euro and Oil are in rally mode, the krone is bought by the truckload….  I’m just saying…

The U.S. Data Cupboard had the July prints of Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization… Industrial Production show at .2% growth… not a number I would write home about. Capacity Utilization was flat to down .01%, so Companies are not expanding their offices any time in the near future.. 

To recap…The dollar, just like it did last week, has now recovered all the ground it lost last Friday…  Gold & Silver got whacked good by the SPTs, as they attempt to get Gold/Silver as an investment non-gratis to investors…. I doubt it works for “real holders of the metals” and not the short timers who heard about Gold / Silver’s rises and wanted to take part in them…. 

For What It’s Worth… Well, it’s been awhile since I had the GATA folks send me something and now I have something for you… This is about the Global Economy and the Japanese yen, and it can be found here: Global finance still looks like a ‘giant Jenga tower’ propped up by a Japanese yen that’s in deep trouble | Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee | Exposing the long-term manipulation of the gold market:

Or, here’s your snippet: “The first U.S.-Japan joint intervention in three decades aimed at boosting the yen has come and gone without doing much to ease anxiety in currency markets.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s notepad suggested the U.S. bought $5 billion-$10 billion worth of yen, while Japan’s move topped $50 billion. The exchange rate initially strengthened to about 157 yen per dollar from nearly 164, but has since given back some gains and hovered around 159 on Friday.

To be sure, efforts to prop up the yen were seen as short-term measures to address the symptoms rather than the root causes of the currency’s weakness. Those include Japan’s massive debt that exceeds 200% of GDP, fiscal stimulus that is expected to worsen the deficit, and a central bank that has been slow to raise rates in the face of high inflation.

But given that the yen’s recent instability was enough to trigger the U.S.-Japan intervention, a key underpinning of global financial markets appears riskier.

“Now traders are watching the ‘yen carry trade,’ where cheap yen borrowing funds bets on higher-yielding assets worldwide, and wondering if it’s about to blow up,” Wall Street veteran Ed Yardeni wrote in a note on Tuesday. “The financial system right now looks like a giant Jenga tower with the yen as a load-bearing piece.” …

Chuck Again…  and to think that U.S. secretary Bessent basically fired a bazooka at the currency markets and that Bazooka hasn’t scared anyone against shorting yen… It’s basically wasted money… but don’t let that get to you Scott, better men than you have attempted to save the yen and they all have failed! 

Market Prices 8/19/2026: American Style: A$ .7074, kiwi .5879, C$ .7207, euro 1.1604, sterling 1.3554, Swiss $1.2342, European Style: rand 16.2545, krone 9.4029, SEK 9.5147, forint 314.33, zloty 3.7279, koruna 20.8271, RUB 84.99, yen 159.12, sing 1.2763, HKD 7.8416, INR 95.76, China 6.7391, peso 17.04, BRL 5.2190, BBDXY 1,198, Dollar Index 99.57, Oil $85.80, 10-year 4.69%, Silver $63.67, Platinum $1,741.00, Palladium $1,315.00, Copper $6.52… and Gold… $4,365

That’s it for today and this week, as there will be no Pfennig tomorrow, and the next time I write to you is next Monday… Good friend Dewey came down and sat outside with me to watch the game last night… he’s normally not in town but was this time so got to catch up… and Thursday is not only infusion day for me, but it’s also the birthday of my darling daughter, Dawn… I remember when she was born and to this day she’s still tiny…. A lot like my Grandmother on my dad’s side…  She’s still pretty as can be, and so I hope she has a grand day! Billy Joe Royal takes us to the finish line today with his song: I Knew You When… I hope you have a Wonder Dog Day today and Please Be Good to Yourself!

Chuck Butler

• The dollar recovers its Friday losses
• The SPTs are at Gold/Silver again!

Good Day… And a Tom Terrific Tuesday to you! Well, they had a sweep in their hands, and then lost it… My beloved Cardinals won the first game VS the Reds but lost the nightcap, after blowing a 3-run lead… UGH! I caught up on my lost sleep from Sunday night yesterday…. And now I have two more days until I go and make up my infusion day… Yes, there won’t be a Pfennig on Thursday 8/20… Santana greets me this morning with his song: She’s Not There (a remake of a song but he does it best!)

Well, the follow through on the selling of the dollar didn’t last too long, as the dollar did gain a bit yesterday after spending the morning below 1,200 in the BBDXY. It finished the day at 1,200 on the mark….  Still down for the day, but not as bad as it was earlier….  The currency traders don’t want to go too fast with their selling of the dollar because when the PPT steps in and stops the slide of the dollar, they will get their beatings…

The price of Gold saw buyers early and often yesterday, and so it gained $40 to close at $4,417… And Silver followed Gold down the path the buyers laid and gained $1.73 to close at $65.90…. I want to mention something here and that is during the last mega rally for Gold/Silver, good friend Aaron said to me, “you know Silver has outperformed, on a percentage basis, Gold 7 of the last 10 years” I then looked it up and he was bang on! And so, I’ve kept that in the back of my mind all these years… 

The price of Oil bumped higher yesterday and ended the day trading with an $84 handle… And the 10-year remained at 4.71% yield yesterday… 

In the overnight markets last night…. The recovery of the dollar continued as the BBDXY picked up one index point overnight… This would be the time to pick up some currencies and metals in my humble opinion, and I have something for you later in the letter that will illustrate this opinion greatly! 

The SPTs are back at Gold/Silver again… And this time they are taking Copper with them… Gold is off this morning $24 and Silver is off 72-cents to start the day… I warned you, right, that the SPTs were still around and that they were just waiting to pounce… Gold/Silver’s recover will be checkered with days like today, but that just gives procrastinating investors a buying opportunity… 

The price of Oil remained trading with an $84 handle overnight, and the 10-year Treasury saw some additional selling overnight and it starts today with a 4.74% yield…   

You know the 10-year Treasury is important to everyone even if you don’t own a bond… The 10-year is used in pricing mortgage rates, and lots of other things that you use or deal with daily…  and last week’s auction of the 10-year wasn’t what you would call a walk in the park… Buyers were less than usual and the ones there demanded that the bond be issued with a higher yield….  The 30-year treasury bond saw the same kind of demands and had to raise its yield to the highest its been since 1971…  

1971, man I was still in H.S. And playing football…. Things seemed to be normal then for me, for little did I know that bond yields were as high as they were and back then they were on their way down from double-digit yields… Nowadays they are going the opposite way, and they are going up in yield… 

Circling back to rising yields… this means the interest we pay to the holder of the bond is going higher on new issued bonds… But guess who holds all those low yielding bonds from before bonds began to lose ground?  Well, my guess would be the banks, and the casino banks that are buyers of last resort at auctions….  So, let’s just say that banks own a ton of low yielding bonds…. well, that’s not a problem as long as they don’t need to sell them… Ask SVB (Silicon Valley Bank) . Who’s to say that tons of smaller banks (not the Casino Banks) have the word get out that they have tons of unrealized losses on their books… 

That could cause a run on deposits from depositors that fear the unrealized losses, and that would cause the bank to have to sell the bonds at a loss…  then unrealized losses become realized losses… And that my friend is Damocles Sword that hangs over banks….  Oh, and the size of their unrealized losses in total is $325.1 Billion, and that was at the latest calc of the number, it’s probably larger now…. 

Ok, I’m going to stop there, because this scares the bejeebers out of me while I write about it….  But if you want to know more click on this link and the guy will explain it all to you… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgNlK6xeDM0

The currencies, as a whole, dropped back to reload yesterday… In the morning they were ready to take off higher VS the dollar, but then the selling of the dollar abated, and so did the currencies’ rally….

Gold continues to get bought by the global Central Banks… This from Yahoo Finance: “a separate 2026 World Gold Council survey (2). It found 74% of respondents expect the dollar’s share of global reserves to fall over the next five years, while 89% expect global central bank gold holdings to rise over the next year. A record 45% also expect to increase their own gold holdings.

The Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum (OMFIF) says it’s the first time its survey has found more central banks planning to reduce their dollar exposure over the next decade than increase it.”

Chuck Again… this was the first time that the Central Banks said that they would reduce dollar holdings instead of gathering them…. I find that to be a bad omen for the dollar… Don’t you?

If you answered yes, then where’s your diversification? If you’ve been a procrastinator and not diversified as of yet, no worries, there’s still time, and no time is better than today…. Central Banks are going to reduce their dollar holdings, Gold has become more held by Central Banks than dollars, and Chuck says that the dollar in trouble…  Couldn’t be a better time to diversify…. 

OK, you don’t need to be harped at by me this early in the morning, do you? 

The U.S. Data Cupboard today has the July prints of Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization…. The both were meh in June, and I don’t see what would make them more than meh in July, but I guess we’ll see, eh?

To recap… The dollar recovered a bit yesterday and overnight, so no follow through on the selling from Friday… The SPTs are at Gold/Silver again today and you can’t say that Chuck didn’t warn you that Gold/Silver’s recovery will be checkered…. And China’s economy is slowing, what does that mean for the U.S.?  

For What It’s Worth… I spent yesterday talking about how the 15^th of August was the day that we started Football Practice… But what was uber important was the fact that it market 55 years since Richard Nixon took Gold away from the backing of Gold…  it was only to be temporary according to Nixon… Yeah right! Anyway, David Gonigam had this piece in his letter yesterday and you can find it here: Gold and Great Nations | Paradigm Pressroom’s 5 Bullets

Or, here’s your snippet: “: Between the Vietnam War and LBJ’s Great Society programs, the national debt was mounting quickly. Foreign governments — especially France — were losing confidence in the U.S. dollar. Under the terms of the 1944 Bretton Woods agreement, those governments were exercising their right to trade in dollars for gold.

Uncle Sam’s gold stash was dwindling quickly, so Nixon decided to “close the gold window.”

“Nixon said the suspension of convertibility was ‘temporary,’” recalls our macro maven Jim Rickards with some lesser-known history.

“I spoke with two of the officials present at Camp David with Nixon the weekend of the announcement, Paul Volcker and Kenneth Dam. They both confirmed to me that the suspension was meant to be temporary.

“The plan was to have a new Bretton Woods-style conference, devalue the dollar against gold (and against other currencies such as the yen, the Deutsche mark and French francs) and then return to the gold standard at the new valuations.

“The first part happened — there was an international financial conference in Washington, D.C., in December 1971 — but the rest did not. While the world was waiting for the conference, countries moved to floating exchange rates without reference to gold.”

Chuck Again… Thanks David, this was a good reminder of the dastardly thing that Nixon did to our country’s finances… he turned a creditor nation into a debtor nation in 15 minutes on TV…

Market Prices 8/18/2026: American Style: A$ .7106, kiwi .5879, C$ .7206, euro 1.1574, sterling 1.3522, Swiss $1.2310, European Style: rand 16.2232, krone 9.4222, SEK 9.5308, forint 314.74, zloty 3.7332, koruna 20.8866, RUB 84.99, yen 159.72, sing 1.2781, HKD 7.8434, INR 95.67, China 6.7433, peso 17.01, BRL 5.2014, BBDXY 1,201, Dollar Index 99.66, Oil $84.92, 10-year 4.74%, Silver $65.18, Platinum $1,755.00, Palladium $1,344.00, Copper $6.65, and Gold… $4,393

That’s it for today… my son, Alex gave me a CD by Duane Betts, the son of the great Dickey Betts, for Father’s Day… I finally got around to listening to it last night… It’s got a country sound to it… When I first was given the CD, my wife said she had never heard of the singer and guitar player to which I didn’t see the CD plainly and a saw the D. Betts, and I said, it’s Dickey Betts of the Allman Brothers… And then I looked at it better and said, “On no, I’m wrong about that it’s his son!” The Atlanta Rhythm Section takes us to the finish line today with their song: Imaginary Lover… I hope you have a Tom Terrific Tuesday today and Please Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler

• the dollar gets sold on Friday
• and for once there was follow through to start the week!

Good Day… And a Marvelous Monday to you! Welcome to hot and hotter St. Louis! We’ve been under a heat dome for a week now, and I’m getting cabin fever from not going outside to read!  My beloved Cardinals found their right-handed slugger…  And he was right under their noses! I had bad stomach all weekend, and finally yesterday it settled down…. I live with so many maladies that they run into each other! Christopher Cross greats me this morning with his song: Never Be The Same…

Well, the dollar got sold on Friday, and Retail Sales for July tumbled down the hill just like Jack and Jill…. The dollar closed the week at 1,201, and looking like it wanted to go further down, but luckily the end of the day Bell rung… 

Gold/Silver found some good bids on Friday, after suffering through an engineered takedown by the SPTs on Thursday… Gold was up $25 to close at $4,377. Silver was up 33=cents to close the week at $64.58. So, Gold/Silver found ways around the SPTs 4 of the 5 days last week… Their rallies from the massive shorts that were put on at the beginning of July are still around, its’s just that the ETF and Physical buying is kicking tail most days… and that’s a good sign…

But, I’m concerned…. Remember about a month or so ago when I told you that the short positions Gold & Silver had gone down? Well, that didn’t last long and the short positions now are greater than they were the last time the SPTs went after the two….  

My friend, Ed Steer, wrote about this and we’re going to listen to what Ed had to say Saturday…. Regarding Silver… Ed Steer had this bit of info on the shorts in Silver this past weekend…”Those 106 days that the Big 8 traders are currently short, represents about 3.5 months of world silver production, or 245.795 million troy ounces/49,159 COMEX contracts. That’s up a bit from the 238.555 million troy ounces/47,711 contracts from last Friday’s COT Report.”

Chuck again… Thanks Ed! Oh, and you can always find Ed at:  www.edsteergoldandsilver.com

So, that’s what concerns me… the SPTs didn’t build up those short positions just to look at their masterpiece!  

But, it’s somewhat like living each day… you could worry about crossing the street and getting hit by a bus….  You could worry about how aww. Forget about it, you know what I’m saying, We could worry about all the shorts, but they may never get executed….  

The price of Oil remained trading with an $82 handle on Friday, and the 10-year finished the week at a 4.69% yield…

In the overnight markets last night… Well, the follow up to Friday’s selling of the dollar was there last night… The BBDXY lost 3 index points and starts today/week at 99.42…. This was a good sign for further development in the selling of the dollar. 

The currencies all look as though they got out of their respective sick beds, except the Russian ruble, who doesn’t seem to get bought even when the price of Oil rallies… The Euro Wannabes are kicking tail and taking names later, which to me is a sign of further dollar weakness…

The price of Oil is up $11 to start our day/week, and Silver is up 83-cents… It will be interesting to see if the SPTs show up today or not…. The 10-year Treasury was left to its own devices and the yield has risen to 4.71% to start the day/ week.

According to MarketWatch.com the Hindenburg Omen is flashing a warning about stocks… Should you fear it? It is just a warning, but they said the same thing in 2008…. And that’s the other thing that concerns me regarding the Gold/Silver rally…  IF stocks crash, the margin calls would be getting sent out like Dear Santa letters…. And the only thing liquid they hold, to meet the call, is Gold/Silver… just keep that in mind….

So much for all my concerns, they may not materialize and mean a hill of beans…. 

Longtime reader, Bob, sent me an email that describes how the European Union is joining the Chinese RMB payments system….  See, that’s what happens when you tick someone off so bad that they do things that hurt you… Remember the U.S. sold $10 Billion worth of euros to buy yen without even a wink and nod to the European Central Bank… 

And what has that buying done for the yen? The yen is already back to 159 and soon it will be 160 again, and all those funds used to buy yen will have been wasted…. And the euro seems to be getting its feet back under it again after having so much of it sold…. 

It appears that Wall St. is all in on risk assets these days, as the rate hike folks fade into the wallpaper… That means that not only you, me and the guy down the street, along with our friendly Centra Banks of the world, won’t be the only ones buying Gold… I’m just saying…

I have something for you in the FWIW section today regarding funding our Debt that is coming ever-so-close to $40 Trillion… YIKES! The higher the debt goes, the faster it rises, for it seems like it was just yesterday that we hit $39 Trillion… The cost to finance the debt is choking off funding other things and is becoming the albatross perched on the neck of Americans…. 

The U.S. Data Cupboard has the Empire Regional Manufacturing Index for us today… Not much… And since I overslept this morning because I was up with a bad stomach all night, the Empre report is out and showed a rise of 20 that surprised the markets and me! Tomorrow, we’ll see Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization, now those are market movers…

To recap, the dollar got sold last Friday, thus marking two Fridays in a row where the dollar got sold going into the weekend, only to see it recover the following week… It’ll be interesting to see if there’s any follow through on the dollar selling today… The Hindenburg Omen is flashing; had we better beware? And Chuck has a lot of concerns regarding Gold/Silver’s rally… Sure hope he’s as wrong as wrong can be!

For What It’s Worth… Well, I found this perusing the internet on Saturday, while waiting for Joshua Baez to come up again and hit another home run!  This is about how the auctions that took place last week were absolutely awful, as the interest rates attached to the bonds had to be risen, thus the interest the U.S. will have to pay and if can be found here: Costliest U.S. bond sale since 2001 is investor warning to Bessent | Fortune

Or, here’s your snippet: “The US government sold 30-year bonds at the highest interest rate in a quarter century, a testament to investors’ demand for greater compensation to finance the nation’s growing deficit.

The yield at the $25 billion sale Thursday came in at 5.216%, the most since 2001, even as a drop in oil prices supported US debt in secondary-market trading. The sale, which was met with decent demand, follows the Treasury Department’s 10-year auction a day earlier that drew the highest financing cost at that tenor since 2007.

It’s a headache for President Donald Trump and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent ahead of midterm elections in November. Lofty government financing costs are already feeding through to the broader economy, after years of elevated inflation and government spending.

“Investors are being asked to absorb a growing supply of government debt globally at a time when deficits remain large, inflation uncertainty persists” and the Federal Reserve is no longer a major buyer, said Michal Stanczyk, portfolio manager for the global fixed income team at Allspring Global Investments.

“If investors continue demanding greater compensation for inflation and fiscal risks, long-term yields could move higher and away from 5% even if Treasury auctions remain well covered,” he said.

The Treasury’s concern appeared to be on show last week when it tweaked its debt-sales guidance in a way that opened the door to potential cuts to long bond supply. Meanwhile, investors are still not rushing to lock in yields at multi-decade highs, signaling a collective wariness that the selloff may not be over.

Representatives for the Treasury didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.”

Chuck Again…. Well, like I’ve said before higher yields are having a bad effect on U.S. finances..

Market Prices 8/17/2026: American Style: A$ .7171, kiwi .5919, C$ .7219, euro 1.1598, sterling 1.3565, Swiss $1.2360, krone 9.4090, SEK 9.4794, forint 312.94, zloty 3.7194, koruna 20.8677, RUB 84.89, yen 159.26, sing 1.2784, HKD 7.8457, INR 95.61, China 6,7414, peso 17.01, BRL 5.2095, BBDXY 1,198, Dollar Index 99.42 Oil $82.62, 10-year 4.71%, Silver $65.41, Platinum $1,767.00, Palladium $1,345, Copper $6.71, and Gold… $4,388

That’s it for today…  That was really something to see Saturday, Cardinals’ Joshua Baez hit 3 home run in his first 3 at-bats in the major league…. And then the fans in Chicago gave him a standing ovation when he lined out in his final at bat…. Saturday was the 15th, and that day will live with me forever, for that was always the first day of football practice, most times 2 x a day, and sometimes 3 x a day in the summer heat…. It’s been over 50 years since I last played football, and well my body aches each 8/15…. REO Speedwagon takes us to the finish line today with their song: Like You Do… I hope you have a Marvelous Monday today and Please Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler