Author: admin

• metals get taken down again on Tuesday
• Who’s selling and what, paper?

Good Day… And A Wonderful Wednesday to you! I don’t know how it happened, but I basically slept most of the day on Tuesday… I had told you that there was something wrong, and the fact that I kept falling asleep was proof in the pudding…  There’s just “something” that’s awry with me and I can’t pinpoint it. My vitals are fine, so I guess I’ll have to find out tomorrow when I visit my oncologist.  Our Blues have been a hit and miss team to start the season, and last night they lost in overtime. UGH! The Rolling Stones greet me this morning with their song: Can’t You Hear Me Knocking…

Well, the carpet bombing took place again on Tuesday, that’s 2 of the last 3 trading session, with Gold recovering its losses on Friday with Monday’s $107 gain… But yesterday, the SPTs made sure it would take Gold a few days to recover its loss of $233… Gold closed yesterday at $4,124…  Silver took in on the chin, the gut, the cheek and everywhere else it would hurt to take a hit that caused a $3.70 loss… Silver closed the day at $48.74 … this is even a little too much for the SPTS alone and therefore, I looked for something else that would tell me what the hell went on yesterday, and I found it, and you’ll find it in the FWIW section today… 

The dollar didn’t move yesterday after its 3-index point gain overnight and ended the day at 1,212…  No dollar manipulation yesterday… But on the day, it gained the 3-index points from overnight, so it had that going for it… Don’t look for any outliers in the currencies for there aren’t any that haven’t lost a pound of flesh to the dollar… 

The price of Oil remained trading with a $57 handle, and the 10-year’s yield dropped a bit more to 3.96%…  

In the overnight markets last night…. There was more selling of Gold & Silver, and once again, who’s selling? And is it paper or metals trading? From the looks of it, it’s more “dash for cash” with the SPTs joining in to make it look ugly once again… Gold is down $82 to start the day, and Silver is down 72-cents… I read this morning that the drops yesterday for Gold it was a worst one-day drop in years, but… the long-term uptrend for Gold remains solid…  That’s little solace for those that hold the metal and are wondering about its future… Just remember you bought Gold as a store of wealth, and it remains a store of wealth, no matter what the SPTS do to its price… 

The dollar bumped higher by 1 index point in the BBDXY overnight, to start our day at 1,213… The euro has dropped below the 1.16 handle, and the rest of the currencies are in their respective sick beds… The one currency that hasn’t succumbed to the dollar buying is the Chinese renminbi… But that’s another huge pile of cards to go through… that… we’ve gone through previously, so no need to rehash it now… 

The price of Oil bumped higher to trade with a $58 handle this morning. You know, I read a piece a while back that I was going to bring forward but completely forgot about it.. The piece talked about the shale Oil guys and how they needed a least a price of $60 for Oil to make a profit in their Oil production…  We’ve been below $60 for some time now, and I wonder if they just shut down or go into low production mode during this time… Any Oil guys out there want to chime in?

And the 10-year Treasury saw another basis point of yield go to the wayside overnight, and it begins our day with a 3.95% yield… From the looks of everything this morning, I just want to go back to sleep and fuhgeddaboudit… 

I think I was so susceptible to the sand man yesterday, because, deep down, I didn’t want to watch what was going on in Gold…  And speaking of Gold, yesterday, I told you about a video of Warren Buffett telling us bad things about Gold… And later I received a note from an astute reader who told me it was fake, that he really didn’t say those things…  So, I was glad that I didn’t get any requests from readers to send it to them… They must have known! Dang AI… When will we know for sure what’s real and what’s AI? 

And the Good Folks at GATA sent me the following: Who’s selling today, and what – metal or paper? The Mainstream Financial journalism won’t ask…  and here’s a sample of what they were telling their readers: “Market analysts are searching for an explanation for today’s bombing of gold and silver prices. For example:

Gold and Silver Prices Slide in Abrupt Selloff

And this from the WSJ… 

The sudden fall in gold and silver prices lacks a clear trigger, XTB research director Kathleen Brooks writes. …

The fall is likely caused by stretched valuations and signals that U.S. CPI data could be softer than expected, she adds.”

And adds: “A slide in prices isn’t necessarily a bad thing as it shows that investors aren’t getting too far ahead of themselves and that there is a limit to gold’s exuberance, Brooks writes. While the decline has been more severe than expected, the fundamentals propelling gold and silver upward remain, she adds.”

Chuck again… See what the good folks at GATA are talking about? Not one mention of the paper selling going on… But what do you expect from today’s journalists? No one looks under the hood..  I’m just saying…

Hey, the POTUS signed a deal with Australia to get rate earths from them… It’s going to cost us $8.5 Billion… Oh well, fat chance that will get paid in real dollars, because real dollars don’t exist any longer! At least we won’t have to get them from China who is balking at sending them to us…  Forget-about-them! If the boy want to fight you had better let them! (Thin Lizzy)

The lawmakers are acting like young children on the playground…  You’re to blame, No, you’re to blame, no you’re to blame, no you’re to blame…  Will the conflict ever be put to bed?  Hey! Let it go to the next mid-terms and then we can kick out all those running for reelection and get in new buffoons who might be able to direct some attention to the plight of Consumers, and farmers…  I like that idea… a lot!

To recap… It was a really ugly day for the metals yesterday, really ugly… I don’t know how to describe it without getting lewd, crude and socially unacceptable! And the journalist that cover the metals don’t have a clue, because they are told not to look under the hood here…  I shake my head in disgust with these buffoons!

For What it’s Worth… It’s been a month of Sunday since I last quoted Danielle DiMartino Booth, as her service went to subscription based, but I found her on Kitco.com yesterday, and here’s her description of what went on yesterday in the metals and it can be found here: Ex-Fed insider warns of systemic ‘liquidity crisis,’ sees gold sell-off as a major ‘distress signal’ | Kitco News

Or, here’s your snippet: “A former Federal Reserve advisor issued a stark warning on Tuesday, arguing that a systemic “liquidity crisis” is already underway, a development she says will force the central bank to abandon its inflation fight not because it has won, but because the financial system itself is breaking.

The warning comes amid a period of pronounced market contradiction. On Tuesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained over 200 points, fueled by strong earnings from companies like General Motors and Coca-Cola, pushing the S&P 500 to within fractions of its all-time high. This optimism stands in sharp contrast to the stress emerging in the fixed-income and commodities markets.

Danielle DiMartino Booth, who served as an advisor to former Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher from 2006 to 2015, says this divergence is unsustainable. Now the CEO of QI Research, a macroeconomic consulting firm, Booth has been a persistent critic of Fed policy, arguing the central bank’s actions have created deep-seated vulnerabilities.

“It certainly looks like the system is running out of sufficient liquidity,” Booth said in an interview with Kitco News. “And that the Fed is going to be forced to pull over to the sidelines.”

Her assertion refers to the Federal Reserve’s ongoing policy of “quantitative tightening” (QT), a program that has been removing liquidity from the financial system by letting up to $95 billion in Treasury and mortgage-backed securities mature off its balance sheet each month.”

Chuck again… This has always been my biggest concern with the metals, that when push comes to shove, the people that bought Gold & Sliver for a commodity and not a store of Wealth, will be the first to “dash for cash” when the going gets tough… 

Market Prices 10/22/2025: American Style: A$ .6487, kiwi .5740, C$ .7129, euro 1.1587, sterling 1.3316, Swiss $1.2556, European Style: rand 17.4723, krone 10.0520, SEK 9.4379, forint 335.80, zloty 3.6514, koruna 20.9766, RUB 81.74, yen 151.76, sing 1.2990, HKD 7.7700, INR 87.93, China 7.1252, peso 18.40, BRL 5.3881, BBDXY 1,213, Dollar Index 99.08, Oil $58.03, 10-year 3.95%, Silver $48.02, Platinum $1,554.00, Palladium $1,429.00, Copper $4.96 and Gold… $4,042.00

That’s it for today… And this week… Sorry about tomorrow, but Dr. Appts go first! My beloved Mizzou Tigers travel to Nashville to play Vanderbilt on Saturday… A BIG Game for the Tigers because Vandy is ahead of Mizzou in the polls… The top 12 teams get into the College playoffs. So, Mizzou needs to keep going higher in the polls!

Sly and the Family Stone takes us to the finish line today with their big hit song: I Wanna Take You Higher… They performed that song at Woodstock and I will always recall how Sly Stone had on this white fringe jacket and raising his arms over his head and singing I want to take you higher! I hope you have a Wonderful Wednesday today, and Please Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler

• Currencies & metals get sold overnight
• Frank Trotter visits us this morning!

Good Day… And a Tom Terrific Tuesday to you! Well, Game 7 didn’t disappoint, as it was very good… I sat outside reading for hours yesterday, the sun was warm, and I loved it! The temp was the highest it’s supposed to be the rest of the week, so I had to get in my outside time! Congrats to the Bue Jays, they will be the American League representative to play the Dodgers in the World Series that begins on Friday… I’m still not out of my funk I’ve been in since Saturday… And I received word on my chart of the scans results… No new cancer anywhere in my body… And the lesion in my jaw has shrunk significantly…  Maybe I’ll start feeling better… Steely Dan greets me this morning with the title song of the album of same name: Aja

Well, once again Gold has grabbed the brass ring, and gone on to gain momentum once again. Gold gained $107 on the day Monday, as physical buyers of Gold tried to shove it the SPTs face after taking Gold down $75 last Friday.  Silver tried to cut into its $2.25 loss last Friday, by gaining 58-cents… Gold closed the day at $4,357, and Silver closed the day at $52.44…  

I don’t know how to express my feeling for the SPTs without cussing and calling them names and accuse them of awful things… So, I’ll just move along and be very glad that their engineered takedown was only a one and done… 

The dollar had gained 2 index points overnight Sunday night, but gave one of them back during the trading day on Monday… The BBDXY ended the day at 1,208… I just keeping scratching my bald head, and wondering who’s buying dollars right now? 

I found this on Reuters yesterday… “- The Federal Reserve will go into a policy meeting next week with its view of the economy obscured by a U.S. government shutdown that has suspended the release of key data, a less-than-ideal situation for policymakers divided over which risks deserve the most attention.

Official employment data hasn’t been released since the shutdown of the federal government began on October 1, but what information that remains available points to still-weak job growth. The Fed’s own economic field reporting, still underway at the self-funded central bank, showed possible cracks in consumer spending, and recent business confidence surveys pointed to a dip.

Chuck again… Yes, and even without any data that counts, the Fed Heads are ready to cut rates again next week when they meet at a 2-day meeting…  and still the dollar gets bought here and there… Wonders never cease!

The price of Oil remained trading with a $57 handle, and the 10-year dipped below 4% yield to end the day with a 3.98% yield…  I said about 10 days ago, that I wondered if the Fed Heads would be finished manipulating the yield lower when they got the yield below 4%? The 10-year’s yield did fall below 4% yield a week or so ago, but that didn’t last, so the Fed Heads had more work to do… 

In the overnight markets last night…  The short paper traders are at it again overnight, with Gold down $132, and Silver down $2.53… This is getting ugly today, and any bullion bank that has a short position should be closed! Gold had just gotten back on the rally tracks when the SPTs showed up to knock the metals off! This has got me so furious this morning, and with me feeling under the weather, the two don’t go together so nicely! 

And to add salt to the wound, the dollar is rallying, as it got bought overnight, and the BBDXY gained 3 index points to 1,212… The PPT must be in to manipulate the dollar and keep it from falling because I know of no one that is buying dollars..  So, it’s a Manipulation Tuesday today… I guess we’ll just have to batten down the hatches and ride this out… As REO sang years ago, Ridin’ The Storm Out…   

And the currencies have been sent to their respective sick bed, sans the Chinese renminbi,… Every time the currencies get out of their sick beds the manipulation in the dollar begins and sends them right back!

The price of Oil remains in the $57 handle and the 10-year Treasury’s yield starts today at 3.98%…  The 10-year has seen so much manipulation that’s it’s difficult to tell when it’s the Fed Heads selling or another entity… UGH!

Tariffs are making items that we buy and use every day more costly… But the Gov’t doesn’t seem to care because… The U.S. government ran a slightly smaller budget shortfall in the most recent year thanks to higher tariff revenue — but the national debt still rose to another record high and shows no sign of slowing.

The annual budget deficit slipped to $1.76 trillion in fiscal-year 2025 from $1.82 trillion in the prior year, the U.S. Treasury Department said Thursday. The government’s fiscal year runs from October through September.

So, we as the people have that working for us, eh? NOT! Well, at least the national debt will not explode higher as it has in previous years, but… Your debt will certainly go higher because Citizens are going through their disposable income faster than a speeding bullet. 

And, with consumers parrying back… The U.S. economy has lost momentum over the past 2 months, per the Fed’s/ Cabal’s/ Cartel’s Beige book findings… Only 4 of the 12 districts showed some growth… This is just the beginning, as the tariffs are just now starting to filter through to consumer items… Mark my words on this folks… We will be in a World of Woe coming to us sooner than you might think…

High inflation and lack of jobs leave Americans frustrated with the economy, and when “the people” get frustrated with the economy, they shut down…  At least that’s what has happened in past slowdowns…  And 75% of Americans say they’re struggling with inflation, a recent survey shows. 

OK, what to talk about next? Should we talk about the US, Argentina Signing a $20 Billion Swap Deal Amid Deep Peso Rout…   Now, I understand that China is moving in on most S. American countries for trade, and Brazil stands alone as a U.S. ally, I get it that the U.S. wants to help Argentina, but we have problems of greater degree here in this country, right?  So, bully for Argentina… not so much for consumers here in this country…

The farmers are the group I’m talking about… Their bins are overflowing with crops that have nowhere to go…  I’m all for the farmers they are the forgotten folks in the tariffs war…  Buy local produce at the grocery store every time you need to buy some!

A dear reader sent me a link to a video yesterday of Warren Buffett talking about how Gold is going to come upon something terrible…    Now, if you follow Mr. Buffett, you are aware that he has not owned Gold before, or ever… But, he does own stocks and bonds, mutual funds, and hedge funds. So, to me, it makes sense that he disses Gold to promote what he owns!  If you want to view the video, send me a note and I’ll send it to you… Otherwise, file this away along with the folks that say that Gold will go to $25,000….  

The U.S. Data Cupboard still is barren and yesterday supposed print of Leading Indicators failed to launch… Maybe they didn’t want to print it because it was so bad…  Maybe, just maybe, because you never know… (Andujar) 

To recap, it was Gold’s day, as it gained $107.00 on the day, thus more than making up for the $75 loss the SPTs hung on Gold on Friday…  Gold also reached another new all-time record level of $4,457.00 The dollar drifted all day yesterday, and ended up giving back 1 index point in the BBDXY, of the 2 index points it gained overnight… 

Chuck is concerned about the farmers… His grandfather was a farmer, so now you know…  

And before we go to the BIG FINISH… I have a special treat for you today… It’s a note from Frank Trotter, President of Battle Bank, and my boss again.. Here’s Frank:

“Last week Chuck asked about the inflation-adjusted price of gold, but after all, what should be the price?  Prior to December 31st, 1974 while it was not legal for US persons own gold, the price in US dollars was $35 as established by the US Treasury for limited conversion of US dollars by foreign central banks.  As with any price fixing the real value was therefore unknown.  Once the convertibility was lifted in 1971, and in 1975 US persons were allowed to own gold, the market began to discover prices.  In the midst of the early 1980s inflation and Volcker-driven rates the price rose over 2,000% to $880 before falling off for around 25-years.  

Sticking to Chuck’s question, between 2010 and 2025 the CPI (no, I don’t believe it either but . . .) increased a nominal 49% while gold rose 206%.  One back-of-the-envelope method would be to say that in real terms therefore gold was up 157% (206-49).  Well lookie there, not uncoincidentally M2 money supply, which after all defines actual inflation, was up – drum roll – 158%.  Of course we might say that the value of gold hasn’t changed, the value of US dollars has declined.  Linking that to the real world, an old saw in the precious metals analysis is that an ounce of gold will buy a quality men’s suit.  Checking in with off-the-rack prices from a few Saville Row tailors last night pointed to a $4,000 price, and again lookie there, a roughly $4,300 market price for gold.  What should the price be?  Well, the invisible hand is pretty good after all.”

Thanks Frank!

For What It’s Worth… Well, we had Warren Buffett give us his take on Gold… And now we have Ray Dalio give us his take on Gold, and it can be found here:  Ray Dalio Explains Why Gold & Why Now… | ZeroHedge

Or, here’s your snippet: “Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio stated on Friday that gold has started replacing some U.S. Treasury holdings as the riskless asset for investors, amid a continued surge in the yellow metal’s prices.

This comes after he said investors should allocate as much as 15% of their portfolios to gold even as the precious metal surged to new all-time highs this week.

“Gold is a very excellent diversifier in the portfolio,” Dalio said Tuesday at the Greenwich Economic Forum in Greenwich, Connecticut.

“If you look at it just from a strategic asset allocation perspective, you would probably have something like 15% of your portfolio in gold … because it is one asset that does very well when the typical parts of the portfolio go down.”

In a follow-up post on X, Dalio summarized his answers to the many questions and his views on the barbarous relic…

You seem to look at gold and the gold price differently from most people. How do you think about gold?

You’re right. I think most people make the mistake of thinking of gold as a metal rather than as the most established form of money, and they think of fiat money as money rather than debt and they think that fiat money will be created to prevent debt defaults. That’s because most people have never lived with gold being the most fundamental money, and they haven’t studied the debt-gold-money cycles that have occurred in almost all countries over almost all time. However, anyone who has seen gold-money and debt-money evolve over time has a different view.  In other words, to me gold is money like cash—over time, it has had about the same real return (1.2%)—because it doesn’t produce anything. But like cash, it has buying power that can be used to create money that is borrowed and enable people to do things like build money-making businesses that are owned via stocks. If those stocks are solid and produce the cash needed to pay back the loans, then of course the stocks are better. When they can’t pay back the loans and fiat money is printed to prevent the default problems, then non-fiat money (gold) is most valued. So, to me, gold is money like cash, except unlike cash it can’t be printed and devalued. It’s a good diversifier to stocks and bonds when bubbles pop and/or when people and countries don’t accept each other’s credit, like in wars.

In other words, to me gold is the most sound fundamental investment rather than a metal. Gold is money like cash and short-term credit, but unlike cash and short-term credit which creates debt, it settles transactions—i.e., it pays for things without creating debt and it pays off debt.

Anyway, it has been obvious to me for some time that the relative supplies and demands of debt-money and gold-money were shifting against debt money’s value relative to gold money’s value. As for the right price for debt money to be relative to gold money, given the ratios of supplies and demands for each of them, and given the sizes of bubbles that could go pop, I know that I want to keep my piece of gold that’s part of my portfolio, and I think that those who are wrestling between having no gold at all or a small amount of gold are making a mistake.”

Chuck Again… Well, I’ve stated before that I read Ray Dalio’s books, and think of him as a very astute investor, very well read, and is up on history… So… I think I’ll stick with Ray Dalio on Gold…

Market Prices 10/21/2025: American Style: A$ .6493, kiwi .5723, C$ .7120, euro 1.1610, sterling 1.3397, Swiss $1.2578, European Style: rand 17.3177, krone 10.0510, SEK 9.4185, forint 335.56, zloty 3.6514, koruna 20.9393, RUB 81.18, yen 151.95, sing 1.2974, HKD 7.7715, INR 87.93, China 7.1187, peso 18.43, BRL 5.3882, BBDXY 1,212, Dollar Index 98.89, Oil $57.93, 10-year 3.98%, Silver $49.91, Platinum $1.554.00, Palladium $1,141.00, Copper $4.99, and Gold… $4,224.

That’s it for today… A very long Pfennig today… take that to heart when there won’t be a Pfennig on Thursday this week, as I’ll be at the hospital seeing my oncologist… and an infusion… UGH!  So, I’ll cut the ending short today, due to the length of the letter…  Have you ever wondered how I get so much into a letter and get it out early in the morning?  Well, if you figure it out, tell me! HA  The Pousette-Dart Band take us to the finish line today with their song: Amnesia… I hope you have a Tom Terrific Tuesday today and Please Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler

• Currencies & metals get sold like funnel cakes at a state fair on Friday
• Who in their right mind would be buying dollars?

Good Day… And a Marvelous Monday to you! I had a crappy weekend, health wise, I just didn’t fell right… But then what do I expect having put poison in my system for over 18 years…    Don’t feel sorry for me, it is what it is… I carry on, because, as I told a doctor a year or so ago… I’m going to live to see my granddaughter walk down the aisle, to see my grandsons grow to be wonderful young men, and little Evie to become my best buddy…  Delaney is 18 now, and will be going away to college next fall, so I’m holding on… Can you believe that? My little d is 18! I recall sitting at a booth in Vancouver showing customers that asked about her, pictures of her when she was 3….  The Patti Smith greets me this morning with her hit song: Because of The Night… 

Well, Ed Steer said it best in his Saturday letter: “Da Boyz’ Carpet Bomb the Precious Metals”..   I questioned whether or not the STPs were relevant last week, but I guess they proved that to not be…. Gold was up $118 on Thursday last week, and it appeared that Gold had all the momentum to rise further on Friday, but Friday the SPTs came at Gold & Silver with a vengeance that I’ve seen only a couple of times previously… At one time Gold was down $111 on Friday, but fought back to show a loss of $75, and close the week at $4,250.   Silver was also treated like rented mule o Friday, after gaining $1.13 on Thursday, Silver was sold short to the tune of a $2.25 loss on the day… Siver had gotten as high as $53.76 before the SPTs went to work… Silver closed down $2.25 on Friday and ended the week at $51.86…  it was, without saying, a very ugly day for the metals… 

Platinum lost $101 on Friday and Palladium lost $144!!!   Copper was immune to the SPTS and lost $3…  UGLY… VERY UGLY! And leaves the question: Have the SPTs done enough to scare away the buyers of these metals?  I doubt it… Which means we’ll be subject to more days like this in the future, but keep in mind that these are paper trades and have nothing to do with physical metals (expect the price) and the momentum that Gold and Silver have right now is tremendous…  I’m just saying

The dollar drifted around late last week losing 2 index points on Thursday and then being stuck in the mud on Friday…  The dollar is in deep dookie folks… and while it will take a bit to get the dollar back to the sub 1,000 level again, it will get there, I can feel it in my bones… 

One currency is bucking the dollar buying and that is the Swiss franc… which tells me that a flow to safe havens is on…  I’m just saying… 

The price of Oil slipped a buck on Thursday, and gained 50-cents on Friday to end the week trading with a $57 handle…  And the 10-year Treasury’s yield fell below 4% at 3.97% on Thursday, but then came back to end the week on Friday with a 4.01% yield..

In the overnight markets last night…  there was some dollar buying, (who in their right mind?) and the BBDXY has gained 2 index points overnight, to start our day/ week at 1,209… Gold is up $13 to start our week today and Silver is up 13-cents… After the Armagedón last week in the metals, they have to stop and pick up the pieces and start their momentum all over again and today is the best day for that!  

The price of Oil remains trading with a $57 handle, and the 10-year is starting the week trading with a 4.01% yield…  

I found this on Zerohedge.com this past weekend… “A month after bankruptcies of subprime auto lender Tricolor and auto-parts supplier First Brands, new cracks emerged in U.S. credit markets. This week, Zions and Western Alliance disclosed they were victims of loan fraud tied to funds investing in distressed commercial real estate. The revelations come amid broader credit trouble, and shifting our focus back to autos, there’s new data this morning about credit products tied to the riskiest consumers that have seen a 50% surge in delinquencies.”

Oh-no! Say it ain’t so Joe! Don’t tell me the rot is already starting…  But it sure appears that way, Tricolor and First Brands were not your run-of-the-mill companies, they were HUGE…  This is how it gets started, folks… remember 2007? We had some smaller companies bite the dust and then suddenly Lehman Brothers folded, and the debt crisis was on! 

I still get upset with the Gov’t for allowing Lehman Bros to fold… You see Bear Stearns went first, but the Gov’t negotiated a buy from J.P Morgan and Bear Stearns no longer existed… but no negotiated deal for Lehman Brothers…   I guess it all depends on who you know, right? Or whom you have pictures of…  

Well, the IMF Is throwing their two cents around and hoping that the world will take notice… The IMF recently said that the U.S. economy was still vulnerable to tariff shocks, and labor shortages tied to immigration crackdown could also sting. They also mentioned that 1 million refugees will leave the U.S. in the near future…  Good riddance, right?   not so fast there, who’s going to do the dirty jobs that these guys do? Not Terrance the III… He’s going to college to learn waiting on people…  I don’t like the influx of foreigners in the country, but until they are stopped, what are we going to do about it?

And I found this on MarketWatch, “The numbers: Americans have soured on the prospect of finding new jobs, a new survey shows. And they’re still frustrated by persistent inflation, giving them little confidence that the economy will improve soon.

The first reading of the consumer sentiment survey in October was basically flat at 55.0, the University of Michigan said Friday. The index has been hovering at levels typically experienced during recessions. 

Chuck again… typically experienced during recessions.  Now that hit a nerve with me, how about you? 

The Gov’t is still shutdown, and therefore the Data Cupboard is barren most days, with non-government issued data the only prints…Like today, we’ll see the color of the latest Leading Indicators for Sept…  This data set has been printing negative for so long now, I would be shocked to see a positive print!

To recap… There was another engineered takedown of the metals on Friday last week that left a bad taste in the mouths of metals holders… Gold was up $118 on Thursday and down $75 on Friday… Tell me, can you honestly say that there’s no such thing as manipulation going on?  Gold & Silver try to pick of the pieces and star their momentum again today as both are positive to start the day. The dollar got bought overnight, and Chuck wants to know who in their right mind bought dollars? 

And the signs of Armageddon are all beginning to pop up, are you seeing what I’m seeing?

For What It’s Worth…  Ok, I saw this headline and immediately copied it and sent it to Frank Trotter, and Chris Gaffney… and said, “Can you believe that we used to tell people to do this 20 years ago?”   This is about the change of allocation in investment portfolios and it can be found here: A 20 Percent Portfolio Allocation to Gold and Silver Is Going Mainstream

Or, here’s your snippet: “In a seismic shift, Morgan Stanley CIO Michael Wilson recently came out with an investment strategy that includes a 20 percent allocation to gold.

Now a Sprott executive has followed suit, telling a mainstream financial network’s audience that investors should consider shifting from the traditional 60/40 portfolio to a 60/20/20 allocation.

This isn’t typical messaging on mainstream financial networks.

Historically, the conventional wisdom on Wall Street was a 60/40 portfolio, with 60 percent of the holdings in equities and 40 percent in fixed-income investments, primarily bonds. The theory is that these asset classes balance each other, with stocks strengthening in a strong economy and bonds creating a hedge during downturns.

However, bonds have lost their safe-haven status in recent months. Last spring, at the height of tariff uncertainty, gold and silver rallied as bonds sold off. Gold and silver seem to be the last safe havens standing.

Given the changing market dynamics, Wilson said investors should consider a 60/20/20 strategy, swapping half of the bond portfolio for gold to serve as a “more resilient” inflation hedge.

In an interview on CNBC Tuesday (Oct. 14), Sprott director of ETF management Steven Schoffstall echoed Wilson, saying a 20 percent allocation to gold and silver will likely yield a better return than the traditional portfolio.

He noted that the pivot toward a lower interest rate environment with the Federal Reserve now in a cutting mood will likely benefit the metals.

“Gold’s always traditionally been viewed as a safe haven for economic turmoil, geopolitical instability, things that we’re seeing right now, because it doesn’t have a yield. Generally, falling interest rates are beneficial for gold. That’s when we see a lot of investors start to move into gold.”

Chuck again…  Yes, and in addition, we told people to properly diversify their portfolios they needed to have asset classes that didn’t have anything to do with the stock and bonds they already had… That meant… Gold, Silver, currencies…   

Market Prices `10/20/2025: American Style: A$ .6488, kiwi .5728, C$ .7125, euro 1.1648, sterling 1.3401, Swiss $1.2610, European Style: rand 17.3343, krone 10.0786, SEK 9.4345, forint 334.49, zloty 3.5455, koruna 20.8476, RUB 80.98, yen 150.97, sing 1.2947, HKD 7.7703, INR 87.93, China 7.1234, peso 18.41, BRL 5.4099, BBDXY 1,209, Dollar Index 98.58, Oil $57.09, 10-year 4.01%, Silver $52.01, Platinum $1,621.00, Palladium $1,470.00, Copper $4.98, and Gold… $4,263

That’s it for today…  I had to go for scans yesterday (yes, Sunday!) as it was the only day/ time I could get in at the hospital close to me…  I’m sure they will be clean…  otherwise I’m making myself sick for no reason! I’m here all week, try the veal, and make sure you tip the wait staff!  Next week will be different, but that’s then not now… Congrats to the Dodgers they swept the brewers, and they will be the national league representative in the World Series…  The Blue Jays and Mariners will play a game 7 tonight… talk about pressure! Big Country takes us to the Finish Line today with their 80’s song: In a Big Country…  I hope you have a Marvelous Monday today, and Please be Good To Yourself…. 

Chuck Butler

• currencies and metals rally on Wednesday
• Shipping Chaos… Uh-Oh!

Good Day… And a Tub Thumpin’ Thursday to one and all! Well, I made a major faux pas yesterday, when I said that the Dodgers were up 3-0 in games, when they really were only up 2-0 in games…  I would blame the error on my fat fingers, but it really was my mind that thought they were up 3-0… And it was WRONG!  My math the other day was wrong too! I said that consumer debt per citizen was $1.4 million, but that was in error, it should have been $14,200… What a dolt I was not moving the decimal point! So, you see there, I can and will make mistakes from time to time, and I will openly admit to them, something that my wife says I don’t do! The J. Geils Band greets me this morning with their song: Give It To Me

Well, the dollar’s brief rally time is over it appears already… The BBDXY lost 4 index points on Tuesday, and followed that loss with 4 more index points of loss on Wednesday… The dollar has returned to the underlying weak trend…  That’s quite obvious, eh?  Gold continued its rise and gained $66 on Wednesday to close at $4,207, and Silver gained $1.54 to close at $53.09…   I told you yesterday that Gold would go through the $4,000’s fast and it appears to be well on the way to $5,000, and now Silver is going to go through the 50 handle quickly too… 

The price of Oil slipped back to trade with a $58 handle yesterday, and the 10-year Treasury blipped upward to a 4.03% yield to end the day…  This after Fed Head Jerome Powell said that more rate cuts were on the way… In fact, the people that bet on rate cuts have already priced a rate cut for the next FOMC meeting in Rocktober on the 28&29th…  

In the overnight markets last night… More slippage in the dollar as the BBDXY lost 1 index point overnight and start the day at 1,209… And more buying og Gold, as it starts the day up $39 and Silver is up 4 pennies… Wait! The U.S. doesn’t mint pennies any longer, so eventually the word will disappear from your use… So, Silver is up 4-cents! The Tanglewood CIO John Merrill told people yesterday that the time to sell Gold has not approached us, that the fundamentals for more price increases are there…   I agree with Mr. Merrill… 

The price of Oil trades this morning with a $58 handle… And the 10-year Treasury starts the day trading with a 4.03% yield… the 10-year has inched higher the past two days, and it looks like the bond boys are not sure if the Fed Heads will come back and manipulate the yield lower, so they are just taking the yield higher, inch by inch… 

I met Tom Dyson many years ago in Vancouver, and thought then that he was a very intelligent young man… Well, he’s working with Bill Bonner, and Dan Denning at the Bonner Private Research group, and he had this to say about all the chaos that the saber rattling between the U.S. and China regarding tariffs and shipments are causing… “There’s going to be chaos while this all sorts itself out, with port congestion and inefficient re-routing. It’ll cause a surge in freight rates as inefficiency ties up ships and constrains capacity.”

Chuck again… I’ll tell you what this all means… it means higher prices for the goods you want and need to buy… Are you ready for these price increases?

Yes, and in all our mental genius, we have a Central Bank that is going to cut rates further with price increases ramping up and not slowing…  I shake my head in disbelief of these dolts!    

Fed Head Stephen Miran said what I’ve thought, that “he doesn’t see where cutting rates any further will have much effect on the economy”    Well, that’s a twist for Miran he was wanting larger rate cuts before, and now he sees the writing on the wall… For if zero interest rates with Quantitative Easing didn’t help the economy before, (We averaged 2% growth during that time) how is cutting rates further going to help? 

We don’t want to become Japan…  Ok, longtime readers may recall when I used to say that we were turning Japanese with our rates at zero?   The Vapors were the 80’s band that sang: Turning Japanese, yes, I really think so! 

Speaking of Bill Bonner, he has recently talked about how the late 90’s saw the dot com bubble grow on the idea that the internet was going to improve our economy in so many ways, and how that never developed… And now I wonder if the AI bubble is going to burst like the dot come bubble came to an end?   They, the AI folks, are saying the same things about AI that were said about the internet… How it’s going to change the economy and cause a surge in GDP…   I’m from Missouri, you’ll have to show me before I believe it… 

I had a longtime reader write me and ask me to quote the Gold price adjusted with inflation… So, I had to look at this… Basically, the inflation-adjusted gold price takes historical nominal prices and multiplies them by the ratio of the current US Consumer Price Index (CPI) to the historical CPI at that time. This expresses all prices in equivalent current dollar purchasing power for accurate long-term comparisons.

So, with that in mind, inflation over time that would take someone with far more gray matter than I…. Maybe my good friend, and former Big Boss, Frank Trotter, whom I always contended that he was the smartest man in the room, would take that on?  

Ok, onto other things…  I had another longtime reader send me this: “Apparently, The treasury secretary and Trump have dreamed up a scheme to combine crypto like Bitcoin to the US dollar. In other words, people that buy these dollars get some bitcoin with it. That would mean all foreigners would be reducing our National debt. as well as us.”   

Chuck again.. I don’t know what to say to this idea… for the first time in my life I’m at a loss for words, and an idea… Hmmm….  

I guess there is anything to save the dollar, eh? The short sellers of Gold & Silver haven’t helped to save the dollar so far… They gotta try something!

This Sunday it will be the observance of “Black Monday”… Rocktober 19, 1987 the stock market crashed… I worked near the brokerage folks at Mark Twain Bank and saw the Armageddon firsthand… It was ugly!  I remember thinking that I was glad that I was no longer the head of the Margin Dept at Stifel Nicolaus…  I wouldn’t have been able to go home until every margin client got a call telling them their account was getting sold out to pay for the margin call!  

Circling back to the price of Oil…  this from Bank of America; “Oil prices extended losses on Wednesday as rising OPEC+ supply and escalating U.S.-China trade tensions deepened concerns over global demand, prompting Bank of America to warn that Brent crude could drop below $50 per barrel in the months ahead.

In midday trading at 1:13p.m. ET on Wednesday, WTI crude was trading at $58.55, while Brent was trading at $62.14.”

Chuck again… and to think I bought an Oil Play currency a few years ago thinking that Oil would rebound… Just shows to go ya, that even the so-called currency guru gets it wrong sometimes!

The U.S. Data Cupboard is still barren and it’s like a ghost town… And there doesn’t seem to be any progress on a funding bill in D.C. So, we carry on despite the shortcomings of our elected leaders… 

To recap…  The dollar’s time in the sun has been put to bed, and it’s back to getting sold… Which I told you would happen, didn’t I?  Gold had another good day, and Silver had a banner day yesterday… The U.S. debt picture is getting really bad out of focus… BOA says Oil’s price will fall below $50…  Chuck wonders if the AI bubble will go down the same road as the dot come bubble… 

For What It’s Worth… Well, I’ve talked about defaults a lot this week, and then I saw this article and knew right out of the starters blocks that it was FWIW worthy… It’s about how the U.S. is going broke and it can be found here:J.P. Morgan strategist David Kelly warns America is ‘going broke slowly’ as federal debt spirals | Fortune

Or, here’s your snippet: ” America is going broke, J.P. Morgan Asset Management’s chief global strategist, David Kelly, wrote in a note this week, but no one is panicking yet because the government is going broke slowly.

Kamala Harris says the ‘Glass Cliff’ Suggests Finality: “I’m Not Into That”

Kelly outlined that while the economy is facing a barrage of issues (geopolitics, trade wars, changing immigration enforcement, and government shutdowns to name a few) one of the key longer-term issues is how the U.S. government is going to pay its bills.

In a bid to wrangle down U.S. federal debt—and its contributions to the wider national debt—President Trump initially asked Tesla CEO Elon Musk to form the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) with the goal of axing $2 trillion from the federal budget.

But the pair then famously fell out over the White House’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated will add another $3.4 trillion to the national debt over the next decade. The White House countered its tariff regime will offset the spending and any decrease in revenues owing to tax cuts. The CBO estimates that tariffs should reduce total deficits by $4 trillion by 2035.

America’s national debt is spiraling higher by the second. At the time of writing it sits at over $37.8 trillion, and there are $1.2 trillion in interest payments to service the borrowing. JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon and Fed chairman Jerome Powell have both expressed concerns about it.

Kelly’s point is that while investors are mindful of the basic math, the problem is going to unfold over a long period of time.

“The question I am asked most frequently by investors and financial advisors is, ‘When is the federal debt going to blow up in all of our faces?’ My usual answer is that, while we are going broke, we are going broke slowly.”

Chuck again… here we go again with the “gradually, then suddenly” thought…  it’s coming and I don’t think that it will take as long as Mr. Kelly thinks… I’m just saying… 

Market Prices 10/16/2025: American Style: A$ .6506, kiwi .5738, C$ .7117, euro 1.1643, sterling 1.3434, Swiss $1.2529, European Style: rand 17.3121, krone 10.0706, SEK 9.4520, forint 334.74, zloty 3.6479, koruna 20.5473, RUB 79.54, yen 151.28, sing 1.2959, HKD 7.7722,  INR 87.82, China 7.1263, peso 18.42, BRL 5.4543, BBDXY 1,209, Dollar Index 98.65, Oil $58.83, 10-year 4.03%, Silver $53.13, Platinum $1,682.00, Palladium $1,581.00, Copper $4.96, and Gold… $4,246

That’s it for today and this week… Little Evie’s Birthday party is tomorrow, and it’s supposed to be a rainy day, the first in a month of Sundays!  She’s such a little stinker! But cuter than a doll, so she has that going for her! I was alone yesterday evening and called Pizza Man Pizza!  And then watched the baseball game outside of course! I’m going back to S. Florida in the first week of Nov. For just a week, to get away… I love S. Florida in the fall, and winter… I’m just saying…  Mama’s Pride takes us to the finish line today with their song: Blue Mist    Mama’s Pride was a St. Louis based band, and I love this song!  I hope you have a Tub Thumpin’ Thursday today, and Please Be Good To Yourself! 

Chuck Butler

• currencies and Gold rally on Tuesday
• Powell says we can expect more rate cuts…

Good Day… And a Wonderful Wednesday to you! Well, just one baseball game last night, but if you wanted to watch college football, there’s always a game on, albeit from a lower rated conference, but a game nonetheless! My beloved Mizzou Tigers lost to Alabama last Saturday; in a game they could’ve won…  The team had the ball with over a minute to go score the winning touchdown but couldn’t get close!  They travel to Auburn this coming Saturday, their first road game of the year… Go Tigers!  It was a beautiful day here yesterday, good for sitting outside, which I did! The Rolling Stones greet me this morning with a song I love to sing along with: Dead Flowers

Well, the dollar ran into a brick wall yesterday, and the buying stopped on a dime. The BBDXY lost 4 index points on the day, and the currencies perked up from their sick beds, only to go back to sleep…  Yesterday, I wrote that I didn’t think the dollar rally would last too long, and that those who were buying dollars would be sorry for doing so…  And then I ran across this

Well, the dollar has been on the rally tracks lately, but as I said yesterday, whoever is buying dollars will be sorry for that later… And then later I saw this on Reuters; ” analysts are broadly skeptical of the dollar’s recovery.

“In the three- to six-month view, I think the dollar is going to be falling because I think the U.S. economy is going to weaken and the interest rates are going to come down,” said Marc Chandler, chief market strategist at Bannockburn Capital Markets.

Much of the dollar’s recent rebound can be attributed to investors covering bearish bets on the currency.

“What’s going on in markets is basically a positioning adjustment,” said Jayati Bharadwaj, a global FX strategist at TD Securities.

Indeed, some analysts said the dollar rally may be running out of steam.

“We’ve definitely seen a very nice period of dollar strength,” said Joel Kruger, market strategist at London-based LMAX Group, which operates multiple global institutional FX exchanges.

Kruger sees risks for further dollar weakness in the near term.”

Chuck again, so I’m not the only one that sees the dollar’s brief foray to strength as something that won’t last long! 

Now that was more time spent on the dollar rally than I wanted or needed to do, but it is what it is… 

Gold was up early on Tuesday and finished the day up $31 and closed at $4,143, while the SPTs were selling Silver short (they’ll be getting a margin call soon that will just about bankrupt them) and Silver lost 85-cents on the day, to close at $ 50.55 

Gold has really taken off this year… And I’m reminded of the quote from Ernest Hemingway’s book “the Sun Also Rises” when the character was asked how he went bankrupt, he responded: “At first gradually, then suddenly”… Gold has gradually gained with spurts and then steps backward, and then suddenly it’s over $3,000 and then $4,000…  And if I’m correct in my thought that it will go through the $4,000’s faster than it did the $3,000’s…  And suddenly it will be $5,000! 

By then the U.S. economy will be gasping for air, interest rates will be getting lowered, and inflation will be strong… That’s my call on things going forward, I could be wrong, and the U.S. economy will recover strongly, but I doubt it… 

Gold and Silver will be difficult to get a hold of, so if you want your physical Gold or Silver, you had better get it before they are difficult to get, and if they can be gotten the premiums on their respective prices will be so high, that once again you’ll either walk away from the buy, or kick yourself for waiting so long… I’m just saying…’

I’m full-o-good news this morning, aren’t I?  Hey! Don’t shoot the messenger… 

Some people are still talking about the “American Birthright” theme… But, even if the bills become laws it will be some time before all that happens… I’m talking about the mining of land to uncover the minerals that the U.S. needs…  Supposedly there are $150 Trillion worth of minerals in the ground under our feet…  I’m from Missouri, they’re going to have to show me…  I’m just saying…

It’s a feel-good story, but right now, it’s just that… a story… 

In the overnight markets last night… The dollar continued to get sold, following yesterday’s 4 index point loss in the BBDXY, the Index is down 2 more points this morning, and the currencies have been woken up!  A return to the underlying weak trend for the dollar is what’s going on…  Gold is up again in the early trading this morning, $42, and Silver is up $1.18! The SPT’s worked so diligently yesterday in an attempt to get investors scared away from Silver, and then they see all their work disappear this morning!  A BIG FAT Margin Call is coming to the SPTs… 

I have something for you on Silver in the FWIW section today, so stay tuned, same bat time, same bat channel!  

The price of Oil is inching back after losing so much ground last week, the price of Oil trades this morning with a $59 handle… And the 10-year Treasury didn’t see any Fed Head buying / manipulation in the overnight markets so the yield on the bond remained at 4.02%…  

I watched a video last night while watching the baseball game, from Mark Chaiken, who is a well-known quant…  and uses his data to tell him when the next stock market major downturn will come…  He said that the middle of March 2026…  So, if you want to know, now you do…  But again, anyone that gives a direct day of when the stock market is going to crash is somewhat foolish… I’m just saying…

But just to be safe, I’ll sell all my stocks at the beginning of Spring Training next year!  Shoot Rudy, I can always buy them back! 

Yesterday I was talking about defaults and mentioned Treasuries…  And then I saw this from Doug Casey: “Since 1789, the United States has paid all of our bills on time,” said former Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.

“In our history, we have never defaulted on our debt or failed to pay our bills,” said President Biden’s press secretary.

“… the United States has never defaulted on its debt,” wrote The Washington Post.

But it’s not true… 

 By the simplest definition of default—failing to make promised payments—the US government has defaulted. Not once. Not twice. But five separate times.”

Chuck again…  yes, he goes back to 1812 our first debt crisis… then the Civil War was our next, then came the Great Depression, 1968 the end of the Silver Certificate Redemption, and finally 1971 when Nixon took us off the Gold Convertibility…  You can read the whole article here: The Big Lie: America Has Defaulted on Its Debt Five Times—And a Sixth May Be Imminent

One of these days we’ll all be looking at each other and say, “how’d that happen”? When the payment on Treasuries is missed… Because, well, there just wasn’t the money to do it, and to print it would be suicide for the economy…  Choose your poison is what the Treasury will hear…  And they’ll put Treasuries at the front of the default line…  I’m just saying…

The U.S. Data Cupboard only has Fed Heads speaking all over the country… yesterday was the chief el jefe, Jerome Powell speaking on the economy and  emphasized that a sharp slowdown in hiring poses a growing risk to the U.S. economy, a sign that the central bank will likely cut its key interest rate twice more this year. 

Chuck again, Oh boy! Where do I sign up for more inflation? 

To recap… The dollar ran into a brick wall yesterday, and the dollar buying stopped with the BBDXY losing 4 index points on the day… Chuck isn’t the only one saying that the dollar’s brief rally would be short-lived…   Chuck talks about Gold and talks about Silver too, and how the SPTs took a pound of flesh from Silver yesterday, just because they can….  Has the U.S. ever defaulted?  yes, 5 previous times… so don’t let anyone tell you differently!

For What It’s Worth…  Well, Silver is on everyone’s minds these days, as it has ridden in the back seat of the car driven by Gold for a long time… The Good Folks at GATA sent me this snippet on Silver that I found here: Silver Maintains Breakout Despite Turbulence

Or, here’s your snippet: “I just wanted to give a quick update on where silver stands after some turbulence in the wee hours of the morning, from the perspective of New York time. As I showed yesterday evening, silver finally closed above the critical $50 resistance level that stopped the 1980 and 2011 bull markets dead in their tracks. In doing so, it broke to an all-time high, which I said was a signal that the bull market is about to enter a new stage and heat up even further.

In reality, however, nothing is ever that simple. Frustratingly, there was an intentional slam of silver by the bullion banks below that $50 level in an attempt to thwart its breakout. Thankfully, silver managed to still remain above the critical $50 level. There is a fierce battle taking place at that level as we speak, so I want to show you that and go into more detail about it in this update.

Let’s begin by taking a look at the long-term chart of silver, going back to the 1960s, to highlight the importance of the $50 level. This critical level has become a major psychological and technical ceiling, with many market participants closely watching it. It marked the peak of two significant silver bull markets in 1980 and 2011, both of which were followed by sharp declines. That’s why I’ve been hoping to see silver finally clear this level.

I believe that a clean breakout will signal the start of a much stronger move and a new phase of upward momentum. As I explained last week, silver is highly undervalued in real terms this time around, which makes me believe it has the potential to finally break through $50 and continue much higher from there. However, that move won’t happen without a fight.”

Chuck again… Yes, I told you in a previous episode of the Pfennig that I got interviewed by Forbes about Silver back in 2011…  And then the trap door sprung and Silver has been fighting the good fight to get back to 2011 level and more… 

Market Prices 10/15/2025: American Style: A$ .6515, kiwi .5722, C$ .7120, euro 1.1621, sterling 1.3350, Swiss $1.2493, European Style: rand 17.3305, krone 10.0812, SEK 9.4804, forint 336.19, zloty 3.6614, koruna 20.8872, RUB 78.48, yen 151.63, sing 1.2967, HKD 7.7732, INR 88.06, China 7.1268, peso 18.45, BRL 5.4673, BBDXY 1,212, Dollar Index 98.91, Oil $59.51, 10-year 4.02%, Silver $52.73, Platinum $1,659.00, Palladium $1,576.00, Copper $5.06, and Gold… $4,184

That’s it for today… The Dodgers were winning 5-1 when I retired last night… I saw this morning that they won, thus taking a 3-0 edge in games won…  The USA men’s soccer team played last night VS Australia, and their top player Christian Pulisic got injured during the game… Uh-Oh!  He was attacked from behind, for which the player executing the foul was given a yellow card…  Hey! If you take out a team’s best player, then your best player needs to be taken out of the game by the Ref! That would be the rules if they made me king! The game was 2-1 for the U.S. when I retired last night… The kinks take us to the finish line today with their song: Sunny Afternoon…. I hope you have a Wonderful Wednesday today, and Please Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler

Creator & Editor of:

A Pfennig For Your Thoughts

• the dollar continues to get bought… By whom?
• The SPTs are still relevant…

Good Day… And a Tom Terrific Tuesday to you! What a wonderful wedding and weekend of weather in Temecula Calif. This past weekend. I had a great time, as did everyone else at the event!  The worst part was that we didn’t arrive back home until 1 a.m. Sunday night/ Monday morning! And the newly minted San Diego airport terminal we were in, was a nightmare! I had another name for it, but decided not to use it here…  I’ll give them the fact that it was only open for 2 weeks… But no excuses! Excuses never won a game for anyone! Marty Balin greets me this morning with his solo song: Hearts…   Marty Balin was the lead singer for the Jefferson Starship… 

Well, while I was gone, Gold not only went over $4,000, it went over $4,100! And while all the attention is being thrown to Gold… Silver is kicking tail and taking names later too! Silver went over the $52 handle yesterday! There’s definitely a shortage of Silver, and someone can’t make delivery of it is the rumor… “This is not normal backwardation. This is market stress,” says a commodities strategist at a foreign brokerage, requesting anonymity. “It’s a signal that someone, somewhere, can’t deliver metal. Was the story on the GATA feed yesterday…   

Again, Backwardation is when the spot price is higher than the futures price of the asset, which in this case is Silver… 

And I’ve never seen no liquidity available like it is now… Silver dealers are booking ships to take physical Silver to London to help with their shortage…  

I took this from www.moneymetals.com   “a short occurs when somebody sells a silver contract today, committing to deliver silver at a set price in the future with the expectation of a falling market price. If the price drops, the investor can sell the contract and pocket the gain. But if the price rises, the investor suffers a loss. If nobody will buy the contract, he is obligated to deliver the silver.”

Chuck again.. And apparently the sellers have no Silver to deliver, and to buy some to fill the contract would be devastating to them… The price of Silver has gained more than 50% this year…  Remember when I told you are warned you, that when there was no more physical Gold or Silver that the prices of the two would explode higher?  And then it will be too late for all you procrastinators that put off buying either metal because you got cold feet…  

And while Gold & Siver soared… I received this from the good folks at GATA : “Donald Trump’s threat to impose new 100% tariffs on China has triggered one of the biggest cryptocurrency crashes in history and stoked fears of chaos in global markets next week.

Around $400 billion was wiped off the value of the crypto market in a span of less than 24 hours after Trump late on Friday promised to impose steep new levies on Chinese imports within weeks.”

Chuck again…  Things that make you go Hmmmmm…. 

So… The dollar has been being bought since I left last week on Thursday morning… The BBDXY closed yesterday at 1,215…  This is erasing the record loss for the dollar in the first months of this year, but… This brief rally doesn’t erase the underlying weak trend, folks.., keep the faith…  

But the question remains.. Who on earth is buying dollars?  That chaos that envelops the U.S. daily, is reason enough to steer clear of the currency, not to mention the $37 Trillion in debt, and the fact that nothing or no one Is thinking of dealing with the debt…  No one!  That’s it Washington D.C. That is…  Of course, I’ve been on top of the solutions to the debt problem since my Sunday Pfennig of years ago, when I gave readers “Chuck’s Debt Solutions”  

In the overnight markets last night… What the heck is going on here? The BBDXY has gained 4 index points overnight and starts today at 1,219… The PPT and Treasury must be working overtime to prop up the dollar like this… Hey, if they want to be foolish, and foolhardy, with their buying of dollars, then I won’t stand in their way, but I will warn them that all this dollar buying is going to turn out badly for them… I’m just saying… 

Gold is up $20 to start our day today… Societe General had this to say about Gold… “All that glitters is fear’ as $5,000 gold is now ‘increasingly inevitable’…  yes, I do believe that $5,000 Gold is in our future, but first we’ve got to get through the $4,000 level, so let’s not put our cart before the horse… 

The SPTs must be feeling their oats this morning, as they have pushed Silver down 80-cents to start our day today…  Io wondered where they were when Silver crossed $52 yesterday… But here they are! It would be a time of sunshine, seashells, balloons, and unicorns if they SPTs every went away for good!  But they are still here and reminding us that they have the power to reduce Silver or Gold whenever they want to…  UGH!

The price of Oil slipped further downward, and starts today trading with a $57 handle… The folks at OPEC insist on believing that the demand for Oil is strong and will remain strong.. They also believe in world peace and dragons… 

The 10-year Treasury starts the day trading with a 4.01% yield…  It’s going to trade below 4% soon and that will make the Fed Heads and Treasury happy, but will they stop then? I doubt it, they’ve seen how their buying has affected the 10-year’s yield, and so they are now power hungry… I shake my head in disgust…  but I carry on, despite the evils that exist in the markets…

Well, there’s been bits and pieces of data coming thru and one of them was the Consumer Credit (read debt), which didn’t gain or lose any ground in August, after surging in July… I said then that it was “back to school buying” and this flatline result in August proves that…  Consumer debt is now over $5 Trillion…  That’s $1.42 Million in debt per citizen of the U.S.  Now, we know that a good portion of the people don’t have any debt… So, that means the average is much higher…  I’m just saying…

Credit Card debt is a real problem in the U.S. and it won’t be long before you hear about a Credit Card Bank having to write off Millions in default losses from consumers walking away from their credit cards that carry HUGE Interest rates!

And that, my friends, will be just the start of defaults in the U.S.   Speaking of U.S. Treasuries, no wait! I wasn’t speaking of U.S. Treasuries, when I was talking about defaults!  But the two just seem to go together…  The once revered U.S. Treasury bond/ notes/ bills, have become not trusted and how they will be financed in the future is the main reason…  Gold on the other hand is preferred to Treasuries these days by Central Banks… Remember when the Central Banks around the world sans the Fed / Cabal/ Cartel, began buying Gold and I said, “they must know something that we don’t, so follow the money”?  Well, that certainly has been the right thing to do… I’m just saying…

And speaking of Treasuries… I think that the Fed Heads have been in the bond markets again, and keeping the 10-year Treasury from seeing its yield go higher, thus increasing the amount of interest the U.S. will have to pay in the future on the bonds… The yield of the 10-year Treasury ended the day yesterday with a 4.05% yield, and I don’t think the Fed Heads will be happy until the 10-year’s yield is below 4%… But with this much manipulation going on here, why would anyone want to buy this bond?  It’s Crazy folks!  

I read a piece yesterday, as I tried to get caught up with my reading, and this piece was about how Gold has been overbought for 6 weeks… I shuddered that what I’ve been taught long ago about trading is that there is no such thing as “This time it will be different”… I have to think that the folks at GATA have something to say about this and they do… 

“anyone who has observed and publicized the government’s corruption, deceit, venality, and arrogance with gold for as long as GATA has can’t help but wonder whether gold is not as much overbought for six weeks as it is catastrophically oversold for six decades. 

Now, for me, that sounds logical… That the Gov’t’s of the U.S. and U.K. Have been hard working at keeping a lid on Gold & Silver… That’s 6 decades of selling Gold short… And time it stops!

We start our day today with the currencies looking sick and confined to their sick beds… The only currency that has been gaining VS the dollar is the Russian Ruble… and the only currencies that maintained their levels VS the dollar are the Mexican peso and Japanese yen… Now that’s not exactly the currencies I would touch with your ten-foot pole, but they are what they are… 

The U.S. Data Cupboard is still an owner of a lonely heart…(Yes)  And the bits and pieces of data that come through have to had been cooked and massaged or else, as Bill Bonner calls him, The Big Man, will shut them down…   

To recap… Gold & Silver have been left to their own devices and have left the short sellers in the dust… Chuck explains the Silver shortage that fueling Silver’s rise, and the short selling that has been going on for 6 decades!  Chuck also talks about the dollar’s brief rally and how it’s still in the underlying weak trend…  and much more!

For What It’s Worth… This came to me last week from the good folks at GATA, who took it from Reuters and it’s about how the Treasury holdings by foreign Central Banks is falling and it can be found here: Fed custody holdings ring ‘de-dollarization’ alarm | Reuters

Or, here’s your snippet: “The amount of U.S. Treasuries held at the New York Fed on behalf of global central banks has slumped to its lowest in over a decade, casting renewed doubt on foreign appetite for U.S. sovereign debt and other dollar-denominated assets.

This may seem a little surprising. Recent data, including the Treasury International Capital and International Monetary Fund’s ‘Cofer’ foreign exchange reserves reports, show overseas demand for Treasuries and dollar assets holding up pretty well.

These two data sets are the gold standard measurements for U.S. capital flows and global FX reserves. But they are released with long lags – the last set of TIC data is for the month of July, and the latest Cofer numbers are for the second quarter.

The New York Fed custody holdings figures aren’t as comprehensive – central banks can hold their Treasury bonds elsewhere – but they are weekly, which in the world of cross-border, central bank capital flows is virtually ‘real time’.

And right now, these custody holdings are falling. Fast.

The latest figures show that the value of U.S. Treasuries held at the New York Fed on behalf of foreign central banks is $2.78 trillion. That’s the lowest since August 2012, and down $130 billion in just two months.”

Chuck again… this is something that I’ve tried to get across in past Pfennigs and that is who is going to buy our debt that keeps expanding and expanding?   This is scary stuff folks…  I’m just saying…

Market Prices 10/14/2025: American Style: A$ /6445, kiwi .5685, C$ .7153, euro 1.1557, sterling 1.3269, Swiss 1.2436, European Style: rand 17.4957, krone 10.1977, SEK 9.5597, forint 340.39, zloty 3.6897, koruna 21.0579, RUB 78.81, yen 151.98, sing 1.3015, HKD 7.7751, INR 88.79, China 7.1408, peso 18.62, BRL 5.4663, BBDXY 1,219, Dollar Index 98.84, Oil $57.72, 10-year 4.01%, Silver $51.60, Platinum $1,655.00, Palladium $1,518.00, Copper $4.96, and Gold… $4,132

That’s it for today…  I didn’t get to sleep until 3 a.m. Sunday night, Monday morning, and so I was dragging the line all day yesterday… There were two Monday Night Football Games on TV last night, but I could only watch one at a time!  And the ALCS got its 2^nd game in yesterday with Seatle winning and taking a 2-0 lead in games won.. And the NLCS saw its 1^st game with the Dodger winning… I like the Blue Jays and Dodger is this round of the playoffs, but the Blue Jays are up against a wall now… UGH!  I have a clean slate this week and don’t have anything until I have to get a scan next Sunday… We’ll celebrate little Evie’s birthday (it was last week) this coming weekend…  She’s 6 going on 16!  Blind Melon takes us to the finish line today with their hit son: No Rain… I hope you have a Tom Terrific Tuesday today, and Please Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

OK, back to the task at hand…  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chuck Butler

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chuck Butler

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gold now has a real seat at the table.

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

But once the ice breaks, the floodgates can open.

And MS isn’t fringe.

They’re blue-chip.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh, me, oh my…  

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

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

Chuck Butler

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chuck again… phony money, goosing up phony GDP…  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BLS takes the L

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chuck Butler