Author: admin

February 16, 2018

* Bart Chilton sings: I can see clearly now… 

* A day of allowing the dust to settle… 

Good Day… And a Happy Friday to one and all! From the looks of the sunrise this morning, it appears that it will be a carbon copy of the beautiful days we’ve had here in S. Florida, today, and so I’m proclaiming this to be a Fantastico Friday, right out of the starting gate this morning! The Pfennig is coming out a little later than usual this morning, as I was a real bum this morning, and slept through two alarms! The Group, Styx greets me this morning with their song: Lady…   

Well, after a day when Gold gained $20, and the Chicken Littles were out screaming that the sky was falling because the stupid CPI ratcheted up to 2.1% yoy, we had a day of drifting yesterday…  The currencies are, for the most part, trading in the same clothes as yesterday, as witnessed by the Dollar Index, which yesterday morning was 88.84, and today it’s 88.83.

It was a day of allowing the dust to settle form the awful data here in the U.S. the previous day. However, the U.S. data again was very disappointing yesterday… The economy seems to be slip-sliding away, you know the nearer your destination, the more you’re slip-sliding away…  

We did see some minor gains VS the dollar in: kiwi, rubles, real and krone, with the later 3 all being Petrol Currencies, which saw some love from another gain in the price of Oil yesterday. After gaining $2 the previous 24 hours, Oil added another $1 to its price in the past 24 hours, and is trading with a $61 handle this morning…  Up, down, later, rinse and repeat  for the price of Oil, which I went through a couple of days ago… 

I told you yesterday that kiwi was sneaking up on 74-cents, and last night it broke through that level! This last upward move in kiwi came courtesy of a report by the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ), that showed that businesses in New Zealand are expecting inflation to rise this year, and that led to the idea that the RBNZ will have to begin their rate hike cycle soon…  I had just said yesterday, that I was convinced late last year that the RBNZ would be removing the dust covers from their rate hike machine in the 1st QTR of 2018… I sure hope this all comes together like a good plan, because longtime readers know that I love it when a plan comes together! 

Could it be that inflation is ready to rise all around the world? Why not? Most countries have kept their respective currencies under wraps too long, and allowed inflation to enter their economies…

I had a dear reader question me yesterday about me calling the euro the offset currency to the dollar, and wondered why I’ve been such a fan of the euro since its inception…  Well, the euro is the second most traded currency in the world, which moves it ahead of Japanese yen as the offset currency to the dollar, that’s a layup… 

But me being a fan of the euro since its inception? I recall me sitting in an audience in London, in 1998, and the moderator asked: Who here thinks the euro will be successful? Then he asked to see a show of hands of those that think it would fail? I raised my hand…  And after the euro’s introduction, I looked to be bang on with my thought, as the euro was introduced at a price of 1.17, and quickly fell to 90-cents… 

But it survived, and I love survivor stories, especially after being diagnosed with cancer in 2007! And the euro began to win me over… Remember this was pre-2000… or Y2K as they used to call it.  So, I sat there thinking about what changed my mind so many years ago, and then it hit me…  The European Central Bank (ECB), was the key… Under the leadership of Wm Duisenberg, the ECB quickly gained respect… 

Now, if you think back to the beginnings of the Fed here in the U.S. you’ll recall that there were two failed attempts to get the Fed off the ground here in the U.S., before Woodrow Wilson, made the big mistake of allowing the cartel of banks to pull the wool over his eyes, and create a “new” Fed/ central Bank…    

There was none of those shenanigans with the creation of the ECB, folks… Yes, we’re talking about eons ago, but the comparison is a good one, and one of the reasons, I quickly turned coat and jumped on the euro’s band wagon. In fact, I wrote a white paper in 2002 titled: The Year of the Euro! 

OK, time to move on here… Recall last week when I highlighted the article that claimed that there was manipulation of the VIX (volatility Index), and said that it didn’t surprise me any to hear that, because in my eye, all markets are manipulated these days… Well, I came across this yesterday, and found it pretty interesting… Bart Chilton, a former member of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, said a whistleblower’s allegation of manipulation of the CBOE Volatility Index “rings true.” “The VIX has been suspect for at least seven years,” Chilton said.

My oh my… what being free of the Government’s or deep state’s control can do to a person’s view point, eh? I mean look at former Fed Chair Alan Greenspan, who was a Gold Bug before he was nominated to the Fed Chair, but then forgot all about Gold during his 19 year run as Chairman, but since he’s retired from the Fed, he’s all about ownership of Gold again… Hmmm… And now we have Bart Chilton, formerly of the CFTC (the commodities regulator), who NOW sees that there could be manipulation in the VIX, even though the CFTC “suspected it for years”…    

The U.S. Data Cupboard yesterday, as I mentioned above, had some disappointing data yesterday… Industrial Production here in the U.S. for the month of January printed a negative -0.1%, and Capacity Utilization fell from 77.7 to 77.5… Folks, remember, slippage in the Capacity Utilization data indicates that looking forward, businesses think that their businesses will be working at a slower pace…  

We also saw January PPI (wholesale inflation) yesterday, and it ratcheted up 0.4%… Uh-oh!  That means coming down the pipeline are price increases folks… Got Gold?  

Let’s do a quick review of the data this week…  Household Debt rose to a new record level, Retail Sales were negative, and flat when taking out the slumping car sales, Industrial Production was negative, and Capacity Utilization lost ground… Not a good week for all those “the economy is strong” flag wavers, eh?   

Gold gained $3.10 yesterday, with 234,000 contracts traded… I’m somewhat surprised given the rise in PPI that we’ll talk about in a minute, that Gold didn’t gain more on the day, but I’ll take $3.10 gains rather than a whacking! 

To end this week that contained Valentine’s Day, I came across something that ties romance with debt… Leave it me, to do that, eh? But in a recent survey, it was found that a romantic partner would be kicked to the curb if they disclosed that they had more than $11,000 in credit card debt…

So, all you youngsters out there, that think that the Gov’t has your back on your credit card debt accumulation, you might find that you grow old, live alone with all that debt… I’m just saying!

To Recap…  More disappointing data for the U.S. yesterday, but the markets were more about allowing the dust settle on the upward moves in the currencies and metals the previous day. So, for the most part the currencies are trading in the same clothes as yesterday… Don’t run up credit card debt or else you’ll have problems finding a soul mate! And Bart Chilton is singing the Johnny Nash hit, I can see clearly now…   

For What It’s Worth…. I saw this yesterday in the WSJ and it about blew my socks off! This is a tiered subscriber article, which means you can read some of it, if you aren’t a Wall Street Journal subscriber, by clicking here: https://www.wsj.com/articles/fannie-mae-to-require-3-7-billion-government-cash-infusion-1518616798 It’s about how Fannie-Mae needing another tax-payer infusion of cash… Here we go again!

Or, here’s your snippet: Fannie Mae reported a net loss of $6.5 billion for the fourth quarter, triggering what is expected to be the first taxpayer-funded infusion for the mortgage-finance giant in six years.

The quarterly loss was due to a one-time accounting charge due to the reduction in the corporate tax rate. But Fannie, which has been under government conservatorship since the financial crisis, said Wednesday that its regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, would seek a fresh taxpayer infusion of $3.7 billion from the Treasury Department…” 

Chuck again… As I said… here we go again…  

Currencies today 2/16/18… American Style: A$ .7948, kiwi .7402, C$ .8005, euro 1.2467, sterling 1.4040, Swiss $1.0820, … European Style: rand 11.6524, krone 7.7694, SEK 7.9538, forint 249.65, zloty 3.3394, koruna 20.3263, RUB 56.59, yen 106.28, sing 1.3105, HKD 7.8208, INR 64.33, China 6.3439, peso 18.52, BRL 3.2216, Dollar Index 88.83, Oil $61.34, 10yr 2.89%, Silver $16.76, Platinum $1,007.14, Palladium $1,034.54, and Gold… $1,357.20  

That’s it for today…  It’s a 3-day Holiday Weekend as we celebrate President’s Day… I’ve always said that we shouldn’t clump the President’s birthday’s together… If the President deserved to have a Holiday to commemorate his birthday, then let’s celebrate that day! Feb 12, and Feb 22 should be holidays, not clumped together! I’m just saying! I can’t wait to get out to the deck with my cup of coffee this morning…  So, no Pfennig on Monday… I hope you can get through the withdrawal! HAHAHAHA! March is right around the corner, folks, and longtime readers know that I take a spring vacation from writing every year during March… I’m just throwing that out there to get you prepared…  Mathew Sweet takes us to the finish line today with his song: Girlfriend…  And with that, I hope you have a Fantastico Friday, and it sure looks like a Good Day to have a Good Day, eh? Remember, to Be Good To Yourself!  

Chuck Butler

 

February 15, 2018

* Gold soars on rising inflation data

* Rising Debt levels become a concern… 

   

Good Day…  And a Tub Thumpin’ Thursday to you! WOW! What a day yesterday, not only for the weather here in S. Florida, but also for Gold and some of the currencies! I was sitting in my chair on the beach yesterday afternoon, 83 degrees, sunny, umbrella blue skies, and a light sea breeze to keep the sun from biting, and as I sat there relaxing, which is what I needed to do, I thought to myself… Maybe I died and went to heaven… It is my profound hope that everyone finds their “beach” in their lifetime..  Neil Young and Crazy Horse greet me this morning with a song from their Live at the Fillmore East Album: Down By The River… It’s a 12 minute version…  

The currencies this morning are on the warpath VS the dollar, and it all began yesterday. Initially, the dollar rallied after the stupid CPI (consumer inflation) printed (+ 2.1% yoy), but then traders and money managers realized that this was not a good thing, and that we could very well be heading into an abyss, with rising inflation and rising Debts… Yes, believe it or don’t, but the thought of unsustainable debt levels in the U.S. are back on the table with traders, etc.  

It sure took them a while to come around, but they here they are, and the rising debt levels appears to have them scared to death! Could it possibly be that we’ve returned to the thought that longer term, fundamentals tend to gain more credence here and investors put more emphasis on current account surplus currencies?  Just like in the days of old? Well, bust my buttons! While it appears to be the new conversation going on in the markets, I’m from Missouri, and I’ll have to be shown that this is lasting trend/ pattern/ thought process, because we’ve seen these false dawns of returning to fundamentals a few times in the past 9 years…

But if it is for real, then I’ll be one BIG FAT HAPPY CAMPER! Because I would no have to judge the level of sentiment that traders have for currencies and metals! That sentiment B.S. will be out of the way, and we can get back to valuing currencies and metals on their fundamentals! WOW!    

OK, I teased you a bit at the top with my mention of the move in Gold yesterday, so let’s go to the tape…  Gold traders saw the move in the CPI, and put their foot to the metal on the price of Gold, and the shiny metal rose nearly $40 at one point in the day, but the short Gold paper traders brought it back to a $20.90 gain on the day, still a shiny star sticker placed on Gold yesterday!  Imagine waking up this morning and seeing that Gold had gained nearly $40 yesterday, You would do a double take on the figure, right? Well, we almost had that, but 382,000 contracts traded on the day, contained some short trades that brought it back to the hemisphere… 

But, I’m not going to complain, much that is, about the short Gold paper traders, Gold gained $20.90 yesterday, so let’s focus on that!  

And the price of Oil recovered nearly $2 in the past 24 hours as the build up of Oil supplies took a hit and weren’t as strong as suspected at last glance, and that gave the price of Oil an opportunity to take advantage of that and the fall in the Dollar Index, to gain nearly $2 on the day, to trade with a $60 handle again. 

The anti-dollar assets were very perky yesterday, with Gold, Oil and euros all gaining VS the dollar. Euros were the laggard of the three though, and only able to gain about 1/4-cent on the day… Think about it folks… IF, we are going to return to fundamental valuations, the Eurozone isn’t exactly, a surplus region, and has their own warts to contend with, but… having said that, the euro does remain the offset currency to the dollar, and that has its benefits, like being able to rally when the dollar gets sold, even if the Eurozone’s warts are showing!   

The New Zealand dollar/ kiwi, which I highlighted yesterday for its stealth-like move higher in recent trading days, continued to move forward yesterday, and is closing in on 74-cents at .7380 this morning…  The question that hangs over kiwi right now, is when will the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) get their interest rate powder wet? Late last year, I was convinced that the RBNZ would be hiking rates by the end of the first QTR of 2018. They’ve still got a month to go, but I’m not hearing any “talk about a rate hike coming” from New Zealand, and that has me worried, but… That’s a worry for another day… Let’s take the stealth-like moves higher in kiwi and be happy!  

Another currency that is defying gravity right now is the Japanese yen… What on earth do traders see in pushing the currency envelope across the table with yen? I don’t see it, other than, the fact that IF I’m correct and the dollar has entered a new weak dollar trend, then I get the fact that yen is rallying, because the major currencies are the first to show life when a new trend is introduced to the markets…  

Why on earth would I be questioning my call of a new weak dollar trend? Silly me! I know better than to question my calls! They are from years of experience, knowledge, logic, and the guts to make one!  Just like in 2001, when I wrote the white paper, Decline of the dollar…  No one, and I mean no one was talking about the almighty dollar declining, but little old me! 

Oh, well, I digress there, where were we? Oh… Did you see the color of the January Retail Sales here in the U.S. yesterday?  My oh my, just when everyone thought the U.S. economy was getting stronger, except me of course, because I know any economic strength is coming because of low interest rates, stimulus, and Fed intervention… But just when the sheeple were thinking that everything was going to come up roses, January’s Retail Sales printed a negative -0.3%!!!!!   And even when you take the slumping auto sales out of the equation, Retail Sales were flat in January…

I would think that all those credit card purchases made in Nov and Dec for Christmas and other holidays, saw their bills arrive in January, and the receivers of those bills, gasped and wondered how their purchases led to such HUGE bills!  And they decided to hunker down in January, and apply for another credit card so they can make the payment on their current one!

So, the rot on Retail Sales’ vine helped the Dollar Index to fall into the 88 handle yesterday… Today’s U.S. Data Cupboard has some real economic data for us to view, leading off with two of my fave prints: Industrial Production, and Capacity Utilization.  I would look for both of them to struggle in January, which won’t be a good thing for the dollar to have to swallow this morning…  

We’ll also see the PPI (wholesale inflation) for January, and this is where the inflation begins folks… I’m somewhat surprised that the forecasts are for a flat PPI last month… Hmmm… Betcha a dollar to a Krispy Kreme, that PPI shows some gain in inflation…   

To recap… U.S. stupid CPI showed a 2.1% yoy gain yesterday, and suddenly the markets began to panic, and drove Gold higher on the day, and the currencies followed Gold’s lead.  Today’s data could mean more damage for the dollar, as fundamentals seems to have returned to the forefront of trading in currencies… Imagine that!     

For What It’s Worth… I thank longtime reader, Bob, for sending me this article that once again points out manipulation in the markets with this time being the stock market and the Fed being the manipulator. It’s well worth the time to read, and can be found here: http://wallstreetonparade.com/2018/02/rumors-grow-that-the-u-s-fed-is-propping-up-the-stock-market/   

Or, here’s your snippet: “It’s not every day that three well-credentialed men are willing to put their names and reputations behind the allegation that the U.S. Federal Reserve is rigging the stock market. But that’s exactly what happened yesterday. Paul Craig Roberts, a former Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal and Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury under President Ronald Reagan joined with Economist Michael Hudson and Wall Street veteran Dave Kranzler to write that “it appears that in May 2010, August 2015, January/February 2016, and currently in February 2018 the Fed is rigging the stock market by purchasing S&P equity index futures in order to arrest stock market declines.” 

Chuck Again… The games people play now, every night and every day now, never meaning what they say now, never saying what they mean – Joe South…  I told you last week that the PPT (Plunge Protection Team) had saved the stock market and the dollar… I don’t make this stuff up folks… 

Currencies today 2/15/18… American Style: A$ .7925, kiwi .7380, C$ .80, euro 1.2467, sterling 1.4040, Swiss $1.0807, … European Style: rand 11.6780, krone 7.8055, SEK 7.9493, forint 249.85, zloty 3.337, koruna 20.3423, RUB 57.31, yen 106.70, sing 1.3129, HKD 7.8218, INR 63.93, China 6.3412, peso 18.50, BRL 3.27, Dollar Index 88.84, 10-year 2.93%, Silver $16.81, Platinum $1,002.33, Palladium $1.019.25, and Gold… $1,353.00 

That’s it for today…  That was some awful news from Florida yesterday with a crazy person killing 17 people at a school… My thoughts last night were with the families of those that died but also had to experience that awful scene…  Have you been watching the Winter Olympics? I have no idea why, but I get into the curling…  The U.S. men’s and women’s hockey teams lost yesterday… UGH! No professionals playing this year, that’s got to take you back to the Lake Placid team, and one of my fave movies of all time: MIRICLE     Ok… Paul McCartney and Wings takes us to the finish line today with their song: Band On The Run…  I hope you can get out and make this a Tub Thumpin’ Thursday, and remember to Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler

February 14, 2018…  

* Just keep digging that debt hole deeper folks… 

* Some Currencies fly under the radar… 

Good Day… And a Wonderful Wednesday to you! Happy Valentines Day, and for those of you who are Catholic, Happy Ash Wednesday. This is the first time that those two observed days fell on the same day since the 40’s, so it’s rare that we have the two days colliding like this. All my Irish brothers were on my like a cheap suit yesterday, reminding me that I forgot to talk about Shrove Tuesday… Shroves are pancakes in Ireland, and on Fat Tuesday for everyone else, it’s traditional for the Irish to fatten up on Shroves…  Valentine’s Day is, well, just another day for us…  But I’d like to think that for all those who get all Cupid-like today, that you find your true love, and live the rest of your life happily with that person!  Ok, the Pet Shop Boys greet me this morning with their song: West End Girls…  For the 80’s sound of electric music, with no drums, etc. The Pet Shop Boys weren’t too bad…   

We start our day of romance, with me being  upset with our debt situation here in the U.S.  We finally saw the color of the 4th QTR Household Debt number yesterday, and just like I suspected, it was monstrous! U.S. household debt rose for the 14th straight quarter in the final three months of 2017, pushing further into record territory as confident Americans added to mortgage loans and credit-card balances.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York said Tuesday that household debt rose by $193 billion to $13.15 trillion last quarter, completing the fifth straight year overall balances increased. Total debt was the most on record, though the figure wasn’t adjusted for inflation or population growth. 

As a share of U.S. economic output, household debt was about 67% last quarter, barely edging up from the third quarter, but edging up nonetheless! And guess what was the main driver of the rise in Household Debt? Mortgages…  And then there was this report on Bloomberg this morning about those Mortgages, that explains how the Mortgage debt grew by so much in the 4th QTR… Here’s the Bloomberg snippet: 

“Home prices jumped to all-time highs in almost two-thirds of U.S. cities in the fourth quarter as buyers battled for a record-low supply of listings.

Prices for single-family homes, which climbed 5.3 percent from a year earlier nationally, reached a peak in 64 percent of metropolitan areas measured, the National Association of Realtors said Tuesday. Of the 177 regions in the group’s survey, 15 percent had double-digit price growth, up from 11 percent in the third quarter.”   You can find the whole article, that is if you promise to put away the sharp objects first, by clicking here: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-13/home-prices-in-two-thirds-of-u-s-cities-have-hit-record-highs   

So, what did the currencies and metals do after this Debt debacle printed yesterday? They attempted to mount a rally, and even when I checked the prices in the middle of the night, yes, I was up walking the floors, the currencies were still inching higher… But something happened between the middle of the night and early this morning, because those small gains have been given back, and we’re basically trading in yesterday’s clothes in most of the currencies.  

The Indian rupee is not slipping this morning, after it was announced that PM Modi, was going to not only extend the current stimulus for the economy, but also add to it. This got the warm a fuzzy feelings for rupees going again and this morning it’s the best performing currency since yesterday. 

I’m not sure this euphoria over more stimulus is going to be long lasting, but Shoot Rudy, look what it does for the U.S. psyche every time a stimulus package is announced, like the Tax Cut Reform Bill?  So, maybe, it can, maybe it can’t, we’ll have to wait-n-see… This is where the old timer traders like me, would make a call and either go long rupees or short rupees based on their information and gut feeling…  But we’re a dying breed, folks… Look at me, I was put out to pasture a couple of years ago, and I was a young “old timer”!    

Another currency that flies low on currency traders’ radar is the S. African rand, which has had one of those rally periods that is based on a change of leadership. Every since Zuma was showed the door, the rand has been on a mission to gain back a lot of lost ground that it experienced during the corrupt Zuma reign.  Interest rates are still above those found in most parts of the world, so that also has helped the rand gain… 

But, I have to tell you front and center on the rand, to be very careful, as this has historically been a very volatile currency, but time has proven one thing, that when it’s good volatility it’s good and when it’s bad, it’s bad… 

Reminds me of a song by Grand Funk Railroad, titled: I Can Feel Him In The Morning… And the song begins with a child reciting these words: Good means to obey your mother and father, to do what the teacher says — the things right. I feel miserable when I’m … when I’m bad, I feel miserable on the inside but, on the outside, I just feel like I … I feel now.

I think … um, um … there are more people that are bad than there are good. And, um … if you’re good, you’ll live forever. And, if you’re bad, you’ll die when you die.”    There you go, a song from the 70’s that you’ve probably never heard of… But I know it! 

OK, let’s get back to work here… The New Zealand dollar / kiwi has been very stealth-like in its recovery from the sell off of a couple of weeks ago after getting close to 74-cents, it got whacked, but like I said it has been recovering and this morning it’s back to 73-cents… Kiwi is like the Tub Thumpin’ Song… I get knocked down, but I get up again, nothing’s gonna keep me down!   

I went through the price cycle of Oil yesterday, so I won’t do that again, for awhile anyway, but did want to point out that the slippage in the price of Oil hasn’t stopped and this morning it’s trading with a $58 handle…  

But Gold is picking up the slack for Oil, and has been on the rally tracks for 3 trading days in a row! And yesterday’s gain of $6.80 was without major short paper trading, as the number of contracts were only 182,500 on the day. Gold closed at $1,329.30, and is up almost $3 in the early morning trading today. 

This is the game the short Gold paper traders like to play, they allow Gold to rise in price after they have whacked it and bought at the low price after the whacking, then after Gold gets to a price high enough, they stuff the Paper trading down everyone’s throat and sell, make a quick buck, and then buy at the low price again… This has been the trading pattern for a long time folks, but from what I see, they have allowed Gold to rise higher each time, by the smallest of figures, but rise nonetheless… 

Now, if everyone that had money to invest from all their Bitcoin gains, and they bought physical Gold, they would drive the paper traders out of the market…  Good luck getting that organized, here in the West… In the East? getting that organized would be a lay-up, but not here in the West, as we still, for the most part, don’t see Gold as a store of wealth…  I do, and you probably do, as I’ve hammered this point into your heads for years now, but what about the guy across the street? Or the lady that sits next to you on the bus? I’ll bet they don’t even know how Gold is performing, much less own some!  

At your next cocktail party I challenge you to bring up the question of who among us owns Gold? Say it like this… I picked up some additional physical Gold this week, how many of you own Gold? You don’t have to tell me how much, or where you store it, I’m just interested in how many of you own Gold…   I think you’ll be surprised at how few hands go up…   I’m just saying…   

The U.S. Data Cupboard finally gets some data that people will take notice of today… January Retail Sales, which should be fair to middling, nothing to write home about or support the dollar, and then there’s the stupid CPI that everyone is pointing to as a key to interest rates going forward… Don’t they know how stupid the CPI has become, with all of its hedonic adjustments, swapping, and changing of weightings in the basket of Goods? I shake my head in disgust at these dolts that still think that CPI is something that should be paid attention to!    

To Recap…  It’s Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday together! But we get some data today to move the markets, so let’s see if it really does. Rupees, rand, and kiwi are in the spotlight today with their stealth-like moves higher, but for the most part the rest of the currencies are trading in the same clothes as yesterday.  Household Debt rose by a monstrous amount in the 4th QTR, and are we heading to another housing bubble?    

For What It’s Worth… It was good to see someone of “authority” call out the debt situation here in the U.S. yesterday… This can be found on the CNBC website, and it’s about National Security Director Dan Coats saying that the size and direction of the National Debt is a serious threat to the U.S.’s security… WOW!  This can be found here: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/13/us-security-chief-calls-national-debt-a-dire-threat.html   

Or, here’s your snippet: “Among the myriad threats to national security – North Korea, Russia and Iran among them – is one very big economic issue, National Intelligence Director Daniel Coats said Tuesday.

Speaking to the Senate Intelligence Committee, Coats said the nation’s debt, up to $20.7 trillion and likely to escalate due to recently passed fiscal measures in Congress, must be taken seriously.

“The failure to address our long-term fiscal situation has increased the national debt to over $20 trillion and growing,” he said during a broader hearing over dangers posed to the U.S. “This situation is unsustainable as I think we all know, and represents a dire threat to our economic and national security.”

The debt has increased 123 percent over the past decade as the nation sought to break free of the financial crisis and the tepid growth that followed.

Total debt is now nearly 105 percent of gross domestic product, just shy of its highest level since World War II. The most recent Congressional Budget Office projections have the trajectory leading to a debt-to-GDP ratio of 150 percent by 2047, well past the point where financial crises typically occur.”  

Chuck again… The room was filled with congressmen and women who hopefully listened to the Security Director’s warning and took it to heart, but I doubt it, they were probably making dinner plans while he was talking!  UGH!   

Currencies today 2/14/18… American Style: A$ .7861, kiwi .7308, C$ .7950, euro 1.2345, sterling 1.3854, Swiss $1.0709, … European Style: rand 11.8270, krone 7.8910, SEK 8.0396, forint 253.14, zloty 3.3775, koruna 20.5544, RUB 57.72, yen 107.36, sing 1.3197, HKD 7.8218, INR 64.10, China 6.3349, peso 18.59, BRL 3.2912, Dollar Index 89.72, Oil $58.77, 10yr 2.83%, Silver $16.56, Platinum $976.35, Palladium $991.62, and Gold… $1,332.90

That’s it for today… Another beautiful day yesterday. I had a nice conversation with my friend and former colleague, Chris Gaffney, yesterday. He had been at the Orlando Money Show, and told me that a lot of people were asking about me… It’s nice to know that you may be gone but not forgotten, eh?  Pitchers and catchers reported yesterday, and the rest of the squad will report this weekend… I’m so stoked about spring training starting! It’s a new day when it starts, a new beginning, hopes are high, and everyone has a chance to win it all! it’s always fun to watch a young Phenom make a splash in spring training and make the team…  Toad The Wet Sprocket takes us to the finish line today with their song: Walk On The Ocean…  a great 90’s song…   I hope you and your honey celebrate Valentine’s Day in grand style, and for some of us, lent begins today…  And with that, it’s time to get going!  I hope you have a Wonderful Wednesday, a Happy Valentine’s Day, Ash Wednesday, and whatever comes your way! And Be Good To Yourself!    

Chuck Butler

February 13, 2018  

* Gold gets back on the rally tracks!

* The President has his own spending palooza plan! 

  Good Day… And a Tub Thumpin’ Thursday to you! A better day yesterday, night and morning today for yours truly, so here I am… I’m ready to Rock you like a Hurricane! Not! I really don’t have much to say today, imagine that! You don’t hear that very often from me! I was holding court on the deck yesterday afternoon when everyone meets for Happy Hour, and I had everyone’s ear as I explained how Amazon is a great model company, that is if you’re really not interested in turning a net profit… Today is sad but fun… Today would have been the birthday of my oldest sister, Brenda, she died of cancer over about 29 years ago at the age of 38. And the fun day is my good friend, Duane celebrates a birthday today!  The band Yes, greets me this morning with their song: It Can Happen…    

One of these days the ducks will get in order, and the proper trading in a weak dollar trend will occur, until then we get those days like last week, where the dollar bugs just wouldn’t give up on the dollar, and they had the backing of the PPT so the currencies didn’t stand a chance against opponents like that! Yesterday, saw the currencies drift around but not really have any momentum. But today is a different story, so let’s go to the tape, eh?    First off, the Dollar Index which had gotten off the mat last week and rallied back above 90, after looking like it was ready to go on a long ride on the slippery slope, saw the selling return last night, and is back below the 90 figure. 

The Big Dog, euro, which had lost about 2-cents in the trading last week, has gained one of those lost 2-cents back overnight and this morning and with the Big Dog at least doing some barking at the dollar, the other currencies are joining in.  All of them, including the Japanese yen are doing dome barking, except… The one currency, last week, that kept booking gains VS the dollar as the dollar rallied against all the other currencies, the Chinese renminbi, which saw a markdown that was not a small one overnight at the fixing.  I looked and looked for some reason that the renminbi was marked down, but I guess I’m too early… 

Gold had a decent day yesterday gaining $6.80 on the day, but is up even more than that amount in the early morning trading today, to trade at the moment around $1,331. Yesterday, I told you that the Budget deal was passed, but forgot to tell you that the President still needed to sign it, and in the meantime, the President presented his own version of a budget, and in it you would expect for Gold to rally…  Here’s the skinny on the President’s version of a Budget…   

Here’s my view on this proposal the President wants to add $200 Billion for infrastructure projects, which is fine with me, as long as the spending is equaled by revenue… His plan includes ending the funding for NPR and PBS… Which longtime readers that recall, Chuck’s debt solutions, from many years ago, will recall me saying that the country should stop paying for things it doesn’t have money for, and allow some entrepreneur to step in a make it work instead of the Government gumming up the operation.  But the cutting of the funding for those two isn’t going to make up the proposed spending on infrastructure.  So, he has proposed cuts to environmental programs…  He has also proposed major cuts to social welfare programs as part of a new $4.4 trillion spending plan that would massively increase the federal deficit.  

I shake my head in disbelief because even though Trump campaigned for increases in infrastructure spending I always thought he was speaking about a spending neutral deal. In other words, having the revenue to match the spending…  I guess not, eh?  So, there are some good things in his proposal, but in the end, it adds to our problem of growing debt… UGH! In my opinion, you either get to drink the poison of the plan presented by Congress or drink the poison of the President’s plan… Hey! At least you get to choose! 

The good news, that I did read this morning, is that Congress probably won’t pay attention to his proposal, for they have their own version of a Deficit Spending palooza to fight for…  So, investors return to Gold…

In fact, most of the Safe Havens are being bought this morning, Gold, euros, yen, and francs, but no Treasuries, and certainly no Oil… In fact, Oil has really dropped in the past 5 trading periods to trade below $60 again. About 10 days ago, it appeared that the price of Oil was heading to $70, but then the “shale boys” replenished the Oil supplies, and voila! We have a supply gut once again. But here we go with this vicious circle of life for the price of Oil again… The price rises on supply concerns, and the higher price invites the “shale boys” to increase production, and then the supply concerns go away, and the price of Oil drops, driving the “shale boys” away until the supply concerns return… Lather, rinse and repeat… 

I think, that the bond bubble popping that I first began talking about in 2009, before the first implantation of a bond buying program, aka Quantitative Easing, by the Fed was introduced, is really beginning to take shape… That’s nearly 10 years of waiting for this bond bubble to pop… I used to have a slide in my presentations, you know when I used to be in demand to talk to conferences, that showed a guy banging his head on his desk, and I would say, this is me, when I think about my call that the bond bubble was ready to pop.  But the Fed’s $4 Trillion in bonds that they bought propping up bond prices and keeping yields low, there was no popping of the bond bubble…

But, now we could very well be seeing it happening, given the fact that the Fed is no longer in the bond buying business, or so they claim… No, big buys to support prices, and keep yields low is going to be the Pin that the bond bubble has been floating around the room in search of for so many years now. 

OMG! look at this! I said I didn’t have much to say, and now I’m talking like I’m on the Butler Patio, or the deck here overlooking the beach and ocean, not allowing anyone to get a word in edgewise! HA! I’ll take questions after I’m finished talking! HA!  

The U.S. Data Cupboard didn’t have anything for us yesterday, and today it will only produce the percentage increase in Household Debt, which I told you yesterday I wouldn’t be surprised one iota if it increased in the 4th QTR, which this report will be all about, the 4th QTR…  

To recap… The currencies and metals rebounded overnight and this morning so far, as the Dollar Index fell back below 90. Gold had a decent day yesterday gaining over $6 and is up again this morning and is trading back above $1,330 as I write. President Trump presented his own version of a spending palooza yesterday, and Chuck picks it apart… So, U.S. citizens have a choice, drink the poison of the plan presented by Congress, or drink the poison of the plan the President presented… Either way, you have to drink the poison…   

For What It’s Worth…  This came to me from the GATA folks, whom I greatly appreciate for all their work in brining the Gold price manipulation to the forefront…  This article is about how VIX manipulation costs investors billions, according to a CFTC whistle-blower and can be found here: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-13/vix-manipulation-costs-investors-billions-whistle-blower-says  

Or, here’s your snippet: “A whistle-blower today told U.S. regulators that a scheme to manipulate the VIX, the volatility gauge thrust into the spotlight last week during a wild trading session, costs investors hundreds of millions of dollars a month.

A Washington-based lawyer told the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission — the nation’s top markets regulators — in a letter today that his client found a flaw that allows traders “with sophisticated algorithms to move the VIX up or down by simply posting quotes on S&P options and without needing to physically engage in any trading or deploying any capital.” Billions in purportedly ill-gotten profits have been scooped up by “unethical electronic option market makers,” according to the letter.

The client wasn’t identified by name. He has held “senior positions at some of the largest investment firms in the world,” according to the letter written by Jason Zuckerman of Zuckerman Law, who has appeared on Washingtonian magazine’s list of top whistle-blower lawyers in the nation’s capital.”   

Chuck Again…. I tell you all the time folks… there’s manipulation going on in all assets, so why is it so difficult for the regulators to see the manipulation going on in Gold & Silver?  

Currencies today 2/13/18… American Style: A$ .7866, kiwi .7288, C$ .7950, euro 1.2350, sterling 1.3903, Swiss $1.0714, … European Style: rand 11.8966, krone 7.8860, SEK 8.0424, forint 252.44, zloty 3.3810, koruna 20.5475, RUB 57.97, yen 107.61, sing 1.3216, HKD 7.8228, INR 64.31, China 6.3166, peso 18.70, BRL 3.2918, Dollar Index 89.70, Oil $59.26, 10yr 2.83%, Silver $16.61, Platinum $977.71, Palladium $991.78, and Gold… $1,331.40 

That’s it for today… Happy Birthday Duane! Hope your day is grand, and I’m looking forward to your visit in 3 weeks! Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, are you ready? It was an absolutely beautiful day yesterday here, and more of that is expected the rest of the week, so I’m a happy camper this morning! And Pitchers and Catchers report today, I woke up without stomach problems, I’m telling you this is going to be a great day!  I had a long talk with good friend, Dennis Miller yesterday, and he told me about an article that he’s preparing for next week on Social Security. I’ll be sure to highlight in the FWIW section when it prints for sure!  The Staple Sisters take us to the finish line today with their song: I’ll Take You There…  Now, go out and make today your own Tom Terrific Tuesday, and remember to Be Good To Yourself… 

Chuck Butler

February 12, 2018

* U.S. Decides to dig their debt hole deeper!

* The Fed is having deep discussions right now… 

Good Day… And a Marvelous Monday to you… Well, for all of you with inquiring minds that wondered what my triumvirate of oncologists had to say on Thursday, here goes… They decided that the drug I was on that I received through an infusion every 2 weeks, had run its course (like the other 3 drugs I had previously taken) and that I it would no longer benefit me to continue on the drug. So, no more infusions… (I never liked going to those infusion centers anyway, it’s a very depressing place) Instead, once the current drug is out of my system, they will start me on the newest kidney cancer drug, that’s a pill taken each day.  So, I have a couple of weeks before they start the new drug. I’m sure my insurance company will throw a hissy fit about this new drug, like they’ve done before, so, I’m expecting a fight with them.  I totally dislike this waiting though, because at this point I have no idea whether or not I will be able to tolerate the new drug, at least as well as I have the previous 4 drugs.  And that is an unknown…  

So, this is a notice to you dear reader that there could be some major disruptions , with the Pfennig, once I begin to take the new drug, or as it begins to build up in my system. You know me, I’ll battle it, and come out on top, but at this point, I don’t know how difficult a battle it will be.  So, I’m not going to worry about it, that’s a worry for another day.  For now, I’m enjoying sunny and 80 degree days in S. Florida, gathering up lots of Vitamin D, and having fun with my neighbors down here. They’ll all go home at the end of this month, and that’s when my St. Louis visitors begin, and that’s when the real party, starts! I just hope I’m in good health to participate and party!  

I’m getting a very late start today, sorry about that, I hit the wall last night, fell asleep in my chair and sometime during the night I got up and went to bed, where I slept right past my alarm! UGH! I guess I needed to sleep, eh?

Well, there’s not much going on in the currencies these days, they’ve backed off their lofty levels of two weeks ago, but have stabilized at this point and seem to be trading sideways, with the Big Dog, euro, remaining on the porch, and all the little dogs waiting for their chance to get back to chasing the dollar down the street. 

So, late, last week, while I was being poked and prodded by nurses, the U.S. finally came up with a spending plan… Before I get into it, I have this question to ask… “What happened to all the momentum the Tea Party people had a few years ago?”  Alright then, let’s get into this, because, well, the lawmakers have kicked the can down the road a little more with regards to reining in the debt.  These mental giants believe that the way to prosperity is to dig the debt hole your in, a little deeper! What on earth are these guys thinking?  I’m sure they didn’t learn any of this in their economic classes in school, unless their professor was Paul Krugman! 

The Budget calls for the annual deficit spending to increase and the deal  would eliminate strict budget caps, set in 2011 to reduce the federal deficit, and would allow Congress to spend about $200 Billion more in the current fiscal year and in fiscal year 2019. That’s $200 Billion more than we were already slated to spend… $575 Billion…  Are we nuts?  We just passed a tax cut bill, and now we’re raising our debt? Those two things together are a recipe for disaster folks… 

The prudent thing to do after passing the tax cut bill was to reduce spending, but NOOOOOOOO! Our elected representatives, know better than you and I folks, they just know that the path to prosperity is to spend more money than you can every imagine having!  And all this spending is going to mean more issuance of Treasuries at a time when foreigners are backing away from buying them! What a mess!  No, it’s absolute madness! Madness I tell you! Serenity NOW!   

Oh, and that leads me to another discussion that’s bound to begin to take place in the Eccles Building (Fed HQ)…  What is the Fed going to do about all this?  They have two choices, right now… They can stop their rate hikes, and even go as drastic as implementing more QE (which would help with the additional Treasury issuance) to stop the bleeding in the stock market, or, they can continue their rate hikes, make debt servicing almost impossible for the U.S. Gov’t, but keep a lid on the rising inflation… 

What’s a Fed head to do? What’s it gonna be boy? Will the pick what’s behind door #1 or Door #2?  This is going to be interesting to see how it plays out. I suggest you keep a journal of these decisions by the Fed, because one day, your great-grandchild is going to ask you, a question, about what happened to the great country that they read about in the history books!   I could go on and on about this stuff folks, but I don’t want to bog you  down or bore you, so I’ll just leave it at this…  Our country can’t get Great Again, when we’re drowning in debt… period! 

Gold closed down a couple of bucks on Friday, but is up $4.60 in the early trading so far today.  The number of contracts in Gold traded on Friday were just shy of 300,000… One of these days, the COMEX will break down the trades for us, and tell us which ones were buys and which ones were “shorts”…  Now that would be helpful, wouldn’t it?  But, I doubt we’ll see that in our lifetime… UGH! There’s just too much protection for the short Gold & Silver paper traders… And that’s all I’m saying about that today! 

The U.S. Data Cupboard doesn’t have much for us until we get to Wednesday, which happens to be Valentine’s Day. On Wednesday we’ll see Retail Sales…  Tomorrow we’ll see the percentage increase in Household Debt, which if it goes higher, won’t surprise me one iota! 

To Recap… The currencies have stabilized after a week of getting sold. The U.S. lawmakers decided to dig their debt hole a little deeper in hopes that it straightens things out… Dolts, all of them! The Fed is down to two choices folks, what’s it gonna be boy?  And the U.S. Data Cupboard is pretty barren until Wednesday, Valentine’s Day.   

For What It’s Worth… Here’s an interview with our old friend, Jimmy Rogers, who’s been pretty quiet in recent days… I can be found on Bloomberg.com or here: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-09/jim-rogers-says-next-bear-market-will-be-worst-in-his-lifetime   

Or, here’s your snippet: “Jim Rogers, 75, says the next bear market in stocks will be more catastrophic than any other market downturn that he’s lived through.

The veteran investor says that’s because even more debt has accumulated in the global economy since the financial crisis, especially in the U.S. While Rogers isn’t saying that stocks are poised to enter bear territory now — or making any claim to know when they will — he says he’s not surprised that U.S. equities resumed their selloff Thursday and he expects the rout to continue.

When we have a bear market again, and we are going to have a bear market again, it will be the worst in our lifetime,” Rogers, the chairman of Rogers Holdings Inc., said in a phone interview. “Debt is everywhere, and it’s much, much higher now.”  

Chuck Again, I think it would be prudent to listen to Jim Rogers, folks… And that means back up the truck to the Gold & Silver window…  At least that’s what I think he’s saying…  

Currencies Today 2/12/18… American Style: A$ .7832, kiwi .7240, C$ .7937, euro 1.2240, sterling 1.3821, Swiss $1.0647, … European Style: rand 11.9425, krone 7.9578, SEK 8.1044, forint 254.82, zloty 3.41, koruna 20.7033, RUB 58.35, yen 108.71, sing 1.3261, HKD 7.8198, INR 64.31, China 6.2913, peso 18.66, BRL 3.2937, Dollar Index 90.31, Oil $60.35, 10yr 2.86%, Silver $16.35, Platinum $961.55, Palladium $984.44, and Gold… $1,320.30

That’s it for today…  Big wins this past weekend for both the Missouri Tigers and St. Louis U. Billikens basketball teams. Pitchers and Catchers report tomorrow, YAHOO! I’ve had to stop and start the letter over again a few times this morning, making it even later than I originally thought. I’m not having a good morning, wink, wink… Today is also Lincoln’s Birthday, which should be a holiday, and that’s all I’m saying about that! Are you ready for Valentine’s Day?  And with that…  The Doobie Brothers take us to the finish line today with their song: Ukiah…  I hope you have a Marvelous Monday, and Be Good To Yourself!   

Chuck Butler

February 8, 2018  

* Another wild ride in the assets yesterday… 

* BOE meeting this morning, nothing expected… 

  

Good Day… And a Tub Thumpin’ Thursday to you! Would Mother Nature, please slow down the wind? Another breezy day yesterday, but we found protection sitting around the pool, and so we spent the afternoon, with our friends, kibitzing, and eating snacks. Every time someone went inside, the came back with a different snack. This went on for hours, and once Happy Hour arrived, well, I made the martinis and Jack made the other drinks… A good day with friends, and the wind finally died down, and the sun came out, and well… I thoroughly enjoyed the day.  The Eagles greet me this morning with their song: Victim of Love…   

Well, hold onto your hats folks, we’re still taking a ride on Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, in all the assets, but the one asset that’s really benefitted from the PPT and James Bullard’s speech the other day is the U.S. dollar.  On Monday this week, the dollar looked as if it was ready to drop like a rock, as the Dollar Index traded 89.16… And this morning the Dollar index has improved to 90.43!

For newcomers to the letter, and the foreign exchange (FX) markets, the Dollar Index is an index made up of currencies from countries that used to be BIG trading partners to the U.S.  And currency traders have used this Index for many years to determine the value of the dollar. I used to laugh out loud about this when the Chinese were becoming our largest trading partner and the renminbi was not a part of the Dollar Index… 

The Dollar Index is heavily weighted with euros, so to me, to really look at the value of the dollar, all you have to do is check out the euro’s price, because the euro is the offset currency to the dollar, which means it’s the 2nd most heavily traded currency in the world, behind the dollar.  OK, enough for the new class today, make sure you took notes, because you’ll be quizzed on this at some time in the future!  

OK, speaking of China like I did above, the Chinese got a BIG Surprise this morning after the fixing. The Chinese renminbi had been fixed with an appreciation from yesterday’s price, but then the Gov’t reported that the Chinese Trade Surplus for January had fallen from the month prior, by a larger amount than anticipated… Now. let’s keep this all in line, with the thought that China still booked a SURPLUS folks…  In all the days that I’ve written the Pfennig (since 1992) I don’t believe I ever reported a Trade Surplus for the U.S. 

O.K., now that we’ve laid that groundwork and have that thought in our heads… The Chinese Trade Surplus was $20.34 Billion last month, VS $54.69 Billion the previous month. And the renminbi got whacked after the data printed. Hmmm… Calmer heads will have to come around here soon, because don’t they realize that a lot of the drop in the Surplus can be attributed to the Chinese New Year holiday week? And let’s not forget the fact that Commodity Prices have rallied this year, thus making Chinese imports of those Commodities more expensive…  But, the traders and investors don’t care about those things right now, and until calmer heads present themselves on the scene, this is what happens, to good currencies…   

The Bank of England (BOE) is meeting while my fat fingers fly across the keyboard, putting this letter together. The BOE Gov. Mark Carney, he of the bag-0-promises that never gets opened, will most likely tell the reporters that the BOE left rates unchanged because there are just too many unknowns of the monetary effects of the BREXIT negotiations…  But in reality, that’s been a known, unknown, for a long time now, what he really should say is that the U.S. economy hasn’t gathered enough steam to garner the rate hike he has hinted at a couple of times in the past 5 years. But that won’t happen, because, he has to keep the happy face on to lure the sheeple into believing that everything is going to be peachy, when in his heart of hearts he knows darn well they won’t!  

So, don’t look for any love for pound sterling, as it trades alongside the euro on the downside of some lofty figures from last week. 

The Price of Oil dropped by $2 in the last 24 hours…  Remember the old Chevrolet commercials about the great American pastime of driving? Well, we’re sure doing a lot of that lately… U.S. oil output topped 10 million barrels a day for the first time yesterday… That computes to a lot of gasoline, which is where I got the thought that we are doing a lot of driving these days, and not just little smart cars…

I was driving up from Fort Lauderdale about 10 days ago after taking Kathy to the airport there, and I noticed that either a Big honking SUV or a sporty race car was passing me all the way back (people drive really fast down here) And I thought at the time, look at all that gas that’s being used…  And I could kick myself, if my leg moved sideways, which it no longer will do, but as usual my timing was awful, as I filled up our car yesterday, at much higher prices than would be available today… UGH! Oh well, the price of gas is what it is, to me… I can’t go anywhere without my car, so whatever I have to pay, I’ll adjust my driving habits to deal with it.  

So, with the price of Oil dropping $2, the Petrol Currencies also saw some slippage in their values. The Brazilian real though bucked the trend overnight and gained at the fixing this morning to trade stronger than yesterday’s fixing. The Russian ruble lost just a handful of shekels, and the Norwegian krone and Canadian dollar / loonie saw larger downward moves. 

The prices of Gold, Silver, Platinum and Palladium all got whacked again yesterday, and all 4 precious metals reached new lows for this cycle yesterday. Gold had over 325,000 contracts traded, and lost $5 on the day, and is down a buck or two this morning.  But Silver, saw a fat cut of the hog taken from its price, as did Platinum and Palladium… I would have to think that these are all blue light special prices…  I’m just saying, and maybe you get the hint, wink, wink…   

The U.S. Data Cupboard today is basically empty with the usual Tub Thumpin’ Thursday fare of the Weekly Initial Jobless Claims, which have become a second tier data print. Yesterday’s Data Cupboard had the long awaited Consumer Credit (read debt) for December. And it surprised me with a print of $18 Billion, VS the $31 Billion in November.  I guess the majority of shoppers did their Christmas shopping in November…  No wonder the profit figures from the retailers in December were so weak!  

To recap… The wild ride in all the assets continued yesterday with stocks rebounding, Gold getting sold again, U.S. Treasuries getting sold, and Commodities getting sold… The BOE is meeting this morning, nothing exciting expected here. China’s Trade Surplus saw a larger than expected drop, but Chuck want’s everyone to keep this in perspective, it was still a SURPLUS, something the U.S. hasn’t seen in all his years of writing the Pfennig…   

For What It’s Worth…  This is an article about Gold production for the last 9 years and can be found here:http://www.mining.com/gold-price-9-straight-years-record-annual-mine-production/  

Or, here’s your snippet: “According to the World Gold Council’s Gold Demand Trends report released Tuesday primary gold production hit another record in 2017 after nine years of annual growth in output.

Overall mine production totalled 3,268.7 tonnes or just over 105 million troy ounces in 2017 which was only slightly higher than in 2016 as new mine starts in recent years have mostly served to fill the gap left by production losses elsewhere according to the WGC report. Compared to 2010, global gold output has surged by 525 tonnes or nearly 17m ounces.

The WGC, an industry body, estimates that output in China – the world’s top producer – fell 9% last year, only the second annual drop in production since 1980. China, which overtook South Africa as the number one miner of the metal in 2007, produced 455 tonnes of the yellow metal in 2016 according to U.S. government figures.”  

Chuck again…  Folks, listen to me now and hear me later, that the World Gold Council (WGC) doesn’t have a clue to how much Gold the Chinese have accumulated, produced, and added to their holdings, because the Chinese don’t want anyone to know! They report false numbers to the WGC, and that’s that!    

Currencies today 2/8/18… American Style: A$ .7838, kiwi .7278, C$ .7968, euro 1.2276, sterling 1.3870, Swiss $1.0595, … European Style: rand 11.9832, krone 7.8823, SEK 8.0430, forint 252.79, zloty 3.3896, koruna 20.5564, RUB 57.20, yen 109.48, sing 1.3237, HKD 7.8180, INR 64.22, China 6.2644, peso 18.64, BRL 3.2482, Dollar Index 90.43, Oil $61.43, 10yr 2.83%, Silver $16.25, Platinum $972.02, Palladium $983.20, and Gold… $1,313.40   

That’s it for today…  Well, I have to get moving this morning, for I have a date with my Florida oncologist this morning. I’ll hear about any new plan of attack today, that is if the 3 oncologists that I have all got together like I requested they would do.  The SLU Billikens played tough last night but lost their game with St. Bonaventure. That St. John’s basketball team is on a roll, beating Duke last weekend, and then beating number 1 Villanova last night… WOW It’s supposed to be another day in paradise today, so when I get home from the doctor, I’ll be heading outside to soak up some vitamin D! The Moody Blues take us to the finish line today with their song: The Voice…  Which has nothing to do with the TV show, as the song was released in the 80’s!   OK, let’s go out and make this a Tub Thumpin’ Thursday, and remember to always Be Good To Yourself!  

Chuck Butler

---

February 7, 2018

* PPT and James Bullard to the rescue!

* Manipulated markets are everywhere!    

Good day… And a Wonderful Wednesday to you! Well, my fears of having “one of those days” yesterday didn’t come to fruition, and I spent most of the afternoon our on our public deck that overlooks the beach and ocean, with friends. We waited for the launch from Cape Canaveral of a Space-X rocket, and when it finally launched I didn’t see a thing, although some of the people on the deck said they saw it. I expanded my diet a bit, eating some Wheat Thins, but that’s about as sexy as my diet has been for the last 3 days. The Great Band, Chicago, greet meet me this morning with their song: Flight 602…  Not one of their chart busting songs, but one that I like… 

What a wild time on Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride yesterday for U.S. stocks, that finally put all the negativism to bed and rose 569 points… That meant that the “safe havens” that investors flocked to on Tuesday, were sold on Wednesday… Francs, yen, euros, Gold and Treasuries. Besides the PPT (plunge protection team) saving the stock market from the embarrassment of another HUGE selloff, yesterday, the thing that really caught investors’ attention, was a speech by Fed. St. Louis President, James Bullard, who said, in so many words, “What, me worry about inflation?”

No, he didn’t do his best imitation of Alfred E. Newman, but… He did sound like him when he told his audience that “he didn’t think the strong U.S. labor market meant that higher inflation is just around the corner.” Well, that calmed the stock jockeys, and stocks turned around on a dime, and headed higher for the day… The stock jockeys owe a BIG THANK YOU to the PPT, and James Bullard… I’m just saying… 

Overnight, the foreign markets have taken the dollar saving duo from yesterday to heart, and bought more dollars… Volatility in the investment assets has returned folks… And with a vengeance, I would say! Look at those huge swings in the stocks this week, and look at the currencies, they’ve been all over the place this week… And what’s a key rule that I’ve always told you about a trend?  That it’s not a ONE-WAY Street, and there can be volatility… 

Of course all those propeller heads that though they could get rich shorting the VIX, which is the symbol for the volatility index, and because the VIX hadn’t moved much in a couple of years, got their shorts handed to them these past couple of days. The VIX index had remained below 10 for a couple of months of Sundays, and then it didn’t… the VIX hit 38 yesterday… OUCH!  

And guess who came back to the party in Gold? You would be correct if you said “the boys in the band”…  Once again I’ll point to the number of contracts traded. The previous day when Gold gained $8, the number of contracts traded had fallen to less than 300,000 (292,000), but on the day Gold loses $15 the number of contracts explodes higher to 446,000!!!! The PPT and “the boys in the band” just couldn’t leave things alone could they? And that’s got me so riled up I could scream at the walls, but that would wake Kathy up, and that wouldn’t be nice of me!  

Manipulated markets, where have all the free markets gone? Long time passing… Where have all the fundamentals gone? Long time ago…  I shake my head, and wonder, if we’ll ever see free markets again?  The Treasury market has been manipulated by the Fed since 2009. Stocks and the dollar always have the PPT, that was originally put together by President Reagan after the 1987 stock market crash, and ever since JP Morgan bought the precious metals book from Bear Stearns in 2008, it’s been an adventurous time on Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride…  

You see, Bear Stearns had a small short paper trade operation in Gold & especially concentrated in Silver. Once JPMorgan saw how the business worked, they decided they could really make some big bucks with this shorting Gold & Silver business, and the rest, is history… Soon, other bullion dealing banks joined in to form “the boys in the band”… 

The short Gold or Silver paper trading has gone viral, and in Ed Steer’s Saturday letter, he always gives us the number of days of production that it would take to cover the short trades that are on the books… And for Gold, the number of days of production it would take is 98, and for Silver, hold onto your hat for this number… 190 days of production to cover the short positions in Silver!   

Come on Chuck, go onto something else! OK, twist my arm, that’s enough! HA! I just don’t get how the regulators can let these large banks get away with this, what I call criminal trading?   People aren’t stupid, if they stop in their normal daily routines, and take 5 minutes to think about this stuff, they would come to the same ending, and if enough of them were upset enough to do something about it, or at least got others to do something about it, maybe we could see an end of manipulations, but until then, we can’t depend on the regulators to have out backs, folks… They’re all in cahoots, in my opinion, which could be wrong of course!  

The fundamentals of the U.S. continue to disappoint, and be very shaky… I was reading a piece on the Burning Platform website, written by Jim Quinn, and he pointed out some very disturbing data…  Let’s listen in…  “All is well. Real median household income just surpassed the level achieved in 1999. Think about that for a second. It took seventeen years for the average American family to get back to a household income of $59,000. The $59,000 of household income in 2017 doesn’t quite go as far as it did in 1999, with even BLS manipulated inflation showing an 87% increase in medical costs, 80% increase in energy costs, 51% increase in food costs, 53% increase in housing costs, and a 115% increase in college education. And of course the BLS changed their methodology, boosting household income by $1,700 in 2013. So, in reality it is still below 1999 levels.”  

Chuck again isn’t that some chilling data?  And when you think that 1/2 of the country is below the median income of $59,000, it means that 1/2 of the country doesn’t have two nickels to rub together, and when or if the next recession comes, it’s going to be a very bad one…  But traders and the PPT are still lining up to buy dollars in times when the dollar looks like its ready to fall off a cliff.  Makes you wonder about the mental capacities of these guys, right?   

I’ve really gone off on some tangents this morning haven’t I?   So, let’s do a quick roundup of the currencies and other assets before we head to the Big Finish today… The euro has dropped below 1.24, but is still 3% ahead of the dollar so far this year, and more and more analysts are rethinking their call that the euro would rise to 1.24 this year, it’s already there! Now they’re rebooting their forecasts to 1.30 for this year.  The pound has slipped as the Bank of England (BOE) will meet tomorrow, and no one expects nice things to be said there. The Aussie dollar (A$) was a stealth rally currency overnight, gaining about a quarter from yesterday.  And the Chinese renminbi was allowed to appreciate overnight after they posted their 12 consecutive month of gains in their reserves…   OK, now I feel better and we can proceed…   

The U.S. Data Cupboard today has the data I’ve been waiting for since last month when Consumer Credit (read debt) exploded higher to $28 Billion in November. I said then that if it went that high before the Christmas shopping season I couldn’t imagine how bad it would be for December, and today I don’t have to imagine any longer!   And that’s it for data today…    

To recap… The PPT and James Bullard came to the aid of stocks and the dollar yesterday… Chuck goes on and one about manipulated markets. But all the safe havens that were bought the previous day were sold yesterday, along with other currencies. Gold lost $15 on a day when the number of contracts traded were greater than 446,000! And we do a review of the rise of inflation in the U.S.    

For What It’s Worth…  Well, on a day with all this “other stuff” going on, I’m going to remain calm, and talk about China and Gold… This article appeared on Bloomberg.com and can be found here:https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-06/china-s-love-affair-with-gold-heats-up-on-property-boom-riches  

Or, here’s your snippet: “China’s growing throng of affluent consumers is driving a rebound in demand for gold rings, bracelets and necklaces as a property boom and high stock market valuations boost wealth in the largest bullion market.

“Things are much more positive than they were this time last year,” and the jewelry market has bottomed out after three years of declines, said Nikos Kavalis, London-based director of research firm Metals Focus Ltd.
Colleagues who visited the southern commercial hub of Shenzhen in early January told him showrooms were quite busy and wholesalers expected clients to return to replenish their stocks before Lunar New Year in the middle of February.

The nation’s demand for gold jewelry climbed 10 percent last year to almost 700 metric tonnes as the wealthy increased purchases and consumption improved in second and third-tier cities, according to the China Gold Association. Buying of ornaments represented more than 60 percent of the 1,090 tonnes of gold consumed in China last year and made up a third of world jewelry demand.”  

Chuck again… Good to know that some things never go away for good, eh? 

Currencies today 2/7/18… American Style: A$ .7866, kiwi .7318, C$ .7990, euro 1.2352, sterling 1.39, Swiss $1.0640, … European Style: rand 11.9430, krone 7.8277, SEK 7.9783, forint 250.93, zloty 3.3668, koruna 20.4213, RUB 57.17, yen 109.19, sing 1.3196, HKD 7.8191, INR 64.26, China 6.28222, peso 18.64, BRL 3.2543, Dollar Index 89.84, Oil $63.21, 10-year 2.77%, Silver $16.63, Platinum $985.91, Palladium $1,000.79, and Gold… $1,330.60  

That’s it for today…  What a beautiful day here yesterday, and another one is in store today… It took longer than usual, this year,  but the normal sunny and 80 days are returning…  And I can’t tell you how great that makes me feel! Well, my beloved Missouri Tigers kept their winning streak going last night with a win at Ole Miss, and I got to watch it! Our Blues were also on cable which I got to watch, but they played a stinker of a game and lost.  Onward and Upward as my good friend and former Big Boss, Frank Trotter always used to say…  the band Kansas takes us to the finish line today with their rock classic, Dust In The Wind… I have a great story to tell you about that song when we get to Cinco de Mayo… I hope you have a Wonderful Wednesday, and Be Good To Yourself!    

Chuck Butler

February 6, 2018  

* Safe Haven are spared from the selling… 

* Short Gold paper trades appear to be absent yesterday! 

  Good Day…  And a Tom terrific Tuesday to you! It’s one of those days… It all began yesterday afternoon, I felt very tired and so I took a nap… Then after waking and going outside in the sun for a bit, I came back inside, and felt like I needed another nap, and so on. Then this morning, the alarm went off, and I turned it off, but couldn’t wake up… Every once in a while, I have these days where all I can do is sleep… I’m in one of those patterns right now, so if this is unusually late this morning, it means I dozed off while writing! So, this letter will be shorter than usual, in hopes that I can get it done and get back to sleep! HA!   Actually, I realized yesterday that I had gone on way too long in the letter, so I’ll make up for that today! Redbone greets me this morning with their song: Come and Get Your Love…    

The Big News yesterday was all about the stock market, which saw the DOW lose more than 1,500 points, and that’s better than it stood at one point in the day when it was down more than 2,000 points! Is, this just a correction to a market that has seen nothing but green lights for far too long? Or…  Is this the beginning of the great sell-off that some analysts have been calling for?  I’m no stock jockey, but I’ve seen the writing on the wall for stocks for a long time, but just like any asset that’s in a strong bull market, it defies gravity longer than anyone can imagine. 

The “correction” is what we’ll call it for now wasn’t confined to just U.S. stocks, the Asian stock market lost 3.8%, the Japanese stock market lost 4.7%, and the European stock market, did a little better only losing 1.8%. Commodities took a shot to the mid-section, with Oil leading the way losing about $1.50 in the last 24 hours, and even the all bow to Bitcoin, has dropped below $7,000,  but Gold, which normally does well, in times like this, gained $7.70 yesterday, and is up another $8.80 in the early morning trading.  

Gold and Chinese renminbi are the only two survivors from yesterday’s selling, and isn’t it apropos that these two are joined at the hip today? The Gold story for the last decade has had a background story of Chinese accumulating any physical Gold it could get its hand on…  

Swiss francs, Japanese yen, euros, Gold, and U.S. Treasuries continued to be considered “safe havens” yesterday. The 10-year Treasury saw its yield move from 2.85% yesterday to 2.71% this morning. Believe me folks, I used to trade Treasury bonds, that size move in bonds is like moving mountains!  Remember bond pricing works like this, as the yield rises the bond price goes down, and vice versa. So, there had to be a truck load of buying and driving the price higher, and dropping the yield yesterday.

Don’t ask me why Japanese yen is considered to be a safe haven currency. We’ve been through this before in times like this. And just because it’s the 2nd most traded currency doesn’t qualify it to be a safe haven currency in my book! Their economy is a disaster and has been since the mid-90’s, their debt is greater than anyone’s in the world, and they have negative interest rates, and I could go on and on… But the wizards of the world still consider it a safe haven, so be it… 

So, what caused all this nastiness in everything other than the safe haven assets? A snowflake can cause an avalanche, and the snowflake for U.S. stocks was the thought that Fed Chair Janet Yellen is out, and new Fed Chairman, Jerome Powell, is going to hike rates aggressively, thus throwing the economy into a recession, and panic began to spread… 

Remember what I said when Jerome Powell was confirmed as the new Fed Chairman, that the thought then was that he would be aggressive in hike rates, and wondered how that was going to sit with President Trump, who is all for lower rates and easy credit? I rang the warning bell at that time, but as usual no one paid attention to what I was saying… UGH!

There was a time 15 years ago that if I said something, newspapers, media outlets, would be calling me for an interview. That went on for about 5 years, and then it all stopped… I found out that the public relations firm we used was told to not send interview requests to me any longer. You see, I must have ticked off someone with something I said, and like Puff the Magic Dragon, I ceased my fearless roar…  But any further discussion of that will be held on the Butler Patio…  Moving on…  

Getting back to Gold, because I can, and the fact that it is shining star this morning. I saw something in the trading of Gold yesterday that I found interesting… Recall that a week ago when Gold was being subjected to tons of short Gold paper trades, the number of contracts traded were up in the 300 and 400,000 range. But yesterday, when Gold was getting bought, the number of contracts traded were 292,000, still a healthy number, but on that appears to be minus the short Gold trades…  

And, it reminds me of something I used to tell people all the time, and that’s the fact that if everyone that was buying assets for their investment portfolio bought physical Gold, that it would suffocate the short Gold paper trades… For that’s what it appears to have happened yesterday! 

The U.S. Data Cupboard is pretty much empty today, with a Fed head, James Bullard speech the highlight of the day…  Yesterday’s Data Cupboard showed us that the services index had rebounded from the drop in Rocktober, and November, and December, which was a surprising rebound to me… I’ve long said that here in the U.S. we’ve become a servicing country, and our service sucks eggs…    

To recap…  It was all about the U.S. stock market yesterday, was it a correction, or the beginning of an avalanche for stocks? Jerome Powell was sworn in as Fed Chairman, and the thought of what he’s going to do spooked the markets, with francs, yen, euros, Gold and U.S. Treasuries, the shining lights while everything around them not only here in the U.S. but also abroad, was getting sold.    

For What It’s Worth… I’ve been talking about the BREXIT negotiations and warning that they could be a real game changer for the U.K. and then I saw this article on Bloomberg.com that is European Central Bank President, Mario Draghi, talking about all this from a Euro-view. This article can be found here: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-05/draghi-says-ecb-needs-to-prepare-for-possible-cliff-edge-brexit 

Or, here’s your snippet: “Mario Draghi said the European Central Bank has no choice but to brace for the possibility that the U.K. will exit the European Union without a transitional agreement.

“We always prepare for any eventuality but at the same time we are assessing the direction, probability and potential impact of risk,” Draghi told members of the European Parliament in Strasbourg Monday. “The bottom line is this one — either the negotiation is well managed and there won’t be substantial risk, or it is not and then the risks will be there, so we’re certainly looking at that and we’ve got to be prepared.”

The U.K. is scheduled to leave the E.U. in March 2019 and Prime Minister Theresa May currently wants to negotiate a transitional phase after that in which business between her country and the remaining 27 members of the bloc carries on as usual. Yet disagreement within Britain’s ruling Conservative Party, as well as the negotiations with the E.U., mean that achieving such a deal is far from certain.”  

Chuck again… I think Draghi is bang on with his thoughts that Maybe everything will be fine, but there are risks that everything won’t be fine, and they should prepare for those risks… Think about that for here in the U.S. with our debt situation and rising interest rates… same thing, eh?

Currencies today 2/6/18… American Style: A$ .7860, kiwi .73, C$ .7978, euro 1.24, sterling 1.3940, Swiss $1.07, … European Style: rand 12.10, krone 7.8168, SEK 7.9505, forint 250.06, zloty 3.35, koruna 20.3376, RUB 56.75, yen 109, sing 1.3213, HKD 7.8185, INR 64.30, China 6.2917, peso 18.81, BRL 3.2319, Dollar Index 89.53, Oil $63.66, 10-year 2.71%, Silver $16.80, Platinum $996.50, Palladium $1,022.43, and Gold… $1,345.30   

That’s it for today…  I’ve got to get going because I have to go back to the dermatologist early this morning for a follow up. The left side of my face is better, but sill looks bad…  This will be one of those short weeks for me and the Pfennig, as Friday is an infusion day… So, no Pfennig on Friday… Yesterday, I asked all three of my oncologists to get together and come up with a new plan of attack for me.  I’ll find out Thursday what they came up with.  Yes, I have an oncologist in Houston, St. Louis and Jupiter… The St. Louis and Jupiter docs usually take their cue from the Houston doc, who’s at MD Anderson Cancer Center…  Who usually is as difficult to get a hold of as it would be to schedule a meeting of the Easter Bunny, Santa and Bigfoot!  Sorry to bore you with this stuff, my fat fingers just started typing and the next thing I know, I’m telling you that King Crimson is taking us to the finish line today with their classic rock song: In the Court of The Crimson King…   I hope you have a Tom Terrific Tuesday, and remember to always Be Good To Yourself!  

Chuck Butler

February 5, 2018    

* An Engineered takedown of Silver on Friday… 

* The PPT stops the dollar’s slide… for now! 

 Good Day… and a Marvelous Monday to you… I didn’t have the best of weekends, but Sunday made a turn for the better, and my beloved Missouri Tigers upset the mighty Kentucky Wildcats in basketball on Saturday, while I was all rolled up in ball in my chair. Our Blues won Saturday night too, so that was a good day sports-wise, but not physically healthy-wise for me!   Congratulations to the Philadelphia Eagles, who upset the Patriots in the Super Bowl last night… After years of duds for games in the Super Bowl, we’ve been entertained by some good games recently. The guys in Rockapella greet me this morning with their song: Zombie Jamboree…  Back to back, belly to belly… 

What do we have here this early Monday morning?    Recall last week when I told you that I questioned the pound sterling rally because of the facts that the U.K. had too much Debt, and that there were still questions and unknowns about the BREXIT negotiations?  Well, I turned on my laptop this morning and straight away I saw that the pound sterling rally had fallen on difficult times, and so I checked it out, and there it was in black and white…  The pound was on the slippery slope because the BREXIT negotiations may not meet their deadline…   

The Currencies today are a mixed bag-o-nuts, with the Big Dog euro gaining back some ground that it lost on Friday, and Aussie dollar trying to once again mount a run at 80-cents. And then we have the opposite side of the spectrum with the pound, rand, ruble, and rupee all taking on water this morning.  Gold got whacked, so badly on Friday, that the whacking left a mark!  And there was another engineered take down of Silver on Friday… This stuff so disgusts me that I find that I don’t want to talk about it because it gets my blood pressure boiling, and I’ve got enough problems going on without having blood pressure problems!

But I have to, so I’ll try to remain calm as I explain what happened to Gold & Silver on Friday.  So, there we were on Friday morning with the Dollar Index below 89, and falling to mark the 8th consecutive week of losses for the dollar. The Dollar Index looked as though it was ready for a steep ride on the slippery slope, and then in a wink of an eye, it didn’t look like that any longer! Somebody started buying in huge lots, and soon the Dollar Index was back above 89 and moving higher…  I put this down to the PPT (Plunge Protection Team) 

Well it didn’t take “the boys in the band” to see their cue to piggy back on the rise in the Dollar Index to engineer a take down of Silver…  Now, think about this for a minute, we rarely see Silver trade more than 10-cents on a day, but for a while on Friday, Silver was down 70-cents! We began Friday morning with Silver trading at $17.14, and until the shenanigans with the Dollar Index began, Silver was adding to the $17.14 opening price, but then it wasn’t any longer, and fell to $16.52, before settling higher…  It’s a real shame and criminal in my mind that these “boys in the band” continue to get away with this…   

You see, they buy at those cheaper levels that they drove the price of Silver to, after selling it all day… They’ll get everyone to buy in again and then the engineered take down happens again so they can book gains..  Gold saw the same type of trash trading and it ended up losing $16 on the day…  I shake my head in disgust and dismay, and wonder when these guys the PPT and the boys in the band end up “getting theirs”?  

OK, I’ve got to calm down now…  Oh, this ought to do the trick… talk about debt! NOT! I was doing some writing this weekend about Debt levels here in the U.S. but I could have talked about them around the globe. But what would be the point? You live here, you get your gas, groceries and giggles here, so you probably would prefer to know what’s going on with Debt here in the U.S. rather than in, say… France.  Of course that’s just me making that decision for you, sorry if I chose incorrectly!   

But don’t you want to know what these forecasted rate hikes are going to do to the debt servicing levels here in the U.S. not just with the Government who can borrow at much, much lower interest rates, but also U.S. Households, who have been ratcheting up the debt faster than you can say lickety-split! One credit card maxes out, no problem, just apply for another one, Woo-Hoo honey, put on your red dress, we’re going out to eat tonight, I’ve got a brand new credit card with $0 dollars on it yet! I’ve got money I haven’t spent yet! But wait until our friend here receives the first bill in the mail and learns that U.S. Households have to pay WAY MORE in interest rates on their Debt than the Government! 

Well the math was done, and to see it, you’ll have to go to www.dowtheoryletters.com and sign up… And it will print on Thursday this week.  That’s funny, and I do believe every time I’ve thought about it through the years I get a chuckle from the idea that one of my worst subjects in school when I was growing up was math… And then I got into a business where I had to use math every day! I can tell you though, that I’ve never used any y=x stuff in my life!  Any way, the thing to remember here is that the Government has a blank check (sure there’s a debt ceiling, but why? Every time we get close to breaching it, the lawmakers just raise it! )Yes, they’ve raised it 74 times, since 1962…  

But dear Householder has no blank check, except for the ability to keep applying for new credit cards… But one thing remains the same, you create debt, and you have to pay it back with interest, and circling back to my initial thought, as the Fed hikes interest rates… the cost to servicing one’s debt goes higher, and higher, and higher until no one including our Gov’t. is able to pay the interest alone, much less the principal!   And people thought that I’ve been the boy who cried Debt all these years…  And now its staring us in the face, like looking down the barrels of a shotgun! 

And you think the tax cuts will help these debt ridden individuals? Think again my friend… The rise in the debt servicing of their Student loan, Mortgages, Equity loans, and revolving credit, is going to eat that tax savings for lunch! Now, what’s for dinner?  

Oh, and for the Government? Guess what? They cut taxes when the Fed was hiking rates…  President Bush tried that, and it sent the dollar to the woodshed for the next 4 years.  Let’s see… lower your receivables from the taxpayers and increase your need to borrow… Doesn’t anyone else see that this is a recipe for disaster?    OMG!    I need to move along, I’ve sufficiently got my blood pressure on the rise this morning! UGH!   

The U.S. Data Cupboard on Friday had the Jobs Jamboree, and it was a little better than expected at 200,000 jobs created in January (forecast was between 185,000 and 190,000) The Unemployment Rate remained the same at 4.1% (but in true/ reality it’s probably closer to 23% than it is to 4.1%)  The Average Hourly Earnings showed wages going higher, and that got people excited, as wages grew 2.9% Year-on-Year…  Remember, I said that inflation was ready to take off this year, and this increase in wages in proof in the pudding!  And a downward revision to Capital Goods shipments couldn’t hold back Factory Order from rising 1.7% in December…   

Today’s Data Cupboard just has the ISM Non-Manufacturing (servicing) Index for January. The ISM Non-Manufacturing index has been cooling noticeably, moving down from the 60 area in October to what was a lower-than-expected 56.0 in December (revised from an initial 55.9). And I expect January’s index number to be in the mid-50’s, still well above the 50 level that denotes whether the sector is contracting or expanding. 

To Recap…  Well, the Jobs Jamboree was really only good for the Avg. Hourly Earnings data which showed wages rising… finally!  The currencies started Friday on the rally tracks and ended the day derailed at the station, as Chuck thinks the PPT stepped in to stop the dollar’s ride on the slippery slope. And that brought out “the boys in the band” for an engineered take down of Silver and carry over to Gold.  

For What It’s Worth…  Well, did you ever wonder if someone was peeking over your shoulder when you were writing? I sure did when I saw this article highlighted on Ed Steer’s letter (www.edsteergoldandsilver.com) this morning… So recall last week when I told you that the U.S. was in a Cold War with the other countries over how weak the dollar should be?  And then this article on MSN.com appeared, and can be found here: http://money.cnn.com/2018/02/02/investing/dollar-currency-cold-war/index.html        

Or, here’s your snippet: “The dollar is at its weakest level in years against other major currencies.

Experts say the drop is being driven, at least in part, by the U.S. government. And some suggest it’s a deliberate campaign aimed at boosting the American economy at the expense of major trading partners like Europe and Japan.

The Trump administration is engaged in “a cold currency war — and it’s winning,” Joachim Fels, an economist at investment firm Pimco, said this week.

Rather than an open conflict, which would involve direct intervention in currency markets, the hostilities come in the form of words and “covert” actions, he wrote in a blog post.

Fels points to the Trump administration’s moves to slash taxes and boost spending, which he says are coming at “the wrong time”. The measures will pile on more government debt, making investors less eager to own dollar assets, like U.S. Treasury bonds.

Policies like that “are sending an implicit but very clear signal to markets: A weaker dollar is the goal,” Fels wrote. “Markets have understood the signal.”  

Chuck again… Nothing more to add to this, that I haven’t already said… 

Currencies today 2/5/18… American Style: A$ .7937, kiwi .7306, C$ .8048, euro 1.2457, sterling 1.4097, Swiss $1.0748… European Style: rand 12.0434, krone 7.7163, SEK 7.9007, forint 248.55, zloty 3.3351, koruna 20.2235, RUB 56.47, yen 109.85, sing 1.3168, HKD 7.8201, INR 64.20, China 6.3014, peso 18.57, BRL 3.2172, Dollar Index 89.16, Oil $65.18, 10yr 2.85%, Silver $16.84, Platinum $993.20, Palladium $1,035.73, and Gold… $1,339.10  

That’s it for today… How about those Missouri Tigers! Kentucky might be beatable now, but I doubt they will be in March!  I wasn’t going to watch the Super Bowl last night, but friends Jack and Lorraine invited me up to their unit to watch it with some other friends here, so I went, stayed until halftime, and then wobbled back to my place… My friends, here, Jack and Gus, keep checking on me each day. Gus wants to cook me breakfast, and so on… It’s great to have friends like that, eh? I’m on the BRAT diet, for stomach reasons… Bananas, rice, applesauce and toast… Talk about bland! Oh well., hopefully it works and gets me back to normal… Stomach problems are not fun, folks… OK…  Motley Crue take us to the finish line today with their song: Same Old Situation (SOS)  And with that it’s time to get this our the door, I hope you have a Marvelous Monday and remember to always Be Good To Yourself!  

Chuck Butler

February 2, 2018

* Ruble continues to get more attention!

* Could the A$ Bears be right? 

Good Day…  And a Happy Friday to one and all! It’s Groundhog Day! I know that on the East side of the country, they are very interested in what Puxatony Phil has to tell us about the next 6 weeks of winter!  Groundhog Day is also the title of one my fave movies, starring Bill Murray, and Andie McDowell. When I first bought the DVD, years ago, I watched it over and over again and I don’t think it was to see Bill Murray! HA!  Our Blues hope that last night’s loss in Boston isn’t repeated! Emerson, Lake and Palmer greet me this morning with their iconic rock song: Lucky Man… 

I told you on our Tom Terrific Tuesday this week that the dollar buying would be short-lived and that by the end of the week, the dollar would be posting its 8th consecutive week of losses…  And unless the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) pull a rabbit out of their hat, ala Bullwinkle, that’s exactly what we’ll end of seeing today, the dollar posting its 8th consecutive week of losses.

This week’s loss by the dollar will most likely not end up being as impressive as previous week’s losses, but keeping the streak going is what maters! You can look at the loss this week by either comparing last Friday’s Dollar Index  (89.12) or comparing the euro’s price today to last Friday (1.3445). As we start the day the Dollar Index is 88.87, and the euro is 1.2488..   

But all that could change as today is a Jobs Jamboree Friday. Right now the forecast is for an increase of 185,000 jobs in January. But recall I told you yesterday that the ADP report showed 234,000 jobs created in January… So, what’s it gonna be BLS? I get this spider sense tingle that something is wrong… And most likely it’s telling me to beware the BLS and their hedonic adjustments… I guess we’ll have to wait-n-see, but it won’t be too long of a wait, the jobs numbers will print at 8:30 EST.  

The currencies stopped their messing around yesterday and got back on the rally tracks, for the most part that is. Gold gained $3.30 on the day, and the price of Oil soared 1.7% to nearly 66-cents (65.92). The price of Oil got a boost yesterday when Lola issued a statement that said that Lola believed the price of Oil would reach $80 by year-end.  And we all know from past experience that whatever Lola wants, Lola gets!    For any new readers, first, welcome to daily discussion, and second, Lola is what I call Goldman Sachs… Hey! it’s better than what Rolling Stone’s Matt Tiabbi calls them, which is the giant vampire squid!    OUCH! That’s going to leave a mark!

With Oil having such a spectacular day yesterday, the Petrol Currencies joined the party, with the Russian ruble leading the way, more on Russia in a minute) followed by the Norwegian krone, Canadian dollar/ loonie and Brazilian real.  The moves in the Petrol Currencies weren’t as spectacular as the move in the price of Oil, but the moves were positive, and positive moves are good!   

OK, moving on… I was ready to raise the white flag on Palladium, which had booked losses almost daily now for two weeks, and yesterday morning it fell dramatically below $1,000… Good thing I waited, as Palladium saw a turnaround Thursday and booked a nice $22 gain, and in the early trading today is up $17…  Whew! that was a close one…  

 I gave you some interesting data on Russia earlier this week, and that’s to dear longtime reader Bob, I have something additional to add to that data review of Russia a couple of days ago…  In the Eurasian region (EEU), the ruble has replaced the dollar as the number one currency used in International Trade… For instance, Ruble transactions in the EEU are currently worth the equivalent of US$69 Billion, compared to US$18 Billion…   Pretty amazing don’t you agree?  

The Aussie dollar bears that I told you about earlier this week are still weighing heavily on the Aussie dollar (A$), and the fact that their December QTR consumer inflation was weaker than the previous QTR… But now we have some analysts giving the A$ bears more fodder. For instance the FX strategy team at ANZ Bank believe that rate differentials will doom the A$ going forward, as the U.S., in their mind, continues to hike rates, and the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) drags their feet to start a rate hike cycle!   

Keep in mind there are two main ingredients of this thought… 1. that the RBA drags their feet to start a rate hike cycle, well that’s not that difficult of call to make, as I believe they’ve been dragging their feet for the last 6 months!   And 2. That the U.S. is going to continue to hike rates… I think the jury is still out on that one, folks… And any stumble, bumble, fumble by the Fed will not allow this thought to come to fruition. 

But, chances are cause I wear a silly grin… No Wait! Chances are the thought by the FX Strategy team above will get very close to coming to fruition, and that’s going to weigh heavily on the A$ going forward… 

I’ve grown tired of shaking my head in disbelief over the strength that pound sterling is displaying each day. I’ll just point out that the U.K. debt picture isn’t getting any better, and any BREXIT agreement is going to add to that debt, and the fact that Bank of England Gov. Mark Carney, who got this pound sterling rally started with talk of a rate hike, still hasn’t gotten his interest rate powder wet…  But my dad used to have saying that he used all the time… He would say, Chuck, you can’t fight City Hall… 

And I take that and shift it to: you can’t fight the markets..  If they are in the mood to make pound sterling their belle of the ball, even though at midnight she might turn into an ogre, you don’t stand in their way..  

The U.S. Data Cupboard today, is dominated by the Jobs Jamboree, but will also have the Factory Orders print for December.. Come on Factory Orders play some catch up and get your data more fresh! 

Gold, as I mentioned above gained $3.30 yesterday to close at $1,348.30, and it pretty flat so far this morning, as Gold traders wait to see what’s in the Jobs data (Avg. Hourly earnings and Avg. workweek hours)  I have an article about China and Gold for you in the FWIW section today, so stay tuned for that!    

To Recap…  It’s a Jobs Jamboree Friday and it’s Groundhog Day! I’m more interested in what Puxatony Phil had to say, and Oh! there it is! Phil tells us we’ll have 6 more weeks of winter!  the currencies are back on the rally tracks, for the most part this morning, but we don’t know what hocus pocus the BLS is going to perform with the Jobs report for January, so that rally might be short-lived today if the BLS decides to go rogue on us! 

For What It’s Worth…  Remember when I used to give you the totals of Gold accumulation all the time? I don’t know what happened there but when I saw this article I knew it was time to catch up… So, as I said above this article is about China and Gold, and can be found here: http://www.scmp.com/business/companies/article/2131562/chinese-gold-demand-returns-growth-appetite-jewellery-soars   

Or, here’s your snippet: “Consumption of the precious metal climbed 9.4 per cent to 1,089 tonnes, according to data from the China Gold Association, released on Thursday. That represents a big turnaround from a 6.7 per cent slump in demand in 2016, and means China maintains its crown as the world’s largest gold market for a fifth consecutive year.

India, in second place, probably saw its gold consumption drop to an eight-year low of 650 tonnes, according to the latest estimate from the World Gold Council in November.

Demand for jewelry in China was especially strong, rising 10.4 per cent to 696.5 tonnes, a dramatic recovery from the 19 per cent drop seen a year earlier, said the Beijing-based association. Jewelry demand is the largest contributor to the total appetite for the yellow metal in the mainland.”

Chuck Again… This is a good sign for Gold, as physical demand would need to outstrip the short paper traders to finally put the kyboshes on the short paper trades…     

Currencies today 2/2/18… American Style: A$ .7990, kiwi .7355, C$ .8127, euro 1.2488, sterling 1.4222, Swiss $1.0755, … European Style: rand 11.9685, krone 7.6677, SEK 7.8658, forint 247.74, zloty 3.3286, koruna 20.1566, RUB 56.11, yen 109.86, sing 1.3132, HKD 7.82, INR 64.10, China 6.2944, peso 18.45, BRL 3.1765, Dollar Index 88.87, Oil $65.91, 10-year 2.79%, Silver $17.14, Platinum $999.11, Palladium $1,046.80, and Gold… $1,348.20    

That’s it for today… Well, it’s also Super Bowl Sunday this weekend… I doubt I pay much attention to it since I’m here by myself, I’ll probably need to do some dusting or something like that!  Here’s the script for the game, the Eagles look good and get out to a good lead, but the Patriots rally to win the game.. Sound familiar? This allergic reaction to something on the left side of my face seems to be getting better, albeit slowly, and you know me, I’m not a patient man when it comes to this stuff! I had better live it up the next couple of days, and then clean up, as Kathy returns next week! HA! I’m sure I’ll hear about it from her when she returns that I mentioned her in the Pfennig. Recall I promised her I wouldn’t talk about her any longer, and whenever I do I ask her friends that do read the Pfennig to not mention it, but she always seems to know… So, who among you is the snitch? HA!  Ok, got to get this out the door quickly now… Van Morrison takes up the finish line with his song: Into The Mystic… (love that song!)  Now go make this a Fantastico Friday/ Groundhog Day! It looks like a good day to have a good day, and remember to Be Good To Yourself, always!  Chuck Butler