Author: admin

• The dollar goes on a rampage for reasons that aren’t clear to Chuck
• Gold & Silver fight back…

Good Day… And a Marvelous Monday to you! Well, we had to abort our plans to come back April 1 and changed them to last Saturday. Problems at home that I can’t discuss are the culprit behind our early departure from our winter home.  What’s a couple of days difference? My beloved Cardinals won their home opener with a glimpse of what the rest of the year could look like…. I had my credit card compromised again last week… UGH! This is getting ridiculous; I’ve gone through 4 credit cards in the last 6 months! My wife blames me, but I don’t see why I’m to blame…. Dire Straits greet me this morning with their song: Sultans of Swing… 

Well, the dollar continued to gain ground late last week adding 5 index points to end the week at 1,216… And then, over the weekend and last night has gained another 3 index points… This is ridiculous… The dollar should be getting sold by the barrelful, but it’s not… Everything that could go wrong at the Strait of Hormuz has gone wrong. Shoot Rudy, even two Chinese Oil tankers made a U-Turn at the Strait fearing their safety…  The Oil traders are finally seeing the POTUS’s comments about the war for what they are, just comments and not realization, and the price of Oil is reflective! 

Gold closed the week up $115 at $4,495; the SPTs made certain that Gold stayed below $4,500… Let’s see how successful they are with that goal this week… Kitco.com had this to say about Gold’s rebound on Friday, “Wall Street willing to trust gold again after a week of resilient price action, Main Street flips positive with payrolls on deck” Another Kitco.com article said that “Gold’s big institutional buy-in still to come, silver will follow gold’s lead higher”   

So, to me, it appears that the SPTs efforts to scare away potential buyers and get the weak hands that held Gold to sell or go away have come to a roadblock… Good! But they will always be there in their attempt to get people shying away from Gold (& Silver).  

The price of Oil gained $5 on Friday and continued to rise a bit over the weekend.. Oil closed the week trading with a $99 handle.   I was complaining the other day to my wife that the Gas companies don’t have $90+ oil in their tanks, so why do they automatically raise the price of gas?   I’m just asking…  UGH!

And the 10-year followed the 30-year bond higher in yield.. The 30-year closed over 5% and the 10-year closed over 4.43%… I don’t know if you care or not, but these bonds going higher in yield, doesn’t do any good for the bond servicing that the U.S. had to pay… I chronicled last week that the Auctions being done saw that buyers demanded higher yields… And that means that eventually if these bonds continue to rise in yield, that we’ll have to pay upwards to $2 Trillion a year in just bond interest! 

In the overnight markets last night… Gold couldn’t get one day in on the upside of price before the SPTs came back and tried to take it down again… But… They couldn’t, and Gold is up $49 to start our day / week this morning, and Silver is up $1.31! Before I retired last night, I checked the metals and they were initially down again, but sometime while I slept, they turned around, and starts this morning on the right foot…  

The dollar has gained another 3 index points overnight, and starts the day/ week at 1,219; the ridiculousness continues… The price of Oil continues to rise, and starts the day/ week at $101. I told you last week that it was going to be $100 again… Did you go and fill up?  I did, but then I always fill up before I leave my winter home… And the 10-year has stayed trading with a 4.38% yield to start the day/ week.  I think the yield on the 10-year is going to continue to gain… 

Speaking of Gold…  a very good astute follower of the metals, Alasdair Macleod, had this to say about the Big Options Expiration that’s going on…  He was writing for Alasdair Macleod finance at Substack.com: “Yesterday was the last trade day for April’s Comex options. This explains the heavy mark-downs as bullion traders who had sold calls were incentivized to ensure as many as possible would expire worthless. This is followed by the expiry of the April contract with the start of the 3-day delivery process commencing next Monday.

The April contract is the active one for gold, and on preliminary figures last night there were still 63,034 contracts to sell, roll, or stand for delivery. Silver is relatively unaffected, its next active contract being May. But in gold’s case, we cannot rule out paper shenanigans until All Fools Day next week.”

Chuck again… Ed Steer tells us that the Open Interest in both Gold & Silver are very low… Add to that sentiment and the Options delivery, and you have the recipe for a lot of short selling…  I’m just saying….

And when Gold & Silver get going upward again…. This will be a signal that the real value of paper money is in question… And hopefully, the SPTs don’t stand in the way… Hey! One can hope can’t he?

Well, the POTUS changed the goal posts again… Pretty soon the Iranians will think of the POTUS as the boy who cried wolf…   But the Oil traders aren’t buying what the White House is selling, and neither are the bond boys…  

And the foreign buying of Treasuries is seeing the dwindling of buyers… Here’s Zerohedge.com with their say on the latest 7-year auction of Treasuries: “After two “terrible” coupon auctions earlier this week, moments ago the Treasury concluded the week’s final auction when it sold $44 billion in 7-Year paper. It may not have been quite as terrible as the previous two, but it wasn’t much stronger either.

Starting at the top, the auction stopped with a high yield of 4.255%, up sharply from 3.790% in February and the highest since Jan 2025. It also tailed the When Issued 4.247% by 0.8bps, the biggest tail since August 2024.

The bid to cover was 2.432, down from 2.498 last month and the lowest since September 2025.”

Chuck again…  these auctions just keeping circling the bowl… 

So, this is the scenario that I’ve chronicled for you in the past… Telling you that our debt was growing so fast, and just one thing could turn around the buying of Treasuries to fund our debt…   It’s all coming to a theater near you… Why won’t congress react to this? Why won’t they get down on their knees and pray to God to give them the strength to cut expenses, and not just cut them but GASH them?  I’ve told you dear readers for years, to write to your representative in congress and ask them why they won’t GASH expenses… Now, I fear that it’s too little, too late…  the dam of deficit spending has broken, and now we as Americans have to either learn to float or swim… 

And to that end… here’s YAHOO Finance: America’s mounting debt has long raised concerns. But following the Treasury Department’s latest report, some experts say the situation has reached a breaking point — the nation is now effectively “insolvent.”

“The U.S. government is insolvent. That’s not hyperbole,” wrote Steve Hanke, professor of applied economics at Johns Hopkins University and David M. Walker, former U.S. Comptroller General, in a recent Fortune op-ed.”

So don’t just take it from me… David Walker was the former U.S. Comptroller General, and I respect his opinion very much, as he has always said it like it was…  (and probably why he isn’t Comptroller General any longer!) 

In Japan, the top finance minister said that speculators are going to find that Japan took “bold action” if they keep shorting yen…  I say, don’t worry yen sellers… The Bank of Japan (BOJ) has warned the markets before without any action… 160 is the level where the BOJ intervened in 2024… So, it’s not out of the realm of possibilities, but….  As I’ve always contended: The markets have deeper pockets than a Central Bank… And I still believe that

I had another question from last Thursday’s Pfennig in which I talked about how an awful a 5-year auction was and mentioned that the “bid-to-cover ratio was really bad… and what’s a bid-to-cover ratio? Well, harkening back to my bond trading days.. The bid-to-cover ratio is an indicator of the demand for Treasury securities. It is calculated by dividing the dollar value of the bids received in a Treasury auction by the amount sold. A high ratio is an indication of strong demand. And Vice Versa with a low ratio, which this auction had… 

My thought several months ago that this would happen and cause Treasury yields to rise is coming to fruition… I’m sorry I had that thought, but it is what it is… 

The U.S Data Cupboard last Friday only had the Consumer Sentiment for this month… And it was down, no biggie though… This week we’ll see varied real economic prints and that will lead us into Friday this week, when the Jobs Jamboree for March prints… You might recall that the Feb Print showed that 92,000 jobs were lost…. That alone should have deep-sixed the dollar… But it didn’t…  We’ll see what this labor report shows us, on Friday… I suspect that it won’t be a good print… But then it depends on what the Gov’t wants to show, they’ll message the BLS and they will print magical reports….  Another dreadful report would put a rate cut this year back on the front burner… So, we have that to look forward to! 

The piece of data that I shrugged off last week was the Import Prices data… I said then that it wasn’t market moving and it isn’t, but that doesn’t mean its not important…  Think about this for a minute… The Import price is what we as a country has to pay for a good or item to come into the country,  this is before the wholesaler gets ahold of it and markets it up…  So, Import price, wholesale price, and then finally consumer price… Import prices are a driver to the price we pay for an imported good…  And this 1.3% gain in the month of February will eventually show up in Producer Prices (wholesales) and then finally in Consumer prices… This is not a good harbinger for falling inflation folks… I’m just saying… 

For What It’s Worth… This came to me last Thursday from my friends over at Asset Strategies, Rich and Michael Checkan and it’s about something that I’ve talked about for some time now, and that is that owning physical Gold & Silver are very important and the way it should be done, and it can be found here: Why Physical Assets Matter in a Digital World

Or, here’s your snippet: “Exposure Is Not the Same as Ownership

When an investor buys physical gold or silver, they own a tangible asset with enduring value. It is not simply a financial instrument tied to the metal’s price. It is the asset itself.

By contrast, a gold ETF generally provides exposure to the price of gold through a fund structure. The investor owns shares of that fund, not specific bars or coins. A mining stock is even further removed. It represents ownership in a company whose results depend on business performance, operating costs, management decisions, political conditions, and equity market sentiment.

In other words, physical precious metals are hard assets. ETFs and mining shares are financial securities.

That distinction becomes more important during periods of market stress, inflation concerns, or currency weakness — precisely the environments in which many investors expect precious metals to provide stability.

Why Gold ETFs Are Not Equivalent to Physical Gold

Gold ETFs are popular because they are easy to buy and sell through a brokerage account. They can be useful for tactical positioning or short-term trading. But they should not be mistaken for direct ownership of bullion.

First, an ETF investor generally owns shares in a fund, not title to specific metal. The structure may involve custodians, trustees, authorized participants, and other intermediaries. In normal conditions, that may not seem important. But for investors who want precious metals as a hedge against systemic risk, those layers matter.

Second, ETFs remain part of the broader financial system. They offer convenience, but they also depend on legal structures, institutional arrangements, and market infrastructure. Physical metal, by contrast, exists outside those layers. It is not simply a claim within the system; it is a tangible asset held in its own right.

Third, ETFs can involve management fees and other structural considerations that affect long-term outcomes. Again, that may be acceptable for some investors. But it is not the same as owning actual bullion.

A gold ETF may deliver market exposure. It does not deliver the same form of ownership.”

Chuck again… and think about this… The management of the Silver ETF is JPMorgan the winner of being convicted of 8 years of silver manipulation, and the largest holder of that ETF is a firm documented running a cash into derivatives manipulation scheme in India and facing a federal lawsuit for insider front running in crypto.  Who knows what shenanigans the GLD management is doing right now….  I’ll leave you with this bit of advice…. Buy Physical!

Market Prices 3/30/2026: American Style: A$ .6859, kiwi .5724, C$ .7184, euro 1.1492, sterling 1.3243, Swiss $1.2574, European Style: rand 17.1513, krone 9.7600, SEK 9.4929, forint 338.80, zloty 3.7308, koruna 21.3598, RUB 80.99, yen 159.51, sing 1.2898, HKD 7.8391, INR 94.87, China 6.9107, peso 18.06, BRL 5.2389, BBDXY 1,219, Dollar Index 100.26, Oil $101.33, 10-year 4.38%, Silver $71.18, Platinum $1,933.00, Palladium $1,457.00, Copper $5.24, and Gold… $4,544

That’s it for today… My beloved Cardinals took 2 of 3 from the Rays to start the season, so off to a good start…. We arrived back home on Saturday, and the temp was only 35 degrees! I said, “Why did we come back?” Sunday it warmed a bit, but not warm enough for me to go outside and watch the baseball game… Our Blues are making a push for the playoffs, but they’ll need some help… And Duke lost their Basketball game yesterday, so there went my bracket sheet… but it also ruined 64% of those filing a bracket with Duke being the Champion…. So, I wasn’t alone! No Pfennig next Tuesday, as it’ll be infusion day for me bright and early in the morning… Just giving you a head’s up early.. The Rev. Al Green takes us to the finish line today with his great 70’s song: Let’s Stay Together…   I hope you have a Marvelous Monday today and Please Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler

• The dollar bounces back on Wed and overnight
• What is a “tail”?

Good Day… And a Tub Thumpin’ Thursday to one and all! Well, a week from now, I’ll be back home and, in the saddle, once again at my writing desk… At least there I don’t have to put my laptop and everything else I use to write away when people come over like I have to here! I don’t want to go home, but… Easter is around the corner… Just two more weeks of eating fish on Friday… not that I mind, it’s just that I like to have options when it comes to meals! I know, I know, I’m being somewhat picky… but at my age, I’m surprised I’m not picky all the time! It’s OPENING DAY in baseball which should be a National Holiday… Radiohead greets me this morning with their song: Karma Police

The dollar gained a bit yesterday with the BBDXY adding 2 index points… I really don’t see why the dollar bugs would be buying dollars right now, but que sera sera…. Gold gained $35 on the day… and although Gold was much higher in the early morning trading, the SPTs were there to make sure it didn’t kick tail and take names later…. And Silver also saw the SPTs chop down Silver’s early morning gain, and left Silver with just a 2-cent gain…  Gold closed on Wednesday at $4,507, and Silver Closed at $71.38… 

I would have thought that the SPTs were finished with their wash, rinse, repeat cycle… But just to remind us that the wolf is always at the door, the SPTs were loud and proud yesterday… the thing to think about after all the dust settled on the Gold takedown…  Gold provided liquidity to the stock jockeys big time! Silver’s takedown was a different animal altogether… The FWIW article today explains what happened with Silver, so I won’t get into it here….  You’re Welcome!  HA! 

The price of Oil recovered yesterday, and one day after the Oil traders were buying the Peace talks hook, line and sinkier, thus marking down Oil, the price of Oil rose yesterday and ended the day trading with a $90 handle..

And the 10-year Treasury didn’t see any Fed Head yield control, but it also didn’t see much selling and ended the day trading with a 4.34% yield. 

The currencies, as you probably already figured out, are hiding again from the Big Bad dollar… The euro lost the 1.16 handle yesterday, and even the Chinese renminbi slipped some vs the dollar. The Petrol Currencies like Norwegian krone and Brazilian real have held their ground somewhat vs the dollar, but they hadn’t seen the rise in Oil just yet… so that’s coming… 

I had a dear reader send me a question about something that he had come across regarding the awful auction of the 2 year Treasury that I talked about yesterday… he had come across an article that talked about a “tail” in the auction… 

So, I responded “From my days in the bond dept I was taught that The price tail is the difference between the average price paid in an auction and the cut-off price (the lowest price at which a bond was bought in the auction).  A big price tail is seen as a negative.  Why?  Because the marginal buyer of the bond was only willing to pay a much lower price than the average.   Remember as a bond price goes down, the yield goes up!”

I repeated that here because I though many readers might have a need to know what a Tail was…. 

In the overnight markets last night… The dollar gained a bit more with the BBDXY up 1 index point and starts today at 1,212….  I shake my head in disbelief but carry on in spite of this debacle….  The SPTs are back at it this morning with the metals. Gold is down $61 and Silver is down $3.31… As usual the SPTs take the largest hunk of flesh from Silver…. I’m about at my wit’s end trying to figure out what the SPTs will do next, and what is their goal?  

The price of Oil has really bounced overnight and trades this morning with a $93 handle… The Iranians have now acknowledged that they have received the POTUS’s list of things to settle the war… But… They said that have no intention of ending the war…  So, we have that in our back pocket today…  This is, as I told you it would in the beginning, taking much longer than I think the Generals thought it would…  And the longer it takes the more pressure on Oil, fertilizer, LNG, and other things that go through the Strait of Hormuz… I’m just saying…

And finally the 10-year finally got off its duff last night, with the yield moving higher to 4.38%

Bill Bonner had a quote in his letter yesterday that can be found here: https://www.bonnerprivateresearch.com/p/time-running-out-on-stocks?source=queue

While reading the letter I kept having the song by the Byrds pop in my mind.. “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven… 

Bill was talking about a time to buy stocks… A time to be born, and a time to die,….  no wait, I’m not going to go through the whole song here!  He talked about buying stocks when they are cheap and selling when they are high…. A time to weep, and a time to laugh….  Bill also thinks that the time for stocks is not now….  Ok enough of this….

You will find yourself very lucky if you don’t have an ear worm with that song all day today now! 

I told you yesterday about how the auction of the 2-year Treasury was awful… A onetime even? I hardly think so, and in fact there was another awful auction this time of the 5-year Treasury yesterday. Here’s Zerohedge.com with their review of the auction: “After yesterday’s appallingly bad 2Y auction, moments ago the Treasury sold $70BN in 5Y paper in what was another terrible auction.

Just after 1pm, the auction stopped at a high yield of 3.966%, up from 3.608% in February and the highest since May 2025. It also tailed the When Issued 3.966% by 1.4bps, the biggest tail since Oct 2024.”

There’s that word again, “tail”…  you know we hadn’t seen auctions like this before… Where the participants dwindle, and the ones that do show up, demand a better yield…  At least, I don’t recall any time in the past where we had two awful auctions back-to-back…. belly-to-belly, I don’t give a damn cause I’m stone dead already… No wait! Now is not the time for that song, Chuck! 

The U.S. Data Cupboard today at least as the usual Thursday fare of The Initial Weekly Jobless Claims… This data hasn’t been market moving lately as it keeps showing that there is no labor problem…. And we were cutting rates with regards to a labor problem?  We do have 4 Fed Heads out speaking today, maybe, just maybe because you never know, one of them gives us a market moving comment.. 

To recap… The dollar bounced back yesterday after a couple of days of selling with Gold & Silver also bounced back, but not with the help of the SPTs…  The euro lost the 1.16 handle it held for two days, as the dollar bugs bought peach/greenbacks! The price of Oil rebounded and the 10-year was docile again… 

For What It’s Worth… Ok, this is a long explanation of what’s going on in Silver and I can’t print all of it, so if you want more you’ll find it here:Bull Theory on X: “🚨 SILVER CRASHED NEARLY -50% IN 53 DAYS. And we may have found who caused it. Silver hit ATH $121.64 on January 29, 2026. Today it sits at $65, a 46% collapse, and 25% of that drop happened AFTER February 25, 2026. Why does that date matter? Meet Jane Street. They made https://t.co/km1h7L6en0” / X

Or, here’s your snippet: “The physical silver backing SLV is held by JPMorgan, who paid $920 million in 2020 for manipulating precious metals markets, the largest CFTC sanction ever, after admitting their traders placed hundreds of thousands of fake orders in gold and silver futures for 8 straight years with their top spoofer receiving 2 years in prison.

So the full picture: the silver backing the ETF is held by a bank convicted of 8 years of silver manipulation, and the largest holder of that ETF is a firm documented running a cash into derivatives manipulation scheme in India and facing a federal lawsuit for insider front running in crypto. Silver is down 46% and sitting at $65 today.

None of this is proven in a US court and the macro explanations for the crash are real.

But no regulator has asked the one question that matters: what was Jane Street’s TOTAL net silver position on January 29 and 30, including the full options book and complete derivatives exposure?

Because if the India playbook was running in silver, the $1.3B ETF stake was just the cost.

The options position on the other side was the profit. And the 49% crash was not a crash. It was a payout.”

Chuck again…  This is very interesting… and if their pointing a finger at Jane Street is true and I have no reason to believe it isn’t, then we have our answer….  A shame these people don’t get sent to jail… and fining them is just a “cost of business”….  but the point he made about how JPMorgan is the holder of the Silver ETF… I want to know… how in the hell is this possible?

Market Prices 3/26/2026; American Style: A$ .6926, kiwi .5782, C$ .7222, euro 1.1544, sterling 1.3347, Swiss $1.2618, European Style: rand 17.0488, krone 9.6534, SEK 9.4721, forint 336.41, zloty 3.7009, koruna 21.1983, RUB 82.23, yen 159.54, sing 1.2841, HKD 7.8360, INR 93.97, China 6.90.91, peso 17.83, BRL 5.2273, BBDXY 1,212, Dollar Index 99.67, Oil $93.29, 10-year 4.38%, Silver $68.57, Platinum $1890.00, Palladium $1,406.00, Copper $5.51, and Gold… $4,496

That’s it for today…  Today should be A NATIONAL HOLIDAY! I say this every year, and every year it gets ignored…  It’s Baseball’s Opening Day… it should be a National Holiday! And it did turn out to be yet another Commerce of Chamber Day weather wise here in S. Florida yesterday… The days are getting warmer and I love it! I’m as excited as a schoolgirl to get the baseball season going!  And I agree with Yogi Berra when he said, “Love is the most important thing in the world, but baseball is pretty good, too.” And James Earl Jones said it best when he said: “The one constant through all the years has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It’s been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But Baseball has marked the time. This field, this game, it’s a part of our past. It reminds us of all that once was good and it could be again”  The Yardbirds take us to the finish line today with their song: For Your Love… I hope you have a Tub Thumpin’ National Opening Day today, and Please Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler

• The dollar sees some selling overnight
• Gold is something that you can hold in your hands…

Good Day… And a Wonderful Wednesday to you! What a gorgeous day it was yesterday for me down south… I sat out and read, for 4 hours! I even stayed out longer than my wife, who had been on the beach all afternoon!  I actually got to watch my shows on TV last night without having to turn the volume to 50 so I could hear it over Kathy and her friend, Maria, talking! Our Blues were ahead of Washington 1-0 when I went to bed last night… War greets me this morning with one of my favorite songs: Cisco Kid… 

The dollar drifted all day yesterday, as I suggested it would do without any real economic data to give it direction…  The BBDXY ended the day in the same clothes as it wore to start the day at 1,209… 

I told you yesterday that Gold could easily turnaround its early morning $4 loss, and it did just that! Gold gained $70 to end the day at $4,475. Silver also gained on the day $2.09 and finished the day at $71.36… The Bank of Montreal (BMO) issued a statement and the heading was: BMO says gold’s bull rally is not over, only paused during the Iran war… 

Yes, while the short sellers, and consumers that are getting antsy and selling, are adding to the pressure that Gold is receiving, while Banks are not changing their stripes, and are still buying, because they know that inflation is rising no matter what false reports the BLS prints! 

The price of Oil is being subjected to traders that are thinking that a truce or Peace if you will, is going to be reached between the U.S. and Iran…. I read where the Saudi’s are calling POTUS and telling him to prolong the war with Iran… Why? Because that would certainly move the price of Oil back to $100 and that would make the Saudi’s very happy… 

The 10-year Treasury bounced around yesterday, and ended the day with a 4.34% yield… Since the 10-year is used to price mortgages, I can only think that housing sales are suffering right now with the higher mortgage rates…. 

In the overnight markets last night….  The dollar saw some selling and lost 2 index points in the BBDXY… So, we start our day with the BBDXY at 1,207… Gold & Silver have climbed back on the rally horse and start the with Gold up $110 and Silver up $3… I think this signifies that the rinse, spin cycle has ended for now… And with that Gold & Silver will be able to get back to rallying… Remember, with the SPTs… The wolf is always at the door! 

The price of Oil has seen the Oil traders take it down by another buck overnight and starts the day trading with an $86 handle… I’m going to revisit what’s going on with Oil traders in a minute… But first, the 10-year Treasury starts the day with a 4.32% yield… There was an awful auction of Treasuries yesterday, and therefore I’m surprised that the yield on the 10-year remained docile…  But it is what it is… 

Here’s MarketWatch: “Typically, 2-year auctions go largely unnoticed, beyond the dealers and buyers involved in the roughly $30 trillion Treasury market. It’s often a place that safe-haven seekers and corporations look to park cash for a while and earn a bit of yield. The auction starts, buyers line up.

But Tuesday’s auction went “miserably,” making it hard not to notice, with yields on the policy-sensitive 2-year rate advancing 9.6 basis points during the session to 3.926%, its highest yield in nearly eight months, according to Dow Jones Market Data. The rate now is 45 basis points higher in 2026.”

Chuck again… I think I’ll look into getting some 2-year Treasuries!  No reason to extend the maturity, there’s too much risk going on in longer bonds…. 

I received an email from the Reserve Bank of New Zealand last night that said: “Consumer still feel squeezed even with falling inflation”…  Well, should the RBNZ need another opinion as to why this is, they can consult me. For, I would tell them that the prices went up during inflation and they are coming back down… That’s why concert tickets from the 60’s cost $5, and now cost $100’s of dollars!  Over the years, prices went up for a particular reason and never came back down.. And then you add the new higher price and the rinse, spin cycle goes on and on.. 

When I first began to drive in 1971, gas stations had gas wars, and I could get gas for my car at 22-cents for a gal… See what I’m talking about here? I’m sure that most of you figured this out a long time ago, but prices had remained steady Eddie for about 10 years and that put everyone at ease, and they forgot that they were paying a higher price for “X” than they were 10 years ago.. 

Shoot Rudy, I’ve really carried on about inflation and sticky prices this morning. TMI!    Ok, we’ll move on to something else… Want a laugh?  The Reserve Bank of New Zealand also sent me an email announcing that they have commenced recruitment for the role of Assistant Governor Financial Stability.  And, the first thing I thought of was: “I wonder if they would consider me, especially if I tell them I need to work from my place in S. Florida!  HAHAHA!  Me as a red tape bureaucrat…  Now that would be a scene! 

And this should send shivers down your spine…. Heartland Institute vice president Justin Haskins warns that…”most investors no longer directly own their securities. Instead, they hold what the law refers to as a ‘security entitlement.'”

You see, your brokerage is the registered owner. You are the beneficial owner.

Legally, you only hold a claim inside a custody chain.

And under Article 8 of the Uniform Commercial Code, your securities can be taken as collateral against your brokerage firm’s debts.”

Chuck again… that was a roundabout way of saying you actually own physical Gold & Silver and can hold it in your hands and not have to worry about your brokerage House going under….  Remember in 2008, even the vaunted Merril Lynch had to be saved by Bank of America… So, don’t say it can’t happen…. 

The euro closed yesterday’s U.S. trading with a 1.16 handle…  And the rest of the currencies went along for the ride… Well, most of the currencies… The Japanese yen got hammered last week while the dollar performed pet tricks and rose… And now that the dollar is falling back into the underlying weak trend, yen remains trading with a 158 handle, and that’s a rounding error from hitting 160… I’m just saying! 

And… We didn’t expect them to accept negotiation, and they didn’t! But the Oil traders seem to think that a peace accord will happen anyway…. Wait! What? Yes, the Oil traders pushed the price of Oil down $5 overnight, and this after the Iranians rejected Trump’s talk of negotiation….  Oh well, they will get the message sooner or later…. At least I hope they do! 

The U.S. Data Cupboard is still void of real economic data… We will see the Feb print of  Import Prices  and they should show a big increase from Jan’s print… But it won’t be market moving, so once again I ask then why print them?

To recap… The dollar drifted yesterday and ended up in the same clothes it wore to start the day…. Gold turned around its early morning loss of $4 and ended up $70 on the day…. Silver ended up $2.09 on the day… The Saudis aren’t happy to hear that their could be a peace settlement between the U.S. and Iran… In Chuck’s thoughts the Saudis don’t have anything to worry about there….  And should Chuck apply for the job at the Reserve Bank of New Zealand?  Only if he can do his job from his place in S. Florida! 

For What It’s Worth…  this will be a real short-n-sweet FWIW article today, as my pickings were slim…  But this one is well worth reading and it’s about Central Banks using Gold to manipulate currencies, and it was sent to me by the good folks at Gata…  I think you can get there by clicking here: The very purpose of government gold reserves is currency market rigging | Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee | Exposing the long-term manipulation of the gold market

Or, here’s your snippet: “Since its founding in 1998 GATA has maintained that governments and central banks use gold for rigging the currency markets — sometimes openly and sometimes surreptitiously, to deceive investors and other governments and central banks.

The Reserve Bank of Australia used to acknowledge candidly in its annual reports that currency market rigging is the very purpose of gold reserves. “Foreign currency reserve assets and gold,” the Reserve Bank’s 2003 report said, “are held primarily to support intervention in the foreign exchange market”:

https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/annual-reports/rba/2003/pdf/2003-report.pdf

Today, as seen below, Bloomberg News acknowledges this purpose in regard to Turkey, on the basis of anonymous sources. Will Bloomberg or any mainstream news organization ever acknowledge this purpose in regard to the United States, its allies, and other major powers and begin posing critical questions about it? Or must currency market rigging questions be reserved for lesser countries, like India, whose use of U.S. dollar derivatives for surreptitious currency market intervention was considered reportable by Bloomberg the other day?

https://www.gata.org/node/24578

For that matter, will the gold and silver mining industry itself ever openly recognize that its products are primarily money that competes with government-issued money, and start acting accordingly?”

Chuck Again…  this was very interesting and add to that the fact that the RBA admitted it….  I can see Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel chairman, Powell, standing before Congress and telling them that the Fed Heads helped the PPT in manipulating the dollar…. And everyone in congress, scratching their respective heads in confusion… 

Market Prices 3/25/2026: American Style: A$ .6973, kiwi .5826, C$ .7250, euro 1.1606, sterling 1.3414, Swiss $1.2675, European Style: rand 16.8559, krone 9.7344, SEK 9.2926, forint 335.68, zloty 3.6769, koruna 21.0611, RUB 80.92, yen 158.86, sing 1.2787, HKD 7.8172, INR 93.97, China 6.8968, peso 17.71, BRL 5.2324, BBDXY 1,207, Dollar Index 99.24, Oil $86.84, 10-year 4.32%, Silver $73.44, Platinum $1,987.00, Palladium $1,148.00, Copper $5.51, and Gold… $4,585

That’s it for today…  Another Chamber of Commerce day is expected down here in S. Florida today…  Hey! Our Blues shutout the Capitals last night on home ice 3-0!  Boy, this team is getting hot late, but will they have enough games left to make the playoffs?  And tonight Baseball’s regular season begins, with just one game, the real Opening Day, which should be a holiday, starts tomorrow… My beloved Cardinals open at home, and it’s supposed to be in the 90’s for the game… And then the 50’s the next day, ahhh, good old St. Louis weather!  I just hope it gets warm for when I return home next week… A couple of years ago we came home for Easter, and it was cold, so we turned around and came back here until May! Billy Paul takes us to the finish line today with his great 70’s song: Me & Mrs Jones… I hope you have a Wonderful Wednesday today and Please Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler

• the dollar buying stops on a dime
• the selling of bonds, metals and stocks stops too…

Good Day… And a Tom Terrific Tuesday to you! Well, that was some undertaking to get things turned around yesterday… Not completely, but at least turned… I watched my beloved Cardinals play their double AA team that are also called the Cardinals, last night… It was interesting because I had just watched most of the AA players in Spring Training! Bob Marley and the Wailers greet me this morning with their great song: 3 Little Birds… 

Well, the dollar buying stopped yesterday, and the selling of the currencies, bonds, and stocks all ended…  This was apparently because the POUTUS said that he and the Iranians were having productive talks…. What, Wait! Didn’t he tell us two weeks ago that the war was nearly complete? And we’re still fighting… And now this… BTW… the Iranians deny having any such talks with the U.S….  So once again, words by the PUTUS saved the stock jockeys and stopped the rise of the Treasury bond yields… And stopped the price of Oil from going over $100… 

And to think of it, it also stopped the rise of the dollar, that the PUTUS himself has been said to say that he wants a weaker dollar…. Well, it was weaker at the end of the day for sure…. 

The dollar lost ground yesterday, and the BBDXY ended the day down 4 index points to 1,209… Or maybe, just maybe because you never know (Andujar) some dollar traders read the Pfennig yesterday and agreed with me, that to call the dollar a “safe haven” is just not right… 

Gold & Silver attempted a comeback if you will… As Gold. Which was down $232 in the morning, ended up down $100 to close at $4,405… And Silver actually gained on the day after being down $7 early ended up on the day… wonders never cease!  I’m telling you now so maybe you’ll listen to me later, but the thing with the metals are really shedding the weak hands that held Gold & Silver, and when the day is done and the selling is over for good, only the strong hands will benefit from Gold & Silver’s rally…. So, what are you? A weak hand or a strong hand?  

The price of Oil after all the gyrations ended the day with a $91 handle… At one point in the day, Oil’s price was down to $88… But calmer heads saw through the 2 words that stopped everything from its currency trend… What two words am I talking about… “Productive Conversations”…   keep those in the back of your mind for I believe that this will all pass…. 

The 10-year’s yield rise was halted yesterday, and it ended the day with a 4.38% yield… 

In the overnight markets last night… the dollar fought back and gained 2 index points in the BBDXY, but the dollar isn’t as lofty in its price as it was previously… So, without any real economic data this week, to give the dollar some direction, we could be looking at a week where the dollar just drifts about… 

The price of Gold is down $4 to start our day today… Not that a negative price move is a good thing, but a $4 drop is far better than what we’ve been seeing daily here…  Silver is up 72-cents to start our day, so I doubt Gold will remain in the red as the day move along…  Silver is so close to the 70-cent figure that it could spit in 70’s back yard! 

The price of Oil has slipped another buck to trade this morning with a $90 handle… I doubt that it will stay cheaper like this for too long, once Oil traders figure out that the POTUS’s two words don’t hold any water.. 

And the 10-year also saw its yield drop further overnight to trade this morning with a 4.37% yield… The bond boys aren’t ready to throw in the towel on their inflation fears… 

Well, all this selling of Gold & Silver in the last week has brought about some different ideas as to why it has been so strong…. The one I like the most is the one I told you about yesterday, and that is liquidating Gold to pay/ cover margin calls…  But there’s also this: There have reports that some smaller countries sold Gold reserves to pay for Oil… To me this is a weak hand… and Gold is flushing them down the bowl…. 

There was an article on Kitco.com that talked about the reasons that Gold is getting sold are wrong… Well, I liked that part, but then I came to the end and not one mention of the short sellers affect on the Gold & Silver Price…  They would have to write a different article to include the short sellers… The fundamentals as to why Gold has taken off to higher ground remain in place….  Look the U.S., Eurozone, U.K. And Japan all left rates unchanged at their most recent meetings… The debt of countries hasn’t seen any deficit spending cuts, and the geopolitical problems in the world are worse…  So, it has to be the short sellers making mincemeat out of the metals’ prices… 

Well, we were bound to get there… and new data from the Treasury Department released on Wednesday showed that the gross national debt reached $39,016,762,910,245.14 as of March 17.

The $39 trillion milestone comes about five months after the national debt reached $38 trillion for the first time in late October 2025, which closely followed the $37 trillion milestone being surpassed just two months earlier in mid-August. The interest expense or bond servicing on the debt is going to lead us down the road to ruin… But then that was a known a long time ago, but now it’s a reality…  I’m just saying…. 

We’re coming up on the one-year anniversary of the President’s Liberation Day… How’s that working out a year later? Are we going to have to rebate the tariffs we charged? The best made plans of mice and men….  I’m just saying…

The currencies have gotten up out of their sick beds, with the Big Dog euro, leading the pack… The euro is back to trading above the 1.15 handle, the Chinese renminbi is back to daily appreciations, and the Russian ruble is coming back from the dead…  The Petrol Currencies are lively, and all in currency land look better this morning.. 

Today’s U.S. Data Cupboard only has one print that the markets will even notice and that is the Productivity report for the 4^th QTR last year, talk about stale! This report is really a non-market moving print, as all it really does is tell how hard we as Americans are work….  it doesn’t get into what the hard work was for, so what good is it?

To recap… The major selling of stocks, bonds,  and the metals came to stop yesterday,,, Now we’ll have to see if that continues today or not… The POTUS spoke yesterday and said that he and the Iranians were having “productive conversations” and that stirred the pot to stop the selling for now.. 

For What It’s Worth… Well, I was wondering when the Chinese stepped in to the fray of the metals’ selloff… Well, this article answers that question, and it can be found here: Gold’s biggest weekly drop since 1983 fuels Shenzhen buying spree

Or, here’s your snippet:” A dramatic plunge in gold prices, marking the largest single‑week drop since 1983, has triggered a buying frenzy in Shenzhen, south China.

At Shuibei market, the city’s gold jewelry manufacturing and trading hub often seen as a barometer for China’s bullion retail sector, consumers crowded counters to seize bargains amid the steep decline.

Gold futures on the COMEX division of the New York Mercantile Exchange on Friday dropped by over 3 percent to below 4,500 U.S. dollars per ounce, while silver futures plummeted nearly 7 percent to below 68 dollars per ounce.

Market analysts said that although geopolitical risks should have been beneficial to precious metals, rising oil prices reignited expectations of accelerated inflation. Additionally, cooling expectations for a Federal Reserve rate cut caused precious metal prices to fall against intuition.

The gold price slump in 1983 stemmed from oil-producing countries selling gold to obtain foreign exchange amid falling oil prices. That episode shocked investors by showing how macroeconomic forces could override gold’s safe-haven appeal, a dynamic echoed in today’s market.

In Shenzhen, the impact has been immediate. Local jewelers reported that prices fell by about 200 yuan per gram since the start of March, including a 100‑yuan drop this week alone.

“From the beginning of March to March 20, the price dropped by about 200 yuan per gram. This week alone, it has dropped by about 100 yuan per gram. The decline this week has been relatively significant,” said Ma Shiying, the manager of a jewelry store.

After a week of consecutive price drops, consumer enthusiasm has surged. Managers at several gold shops reported that foot traffic this weekend increased by about 30 percent compared to the previous week.

Many buyers traveled specifically to the market to take advantage of the lower prices, with some consumers, who are planning to get married during the May Day holiday, purchasing traditional “three gold” or “five gold” wedding sets ahead of schedule due to the price drop.”

Chuck again…Question answered… now, who else is going to step up the auction window and buy some real amounts of Gold? 

Market Prices 3/24/2026: American Style: A$ .6979, kiwi .5837, C$ .7281, euro 1.1589, sterling 1.3399, Swiss $1.2693, European Style: rand 16.9946, krone 9.6945, SEK 9.3289, forint 336.32, zloty 3.6871, koruna 21.1302, RUB 80.50, yen 158.68, sing 1.2788, HKD 7.8283, INR 93.87, China 6.8915, peso 17.83, BRL 5.2352, BBDXY 1,207, Dollar Index 99.34, Oil $90.43, 10-year 4.37%, Silver $69.99, Platinum $1,913.00, Palladium $1,442.00, Copper $5.41, and Gold… $4.401

That’s it for today… Well, my time down here is coming to an end for this winter… Spring is here now, and it’s time for me to pack up and go home… It’ll be good to get back home and my regular routine… But I’ll miss my mornings here, as I look out at the ocean while I write… And watch the sunrise… Last week when it was rainy for Tues & Wed, the sunrise couldn’t be seen… UGH! Glad that’s over! 3 months have gone by real fast for me…I am coming back in May for a week, so I will have to keep that thought in my head when I’m back home…  Van Morrison takes us to the finish line today with his great song: Into The Mystic… I hope you have a Tom Terrific Tuesday today, and Please Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler

• The dollar rallies like there’s nothing wrong with the U.S. economy
• Is the short selling coming to an end in the metals?

Good Day… And a Marvelous Monday to you! Well, in just 4 days of games the field of 64 is down to the Sweet Sixteen, and neither of the teams that I follow are in that field. UGH! My beloved Cardinals finished Spring Training on Saturday with a win VS the Marlins… They were 13-9 during spring games, which is better than most thought they would be… Now the 162 game schedule come into play… I feel it will be a Long year for my redbirds… Oh well, at least baseball is back! Sly and the Family Stone greet me this morning with their song: If You Want Me To Stay…

Well, what an up and down week it was last week for the dollar… First rallying, then getting sold off for a couple days only to finish the week rallying. The BBDXY ended the week at 1,205, but in the after hours trading the PPT must have entered the markets because the BBDXY rose 5 index points in that time…

I say the PPT must have entered because the dollar was losing ground fast, and had ended the week at 1,205… But then magically it turned around and rallied…  It had to be the PPT… I’m just saying…

Gold & Silver saw a week that they’d love to forget… Gold ended the week at $4,492 and Silver at $67.94…  The metals, including Platinum, Palladium and Copper saw their levels drop tremendously too… Gold’s weekly loss the greatest it had seen in 6 years! 

Inflation seems to be the trigger point here… It seems that Countries all over the world are seeing inflation rise, and the threat of even bigger rises in the coming year are upping the forecasts for interest rate hikes for these countries, including the U.S.  and higher interest rates is what is pushing the metals downward… 

But if inflation really takes off…  and the Central Banks are behind, the currencies of those respective countries including the U.S. will get hammered and the metals can rebound quickly…  Think back to the late 70’s the U.S. Fed was falling behind on raising rates, and Gold took off for the moon, until Paul Volcker put an end to being behind….  So, don’t despair this isn’t the end for the metals…  In fact, you might want to pick us some more to round out your investment portfolio… 

I want to mention that in previous times when it looked as though Gold wasn’t going to ever gain a bid again, that it came back strongly…  no, the past does not reflect what will happen in the future, but I just wanted to throw that out there… 

The price of Oil rose to end the week trading with a $98 handle, as the Iranians issued a statement that said that the “Strait of Hormuz is closed” 

And the 10-year’s yield rose to 4.28% to end the week…

In the overnight markets last night.. More dollar buying was added to the after markets move on Friday,  and we start the day/week with the BBDXY at 1,217!!!!  The currencies, even the Petrol Currencies, all look as though they had a major disease and were told to go to bed to stay.  This dollar buying is getting ridiculous… The dollar is so overbought that its off the charts! From what I can tell it’s all “safe haven” buying”… Safe haven my arse! 

Gold and Silver start the day / week seeing more selling, with Gold down $232 and Silver down $4, but what to my wondering eye is appearing? It looks like the selling is coming to and end this morning, but we’ll have to play out the day to see what happens.. 

One would have thought that the short selling of Gold & Sliver is about to end, as they’ve taken about as much blood from the turnip as possible, but the short seller are squeezing some more out this morning… Along with the short sellers, we probably have some outright sellers to pay off their margin calls… I’ve told you previously that I ran a margin debt at Stifel Nicolaus many moons ago, and there was a time when the margin guys would have to call clients and tell them that they need to deposit more money or sell stocks and if they didn’t, we would sell the stocks for them…. You don’t mess around with a margin call…. I’m just saying…

The price of Oil bumped higher to start the day/ week with a $99 handle… Don’t know what the Oil traders are waiting for, they’ve hemmed and hawed for a long time now holding the price of Oil below $100… Just go ahead and push it over the figure, it’s going to come sooner or later, and might as well get it over sooner… 

And the selling of the 10-year has really pushed the yield higher and the 10-year starts the day/ week trading with a 4.40% yield… No Fed Head yield control going on  here… not yet anyway!  Treasuries have 3 things going against them right now… 1. Inflation fears 2. No more rate cuts 3. The length of the war with Iran… I don’t know or will make a suggestion as to where the yield will go for the 10-year, but it’s in trouble for sure…  I wonder about those guys from Deutsche Bank who were shorting the 10-year about a year ago… Did they continue? If so, they are swimming in profits now… 

Bloomberg.com has this synopsis of what’s the markets are doing right now… here’s a quick snippet of the article on Treasuries…. “Global yields surged as concerns that oil prices would stoke inflation intensified. The front end of the curve led gains in Treasury yields, with the two-year up 10 basis points to top 4% for the first time since June. Two-year UK gilt rates climbed to the highest since February 2024 after traders priced in four Bank of England interest-rate hikes this year.

“This is not a moment to be optimistic: all the latest developments point to a further deterioration of the situation,” said Christopher Dembik, senior investment adviser at Pictet Asset Management. “Looking back at 2022, the stock market was resilient until it was clear the impact of the war in Ukraine wasn’t transitory. It’s reasonable to assume the same thing.”

Chuck again… Poor bonds… Poor metals… Poor stocks…  they are all getting sold,,,

I saw a headline on the NY Times that said: “The U.S. Economy Is Insulated From High Oil Prices. Americans Aren’t.” It was behind a paywall so I couldn’t read anymore of the article, but I’m sure it outlined what I’ve been telling you and that is the U.S. only imports 20% of its Oil from the Gulf states, so it’s shock to the U.S. is null and void for now… But Oil is worldwide commodity, and therefore the price of Oil reflects the effects on the rest of the world… And gas is tied to the Oil price, and that’s where it will hurt the U.S. consumer…  And the longer the war goes on, the greater of the fears of a real problem for the U.S. consumer…

Circling the wagons regarding the metals….  I have the thought that the SPTs are behind the selloff.. And from what I read the SPTS have major short positions on their books that will expire in about a week….  Their only goal is to push gold and silver as low as possible so those options expire worthless and they pocket maximum profit. This exact game has run for fifteen years, and I’ve been harping about it for 15 years! The low for Gold & Silver is about to be hit, and then we can concentrate on a recovery.. 

The U.S. Data Cupboard this week is void of any real economic data… But we will get plenty of Fed Heads our speaking…. What will they be saying? I sure hope they attempt to get the markets to realize that there will be no more rate cuts this year….  There are a couple of housing and other sundried data prints this week, but they are not market moving… period…

To recap… What a week for the metals…. They got sold harshly and couldn’t find a bid anywhere…  Gold hadn’t had a bad week like that one last week for 6 years! But just when it looks like no one wants to buy Gold.. It will recover, or it has recovered previously. The Strait of Hormuz is officially closed by the Iranians…. And the price of Oil continues to rise… But so does the price of fertilizer, and LNG, and natural gas… The dollar had a very eventful week, last week… But is rallying since closing in the BBDXY on Friday  at 1,205…. 

For What It’s Worth…  I found this article on my watch yesterday… Really… my watch posted a headline that led me to this article… It’s about how the Fed is flashing red flags but the stock jockeys aren’t paying attention and it can be found here: The Federal Reserve Is Raising Red Flags, and the Stock Market Isn’t Listening

Or, here’s your snippet: “As was widely expected, the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee (FOMC) held the Fed Funds Rate steady last week at a target of between 3.5% and 3.75%. Although conceding that “economic activity has been expanding at a solid pace,” the FOMC also notes that “inflation remains somewhat elevated.”

It’s not particularly remarkable language. In fact, these exact words appeared — verbatim — with the statement released following January’s assessment.

There are a couple of red flags, however, that aren’t necessarily showing up within the Fed’s most-watched actions, like adjustments to the Fed Funds Rate.

A red flag is waving against a backdrop of blue sky.

Red flags for the economy

One of these newly waving red flags is the fact that, while still contained, the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee raised its personal consumption expenditures (PCE) inflation outlook for 2026 from a prior estimate of 2.4% to its current estimate of 2.7%. On a core basis (which excludes food and energy costs), the 2026 personal spending outlook was raised from December’s forecast of 2.5% to 2.7% now.

In this vein, it’s also worth noting that earlier on Wednesday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported producers’ overall input costs jumped 3.4% (annualized) in February, reaching its highest level since February of last year. Core producer inflation (which also excludes food and fuel) edged up to an annualized rate of 3.5%. Although both numbers are still within manageable tolerances, each also came in well above expectations.

The Fed still ultimately expects to ratchet interest rates down once this year, by one-quarter of one percent. The margins in which this can comfortably be done, however, have just shrunken.

Then there’s the post-announcement press conference where Fed Chairman Jerome Powell answered questions about the Federal Reserve’s decision. Although none of this commentary is official policy, unofficially, his comment is telling to say the least: “The rate forecast is conditional on the performance of the economy, so if we don’t see that progress, then you won’t see the rate cut.”

And yes, the unpredictable duration and impact of the conflict in the Middle East are key contributors to the underlying uncertainty of the matter.”

Chuck Again…  Not exactly something that we didn’t already know, but more or less a confirmation of what I’ve been telling you…  

Market Prices 3/23/2026: American Style: A$ .6921, kiwi .5770, C$ .7270, euro 1.1488, sterling 1.3265, Swiss $1.2606, European Style: rand 16.91, krone 9.7404, SEK 9.3987, forint 343.16, zloty 3.7304, koruna 21.3445, RUB 83.34, yen 183.34, sing 1.2664, HKD 7.8298, INR 93.97, China 6.9112, peso 18.08, BRL 5.3161, BBDXY 1,217, Dollar Index 100.88, Oil $99.34, 10-year 4.40%, Silver $63.87, Platinum $1,802.00, Palladium $1,395.00, Copper $5.31, and Gold $4.260

That’s it for today….Well, yesterday was my birthday, and I was treated with biscuits and gravy for breakfast and then my favorite pizza for dinner…  And yes, I’ve gained some weight while I’ve been down here this winter, and now I’ve got to get to losing them! And eating biscuits and gravy is not the way to go about losing weight! Our house guest leaves today, so no more going out to eat and so on… Spring is now here and the days are getting warmer again… I’m now 71 years old, and for the last 19 years, I’ve been carrying around cancer and cancer treatments… That makes my age more like 85! We were talking the other day, and I said, “in my youth I did whatever it was we were talking about” That was a very long time ago… The Easybeats take us to the finish line today with their great 60’s song: Friday On My Mind I hope you have a Marvelous Monday today, and Please Be Good To Yourself! 

Chuck Butler

• Chuck oversleeps… UGH!
• all hell has broken loose… batten down the hatches!

Good Day… And a Tub Thumpin’ Thursday to one and all! Well, I sat in the misty rain for my beloved Cardinals game yesterday that they won 4-1 VS the Astros… They got 2 home runs from unlikely sources, but they got them nonetheless, so I only have two more Spring Training Games… I really don’t want Spring Training to stop! But if all the games were as miserable as the game was yesterday, then I’m good with it ending!  Eric Burdon and the Animals greet me this morning with their song: We’ve Gotta Get Out Of This Place… 

Well, the FOMC left rates unchanged yesterday, as I thought they would, and Powell had this to say;” There’s no rush to rescue the market”  he made that statement perfectly clear and the stock jockeys felt the sting of his comment, with the Dow falling 800 points… 

The dollar took off to the moon after Powell spoke, and didn’t look back… The BBDXY gained 4 index points and ended the day at 1,213… Just when the dollar traders had told themselves that the dollar needed to be sold, they turned on a dime… 

We can’t blame Powell’s comments on Gold & Silver’s takedown yesterday… Gold lost $185 and Silver lost $2.57…  The SPTs were out in force and they began selling short the two metals in the early morning, hours away from Powell talking to the media… 

The SPTs engineered takedown was spectacular for them… Not for metals holders… I sure hope they are done with getting Gold below its 50-day moving avg. I think the SPTs used the cover of the Powell comments to take the metals even lower yesterday… If you have been procrastinating on buying Gold or Silver, this is your chance to buy at cheaper levels…. I wouldn’t wait too long, because I doubt if these bargain prices will stay around too long…

The price of Oil jumped more than $2 to end the day with a $98 handle…  And the White House had issued a statement yesterday saying that the Economy was nearing turning a corner….  Well, the only corner I see the economy turning is the way down… And the price of Oil is going to be the cause of the downturn… 

And the bond boys said, “well, if the FOMC isn’t going to cut rates, they will eventually have to hike rates” and then sold bonds… The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to end the day with a 4.26% yield… No Fed Head yield control going on yesterday….  And I have to wonder if we see any major Fed Head yield control going forward… or, at least I hope not… 

In the overnight markets last night…  And I thought last week that all hell had broken loose! Last night, we had that again and it’s UGLY!  The dollar bugs are dancing in the street, and the Gold bugs are looking for protection from the short sellers… The SPTS have gone hog-wild and Gold is down $187 and Silver is down $5.62… Silver is actually trading with a $69 handle this morning….  What have they got against the metals? This is absolutely ridiculous…. Better batten down the hatches good… I’m just saying… 

The price of Oil slipped to a $97 handle overnight, and the 10-year is watching its yield rise and this morning the yield is $4.29%… So, it’s not just the metals that getting sold… bonds are right behind them in line… 

And circling the wagons on the Fed Heads.. I misspoke yesterday when I said that the next FOMC meeting was in May… That was wrong… See Kathy, I do admit when I say something wrong!  There will be a FOMC meeting April 28-29….  I did want to mention that that the FOMC did say that they sill saw one more rate cut this year… I personally, don’t see it happening… Inflation is going to be the roadblock to lower interest rates, I’ll be the farm on that… that is if I was a betting man, and if I had a farm! HA 

And here’s another commodity that is getting priced higher and higher…. this from Bloomberg.com “The price of US propane is climbing at almost twice the pace of the natural gas it’s made from, threatening even more pocketbook pain for consumers already coping with surging gasoline, diesel and power costs.”

And then there’s this regarding the economy and how is the consumer going to pay for the increases… From Bloomberg.com: “The price of US propane is climbing at almost twice the pace of the natural gas it’s made from, threatening even more pocketbook pain for consumers already coping with surging gasoline, diesel and power costs.”

Don’t look now but the Japanese yen is about to go to 160 VS the dollar…. the yen ended yesterday at 159.75… And the Japanese officials are jawboning yen as much as they can, but it doesn’t seem to be having much of an affect….  Japan’s finance minister said authorities are prepared to respond to movements in the currency market with bold steps if necessary as the yen weakens against the dollar.

Even warning traders about taking yen even lower, didn’t stop them from selling yen… You know, I’ve always contended that Japan is a basket case… Their demographics are horrible, their interest rates have been held down very low for far too long, and other sundried items that hold not only the economy but the yen down…

Enough dissing Japan and the yen…  The Russian ruble continued to get smacked around like a red headed stepchild… and rightly so, but the Russian economy isn’t doing as bad as Japan, and their demographics are nowhere near as bad as Japan’s… Russia problem is invading Ukraine….  And the war mongers have made sure that the Americans see Russia as the problem…  I’m not a rooter for Russia, just calling things the way I see them! 

The euro and the pound sterling got sold as the dollar rallied yesterday… The euro fell back below the 1.15 handle and the sterling saw it sold as their Central Bank will meet today to discuss rates…. The Bank of England (BOE) is expected to leave rates unchanged, but there is a chance that they could opt to cut rates and that has sterling on the selling blocks..

The U.S. Data Cupboard yesterday saw PPI (wholesale inflation) rise .7% in Feb and 3.4% year-on-year, so as I look at PPI, it’s what we have to look forward to in CPI (consumer inflation)…  Factory Orders for January were only up .1%…. So, no great shakes there…  And finally the FOMC meeting decision that saw rates remain unchanged…  Powell, thus kicked the can down the road… 

To recap… The dollar rallied on Powell’s comments, bonds got sold, currencies got sold, and metals got sold, Oil rallied, and the day finally ended! The price of Oil is nearing $100 again… and Chuck disses Japan and its economy and currency… 

I woke up this morning at the crack of dawn and said to myself, “I dont’ have to get up this morning, it’s Friday”… And that’s the reason for the tardiness of the letter this morning… 

For What It’s Worth…. Well, I said the other day that the Oil price was going to hurt consumers in the wallet, but other than it won’t bring products that use oil to a stop… But in the world, they will suffer, and this article goes through that and it can be found here: Iran war fallout lands hardest on Europe’s most gas‑dependent nations | Reuters

Or, here’s your snippet: “Electricity prices in Eastern Europe and Italy have climbed faster than other parts of the continent so far in 2026, suggesting that Europe’s most gas-dependent economies have been among the hardest hit so far from the ongoing U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.

Average wholesale electricity prices in Hungary, Italy and Romania so far in 2026 ​have all climbed by at least 12% from last year’s average levels, data from energy data portal electricitymaps shows.

The Week in Breakingviews newsletter offers insights and ideas from Reuters’ global financial commentary team. 

Electricity prices in Hungary, Poland & Italy have climbed by more than those in Spain, France & Germany so far in 2026

A key driver of the rising electricity costs is the high dependence on natural gas for power generation in Italy and several Eastern European nations, which rank among the most gas-intensive energy systems in the continent.

Europe’s benchmark natural gas price has climbed by around 65% from a month ago following the start of the Iran war, which has resulted in the closure of vital oil ​and gas shipping lanes in the Middle East.

With Qatar’s main LNG export facilities closed and Iran’s largest natural gas production field struck by Israeli missiles, gas supplies from the Middle East look set to ​remain stunted.

That in turn could trigger even tighter gas supplies for major import-dependent gas consumers, at least for the near term, and could further ⁠lift electricity prices.

GAS-HEAVY

Italy is Europe’s most gas-reliant economy, according to the Energy Institute, with around 38% of total energy supplies sourced from gas.”

Chuck again… yes, this is all going to hell in a hand basket, and the U.S. is in middle of this, causing these problems… 

Market Prices 3/19/2026: American Style: A$ .7043, kiwi .5815, C$ .7280, euro 1.1479, sterling 1.3291, Swiss $1.2581, European Style: rand 16.8481, krone 9.5708, SEK 9.3981, forint 341.49, zloty 3.7280, koruna 21.3366, RUB 86.03, yen 159.07, sing 1.2833, HKD 7.8326, INR 92.63, China 6.8975, peso 17.83, BRL 5.2666, BBDXY 1,212, Dollar Index 100.82, Oil $97.82, 10-year 4.29%, Silver $69.84, Platinum $1,931.00, Palladium $1,455.00, Copper $5.45, and Gold… $4,635

That’s it for today…. Kathy has a friend come to spend some time with us, and that friend has another friend that came late last night… SERENITY NOW! I’m here with 3 women! Good thing there’s a baseball game today! Then on Saturday, Spring Training games end for me… And then on Sunday, it’ll be my birthday…. Last year I was in the hospital for my 70^th Birthday… My son Alex and his bride Grace, brought me my favorite pizza to my room! But it just wasn’t the same…  So, this year, I’m going to make up for last year! I return home on April 1st… no April Fool’s joke…. So, my time down here is coming to an end for now… So, I’m warning you now, so you can listen to me later, they’ll be no Pfennig on April 1…. a-ha takes us to the finish line today with their great 70’s song: Take On Me…   I still am amazed every time I hear the singer for a-ha go to that high octave… I hope you have a Tub Tumpin’ Thursday today and Please Be Good To Yourself…. 

Chuck Butler

• the dollar continued to get sold
• But so do Gold & Silver… UGH!

Good Day… And a Wonderful Wednesday to you! Well, it wasn’t to be for the U.S. Baseball Team last night, as they lost to Venezuela 3-2…  it was a quick game with very little hitting…  A U.S. team comprised of some of the best hitters in baseball, couldn’t muster more than 2 runs… I had some problems with the manager Mark DeRosa’s lineup and starting pitcher, but that’s what’s great about baseball… Questions, Questions, Questions…  The Allman Brothers greet me this morning with their great song: One Way Out…. It’s the live version from their historic concert at the Fillmore East…. 

Well, the selling of the dollar continued yesterday as the dollar is returning to its underlying trend once again,,, the BBDXY lost 2 index points on the day and closed the day at 1,208. The euro has been the main beneficiary of the dollar selling, as it is the offset currency to the dollar… The Chinese renminbi has returned to seeling its official rate lowered each day… It sure seems that no matter what the price of Oil does, the Russian ruble gets sold… I guess that’s what you get when you invade a country.. No wait, isn’t that what we, as a country, just did?  So, the dollar should be getting sold regardless of whether the U.S. is in a war or not…

Gold tried and tried to gain a bid yesterday, ,but in the end, the love you take… No wait! I didn’t mean to quote a Beatles song, but I did… sorry about that! What I meant to say it in the end Gold lost $3 to close the day at 5,005… And Silver had the same fight on its hands as the day went on, and got sold by 67-cents to close the day at $79.17…  This selling of Gold & Silver is beginning to form a rash on me…. I mean they don’t need to have explosive days upward, just steady upward movement that signifies the demand for the metals… I’m just saying…

There still are no tankers getting through the Strait of Hormuz and while that’s still not happening the price of Oil fades… yes, that’ right, a commodity that will be difficult to obtain going forward is seeling its price fade… Yesterday, the price of Oil had a $95 handle…  I just think that this is a bargain basement price… 

And the Fed Heads were in doing their “yield control” yesterday, as the 10-year saw its yield sag to 4.18%

Ai guess there are still some traders out there in hinterland that believe the FOMC will cut rates today… If they do, they ought to be taken out back and hanged! The PCE showed that inflation is still sticky and rising, and IF the Fed Heads really do look at the PCE for guidance, then there should be no question of a rate cut, but instead discussion of a rate hike! 

In the overnight markets last night… The dollar was sold some more and starts today with the BBDXY at 1,206… Gold & Silver are seeing some selling to start the day with Gold down $39 and Silver down 17-cents to start our day. The price of Oil slipped again overnight and trades this morning with a $94 handle, while the 10-year remained trading with a 4.18% yield… 

It will be interesting to hear what Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel chairman, Powell has to say, as this could be his last FOMC meeting to chair…. The next FOMC meeting is in May and Powell’s deal is up in May… The POTUS’ next chair choice is Keven Warsh… 

I didn’t have any connection to the internet when I signed on this morning, so today’s Pfennig will be short-n-sweet…  

The pain at the pump is what I’m calling the recent upswing in gas prices….  These increases will be the main deterrent of the FOMC to cutting interest rates, along with the already sticky inflation…

Here’s Reuter’s this morning with their take on the Pain at the pump: “Trump and congressional Republicans are betting the oil-price shock sparked by the Iran crisis will be too short-lived to hurt them politically in November, but traders and industry analysts see signs that US pump prices will stay painfully high long after any diplomatic breakthrough.”

Chuck again..   Shoot Rudy, even the IEA (international Energy )  recently warned of a “historic Oil Shock”… Uh-oh… 

The U.S. Data Cupboard is dominated by the FOMC meeting this afternoon. But before that announcement on rates, we’ll see the Feb prints of PPI (wholesale inflation) and Factory Orders which have been very disappointing in its recent prints. 

To recap… the dollar continues to get sold and rightly so, in my humble opinion! Gold & Silver can’t find a bid that lasts, as every time they start to rally, they run into to the short sellers…  I was reading Ed Steer’s letter, once my internet connection was restored, and he’s wondering when the rinse, repeat cycle for the short sellers will end…. Hmmm…. 

For What It’s Worth… Well… I complained about the dollar getting bought recently, and now all seems to be back to order, but this article tells why the dollar was benefitting from all this rotten news and it can be found here: Dollar is benefiting from Iran conflict as investors worry about inflation – MarketWatch

Or, here’s your snippet: “One of the biggest beneficiaries of the Iran conflict has been the battered U.S. dollar, which traded near one of its strongest levels in months on Monday.

The Dollar Index, a measure of the greenback against a basket of six major peers, has jumped more than 2% in March. Stephen Innes, managing partner at SPI Asset Management in Bangkok, said the dollar index “is now pressing the top of a nine-month range.” Its strength appears to be spilling over into other markets, with some saying the dollar’s strength weighed on the price of gold.

Ordinarily, military conflicts trigger a flight into the safety of Treasurys and gold, but that’s not happening this time around because of a rising risk of inflation. It is precisely this risk that helped push Treasury yields higher before Monday’s session, taking the dollar along with them.

, Brent Crude a global benchmark for oil, above $100 a barrel. Worries about high inflation have triggered a notable selloff in U.S. government debt in March, leading to the biggest two-week jump in 10-year

 Treasury yields in almost a year last Friday. Higher yields, combined with reduced market expectations for multiple rate cuts by the Federal Reserve this year, have helped cause the dollar to strengthen.

Risks to global energy markets from the war in the Middle East “are causing inflationary angst” that has pushed up Treasury yields in March, said strategist Will Compernolle at FHN Financial in Chicago.”

Chuck again… Yes, the snippet is all over the place, but you get the gist…

Market Prices 3/18/2026: American Style: A$ .7111, kiwi .5883, C$ .7303, euro 1.1539, sterling 1.3358, Swiss $1.2721, European Style: rand 16.6319, krone 9.5942, SEK 9.2943, forint 336.90, zloty 3.6929, koruna 21.1746, RUB 83.00, yen 158.95, sing 1.2756, HKD 7.8386, INR 92.63, China 6.8723, peso 17.60, BRL 5.4923, BBDXY 1,206, Dollar Index 99.57, Oil $94.60, 10-year 4.18%, Silver $.7966, Platinum $2,100.00, Palladium $1,574.00, Copper $5.75, and Gold…. $4,989

That’s it for today… We had a very safe and fun St. Patricks’ Day, going out to eat and drink some green beers early and coming back and watching the baseball game….I had on my green party shirt with a leprechaun on it that got lots of comments on  throughout the day… I had to get a blood test yesterday, and now I’m waiting to see what’s going on…. My breathing is getting a bit better…. It’s so strange it’s the same type of problem I ended up in the hospital for last year.. It can’t be the same thing you think? Chicago takes us to the finish line this morning with their song (and my 2^nd fave song from them) Beginnings… I hope you have a Wonderful Wednesday today, and Please Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler 

• the dollar gets sold on Monday
• Price controls? I sure hope not!

Good Day… And a Tom Terrific Tuesday to you! And off day for my beloved Cardinals, so no team won or lost! The Cardinals are back on the field today, but rainstorms down here will probably postpone it… Rainy days have come to S. Florida, but with today’s St. Patrick’s Day celebrations going on, I doubt they will be postponed. Yes, top-o-the -day to you! I hope everyone has a safe but fun St. Patrick’s Day! Missouri greets me this morning with their great 70’s song: Movin’ On…. 

Well, the roadblock for the dollar that I told you about from the overnight markets Monday night, but then the selling continued… The dollar lost 7 index points on the day and ended the day in the BBDXY 1,209…  I had been wondering when the dollar’s run was going to be over… Apparently, the dollar traders realized that the POTUS didn’t really know what he was talking about when he said that the war would be over by the end of last week….  Took them a bit, but then I wouldn’t confuse them with a rocket scientist! 

Gold & Silver had to fight for survival yesterday…Gold started the day down $34, saw the physical buying bring back to a positive figure on the day, only to see the short sellers go after Gold gain, and Gold ended the day down $10, to close at $5,007… 

Silver had to deal with the same kind of trading and the dastardly dudes selling Silver Short… Silver started the day down 74-cents, then came back to a positive figure only to see the short sellers gain the advantage, but Silver only sold down by 7-cents to close at $80.38…

The price of Oil gyrated yesterday, with the price of Oil rising over $100, only to see it lose some ground and end the day with a $95 handle…  I think that this is a bargain price, a K-mart Blue light special, if you will… I  guess we’ll see…

And the 10-year Treasury saw some buying and ended the day with a 4.23% yield. 

In the overnight markets last night… The dollar was spared the type of selling it took on the previous night but, the dollar did get sold to the tune of 1 index point in the BBDXY where it starts our day at 1,208…  The liquidity crisis that was brewing was the cause of all the dollar buying, but the crisis seems to have abated, and so now dollar traders can get back to taking the dollar to the woodshed…  Gold & Silver are basically flat this morning, with Gold up $1 and Silver up 20-cents… I have something for you in the FWIW section this morning on Gold, so be patient, young Luke…  You’ll get there!   

There are a lot of rats are jumping the ship with Gold….  They’re turning tailcoat and running away from Gold, but here’s the catch, and I think they will abhor the day they bailed… The Central Bank buying of physical Gold is not abating.. And what do I always tell you? Follow the money!  

The euro has climbed back above the 1.15 handle this morning and should be on the way back to the 1.16 handle and beyond, if the dollar continues its slide as I suspect it will.. And when the euro does get back to the 1.16 handle, the rest of the currencies will follow, and you won’t have to concentrate on just the Swiss franc and Chinese renminbi to see appreciation against the dollar… I’m just saying…

Here’s a snippet of a story that I found on zerohedge,com: “A wave of layoffs across U.S. supply chains — from EV battery plants and auto parts factories to warehouses and rail terminals — has affected nearly 4,000 workers in recent weeks, according to company announcements and WARN filings across multiple states.

Recent WARN filings and company announcements show job cuts across at least a dozen companies in states including California, Georgia, Tennessee, Texas, Ohio, South Carolina, Pennsylvania and Alabama.

The largest layoffs in the recent wave are coming from the automotive and industrial supply chain. SK Battery America said it laid off 958 workers — about 37% of its workforce — at its electric vehicle battery plant in Commerce, Georgia, citing shifting EV demand as automakers reassess production plans.

Meanwhile, bankrupt auto parts manufacturer First Brands Group announced major workforce reductions, including 572 layoffs across three facilities in Brownsville, Texas, and 333 jobs cut at a plant in Fayetteville, Tennessee, as part of its Chapter 11 restructuring.”

Chuck again, and in another headline it read: “Mexico Truck Production Plunges 50% In February as U.S. Exports Slow”…  So, you see the shipping and exports slowdown from the Gulf shutdown, isn’t just about the U.S. in fact, the U.S. only gets about 20% of its daily need of Oil from the Middle East, so the run up in gas prices, in the U.S., is not because of the oil shipments getting shut down…  But because Oil is a global commodity and is used all over the world… They will suffer from lack of Oil… 

Didn’t anyone at the Pentagon or D.C think tank think that this might be a result of their attack on Iran? And the attacks on the other countries in the Gulf?  If they did, they sure planned for it in error…  I’m just saying… 

OK, moving on… speaking of Oil… The United States has not intervened in energy derivatives markets, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said, after the Middle East conflict pushed crude futures to the highest in almost four years.

“That rumor’s in the market,” Bessent said in an interview with CNBC when asked whether the U.S. could act in derivatives contracts to bring down the price of oil. “We haven’t done that.”

Chuck again… Ok, so what’s going to stem the rise of the price of gas in this country?  Well, I’m afraid that the POTUS will implement price controls… And not learning what happened when Nixon implemented price controls in 1971, this will lead to a slowing economy and a wider distribution of inflation… and the world stagflation comes to mind… 

The U.S. Data Cupboard yesterday had the Feb prints of Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization… Industrial Production surprised me with a .2% gain, and Capacity Utilization was up a smidgen, so for once in a blue moon the economic data prints were not awful… They weren’t great, but at least they weren’t awful…

There’s nothing in the Data Cupboard today other than Pending Home Sales, that don’t move the markets, so there’s that..

To recap… The dollar selling continued through the day yesterday, and it ended up losing 7 index points in the BBDXY from Friday’s close…  The selling of the dollar abated last night, but the dollar still saw a 1 index drop in the BBDXY… The euro has climbed back above the 1.15 handle, and with that the rest of the currencies all look a bit better this morning.  The price of Gas is really hurting the U.S. consumer, but world wide it’s crushing economies…  And Chuck fears that the POTUS will implement price controls to keep the price of gas steady…  Remember Nixon’s price controls?  Oh-no! 

For What It’s Worth… This article is about Gold, as I stated above, and is quite interesting in the way the writer describes how Gold should be priced… And it can be found here: Look beyond the selloff, gold prices should be valued against global debt, not the dollar – abrdn’s Minter | Kitco News

Or, here’s your snippet: “The gold market is once again struggling to maintain support near $5,000 an ounce as U.S. and Israeli military action against Iran boosts the U.S. dollar as a hedge against a potential liquidity crisis and rising inflation threats.

However, one market strategist says investors should not be valuing gold based on its relationship with the U.S. dollar, arguing that the traditional correlation between the two assets has broken down in recent years.

In an interview with Kitco News, Robert Minter, Director of ETF Strategy at abrdn, said the relationship between gold, interest rates, and the U.S. dollar stopped driving the precious metal’s price in 2022 and is unlikely to return. Instead, he said investors should be looking at broader structural forces shaping the global economy and ongoing central bank purchases.

Minter explained that the steady expansion of global central bank balance sheets is the most consistent factor behind gold’s long-term performance.

“When you look at how much the purchasing power of major currencies has been watered down, and you look at the size of central bank balance sheets, they’re up about a thousand percent since 1999,” he said. “Big surprise—so is gold.”

Minter added that for many investors, this dynamic is becoming increasingly visible in their everyday lives as rising costs erode purchasing power.

Minter said financial advisors are increasingly fielding questions from clients about how to protect their portfolios from persistent currency debasement.

“Advisors are hearing from clients about the erosion of their purchasing power in their day-to-day lives,” he said. “They’re looking for something they can put into a portfolio that helps offset that loss, and clearly commodities—especially gold—can play that role.”

Minter added that the broader macroeconomic backdrop also supports continued demand for the precious metal, as governments show little willingness—or ability—to reduce mounting debt levels.”

Chuck again… yes, a little longer snippet this morning.. The writer was making some good points that I couldn’t leave out!  Follow the money… Follow the money…. Follow the money… need I say more?

Market Prices 3/17/2026: American Style: A$ .7085, kiwi .5839, C$ .7301, euro 1.1508, sterling 1.3326, Swiss $1.2706, European Style: rand 16.7329, krone 9.6235, SEK 9.3104, forint 339.60, zloty 3.7056, koruna 21.2329, RUB 82.00, yen 159.13, sing 1.2781, HKD 7.8367, INR 92.37, China 6.8887, peso 17.67, BRL 5.2310, BBDXY 1,208, Dollar Index 99.58, Oil $96.58, 10-year 4.22%, Silver $80.58, Platinum $2,141.00, Palladium $1,643.00, Copper $5.75, and Gold… $5.008

That’s it for today… Happy St. Patrick’s Day! It’s going to be a cloudy, rainy day down here in S. Forida today but as I said above, I doubt it ruins any of the celebrations going on down here…  As you my recall, I have Irish blood in me… The Butlers came to Ireland in the Norman invasion and stayed and became a fabric of the Irish society… There’s even a famous place in Ireland, called “The Butler House”… I wanted to stay there so bad when I visited Ireland, but the house had no elevator, and I’m not friendly with steps! So, give me a kiss! I’m Irish!  HA!   The Outlaws take us to the finish line today with their long song, Green Grass And High Tides… I hope you have a Tom Terrific Tuesday, and safe, fun St. Patrick’s Day today, and Please Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler

• the dollar is on a run to higher ground
• The FOMC meets this week… So what?

Good Day… And a Marvelous Monday to you! Well, we had a weekend of spotty rain showers and sun… Friday night was a night game for my beloved Cardinals and we got the game in without anymore showers… The Cardinals pulled a loss out of the fire with a 9^th inning rally… Not that you care, it’s just what’s on my mind….  I’ve always said you’ve got to experience rainy days to enjoy sunshine days! Paul McCartney greets me this morning with a song from a solo album: Every Night…

Well, it’s batten down the hatches once again, as the dollar has a wild hair and has rallied to close Friday at 1,208 in the BBDXY… The dollar traders must really have swallowed the POTUS’s words hook, line and sinker and think that the war will be over soon.. I hate to be the one to break the news to them, but here goes, the opponent will fight to death, they will not concede…  I’m just saying… 

Gold & Silver ended the week on a sour note, being down Thursday and Friday. Friday’s loss in Gold was $60, and it closed the week at $5,017, while Silver saw Friday’s loss at $3.31, to close the week at 80.44… There are lots of people running for the hills now with Gold & Silver, but not me!  Inflation is just getting started growing again, and who knows where it will stop?  Besides that, I wouldn’t be selling my Gold & Silver with or without inflation… I bought it, and forgot about it, other than knowing that I have stored  some of my wealth…. And say no more… 

The price of Oil ran up again on Friday at ended the week trading with a $98 handle… The oil traders get it that the war is going to go on, and now the Strait of Hormuz is closed… Good thing that the U.S. has strong Oil production or this could be a return to the 70’s… I remember sitting in gas lines, and sometimes getting up at 3 a.m. To go get some gas before everyone else woke up… 

The 10-year is seeing the bond boys buy into the thought of higher inflation is coming and along with that will be rate hikes, and they are ratcheting the yield on the bond upward… The 10-year ended the week with a 4.28% yield… 

In the overnight markets last night…  The dollar ran into a roadblock and saw it get sold… The BBDXY starts the day/week at 1.212…  That’s strong enough for the dollar, isn’t it? I mean with all the awful data printing, a war waging, and inflation rising, per the PCE last week, and other varied bad things going on, this dollar strength doesn’t have legs as far as I’m concerned…  

The price of Gold is seeing some short selling this morning, so it starts the week below $5,000 down $34, and Silver is also getting whipsawed again, and has lost the $80 handle and trades this morning down $2.96 at $77.96…  The short sellers have done a masterful job of bringing these two metals back to earth, and scaring the bejeebers out of investors… 

The price of Oil bumped a little higher overnight and starts today with a $97 handle, while the 10-year Treasury continues to get sold and starts the week with a 4.26% yield…

The Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel will meet to discuss interest rates this week… It’ll be a 2-day meeting, so the board games will be being used again… By Joe, you’ve sunk my battleship! With all the unknowns going on right now, I don’t expect the Fed Heads in the FOMC to move rates this time around…  And then there was all that awful data last week, which should have sealed the deal on a no rate cut verdict…

And one would think that going to war would be the biggest expense in a Gov’t…  But the Department of Defense said, “not so fast Tim”…  Get this: “The DOD spent $93.4 Billion in Sept… I have the story in the FWIW section today… no need to skip ahead, you’ll get there in just a few minutes…

On Sunday, I witnessed a video by Martin Weiss, of Weiss Ratings, tell me that the Medical System is about to blow up… And beginning in the 4^th QTR of this year, when insurance premiums are mailed out to customers, the fuse will be lit….  He claims that this Medical System blowup will 75 times the size of the mortgage meltdown in 2008…  I’ve known about Martin Weiss for decades, and for a while he was friendly to us at Mark Twain Bank World Currency Div.  So, to say that he’s just a nut would be wrong…  I’m just telling you this now so that when it happens, you’ll say, “Chuck told us it would happen”…. 

One trivia fact here… Did you know that over 90% of our medications, from penicillin to prednisone comes from China? And we continue to tick them off with tariffs….  What happens if…  Nah, never mind, that’ll never happen… or will it? 

What does all this have to do with economies, currencies, metals and dolts, which are my normal writing arrows are shot at?  Well, if I have to explain that, you must be new to the Pfennig, because….  Most things come back to the economy, and that relates to the currency, and metals… and are usually implemented by dolts…  

Circling the wagons on the dollar.. We find that overnight the dollar got sold… But it has risen so quickly and so hard, that the currencies haven’t been able to put up a defense, and the BIg Dog euro, has not only lost the 1.16 handle but also the 1.15 handle… The Swiss Franc seems to be the only currency trading with a bid this morning… The Chinese renminbi has slipped a bit form its lofty level VS the dollar last week.. The Japanese yen is getting torched once again along with the Russian ruble.  So, as I described above, it’s time to batten down the hatches and walk away from all this chaos and dollar buying for a the time being. 

The U.S. Data Cupboard last Friday was chock-full-o-data… starting with a revision of 4^th QTR GDP, yes it has been delayed… But showed only .7% gain… That’s a rounding error folks, it could have easily been negative!  Then we had the Consumer Spending and Income, both were up .4%…  But then the Big Kahuna of data printed, and that is the PCE (Personal Consumption Expenditures) the Fed Heads’ favorite inflation calc. The PCE for Jan was up and the annualized PCE was 3.1%… With that inflation calc rising above 3%, I just don’t see the Fed Heads cutting interest rates any time soon… If they do, then we have a bigger problem, so let’s hope they see the light… 

There were also Jan Durable Goods Orders, and they were flat 0% gain for the month… This follows up a negative -1.3% for December… The forecasters had pegged this data to recover to 1.3% gain, but that was not to be…  And then there was Job Openings, and they increased by .3 Million… finally, there was the STUPID Consumer Sentiment, which dropped a mere.1 to 55.5 from 55.6… Don’t know why the propeller heads decided to print it! 

The Data Cupboard for this week is dominated by the FOMC meeting on Wednesday… But first, we’ll see the color of the Feb. Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization… I can’t imagine in any world that these two are not weak…. 

Regarding the Data Cupboard for the rest of the world… The Reserve Bank of Australia is set to meet this week and I expect them to be the only Central Bank to hike rates this week….  We will see interest rate meetings in the U.K. And Switzerland this week too…  Oh! And let us not forget that the Fed/ Cabal/Cartel will meet this week too! 

To recap… The dollar has gotten a wild hair and is rallying… Batten down the hatches and remember that the dollar has an underlying weak trend going on…  But in the overnight markets the dollar ran into a roadblock and was sold… I think that most markets will be subdued until the Fed Heads make their announcement on rates on Wednesday… But then, who knows? 

For What It’s Worth… Well, I prebilled this and it’s as interesting as it sounds… This comes from longtime reader Bob, (thanks Bob!) and it chronicles the spending by the DOD in Sept… and it can be found here: Pentagon Should Focus on Defense Priorities, not Lavish Dinners, After Historic $93.4B “Use-It-or-Lose-It” September

r, here’s your snippet: “Open the Books has tracked the annual September spending bonanza for nearly a decade. Military spending has spiked every year, regardless of which party controlled the White House.

However, there has never been anything quite like September 2025, when $93.4 billion was spent on grants and contracts. Since at least 2008 — and presumably in history — no federal agency has ever spent so much on grants and contracts in a single month.

In the last five working days of September alone, the DoD spent $50.1 billion on grants and contracts. That’s more than the annual defense budget of countries like Israel and Italy. In fact, there are only nine foreign countries that spend that much on their military in an entire year!

These amounts only include money sent to entities outside the government, not salaries for service members and scores of other expenses.

Instead, the shopping spree encompasses luxury food items like lobster, high-end furniture and rushed IT purchases.

Here are some of the purchases…. 

$6.9 million on lobster tails

$2 million on Alaskan king crab

$15.1 million on ribeye steak

$139,224 for doughnuts

$124,000 for ice cream machines

$5.3 million on Apple devices

$4 million on Samsung devices, including a $4,000 98-inch monitor with “crystal UHD display”

$98,329 on a Steinway & Sons grand piano for the Air Force chief of staff’s home

Chuck again… Don’t you agree with me that the DOD should be spending our tax dollars on more important things other than luxury items?  

Market Prices 3/16/2026: American Style: A$ .7039, kiwi .5833, C$ .7301, euro 1.1474, sterling 1.3269, Swiss $1.2688, European Style: rand 16.6137, krone 9.7230, SEK 9.3917, forint 340.65, zloty 3.7184, koruna 21.2906, RUB 81.08, yen 159.26, sing 1.2797, HKD 7.8304, INR 92.42, China 6.8926, peso 17.81, BRL 5.3237, BBDXY 1,212, Dollar Index 100.43, Oil $97.87, 10-year 4.26%, Silver $77.96, Platinum $2,082.00, Palladium $1.545.00, Copper $5.75, and Gold… $4,982

That’s it for today… A HUGE win by the U.S. Baseball team last night VS the Dominican Republic 2-1…  Paul Skenes is a stud pitcher and I’m glad he’s on the U.S. team! Italy and Venezuela will play for the other spot in the finals tonight.. Our Blues road win streak ended last night in Winnipeg… UGH My beloved Cardinals won their game VS the Nationals yesterday… We ended up leaving a little early because the dark clouds overhead and our weather apps telling us that rain was minutes away, I’m glad we did! This should be an interesting week with the FOMC disappointing the markets… get ready for that announcement…Doucette takes us to the finish line today, with his great song: Mama Let Him PLAY… I hope you have a Marvelous Monday today, and Please Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler 

• the dollar rallies on Wed. as The STUPID CPI remains sticky
• Chuck goes through the national debt…

Good Day… And a Tub Thumpin’ Thursday to one and all! Well, by virtue of Italy beating Mexico last night, the U.S. Baseball team will go to the knockout round and will play Friday VS Canada… Hmmm, that sounds familiar! I think it’s time to go for the trifecta! Some really good baseball has been played so far in this World Baseball Classic, especially since it’s so early in March! It’s raining right now, but the rain is supposed to stop for about 6 hours, more than time enough to get in my beloved Cardinals Baseball game today… The late GREAT Leon Russell greets me this morning with his song: Back To The Island

The U.S. dollar got some love yesterday, and the BBDXY gained 5 index points, the euro lost the 1.16 handle and that’s about all you need to know about how the rest of the currencies are doing….  There are a couple of the Petrol Currencies that have held ground… the Norwegian krone, and the Brazilian real are the two Petrol currencies that have held their ground and not lost too much to the dollar this morning…  

Gold & Silver never got the chance to reverse their early morning losses yesterday, the SPTS were out in force, and the short timers that bought Gold & Silver for a short term gain, were the culprits that caused Gold to lose $15 on the day and close at $5,175, and Silver took a ride on Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride and ended up losing $2.51 and closing at $85.57…

They say that Gold’s selling came from fading bets that the Fed Heads will be cutting interest rates…   I think that soon traders and investors will get over that thought and get back to buying Gold…  I’m just saying…

My friend, and editor of his newsletter, 5 Bullets, Dave Gonigam talked about the problems with “private Credit” yesterday… And then I came across this article that talks about how the private credit problems will lead to more investors fleeing to Gold…. A safe haven, if you will… but you don’t have to take my word on it, here’s a very brief snippet from Kitco.com: “Don’t expect gold prices to fall anytime soon, as risks building in private credit markets threaten to spill over into the broader global economy and boost gold demand once again, according to one market analyst.”

Chuck Again…. The price of Oil rallied on news that even though promised, no ships are being escorted through the Strait of Hormuz…. Oil ended the day with a $92 handle…  I wouldn’t get too upset with the price of Oil right now… There are many days of ships attempting to get through the Strait before we see Oil settle down… 

And the 10-year Treasury saw lots of selling, on the STUPID CPI  (and the real inflation rate) and the bond ended the day with a 4.20% yield… 

In the overnight markets last night…. The dollar slipped a bit and the BBDXY starts today at 1,204… I really don’t see what the pundits are saying about the STUPID CPI… Most of what I’m reading is that: inflation has fallen… What? Really?  They have the intestinal fortitude to say that out loud? Well, I’ve said enough about eh ineptness of the BLS, so I’ll move on… 

Gold & Silver try to mount the rally horse again this morning, with Gold up $6 and Silver up $2.21   I’m really surprised by Silver’s rebound; it seems that Silver gets whacked and then comes back and says, may I have another? Not really, but it sure seems that way!  

The price of Oil slipped a buck overnight and starts today with a $91 handle, and the 10-year Treasury remained trading with a 4.20% yield overnight… 

I’m going to spend a bit of time this morning on our debt accumulation…  First, this from Fortune, which wasn’t behind their paywall….  “The U.S. Treasury’s borrowing showed no signs of slowing as the U.S. headed deeper into fiscal year 2026, with the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reporting that another $1 trillion was added to the federal deficit in the first five months of the year.

The monthly budget review from the CBO, updated to February 2026 and released yesterday, showed that the government is estimated to have borrowed $308 billion last month alone.

Of course, with more borrowing comes higher interest costs on the debt. Between October 2025 (when the 2026 fiscal year started) and February, the Treasury spent an additional $31 billion on net interest on public debt, compared to the prior year. As a result, in just five months, the Treasury forked out a total of $433 billion to service public debt, which is now nearing $38.9 trillion.”

Chuck again… CBO also said, “This cannot be sustainable’: The U.S. borrowed $50 billion a week for the past five months, the CBO says”

This is getting ridiculous… our deficit spending that is…. I’m reminded that Einstein once said, “When you owe more than you can pay, it’s a powerful force for bankruptcy.”  if course he was talking about individuals, but this can play in this sandbox too! 

The taxpayer money that’s being spent on debt servicing is growing and growing and growing with nothing to stop the bleeding…. soon, I think we, as a country, will have to print more money to pay our debt servicing costs.. Really long-time readers know that I’ve been shouting from the rooftops for a generation about our national debt…  I used to have a conniption fit over a $6 Trillion debt… And that was many moons ago! 

But congress has no internal guts to do what’s necessary…  They have to cut spending so much that we book a surplus in our year budget, and then repeat it year after year, until this debt looks like something that we, as a country, can afford….  Because we certainly can’t afford what we have now $39 Trillion! 

OK, I’ll get off my soapbox now…. circling the wagons back to energy prices and rate cuts, for a moment… this from Bloomberg.com “Despite the prospect of releasing oil reserves, continued uncertainty translates into continued upside risk for oil prices, and that translates into a Fed that will remain cautious about cutting interest rates,” said Ellen Zentner at Morgan Stanley Wealth Management.”

Chuck again… the new to-be chairman of the Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel, Kevin Warsh, will have a tough row to hoe with getting his fellow Fed Heads to go along with a rate cut…  so, we have that to look forward to, eh? 

The U.S. Data Cupboard yesterday has the STUPID CPI that showed erroneously that is that inflation grew .3% in Feb and remained at +2.5% year on year…  Those numbers are a worthless as a handbrake on a canoe! There was no report on scheduled Fed Budget Balance, as the cooks were still massaging the numbers to report… 

Today’s Data Cupboard the usual Weekly Initial Jobless Claims, and the U.S. Trade balance for Feb…  This was before the judge said no mas on the tariffs, so this should be a credit… I’m still wondering if the U.S. is going to rebate the tariffs they took in…  I’m just asking…

To recap… Currencies got sold, metals got sold, stocks got sold, and bonds got sold yesterday…  The dollar got bought!  Right now, the feeling in the markets is that the Fed won’t be able to cut rates, and that has the dollar getting bought… We’ll see how long that lasts…    And Chuck goes the whole 9 yards on our debt this morning… 

For What It’s Worth… Well, yesterday the BLS issued their STUPID CPI report and it showed no change in inflation… But, as I’ve explained for years, the BLS uses hedonic adjustments to make the inflation rate lower… And that’s what this article is all about and can be found here: Opinion: The real inflation rate? Try 3.3% — and that’s before the jump in gas prices. – MarketWatch

Or, here’s your snippet: “The federal government’s publication of the latest consumer inflation data saw Wall Street once again engaging in its favorite activity — spraying BS as far and wide as possible, and on an industrial scale.

Moments after the latest official data dropped, my inbox began filling up with comments from strategists so vapid that I could almost hear my brain cells crying out in agony and dying while I read them. These comments will soon be replaced by artificial-intelligence robots with no — I repeat, no — loss of utility.

Forget the “official” or trailing 12-month inflation rate. Yes, those are the numbers Wall Street likes to talk about. They aren’t just stale; to use Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy’s excellent new phrase, they’re as “dead as fried chicken.” They compare prices last month with prices 13 months ago. Who cares? In the real world, where normies live, all that people care about are two things: What’s happening to prices now, and what’s likely to happen next.

And on these questions, the latest data are either ominous (if you are an optimist) or bad (if you aren’t.)

Here are the key takeaways.

At the latest count, inflation is actually speeding up — it’s getting worse, not better. Last month, consumer prices rose at an annualized rate of 3.3%, the latest official data show. A month earlier, that rate was just 2.1%. Over the past three months, prices have risen at an annual rate of 3.0% — the highest three-monthly reading since October.

That figure is after applying statistical “seasonal adjustments” that have the effect of lowering the apparent inflation rate. If you look at the raw consumer-price index before applying these adjustments, prices between January and February rose at an annualized rate of 5.8%. Yes, really. Good times.”

Chuck again… The BLS calculations are BS in my opinion… Need I say more? You and I both know that inflation is stronger than the BLS tells us in their STUPID CPI report…  I’m just saying…

Market Prices 3/12/2026: American Style: A$ .7134, kiwi .5904, C$ .7358, euro 1.1555, sterling 1.3389, Swiss $1.2807, European Style: rand 16.5574, krone 9.6762, SEK 9.2577, forint 335.43, zloty 3.6314, koruna 20.1189, RUB 79.16, yen 158.75, sing 1.2751, HKD 7.8269, INR 92.19, China 6.8704, peso 17.70, BRL 5.1569, BBDXY 1,204, Dollar Index 99.34, Oil $91.01, 10-year 4.20%, Silver $87.12, Platinum $2,184.00, Palladium $1,677.00, Copper $5.88, and Gold… $5,183

That’s it for today and this week… it’s been a week of lies on top of lies… You can’t believe the news that comes out about the war, inflation, the economy, etc.  There are no markets, just manipulations… I stand by that statement! Well, it’s the U.S. vs Canada once more, this time in baseball… Hopefully the U.S brings their A Game! My beloved Mizzou Tigers will play the vaunted Kentucky today in the SEC Tournament… A bad draw for sure! Mizzou beat Kentucky in the early season before Kentucky got its legs under themselves… UGH!  And our Billikens play on Friday in the A10 Tournament… Good luck to both teams!  The Moody Blues take us to the finish line today with their song: Isn’t Life Strange…  boy they hit the nail on the head with that title! I hop you have a Tub Thumpin’ Thursday today, and Please Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler