Author: admin

January 11, 2021

* Currencies get sold on Friday… 

* U.S. Data last week was ugly… 

Good Day… And a Marvelous Monday to you….  Well, are you suffering from Football playoff games withdrawal this morning? 6 playoff games this past weekend… Crazy… And the College National Championship Game tonight! I have just a passing interest in the NFL, and on Saturday, I had forgotten about the games being played until it was 8 o’clock at night! The NFL players turned me off to watching them a couple of years ago, and my interest in the games has never really come back. I’m rooting for Alabama in tonight’s game VS Ohio St. I for one, didn’t think that OSU should be included in the final 4, since at that point they had only played 6 games… Not their fault, but still… Try and navigate a full Conference schedule of 10 games, there’s bound to be a bad game there most years… I’m just saying…  OK… Head East greets me this morning with their song: Never Been Any Reason…

On a side bar here… The Band, Head East’s first album had a picture of them eating at counter at a restaurant that my good friend Duane and I used to frequent for breakfasts… The Olivette Diner…

OK… I give… I give, I’m calling uncle, stop twisting my arm! Can you hear Gold crying out in pain? Three straight days of engineered takedowns last week, and in the overnight markets more selling….  On Friday, Gold lost $63.80 to close at $1,851.00 and Silver lost $1.71 to close at $25.50…  It’s been downright ugly this past week for Gold & Silver, with Gold taking the brunt of the selling…  Why? I have no idea why anyone in this day of constant currency printing, zero interest rates, negative yielding bonds, and half the country’s economy shutdown, would anyone that has their head screwed on straight would be selling their Gold…  And I say this to all of the Gold sellers… You’ll be sorry…

I really don’t get it… Biden “has said he plans to push out at least two more comprehensive stimulus packages that could add trillions to the U.S. federal debt,, and mean the printing presses for currency debasement will be running overtime…  If this pullback in Gold’s price doesn’t scream “buy me” then I don’t know what will…  I’m just glad I don’t get the itch to sell my Gold Holdings when it seems that the price manipulators have pushed gold into the elevator going down…  If I were still working, I would be looking to add to my Gold holdings, not sell them…

So, it wasn’t just the metals that got sold late last week, the euro, which had touched 1.23 a couple of times and even traded over it last Thursday morning, found the footing very slippery and hasn’t been able to find terra firma since…  So, suddenly traders had second thoughts about selling dollars? Did they have a coming to Jesus meeting with the Powers that Be about selling dollars?  Because that’s what it sure looks like to me…  Traders arrived at their desks on Friday morning, to a memo from the bosses, that said, “Quit selling dollars, now”!  And don’t think that this scenario is ridiculous, or unfathomable, because that’s how trading desks work…

I found this little snippet on the forexlive.com site, listen in here: “The dollar will go wherever the Fed does, and the Fed will follow inflation. Already the talk from the central bank is changing. Less than a month ago they were contemplating more QE or lengthening the average maturity of purchases. This week, Clarida and Evans were talking about timelines for tapering bond purchases.

They’ve been strident in forecasting no rate rate hikes into 2024 but that always comes with a caveat about inflation.”

Chuck again…  they were trying to explain why they think the dollar is due for a rally…  And they think the Fed will hike rates when inflation starts to run higher…  Have they not been paying attention in class when I’ve explained how with so much debt the U.S. cannot afford to have higher interest rates, period!   It is important to point out though, that in a trend, asset movement is not a ONE-WAY Street, there’s always a chance of volatility, and to me that’s what late last week was… A tempest in a Teacup is more like what’s happening… I do believe… Of course I could be wrong… But I do believe this dollar strength won’t last long… 

So, let’s go through the U.S. Data Cupboard prints from late last week… First we had the Weekly Initial Jobless Claims, which were 787,000 for the previous week… That’s not good considering that the week was shortened by the holiday… Then we had the Nov. Trade Deficit which was $68.1 Billion up from the previous month’s number of $63.1 Billion… And we had Clarida and Evans, two Fed Heads, speaking and they both mentioned tapering bond purchases… Hmmmm…  On Friday, we saw the BLS version of Jobs for December and they actually showed 140,000 jobs lost in the month, which was pretty darn close to the ADP number of 123,000 jobs lost…    The problem with this number is that in reality it was far worse than 140,000 jobs lost… The BLS added 157,000 jobs to the surveys, which means that the surveys showed 197,000 jobs lost in December…

And what’s this I see, is this a disturbance in the force? Avg. Hourly Earnings rose from .3% in Nov. to .8% in December…  A .5% gain in wages… This will lead to inflation rising folks… Wage inflation is what the Fed has been waiting for…

We were supposed to see the color of the latest Consumer Credit, (read debt) but it failed to launch on Friday… And that gets my conspiracy controlled mind working overtime, folks…

So, as you can see… The economic data wasn’t good late last week, and so we know that it wasn’t the data that got everyone all lathered up to sell Gold & currencies…  Now, does my explanation of what happened make more sense?  I thought it would…

In the overnight markets… Before I went to bed last night, I checked the markets as they had opened in Asia, and Gold was down already , $20… I went to bed thinking that this morning I would see Gold down another $50… But to my surprise, the $20 loss has been wiped out, and Gold is down just 50-cents this morning…  There had to be a ton of bargain buyers in the overnight markets, to bring Gold back to near even today…  And Gold is taking the stairs up after their trip downward in the elevator! 

The currencies seem to have plugged the hole in the dam..  And they are sitting at the same levels they closed on Friday.  This week, we’ll see what becomes of Biden’s stimulus plans, and how much currency printing will be required… It’s just a darn shame folks, that we, as a country, keep going to the well, of deficit spending… One of these days, we’re going to find that the well had gone dry, we’ll pull up the bucket and there will be no water (currency) and then what will we, as a country do?  Can you say default? I knew you could… 

I had a dear reader send me a note that someone had written that was titled 545 VS 300,000,000,000 People…  (that’s 300 Million!) he’s talking about us! Well, here are a couple of snippets from this excellent piece written by a man named Charlie Reese…

“One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one President, and nine Supreme Court justices equates to 545 human beings out of the 300 million who are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem
was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional
duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private,
central bank.

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million cannot replace
545 people who stand convicted — by present facts — of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can’t think of a single domestic problem that is not
traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain
truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it
must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.”

Chuck again..  This is a very good synopsis of what exists in this country, and that if the people of this country would just wake up and realize that all our problems are direct result of what these 545 people do… Maybe we could vote them out, and start all over again… Maybe…

There’s no data scheduled to print today… So maybe they’ll try to sneak the Consumer Credit data under the radar today…   Only the shadow knows if they will or won’t…

To recap… it’s been downright ugly and in the whole forest, for Gold & Silver from Wednesday on… And Chuck gives a few reasons why that shouldn’t be happening, but it is, so use it as a buying opportunity… Currency traders must have gotten a memo to stop selling dollars, which they did on Friday… Gold appears to have taken the elevator down, and will now have to take the stairs back up, but it will… in Chuck’s opinion that is…  The economic data was ugly last week too… But who uses fundamentals like economic data any longer? 

For What It’s Worth… Once again I’ve come to a place where I wish all this information and proof was around 10 years ago, when I said Gold was being manipulated downward, and was told by the power that be that I couldn’t talk about it any longer, because it was simply conspiracy… Well, now it’s conspiracy fact!  This article talks about how Deutsche Bank just had to pay a HUGE fine for manipulating currencies and metals, and it can be found here: Deutsche Bank to pay nearly $125 million to resolve U.S. bribery, metals charges | Reuters

Or, here’s your snippet: “Deutsche Bank AG will pay nearly $125 million to avoid U.S. prosecution on charges it engaged in foreign bribery schemes and manipulated precious metals markets, the latest blow for the bank as it tries to rebound from a series of scandals.

Germany’s largest lender agreed to the payout as it entered a three-year deferred prosecution agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice, and a related civil settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Almost all of the payout relates to charges Deutsche Bank violated the federal Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) over its dealings in Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, China and Italy, court papers show. Nearly two-thirds of the payout is a criminal fine.

The settlements were made public on Friday at a hearing in the federal court in Brooklyn, New York.

“Deutsche Bank engaged in a criminal scheme to conceal payments to so-called consultants worldwide who served as conduits for bribes to foreign officials and others,” in order to win and retain “lucrative business projects,” Acting U.S. Attorney Seth DuCharme in Brooklyn said in a statement.

In the metals case, prosecutors accused Deutsche Bank traders of placing fraudulent trades, known as spoofing, to induce other traders to buy and sell futures contracts at prices they otherwise would not have.”

Chuck again…  I’ll say what I always say when another bank gets taken to the woodshed for manipulating the markets…  And no one goes to Jail…. 

Market price 1/11/21:  American Style:  A$ .7710,   kiwi .7190,  C$ .7829, euro 1.2267, sterling 1.3487, Swiss $1.1235, European Style: rand 15.4414, krone 8.5109, SEK 8.2731,  forint 296.22,  zloty 3.7187,   koruna 31.5513, RUB 74.05, yen 104.18, sing 1.3286, HKD 7.7551, INR 73.43, China 6.4744, peso 20.18,  BRL 5.4143,  Dollar Index 90.44,  Oil $51.86,  10-year 1.10%, Silver $25.04, Platinum $1,041.00, Palladium $2,409.00, Copper $3.63, and Gold… $1,850.50

That’s it for today… I hope your team won this past weekend… I no longer have a home team to root for, and by default I get the K.C. Chiefs… They are A Missouri Team!  The cold front I talked about coming my way this past weekend, did make it here, but I was still able to sit out by the ocean and read in comfort… In other words, it didn’t actually get cold! Maybe for lifelong Floridians it was cold, but not for me! I received new noise cancelling AirPods for Christmas and I’ve been putting them to work each day! I love they way, when I have to take one out of my ear to hear what someone is saying to me, the music pauses, until I put it back in my ear! I don’t have too much else to say this morning, so I’ll end it.. The Guess Who take us to the finish line today with their song: No Sugar Tonight…  I’m sure I’ve talked about how I like the Guess Who’s singer, Burton Cummings… Ok, I hope you have a Marvelous Monday, and please Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler

January 7, 2021

* Gold sees another engineered takedown

* Currencies lose ground to the dollar on Wednesday… 

Good day… And a Tub Thumpin’ Thursday to you! What a scene yesterday from the Capitol… I’m not going to say any more about that because I don’t want to be accused of talking politics… Of course I don’t really know what is construed as politics any longer, since last week all I said was, that McConnell had nixed the $2,000 checks… And I got told to shut the *&^( up about politics!  OK… Have you ever gotten to the point where you know you’re right but everyone keeps telling you you’re wrong, and you get so frustrated that you want to lash out?  I’m just wondering if that’s ever happened to you?  It happens to me all the time, and in my younger days, when I had a very bad temper, I would lash out, and then feel bad for doing so…  Doctors and nurses can’t believe that I ever had a bad temper, they always tells me how easy I am and how I just go with the program… I tell them, “that’s because you have the needles!” HAHAHAHA!  Elton John greets me this morning with his song: Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters… One of my fave Elton John songs…  that one and Honky Cat…

Well, I guess the price manipulators didn’t like that I said that 2021 would be a “golden year”, and that all the currency printing was going to be beneficial to Gold… Yesterday early morning, Gold was down a few bucks, not big deal… And then the boys in the band showed up at the COMEX with their arms full of short Gold paper trades, and the engineered takedown was on…

Gold, yesterday lost $32 on the day…  Now tell me how this sounds…  We start they year with a $44 gain, followed by an $8 gain, and then all the reasons Gold was being bought the previous two days went to hell in a hand basket? And people sold?  See howd illogical that sounds?  The only people that were selling actual positions didn’t cause a $32 slide! The Price Manipulators, led by JPMorgan saw to it that before everyone thought that Gold was going to be a one-way shot higher, that they had different plans…  Here I go getting my exercise again… Shaking my head in disbelief…

OK… The currencies gave back a bit of ground on the day too, but nothing like the hit that Gold took… The euro was able to remain above 1.23, which had been a line of resistance… And the Aussie dollar (A$) did slip below 78-cents but barely… So… it was Moving Day on Tuesday, and Move back in day on Wednesday!  There was nothing, absolutely nothing, say it again, that would have caused this backing off of selling the dollar… If anything, you would think that the goings on in D.C. would have caused some additional dollar selling, but not yesterday…  Makes you think that the PPT was buying dollars once again…

In the overnight markets, the dollar bugs won the battle… not the war, but the battle, and pushed the euro back below 1.23, and the Aussie dollar further down the 77 handle… It appears that it was a bunker down and hide behind dollars night… I don’t know what the overnight markets were fearing, but it sure looks like they feared something… The Big Bad Boogie Man? Or The Big Bad Plunge Protection Team?  Most like it was the latter of those two… I’m just saying… 

So, we start our Tub Thumpin’ Thursday with the dollar pushing back, and Gold down $4, and Silver down 19-cents. The price of Oil remains above the $50 handle, and the 10-year Treasury’s yield climbed higher in the past 24 hours and is trading this morning at 1.05%!  

Have I ever told you about a presentation I did in Orlando  in 2003? Well, if I have I’m going to tell it again, because this is what happens when the dollar in entrenched in a weak trend like it was in 2003…..  I was scheduled to speak in a room that held about 200 people…  Before I took to the stage, I noticed the room filling up quickly, and soon all the seats were taken, and people began to camp out sitting the floor… Then the standing room only crowd filled in against the walls of the room, and then a Hotel person came in and told me that they would not allow any more people in the room.  So, Chris Gaffney went to the back of the room, and held the door ajar, and would tell the people waiting out in the hallway, what I was saying… The amount of people wanting to get in to hear what I had to say probably totaled 350… Not the largest crowd I ever spoke to, but… the first time I had to have someone relaying my message to the folks outside the room…  After that year, the conference people began putting me in larger rooms…

But that’s what the frenzy to get out of dollar is like when the dollar is entrenched in a weak trend, as it is beginning to be now… I guess they don’t hold “in person” conferences any longer, and everything is virtual… So, it will be difficult to gauge when the frenzy to sell dollars come to be… But I do feel it will come, and I’m sure if it does come it will be this year!

And this morning, Ed Steer (www.edsteergoldsilver.com) had an interview with Doug Casey, and I’m going to borrow a small piece of that interview because it plays well with what I’m talking about here…  So, take it away Doug… .”First of all, we have to define what Mises meant by a “crack-up boom.” It can occur when the public realizes that money is being printed at a great rate, and it’s likely to continue being printed at a great rate. The public then starts moving out of money to buy anything of real value. All that money is passed around faster and faster, like an old maid card, causing a “crack-up boom.” It’s not a real boom. It’s caused by fear, not prosperity. The desperation of trying to get into real goods and get out of the U.S. dollar creates what you might call uneconomic economic activity.”-Doug Casey

The U.S. Data Cupboard had the ADP Employment Report for December yesterday, and the report showed that the economy lost 123,000 jobs during the month…  YIKES…  Of course the BLS Jobs Jamboree on Friday won’t come near that number… I’m just saying…   December Factory Orders also printed and showed a 1.0% gain, VS 1.3% in Nov.   So, Riddle me this Batman… How can Factory Orders show a drop in Dec from Nov. but the manufacturing index (ISM) showed a big gain?   Hmmm.

This morning’s Data Cupboard has the Weekly Initial Jobless Claims, which will be skewered once again because of the holiday last week…  It won’t be until next week that we see a full week of claims being filed… And we have 3 Fed Heads on the speaking circuit today… Bullard, Evans and Day…  I wonder what lies they’ll be telling us this time?  As Pink Floyd sang: Haven’t you heard, it’s a battle words, and most of them are lies….

To recap… it was another engineered takedown in Gold yesterday by the boys in the band, who showed up at the COMEX with their collective arms full of short Gold paper trades… And Gold lost $32 on the day… The currencies saw some dollar buying that didn’t amount to too much, but still knocked the currencies off their lofty levels on the day. And Chuck gives us a glimpse of what the frenzy to sell dollars is like when the dollar is well entrenched in a weak trend…

For What It’s Worth…  You know I first met Jim Rogers years ago, when he came to our office at EverBank World Markets and had lunch with us at our desks, and we talked about markets etc. And ever since that day, I’ve bought and read all his books, and sit up and take notice any time he’s on TV or in print…  And so it was with this article that quotes Jim Rogers thoughts on Silver, and it can be found here: Jim Rogers recommends investment in silver | The Korea News Plus (newsarticleinsiders.com)

Or, here’s your snippet: “Famed investor Jim Rogers, the founder of the Quantum Fund, recommended investment in silver in the New Year as its price is substantially lower than historic high.

The financial commentator made the advice in a recent interview with E-Trend, a YouTube channel focusing on economic and stock market news.

“Silver is down 50 percent from its all-time high. Gold is down 10 percent from its all-time high, less than 10 percent. I will buy both, but I will buy more silver than gold,” he said.

The gold price has moved below $1,900 per ounce over the past month compared to its historic high of $2,069.4 this August.

That of silver approached $50 an ounce in the late 1970’s to fluctuate below the historic high after that. Silver struggled over the past decade but turned around after the virus outbreak to trade at around $25 last month.”

When asked about the stock market… “I am not very good at market timing, but I would imagine the bubble will pop later in 2021 because bubbles don’t go on forever, and bubbles are already developing in Korea, Japan, America, and some places,” he said.”

Chuck again… You always and I mean always know where you stand and what’s on his mind, when Jim Rogers talks… And like the old EF Hutton commercial… When Jim Rogers talks, I listen….

Market Prices  1/7/ 2021: American Style: A$ .7745,  kiwi .7251, C$ .7858, euro 1.2267, sterling 1.3489, Swiss $1.1322, European Style: rand 15.2294, krone 8.4379, SEK 8.2015,  forint 292.16,  zloty 3.6775,   koruna 21.3388, RUB 73.87, yen 103.66. sing 1.3242, HKD 7.7529, INR 73.30, China 6.4571, peso 19.75, BRL 5.2933,  Dollar Index 89.85,  Oil $50.79,  10-year 1.05%, Silver $27.16, Platinum $1,098.00, Palladium $2,459.00, Copper $3.65, and Gold… $1,915.20

That’s it for today… I hope things calm down in D.C. I see it being repeated around the country… I sure hope I’m wrong there… Now on to nice things…  I sat out on the deck that overlooks the ocean yesterday, reading my book and usually I only stay out there for an hour or two, but I was so entrenched in this book, that I spent too long and my bald head got pink… It didn’t hurt, like sunburn, it just had a pink head! This morning the pink is all gone…  I love the winter sun down here, if had sat outside in the sun in the summer time here, I would have 3^rd degree burns on my bald head!  But not now… the sun is warm  and comfortable, to sit in and soak up Vitamin D…. That “cold front” I talked about yesterday is taking its time getting here, so for another day it’ll be nice and warm!  The Counting Crows takes us to the finish line today with their 90’s song: Mr. Jones…   At the time of that CD’s release, you would have thought The Counting Crows would be a band that lasted a long time with multiple CD’s…   Oh well… I hope you have a Tub Thumpin’ Thursday, and a Fantastico Friday tomorrow, and will remember to Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler

 

January 6, 2021

* The euro finally breaches 1.23!

* Oil price trades above $50…. 

Good Day, and a Wonderful Wednesday to you!  Thanks to all who sent along a note yesterday, confirming something that I already knew… That you dear Pfennig readers, are the best! OK, tried to stay awake for the Missouri Tigers basketball game VS Miss. St. last night, but one thing you learn when you come from west of the East Coast… The time difference doesn’t seem like much, but a game that starts at 8 back home, comes on at 9 here, which means it doesn’t end until 11…. UGH!  I read this morning that  they blew their halftime lead, and lost the game… UGH!  What a beautiful day here yesterday! I do believe a “cold front” will be coming through this weekend, and the highs will only be in the mid 60’s… That’ll be our winter… HA! I had a dear reader send me a note telling me I needed to stop talking about how nice it is in Florida this time of year, or else, everyone will want to move here! HA!  Smokey Robinson and the Miracles greet me this morning with their song: I Second That Emotion…  So, if you feel like giving me a lifetime of devotion… I second that emotion…  Smokey Robinson had the smoothest, coolest, voice!

OK… I’m kind of in La la land after listening Smokey Bill Robinson! OK… got to get it in gear!  Well, as I left you yesterday morning, the dollar was back on the chopping block, and that’s where it stayed throughout the day Tuesday. Gold had an early $7 gain yesterday, and finished the day up $8.30, and closed at 1,951.50, and Silver gained 31-cents, to close at $27.61… The euro pushed with strength against the dollar, and closed the day at 1.2298…  And the Aussie dollar (A$) really added some ground between its current value .7755, and 77-cents…  

Let’s get back to the euro for a minute… The single unit has really rallied in recent months, and has finally breached the 1.23 level, which appeared to be a line of resistance for the euro, as it had breached the 1.23 level a couple of times in recent days, but had failed to hold the level or add to it.  But in my humble opinion, this is something you see when an asset gets close to a line of resistance, it will test the line a few times before finally moving past it… And in the overnight markets the euro has pushed past 1.23, and has added to its value even more, trading right now at 1.2344…  

Remember when I told you that in a weak dollar trend, the offset currency to the dollar is the euro, and the euro would rally, even with the Eurozone in an economic mess? Well, we are certainly seeing that these days, eh? 

Speaking of the overnight markets, they have once again taken the conn on selling the dollar…  As I just told you the euro is rallying, the Aussie dollar (A$) has really soared to above 78-cents…  And recall yesterday, I told you about how the euro was rallying with their bad fundamentals? Well, I could have substituted the Japanese yen for the euro, for the yen too is on the rally tracks, and Japan is a mess!  I recall years ago telling my colleague, Chris Gaffney, that it sure would be nice if the countries that had rallying currencies in the weak dollar trend, had good fundamentals to talk about…  Sure looks like the same thing is happening again… 

Well, the price of Oil rose to $50 yesterday… That was a nice jump in the price which on Monday was trading with a $47 handle for a while…  I guess Oil traders and investors bought the Government line about ramping up the distribution of the virus vaccine, hook, line and sinker…  I would have thought that they would wait and see if what the Gov’t said really came to fruition…  But NOOOOOOO! The dollar is falling, daily, it seems, and Oil is a anti-dollar investment, which is strange given that most Oil trades in dollars…  So, why not take a flyer on ramped up distribution of the vaccine?

With the price of Oil rising, the Petrol Currencies like: the Norwegian krone, Canadian dollar, Brazilian real, and Russian ruble have noticed, and traders are marking those currencies higher…  You know, I’ve explained this before, but what the heck, I’m going to do it again!  The Norwegian krone gets a double helping of attention in times like this, because, even though the krone isn’t tied to the euro, it follows the euro up and down, and when the euro is moving up, and Oil is moving up, the krone gets a double shot of love!   The song from the Peter Pan movie of years ago, keeps popping into my head…  We’re following the leader, the leader, the leader, wherever he may go! 

Ok, I got my walking orders from a couple of dear readers yesterday… (I kid) They directed me to the real price of Copper… And where to find it, and that the prices I had listed were scrap Copper prices… So, all good from now on…  

Well, have you ever thought in your wildest dreams that the U.S. would be compared to a Banana Republic?  During the last weak dollar trend 2002-2011, my good friend, and former Big Boss, Frank Trotter and I would give presentations together… I would talk about the currencies and metals, and he would talk about the bank… There were a few times during that time period, when Frank would refer to the U.S. as a Banana Republic… He was the first to say that… 

And now Michael Snyder, of whom I’ve used in the FWIW segment in the past, is now saying that the U.S. has become a Banana Republic….  Here’s a quote from him: “I know that sounds absolutely crazy, but it is true.  Once the COVID pandemic hit the United States, those that control the levers of power in this country decided to go “full Weimar” and they never looked back.  As a result, the size of our money supply is rising at a rate that would have been unimaginable just a few short years ago. M1 was up by more than 50 percent in 2020.”

I found that article here: Snyder: The United States Has Become A Banana Republic (blacklistednews.com)

I said yesterday that currency printing was going to help the price of Gold to rise in 2021, And I can’t emphasize that thought enough…  The U.S. has put their currency printing on steroids… Apparently they really do want to see inflation rise…  But, until the velocity of money begins to rise, inflation will be held to some select commodities, and agriculture…  And mark my words now, so you can listen to them later…  Once inflation begins to rise, the Fed will NOT be able to stem its rise… 

And I ask one question:   Got Gold?

And talk about timing! yesterday I said that thought that the 10-year Treasury would finally see its yield rise about 1.00% this year, and in the next 24 hours that’s exactly what it’s done!  I did a double take on the figure when I looked it up this morning, for it’s been a month of Sundays since the 10-year’s yield was above 1.00%…. 

Man, I’ve got to say that this cutting out carbs (not full Keto) is boring!  I can’t have pretzels with my low carb beer… I can’t have a late night snack of cookies and milk…  I had tuna salad the other night wrapped in a lettuce leaf!  And now I’m at a road block to losing more weight, and lowering my blood sugar number… I can’t get either one to go lower! UGH!…  the good news is that I’m not ready to give up… But could I please have some variety here? 

The U.S. Data Cupboard will have Dec. Factory Orders for us today, and the ADP Employment Report for December.  Yesterday, the ISM for Dec. rose from 57 to 60!  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?  There is no way in hell that the manufacturing in this country is hitting on all eight!   The markets ignored the print, and continued to sell dollars… So… I think that they saw the ridiculousness of that print!

To recap… The currencies and metals, and Oil all had good days yesterday… Nothing like Monday’s $44 gain for Gold, but a good day nonetheless…  Oil is back to $50, a big step for Texas tea….  Let’s see if it can add to that figure, or slump again, as has been the case for the last year…  Chuck talks about currency printing, and brings in Michael Snyder to give his thoughts on what’s going on there…  And the euro finally breaches its  line of resistance at 1.23…

Before we head to the big finish today, longtime reader, Bob, sent me an article that was titled: Madness, Mayhem, Manipulation and More Tyranny By John W. Whitehead…  I loved that title… for 2021, Madness, Mayhem, Manipulation and More!  I think that just about nails what I see for this year! 

For What It’s Worth…. well… I have used articles by Egon Von Greyerz before, and will again this morning… In this article Egon talks about some numbers that have gotten completely out of control, like Money Supply, that we discussed earlier… And the article can be found here: THE FACTS & NUMBERS OF 2020, THE GOLDEN FUTURE OF 2021 (goldswitzerland.com)

Or, here’s your snippet: “As we say goodbye to 2020 and look toward 2021, the key numbers on my screen and mind have nothing to do with dates yet everything to do with this: 14.

14 is the number of trillions by which the aggregate money supply increased in the U.S., EU, Japan and eight other developed economies in a single year, 2020.

Wow.

Of course, other numbers matter in ways which can’t be fully fathomed, such as the 1.7 million deaths attributed to a global pandemic of the same year which has sent the global economy into a crisis not seen since the Great Depression.

And speaking of depressions, in terms of inflation-adjusted GDP growth rates per capita, the classic measure of a depression, we are clearly experiencing one now, and have been since before COVID. 

As to other memorable 2020 numbers, and despite open evidence of an economic depression, the DOW shot past 30,000 as global GDP tanked, economies plunged and death counts mounted, proving yet again that there’s very little a money printer at a central bank near you can’t do to support a Frankenstein securities bubble.

In short, as viral risk locked us all indoors, every risk asset, from credits, equities to crypto’s saw a risk-on high (including a 66% surge in the MSCI All-Country stock index) that would make any market bull blush, then sneeze.

And if that wasn’t enough to make one question the death of capitalism and rational price discovery, the fact that 2020 also saw record low yields for junk bonds and a 5X increase in the price of Bitcoin ought to be evidence enough that investors are enjoying a collective madness led by an equally mad cadre of blind central bankers.”

Chuck again…  a very good article in its entirety, so if you have a couple of minutes today, click on the link and read what Egon has to say…. 

Market Prices  1/6/21: American Style: A$ .7810,  kiwi .7304,  C$ .7894, euro 1.2344, sterling 1.3645, Swiss $1.1415, European Style: rand 14.9836, krone 8.4010, SEK 8.1517,  forint 289.90,  zloty 3.6535,   koruna 21.1682, RUB 74.33, yen 102.78, sing 1.3158, HKD 7.7529, INR 73.05, China 6.4566, peso 19.71,  BRL 5.2949,  Dollar Index 89.28,  Oil $50.07,  10-year 1.01%, Silver $27.55, Platinum $1,102.00, Palladium $2,502.00, Copper $3.63, and Gold… $1,946.10

That’s it for today…   Man that was a real doozy of a day yesterday in the markets wasn’t it?  It was “Moving Day”… as bond yields, currencies, metals, and Oil all made moves upward against the dollar!  Well, I’m all set for another beautiful day here, before the “cold front” comes in…  I laugh at the people on TV that tell their audiences to “bundle up the kids, with scarfs, hats and gloves, as they wait for the school bus”… It’s 51 degrees! Back home, if it was 51 degrees, people would think spring came early! It’s all funny to me…  Another beautiful sunrise this morning, has me geared up for today, so you better not run into me on the deck today! HA!  Ok… Jefferson Starship takes us to the finish line today with their song: Miracles…  I hope you have a Wonderful Wednesday, and I hope you will Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler

January 5, 2021

* Currencies see some profit taking on Monday… 

* Gold & Silver kick the dollar’s tail and take names later… 

Good day… and A Tom Terrific Tuesday to you! Another day here in S. Florida, where it was sunny and warm, albeit not as warm as the previous days, but still short-sleeve shirt weather! And if I haven’t told you before… I simply love it! OK, I know I’ve told you before, I was just having some fun… Which I didn’t have going through the Pfennig Replies box yesterday… I’m afraid that my humble little letter has entered into the Twilight Zone… Imagine if you will, a newsletter writer, who is forced to read nasty replies from people that want him to stop writing!   I told them… I won’t stop, but I can make certain you don’t have to read the letter any longer! I refuse to allow people who shout loudest to dictate what I talk about! That’s the way it’s done these days, if you don’t go along with the crowd, you’re immediately called a racist, a homophobe, an idiot, etc.  And I’m not going to allow that to happen to me!  Ok…  One of my all-time fave bands: Poco greets me this morning with their song: Bad Weather….

So, now that I’ve gone through all that…  The currencies saw some profit taking yesterday, as the day went along… The euro had traded past 1.23, but ended the day at 1.2257…  Gold on the other hand was kicking tail and taking names later, and ended the day up $44 to close at $1,943, and Silver ended the day up 84-cents to close at $27.31….  And as usual on a percentage basis, Silver outperformed Gold… the percentage gains were Gold 2.33%, and Silver 3.19%…   Doesn’t that just beat all the drums? I mean $44 is much greater than 84-cents…  but it is what it is…

So, what got into the price of the metals yesterday?  Well, you see we ended the year with the best performance years in a decade, and that was just a precursor to what’s going to be a “golden year”, in my opinion… Currency printing, zero interest rates, and debt that is becoming a major problem, will all contribute to the “golden year”…  And yesterday’s price action was just giving notice of what kind of year this is going to be for Gold (& Silver)

In the early trading today Gold is up another $7 and Silver is up 22-cents, so the push higher for metals continues… 

I did receive lots of Happy New Year emails, so thank you… And one of them asked me to add the price of Copper to the Market prices roundup…  But there are 4 prices for Copper… and they are:

Bare Bright Wire (stripped/shiny)	$2.85
#1 Tubing (clean tube/ clean fine wire)	$2.75
#2 Tubing (paint/solder/burnt wire)	$2.60
Tin Plated (wire/bus)	$2.60

So… which one should I use?

OK… back to the markets…  The stock market bubble keeps getting more air blown into it…  How on earth does one make a call on this asset class? Trading here is beyond reason, and the P/E ratios continue to grow wider and wider… You know how to stop all this?  Talk me into investing all my sidelines cash into stocks…  That would be the kiss of death for the market… I know, because it happened in 1999…  Oh, you forgot about the dotcom crash?  I just came to realize that a lot of stock market participants weren’t old enough to be in the market for the dotcom crash of 2000…. They only know a rallying market…. Yes, we had a short-lived hiccup last March, but the Fed saw to it that the hiccup was drowned with cash, and voila! Hiccup was over!

Enough on that! I’m not a stock jockey, and have never been one either!  Although I did spend my first 6 years in the financial markets in brokerage houses…  And then I did start a brokerage in my basement… I held a brokerage and two principle licenses during my time in the business…

Let’s see… I’ve talked about the metals, and stocks, and currencies, what’s left to talk about? Oh! Bonds!  Well, I think this could be the year that the 10-year finally yields 1.00% once again… Inflation is stirring folks… and the bond boys will be the first to say it really does exist, and they will move the yields higher… The only fly in that ointment is just how many bonds the Fed will he buying in 2021… That figure could very well tip the scales toward continued yields that on a real yield basis (including inflation) are negative… 

I believe that the threat of bond buying by the Fed is what has kept the bond boys from moving yields higher to date…. The Fed increased their Treasury buying by 79% last year…  And previously I reported that the Fed now owned more Treasuries than the public…

The price of Oil slipped by about a buck yesterday…  I think when Oil traders heard the news that I heard that only 4 Million Americans have been vaccinated so far, that their dreams of renewed demand got squashed!  But… In the overnight markets the price of Oil has risen above $48 once again… 

Now, I do believe that I’ve touched on everything in markets!  And it’s time for…. Chuck’s view on what’s could happen in 2021….  Are you ready?

I’m just kidding, because if I gave you my thoughts on what could possibly occur in 2021, you wouldn’t need to come back and read the letter any longer! 

The Dollar Index is trading this morning at 89.63, just a couple of blips above where it was yesterday morning…  In the overnight markets the selling of the dollar continues…  You see… in the Asian and European markets, traders there can sell dollars without fearing retaliation by the Fed, or the Plunge Protection Team (PPT)…  I’m just saying…

Remember when I told you how the Chinese were boycotting the steel imports from Australia, because they got their feelings hurt by something that Australia said?  Well, a month later, the Chinese realized that they had cut their nose off in spite of their face, and that they needed the steel imports, and so very quietly, they began to accept the imports again… The Aussies never budged from their position, and you’ve got to give them kudos for that!  So, all in all we’re just moving along as before here… No saber rattling, or name calling needed… 

The U.S. Data Cupboard gets back online today with a real economic data print, the Dec. ISM (manufacturing index)…   Yesterday we saw the color of a 2nd tier print, Construction Spending, which as expected fell in December… I read something yesterday, that Construction workers segment is being hit very hard by the virus…  And that’s definitely coming into play here with this data… 

To recap… The currencies saw some profit taking yesterday but have rebounded in the overnight markets, as the dollar is back on the chopping block. Gold gained $44 yesterday! Chuck gives his reasons that he believes this is going to be a “golden year”…   Chuck throws his hands in the air, and discusses stocks… Bonds, and Oil…  The economic data for December will begin to stream in starting today…  

For What It’s Worth….  Since I spent a good part of the letter today talking about the stock market, I found this article to be a sister article to that discussion, and it can be found here: “Look Out Below”: Carl Icahn Issues Major Warning On Markets, Warns Rally Will End In “Painful Correction” | ZeroHedge

Or, here’s your snippet: “It has been a difficult year – and decade – for billionaire investor Carl Icahn, who despite making $1.3 billion by shorting malls via CMBX 6, a trade we first pitched as far back as 2017 as the Big Short 2.0, failed to make waves with any other prominent investments and in fact has been anecdotally net short during the market’s historic surge in the past two years.

Yet despite a spotty recent investing track record, the 84-year-old legendary corporate raider remains bearish on the fence about the market’s ludicrous ascent, as he made clear in an interview with CNBC’s Scott Wapner in which Icahn warned of the possibility of a significant decline for stocks, and predicted that “wild rallies” in the market always meet a dramatic end.

“In my day I’ve seen a lot of wild rallies with a lot of mispriced stocks, but there is one thing they all have in common. Eventually they hit a wall and go into a major painful correction. Nobody can predict when it will happen, but when that does happen, look out below,” Icahn warned ominously adding that “another thing they have in common is it’s always said, it’s different this time. But it never turns out to be the truth.”

The relentless gains prompted some less bullish Wall Street strategists to warn of imminent turbulence: as we reported earlier, Morgan Stanley chief equity strategist Mike Wilson repeated his earnings from late last year, and said in his first note of the year on Monday that the market was “ripe for a drawdown” as the “risk/reward has deteriorated materially.”

Chuck again…  I loved that he flatly stated that “nobody can predict when it will happen… ”   And anyone that says they can… Well, you need to walk away ….  slowly so they don’t notice you walking away… HA! 

Market Prices  1/5/21: American Style: A$ .7707,  kiwi .7202,  C$ .7848, euro 1.2280, sterling 1.3583, Swiss $1.1367, European Style: rand 14.9202, krone 8.5310, SEK 8.2009,  forint 293.03, zloty 3.6999,   koruna 21.3496, RUB 73.91, yen 102.86, sing 1.3187, HKD 7.7525, INR 73.19, China 6.4692, peso 19.93,  BRL 5.2106,  Dollar Index 89.63,  Oil $48.50,  10-year .93%, Silver $27.53, Platinum $1,089.00, Palladium $2,478.00, and Gold… $1,950.20

That’s it for today…  I watched the sun rise out of the ocean this morning while I was writing…  Very beautiful, indeed!  The wind has died down the last two days, so sitting outside and reading is a little easier, without having to hold down the pages!  Remember last year at this time, I had to drive an hour north to Port St. Lucie to a wound center two times a week? Well, I don’t have that pain in the rear trip to do this year!  I still have two spots on one leg that need dressing, but nothing like last year! Thank goodness!  Long ago in a bank that no longer exists, I brought in a computer system to deal with our bond business, and I met a young programmer that was super! We’ve stayed in contact, somewhat through the years, and yesterday was her birthday! So… Happy Birthday, D.W.! Ok, the letter is shorter today, hopefully that’s the trend going forward! I Crosby, Stills & Nash (CSN) take us to the finish line today with their song: Ohio…   What if you knew her, and found her dead on the ground? Classic 70’s song!  I hope you have a Tom Terrific Tuesday today, and will Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler

January 4, 2021

*Book squaring on 12/31 stopped the dollar selling… 

* But that only lasted one day… Gold is up $35 this morning! 

Good day… And a Marvelous Monday to you! The first Monday of 2021…  Today, would have been my Dad’s birthday, so I’m thinking of you today, Dad…  Well, did you have a fun and safe celebration for New Year’s Eve?  I didn’t think I would make it to midnight, but I did, receiving my second wind around 10:30pm… We were entertained by a fellow condo owner, who played guitar and sang to us all night. And not once was I tempted to ask him if I could “sit in”…  Well, the two College football teams that will play in the National Championship Game next week, are Alabama and Ohio St. And the NFL playoffs are set… We’ll all have football overload next weekend! America starts us off in the new year with their song: Lonely People…  

Ok, so I said what I said last Thursday morning, because that’s how it looked at that time… I’m talking about my bold claim that the dollar was ending the year on a sour note…   turned out to be in error… Now, while it was not a good year for the dollar, on Thursday, the selling of the dollar came to stop and just like that! The dollar bugs were dancing in the streets once again…  But I have to tell you that I don’t think that this is any reversal of trader sentiment that has come over the markets of selling dollars… It had to book squaring, like I talked about on Thursday… And today, we’ll see just how that will play out… My thought, as I look at what the overnight markets did, is that it’s back to selling dollars once again today…

Gold did gain $3.70 on Thursday, and Silver lost 29-cents. Gold closed 2020 with one of its best years in a decade… And was just below$1,900 at $1,898, to close the year.   This is a BIG week for Americans, as the Senate will vote on accepting the electoral college’s finding. There’s also a HUGE protest / demonstration being planned in D.C. on Wednesday, to protest the election results… I’ve never seen this all play out before, so I’ll be interested in seeing what happens…  But that won’t have too much to do with what the dollar does this week. Or, could it? Only the Shadow Knows….

So… As we start 2021, it’ll be interesting to see if the same old economists dust off their suits, and come out to tell us that it will be a good year for the dollar?  Or, will they come to their collective senses and say otherwise?  I saw an article yesterday where the author tried like heck to get his readers to believe that he believed the dollar would rebound VS the euro, as the two Central Banks in play (The Fed and ECB) see their policies diverge…    You know, this gets me because, I’m sure his editor told him to come up with a story about how the dollar will rebound…   Good Try… But it’s not going to work… Because the “players” that make that determination, the traders, hedge funds, Pensions, Corporations, etc. I would bet a dollar to a Krispy Kreme that they didn’t read your article… And besides, a trend is a trend…  And if you’re a non-dollar investor, then the trend is your friend, as long as it’s the end of the strong dollar trend!

You know, I’m not trying to be biased here… I present the facts and then comment on them…  For the last 9 years, I’ve talked more about debt accumulation, ZIRP, QE, and stimulus packages, that should have damaged the dollar’s value, but didn’t… Because… The dollar was in a strong trend, and when that happens, as we saw the last 9 years,  it would take more than those things to damage the dollar…

And then about one-half the way through the strong dollar trend, I came to realize that we ere never going to return to fundamentals again… Well, maybe “never” is too strong of a word, but it sure does feel like it will be “never”…  Instead, it’s all about trader sentiment… I’ve talked about this trader sentiment since that time…  I mean look at what’s going on these days… We have the euro on a multi-month rally that has brought the single unit from 1.08 in May 2020, to 1.22 (1.23 before the book squaring last Thursday) , and the Eurozone fundamentals are bad, very bad…. And traders don’t care, they’ve made a commitment to selling dollars, and that’s what they have on their collective minds!

In the overnight markets last night the dollar has gotten placed back on the chopping block… Gold is up more than $35 this morning, and the euro has just about recovered all the ground it lost last Thursday, with the single unit kicking at the door of 1.23…  This price action in the dollar proves to me, I don’t know about you, but to me, it tells me that I was right about the book squaring, as we return to dollar selling on the first day of 2021… 

We’ll get to the currency roundup or Market Prices segment soon enough this morning, but when you get there you’ll notice that everything looks quite different these days… Shoot Rudy, even the Mexican peso is on the rally tracks!  

The Dollar Index has fallen to 89.53 this morning…  It’s long been said by people who watch the Dollar Index like a hawk, that should the Index fall below 88, then the dollar won’t recover for a very long time…   Well, it certainly looks as though that’s where the dollar is headed so strap yourself in, keep arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times, and hold on, because we’re going on a ride! 

The price of Oil is pushing higher once again, and this morning it trades with a $48 handle…  Everyone is getting the feeling that “soon” we will get back to operating an economy that isn’t attempting to walk with crutches…  I’m not so sure that’s going to happen so quickly, or efficiently, so we’ll have to wait-n-see…  But this renewed hope is what’s fueling the rise in the price of Oil… Oil traders are thinking that a return of demand is in the cards..  I guess we’ll see, eh?

The U.S. Data Cupboard gets back online this week starting tomorrow with the Dec ISM (manufacturing index), and will culminate with the Jobs Jamboree on Friday this week.  I’m sure as we go along this month with the December data prints, that they will build on the negativity of the November prints, and we will see the negative affects of shutdowns, and say at home orders in some states…  I got a kick out a Tweet I saw this past weekend, from the Gov. of S. Dakota… 

OK, so S. Dakota never shutdown their economy, they didn’t make people stay at home, and their economy remained open…  Kudos to Kristi Noem Gov. of S. Dakota, for expressing her views that right now, with the mess of economies in California, New York, etc. that her state is probably the owner of the strongest economy in the Union…  

There are some other data prints this week that are worthy of looking to… All of them are December prints, and they include: Construction Spending, Auto sales, Factory Orders, and the ADP Employment report, along with the usual fare of Weekly Initial Jobless Claims…  

And to repeat, I don’t think that any of these December prints are going to be strong in any way… They’ll all show the effects of economic shutdowns, and stay-at-home orders…  And IF once of these December prints do show strength, you’ll know that it was massaged, manipulated, and cooked by the number crunchers… 

To recap…. Chuck spoke too soon last Thursday, and book squaring probably was the culprit behind the 180 degree turnaround in the dollar on the last day of the year. It would have taken a month of book squaring to allow the dollar to have a good year, but since that didn’t happen, the dollar ended the year with its worst performance in quite a few years… Chuck goes through some of his thoughts as to what he believes is going to happen to the dollar going forward… And the dollar is right back on the chopping block this morning, as the overnight markets have gone right back to selling dollars… Gold is up $35 in the early trading today! 

For What It’s Worth….  I was going through Bloomberg on Sunday, and then Ed Steer’s letter came through, and he highlighted an article I has just read on Bloomberg! It’s about how Gold just put in a very good year’s performance in 2020, and it can be found here: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-31/gold-heads-for-best-year-in-a-decade-with-dollar-on-the-ropes

Or, here’s your snippet: “Gold posted the biggest annual advance in a decade after a tumultuous year, with gains this month aided by the dollar’s decline to the lowest since April 2018.

Bullion hit a record in August as investors feared an unprecedented wave of stimulus by central banks and governments would lead to currency debasement and inflation. Holdings in bullion-backed exchange-traded funds set an all-time high in October.

While prices ebbed as the roll-out of vaccines injected optimism into financial markets, the dollar’s continued weakness has helped support gold into the year-end.

Looking ahead, there’s little consensus from Wall Street’s biggest names on bullion’s direction. Morgan Stanley sees gold and other precious metals coming under pressure as financial markets normalize and longer maturity bond yields rise. Meanwhile, HSBC Holdings Plc sees gold climbing higher on continued uncertainty.

Much of gold’s performance next year will depend on whether the eventual return to normality is outweighed by ongoing stimulative policies. Led by Chair Jerome Powell, the U.S. Federal Reserve has signaled that its ultra-easy monetary conditions will last throughout 2021. Efforts to pass further fiscal stimulus through the Senate have hit another roadblock.

“Gold’s main drivers — weaker U.S. dollar and low real interest rates — are likely to provide support” even as vaccines are distributed around the world, said Vasu Menon, executive director, investment strategy, at Singapore-based Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp. With the lower-for-longer Fed, “it is too early to throw in the towel on gold,” he said in an e-mail.”

Chuck again…. And let us not forget to mention that what ever the price manipulators decide to show us what’s up their sleeve… will directly affect the price of Gold, short term…  or in spurts, as we’ve seen in the past!  

Market Prices 1/4/21: American Style: A$ .7776,  kiwi  .7207, C$ .7878, euro  1.2294, sterling 1.3658, Swiss $1.1370, European Style: rand 14.5820, krone 8.5080, SEK 8.1875, forint 293.69,   zloty 3.5972,   koruna 21.2576, RUB 73.92, yen 102.91, sing 1.3173, HKD 7.7523, INR 72.98, China 6.5295, peso 19.77,  BRL 5.1924,  Dollar Index 89.53,  Oil $48.53,   10-year .92%, Silver $27.33, Platinum $1,102.00, Palladium $2,498.00, and Gold $1,934.20

That’s if for today…  Well, my beloved Mizzou Tigers Basketball team suffered their first loss last week, but then came back strong on the road to defeat Arkansas…  Let’s hope they bottle what they put together that last game for the rest of the season… Well, I’m here in my winter home, where it has been sunny and warm, since we arrived last Wednesday….  I love it!  I sit outside by the ovean, in the sun soaking up Vitamin D, reading a book, with my ear buds in listening to music… It doesn’t get much better than that folks!  Well, I had a setback with my blood sugar count. I didn’t succumb to the temptations of all the sugary sweets at Christmas, but I did intake a few more carbs than usual, so it’s back to a strict diet now… UGH!  We watched a nearly full moon rise out of the ocean a couple of nights in a row. The orange orb, that then lights up the sky…  The Rev. Al Green takes us to the finish line today with his song: Love and Happiness….   I love the intro of that song!  I hope you have a Marvelous Monday, and Please Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler

December 31, 2020 

* Currencies & metals have a good week 

* McConnell plays the part of the soup Nazi… 

Good Day… And a Tub Thumpin’ Thursday to you! It’s New Year’s Eve! Well, I’m here in my winter home once again… I left rainy, chilly St. Louis yesterday morning, and arrived here a few hours later, and it was partly sunny and 80! My kind of weather! Well, President Trump’s $2,000 offer of checks to be sent to citizens, was shot down by the Senate… So… no $2,000 check for you! So, when did the Senate get a coming to Jesus nerve and turn down spending money we don’t have to spend?  Ok, did you have a Great Christmas? Mine was good… family gathered like we do every year…  And the little kids…  I simply loved watching them! Last Wednesday, the grandkids, sans little Evie, came over to the house to bake Christmas cookies with Mimi… (Kathy) I took some videos of the baking extravaganza and when I need a laugh, I’ll pull up those videos! 10cc greets me this morning with their song: Dreadlock Holiday…

While Chuck’s Away…. As they used to say on the currency desk… “The currencies rally!” So, as I’ve offered before, if you would like me to go on permanent vacation, just say the word…  I could be easily talked into taking one for the team here… You know… I’m really flying blind here this morning, as I usually send myself some notes when I’ve been away for a week, that remind me of things that went on that I need to talk about, but not this time…. I was too busy celebrating Christmas! And then the next day after Christmas was Kathy’s birthday…  So, let’s see what I can find to talk about here…

The dollar continued to get sold last week, holiday or not… Yesterday, with the news that while the stimulus checks weren’t $2,000, the outlook for the economy continues to weaken, and the outlook for a recovery from the virus doesn’t  look like it’s going to be coming to a Theater near you, any time soon, and mark my words here, the new administration will go back to the wishing well and ask for more money soon enough…  And therein lays the problem, as I told you back when he first checks went out, that it was setting a bad precedence, in that, once you give somebody something for nothing, they will expect more, and more, and more, etc.    And so we are in our second of those “mores”…

I keep thinking about McConnell playing the part of the Soup Nazi.. “No $2,000 check for you!”  On a sidebar, wasn’t the Seinfeld show one of the greatest ever? 

When I arrived at my winter home, I plugged in my laptop, connected to the wifi, and pulled up the currency prices to see the euro reach 1.23…  That was late yesterday afternoon… And this morning, the single unit is trading    a little weaker at 1.2280…     The Dollar index, which early last week , tried to rally, has fallen below the 90 figure….  And looks to be in some real trouble…  Traders are starting to see the future for the dollar, which is troubled to say the least. And don’t look now, but the news this past weekend was that China’s economy has passed the U.S.’s economy as far as size…  And make sure you make notes about all those economists that kept saying that the 4^th QTR GDP would be strong… Because, they are going to be proven very wrong…  And with those wrong thoughts will be the ones from the other set of economists that said that a collapse of the U.S. dollar was not going to happen…

So, as we close out 2020 (thank goodness finally!), we have the dollar bugs on the run, we have the currencies led by the euro kicking tail and taking names later, and we have Gold back on the rally tracks…  A good sign for the currencies and Gold to start out the New Year,  which will not have to work very hard to beat 2020 in the race for what was a better year… 

There are three bubbles blowing bigger and bigger right now folks…  Home Prices…. Stocks…. And Bitcoin…  Will those bubbles bust in 2021?  Well, that remains to be seen, and I don’t have an answer for you, but I will say that I wouldn’t be surprised to see at least 1 of these 3 bubbles bust in 2021… I don’t have a crystal ball here, nor do I know something about these 3 that everyone else doesn’t know… I’m just making an educated guess about how long they’ve been blowing, and using my experience in watching these things come to an end…

Well, did you hear that Russia not only just reaped a record year in crop yields? And that they, in spite of the continuing economic sanctions Russia will post a positive 2.7% GDP for 2020… Hey! They’ve been hit by the Plandemic just like everyone else… So, posting a 2.7% GDP for 2020 is quite an achievement.  And the path of the Russian ruble shows that traders are sitting up and taking notice. At the beginning of this month the  ruble was trading with an 80 handle… and to end the month it’s trading with a 74 handle..

OK, before I get accused of being a Russia cheerleader…  I’ll move on to another currency that has really been the cat’s meow lately… And that is… drumroll please…  The Aussie dollar (A$) fell to a low of 57-cents back on March 20… ( I was at Roger Dean Stadium watching my beloved Cardinals and not paying attention to the currencies one iota) and last night, the currency traded above 77-cents… Oh, and remember that saber rattling exercise we went through a couple of months ago, when China announced that they were going to boycott imports of Aussie steel?  The Aussies have held their position and the Chinese are finding that they desperately need those shipments of steel… So, what could have become a major problem for both countries, turns out have been a tempest in a teacup… And the A$ moves on…

Of course maybe these two currencies I’ve just discussed aren’t your cup-o-tea… Well, when the dollar makes its final move into the new weak dollar trend, you’ll have your choice of currencies to own, and look to make a part of your diversified investment portfolio!

Gold had a good day yesterday… The shiny metal gained $15.90 to close at $1,895.30… And Silver put in another day of good moves gaining 46-cents to close at $26.76…  Silver has been the hot commodity lately, despite the fact that there are so many short contracts out there that it would take 190 days of production to equal the ounces sold short in those contracts. One of these days, someone with some gray matter will realize that this short selling more ounces than are above ground is wrong, immoral, unethical, and just plain stupid, and will stop this from going on… and when that does happen, or I guess IF that should happen, Silver will skyrocket to the moon… A real moon shot baby!  But until then, we have to settle for these, what I call, rally disruptions..

In the overnight markets last night, the euro slipped a little, probably profit taking once it hit 1.23, and Gold is down a buck, and Silver is down 22-cents… Year -end bookings will take place today, and already took place last night overseas… Square them up boys! I can hear the head accountant yelling out to the boys and girls on the trading desks in the big banks…  

The U.S. Data Cupboard has been lacking this past week, but with the Christmas holiday, and now the New Year’s holiday, I guess we shouldn’t expect much more than what we got, which was the year on year Case/Shiller Home Price Index… And circling back the 3 bubbles I called out above, Home Prices for Oct on a year on year basis increased 8.4%! 

So, riddle me this Batman… We’ve got over 20 Million people collecting unemployment, which means they don’t have a job… We’ve got millions more that have fallen off the unemployment books because their benefits ran out…  We’ve got the country running scared of a virus…. And through all that Home prices are soaring!   You know, I realized something the other day, and that I’m getting all of my daily exercise these days, by shaking my head in disbelief! HAHA!

To Recap…  It has been a good time for the currencies and metals while Chuck was on his winter vacation…  The President’s attempt to get $2,000 checks out to people in need, didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting through the Senate, who have become penny pinchers? Oh, one can only hope, but I doubt it seriously!  Chuck’s call that the dollar has begun a new weak dollar trade, continues to tread water, he’s just waiting for the damn to break on the dollar bugs…

Before we head to the Finish line today, I wanted to mention some of the people that we lost this past year that I followed….  Like Bob Gibson, Lou Brock, Dick Allen… Al Kaline, Whitey Ford, and just this week Phil Niekro…  We lost great musicians like Charlie Daniels, Leslie West, Chad Stuart, and more… Don’t know who Chad Stuart was?  Remember Chad & Jeremy?  Sean Connery aka James bond… And then Dawn Wells, and Melody Patterson, two of my faves!  Mary Ann, and Wrangler Jane!  I know I missed mentioning probably quite a few important names, but… These are the ones that when I heard they had passed I stopped what I was doing and thought about them…

For What It’s Worth…  You know, I worked in a few banks in my life… starting in 1979, with the old First National Bank of St. Louis…  Where I met my good friend, Ed Bonawitz…  What I’m getting at is I’m glad I don’t work for a bank now… Banks are sure getting black eyes from all the pounding they brought on themselves, and since the year 2000 Banks have been charged $195 Billion in fines…  For some that were dinged, they simply wrote it off as The Cost of doing Business…  But for some others they had to suck it up and take their blows…  Well, I have an article for you today that talks about these fines the banks have paid since 2000, and it can be found here: Cost Of Doing Business: Big Banks Have Paid $195 Billion In Fines Since 2000 | ZeroHedge

Or, here’s your last snippet of 2020: “Often times when the “too big to fail” banks are caught with their hands in the cookie jar (or placing the entire global economy on the precipice of collapse, as was the case in 2008), nobody goes to jail and the banks wind up paying a hefty fine and putting the “youthful indiscretions” behind them. This inevitably leads to jokes about how paying fines is part of the cost of doing business for big banks.

But it isn’t until you aggregate the sums paid over the last 2 decades, which FT did in a report published this weekend, that one can really see just how much these fines actually are becoming a cost of doing business for banks. Over the last 20 years, the six largest U.S. banks have paid out nearly $200 billion in fines and penalties.

Advocacy group Better Markets found that Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo have paid $195 billion, collectively, since 2000. The group claims the numbers show banks behavior deteriorating, as they have endured more fines since the global financial crisis than prior to it.

There were 85 major legal complaints against banks between 2000 and 2008. Between 2008 and 2012, that number was 110 cases, most of which were mortgage related. But since 2012, the group found that there has been another 204 legal actions.

Better Markets chief executive Dennis Kelleher said: “They’re all major legal actions . . . It’s not like it was a ‘broken windows’ theory post-crash where prosecutors are fining every little violation. If they were held to higher standards they all would have been put out of business because the recidivism is really quite shocking.”

He continued: “It’s absolutely shocking that JPMorgan has now pleaded guilty to three separate criminal charges for egregious years-long criminal conduct.”

Banks like JP Morgan are repeating past mistakes, too. In October, the bank paid $920 million for manipulation of the metals market – this comes after the bank admitted AML failings in 2014 and pleaded guilty in 2015 to manipulating FX markets.”

Chuck Again…  Again, I’m getting my exercise here, shaking my head in disbelief…

Market Prices 12/31/20: American Style: A$ .7737, kiwi .7239, C$ .7852, euro 1.2280, sterling 1.3658, Swiss $ 1.1355, European Style: rand 14.6789, krone 8.5144, SEK 8.1579,  forint 296.80,  zloty 3.7104,   koruna 21.3600, RUB 74.19, yen 103.05, sing 1.3213, HKD 7.7524, INR 72.97, China 6.5242, peso 19.89, BRL 5.1975,  Dollar Index 89.63,  Oil $47.96,  10–year .92%, Silver $26.54, Platinum $1,007.00, Palladium $2,416.00, and Gold… $1,894.10

That’s it for today… Well, I guess many people had to cancel plans for big New Year’s Eve parties… And we won’t be home to host an after dinner party like we’ve done the past few years…  So, how many of you will still be awake at midnight?  I doubt seriously I will be…  We’re going to celebrate with some condo friends around the pool, with social distancing of course!  I was very disappointed that my beloved Mizzou Tigers had to cancel their bowl game because of a virus outbreak… And then to top it off The Tigers basketball team got the snot kicked out of them by Tennessee last night… I know when I last talked to you I said that they had lost the game the night before, but they had actually won it… But no comeback was in the cards last night…  And it was on the Tigers’ home court! UGH! Well, hockey is slated to start in two weeks… That’s a good thing… I think our Blues will be better than the average Bear this year…   Hamilton, Joe, Frank and Reynolds takes us to the finish line today and this year, with their song: Fallin’ In Love….  Baby, Baby fallin’ in love, I’m Fallin’ in love again…  So… be careful out there tonight, this is what Kathy’s dad used to call “Amateur’s Night”…  I hope you have a Tub Thumpin’ Thursday And a very Happy New Year!  And Please Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler

December 24, 2020

Good day…  And a Merry Christmas Eve to you!  Just a quick note before he head to the Christmas letter…  I’m so distraught over the new so-called Covid Response Relief Package… All the pork that’s in it…  I know it’s Christmas Eve, but I’m going to fire off a note to my congresswoman, and let her know that this is NOT what  We The People are asking for, and expecting!  And with that, Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas is playing, and that about sums it up for me… 

It’s Pfennig Tradition, that I put together a Christmas eve letter for all my dear readers, and so with no further ado…

 

T’was the night before Christmas

And all through the house

The occupants were congratulating each other

For their stimulus, but  not me

I’m such a grouch!

The debt level in this country

Has gotten out of control

But I’ve cried wolf for years

And still the spenders are on a roll.

It’s time to forget all that

And that’s a fact! 

The stockings were hung by the Chimney with care

In hopes that St. Nicholas would soon be there.

My grandkids I hope are all nestled in bed

With visions of playstations, and games

Dancing in their heads…

When on my laptop screen I saw such clatter

I had to click on to see what was the matter

$900 Billion more is being printed from thin air

And no one in Washington DC seems to care…

People that don’t make much will soon get a check

Let’s hope it keeps them from becoming a wreck!

I went to the window to yell at the walls

And outside were carolers singing Deck The Halls…

And then with a blink of an eye what did appear?

But a miniature sleigh and 8 flying reindeer!

This must be Santa, with gifts for all the girls and boys

I hope he has something for me

And I’m not talking about toys…

I’m hoping that he has cleared the air

Of this virus, and we can get back to life

Instead of going outside on a dare…

I’m hoping that 2021 is full of joy and happiness

So that we can forget 2020

But that won’t be so difficult, no less…

Now I’ve forgotten all about the markets

And the manipulations, and dolts and twits

It’s time for Christmas, and besides those

Things give me the fits!

My grandkids are ready to see what Santa brought them

And I whistled and shouted and called them by name

On Delaney, On Everett, On Braden, and little Evie

To the living room we go to open our gifts

But remember please that the greatest gift of all

Is what we call Christmas Day… When

The Good Lord was born… 

So, with all the calamity going on

I sneak out of site,

And say a prayer that this scene can go on forever…

And then I saw Santa and his reindeer, take off

And I heard him exclaim

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a Good Night!

Chuck Butler, Christmas 2020

PS… I always include a little message at this time, so here goes..

May the light & warmth of the season bring comfort & joy

To your family and friends this Christmas Season…

December 23, 2020

* The dollar rallies on Tuesday…

* But the rally sure smells like yesterday’s fish… 

Good day… And a Wonderful Wednesday to you! I realized it this morning as I typed the date, that I’m usually already on vacation and I don’t recall the last time I wrote on December 23rd! So, you’ll have to help me through today, for this is unchartered waters for me! HA! Another new book arrived yesterday, it’s titled: Slanted, by Sharyl Attkisson, it’s about how the media became so slanted / biased and worthless in my opinion… I’ll save that one for the plane ride next week…  Beegie Adair plays her piano and her trio does their version of the song: What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?  to greet me this morning… 

Just what the heck was going on in the markets yesterday caught me by surprise, and I spend most of the afternoon looking for reasons why the dollar rebounded, Gold got sold, and Consumer Confidence was actually down?  Now that’s a strange combination if you ask me!  Why on earth would traders, investors, hedge funds, etc. pile into dollars, when Consumer Confidence weakened this month? Well, I think that might have a little to do with how the euro rose on the data print outcome, but then soon fell when the European Central Bank (ECB) announce new stimulus plans without lowering deposit rates further into negative territory. Traders were thinking that the ECB was due to go more negative with rates, and they were disappointed when the ECB didn’t.  

Ok, upon further review… That makes no sense to me either! If I were a trader, and I saw that the ECB didn’t lower rates further into negative territory, I would say, “Bully for the ECB, and buy euros”, especially knowing that in the U.S. they saw existing housing sales decline last month, and Consumer Confidence weaken this month…  But NOOOOOOO! That’s not what happened! I wanted to go outside and throws my hands to the sky, and yell, SERENITY NOW! But, it was a bit chilly out, so I just pretended to do that at my desk here in the basement…

Come to think of it, I don’t know if I ever told you this or not, so sorry if I did, but it was at this writing desk, in my basement, is where I started the groundwork for the old EverTrade Direct Brokerage Co. And had it ready to go to the NASD in Kansas City, for review and approval to open…  So, besides the Pfennig which has been written here many times through the years, first when I was retired the first time in 1998… And now that I am officially retired since 2018….   Here’s my career in a nutshell… 5 years at Stifel Nicolaus, 1-year at RG Dickenson (Des Moines), 2 years at First National Bank of St.Louis, 14-years at Mark Twain Bank (where the Pfennig began), 2-years at Mercantile Bank (who bought Mark Twain Bank) and finally, 19 years at EverBank…  with about 6 months of retirement in 1998… Before starting the brokerage company in my basement that year!

Ok, I know you didn’t open the letter today to read about my career stops!  But I started down the rabbit hole of talking about my basement, and voila! I let my fat fingers take the conn!

So, traders, investors, hedge funds, and money takers, why on earth, when the U.S. dollar sports zero interest rates, and real negative rates when you figure in inflation, a printing press of dollars that’s running 24/7 these days, and no less problems with the COVID-19 virus than the rest of the world, would you step to the plate, and buy dollars yesterday?  Or, maybe it wasn’t you that did the buying, maybe, just maybe, cause we’ll never know, it was the Plunge Protection Team (PPT) doing the buying once again…

So, the euro started the day up at 1.2242, jumped to 1.2252 on the Consumer Confidence news, and then fell to 1.2162 like in a New York Minute!  And for this reason, I’m saying it was the PPT that came in and threw down the spikes in the road so the euro would get a flat tire running over them. For investors, traders, hedge funds, and money takers, don’t all trade at once during a day… Get my point here?  And then with further proof of PPT buying, by the end of the day, the euro was back to moving higher and closed the day at 1.2192…   Go figure, right?

But the overnight markets took the euro back down to 1.2160, and Gold is up a couple of bucks along with Silver who has gained 30-cents early this morning…  I’m not getting any vibes from this overnight market as how today will go… I’m sure the boat load of data that’s coming out this morning will have something to do with how today goes! 

To borrow a line from Styx, in the song Too Much Time On My Hands… it goes like this:       

Is it any wonder I’ve got too much time on my hands
It’s ticking away with my sanity
I’ve got too much time on my hands
It’s hard to believe such a calamity
I’ve got too much time on my hands
And it’s ticking away, ticking away from me

With the dollar moving higher it affected the price of Gold…  And Gold lost $17 on the day, with a price movement that looked a lot like the euro’s.   at about 10:30 am Gold dropped from $1,870 to $1,860, in less then 30 minutes…  One shot downward, and then Gold leveled out the rest of the day to close at $1,860.00…  So, there was some fishy stuff going on here too… 

So, the price of Oil took a hit too yesterday losing about 1.50%, and the $47 handle… It was just last week that the price of Oil had reached a $48 handle, but the news of a new strain of the Covid virus in the U.K. has really knocked the snot our of the price of Oil…  You know, yesterday, I said what if there’s a new strain of the Covid virus that the vaccine doesn’t work against?  I really wasn’t wishing that to happen folks, I was just throwing the thought out there…  And then later in the day, I hear that Dr. Fauci, he who has been wrong on everything so far, said that a new strain from the U.K. may already by on our shores…  So, let’s hope he’s as wrong on that as he has been on everything else…

Speaking of Fauci and Dr. Birx…  Did you hear that Dr. Birx, is going to step down from her Covid team position because… Now get this… She made a big deal out of not having big Thanksgiving dinners with guests… And then she went and had one of her own! She’s been fielding so much flak on that so she’s stepping down…   I guess she got the idea from Calif. Gov. Newsome, who mandated that people stay home and then went to a huge dinner party at a restaurant, no less, and partied without masks!

Ok, back to the markets… I’m really on edge right now… It’s a good thing I start my winter vacation tomorrow!  So, Silver didn’t fare very well yesterday either losing $1.03 to close at $25.22, and had the same trading pattern as Gold, and euros…  With the euro losing ground, that meant the other currencies would lose ground on the day too.. The Aussie dollar (A$) fell to .7517, from the .7562 it held in the morning…  And the Petrol Currencies got waylaid once again because of the drop in the price of Oil…

Someone asked me in the Pfennig Replies box that if everyone is using their credit cards for purchases now, why would going to digital currencies be bad?  And then I read a report that says the younger crowd, never, really carry cash…. 

So, I’ve been through this before, but here are the top three reasons that going digital would be bad for you, me, and the guy down the street with his house lit up like the guy on the Geico commercial!

1.The last of your civil liberties would be taken away from you… No longer would you be able to pay cash for something that you didn’t need for anyone to know about…  I know my wife tells me that that would be no big deal to her, because she does nothing wrong…  but that’s not the point dear… your freedom is being stripped away from you bit by bit by bit, and it all started with the Patriot Act back in 2001…

2. Banks would have a new way to generate income… Banking fees…  Fee income is important to a bank when loan profits go down, and they’ve been down for some time now, As I told you above I’ve worked in banks for a very long time, so, I know this to be a fact… When loan profits fade, the higher ups call all the fee income departments and tell them to ramp up fee income…

3. And when the bank sends you a notice that they are going to begin to charging you “X” for having to change over to digital banking, and you get hot under the collar, and decide you want to change your bank, but then find out that all the banks are doing the same (nocollusion here folks, just walk away) and it won’t help you to move your balance to a different bank, then the light bulb above your head will come on, and you’ll say, I wonder when the next banking fee letter will come with a new fee…  

So, I’ve got a pocket full of things that make digital banking bad folks, so don’t get me started again on that!

So, today is the day that the U.S. Data Cupboard goes all in on us with data prints… We’ll see, in this order.. the weekly Initial Jobless Claims, which last week were 885,000… the forecast for this week is 875,000, but I doubt that’s going to be correct.  Then we’ll see Durable Good and Capital Goods Orders for November, followed by person Income and Spending for Nov. and to finish it up we’ll see Core Inflation for Nov.  New House Sales will also print… I would think they went down due to the price increases going on in housing…

To recap…. It was one of those days when Chuck yells SERENITY NOW!  As the dollar got bought by the boat load, in a very short period of time… PPT trading? Thatt’s how it appears to Chuck…  Gold also was sold on Wednesday down $17 on the day, with Silver down $1.03…  The craziness of the manipulated markets seems to go on forever doesn’t it? And I’m not just talking about Gold & Silver, I’m talking about all markets being manipulated…   You can’t tell me that stocks with a P/E ration that’s beyond reasonable aren’t being manipulated by the cartel, I mean the Fed!  You can’t tell me that bond yields at their all-time lowest aren’t being manipulated by the cartel, I mean the Fed…  And so on…

For What it’s Worth… Well here’s another excellent article by Pam and Russ Martens of www.wallstreetonparade.com. You will recall them pointing out that the slush fund called the Exchange Stabilization Fund (ESF) got a boat load of funds in the last Stimulus Bill, and according to these great investigative writers, the ESF was a big beneficiary again! This article can be found in its entirety here: The Language Toomey Inserted into the Stimulus Bill Enshrines a $681 Billion Trading Slush Fund for Mnuchin with the NY Fed (wallstreetonparade.com)

Or, here’s your snippet: “The language that Republican Senator Pat Toomey inserted into the final stimulus bill (Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021) appears below. It not only restricts the Federal Reserve’s ability to extend some of its current emergency lending programs that help small and medium size businesses and state and local governments beyond December 31 of this year (while leaving Wall Street bailout programs alive for at least another 90 days) but it also enshrines the autonomy of the U.S. Treasury Secretary to operate a massive slush fund – the Exchange Stabilization Fund (ESF).

Most Americans have never heard of the Treasury’s Exchange Stabilization Fund. It was created in 1934 to provide support to the U.S. dollar during the Great Depression. The ESF has grown from $94.3 billion in assets prior to Trump taking office to a balance of $681 billion as of October 31, 2020. As recently as March 31, 2007, the ESF had assets of just $45.9 billion.

But instead of turning over the full $454 billion to the Fed, Mnuchin turned over just $114 billion for the Fed’s emergency lending programs, as confirmed by the Congressional Research Service on December 17.  Since what the Treasury Secretary does with the ESF “may not be reviewed by another officer or employee of the Government” according to its dodgy statute, the public has no idea as to what Mnuchin actually did with the balance of $340 billion in his slush fund from the CARES Act.

While there has been widespread media attention to Toomey’s effort to kneecap the Fed’s emergency lending programs by inserting language into the stimulus bill, there has been no mainstream media attention to Toomey’s effort to memorialize both Mnuchin’s and (potentially) future Treasury Secretaries’ ability to have a slush fund to intervene in markets. The Treasury Secretary has, effectively, become a Plunge Protection Team of one.”

Chuck again…  It’s amazing that I’m not insane at this point folks… But here’s an early Christmas gift for you… If you need to read some market news while I’m on vacation, simply go to that website, I highlighted above and there’s a list of their articles there for you to read… Enjoy! 

Market prices 12/23/20: American Style: A$.7550, kiwi .7071, C$ .7761, euro 1.2167, sterling 1.3417, Swiss $1.1228, European Style: rand 14.6260, krone 8.7278, SEK 8.3174,  forint 298.07,  zloty 3.7005,   koruna 21.6700, RUB 75.32, yen 103.55, sing 1.3343, HKD 7.7526, INR 73.76, China 6.5447, peso 20.08, BRL 5.1361,  Dollar Index 90.48,  Oil $47.11,  10-year .92%, Silver $25.52, Platinum $1,010.00, Palladium $2,358.00, and Gold… $1,864.30

That’s it for today and until 12/31… but don’t forget to look for my annual Christmas Pfennig…  when I made my appt. to get my teeth cleaned I wasn’t aware that my favorite dentist, Holly Ellis, was going to be on vacation! UGH! I told my wife, “but that’s why I go to the dentist to see Holly”… She said deadpan, “you can change your appt.”…  Ah, the joys of knowing someone for nearly 50 years… Well, my beloved Mizzou Tigers couldn’t hit the side of barn with a basketball last night and but still won. I coached a 2n grade basketball team  one year and they shot better than 21%!!!!!  Notice I said “one year”… that was enough for me… Conference play begins in the new year… So good luck to SLU, and Mizzou…  The college football playoffs have been announced, with Alabama playing Notre Dame, and Clemson playing Ohio State…  And the winners of those games will play for the National Championship… pretty cool way they determine that nowadays… Remember the Old BCS?  The grandkids are coming over today to bake Christmas cookies with their Mimi (Kathy)… That should be a riot, and I think I’ll take some videos of the action, while I’m here…  Well, I’ve heard just about every smooth jazz Christmas song a few times this year, on the Pandora station… But that doesn’t stop me from listening to it all the time… The Stephen Kummer Trio takes us to the finish line today with ttheir version of: The Christmas Song…  One of these days I’ll list my favorite Christmas songs…  Songs like the Christmas Waltz, and so on… that’ll be fun…  And fun and exciting times are what I hope you have this Christmas…  And please be Good To Yourself…   remember don’t forget about my annual Christmas Pfennig that will show up in your email box…  

Chuck Butler

December 22, 2020

* One and done for dollar strength… 

* It’s the same-o, same-o, trade with China… 

Good Day… And a Tom Terrific Tuesday To You! Well, yesterday was… Monday, Monday, can’t trust that day… And it proved to be just that! More on that in a minute…  I don’t know about you, but the Big Build Up of Christmas this year, just isn’t there for me… I love the Christmas season, and what it does to people, but, without being out and about with people, I can’t tell if the Christmas spirit has touched them or not… Did you hear that some dimwit on CNN said that we should cancel Christmas? Man, it is a good thing I don’t watch CNN, or else I would have been screaming at the TV, and the neighbors would be calling the gendarmes, and the men in white suits to come take me away! They’re coming to take me away a-ha, they’re coming to take me away! Somehow, I get the feeling that the scenario I just described will be in my future, as my brain finally explodes from being right about all these dirty deeds done dirt cheap! The Stephen Kummer Trio is playing their version of the song: I’ll Be Home For Christmas… It’s almost as good as The Celtic Woman Lisa, and her version of the song…  

Everybody is talking about change…  and how this is going to change and how that’s going to change, and so on… And it reminds me of a saying I once heard, here goes… “Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine”…    My dad used to tell me, that “In change lies opportunity”…  And I guess that’s right…  But do we have to have so much change so quickly?  I’ll leave that right there and get to the markets, but we’ll be talking about a lot of change in the coming months folks, so look for those opportunities…

So, when I left you yesterday, the dollar bugs were fighting back… But that ended in the U.S. markets, and soon the dollar was back on the chopping block VS the currencies, as the day went along… Gold kept trying to get its head above water, but was unable to and end the day down $4…  and  closed at: $1,8 76.70…   It wasn’t economic data that turned the dollar’s fortunes around on a dime, there was only one piece of data that printed yesterday, and it was one of those regionals that I’m boycotting, and besides those normally aren’t market moving prints…  So, what was a one full day of dollar buying, considering that the dollar buying started Friday afternoon, and went through to most of the U.S. morning, before getting stopped at the border, I’m going to say that my suspicions were validated, and it was a bout of Central Bank intervention… Who’s Central Bank would be the next question… And I’m going out on a limb here and say it was a  joint effort by the Fed/Treasury and ECB…  The reason behind this has many items, but one that I’ll share with you is this… Did you notice that the Japanese yen hardly moved?  Well, that tells me that the BOJ either wasn’t invited to the party, or refused to go because of Covid concerns…

I had laid the scenario of why the ECB was sweating bullets about the euro getting so strong previously, right? So… I’m sure the PPT, of which the Fed Chairman is part of, said, “hey, ECB, we’ll throw you a bone, here, and see what happens, maybe traders will get scared and not push the euro so high going forward”…   But, guess what happened instead?  Well, I guess you don’t have to guess, since I just told you above what happened! DUH!  

The Dollar Index at the end of the day yesterday was 90.10, after hitting a high of 90.63 earlier in the day…   And this morning the Dollar Index is trading at: 90.14…  So, little movement in the currencies overnight, and Gold is down a buck or two this morning early, so we’ll see where that takes us today… 

And any further moves upward  in the currencies after this brief and small recovery of the dollar, will all but seal the deal that the dollar is in a new weak dollar trend… It could be multi year, because previous currency trends have been as short as 7 years and as long as 10 years…  Or, with the new way that everything trades, we could have a shorter than normal trend length…  There are no “free markets” any longer, just manipulations… But if the U.S. is signing off on a new weak dollar trend, as I believe they are, for what better way to invite inflation into an economy than with a very weak currency, then who knows how long it will be, maybe until that elusive inflation rate is where the Fed’s want it to be?  Probably, but it will take some time to stop the run-away train that is a short dollar trade.

The price of oil has slipped by about 1/2-dollar as it trades this morning, and the Russian ruble has too slipped, but on just a 50-cent downward move in Oil?  The Brazilian real too has slipped in price, but the Norwegian krone is stronger (due to the euro’s gains), and the Canadian dollar/ loonie is holding steady Eddie…  So, it’s a mixed up world for the currencies this morning… 

In the overnight markets, as I said above the currencies saw little movement, and Gold is drifting.  You know, something that’s on my mind this morning is all the news from the U.K. and I’m not talking about the Brexit negotiations, which aren’t going anywhere in my opinion, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about how the virus has taken a turn for the worse there… Sure it takes about two weeks for a vaccine to take effect, and they haven’t had two weeks since being the first to receive the vaccine, so the spread of the virus is getting its foot in the door before the vaccine can stop it… Or… here’s a scary thought, what if, the virus has a new strain already, and the vaccine is worthless against it? 

OK, Chuck step away from the cliff son… Come on down, there’s no reason to jump just yet… Come on you can do it… There… now sit back down in your chair, and tell people that you were just thinking out loud and didn’t mean to go down that rabbit hole…   OK? You‘re good now?  Let’s talk about something else… 

I feel so bad about missing something important last week… I forgot to say Happy Birthday to two former colleagues: Jen McLean, and Ty Keough…  I hope they still love me!  I worked with Jen since she was right out of college… I saw her get married,  and gained weight during her pregnancies! I had grown up following the soccer career of my friend, Ty Keough… I recall him during his playing days with the St. Louis Steamers, having a big afro hair do! Ty was a customer before he came to work with us, so he always had a customer’s best interest at heart…  So, Happy Belated Birthday to these two…

I sure hope I didn’t miss any others recently, as my mind hasn’t been on personal stuff, just all the changes, and goings on in the markets…   You know, in 2001 when I wrote the White Paper titled: The Decline of the Dollar, I was thought to be going crazy, and that there was no way the all-mighty dollar was about to go into a weak dollar trend…  Well, all the facts I had about why that was to be, came to fruition and by Feb of 2002, the weak dollar trend was in full swing…     I don’t have press coverage like I used to have, thanks to David Galland,  and Peter our Press Agent…   And so my call for a new weak dollar trend is kept to you dear readers, and with the FX Street, who still, to this day, post my Pfennig letter to their site, and tweet it out, to anyone that follows them on Twitter.

And I can’t forget the great work done by my publishers, the Aden Sisters, Pam and Mary Anne, who decided last year that their readers of the Aden Research letter should also receive the Pfennig each day… So, those folks also know about the call for a new weak dollar trend… 

The timing of a new weak dollar trend is in order here… The strong dollar trend started in 2011, and so that makes it almost 10 years, which is normally, and historically the longest a weak or strong dollar trend has lasted.  Then you add in that in 2001 the U.S. National Debt was “just” $5.8 Trillion… Today it’s over $27 Trillion…  In the first 10 years after 2001, we added nearly $9 Trillion ($8.99 Tr.)  And in these last 10 years we’ve added $ 12.72 Trillion… Crazy I know, but as I use to say, that citizens of this country had grown Comfortably Numb to these amounts, that now sit at $27.51 Trillion!

Then you toss in the fact that the Fed/ Treasury’s printing press for dollars has been working overtime in recent years, and you’ve got more dollars chasing goods in this country…  yes, the plandemic has caused some severe supply chain problems and lack of funds of people to spend, but Personal Spending is still going strong… (We’ll find out more on that tomorrow)

Ok… enough of all that…  in the U.S. Data Cupboard, we’ll see a final revision to 3^rd QTR GDP, which you may recall was plus 32%, but I had debunked the numbers and showed you how we were still behind the 8-ball when it came to a full recovery of what was lost in the economic shutdown of the 2^nd QTR…  In addition, the always stupid Consumer Confidence report, which is only a pulse of how the stock market is doing, will also print today… 

Tomorrow’s Data Cupboard is going to be chock-full-o-data, with a good number of market moving data prints on the docket…  I for one do not see tomorrow’s data prints working out nicely for the dollar, but we’ll have to wait-n-see, eh?

And you recall all the name calling and blusterous talk about hurting China’s trade in the past couple of years? The trade tariffs, etc.? Well, the numbers are in for last year’s trade with China, and our exports there didn’t amount to 1/3 rd of our imports from China…  So, in the end it’s the same-0, same-o, with China and their trade surplus with the U.S.  For the first 11 months of 2020 is $460 billion, up 21.4% from this time last year, already one of the highest ever recorded.  

To recap… The short-lived bounce in the dollar ended yesterday afternoon, with the currencies staging a rally, which led Chuck to believe that the short term move was Central Bank intervention. He went further to say that it looked like a coordinated intervention between the Fed/ Treasury (they are just one now, right? HA!) and the ECB…  Chuck talks about the beginning of the last weak dollar trend, and thinks that Gold & Silver are digging in their heels and ready to make a move to higher ground…

For What It’s Worth…. Here’s an article that takes us to a site that sells Gold so keep that in mind when reading this article, about Gold. I think it’s a good article, and it can be found here: LAWRIE WILLIAMS: Gold, lies and statistics. (sharpspixley.com)

Or, here’s your snippet: “Gold is, or should be, the ultimate economic bellwether if it was given free rein, but governments, central banks and their allies in the financial sector seem to be doing their utmost to keep the metal’s price under control for fear of unleashing Pandora’s box and bring the whole global financial system to its knees.  A rising gold price is seen as a devaluation of the mighty dollar – the cornerstone of the global financial system for now – so gold price appreciation should go hand in hand with a declining dollar, or vice versa.  The latter is seeing a weakening almost by the day in view of the U.S.’s enormous debt position.  Go figure!

Paul Volcker, who died nearly two years ago was perhaps the most outspoken, and arguably the most successful U.S. Fed chairman – a position he held from 1979 – 1987 under both Democratic and Republican Administrations – in recent years.  He has been seen as the Fed chairman responsible for vanquishing runaway U.S. inflation and was an outspoken critic of gold’s role in global financial markets.  Indeed he is seen as the architect of President Nixon’s gold window closure when he was in the Treasury Department and before his stint as Fed chairman.  He set forth the mantra that the gold price should be controlled through central bank influence – a policy which looks logically to have continued to the current day, although vehemently denied by those who have the ability to implement such programs.  But then who believes such denials?

There are almost certainly continuing moves by governments and central banks to keep gold price rises under control in order to protect their fiat currencies from total collapse in the light of a stratospheric increase in the gold price.  However a steady currency value erosion and a controlled gold price increase may well be on the cards.  Certainly continuing interest rate suppression policies by the major central banks, leading to negative ‘real’ interest rates suggest that this is probably the case.  This does not mean that price suppression by central bank allies in the major futures markets will cease, but it will possibly continue at perhaps a less extreme level than in the past and allow a slow, and relatively steady gold price increase and corresponding ‘stealth’ currency devaluation. If some increase was not allowed then the dam could eventually burst under pent-up pressure and gold might rise out of control bringing the whole financial system crashing down.  Volcker once described gold as ‘the enemy’ and provided one keeps one’s enemy close, and thus under control, matters are unlikely to deteriorate too far.”

Chuck again…  the writer then goes to show some statistics provided by John Williams of shadowstats.com of whom I’ve relied on for data for years!  John Williams is quoted as saying this about Gold… “Holding physical gold protects the purchasing power of dollar assets, irrespective of any near-term volatility in, or manipulation of, gold prices.” 

Market Prices 12/22/20: American Style: A$ .7562, kiwi .7075, C$ .7773, euro 1.2242, sterling 1.3425, Swiss $ 1.1299, European Style: rand 14.5824, krone 8.6423, SEK 8.2617,  forint 295.86,  zloty 3.6845,   koruna 21.5014, RUB 74.60, yen 103.37, sing 1.3336, HKD 7.7524, INR 73.81, China 6.5485, peso 20.01,  BRL 5.1213,  Dollar Index 90.14,  Oil $47.35,  10-year .93%, Silver $25.97, Platinum $1,022.00, Palladium $2,358.00, and Gold… $1,875.40

That’s it for today… So… are you ready to stand in line for your virus vaccine?  Like I said last week, I’m not getting one until my oncologist tells me that there are no side effects on cancer patients…  And I figure that won’t happen until spring…  And even then I’ll still be very leery of this drug, that was rushed through testing (I know they’ve had the groundwork on this drug done previously) and is the first drug to use messenger RNA (mRNA)… We don’t know just yet, how that will effect someone’s system going forward…  Call me crazy, but… this is all mad science to me…  I’m waiting for someone at one of these labs to look up and say, “It’s Alive”!  After thinking about what I said above regarding gaining weight during Jen’s pregnancies, I also gained weight during our little Christine’s 3 pregnancies, I sat right between those two, so I blame my obesity on them! HAHAHAHAHA! It had nothing to do with the Budweisers and burgers, pizza, and fries! HA! Just kidding of course! I blame it all on the fact that I have not been able to be active in any way for over 13 years…  On Rocktober 15^th, I stepped on the scale at the doctor’s office and was blown away at how much weight I had gained… I decided then that I had to slow down my intake, then I was told that I needed to cut out sugar, from my diet, which is also carbs… I’ve lost 45 lbs since that day in Rocktober… But that’s as noticeable on me as removing a bucket of sand from the beach, so I have lots more work to do there!  The Vince Guaraldi Trio takes us to the finish line today, with his version of: The Christmas Song…  I always loved hearing Johnny Mathis sing this song…   I hope you have a Tom Terrific Day today, and will do your very best to Be Good To Yourself! 

Chuck Butler

 

December 21, 2020

* Dollar buying looks like CB intervention to Chuck

* Silver outperforms Gold, Platinum, and Palladium! 

Good Day… And a Marvelous Monday to you! I won’t say that again until Jan.4, 2021… (My dad’s birthday)… These last couple of Pfennigs going into Christmas will be chock-full-o- stuff, for you to read while I’m on my traditional winter vacation…  Well, my beloved Mizzou Tigers laid an egg in Starkville, MS. Last Saturday. UGH! But they impressed someone because they have accepted an offer to play in the Music City Bowl, In Nashville, Dec. 30^th…  So, congrats to coach Drinkwitz and his team. I also watched my good friend Rick’s alma mater, Clemson, destroy Notre Dame, which was delightful for me! I have always rooted for whomever plays Notre Dame…  Little Evie and brother Braden came to spend the night with us Saturday night… Braden and I played a game of chess… He came close to beating me, and he’s only 9! The late great Leon Russell greets me this morning with his song: Delta Lady… 

On a sidebar, a different good friend named Rick, learned of my love of Leon Russell, and now he sends me links to concerts and other recordings that Leon Russell performed on. So, do you think if I told him I loved… oh never mind… that’s silly!

OK.. well, the dollar bugs fought back on Friday, with the euro losing about 1/4- of a cent, and Gold giving back $4.60 on the day… The Dollar Index, which when I left you on Thursday was 89.96,  recovered to 90.01. and had risen even further in the overnight markets to 90.63…. One could say that the currencies had shot up so fast, that they needed to go back and fill in the gaps…  Or, one could say that my thought of a new weak dollar trend beginning is hog-wash!  And that the dollar will come roaring back once the virus vaccine has been distributed to the masses… (of which people over 75, and essential workers are next in line for the vaccine, once medical people get theirs… Son Alex, who is Physical Therapist and is in contact with people all day, every day, says there are no plans in place for he and his colleagues to get the shot, yet… )

Whatever the reason, and I believe it to be the former of the two I presented, we’ll have to hold onto our horses, and not change them in the middle of the stream, until we know for sure.

In the overnight markets the dollar buying has increased its fervor, and now it’s beginning to look like Central Bank intervention to me, for the dollar has really pushed back with force against the currencies. The euro this morning has lost almost 1-cent since last Thursday. And like I said above the Dollar Index has recovered to 90.63…  Gold in the overnight markets has lost $3, but Silver has gained 36-cents to move over the $26 handle… This is quite impressive, given that both Platinum and Palladium have gotten the snot kicked out of them overnight, and Gold is fighting to keep its head above water, and we have Silver kicking tails and taking names later…  Pretty impressive… 

Well, there were lots of stories over the weekend about the direction that the President-elect is going to take us…  I have one of those articles in the FWIW section today, So keep it right here, and don’t touch that dial!  Another one is one I’m going to talk about now…  The long awaited 2^nd Covid Relief Package was signed by Congress yesterday, and it is in the amount of $900 Billion…  Of course that’s $900 Billion that Congress doesn’t have to spend, so the currency will be printed out of thin air, with no backing, as it has since August 1971.  To use Bill Bonner’s term… This is nothing but fake money… Another feature of the Relief Package is extended unemployment benefits, which were scheduled to expire on 12/31/2020…  Yes, in 10 days…  they would have expired without being extended with this package…  I hate to be the bearer of bad news here folks…  But putting money into hands of people with no stipulations, could end up being a not-so-good-thing -to-do…  But I’m sure the government people behind this relief package know more than me, and so I’ll just move along here for these aren’t the droids we’re looking for!

Oh, and the free passes the renters and mortgage owners have been receiving were also extended, but only for 1 month…  I guess the negotiators thought the new President could handle that one! And, I’m sure shootin’ believin’  partna… that there will be no evictions on his watch…

$900 Billion added to our debt, in a keystroke on a computer keypad…   I read last week that Twenty-five percent (25% or 1/4 ) of all US Dollars to ever be in existence were created in the last nine months. And that’s before they added another $900 Billion!  You know, folks… I’ve been talking about the ill-effects of Deficit spending, and Debt Accumulation for about 20 years… Before that, It always seemed to me that the debt that we, as a country, had, could be dealt with, sanely…  But then I noticed that no one in Congress was ever talking sanely about debt, and it was then that I figured that we could allow the dollar to get very weak, thus inviting inflation into our economy and inflate away the dollars, or… we could raise taxes…  Notice I didn’t say stop deficit spending, because that had a snowball’s chance in hell of ever happening! 

Now, I believe that the accumulated debt (Over 27 Trillion) is too large to inflate away… I also believe that it’s too large to raise taxes to pay for it… That leaves one choice, and that is to default on the debt and start over…  I’ve gone on record saying that I believe that this will happen around the world because, except for Russia, the rest of the world has gone bonkers with debt accumulation too…  And if the new administration listens to their far left colleagues, we’ll get to the point of defaulting at a faster pace than we are on now.    I’m just saying…

I know, I sound insensitive about this Relief Package, and I apologize for that. I realize there are people and small businesses out there that need help…  But, I always remember what Ronald Reagan once said, about the scariest words spoken, are: “I’m from the government and I’m here to help”… And what good does saving a business now do, if in 6-month to a year, the whole shootin’ match collapses and folds like a cheap lawn chair?

Ok, let’s stop talking about debt accumulation!  I think that the numbers have gotten so large, that normal people can’t fathom what it takes to make $900 Billion…   So, let’s move on…

10 years ago, or so, we would get calls from people all the over the country asking us if we would sell them Iraqi dinar, for they had read that it was going to be revalued…  I had instructed the people on the trade desk that we should gently break the news to the callers that there were no plans for a currency revalue…  One time when I was in Panama at a conference, a gentleman came up to me and told that he had inherited his family business, and that he put all their cash into Iraqi Dinar, for he knew that it was going to be revalued, and wanted to know my thoughts about that… I said to him, “you did what? I believe that the dinar is a worthless , for investment, currency, and that there would be no revalue, and that he should see if he can get out of that trade”… He was not happy with me to say the least!   Oh… and there was this tidbit in the weekend’s news…  Iraq’s central bank increased the sale price of U.S. dollars to banks and currency exchanges to 1,460 dinars, from 1,182 dinars That a DEVALUATION folks!    Not a revaluation!  I wonder what all those folks that kept calling us and telling us the revaluation was real and was going to take place on “x-date”, are thinking now….  Should have listened to me… That’s I’m saying about that!

The U.S. Data Cupboard last week was very disheartening if you are a person that believes all is going along nicely here in the U.S. It was also disheartening for the dollar bugs who saw the dollar fall to its lowest level since 2018… And this is just the beginning in my opinion…  So… The Weekly Initial Jobless Claims blew away the expectations of 862,000 and came in at 885,000… When I left you last Thursday, I said, “what would happen if the claims were greater last week?” I said, I thought the dollar would get sold and that’s exactly what happened…  The Continuing Claims also rose from 19.04 Million to 20.64 Million… So, as usual I’ll give you MY Unemployment Rate of 13.76%…  For comparison purposes, the BLS says Unemployment is 6.7%…   And I would think my rate was conservative, given all the people that have fallen off the Unemployment roster, because their benefits ran out…

And that was Thursday, when the dollar got sold, and Gold was up $20.80, and the currencies moved higher VS the dollar, but, as I said above, on Friday, the dollar bugs fought back, and moved the dollar modestly upward against both the currencies and metals. And in the overnight markets the dollar bugs are back to having the conn…  I would think only for a day, because this is a Monday, Monday can’t trust that day! 

There wasn’t much else, in the way of economic data, reported last week, except for Leading Indicators, which were weaker than Rocktober’s indicators, coming in at .6% VS .7% previously….  Leading Indicators and Capacity Utilization are really the only two pieces of data that are forward looking, or tell you about the future… Everything else is in our rear view mirrors…

Before we head to the Big Finish…  I wanted to point out a link to an article on the Daily Reckoning, that’s a brief video, where the changing of folding cash to digital currency, is discussed in video format… If you don’t have time for the video, trust me on this one, I’m not the only person out there that’s now saying the U.S. Gov’t will be changing over to digital currencies…  www.dailyreconing.com you’ll have to look for it, they post so many articles…. It’s by Nick Giambruno….  Shoot Rudy, I recall when they used to post my Pfennig the site and included me as one of their “writers”…  but that was then and this is now…

To recap…  The dollar bugs fought back on Friday, after seeing the dollar get sold down on Thursday, after the Initial Jobless Claims printed an 885,000. In case you’ve missed the last two weeks of Claims numbers, they happen to be going in the wrong direction, which is upward…  There wasn’t much else to deal with and so the Thursday gains got chopped a bit on Friday…  Chuck points out that after all these years, the Iraqi dinar is NOT getting revalued upward, instead it just got devalued downward! And of course Chuck opines on the Covid Relief Package… 

For What It’s Worth….  You know, I’ve heard some real dumb ideas come from politicians and economists over the years, but the Universal Basic Income idea is really stupid!   So, I just wanted to make certain that you knew I didn’t endorse this guy’s thought, but also thought that it was good to see who’s making these calls as if they went to Jupiter to get more stupider!  The link to the article is here: Former Goldman CFO Calls For Universal Basic Income “To Stave Off Revolution” | ZeroHedge

Or, here’s your snippet: “In an interview with The Business of Business, host Gregory Ugwi asked Chavez if he agrees with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who says “there should be no billionaires in the US as long as there are poor families,” adding that venture capitalist Paul Graham says that income inequality is a “natural part of capitalism, and a sign that the process is working.”

Chavez, a Democrat donor (most recently Pete Buttigieg’s presidential bid), agreed that the income gap is a consequence of capitalism, but said “at the same time, it isn’t an inevitable feature of capitalism that the inequality be as extreme as it’s getting. There have been long periods in American history where there was always inequality – but it wasn’t this kind of inequality.”

He also isn’t a fan of AOC, saying “I am not in AOC’s camp – at all. I didn’t vote for her, I wouldn’t vote for her. I hear her, and she’s just not saying anything that makes any sense to me.”

“At the same time, I’m a big proponent of a universal basic income.

My personal view is that if you’re just being pragmatic and looking at inequality – and not thinking about some abstract concept of justice – you don’t want the inequality to be so extreme that it leads to revolution. So you ought to be prepared to pay to decrease that probability.

This is what I say to, you know, friends who you might call ‘oligarchs,’ right? Why it would make sense for everybody to have some baseline income and why we should all pay for it.”

Chuck Again…  What a dolt… And he ran a business at Goldman Sachs?  Give me a Break!

Market Prices 12/21/20: American Style: A$ .7577, kiwi .7038, C$ .7762, euro 1.2172, sterling 1.3290, Swiss $1.1268, European Style: rand 14.8282, krone 8.7495, SEK 8.3182,  forint 296.38,  zloty 3.7087,   koruna 21.5802, RUB 73.40, yen 103.56, sing 1.3376, HKD 7.7528, INR 73.96, China 6.5360, peso 20.39, BRL 5.1010,  Dollar Index 90.63,  Oil $47.28,  10-year .90%, Silver $26.20, Platinum $993.00, Palladium $2,342.00, and Gold… $1,877.90

That’s it for today…  Well, our St. Louis U. Billikens are no longer unbeaten… They lost on the road in Minnesnowta, last night… UGH!  We had some sunny days this past weekend, but it really didn’t warm up as much as the bright sunshine would have you believe… But it was  “warmer” than normal this time of year, which is good because the cold is coming back this week… But no snow is forecast for Christmas. UGH! You know, I never missed a day of work because of weather, snow, ice, whatever. Even back in the day, long ago, when I used to take a bus downtown from 20 miles out! But I do have to say that now that I don’t HAVE to go anywhere when is snows, I like that much better! I sat down at the piano yesterday for the first time in ages, and I mean AGES!  The piano is need of a tuning, but I was still able to figure out the notes for a song I’ve been hearing a lot of lately… And after about 10-15 minutes, I walked away from the piano…  I still haven’t picked up my guitar in a couple of months! UGH!  Alex closed on his home on Thursday, and moved in on Friday… I went to his new place to see if there was something I could do to help, but they had it all under control!  So, Congrats Alex! The Searchers take us to the finish line today with their song: Love Potion No. 9…  That song always makes me happy to hear it…  I hope you have a Marvelous Monday, and please with all that’s going on, Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler