Author: admin

Rocktober 18, 2021

* Gold’s recent gains were nearly wiped out on Friday

* The Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel tells us we’ve got inflation all wrong! 

Good Day… And a Marvelous Monday to you…  Who turned off the heat? I woke up yesterday to a temperature of 39 degrees! Chilly, for sure, and I’m no fan of cold weather, so this quick change to chilly weather had me piling on clothes to combat it! I even had to break out the long pants! I had lived in shorts for 9 months, so I had to search for long pants that would fit my new slimmer body… Now that’s a good problem to have, I know… But… what a Pain! Every thing I pulled out seemed to look like Clown Pants on me!  I guess I’ll have to buck up and buy some new stuff! UGH! My beloved Cardinals fired their manager last week… “Philosophical Differences” the General Mgr. claimed was the reason… And then wouldn’t tell us what those differences were… I say Horse feathers! It’s all a power play… And that’s all I have to say about that!  Uriah Heep greets me this morning with their song: Stealin’…

Well… Well.. Well.. What did have we here? Could Gold finally be playing catch up with inflation? When the stupid CPI numbers printed on Wednesday last week it reflected a stronger number than the previous month’s negative print. The consumer price index for all items rose 0.4% for the month, compared with the 0.3% Dow Jones estimate. On a year-over-year basis, prices increased 5.4% versus the estimate for 5.3% and the highest since January 1991.  And Gold reacted favorably gaining $32.80 and then followed that gain by gaining another $ 3.30 on Thursday to close at $1,797.10…

Silver also had a grand day on Wednesday last week gaining 52-cents, and finally climbing back over 23-cents, and Silver, too, had another gain on Thursday of 45-cents to close at $23.60…

And then right when you thought the metals were getting ready to take off on a trip to the moon, the rug got pulled out from under them on Friday… The media all talked about how it was the stronger than expected Retail Sales figure that caused Gold to lose $28.70 and Silver to lose 20-cents on Friday, but again I say horse feathers!  Think about that reasoning folks… If and I say that strongly, “if” Retail Sales were really .4% in September, then wouldn’t that increase inflation? And if inflation is going to be stronger, then the price of Gold should be stronger…  Instead, once Gold reached $1,801.00, it got sold… resistance? Nah… price manipulators? Probably…

And taking a cue from the rising inflation that we haven’t seen  in 30 years… The price of Copper soared by 25-cents last Thursday up to $4.52…   And then added another 27-cents on Friday to close the week at $4.71…  I’m of the opinion that all the metals, and commodities would be much higher right now without price manipulation… But they’re moving in the right direction now, let’s envision them going much higher…

And “IF” Retail Sales were so strong, then why didn’t the dollar rally? The dollar has seen some real selling since I left you on Wednesday morning. At that time the BBDXY was trading at 1,165.14… But when all the dust settled on Friday, and traders headed to the Hamptons, the DDDXY (Dollar Index) was trading 1,159.37… A Big Drop from the Wednesday morning figure, eh?  The euro traded up to 1.1600, the Aussie dollar (A$) rose above 74-cents, pound sterling rose above 1.37, and on and on… The Petrol Currencies got an extra boost as the price of Oil rebounded to trade over $82.00.. The Russian ruble is trading with a 70 handle, and so on… The dollar was really getting sold, folks…

Speaking of the Russian ruble… Surging oil and gas revenues have pushed Russia’s wealth fund to record levels, but President Vladimir Putin wants to save the extra cash for a rainy day. After approving $35 billion in infrastructure projects from the fund this year, Putin has told the government to limit further spending. Officials close to the process say there aren’t many more well-prepared ventures left in the pipeline anyway.

Putin called the low incomes of millions of Russians “the main enemy” earlier this week. Still, he has stuck to his longstanding focus on limiting debt and rebuilding reserves quickly after boosting spending last year amid the Covid-19 pandemic. He proposed only modest increases in welfare spending, even as the government is likely to receive about $40 billion in extra oil-and-gas revenue this year.

You can find the whole article here: https://www.bloombergquint.com/global-economics/putin-is-back-to-building-financial-fortress-as-reserves-grow 

Chuck again… Hmmm… spending on projects with money that you have saved… What a Novel Idea, eh?  This is why I like the Russian ruble, they have a sane Central Bank head, they have reserves by the truck load, which includes tons of Gold, and they have interest rates that are higher than most in the world… And imagine if you will, our president telling Congress to limit spending…  

In the overnight markets last night, the dollar got bought once again… So the selling in the dollar had a tourniquet wrapped tightly around it , and the bleeding has stopped… For now that is… The BBDXY which closed on Friday at 1,159, is trading this morning at 1,161.. So, just from that you can see that the bleeding in the dollar has stopped.. Gold is down $4.60 in the early trading, and Silver is down 11-cents. Copper is up another 10-cents this morning… That metal has really gotten with the program of increasing with inflation.. 

But, according to the Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel, Wall Street and everyone else is getting this inflation all wrong… Wait, What? Yes, the Mr. Know-it-alls, from the Eccles Bldg, are saying that we’ve all got the rising inflation wrong, and that we need to chill…  

Could they be any more wrong about this? NO! The couldn’t… They are so wrong about inflation that they’re almost right… There I go with that description…  To me, I see the wrong and right meter as a circle, and when something is so wrong, the needle is almost to the right …. 

Ever since the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) hiked rates about two weeks ago, the two antipodean currencies (A$’s and kiwi) have been on the rally tracks… The A$ gets to rally because its kissin’ cousin across the Tasman (NZ) hiked rates… Imagine if the Aussies had also hike rates?  I find this association to be a little too much, and wonder how much the A$ can squeeze out of this radish… But don’t argue with City Hall, or don’t fight the Fed, or the markets are never wrong… Choose your phrase, because the all play here… 

I would think the markets would look at Australia, and what’s going on there, and mark down the currency, but, that’s not happening, so just go with the flow… 

I say the same thing about pound sterling…  Although I will say that the pound is getting some play here because the Bank of England has hinted that they will be raising rates soon… And that’s old school, folks… Old school trading… buying a currency ahead of a Central Bank rate hike… 

Ok… on to other things…  traveling through Twitter on Sunday, found me reading a report that highlighted a McDonalds franchise that was offering $21 per hour wages…  Wage inflation, that’s what that is folks… and it’s the kind of inflation that the Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel has been looking for… Wages rising but being eaten up by inflation… Ooh… I can see this all unfolding now folks…  And it’s an ugly thing, that will eat away your earnings, your savings, your nest eggs… Better get ready… Oh… and one more thing… Got Gold?

The U.S. Data Cupboard last week had the aforementioned Retail Sales, which actually, didn’t meet expectations, but compared to August’s negative number, looked as though it had soared!  But there was another piece of data that caught my attention… The U of Michigan’s Consumer Confidence, which any of the consumer confidence reports had historically been nothing more than a pulse of the stock market… But this time… The Confidence poll took a hit, and early October data from U of M sentiment survey was expected to show the rebound continued, but it did NOT. Preliminary October sentiment slipped from 72.8 to 71.4 (well below the 73.1 expected). That is the second-lowest level since 2011,

And… The stock market rallied by nearly 400 points! So, what gives with the historical pulse of the stock market?  I’m telling you this now so you hear me now and listen to me later….  Stocks are not being bought by individual investors to the tune of moving a market nearly 400 points… These are huge institutional and hedge fund buyers… And the U of Michigan is a poll of individuals…  I don’t know if that makes sense or not, but eventually it will… Of course, to argue with me on that, a guy at Goldman, aka Lola, is saying that mom and pop buying of stocks is strong…  So, who you gonna call? Ghostbusters? No, wait… Who are you going to pin your colors to the mast of.. Me or Lola?

The U.S. Data Cupboard this week is another in the line of “not much to look at”… We’ll start the week today with two pieces of real economic data and they are: Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization… And then the rest of the week is dominated with housing data…  It’ll be interesting to see if the dollar continues to decline this week, or if it rebounds… I say that because usually when we have a week of slow data, the dollar does well, because traders don’t have negative data to trade off of…

To recap… It was a rollercoaster week for Gold & Silver last week… All the good performances of the week were nearly wiped out by Friday’s sell off, and those that would have you believe so you can follow them down the road to ruins, would have you believe that the strong Retail Sales figure for September brought about the selling in Gold & Silver… Chuck says, “horse feathers!”  The dollar had a bad week last week and the BBDXY went from 1,165 on Wednesday to end the week at 1,159…  We haven’t seen a 3 day downward movement in the dollar like that in a month of Sundays… But the overnight markets did some dollar buying, to stop the bleeding… 

Before we head to the Big Finish today… I had a read send me a note telling me that I shouldn’t be talking about vaccines…  Hmmm…  Well, maybe I shouldn’t, and maybe I should… But do you know who gets to decide what I write about? ME!  And if I think it has an inkling of a chance of having something to do with the markets… Well… you know me…  I do admit though I would have to look under a rock to find anything to with the markets when it comes to vaccines… I’m just saying…

For What It’s Worth…  Ok longtime readers know of my affection for Grant Williams and his letter: Things That Make You Go Hmmm….   Well I was reading it yesterday, and he had highlighted an article in the Economist…  It’s about rising wage inflation, which I touched on earlier this morning, and while I can’t give you a link, because you have to be a paid subscriber, I can share with you a bit… or you could subscribe to Grant’s letter!

Or, here’s your snippet: “The rich world is used to wages and prices growing slowly. In the decade after the global financial crisis, inflation   rarely   exceeded   central   banks’   targets,   and wages seemed unable to grow much faster. The spending  power  of  average  hourly  pay  in  Britain,  Italy  and  Japan  was  about  the  same  at  the  start  of  the pandemic as it had been in the mid-2000s. The fact   that   American   wage   growth   averaged   2.9%   from  2015  to  2019  while  average  inflation  stayed  below 2% seemed a rare triumph.

The  recovery  from  the  pandemic  has  brought  about  a startling change: prices and wages are both surging. American  hourly  pay  rose  by  4.6%  in  the  year  to  September   while   consumer-price   inflation   of   5.4%   is  more  than  wiping  out  those  gains. 

In  Germany  inflation has reached 4.1% and the main public-sector union  is  asking  for  a  pay  increase  of  5%.  Wages  and  prices have even picked up modestly in Japan. The causes of higher prices are clear: rampant demand for  goods  has  met  bottlenecks  in  supply  chains,  and  energy   prices   have   soared.   Wage   growth   is   more   mysterious.   In   most   places   employment   is   lower   than  it  was  before  the  pandemic.  Yet  workers  seem  unwilling  or  unable  to  take  the  abundant  jobs  that  are  on  offer.  The  labor  shortage  may  reflect  how  hard  it  is  to  move  between  professions  and  places  as  economies  go  through  an  unusual  adjustment.  Fear  of  the  virus  and  the  lingering  effects  of  state  support  for household incomes could be keeping workers idle. The pandemic may even have led some people to put family and leisure above their careers.”

Chuck again… I really do recommend reading Grant Williams’ letter: Things That Make You Go Hmmm…  and you can find him here: www.grant-williams.com          And you can sign up and send your currency for payment, it’s well worth it! 

Wage inflation is coming, and is upon us folks… And it’s only going to make matter worse…

Market Prices 10/18/2021: American Style: A$ .7386,  kiwi .7053, C$ .8066, euro 1.1593, sterling 1.3728, Swiss $1.0814, European Style: rand 14.7500, krone 8.4241, SEK 8.6607, forint 311.96,  zloty 3.9492,   koruna 21.9525, RUB 70.95, yen 114.40, sing 1.3502, HKD 7.7787, INR 75.28, China 6.4347, peso 20.46, BRL 5.4585, BBDXY 1,161.87, Dollar Index 94.05,  Oil $83.55, 10-year 1.60%, Silver $23.30, Platinum $1,047.00, Palladium $2,063.00, Copper $4.78, and Gold… $1,763.80

That’s it for today… Our Blues got the new season off on a good note (pun intended) on Saturday night with a road win in Denver…  It’s fun watching hockey at times… And other times it can be brutal… Good thing the game was on a Saturday night, as it had a late start!  Little Evie and brother Braden were here on Friday morning for a bit… She sat on my lap and talked to me for a while.. I couldn’t understand anything she was saying to me as it all gobbledygook! It was so cute any way!  At least she’s trying to tell me things…  Probably like, “why are you making me sit on your lap?” HA!  I heard from the Great Mogambo Guru last week… I’m hoping he’s gearing up for another of his letters! I did hear from a lot of your Dear Readers that thanked me for bringing the Mogambo Guru back into their lives! Well, you know those 10 lbs I was complaining about last week that I had gained? Well, as of yesterday, they were gone again… I don’t like having to lose weight that I had already lost once… But I guess I should think about that more before I stuff my face with pizza and beer! HA!   The song to end the day today is a true 70’s song… It’s Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds   with their song: Fallin’ In Love… Baby, Baby Fallin’ In Love, I’m Fallin’ In love again…    I hope you have a Marvelous Monday, and will please Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler

 

Rocktober 13, 2021

* Currencies & metals get bought in the overnight markets

* the Stupid CPI will print today… What will it show? 

Good Day… And a Wonderful Wednesday to you! Well, that just goes to show ya, that I shouldn’t pin my colors to the mast of any team other than my Cardinals, Blues, Tigers and Billikens, because all I do is jinx them! I said yesterday that I had gotten on the White Sox bandwagon… And then they promptly blew a tire against the Astros… UGH!  Now it’s the Astros VS the Red Sox… I can’t root for the Astros, because they will forever be in my mind as cheaters… And I can’t stand the Red Sox, so… What to do, what to do…  It was a real Chamber of Commerce day here yesterday, I sat outside to read for 3 hours, until the sun became too hot…  (it wasn’t really hot, hot, just too warm for my comfort!) Our Blues have a strange and difficult schedule to start the season, they had better bring their A game… The Band: Heartsfield, greets me this morning with their song: The Wonder Of It All…

Not familiar with that one? YOUTUBE the title and I think you’ll find that you really like the song…

Ok, to start our day.. Bloomberg had this title to an article that was front and center this morning: Apple Finally Falls Victim to Never-Ending Supply Chain Crisis…   I just thought that to highlight that would give you an idea of where we’re going this morning…  Oh, and Copper is soaring these days up to $4.37… Inflation is here, and is going to stay… 

OK… Well, yesterday I thought that the crescendo of dollar buying was ending, as things were moving in the right direction early yesterday… But that didn’t hold the morning through, and by midday, the dollar was back on top, pushing the currencies downward, and taking away the thunder from Gold… The BBDXY, which started the day at 1,165.81, ended the day at 1,167.25. The euro never found a bid on Tuesday, and so it was with the other currencies, not having the title of Petrol Currency… Not that the price of Oil moved higher on the day, instead losing about 50-cents on the day.

But there are a lot of economists and analysts calling for much higher Oil prices as the year goes on and into next year, folks, and that bodes well for the Petrol Currencies.  Not so much for your wallet when you go to fill your gas tank, and not so much for the home heating season either… But when you print currency on top of more currency until the world is choking on it, you can expect that inflation begins to soar…  We are in the beginning stages of inflation rising folks… Just wait, it’s going to get a whole lot worse!

Bonds got bought yesterday, and that surprised me a bit, as I really thought that the 1.60% yield the 10-year Treasury sported on Friday, was just a stepping stone for higher yields… I still believe they will come, and Rome wasn’t built in a day, so patience, Chuck… patience…  I just had the song by the Monkees get into my head: I’m, not you’re stepping stone…  I’m, not your stepping stone…  Ok, enough of that!

I would just like to be able to put some cash to work, that yields more than what you can get 3 years out… Right now a 3 year Treasury yields 0.60%…  When the mortgage jockeys on TV quit harping about how they’ve still got mortgage rates in the 2’s, that’s when rates will be moving in the right direction!

I know it’s difficult to believe, but I consider myself a senior citizen now… I am retired, and these low rates are sickening to me… How can a person on fixed income survive with these low rates? What the Fed/ Cabal/Cartel has done to the retirees in this country is a down right shame… My good friend, Dennis Miller was dubbed “the Retirementor” for his work in giving retirees on how to retire comfortably… “It’s not as easy as it used to be”, says Dennis” We could ladder CD’s that paid over 6%, and then spend the interest and roll the principal. The principal was never touched”… 

When was the last time you  saw a 6% yield on a bank CD?  When we opened our first virtual bank, EverBank, we offered 6% on checking accounts, that was January 2000…  I would say that since that time the U.S. has gone downhill…  Think about that for a moment… Bill Bonner said this yesterday in his letter: “Since 2000, the Fed has increased its core (money supply) holdings by more than 20 times. But GDP growth has been cut in half.

From 1950-1999, real GDP growth averaged 3.6% per year. From 2000-2020, it has averaged 1.8%.

The new money shows up first in higher stock and bond prices (because the Fed buys bonds in order to push down interest rates… and finance the government’s excess spending).

Later, it shows up in consumer prices. And by the look of things, “later” is coming soon.” – Bill Bonner in his Daily Diary 

Chuck again… Yes, since 2000, the U.S. has gone from a current debt of $5.674 Trillion… And in 20 years we had a debt of $26.945 Trillion, and one year later its $28.869 Trillion, and soon to breach $30 Trillion…  Oh, and your portion of the debt? Well, each taxpayer would owe $229,000…  So, you can write that check out to the U.S. Government… AS IF! So… if you backed me into a corner, and asked me where the U.S. Empire began to show cracks, I would say at the turn of the millennium…  Now, see you didn’t even need to back me into a corner! HA!

I can see it now… you go to your mailbox, and find a letter from the U.S. Government, and you’re very intrigued as to what this might be, so you open it to find, a letter that goes something like this:

“Dear Taxpayer

We have long sought a solution to our growing debt crisis, but with none coming to our attention, we now turn to you dear patriot. If you would be so kind to send us a check in the amount of $229,000 and make it out to the U.S. Government, we would be very appreciative of your willing to help us in this time of need.”

Then you could take the letter and hand it to your grandkids, because they’re the ones that will burdened with these debts….  I’m just saying…

In the overnight markets last night…  Well here we go again… the dollar got sold in the overnight markets and into this morning. The BBDXY has dropped from 1,167.25 yesterday to 1,165.14 this morning, and the metals are on the rally tracks again this morning. It will be interesting watching the price manipulators react to the inflation data this morning…  Gold is up $11.60 this morning and Silver is up 28-cents, to start the day… Once again, it appears that things are aligning in the right order this morning, but we’ll have to see how they trade throughout the day, eh? 

So, once again I was wrong about the dollar reaching a crescendo… Please mark that down so you can relay to my wife that I do admit when I’m wrong, as opposed to her saying that I don’t! There’s no shame in being wrong on things like that… I have no qualms about admitting it either!  But the day is coming, when the dollar crescendo is a distant memory, and then I’ll say, neener, neener, neener!

And as far as errors are concerned… Yesterday, I referred to Jamie Diamond as Mamie Diamond… Fat fingers strike again! But not to worry, I doubt he reads the Pfennig… 

I also want to apologize for the tardiness of the letter this week… I’m having a run in with the mail server, and they don’t like me any longer, so the Pfennig gets sent out later in the morning… I guess I’ll have to pull the old Chuck Charm out of the closet and see if I can get this corrected… But for now, it’s a late letter each day… UGH!

I received an email in the Pfennig Replies box yesterday, mentioning that I should add Bitcoin to the market prices roundup…  I won’t do that, period…  Because to me Bitcoin is not real… And if I included Bitcoin, then someone would want me to add another one and another one, etc.  So, I’ll talk about it every now and then, but to daily price it would be saying that I believe its real… 

Ok… The U.S. Data Cupboard today will have the stupid CPI (consumer inflation index) And Core CPI… which takes out food and energy, as if these aren’t things we use every darn day!  Yesterday’s cupboard had the Small Business Index, and it showed a drop from its August high of 100.1, to 99.1 in September, but under the hood we could find that the outlook by businesses isn’t good… Uh-Oh…

To recap… The dollar fought back on Tuesday, and regained the lost ground from the day before… UGH! Back and forth… no direction, no one saying, “This is the way it needs to go”… Because they don’t make traders like that any longer!  Gold couldn’t hold its early morning gains yesterday and only ended up with a $6.20 gain on the day…  In the overnight markets last night… The dollar got sold once again, with Gold & Silver on the rally tracks this morning… 

And before we head to the Big Finish today, I wanted to talk about this… All the cancellations of Southwest flights… Like I said on Monday, I really believed we were lucky to get home Friday night. At first S.W. told us it was weather related, but we had come from Florida and there were no weather problems there… We read the next day that it was a case of not having enough crew as they are boycotting the mandate that they receive a vaccine shot by Dec. 8^th…  Now I would not like to stranded somewhere with all the flight cancellations but… I wholeheartedly support them in not accepting the mandate… Corporations should not be able to mandate something as personal as this decision. I hope it all works out for the crew members… And that’s all I have to say about that!

For What It’s Worth…  Well, I spilled the beans on this article yesterday, when  I told you I had two articles for you and one was former CFTC Chairman, and new SEC Chairman,  Gary Gensler saying how tough he was going to be with regards to regulation… And I kept it on the shelf in case I needed it today, and I did, I did, I did see a putty tat! So, that’s today’s FWIW and the article can be found here: Gensler To Wall Street: Prepare For The “Everything” Crackdown | ZeroHedge

Or, here’s Your snippet: “Regardless of what one thinks of SEC Chair Gary Gensler, he certainly seems to be bringing more to the table in terms of regulations than his predecessor, Jay Clayton.

In fact, Gensler is readying an “everything crackdown”, according to a new report from Bloomberg.

Gensler has already proposed 49 separate changes for his staff to consider implementing, the report says, calling it “one of the most ambitious agendas in the SEC’s 87-year history”. At the same time, he has kept an aggressive stance on ongoing enforcement actions.

Gensler even said in a recent interview that he thinks about a famous Martin Luther King, Jr. speech about the “fierce urgency of now”.

He has set up about 50 teams involving about 200 people just to write rule proposals. Each team has staff from the general counsel’s office and economists to help examine costs and benefits of new proposals.

Everyone from SEC veterans to hedge funds – and even some supporters of Gensler’s agenda – are worried that the pace he is setting could wind up being counterintuitive.

Frank Kelly, a former agency official who now runs Fulcrum Macro Advisors, told Bloomberg: “You have to think it will be quite a challenge for the SEC staff to achieve.”

Gensler has been urged to lighten his load on account of policies he is advocating for potentially taking years to finalize.

For Gensler, it appears that all of his proposals share a spot at the top of his list.”

Chuck again… Sure they want him to slow down, nothing to see here, move along…  Look Gensler was the head of the CFTC and claims he looked into price manipulation with Silver, and never found anything… So, either he wasn’t looking and lied to us, or… he was paid under the table to look the other way…  And now he’s the SEC head?  Move along now, for these are not the droids we’re looking for… But I do believe that he has the cryptocurrencies in his sights for regulation, folks… 

Market Prices 10/13, 2021: American Style: A$ .7354, kiwi .6947, C$ .8040, euro 1.1560, sterling 1.3627, Swiss 1.0780, European Style: rand 14.8629, krone 8.5280, SEK 8.7548, forint 311.66, zloty 3.9591, koruna 21.9516, RUB 71.83, yen 113.60, sing 1.3528, HKD 7.7800, INR 75.32, China 6.4492, peso 20.70, BRL 5.5337,  BBDXY 1,165.14, Dollar Index 94.29, Oil $80.16,10-year 1.57%, Silver $22.91, Platinum $1,016.00, Palladium $2,176.00, Copper $4.37,  and Gold $1,772.60

That’s it for today, and tomorrow, as I explained on Monday, I’ll be at the hospital tomorrow bright and early for scans… I used to get all hyped up about going in for scans, because once you’ve gone in and they’ve found cancer, you always have that in the back of your mind… But now 14 years later, I figure that I would know if something was awry… And so I go to the scans with confidence of not finding anything… Well, Congrats to the Braves, Red Sox, Astros for moving along in the playoffs… Well, our Chamber of Commerce day yesterday was a one and done, as we’re expected to have rain for the next 3 days! While I was away on vacation, we learned of the death of a very good friend… She was the wife of my friend Gus, the ice cream guy… Kathy and I had gone to visit them a couple of years ago… The news of her death, was sad and heartbreaking for me… RIP Vivi….   The Gin Blossoms take us to the finish line today with their song: Found Out About You…  I hope you have a Wonderful Wednesday and please Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler

 

 

Rocktober 12, 2021

* Gold & Silver trade flat on Monday… 

* The dollar sees some slippage in the overnight markets… 

Good Day… And a Tom Terrific Tuesday to you! With 4 post season baseball games on the docket yesterday, I was prepared to hunker down and sit out the rain filled day, watching baseball… But then the first game of the day was cancelled because of rain, and that just messed me up for the rest of the day! I’m a schedule follower, in case you didn’t know, and once I’m thrown a curve on the schedule, I can’t adjust to take the pitch to right field…  Talk about day and night! Sunday was very warm in the mid 80’s, sunny and blue skies, and Monday was as I said rain filled, with loud thunder, and damaging winds in places… I’m hoping that we get back to sun filled skies so I can get outside to read today… Led Zeppelin greets me this morning with their classic rock song: Kashmir…  My former colleague, Mike Meyer, this song was one of his fave songs… 

What on earth is going on here? The dollar got bought by the bushelful yesterday, and never looked back… The BBDXY, which started the day at 1,164.39, ended the day at 1,167.13…  The Japanese yen is taking the brunt of the selling VS the dollar, as it has fallen in the past two days of trading from a 111 handle to a 113 handle…  Why on earth, would traders, and investors buy dollars in the face of yet another Spendalooza that’s sure to be coming down the pike, after the debt ceiling was raised for the 79^th time!  That’s right, 78 times before this time, Congress raised the debt ceiling… Which gives Congress the ability to pass all the pork and fat and spending programs that won’t have any ROI, and will most likely become permanent in draining funds from the coffers…  And probably 1/2 of the 78 times they played out the drama card to the hilt… Oh, No! We Can’t Default, what will the other countries think of us? Treasuries are the bedrock of finance, they can’t be left to default!  And all the other cries of desperation they could think of they pulled out of their hats!

But… I guess traders and investors think that with more spending, and more debt, that the economy will recover quicker…  Well, if you did your homework I assigned yesterday, you now are prepared to tackle this question…  What in the $3.5 Trillion is going to lift the economy out of its doldrums and return it to the high flying economy it was before the pandemic?   Did you know that the previous $1.1 Trillion spending bill that was to go to pandemic expenses, hasn’t even been spent yet?  And they need more money? Give me a break! These morons in D.C. think… “What the hell, why don’t we test the waters for deficit spending, and see what sticks?” If the $.3.5 Trillion is passed as is, that would bring our deficit spending in the past year to $6 Trillion dollars!!!!!!   So, go ahead and buy dollars you doofuses, I hope you hold them all the way down the slippery slope of collapse!

So, the dollar was bought, bonds were on holiday, stocks got sold, Oil lost a buck, and Gold was sold by $3.30 and Silver by 10-cents…  Gold closed the day at $1,754.80, and Silver closed at $22.65…

In the overnight markets last night…  There had to be come profit taking here because the dollar slipped from the lofty number in the BBDXY from 1,167.13, to 1,165.81 this morning…   I have to think that the dollar buying hit a crescendo yesterday… Gold is up $9.20 in the early trading this morning. Yesterday’s price action in Gold & Silver was very lacking volume… Ed Steer called it “a day of watching paint dry”… I saw that and though, damn, I wish I had thought of that! HA!  

Alrighty then, what to talk about, what to talk about?  Well, let’s take a short trip down south, and I mean way down south, in Brazil!  On Friday last week, Brazil announced that inflation had increased 10.25% from a year ago…  The Bank of Brazil must have been very stealth-like in announcing that they had raised interest rates 425 Basis Points (4.25%)… since March in an effort to slow inflation brought on by the reopening of the economy. However, rising energy bills due to a severe drought and spiking commodity costs have pressured prices further.

So, now we have 3 Central Banks that have raised interest rates to fight their respective country’s rising inflation… These Central Banks should be given a gold star for not being fooled into believing that the rising inflation was only “transitory”… 

So, who will be next to take the plunge into rate hikes?  It appears that the Bank of England (BOE) is contemplating a rate hike that could come as soon as the next meeting…  WOW!  Well, I know for one, it won’t be the Bank of Japan (BOJ), for the BOJ is finally getting what they’ve wanted for years, and that is a weaker yen, that would allow inflation to be imported into Japan, and maybe, just maybe because you never know, would finally put an end to the deflation Japan has been in, for over 2 decades…

With all this dollar buying going on, one would think that the Chinese renminbi with all their potential defaulting in the country hanging over them like the Sword of Damocles, would be getting weaker… But that’s not happening… And any renminbi strength is reflected in Singapore dollar strength… So, those two currencies have that going for them!

Each week Prager University, sends me a link to a quick 5-minute video on subjects that are wide ranging. Yesterday’s video was Stephen Moore, economist for Freedomworks, talking about debt… It was very interesting and nothing new to me, but… in case you’re interested in hearing someone else’s opinion on debt, here’s the link, it’s free… The Bankrupting of America | PragerU

The video last week was on Social Security…  Here are couple of “fun facts” about Social Security… 1. When the program was introduced in 1935, the ratio of workers paying into the program to retired folks was 159/ 1…  Here and now the ratio has dropped to 2.8/1…   And the numbers keep dropping…  And 2. 53% of baby boomers have no retirement savings…   Are these people seriously thinking that Social Security will be all they need to retire?  I sure hope not!

Well, all the new deficit spending that we’ll be seeing here in the U.S. will bring about the need to issue more Treasuries to finance that debt… I do believe that by the time I sitting in my seats at Roger Dean Stadium in Jupiter Florida, watching my beloved Cardinals at spring training, that the yield on the 10-year Treasury will be 2% or higher…

I saw a news report yesterday. I try to avoid news reports because they no longer just give us the news and allow us to decide on how we should view it, instead, they give us their opinion, on the news, as if that’s the only opinion we can handle…  News reporters have become so opinionated and full of themselves, that I can’t stand to watch it… But last night I did watch one, because it caught my attention… And that is that since most toys are made in China, and the distribution chain from China has seen some major delays, that Christmas might not have as many toys available and the ones that are available will be more expensive…    Better get shopping now, folks…

The U.S. Data Cupboard today is still lacking… We will see the Small Business Index, the current Job Openings and something new… it’s call the median expected 3 year inflation rate…  We can’t decide what inflation rate indicator we should use currently, how in the hell can we figure out what is expected in 3 years?  For those of you keeping score at home, the expected inflation rate in 3 years is 4.25%…    Don’t worry about remembering that one, as it won’t be any where close to the expectation  3 years from now…

To recap… It was a day for the dollar and dollar buyers yesterday, and Chuck can’t figure out why on earth the dollar is getting bought!  It was a holiday for the bond market yesterday, but Chuck thinks that with all the new debt, and thus all the new Treasury issuance, that yields will continue to go higher…  Brazil’s inflation rate hits 10.25% last month, and the Bank of Brazil has hiked rates 425 Basis Points to fight inflation, with no results so far… Chuck points out that the Bank of Japan will NOT be hiking rates to fight inflation…   And in the overnight markets…  there’s been some slippage in the dollar, and Gold is up $9.20… So far this morning things are moving in the right direction…

For What It’s Worth…  I had two articles lined up for today’s FWIW… One is CFTC Chairman, Gary Gensler talking about how tough he’s going to be with regulation. And the Second one is featuring Mamie Diamond of JP Morgan talking about Bitcoin… I flipped a coin and decided that the since I don’t talk about Bitcoin very much that I would feature what Mr. Diamond had to say about it, and that article can be found here: JPMorgan’s Dimon blasts bitcoin as ‘worthless’, due for regulation | Kitco News

Or, here’s your snippet: “NEW YORK (Reuters) – Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase & Co chief executive, said on Monday at a conference that cryptocurrencies will be regulated by governments and that he personally thinks bitcoin is “worthless.”

“No matter what anyone thinks about it, government is going to regulate it. They are going to regulate it for (anti-money laundering) purposes, for (Bank Secrecy Act) purposes, for tax,” Dimon said, referring to banking regulations in a conversation held virtually by the Institute of International Finance.

Dimon, head of the largest U.S. bank, has been a vocal critic of the digital currency, once calling it a fraud and then later saying he regretted the statement.

This summer, JPMorgan gave wealth management clients access to cryptocurrency funds, meaning the bank”s financial advisers can accept buy and sell orders from clients for five cryptocurrency products.

Stating that his views are different from those of the bank and its board, Dimon said he remains skeptical.

“I personally think that bitcoin is worthless,” Dimon said. “I don”t think you should smoke cigarettes either.”

“Our clients are adults. They disagree. If they want to have access to buy or sell bitcoin – we can”t custody it – but we can give them legitimate, as clean as possible access.”

Chuck again…  I liked the quote about how he didn’t think people should buy Bitcoin, but then he also doesn’t think people should smoke cigarettes”   Read that again and think about what he’s saying folks… And quite frankly, I’ve not been a fan of Mr. Diamond through the years, and have thought that he should have seen the inside of a cell many times, due to all the findings of illegal activities at his bank…  So… I was surprised as anyone to see this article, and include it in my letter… 

Market prices 10/12/2021: American Style: A$ .7379,  Kiwi .6964, C$ .8028, euro 1.1555, sterling 1.3634, Swiss $1.0771, European Style: rand 14.9371, krone 8.5321, krone 8.7462, forint 311.39, zloty 3.9633, koruna 21.9559, RUB 71.73, yen 113.43, sing 1.3555, HKD 7.7811, INR 75.50, China 6.4441, peso 20.78, BRL 5.5163, BBDXY 1,165.81, Dollar Index 94.30, Oil $80.84, 10-year 1.60%, Silver $22.68, Platinum $1,012.00, Palladium $2,268.00, Copper $4.32, and Gold $1,764.00

That’s it for today… I actually sat through, and watched a full NFL game on Sunday… That’s the first one in over 2 years! If I watch any NFL it’s on the Redzone channel, where you just get the highlights of the games…  Well, the NHL’s season is kicking off this week… Sure seems to be early to me, but how else are you going to get 82 games in before playoffs?  I still get chills thinking about our Blues, and their Stanley Cup run in 2019… Let’s Go Blues! I’ve adopted the  Chicago White Sox as my team to root for, since Tony LaRussa is their manager. I was very upset with myself yesterday morning when I stepped on the scale… I had thought that I had gains a few pounds while on vacation, but 10 lbs? I’ve got to get back to work on losing it again now! UGH!  Sugar Ray takes us to the finish line today with their song: Every Morning…   I hope you have a Tom Terrific Tuesday, and please… please.. please, Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler

Rocktober 11, 2021

* Currencies are stuck in the mud… 

* Bond and Oil are pointing to higher inflation ahead… 

Good Day… And a Marvelous Monday to you!  Well, I’m back home in my little river town today. Getting here was a nightmare, but as I told my beautiful bride yesterday: “I thought we were lucky to get home when we did”…  Apparently, Southwest had cancellations and delays out the ying=yang on Friday, so… we were lucky to get home, albeit hours later than originally booked!  Yesterday, we celebrated my little Evie’s 2^nd birthday, which is actually today… She’s already won my heart, and wrapped me around her little finger! So, Happy Birthday Evie! My beloved Missouri Tigers got back on the winning side on Saturday, but… They still didn’t play the brand of defense that I always remember them having… Little Feat greet me this morning with their song: Fat Man In the Bathtub… “Cause there’s a fat man, in the bathtub, with the blues.”

So… I take it from the Pfennig Replies that for the most part, you all enjoyed the piece that I sent to you on Friday from the Great Mogambo Guru! The Great Mogambo replied to me that he was very happy and surprised that I sent out a special Pfennig with his words..  Always humble…  I just hope he continues to send me thoughts that I can pass along to you dear reader!

Well… when I wrote to you on Friday morning, I told you that the Job Jamboree for September, reflected the BLS’s number of jobs created at 194,000, when it was forecast to be 500,000 jobs created… I told you that Gold was rallying and up $25 on the data news… Well, one would have  thought that Gold would have kept adding onto to its early morning gains on Friday, but that was not to be.. .The price manipulators entered the market after the Jobs number printed and saw to it that Gold & Silver didn’t add to its early morning gains… 

For the record, Gold ended the day up just $1.70 to close at $1,758.10, and Silver gained 8-cents to close at $22.76…  It’s just a shame what the “boys in the band” did to the metals on Friday… 

I know, I told you months ago that I was finished with talking about how the price manipulators continually  took down the price of Gold & Silver. But Come on! This takedown on Friday was so brazen and in your face that I have to talk about it!   What’s it going to take to get these guys to stop?  Because they’re being a real pain in the rear!  I’m so tired of these brazen takedowns…. 

So… in other things to talk about…  The currencies attempted to mount a rally on Friday, but they fell short of their aspirations… The euro is stuck in the mud below 1.16, and the good things we’ve seen from the Petrol Currencies in recent trading sessions, was looking like it could be petering out… UGH!  I know it doesn’t ease the pain but if you look at the dollar in the past 5 years, it has lost ground… The BBDXY 5 years ago was trading around 1,237.00… And today it’s around 1,163.00…   So, not a HUGE movement downward, but overall the dollar is weaker than it was 5 years ago… And I’m sure that this is the kind of weakness the Gov’t has told the Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel that they want to see. As I’ve explained in past years many times… The Gov’t can’t allow the dollar to fall off a cliff all at once, for it would really scare dollar holders into selling more, and causing a real exit from the currency…  I’ve explained this to be like the frog in the the pot of boiling water… if you put the frog in a pot of boiling water he’ll jump out immediately, but… if you put the frog in the a pot and slowly turn up the heat, you’ll have better luck… 

I know that doesn’t give to much credence to the “what have you done for me lately crowd”… But, we have to change the way we look at things… The Chinese have 100 year plans… And we go through gyrations on a quarterly basis…   I’m just saying… 

In the overnight markets last night… The dollar was bought but not by the bushelful. The BBDXY has risen to 1,164.38, from the close on Friday of 1,163.38… So, not a major move upward, but… an upward move nonetheless… 

The Big Mover in the past 24 trading hours is the price of Oil… This morning the price of Oil is trading with an $81 handle…  The Russian ruble has noticed, and is on the rally tracks this morning. In fact, most of the Petrol Currencies, which looked like on Friday that they were petering out, have taken a flyer on the rise in the price of Oil, and are booking gains this morning… 

And coming in second for the Biggest Mover, we have bonds… The yield on the 10-year Treasury has climbed to 1.61%, just 20 days ago, the 10-year’s yield was 1.33%… Let me remind you that bond pricing has the price of the bond going down as the yield rises, and vice versa…  So, there are apparently a lot of selling of bonds going on here folks… Time for the Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel to get back to their yield control business…  before this begins to get out of hand… 

It sure does appear to me that both Bonds and Oil are pointing to higher inflation ahead…  

I had a dear reader send me a note on Friday, telling me that the Great Mogambo Guru doesn’t understand Bitcoin…  I want to say here and now, that I don’t understand Bitcoin either!  There’s nothing there, but  people that think it’s going to the moon!  I understand that it’s made a lot of people very rich.. . But I’m telling now so you can listen to me later… The Gov’t’s of all countries are not going to sit by and allow this to continue… They will regulate it to no end, like China has done, and in the U.S. ‘s case, I still believe that once the U.S. introduces their own digital currency, they will outlaw all these entries and not allow any competition to their own entry in the digital currency market…   So… I would strongly recommend that you take your profits while they are still they are still available…  But then, that’s just me…

So… our fearless leaders (NOT!) have decided to kick the debt can down the road a bit farther…  They’ll take this up again in December… You know, when most congress people take off to return home for the holidays… But don’t let that get in the way of a debt discussion!  HA!  As if these folks really understand what they are doing to future generations… Well, maybe they do.. and they don’t care because they won’t be around when to see the burdens of their grandkids that were given to them …

The folks in Washington D.C. continue to make a Big Show of these deficit/ debt discussions, but in the end they all know that the Debt Ceiling will be raised, and we will continue to go down the road that leads to ruins…  One of these days… They will HAVE to have discussions regarding debt, and default, that are REAL, and not just a BIG Show…  But until that time we’ll continue to get these drama queen shows, just to throw everyone off the scent of their ability to rein in these deficits… 

The U.S. Data Cupboard this week is lacking at best… We’ll have to wait until Friday to see real economic data, when September Retail Sales will print… Until then we will see the stupid CPI (consumer inflation) and the usual Thursday fare of Initial Jobless Claims, and there are other prints of the 2nd and 3rd tier levels to print this week… 

To recap… The Jobs Jamboree was very disappointing on Friday, and Gold took off for higher ground to the tune of a $25 gain out of the starters’ gate… But then the “boys in the band” decided that they couldn’t have Gold rising quickly like that, and took the metals down with a very brazen takedown… Chuck was very upset with that outcome, and wishes a thousand lashes for the price manipulators!  The Currencies tried to move higher VS the dollar on Friday, but couldn’t really get enough movement and then petered out…   In the overnight markets the dollar is getting bought, but not by leaps and bounds, so it’s a nervous market.  The price of Oil is up to a $81 handle this morning… 

For What It’s Worth…  Well, in Ed Steer’s Saturday letter, he highlighted an article that talked about the $3.5 Trillion spendalooza that’s being discussed by elected representatives ( I’m trying to be nice, here but I doubt it’s working!)  And so I thought that this would be a great FWIW article, and so here’s David Stockman on what’s in the $3.5 Trillion spendalooza, and it can be found here: David Stockman on Why the Biden/Dem $3.5 Trillion Spending Plan Is Worse Than You Think (internationalman.com)

Or, here’s your snippet: “So let’s cut the to the chase. The once worthy notion of 10-year budget projections has been turned into an absolute scam by the bipartisan duopoly on Capitol Hill through a gimmick called early expiration. That is, Dems tend to cause spending programs to look cheaper in the 10-year projections by having them expire in, say, year #5, while the GOP did the same thing in spades with early expiration of the 2017 tax cuts.

Of course, when these expiration dates come, they get routinely extended at the 11th hour because by then it is purportedly “unthinkable” to hit beneficiaries with a cold turkey cut or taxpayers with an unwelcome increase. Accordingly, the numbers game as between Biden’s $3.5 trillion versus Senator Manchin’s $1.5 trillion and a possible compromise somewhere between $1.9 trillion and $2.2 trillion is just Washington’s version of legislative Kabuki Theater.

What really matters, of course, is the creation of massive new universal entitlements (i.e., not work and means-tested) for children, maternity leave, childcare, free college and expanded Medicare, Medicaid and ObamaCare—plus a whole slew of climate change based crony capitalist nonsense––not the gimmick-ridden book-keeping by which the legislative language is officially scored.

For instance, making the $3,600/$3,000 refundable child tax credit permanently available to essentially 90% of the population will cost $110 billion per year or $1.1 trillion over the 10-year budget horizon. But if they write it to expire in September 2024 on the eve of the next presidential election, two things are certain.

First, the CBO (Congressional Budget Office) will be forced to score it as costing $330 billion, not $1.1 trillion, on a true 10-year basis. And, secondly, that expiration will never happen in a month of Sundays. Both parties will pledge to “protect American families” at all hazards during their summer conventions and then make a noisy show of extending these child tax credits before they adjourn to campaign for the 2024 elections.

The truth is, there is almost nothing in the plan that won’t become permanent due to deeply embedded constituencies once they “plant a flag” on new entitlements and climate change pork barrels, as one of the more honest Congressional Dems explained a few days ago”

Chuck Again.. there’s a reason why I call this spending bill the “spendalooza” folks… You really need to read into this and find out all the pork that’s being put into this bill… I will make your head spin, and cause you to really think about voting out these bums that thought of this bill…  I’m just saying….

Market Prices 10/11/2021: American Style: A$ .7344,  kiwi .6940, C$ .8021, euro 1.1572, sterling 1.3632, Swiss $1.0793, European Style: rand 14.9694, krone 8.5419, SEK 8.8396,  forint 311.45,  zloty 3.9649,  koruna 21.9455, RUB 71.78, yen 112.90, sing 1.3535, HKD 7.7818, INR 75.35, China 6.4423, peso 20.73, BRL 5.5057, BBDXY 1,164.38, Dollar Index 94.17,  Oil $81.94, 10-year 1.61%, Silver $22.63, Platinum $1,028.00, Palladium $2,243.00, Copper $4.23, and Gold… $1,756.40

That’s it for today…  Well, this will be a short week for me, as I have my scheduled scans coming this Thursday morning… So, no Pfennig on Thursday… Well, in the old days, today would be a holiday, as it is Columbus Day… But here I am writing instead of sleeping…  Columbus Day is still celebrated in parts of the country, even though we now know that he didn’t really discover America…   He was the first European to sight the Bahamas archipelago and then the island later named Hispaniola, now split into Haiti and the Dominican Republic. On his subsequent voyages he went farther south, to Central and South America.  But it’s a good story, and one that many kids my age were told over and over again…  The Beach Boys take us to the finish line today with their song: Wouldn’t It Be Nice… I guess we could apply that title of the song to many things, eh?  I hope you have a Marvelous Monday, and please Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler

 

Rocktober 7, 2021

* The dollar is a bit stronger this morning… 

* Gold & Silver stage another total reversal yesterday! 

Good day… and a Tub Thumpin’ Thursday to you! Well, my beloved Cardinals couldn’t find a way to drive a run home last night and their season ended… UGH!  And ugly way to lose a game for the Cardinals, and a great way to win a game for the Dodgers…. The Sunrise this morning is blocked by a marine layer of clouds, but I can see the light behind the clouds, and it looks pretty neat… Credence Clearwater Revival greets me this morning with their song: I Put A Spell On You… 

OK, to start the day today, we have this from Bloomberg. com: “There’s plenty of relief evident in markets this morning as Senators seem to have all-but agreed a deal on a short-term increase in the debt ceiling. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer suggested an agreement would be in place by this morning. While the deal is surely good news for markets worried about an imminent default, it only moves the problem out to December when the drama and brinksmanship may run again.”

So, like I told you previously… The debt ceiling will be raised, the $3.5 Trillion spendalooza will get passed, and our debt situation will just continue to get worse, as we kick the can down the road…  Tsk, Tsk… 

Well, how about that! The Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) sent me an email on Tuesday night telling me that they had hiked their OCR (official cash rate) by 50 Basis Points (1/2%), and that more could be on the way, as they attempt to fight back inflation… Good for them!  Rates are still very low in New Zealand, but at least they’re off of 0%, and could be heading higher! The N.Z. dollar/ kiwi rallied on the news, as it should have, and I’m looking forward to more rate hikes from the RBNZ!

I said when the Norges Bank hiked rates a couple of weeks ago, that I didn’t think Central Banks around the world would follow, and while none had until yesterday, the RBNZ is the only one to step forward and say, “no mas” on inflation! And kiwi has responded accordingly… (rallied!)  And the Aussie dollar (A$), kiwi’s kissin’ cousin across the Tasman, was pushed higher too… 

That news deserved top billing because… I should have told you that yesterday, but I forgot that the email was in my email box, and the sun was in my eye, and the clump of grass made me miss the ball!

So… The currencies yesterday, staged a comeback of sorts, with the BBDXY moving downward from 1,167.63 in the morning to 1,161.63 at the end of the day… But the BIG reversal was in Gold & Silver…  You may recall me telling you yesterday that Gold was down $11.70 and Silver was down 39-cents in the early trading…  Well, Gold ended the day up $2.90 and Silver ended the day flat as a pancake (Head East)…

The data yesterday showed the ADP Employment Report to have added a whopping 568,000 jobs in September… And that got traders thinking that with that kind of growth, inflation is not only here but will get worse going forward, and they sold the dollar…  Stranger than fiction, but true…

In the overnight markets last night… The dollar is staging a bit of a rally, but not much movement at all in the currencies overnight. Gold is up $1.10 this morning, and Silver is up 15-cents…  I wonder what kind of relief the Senate announcement will bring to the currencies and metals this morning… I would have to think that while stocks may recover, bonds would get sold, along with the dollar…. 

The price of Oil slipped by over $1 in the past 24 hours…  But the thing to think about here is that while the price of Oil keeps bouncing back and forth, it’s still leaps and bounds ahead of where it was a year ago…  

OK, was I ever surprised and happy at the same time, on Tuesday, when I opened my copy of the 5 Minute Forecast, for my friend, Dave Gonigam, quoted me from the Pfennig!  It don’t get quoted, from the news outlets as much as I used to, but… It still makes my day! Thanks Dave!

Speaking of the 5 Minute Forecast, Tuesday, Dave was reminded that about 10 years ago, he was of the thought, and I was too, that individual IRA’s would be required to buy Treasuries…  And here’s his response from yesterday’s 5 Minute Forecast…

“Quantitative easing seemed to alleviate the need for that coercive allocation.

“Then negative interest rates in Europe and Japan helped to generate demand for U.S. Treasuries.

Japan has a staggering level of government debt relative to its economic output — a debt-to-GDP ratio of about 266%, or double that of the United States.

Roughly a decade ago, when the level was a slightly less lofty 229%, the Bank of Japan faced a crossroads moment — let interest rates rise and tank the economy or suppress interest rates and tank the yen. The BoJ chose the latter.

Is there any doubt that under similar circumstances, the Fed would make a similar choice — keep a lid on rates and tank the dollar?

With a lid on rates, Uncle Sam’s interest expense stays fairly manageable even with an absolute level of debt that’s sky-high. And if Uncle Sam’s interest expense isn’t spiraling out of control, there’s no need to force-march people into Treasuries in their retirement accounts.”

Chuck again…  Yes, Dave explained it well… Quatitative Easing, and ZIRP has done the trick to alleviate the need to require IRA’s from having to buy Treasuries…  So, we escaped one bullet… And… once again I’ll remind you that we’re turning Japanese, yes, I really think so! 

Yesterday, Bill Bonner, was talking about how all the currency the Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel has printed and thrown at  Wall Street in his daily diary, that can be found here: www.rogueeconmics.com … Let’s listen in on one of his thoughts: “Today, we are looking more deeply at how the Federal Reserve’s fake money – approximately $8 trillion of it since 1999 – has fouled the economy and corrupted its major industries.

And none has been more corrupted than the one that got most of the money – Wall Street.

We are in a privileged position. In our own business, we see financial excesses backing up like a clogged toilet.

We see the rush of enthusiasm… the gush of new money… and the market flush with optimism, fantasy, and fraud.

And, if we pay attention, we may know when to expect it all to go down the drain.”

Chuck again, I always love reading what Bill Bonner has to say about things, because he has “this way” about explaining things that makes me want to keep reading, and reading…  

And for all of you Mogambo Guru fans out there… The Great Mogambo sent me a note last week, and said that he’s doing better these days, and that he’s trying to write again… And since he sent the note to me, I assume that he will send his notes to me!  JMR Chuck! 

OK… The U.S. Data Cupboard today has the Weekly Initial Jobless Claims, which have increased each of the previous 3 weeks… I would think it would continue to show increases…  The aforementioned ADP Employment Report was a real shocker to me, but it still doesn’t mean the BLS will copy the ADP tomorrow, for they have all kinds of tricks up their sleeves, ala Bullwinkle…  But it is what it is, and since no one double checks or verifies numbers any longer, we have to accept it for what it says…

To recap…  The RBNZ surprised the world by announcing they had hiked rates 50 Basis Points… Kiwi responded accordingly… The currencies lost ground, but not as much as they had lost earlier in the day, and Gold & Silver staged another reversal of their early morning losses and Gold turned the early morning loss into a gain, while Silver fought back to flat as a pancake (Head East)… In the overnight markets, the dollar is being bought, but not by large margins… So, it could easily be reversed… Chuck gets quoted from the Pfennig in the 5 Minute Forecast, and makes his day!

For What It’s Worth…  Well, the 2^nd QTR GDP is in the books, and like I’ve explained previously, if it wasn’t for the Gov’t spending, the 6.2% GDP would have been much less…  So, the first projections on 3^rd QTR GDP are starting to show up, and that’s what this FWIW article is about today, from Pam and Russ Martens, and it can be found here: Closely Watched Atlanta Fed’s GDP Forecast for Third Quarter Cut by 63 Percent Since August (wallstreetonparade.com)

Or, here’s your snippet: “The closely watched Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow forecast for real GDP growth for the third quarter has been slashed by 63 percent since August 2 when the forecast was for 6.3 percent growth. The forecast now stands at a dismal 2.3 percent growth rate as of 7:30 a.m. (EDT) this morning. The Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow forecast could be revised further today after the 10:00 a.m. release of the International Trade and ISM Non-manufacturing Index. (The GDPNow update typically occurs within a few hours of a new data release.)

The Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow model is the seasonally adjusted annual rate. It comes with the following caveat:

“GDPNow is not an official forecast of the Atlanta Fed. Rather, it is best viewed as a running estimate of real GDP growth based on available economic data for the current measured quarter…”

The U.S. is a consumer-based economy with consumer spending representing approximately two-thirds of GDP growth. Taking the pulse of the consumer is thus an important gauge of what might be ahead for the U.S. economy.

Weighing on a less than rosy consumer outlook is the growing awareness that COVID-19 is not going to “magically disappear” anytime soon; that wearing masks and social distancing are now a part of everyday life in America; that supply chain bottlenecks and rising commodity prices are pushing up inflation and raising prices to consumers; and that political gridlock in Washington is making all of the country’s problems worse.

The mood of the consumer is darkening. The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index fell further in September, after declines in both July and August. The Index now stands at 109.3 from a reading of 128.9 in June – a 15 percent drop. The latest report was released on September 28 and noted the following:”

Chuck again… back to the 2% GDPs… here we go…  back to muddle through… back to blah… Ooooh, I can hardly stand to wait for all that fund and games! (NOT)  And once again my daily check on what Pam & Russ Martens are writing about at Wallstreetonparade.com, paid off with a great article for you dear reader!

Market Prices 10/7/2021: American Style: A$ .7302,  kiwi .6935, C$ .7952, euro 1.1568, sterling 1.3616, Swiss $1.0804, European Style: rand 14.8590, krone 8.5834, SEK 8.7720,  forint 309.43,  zloty 3.9289,  koruna 21.9622, RUB 72.43, yen 111.34, sing 1.3571, HKD 7.7847, INR 74.66, China 6.4500, peso 20.50, BRL 5.4867,  BBDXY 1,162.08, Dollar Index 94.14,  Oil $76.34, 10-year 1.52%, Silver $22.88, Platinum $993.00, Palladium $2,000.00, Copper $4.14, and Gold… $1,765.50

That’s it for today… Well, I tried to stay up for the game last night, but with the Cardinals reverting to their hitless ways, the game was 1-1 when I went to bed… Ok… yesterday was the 31^st year since the referees stole a victory from my beloved Missouri Tigers, when they gave Colorado a 5^th down on the goal line… The Missouri players still believe that the Colorado player still didn’t get into the end zone, but…  Colorado went on to be the National Champions that year… But if not for the referee, they wouldn’t have been in the National Championship game!  I attended that game, with good friends, Dean S. and Steve O., and we couldn’t believe the Missouri head coach wasn’t running onto the field to stop the 5^th down from happening. There was lots of talk about protesting, but… it was over, and done with… UGH! And that’s where the phrase came from that the team got “Missouried”…  So, my beloved Cardinals were a one and done this year for the playoffs… UGH!  Now it’s time to start thinking about Spring Training! Hey! in about 4 months, pitchers and catchers report! HA!  Billy Paul takes us to the finish line today with his song: Me & Mrs Jones….  I hope you have a Tub Thumpin’ Thursday today, and please Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler

 

 

Rocktober 6, 2021

* Currencies & metals get ambushed overnight… 

* Chuck shows off his math skills… 

Good Day… And a Wonderful Wednesday to you! A quiet night for yours truly last night, as a lot of nights recently have been late… I sat out on the deck that overlooks the beach and ocean, and had my Bose speaker turned up and sang out loud along with the songs being played…  I can do that at this time of year, because there aren’t  many people here, compared to the winter months! One Wild Card Game is done, with the Red Sox sending the Yankees home. Tonight it’s the Cardinals VS the Dodgers, which doesn’t start, Eastern Time, until after 8PM… I doubt I’ll be able to stay awake for the whole game. UGH! Simon and Garfunkel greet me this morning with their song: America…   the band, Yes, did a version of this song years later, but I prefer the original…

Well, the dollar, which was bought in the overnight markets of Monday to Tuesday, was still being bought as the U.S. session began but the buying tailed off as the day went along, and at the end of the day, the dollar had gained just a small bit… The BBBDXY, which began the day yesterday at 1,161.03, ended the day at 1,161.63. And Gold, which was down early on Tuesday morning by $15.60, ended the day at down $9.40, to close at $1,1761.50, and Silver ended the day down 5-cents, to close at $22.73.

I like the fact that Gold and Silver fought back for the second consecutive day. They didn’t totally reverse the early selling, but they did recover some of the early losses… The price manipulators are still taking their pounds of flesh from the metals, but… the physical buying is strong, and hopefully it will remain strong…  For instance, India has recently bought physical Gold by the truckload, because of 1. the cheaper price, and 2. ahead of their wedding season

I do believe that traders of all sorts, bonds, stocks, currencies, metals, cyrptos, and any others, are thinking that this weeks’ employment numbers will be the deciding factor for the Fed./Cabal/ Cartel for their decision on whether  or when to taper…  I keep thinking that if the Fed/Cabal/Cartel does decide to taper, they will be throwing the financial system under a bus…  But then they’ve done dumb stuff before… And then when, if they don’t taper as I’ve said they won’t, all this dollar buying will be reversed…  Gold will climb higher, and well… I don’t really care too much about the other asset classes…

In the overnight markets last night… there was another ambush of the currencies & metals… What on earth are the foreign traders thinking, these days? I would have thought that all traders were sitting on their hands until they get a clear picture of the employment numbers here in the U.S. but I would have been wrong in that thought, eh?  The BBDXY has moved upward to 1,167.28 this morning after closing last night at 1,161.63. Even the Petrol Currencies have given back some of their gains with the price of Oil rising to $78 yesterday.  

As I said above, the price manipulators are still present, and they appear to be a clear and present danger to the metals… Gold is down $11.70 in the early trading today, and Silver is down 39-cents…  The ADP Employment report this morning will be the first of the Employment reports this week, with the Jobs Jamboree on Friday, being the second.  It does appear to me that the price manipulators decided to get a jump on what they Might or Might not know will be the outcome of the Employment Reports… I figuring that the probably have been given a wink and nod on the reports, otherwise, why go out on a limb? 

So… have you heard the rumor going around that someone’s underground and… no wait! C’mon Chuck, get serious!  OK.. I’m sorry… Did you hear the rumor that the U.S. Treasury will issue a $1 Trillion worth Platinum coin, and sell it to reduce their deficit?  Yeah, like that would correct all the deficit spending in the past, current, and future!   That takes me back to when I used to get readers who would tell me that the U.S. could sell their Gold and that would take care of the deficit…  Ah, contraire Monfrere…..8,133 tonnes of Gold would only equal to 260,263 ounces, and at the current price of Gold, which they wouldn’t get, because once you began selling the price would go down, but for calculations here, let’s use $1,760, which would equal $458 Billion…  See, now? (there are 32,000 ounces in a ton) See my math skills at work here?  But of course the younger generation wouldn’t know how to do this, because they think 2+2 equals whatever number they think the will make them happy, because we can’t upset them!  Tsk, Tsk… 

OK… But I could see where a lot of uninformed people, or people that don’t read the Pfennig, would think that selling that $1 Trillion Coin would be the end-all to our deficit problems… Because… that’s how the spin doctors would spin this news… I’m just saying… 

I have an article for you in today’s FWIW Section that’s about how much Gold China has, so you won’t want to miss that today!

Remember all the hope we had that Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel nominee, July Shelton, would be approved to join the Board of the Federal Reserve/ Cabal. Cartel?  She of the dissenting vote that is much needed on a board that hasn’t seen a dissenting vote in a number of years?  And then just like that, her nomination was defeated…  What happened?  Well, the Sun has an article that helps explain why they believe her nomination was defeated, and I’ll pick up the conversation in the Sun (Did Chairman Powell Seek To Sabotage Trump’s Nomination of Judy Shelton to the Federal Reserve Board? (nysun.com),  here:

“If President Biden nominates Jerome Powell for a second term as chairman of the Federal Reserve, the question for which we’ll be waiting is whether Mr. Powell tried to derail the nomination to the Fed’s board of Judy Shelton. President Trump had signaled his plan to nominate Ms. Shelton in July 2019. In a razor-thin vote in late 2020, though, Ms. Shelton was defeated when two Republicans voted “no” and one failed to show up at all.

It turns out that just before that vote, one of the most dramatic in the history of the Federal Reserve, Chairman Powell got on an extraordinary string of telephone calls with senators who could be key. We don’t yet know what was said on those calls (hence this editorial). The calls, though, were logged on the Fed Website. All the more reason that if Mr. Powell is renominated, at least one senator should ask what he was doing.

Mr. Powell himself has suggested that it would be out of place for him to take sides on a nomination. Right after President Trump tweeted his plan to nominate Ms. Shelton, Congresswoman Jennifer Wexton, at a hearing, asked Mr. Powell about the gold standard. The chairman immediately noted that this could be considered commenting on a particular nominee and “of course I would not do that.”

Chuck again… Yeah Right! I believe he didn’t have anything to do with dissing July Shelton’s nomination like I believe the inflation numbers and employment numbers each month! I don’t! Don’t like someone questioning your monetary policy decision, Jay? Well, it’s a good thing I’m not that board!

The U.S. Data Cupboard today has the ADP Employment Report for September, and the forecast is for 425,000  newly employed… I’ll believe that when I see it… And then  all we’ll see tomorrow is the Weekly Initial Jobless Claims, that will lead to Friday’s Jobs Jamboree, which has the forecast at 500,000 jobs created in September… Again, I don’t see that as a viable number, given the recent increases in Jobless claims… But that’s just me, looking at it logically, but… you have to take into hand the BLS and their birth/ death model adding jobs out of thin air..

To recap… The currencies & metals continued to get sold yesterday after the big sell off overnight, but during the day the selling tailed off, and at the end of the day, the upward move of the dollar was tiny…  Did you hear about the $1 Trillion platinum coin the treasury is rumored to be creating to sell to reduce the deficit?  What a bunch of smoke and mirrors folks… And Chuck points out that Jay Powell may have had something to do with Judy Shelton’s failed nomination to the Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel… 

And in the overnight markets there was yet another ambush of the currencies and metals… Chuck questions what Traders are thinking ahead of the Employment reports, and thinks that the Traders got a wink and nod on what the reports will contain… 

For What It’s Worth…  Remember when I used to tell you not to believe what the Chinese said about the total of their Gold holdings? Well, I came across this article after the good folks at GATA highlighted the link… This is an article that does the math on Gold holdings in China and it can be found here: China owns a lot more gold than it’s letting on – and here’s why | MoneyWeek

Or, here’s your snippet: “China’s officially declared holdings of 1,948 tonnes make up just 3% of its $3.2trn in foreign exchange holdings, but the real number is much larger than that. China has been the world’s largest gold producer since 2007 –this past decade it has produced about 15% of all the gold mined in the world; last year it produced 380 tonnes – that’s 20% more than the world’s second-largest producer, Australia.

Since 2000, China has mined roughly 6,500 tonnes. More than half of Chinese gold production is state-owned; the China National Gold Group Corporation alone accounts for 20%. Already that official 1,948 figure looks doubtful. Crucially, China keeps the gold it mines –exporting of domestic mine production is not allowed.

With reserves in decline at home, Chinese mining companies have also been buying assets abroad, across Africa, South America and Asia. International production exceeded domestic production by about 15 tonnes last year. As well as being the world’s biggest producer, China is the world’s biggest importer. It is hard to get precise import figures, but we do know that, for example, via Hong Kong alone, over 6,000 tonnes has entered the country since 2000. Add that to cumulative gold production since 2000 and you get a figure of 13,200 tonnes.

Whether imported, mined or recycled, most of the gold that enters China goes through the Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE), including the gold imported from Hong Kong. So SGE withdrawals – for which we do have numbers – can act as something of an approximation for demand. And it is possible to get numbers for SGE withdrawals: since 2008, roughly 20,000 tonnes have been withdrawn from the SGE.

Then we have to add in gold held in China, whether as bullion or jewelry, prior to 2000. The World Gold Council estimates a figure of 2,500 tonnes in privately-held jewelry. If you add domestic mining and official reserves, you get a figure of around 4,000 tonnes.

Nick Laird of goldchartsrus.com, perhaps the world’s leading gold data expert, has cobbled it all together to produce this chart, showing cumulative gold held in China to be around 28,911 tonnes. I’ve spoken to numerous analysts – Ross Norman, Bron Suchecki and Koos Jansen – and they all arrive at similar estimates.”

Chuck again.. And once again I’ll repeat why this is so important…  Remember the old saying that “he who owns the Gold, makes the rules”?  That will come into play when the financial system that we currently use collapses, and the leaders of the world get together to discuss the new financial system, and China will come to the table with the most Gold of any country… So… guess who’ll get to make the rules?

Market Prices 10/6/2021: American Style: A$ .7237,  kiwi .6888, C$ .7909, euro 1.1538, sterling 1.3563, Swiss $1.0757, European Style: rand 15.1435, krone 8.6174, SEK 8.8184,  forint 311.66,  zloty 3.9831,  koruna 22.0357, RUB 72.44, yen 111.45, sing 1.3618, HKD 7.7864, INR 75.00, China 6.4457, peso 20.82, BRL 5.4598, BBDXY 1,167.28,  Dollar Index 94.38,  Oil $78.51, 10-year 1.54%, Silver $22.34, Platinum $953.00, Palladium $1,962.00, Copper $4.10, and Gold… $1,749.80

That’s it for today…  Another beautiful data here… I’m going to really be sad to go home at the end of this week… I sit outside to eat my lunch, to read my books, and to meet with friends, and discuss the problems of the world! HA!  I love it here! Big Game tonight for my beloved Cardinals… I sure hope Adam Wainwright is on his game… I’ve been bad down here with regards to watching my carbs… and my blood sugar numbers are elevated, so I’ll have to correct that once I get home.. .This was my vacation that I missed two months ago, when I had to spend time in the isolation room at the hospital down here… So, I was eating things on my vacation redo, that I normally don’t eat…  I think a gained a couple of pounds too… So, a redo of my eating habits are in store upon my return home… The late great, Dan Fogelberg takes us to the finish line today with his song: As The Raven Flies… I hope you have a Wonderful Wednesday today, and please Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler

 

 

 

Rocktober 5, 2021

* Currencies & metals see small rallies on Monday… 

* The overnight markets buy dollars….  

Good Day… And a Tom Terrific Tuesday to you! Another beautiful day here in S. Florida, and the ocean returned to its normal colors yesterday, very beautiful! Things have gone very nicely this time around, down here… You may recall that my summer vacation down here, was interrupted by a health problem… But nothing like that this time around, and my time here has been very relaxing… Just what I needed! I’ll be back here for the winter months later this year, and until then I’ll have to hope that the weather back north, doesn’t turn super cold too soon! Had dinner last night at one of my fave places down here: The Brass Ring B&G…  I’m greeted this morning by a very appropriate song… It’s a song by the Blue Jays ( a spinoff of the Moody Blues) titled: When You Wake Up… 

Ok, no long dissertation on tapering to start the day today, thank goodness I hear you saying!  The currencies  traded basically flat yesterday, with little movement upward against the dollar… But at least they didn’t lose ground, eh?  And Gold & Silver performed an amazing trick by reversing their early morning losses and turning them into gains! Gold’s reversal was $22 to leave it with a gain of $8.90 to close the day at $1,770.90, and Silver also reversed its early morning loss and gain 15-cents on the day to close at $22.78… 

A very nice reversal for Gold & Silver yesterday, and allowed them show gains for the last 3 consecutive trading days…  And as I said the currencies gained on the day, but the gains were minimal, with the BBDXY going from 1,161.01 in the morning to close the day at 1,159.38…  I think the initial effects of Congress kicking the can down the road, has now played out… And it will be up to the Congress or Fed/ Cabal/Cartel to give the currency traders any ideas on the next direction for the currencies and the dollar.

I would think that the reversal in Gold was fueled by the news from Reuters yesterday, “– India’s gold imports in September soared 658% from last year’s lower base as a correction in local prices to the lowest level in nearly six months prompted jewellers to step up purchases for the upcoming festive season, a government source said.”

That’s real physical Gold folks, not paper trades, not ETF’s.. real physical Gold!  Gold is putting up a fight against the paper traders, and while physical demand is good for physical Gold, the paper trades can amount to so much, that it’s difficult for physical demand to out weigh the paper trades’ effects on the price of Gold… But like I’ve always told you, dear reader…  if all Gold trades were done in physical form, it would defeat the price manipulators and their short paper trades…

In the overnight markets last night… There has been some dollar buying and the currencies and metals are both on the selling blocks as we start today. The Euro has fallen back below 1.16, and most currencies have taken on some water this morning… Gold is down $14.60 in the early trading, while Silver is down 19-cents…  No reason for any of this dollar buying, just a sentiment of the overnight traders. 

I do want to point out that the price of Oil has jumped higher once again and this morning it is trading with a $78 handle.. Who would have thought that with all the talk of a new Green Deal that the tried and true oil dirty fuel source, Oil, would be rallying like this?  But it is, and so that means there are a couple of currencies that are not getting sold this morning, and they are led by the Russian ruble, and followed by the Norwegian krone, and Brazilian real…   

Speaking of petrol currencies, one of the honorary members of the club is the British pound sterling… And the pound has really been on a run in recent weeks… And it appears that even when it gets caught up in the dollar buying, it recovers faster than any other currency, and that’s quite impressive to me. The U.K. is up to its eyeballs in debt, folks, but as we’ve seen with the dollar, traders are looking the other way at this point… but how much longer will they look away?  Ah, grasshopper, that’s the $64 question, isn’t it? 

Ok, following up on something I wrote about a couple of weeks ago, and that is the Fed/ Cabal/Cartel members buying stocks on insider information about monetary policy…  This from Bloomberg.com “the Fed said late Monday that its internal watchdog will review whether actions by “certain senior officials was in compliance with both the relevant ethics rules and the law.” 

“We welcome this review and will accept and take appropriate actions based on its findings,” the Fed said in a statement. 

The announcement came the same day Senator Elizabeth Warren called on the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate whether the transactions violated insider trading rules. “

Chuck again… Oh sure, when the Big Dogs are threatened to be released on you, you change your stance and announce an internal investigation… I’m going on record here and say that the internal Investigation will admit to only minor transgressions and  the Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel members will walk away unscathed…  I’m just saying… 

This whole revelation has me madder than a wet hen… But all I can do is make sure you, dear reader, is informed on what these guys are doing, and cause them to lose what credibility they have left… 

I was reading Doug Casey’s International Man letter last night, and came across something he was talking about that makes abundant sense… He was talking about why mistakes that were made by governments centuries ago, are still being made today, so let’s pick up his thoughts on why this is, right here: “The reason, in two simple words, is “human nature.” Human nature remains the same throughout time. Two thousand years ago, governments were typically made up of egotistical, self-centred dictatorial types, who were far more concerned with their own power than in the general welfare of their people. Today, politics remains a magnet for such people. They therefore will revert to type when faced with the very same problems.”

Thanks Doug…  Hmmm… So that’s why, the dollar will go the way of the denarius, folks… I’m just saying… 

Ok, well browsing through the internet I found this article that talks about how the Dollar’s percent of holdings around the world continues to drop…  here’s the skinny: ‘The global share of US-dollar-denominated exchange reserves – these are financial assets such as US Treasury securities, US corporate bonds, US mortgage-backed securities, etc., held by foreign central banks – declined to 59.2% in the second quarter, according to the IMF’s Composition of Official Foreign Exchange Reserves (COFER) data released today.”

Chuck again… The entire article can be read at : US Dollar Status as Dominant “Global Reserve Currency” amid Reckless QE & Government Deficits | Wolf Street

I’ll point out that in 2014, the dollar’s holdings were at 66%…  So last month’s percentage of 59.2%, shows a gradual decline in holdings of the dollar…  I think this is the way the Gov’t would like to see the dollar gradually lose favor and thus lose value to invite inflation into the economy… OOPs, did I say that out loud? HA!

And this from Bloomberg.com regarding St. Louis Fed/ Cabal Cartel, President James Bullard talking about inflation, “Inflation measured by the Fed’s preferred index rose 3.6% in August excluding volatile food and energy prices. Bullard predicted that on that core basis, 2022 inflation would be 2.8%, well above the Fed’s 2% target.”

I was taught as a young man that if I didn’t have anything nice to say, to not say anything…  But c’mon, man… 2.8% inflation in 2022? I would like to know what tea leaves Bullard’s been reading, because, first of all inflation is really about 13%, as opposed to the 3.6% the Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel uses as their guideline.. .And with inflation rising just about every month this year, I can’t see it falling out of bed next year… So, Mr. Bullard, I say…. You’re so wrong, so just sit there in your wrongness and be wrong!

There’s nothing in the Data Cupboard that would move the markets today, folks… ISM Services would be the closest thing to a print that would move the market that there is on the docket today…  Yesterday’s Data Cupboard had the August Factory Orders and they increased 1.2%…  I’m not so sure about that print, folks… But them I’m suspicious of EVERY Gov’t data print these days… so take that with how ever many grains of salt you wish…

To recap… The currencies gained just a tad in yesterday’s trading while Gold & Silver performed amazing tricks to reverse their early morning losses into nice gains on the days, thus marking 3 consecutive days of gains for the metals. No tapering dissertation by Chuck today, but he does spend some time on deficit spending once again… But in the overnight markets the currencies & metals are getting sold… 

For What It’s Worth….  A former colleague of mine when I wrote for the Sovereign Society, Sean Hyman, who is also a fantastic technician in the markets, sent me this link about a guy that has filed a suit against JP Morgan… And I bet you can guess what for! The article can be found here: Florida miner’s lawsuit accuses JPMorgan of manipulating silver prices | Reuters

Or, here’s your snippet: LONDON, Oct 1 (Reuters) – A Florida-based silver miner has filed a damages claim against JPMorgan, accusing the bank of manipulating the silver market to push prices so low the company’s mine had to close.

The complaint, filed on Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, said Hidalgo Mining Corp raised $10.35 million from investors to finance a silver mine in Mexico that began production around 2012 and stopped in 2014.

Silver prices averaged around $31 an ounce in 2012 and $19 an ounce in 2014.

JPMorgan declined to comment.

Hidalgo’s claim, seen by Reuters, uses as evidence information from an investigation by U.S. regulators which found that JPMorgan staff between 2008 and 2016 sent fake buy and sell orders into metals and Treasuries markets to move prices in their favor.

Traders say this technique, known as spoofing, is a short term trading tactic rather than a means of long-term price suppression.

JPMorgan last year agreed to pay more than $920 million to settle the investigation.

The bank also paid $15.7 million last week to settle a class action lawsuit brought by investors who said the manipulation had caused them losses. read more “

Chuck again…  Yes, yes, spoofing is bad, but for once I would like to have the gov’t file a suit against for price manipulation using short paper trades… But that won’t happen because… As I’ve told you before the Gov’t is behind the curtain when it comes to price manipulation!

Market Prices 10/5/2021: American Style: A$ 7268,  kiwi .6963, C$ .7935, euro 1.1592, sterling 1.3622, Swiss $1.0734, European Style: rand 15.0080, krone 8.5629, SEK 8.7409, forint 308.39,  zloty 3.9756,  koruna 21.8424, RUB 72.66, yen 111.23, sing 1.3577, HKD 7.7845, INR 74.47, China 6.4452, peso 20.55, BRL 5.3995, BBDXY 1,161.77, Dollar Index 93.94,  Oil $78.04, 10-year 1.50%, Silver $22.59, Platinum $962.00, Palladium $1,990.00, Copper $4.16, and Gold… $1,755.30

That’s it for today… No baseball last night… no hockey… the only thing sports-wise I would watch was Monday Night Football, and like I’ve said before, the NFL turned me off a couple of years ago, and I still don’t pay much attention to their games… Last year, I began to read books by Stuart Woods, and his Stone Barrington series… Last week I went to buy a couple more and found out that there are 61  books in this series!  WOW!  I’ve read about a dozen of them, but I doubt I’ll ever get through 61 of them, nor will my wallet be happy about me buying 50 or more of this series! I’ve already pre-ordered two of my fave books to read: Harry Bosch, and Jack Reacher… they’ll come out in November… Things will be pretty interesting as the month goes on folks, so be ready to pounce on buying opportunities… The Spinners take us to the finish line today with their song: Making My Way Back To You…  With a burning love inside…  I hope you have a Tom Terrific Tuesday today, and please Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler

 

Rocktober 4, 2021

* Currencies & metals rally late last week… 

* We end this week with the Jobs Jamboree! 

Good Day… And a Marvelous Monday to you!  And Welcome to Rocktober! Well, the regular season ended yesterday, and I was rooting for a 4-way tie for the Wild Cards in the American League. But all the teams failed to cooperate, and the race didn’t end in a 4-way tie… My beloved Cardinals will travel to L.A. to play the Dodgers in a one game winner moves on, game on Wednesday…  It was a beautiful weekend here in S. Florida, this past weekend, and I was outside as much as possible…  I can’t even begin to say how embarrassed I was for my beloved Missouri Tigers on Sasturday… Their defense couldn’t have stopped a High School offense! This is NOT the Missouri Tigers defense I grew up with, when the other teams thought the M on the their helmets stood for “monsters”… Oh, well, at least the teams I followed back then never game up 62 points in a game!  The Classic IV greet me this morning with their song: Spooky, which was also done years later by the Atlanta Rhythm Section…

Well, there was no chaos on Friday last week…  As predicted, the lawmakers saw to it to kick the can down the road even further, and the Gov’t didn’t come to a halt…  The lawmakers are still arguing over what to cut from the 3.5 Trillion spendalooza…  And now it won’t come to vote until the end of the month…  Stupid, silly, games that people play… never saying what they mean, never meaning what they say. (Joe South)…  They just keep spending money we don’t have, or will have, on things that are not needed…

The House voted last week to suspend the Debt Ceiling until December 2022, but the Senate is set to block that and set the timer on the drop dead date of Rocktober 18, when Treasury Sec. Yellen says the U.S. will begin to default…  Don’t get caught up in all the drama here folks, in the end the debt ceiling will be raised, and we’ll kick the can down the road yet again… 

All this deficit spending is becoming a real problem for the U.S. folks… The lawmakers and the spin doctors won’t lead you to believe that this is all going to come back to haunt us, but it will…  There’s nothing in history that can prove otherwise…  I’m sorry that I don’t have the market updates right now, but this is something that I feel needs to be discussed…

Ok, all the silliness that’s going on in Washington D.C. makes me wonder what the heck are they arguing about? Raise the Debt Ceiling, pass the deficit spending bills, because, all this drama is just making it a smoke screen for them to do these things…   And as far as the Taper question goes… How can the Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel, taper, when their backs are against the wall? Ok, what I’m talking about here is the fact that 1. Our tax receipts don’t cover our interest expense now, and 2. Foreigners are backing away from our auction window, at a time when we need them the most! You see the dilemma here don’t you?  More debt means more Treasury issuance, which if we don’t have buyers to buy it all up, who’s left to buy it? That’s right, the Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel…  So, if they are buying Treasuries, they certainly wouldn’t be tapering now would they? 

I was reading yesterday and came across this from Matthew Piepenburg of Gold Switzerland, and this is important folks so pay attention: “With central-bank “accommodated” asset bubbles (from stocks to real estate to art) now at historically unprecedented levels, tax receipts flowing into the U.S. coffers from the ever-growing millionaire-to-billionaire class have been rising.

This may seem good for that punch-drunk Uncle Sam, but what no one is talking about is that despite even those “capital gain” receipts, the interest expense (i.e., “bar tab”) in D.C. is now an astronomical 111% of those same tax receipts.

In other words, U.S. tax income doesn’t come close to even paying interest (let alone that archaic concept known as “principal”) on growing U.S. debt obligations.

Can anyone say, “Uh-oh?”

You can read Matthew’s entire thoughts here: Hidden Bankruptcy: The Reality Behind Uncle Sam’s Inflated Bar Tab – Matterhorn – GoldSwitzerland

Chuck again…  And as far as the thought that foreigners aren’t showing up at the auction window, there’s this: Since 2020, foreigners have been selling Treasuries, instead of buying them…  Have you ever wondered, why the Treasury yield continues to rise? Selling of the bonds will do that folks… the price goes down and the yield rises…

So, given these two things, do you really believe that the Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel, can begin to not buy bonds each month (Taper)?   As I’ve explained previously, a Tapering is basically a tightening of interest rates… And if the Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel isn’t buying the bonds, who’s going to pick up the slack?

Oh, and there’s much more issuance of Treasuries coming down the pike folks, as we ramp up the deficit spending bills… 

Ok… the markets at the end of last week moved in the direction I would have thought them to be moving all along… The dollar got sold from Thursday morning to the end of the week on Friday. The BBDXY traded on Thursday morning at 1,167.60, and ended the week at 1,161.34…  That’s a HUGE downward move folks…  Gold got bought both Thursday and Friday, and the price of Oil saw a rebound from the brief selloff last week, while bonds were bought, for what reason I have no idea, but they were…

For those of you keeping score at home, Gold on Thursday rose $31.10, and Silver gained 65-cents, and on Friday Gold gained $3.50, to close the week at $1,762.00 and Silver gained 36-cemts to close the week at $22.65… So, the end of the week was kind to the metals…

The currencies also saw some love thrown their way on Thursday and Friday last week, and it was all about the Gov’t’s vote to kick the can down the road on Thursday… The euro climbed back above the 1.16 handle, and all the remaining currencies followed the euro higher. 

The overnight markets last night… There was some follow-up dollar selling but not by a large margin. the BBDXY is trading this morning down to 1,161.01…  But… Gold & Silver are getting sold in the early trading today, with Gold down $13 and Silver down 24-cents…  

The inflation in this country continues to rise.. This from MarketWatch last week: The cost of goods and services rose sharply again in August and left the rate of U.S. inflation at a 30-year high, with all signs pointing to price pressures sneaking into next year.

Chuck again…  I heard a joke this past weekend that I laughed  until I cried… The joker said that soon the only thing that Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel chairman Powell will see that is transitory will be his job! Apparently there are some influential folks on Capital Hill that aren’t too fond of Mr. Powell…  I will say that they are directing their angst in the wrong direction… They should be directing it toward the Deep State, but then that’s just me thinking out loud…

I saw this blurb on Bloomberg.com on Friday, and copied it for today’s Pfennig, “Inflation in the euro area hit 3.4% in September, a 13-year high, with core prices accelerating 1.9% when volatile components like fuel and food are excluded. There’s not much hope for an easing of inflationary pressures in the short term with natural gas prices hitting another record high.”

Chuck again… Where’s Hans Tietmeyer? Wim Duisenberg? In case you’ve forgotten these fellows, they are former Presidents of the European Central Bank (ECB) and  the Bundesbank, and they were so anti-inflation that if you looked in the dictionary for the word “HAWK” you would see their respective pictures!  Germany, the Eurozone’s largest economy, has always been against any rise in inflation… And I would think that the German people are screaming from the rooftops about this rise in inflation… But the ECB just continues to sit on their hands, and allow this inflation to grow…  Shame, shame, shame…

The Norges Bank (Norway’s Central Bank) seems to be the only Central Bank around the world that gets that inflation is soaring and it needed to be dealt with…  

The U.S. Data Cupboard last week had the Initial Jobless Claims for the previous week and just like the two weeks previous to last week , the number of Claims being filed increased from the week before… And once again I’ll remind you that I told you that these increases would be happening…

We also saw that Personal Income and Spending were two data prints going in the wrong direction.. .Real Disposable Income fell -.3%, while personal spending rose .8%…   These are not a good set of number for the economy folks, given that we’re spending more than we make….  

But none of these data prints were responsible for the dollar sell off Thursday & Friday last week… It was all about the kicking the can down the road, as I said above…

This week’s Data Cupboard is lacking at best… We start the week today with Factory Orders for August…  And then there’s really nothing to talk about until we get to Wednesday’s ADP Employment report, and finally on Friday the BLS’s Jobs Jamboree for August…  Right now the so-called experts are calling for a 485,000 gain in jobs for August…  I don’t see how that works, given that the weeks in August saw the Initial Jobless Claims ratchet higher each week…  But then it’s the BLS and I think their reports are just a description that uses their name.. .BLS…    think about that… HA! 

To recap… Chuck goes into a long dissertation on why the Fed./Cabal/ Cartel, can’t Taper… The currencies and metals both rallied, along with Oil, and bonds… Stocks also saw a recovery of sorts.. Inflation continues to be a real problem now and going forward… And the only thing that will be transitory is Jerome Powell’s term at the Fed/ Cabal./Cartel…

For what It’s Worth….  Since late last week’s selling of the dollar is still fresh on our minds, Zerohedge.com ran an article about the AAA rating on Treasuries, which I find to be quite interesting, and it can be found here: Stocks Pressured After Fitch Warns Debt Ceiling “Brinksmanship” Threatens US AAA Rating | ZeroHedge

Or, here’s your snippet:”  As a reminder, just over 10 years ago, S&P downgraded the U.S. after that year’s debt ceiling debacle prompted the rating agency to do the unthinkable and lob an ‘A’ from the untouchable AAA U.S. rating (prompting a very unhappy response from both the market and the then-Obama administration). Well, moments ago Fitch lobbed the first official warning shot across the bow of the world’s reserve currency, writing that with the Drop-Dead Date in just 17 days, any debt-cap “brinkmanship” between Democrats and Republicans may put pressure on Fitch’s AAA rating of the U.S.

In the statement, Fitch said that the failure of the latest efforts to suspend the U.S. federal government’s debt limit indicates that the current stand-off could be among the most protracted since 2013. Additionally, the rating agency believes that the debt limit will be raised or suspended in time to avert a default event, but if this were not done in a timely manner, political brinkmanship and reduced financing flexibility could increase the risk of a U.S. sovereign default.

“It’s unfortunate when Congress uses this as a negotiating tactic, it’s a bad scenario overall,” said Randy Frederick, managing director of trading and derivatives for Schwab Center for Financial Research.

“Eventually, foreign creditors might be unwilling to buy U.S. debt and if that happens, rates are going to go sharply higher and if rates shot up because people were unwilling to buy treasuries that would have a very negative impact on the market.

And, as we have explained previously, Fitch also pointed out that prioritization of debt payments, assuming this is an option, would lead to non-payment or delayed payment of other obligations, which would likely further undermine the U.S.’s AAA status.”

Chuck again…  Boy do I recall that day when the U.S. ‘s bond rating lost its AAA rating!  And then the selling of the dollar lasted a while… We’ll have to see if that repeats…

Market Prices 10/4/2021: American Style: A$ .7279,  kiwi .6968, C$ .7927, euro 1.1620, sterling 1.3590, Swiss $1.0774, European Style: rand 14.9546, krone 8.6020, SEK 8.7297, forint 306.31,  zloty 3.9302,  koruna 21.7893, RUB 72.92, yen 111.30, sing 1.3571, HKD 7.7862, INR 74.27, China 6.4445, peso 20.55, BRL 5.3645,  BBDXY 1,161.01, Dollar Index 93.92,  Oil $75.60, 10-year 1.49%, Silver $22.39, Platinum $958.00, Palladium $1,978.00, Copper $4.15, and Gold… $1,748.60

That’s it for today…  As I said above my beloved Cardinals travel to LA. To play the Dodgers on Wednesday… The Dodgers will send their ace Max Sherzer to pitch against the Cardinals. Max is a St. Louis product and University of Missouri product… But I doubt he’ll let those home ties interfere with his task at hand… Ate dinner at friends, Pete & Karen’s last night, sat out on their balcony and talked about all kinds of things… It was simply a beautiful night! I’ll be sad to leave my winter home on Friday this week, but this coming weekend is my granddaughter Evie’s birthday… My little Evie will be 2!  I do believe that she’s already into her “terrible 2’s”, but she’s so darn cute!  The Charlie Daniels band takes us to the finish line today with their song: The South’s Gonna Do It Again…  I hope you have a Marvelous Monday and will Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler

September 30, 2021

* currencies & metals get sold on Wednesday… 

* Today is a BIG DAY, with a vote in Congress & the fiscal year end… 

Good Day…  And a Tub Thumpin’ Thursday to one and all! It’s the end of the week for me, and the end of the month, and the end of the fiscal year for the U.S.  There are many things going on that could occur tomorrow, folks… But I doubt that will happen.. I’m talking about a default for the U.S.  And I  doubt that this is the time that this will happen, but… There’s always a chance… My beloved Cardinals’ 17 game win streak came to and end last night…  Oh well… who’d thunk that this team that had a difficult time hitting its way out of a wet paper bag, would put together a 17-game win streak?  I sure didn’t! But the fans are still behind the team, and we’ll keep going until the Ferris Wheel stops.. The Little River Band greets me this morning with their song: Happy Anniversary…

Well, another day brought on another day of dollar buying folks… While all the chaos that could occur in the next couple of weeks hangs over the markets like the Sword of Damocles.. Dollar traders and investors are playing no attention to it, and  just keep buying dollars… The currencies continue to take one shot to the gut after another… And Gold & Silver keep getting sold down the river…  Bitcoin finally found a bid yesterday, after seeing days of selling take its price to a level that could have brought it below $40,000… Bonds didn’t move much on Wednesday, and the price of Oil didn’t move much either.. So we can’t blame all the dollar buying on Bond  Or Bitcoin purchases….

Gold lost $7.70 on the day to close at $1,727.10, and Silver lost 92-cents  to close at $21.62… I told you yesterday, that we are in a batten down the hatches time, and I hope you have heeded my call, and are not paying attention to all this dollar buying.. All this selling is really frustrating for me, folks, as I know it is for you too, but we have to maintain our hedges against the collapse of the dollar, and carry on my wayward son… 

In the overnight markets last night… Not much of anything went on… the currencies are basically trading in yesterday’s clothes, as is Gold & Silver, with both of them flat as a pancake (Head East!)  The BBDXY, which closed yesterday at a whopping 1,167.88, is trading this morning just a shade lower at 1,167.60…  In Congress today, with the fiscal year ending, they will try once more to agree on a spending bill that would allow the Gov’t to continue to operate… As I’ve said before this is usually a rubber stamp but this time seems to have hang ups, lawmakers with a conscience, who’d a thunk that could happen? 

I was taken aback last night, while I sat out on our balcony, watching the stars dance around, when I read an email that talked about how the current President is proposing that the military give start giving out dishonorable discharges to military personell that refuse  to be vaccinated… Wait! What? That’s preposterous! These people have put their lives on the line for our country, and we’re going to give them dishonorable discharges?  I draw the line there folks… I will not sit idle, and watch this farce to go on…

OK, I know that has nothing to do with markets, economies, but it does have to do with DOLTS! And I will always be here to point out the DOLTS, folks… You can count on that!

On a different front…  Back home in Missouri, there were tons of protestors out in force to object the current evictions going on…  These folks can’t believe that owners of homes can evict them for not paying their rent.. . The gall of these owners!  HA!  I really can’t get my arms around the idea that folks, can’t believe that they’re being evicted for not paying their rent.  I will point out again that there are 10.9 Million job openings in the U.S. and there are 8.4 Million people unemployed…  Need I say more?

Did you hear about the French mansion that was being renovated, and they found Gold coins in the walls?  Here’s the skinny from the good folks at GATA: “Hundreds of rare gold coins dug out of the walls of a remote French mansion fetched more than one million euros ($1.2 million) at auction on today.

Stonemasons discovered 239 pieces of gold, minted before the French Revolution, when they began renovating the property near Quimper in the western Brittany region, auctioneers Ivoire/Deloys said.”

Ok, so I can see French mansion holders all taking sledgehammers to their walls to see if there are Gold coins in them… I find that thought to be funny, I don’t know about you, but I find it to be amusing… 

Remember when I told you about the guys that were calling for stock market collapses on “X” day?  I said that they were like the boy who cried wolf, and that eventually the stock market would collapse and they could crow exuberantly that “they called it”…  Well, the stock market hasn’t really collapsed, but it did hit  a 6-week low yesterday…  So, maybe these guys will be “half right”, as the rot on the stock market’s vine gets exposed over time, and not all in one day… 

And that brings me to the Cartel, what will they do to protect the stock market? They could slowly walk away from any talk of Tapering… And they could repeat their comments that interest rates won’t rise until 2022, late… But maybe that’s all run its course, and the stock jockeys won’t see this as helping… I can see that happening, just like my taking of chemo, about every 1.5 years, it begins to not be effective, and I have to switch to a different chemo… Oh, shoot, that 1.5 years is now! Uh-oh! 

Today’s U.S. Data Cupboard has the usual Thursday fare of Initial Jobless Claims, which the last two weeks have surprised to the upside… I would think that to continue, but like I said not like the increases we saw in March of 2020, just increases that keep adding up…  The final revision to 2nd QTR GDP will print today… What a crock of data!  Gov’t spending dominates this data print, just keep that in mind… 

There will be 4 Cartel members out speaking on the economic outlook today, hopefully they will all be singing from the same song sheet, which rarely happens when they go out to speak… Confusion is their normal cup-o-tea, so we’ll have to see what today’s brings us here… 

Tomorrow’s Data Cupboard will have Personal Income and Spending for August, and the Core Inflation data for August… But the whole world will be watching to see what happens today with the vote in congress, and how the U.S. reacts tomorrow…  Big Day today, folks, and even Bigger day tomorrow… 

For What It’s Worth… This is crazy folks… I found this on Ed Steer’s letter last night, and when I went to click on the link, CNBC said it no longer existed…  So, I don’t have a link for you to click on and read the article in its entirety this morning…   All I have is the snippet, which talks about Cartel chairman Powell and his visit to Capital Hill…

And here’s your snippet: “ Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, in remarks to be delivered Tuesday, cautioned Washington legislators that the causes of the recent rise in inflation may last longer than anticipated.

In a speech that he will deliver to the Senate Banking Committee, the central bank chair said economic growth has “continued to strengthen” but has been met with upward price pressures caused by supply chain bottlenecks and other factors.

“Inflation is elevated and will likely remain so in coming months before moderating,” Powell said. “As the economy continues to reopen and spending rebounds, we are seeing upward pressure on prices, particularly due to supply bottlenecks in some sectors. These effects have been larger and longer lasting than anticipated, but they will abate, and as they do, inflation is expected to drop back toward our longer-run 2 percent goal.”

The remarks are part of mandated testimony Powell must give to Congress regarding the Fed’s economic response to the Covid-19 pandemic. He will speak Thursday to the House Financial Services Committee.”

Chuck again…  yes, isn’t it nice to see the Cartel come around to our way of thinking that inflation is NOT transitory? I do find this interesting that again he takes no credit for fueling the inflation with all their currency printing and near zero interest rates…    What a Twit, dolt, and any other name you can think of that describes someone that’s either not so bright, or lies between his teeth!

Apparently, Cartel Chairman, Powell, is on the hot seat as his term comes up for renewal… There are some influential lawmakers that don’t feel that Powell is up to the grade that they need to guide the economy to higher ground…  I don’t know how Powell can sit there and listen to the bunk from the lawmakers, without standing and pointing his finger at them and saying, “If you people would stop with your deficit spending, it would make my job easier”…  And then he could pretty much know that his job is toast…  I’m just saying… 

To recap… The dollar buying continued throughout yesterday, but overnight the dollar buying has taken a pause for the cause… Bonds and Bitcoin didn’t get bought yesterday, so we can’t blame buying them for the weakness in the currencies and metals…  Chuck thinks the vote in congress today will be a BIG ONE, with the fiscal year ending today in the U.S. they need something to continue tomorrow…   Could be chaotic tomorrow, folks… 

Market Prices 9/30/.2021: American Style: A$ .7195,  kiwi .6865, C$ .7850, euro 1.1581, sterling 1.3442, Swiss $1.0688, European Style: rand 15.1690, krone 8.8025, SEK 8.7845,  forint 311.42,  zloty 4.005,  koruna 22.0340, RUB 72.78, yen 111.99, sing 1.3608, HKD 7.7883, INR 74.22, China 6.4663, peso 20.52, BRL 5.4239, BBDXY 1,167.60, Dollar Index 94.44,  Oil $74.23, 10-year 1.52%, Silver $21.63, Platinum $962.00, Palladium $1,974.00, Copper $4.12, and Gold… $1,726,80

That’s it for today… Well, first we had a very scrumptious dinner last night, and then sat out on our balcony that overlooks the ocean, and talked.. Good friends Pete and Karen  were our guests on the balcony, and we swapped stories, and memories, until it was late… I had my Bose wireless speaker on the balcony playing Sirius XM’s station, The Bridge… that’s one that I listen to all the time!  So, today is the final day of the U.S.’s fiscal year… What will happen tomorrow? When we turn the page to Rocktober?

I laughed the other day when reading Dave Gonigam’s 5 Minute Forecast, when he called the $3.5 Trillion deficit spending bill, “the spendalooza”… I don’t think there’s a better way to describe it! Well, when I talk to you next it will be Rocktober!  And what an interesting month it should be…  My beloved Cardinals play a day game at Busch today, but I won’t be in town to attend, UGH! Then they finish the regular season with 3 games with the Cubs…  Gotta keep winning! I hope you have a Tub Thumpin’ Thursday today, and please Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler

September 29, 2021

* Currencies, metals, bonds, bitcoin all get sold on Tuesday

* Fitch improves Russia’s economic outlook! 

Good Day… And a Wonderful Wednesday to you! Well, my beloved Cardinals won their 17^th consecutive game last night… And clinched a spot in the playoffs, albeit a one-game winner moves on playoff game… But, they’re in… and if you get in, there’s always a chance, and right now, my beloved Cardinals are playing the best baseball I’ve seen in all my years… I was up very late last night, as I’m on the East Coast, and that means the game didn’t end until around 11 pm, and then silly me, I stayed up to watch the celebration… So… Im draggin’ the line a bit this morning! Edwin Starr greets me this morning with his song: Twenty Five Miles…  “Twenty five miles from home girl, my feet are hurting mighty bad”…

Well, what can I say this morning that will provide solace for non-dollar investors? Don’t worry, about a thing, ‘cause every little thing is going to be alright…  But I do believe that with the rising Treasury yields, that it could very well be a batten down the hatches time…  Shoot Rudy, the stock market is even being sold to buy Treasuries these days…  In actuality, Treasury yields are still negative when you calculate them with inflation…  But look at it this way… In Japan, they have no inflation, and their yields are negative, so at least U.S. treasury yields are better than that!

So, yesterday, we saw the dollar get bought like funnel cakes at a State Fair, and anything that was considered anti-dollar got sold… Currencies, metals, bitcoin, and Oil…  To follow up on something I talked about on Monday… Bitcoin is really feeling the heat, from the announcement by China that they were banning cryptocurrencies…  The BBDXY rose 4 whole points to close the day at 1,159.93…  Oil fell by almost $2’s… and Gold lost $15.90 on the day to close at $1,734.80, and Silver lost 17-cents to close the day at $22.54…   From my view in the cheap seats, I would say that the boys in the band are still very active in pushing Gold lower… Hmmmm

It’s all about higher rates, and the markets are flying with blinders on… They’re refusing to see the chaos that could incur in Congress, with the $1.5 Trillion deficit spending bill now in peril…  But then, when all this dollar buying begins to get reversed it’ll be just as ugly for dollar holders…  I read yesterday that the final vote on the bill will has a deadline of Rocktober 18^th… But… they’ll be lots of hemming and hawing about the bill from here on out.

In the overnight markets last night… The dollar buying just keeps going on and on… The BBDXY has risen to 1,162 in the overnight trading…  Speaking of the BBDXY it’s about time for it to be recalculated, or recalibrated based on the trade numbers from the different countries, so we might see a move here that doesn’t correlate to dollar buying or selling…  

Gold is in positive territory this morning, which is surprising given the rot on the vine in the other metals, Silver, Platinum and Palladium…  Shoot Rudy, Palladium has fallen below $2,000! I guess all those catalytic converters are now safe, eh?  Gold is up $7 in the early trading today, and Silver is down 20-cents…  What on earth is in the minds of the price manipulators these days regarding Silver? They just keep pushing it down. Is there a price they are working toward? 

The price manipulators have gotten to brazen with their engineered takedowns, that if they keep going like this, we will eventually see them announce their moves ahead of time… “Tomorrow we’re going to take Gold down by 5%,” or something like that…  I kid, and attempt to bring some levity to these takedowns, but I do believe I fail miserably… 

Ok.. onto other things… The RT.com reported the other day that, “International ratings agency Fitch has improved its forecast for Russia’s economic growth this year to 4.3% from the previously expected 3.7%, said Douglas Winslow, Director at Fitch Ratings.”

I keep telling everyone that the Russians won’t be brought down by the economic sanctions placed on them by the U.S. and Eurozone. And that the ruble is one of the few currencies in the world where you can still get some interest on a deposit. And that ivestors need to get over their USSR fear… The USSR is gone, and this is the new Russia.. So get over it and think seriously about buying some rubles! 

Wanna know what two stocks Congress owns that will make your head spin?  How about Pfizer, and Johnson and Johnson…  No wonder the Gov’t keeps the fear factor going!  I shake my head in disgust…

Do you want to hear something that’s what I consider to be funny?  I received a note from LinkedIn that the Fed Reserve St. Louis is looking for an editor for their financial review…  Now that’s funny! Those folks at the St.Louis Cartel would take one look at my resume and run for the hills! HAHAHAHAHA! I’ve got to make sure that my friend, the great Mogambo Guru hears about this… He’ll laugh until his stomach hurts!

The folks that bought EverBank, did the same thing… The CEO of the new bank was a former Cartel Head, and I do believe he read a few of my letters for due diligence, and decided that they wanted no part of me… And I was told I needed to retire… So, see I’ve experience the wrath of the Cartel previously… 

OK… back to things that are worth reading about… Now hear this! A Cartel member doesn’t think the Cartel has done enough to spur higher inflation…  I got this from Bloomberg.com and here’s the skinny from Cartel head Evans… “The U.S. central bank needs to keep monetary policy easy to raise the public’s inflation expectations even after the current bout of inflationary pressures from supply-chain disruptions fades, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago President Charles Evans said.

“I do not think the supply-side-induced transitory surge in inflation we are seeing today will be enough to do the trick,” Evans said Monday in remarks prepared for a speech at the annual National Association for Business Economics conference in Arlington, Virginia. “I expect that we will need a period of sustained, monetary-policy-induced overshooting of 2% inflation to boost long-run inflation expectations enough to deliver on our mandated goals.”

Chuck again… OK, notice how he immediately throws the supply side disruptions for the inflation we have now… Notice he doesn’t mention andthing about the currency printing that the Cartel has been involved with…  he must be young, because he did what all millennials do… find someone to blame the problem on, because it can never be their own problem!

And speaking of inflation / rising prices… in my hometown of St. Louis, Mo, they announced yesterday that the fee for parking meters is going up 50-cents and hour, which will bring the total per hour to $2…  I know in some places that’s not much, but for us here in the Middle of the country, where we’re the last place you see rising prices, we’re seeing them…

And keeping in line with our successful programs (NOT!) of The War of Drugs, The War on Poverty, the War in Vietnam, the War in Afghanistan, the war on Covid, and any other wars our leaders threw trillions of dollars on , now the Gov’t is talking about fixing the food problem…  What did President Reagan say were the scariest words to hear? “Hi, I’m from the government, and I’m here to help”… Heaven please help us!

The Housing data that I told you would show even higher home prices, the Case/ Shiller Home Price Index for July reported that home prices increased 19%…  Ok, Mr. Evans, he of throwing supply-side disruptions under the bus, Who’s to blame for this new Housing Bubble we have going on? Could it be the Cartel who have kept interest rates near zero for so long?  You had better believe it could be!

And the stupid Consumer Confidence fell this month from 115.2 to 109.3… That’s a HUGE downward movement in this data folks… But I would add that even though the index fell this month, it should have probably fallen more, given the chaos that’s about to be unleased on the country…

To recap…  Everything under the Sun that wasn’t dollars, got sold yesterday… The currencies got whacked, the metals got whacked, Oil got wracked and so did Bitcoin… It was an ugly day for the anti-dollar investments… And from what I read the dollar buying was all about the higher yields in Treasuries… Chuck points out that these higher yields in Treasuries are still negative when accounting for inflation…  And in the overnight markets the dollar buying continued… It’s a run-away train right now, folks, so get off the tracks! 

For What It’s Worth…  Well, it was bound to happen… Eventually people would wake up and realize that if it weren’t for the Cartel’s near zero interest rates, and all the stimmy checks, that the stock market they think represents the economy, was being manipulated…  That’s what this article is about, and it can be found here: Is Stock Market Rigged? Insider Trading by Executives Is Pervasive, Critics Say – Bloomberg

Or, here’s your snippet: “Most Americans Today Believe the Stock Market Is Rigged, and They’re Right’ New research shows insider trading is everywhere. So far, no one seems to care.

In the U.S., an insider is defined as a senior executive, board member, or any shareholder who owns 10% or more of a company. There are about 82,000 of them, and every time they trade they’re required by law to file a disclosure, known as a Form 4, within two days. These filings can be viewed on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s website, but scores are added each day, and most don’t offer much insight. “You have to know where to look,” says TipRanks Chief Executive Officer Uri Gruenbaum. Directors typically receive a proportion of their compensation in stock options, giving them the right to buy shares at a set price before a certain date, so if an executive is simply exercising an expiring option, it probably doesn’t reveal a great deal about how he views the company’s prospects. Selling may not tell you much either, because there are all sorts of reasons an insider might want to cash out—to buy a boat, for instance. It’s when insiders use their own funds to buy stock on the open market that it’s most worth paying attention.

t’s not just those at the top of the rankings who constantly beat the market. Purchases made by U.S. executives outperformed the S&P 500 over the ensuing 12 months by an average of five percentage points between 2015 and 2020, according to a TipRanks analysis. The gap might seem scandalous to those with only a passing acquaintance with U.S. insider trading rules, which make it illegal for insiders to trade using material—or financially significant—nonpublic information. And yet on Wall Street it’s long been an open secret that insiders trade on what they know.”

Chuck again… And well, no one seems to care about this type of manipulation… I mean, look at the Cartel members that resigned because they were trading stocks based on inside knowledge of how the Cartel would implement monetary policy, will they be prosecuted? Hell no…

Market Prices 9/29/2021: American Style: A$ .7228, kiwi .6930, C$ .7878, euro 1.1643, sterling 1.3477, Swiss $1.0757, European Style: rand 15.0852, krone 8.7233, SEK 8.7573,  forint 308.98,  zloty 3.9786,  koruna 21.8801, RUB 72.67, yen 111.42, sing 1.3535, HKD 7.7842, INR 74.21, China 6.4573, peso 20.54, BRL 5.4077,  BBDXY 1,162.80, Dollar Index 93.88,  Oil $74.87, 10-year 1.51%, Silver $22.34, Platinum $976.00, Palladium $1,980.00, Copper $4.17, and Gold… $1,742.70

That’s it for today… What a beautiful sunrise this morning, just like most days down here, except when the clouds block it out… it comes out of the ocean like an orange ball and the whole horizon is orange/ red… Simply beautiful… How about those Cardinals? 17 games in a row they’ve won, with 5 more to play… Shoot I suggest they go to the Wild Card playoff game with a 22 game winning streak!  The Moody Blues takes us to the finish line today with their song: The Voice…   And not the silly voice competition on TV…  I hope you have a Wonderful Wednesday, and please Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler