• The dollar selling abated yesterday…

• Oil continues to get whipsawed

Good Day… And a Tom Terrific Tuesday to you! I know I had told you there would be no Pfennig today, but… My cold is keeping me from my oncologist visit/ infusion… So, I’m stuck at home hacking away… Wonderful thought, eh? My Beloved Cardinals turned into the Bronx Bombers last night VS the Yankees and hit 5 Home Runs and beat the Yankees… This display of homers was a thing from left field for the Cardinals, but I’ll take it!  The Righteous Bros greet me this morning with their song: Just Once In My Life…   

That could have been the theme song for the Cardinals last night! But I’ll move on now…&

The dollar stopped getting sold yesterday as traders took a pause for the cause…  The think I was thinking about with regards to the recent dollar selling all came back to me, and the blind man said as he spit into the wind… Instead of traders seeing the U.S. finances as I said yesterday, I feel the selling of the dollar was nothing but a correction, as it had gone upward too far, too fast… And yesterday was the day everyone took a breath, and said, “now we can get back to buying dollars once again”…  They’ll be sorry, I’m telling you now, so maybe you’ll listen to me later, but the long missive I wrote yesterday about Japan’s intervention, is going to play out eventually… Sooner or later all the ducks will be in row for dollar dumping…  I’m just saying..

Gold/Silver ran into the SPTs right after I hit send yesterday… And the SPTs made certain that Gold/Silver’s rally was snuffed immediately…  Gold was flat to up $2 on the day, while Silver gained 33-cents…  Nothing like their early morning trading performances had indicated… Gold ended the day at $4,055, and Silver at $58.30

The price of Oil bounced again yesterday, and it ended the day with a $81 handle… My friend, and 5 Bullets editor, David Gonigam had a great illustration in his letter yesterday, showing how the price of Oil goes around in a circle, rising when there are words war, and selling off when there are words of Peace… 

And the 10-year settled down yesterday with a $4.69% yield… Without the Fed Heads in performing their yield control, this yield would be higher…. Manipulation… it’s everywhere!

In the overnight markets last night….  The dollar trading dried up, and the BBDXY starts today at 1,205… Gold is up $13 to start the day, and Silver is up $1.19… Once again, the metals traders are going to run these two up the flagpole and see if they can take out the lines of defense that the SPTs have set up…  

The price of Oil saw more selling overnight and this morning it starts the day with a $78 handle… And the 10-year’s yield shot up to 4.70%  early this morning, only to see the Fed Heads come in and do some yield control, thus bringing the 10-year’s yield back to 4.65%… UGH!

I wanted to mention the run that the price of Copper is on right now… This morning, Copper is trading at $6.66. Soon it will attempt to take out its previous high of $6.71… Should be no problemo…. 

I was looking at the yields of 10-year Gov’t bonds from around the world yesterday… They sure look a bit healthier than they were a year ago, and that got me thinking… (uh oh here he goes again!) Shoot Rudy, even the Japanese 10-year Gov’t bond is yielding 2.82%…. These higher yields across the board are going to cause each respective country major problems going forward…  As tax receipts will eat up the money used for bond servicing (interest payments) and each country is going to have to be creative in how they obtain the money needed to pay Interest… 

The country with the best plan will come out on top, folks… And this includes the good ole U.S. of A.    I don’t think there’s creative mind in Washington these days, so that means the U.S. will lag other countries eventually… But we knew this already, it’s just a matter of time… I’m just saying… 

I don’t have a lot to talk about today, because I was not prepared to write today… I woke up and decided that I was NOT going to make my doctor’s appointment. And so, with that in mind, I sat down and began to write without any notes from the previous day… UGH!

Well, being the Fed Watcher that I am… I compared FOMC Chairman, Warsh’s press conferences from his first two meetings, to see if there was any change I could note…  To me, it appeared that Warsh wore the same suit and tie in each press conference (6 weeks apart) and his statement was basically the same at each conference…  He reiterated that the FOMC had a 2% inflation target, nothing more, nothing less, and that having inflation above that 2% target for more than 5 years now is not something he’s comfortable with….   Oh, and there were 3 dissenting votes to remain unchanged, but to hike rates instead… So, at least somebody was ready to do something about 5 years of higher inflation than we expect… 

I guess, I want to say that Warsh is tip toeing through his initial FOMC meetings, not wanting to step on anyone’s toes… But to me, this is not what he’s there for… He’s there to push his ideas to front, and see what becomes of them… So, to me, he’s getting started on the wrong foot… 

For now, the Japanese yen has held to its gains from last week’s intervention… I doubt it will hold very long, as intervention rarely gives an asset the gains it needs for too long…  for now, though, currency traders are leery to enter new yen shorts, as there could be a round 2 of intervention…  either way, I wouldn’t touch yen with your ten-foot pole!  

And the Eurozone is having to deal with immigrants once again… it will be interesting to see if they learned anything from the last go-round with an immigrant invasion…  Look, I’m not against immigrants, and I would get on their sides IF they went about become a citizen of the country they go to the right way….   So, don’t get mad at me and say I’m against immigrants… Because I’m NOT!

The U.S. Data Cupboard yesterday had the July print of the ISM (Manufacturing) and it surprised everyone rising to 56… Remember that 50 is the line in the sand and any number above 50 means expansion in Manufacturing and vice versa… 

Today, we’ll see the color of July’s Factory Orders, which are expected to be positive. You may recall that June’s print was a negative -1.9%…  And the Trade Balance is supposed to print for July…  This data had been a deficit for so long, until Tariffs began to skew the numbers… 

To recap… The dollar selling abated yesterday and last night… Gold couldn’t hold its early gains yesterday, and the price of Oil continues to get whipsawed up and down. Right now it’s down…  And Chuck’s dissertation on Japanese intervention of the yen, yesterday, still holds true even though the yen is currency holding on to its intervention gains… 

For What It’s Worth… Well, there was someone else looking at Gov’t Bond yields and he wrote an article about them… Alasdair Macleod is the author of this piece and you can find it here: Bond crisis deepens – by Alasdair Macleod

Or, here’s your snippet: “Finally, it appears that bond yields in the U.S. and all other G7 nations are rising above the consolidation zones of the last three years. Higher bond yields will be a catastrophe for both businesses and governments, bankrupting many of the former and making the latter’s bonds uninvestible.

Those who have sought the safety of real, common-law legal money without counterparty risk which is gold and secondly silver are the only people with protection from this looming catastrophe.

The significance of higher bond yields

We have been repeatedly told that the 10-year U.S. Treasury note yield is the benchmark for other interest rates and a key indicator for investor sentiment. Well, it’s taking a turn for the worse, as its chart clearly demonstrates…”

Chuck again… I love it when other well-known authors write about something that’s been on my mind… This is a long article and you have to jump through some hoops to read its entirety.. Good luck!

Market Prices 8/4/2026: American Style: A$ .7032, kiwi .5883, C$ .7113, euro 1.1517, sterling 1.3446, Swiss $1.2362, European Style: rand 16.4370, krone 9.5581, SEK 9.5441, forint 314.61, zloty 3.7388, koruna 21.0120, RUB 80.60, yen 157.43, sing 1.2834, HKD 7.8433, INR 95.38, China 6.7523, peso 17.29, BRL 5.0874, BBDXY 1,205, Dollar Index 99.93, Oil $78.22, 10-year 4.65%, Silver $59.49, Platinum $1,710.00, Palladium $1,283.00, Copper $6.66, and Gold… $4,068

That’s it for today… I’ll have more tomorrow, promise… My beloved Cardinals came alive once Trade Deadline came and went… Good thing because they were really becoming boring to watch… Even for me! I live and breathe baseball so, that really had become a problem! This summer cold really has me down… At least it’s not the cyclo-whatever that’s going around… From eating Salad! C’Mon, that’s supposed to be healthy for you! Oh well, we carry on despite our snags… Aliotta Haynes and Jeremiah take us to the finish line this morning with their classic song: Lake Shore Drive… I hope you have a Tom Terrific Tuesday today, and Please Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler

• The war premium that the dollar enjoyed has been removed
• Why the intervention now?

Good Day… And a Marvelous Monday to you! And Welcome to August! The summer is flying by quickly and soon; it’ll be back to school time… I have a good friend, Craig, in Toronto Ca, that always bets me a case of Budweiser on the Cardinals/ Blue Jays baseball games…  And at the end, I’ll owe him a truck load of Buds… UGH!  My beloved Cardinals are in a real funk right now, as they are getting good starting pitching but can’t hit with men on base… Oh well, this was a rebuilding year and they got us all lathered up early on… Harold Melvin And The Blue Notes greet me this morning with their song: If You Don’t Know Me By Now…

The War premium that was attached to the dollar in recent months has seen it rinsed away, albeit slowly…  The dollar saw selling on Friday last week that brought the BBDXY down to 1,210…  And in the overnight markets the dollar was sold down more to 1,205…  Maybe, just maybe, Because you never know, but maybe traders are finally seeing the light that shines on the U.S.’s fiscal status…. And have decided that buying dollars isn’t a prudent thing to be doing…. 

The SPTs saw that the dollar was getting sold down the river and decided to something about Gold / Silver… The two metals had reached $4,100 and $60 respectively, and the SPTs said… “that ain’t happening” And have defended the two levels with major efforts the last week or so… $4,100 in Gold and $60 in Silver…  

So, Gold closed the week at $4,043, down $60 on the day, and Silver closed the week at $57.89 down $1.49 on the day….  I’ve got a great article, regarding Gold, for you in the FWIW this morning, from Frank Trotter!  You’ll not want to miss that!

The price of Oil is back to inching higher and ended the week with an $84 handle, and the 10-year’s yield rose to 4.74% to end the week… 

In the overnight markets last night…. Well, Gold/Silver traders are feeling their oats this morning, as they’ve decided to run Gold/Silver up the flagpole again and test the lines in the sand the SPTs have made… Gold is up $ 11 to start the day/week, and Silver is right behind it as it is up 23-cents to start the day/week…  The STPs were out early this morning, as Gold / Silver were up more than their stated amounts, last night before I retired…. 

The dollar got sold down the river again overnight and the BBDXY starts today/week at 1,205….  The Fed Heads are in doing some yield control and the 10-year’s yield is 4.68%… And the price of Oil continues to get whipsawed every day and is down to an $79 handle to start the day/week…

There’s something more about this dollar selling that’s really got me scratching my bald head. I just can’t put my finger on it, but I eventually will; you can bet your bottom dollar on that!

Back to the dollar for a minute… With the selling of the dollar, the euro is kicking some tail these days as it remains the offset currency to the dollar… The euro was back to the 1.15 handle on Friday, and looking quite perky… The single unit was last around the 1.15 handle back in June… Back then, I was convinced that the dollar was starting a weak trend, only to have a curveball thrown at me and we saw the euro sink back.  But the underlying weak trend is still in place, and that’s something we need to keep reminded of… 

And the Aussie dollar (A$) is back to 70-cents this morning! And the Chinese renminbi is 6.75 ish….  The Chinese are taking this opportunity in the selling of the dollar, as their cue to allow the renminbi to gain VS the dollar…  Better start picking out our currency or currencies du jour because I think they about ready to make a run VS the dollar… And here’s why:

Well, the Central Banks of Japan and S. Korea were intervening with their respective currencies, and while I don’t condone this intervention, this has also had some Fed/ Cabal /Cartel intervention too, so that makes it real… The Japanese yen is around 157 now, instead of the 162 it held previously… 

But what happens when the intervention is finished? This is when the traders will have to pick up the fork in the road and decide which way they’ll take the currency…  For my Pfennig I would bet that they decide to weaken the yen once again…  But that’s just jaded old me… 

And this got me thinking… (I hear you groaning!) Look at Japan this way… They have the largest holding of Treasuries…  And, Japanese investors have long been selling yen and buying higher yielding currencies and Treasuries… So, the intervention is to prevent a Margin Call on the Japanese investors, because if the intervention doesn’t work, these Japanese investors will receive Margin Calls on their “carry trade”…  This would put them into the position of having to sell their Treasuries… Uh Oh! 

I know, this is the jaded Chuck coming out, but I speak the truth, and hopefully I don’t run anyone off today… But if Japanese investors begin selling Treasuries, the bond yields will rise, and that means that U.S. servicing costs on the Treasuries that are outstanding would increase, and that would put our Country’s date with disaster on a quicker pace than it already is on…. Uh Oh! 

Oh! And Treasury Sec. Bessent had a memo that posted over the weekend about “buy $5-$10 Billion yen”….   So, we’re not talking about chicken feed here… A Billion here, A Billion there, and pretty soon we’re talking about some real money! 

Oh, and where’s he going to get the $5-$10 Billion to buy yen? Well, he’ll sell dollars…. What is that going to do to the dollar? You guessed it… I can hear the Fed Heads in their next meeting… “By George, you’ve sunk my battleship”… (speaking of the dollar)

I’ll quit there, there’s no need to go further, I think you get the picture that this is all going to end up in tears…

Well, the FOMC left rates unchanged at their meeting last week, and that has had a lot to do with the selloff of the dollar, as many traders had taken the position that the FOMC would hike rates last week, and they wanted to get ahead of the Cabal/ Cartel….  

The FOMC chairman, Warsh, did say that inflation was too high for his liking and that a rate hike would be coming soon… So far, Warsh has been a real dud for the rate cut enthusiasts… They all thought that as soon as Warsh was in, that he would push for rate cuts… He’s two FOMC meeting into his term and he’s left rates unchanged so far… 

By all means, he shouldn’t be pushing for rate cuts, so I’ll give him some credit. But I think all this delay in moving rates is going to cost him some credibility as inflation continues to rise… 

Well, this Friday, will be this month’s Jobs Jamboree, and quite frankly I don’t see how the BLS can rig the numbers enough to reach 100,000, when the world is expecting a low number of jobs created in July… The Unemployment Rate should also rise… But again, this is all up to the BLS and their bag of hedonic adjustments… 

Speaking of Data… The U.S. will receive its share of economic reports this week starting today with the ISM (manufacturing )… We’re still making things, folks, and you would think that there would be demand driving the ISM, but NOOOOOOOOOO!  That’s not happening, as U.S. consumers are still reeling and attempting to make ends meet as inflation just keeps driving prices higher… 

To recap… the dollar’s war premium is getting tested and it’s about time according to Chuck… The SPTs have made $4,100 for Gold and $60 for Silver, their lines in the sand…  and will defend them… So, it’s up to consumers to drive the metals truck right through these levels…. One thing that Frank points out in his missive (in the FWIW) is that Americans still aren’t on board with owning Gold/Silver… When that changes, it will be a scene… 

For What It’s Worth…  I came across this essay by my good friend, and former Big Boss, Frank Trotter, on Saturday, and knew in a moment that it was FWIW worthy!  Frank is an excellent writer and while this article is quite long, it’s very well written and can be found here: Could Washington Confiscate Your Gold Again? A Sober Look at a Persistent Fear – Battle Bank

Or, here’s your snippet: “Few questions come up more often in conversations with precious metals investors than this one: “If things get bad enough, won’t the government just take my gold like Roosevelt did in 1933?”

It’s a fair question, and it deserves a serious answer rather than a dismissive one. The 1933 episode was real. Americans were ordered to turn over their gold coins, bullion and gold certificates to the Federal Reserve in exchange for paper dollars, under threat of a $10,000 fine, a staggering sum at the time, and up to 10 years in prison. After they turned it in, they watched the government revalue that same gold by roughly 69% within a year. Anyone who lived through it, or whose grandparents told the story at the dinner table, is entitled to a healthy skepticism about government promises.

But history rhymes; it does not repeat verbatim. When we examine why the 1933 order happened, including the specific monetary machinery that made it both necessary and useful to the government of that day, we see a very different environment from today. The mainstream analytical consensus, from the Federal Reserve’s own historians, from legal scholars, and from the financial press, has converged on the same conclusion we have reached independently: A rerun of Executive Order 6102 is a low-probability scenario facing gold owners today. The realistic risks are different in kind: regulatory and tax-related rather than confiscatory.

Part I: What Actually Happened in 1933, and Why

To assess whether something can happen again, you first have to understand why it happened the first time. The popular retelling, “The government stole everyone’s gold,” is exactly what it felt like. But this misses the mechanics, and the mechanics are everything.

In April 1933, the United States was on a functioning gold standard. Paper dollars were, by law, redeemable in physical gold at a fixed rate of $20.67 per ounce, a rate that had been enshrined since the Gold Standard Act of 1900. The Federal Reserve was legally required to hold gold backing against the currency it issued. Gold was not merely an investment; it was the legal foundation of the money supply and the settlement medium written into countless private contracts through so-called gold clauses, which entitled creditors to demand payment in gold, thereby guaranteeing the paper. We are bankers and we would like that!

That architecture created a very specific vulnerability. In the depths of the Depression-era banking crisis, frightened depositors did the rational thing: They converted deposits to currency and currency to gold, draining metal from the Federal Reserve’s vaults faster than it could be replenished. The government faced a genuine technical insolvency in its monetary obligations. Obviously, it could not print gold, and it could not expand the money supply to fight the Depression without either acquiring more gold or breaking the link.”

Chuck Again…  You really outdid yourself with this article, Frank! And you are correct in saying that confiscation is the biggest worry among potential Gold investors…  And you did a great job of explaining that Confiscation isn’t anything to worry about….  Thank you!

Market Prices 8/3/2026: American Style: A$ .7002, kiwi .5790, C$ .7124, euro 1.1525, sterling 1.3462, Swiss $1.2352, European Style: rand 16.4835, krone 9.5382, SEK 9.5366, forint 315.97, zloty 3.1597, koruna 21.0032, RUB $79.77, yen 156.96, sing 1.2223, HKD 7.8423, INR 96.56, China 6.7535, peso 17.32, BRL 5.0729, BBDXY 1,205, Dollar Index 99.84 Oil $79.72, 10-year 4.68%, Silver $57.98, Platinum $1,295.00, Palladium $1,295.00, Copper $6.51, and Gold… $4,054

That’s it for today… I’m really dragging the line these days, as I’ve gotten another cold and it has me reeling! I guess I was around little Evie too much last week, as she’s a germ machine… But I don’t mean to blame her,  my system is so at risk after 19 years of Chemo that I catch what other people are selling… One of these days, I won’t be on Chemo any longer… And I look forward to those days… No Pfennig tomorrow, oncologist / infusion day…. The Babys take us to the finish line today with their song: Midnight Rendezvous. I hope you have a Marvelous Monday today, and Please Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler 

• the dollar sees some selling
• copper is on the rally tracks

Good Day…. And a Tub Thumpin’ Thursday to one and all… Well, my vacation was absolutely great! We had great weather, and the only thing making things bad was the play of our beloved Cardinals… The trip home was a pain because of Mother Nature. But we made it home, albeit late, especially for me! And the fact that my body lost an hour, caused me to sleep late this morning… Things sure have changed since my days on the trading desk, for back in the day when I would be away, the currencies rallied…  Not this time! A very appropriate song for this morning, the Allman Bros. Greet me with their song : Whipping Post… 

The dollar did lose some ground yesterday as the BBDXY lost 4 index points on the day and ended the day at 1,217…  It’s been a real struggle for Gold /Silver while I was gone, but that had started before I left, and I remind you that the summer months historically are not good for the metals… 

Gold ended the day yesterday at $4,037, and Silver at $57.79… Everyone is saying that $4,000 is the floor for Gold… But as the SPTs have shown us previously, they know no floor, and they’ll take it as lows as they can before running out of steam…  Yes, there’s a point where shorting doesn’t make any sense for them and so when that time comes, they’ll become buyers, run the price back higher and get ready for another load of wash, rinse, and recycle…. 

Gold/Silver were down for part of the day yesterday, but after the FOMC left rates unchanged they began to start rallying… They had quite the reversal yesterday, so they had that going for them and in the early trading this morning they are both up again…  For how long? Only the Shadow Knows…. 

After spending a week with my lovely granddaughter, Evie, I came down with a cold…. Great, a summer cold… UGH! 

OK, the price of Oil tried to rebound a bit yesterday and ended the day with an $83 handle… And the 10-year, after reaching a 4.70% yield last week, settled down and ended yesterday with a 4.68% yield… 

The Petrol Currencies have been all over the place recently, along with the price of Oil…  Do you really honestly think that the price of Oil will stay around $83?  The Iranians and the Houtis have shut off major routes for shipments of Oil… So, sooner or later supply shock will hit Oil traders like a slap in the face…  I’m just saying… 

In the overnight markets last night, the dollar was subjected to more selling… Not the kind of selling to write home about, but 2 index points on the BBBDXY were lost, so there’s that! 

And the 10-year’s yield remained at 4.68% overnight, while the price of Oil also stayed in their old clothes and starts today with an $83 handle…

On a side note here…. The price of Copper is $6.44 this morning, and appears that the supply problems for Copper are mounting, but we’ve seen this before, only to have the snot kicked out of Copper… But something tells me that we won’t see that this time… 

The Bank of England (BOE) left their rates unchanged at their meeting of the rate setters this morning… I really do think that the BOE gets their signal to hike or cut from whatever the FOMC decides…  Not to ruffles any feathers, you know…. 

Oh, and in case you were spending some time under a rock yesterday, the FOMC left rates unchanged again and talked about how a rate hike before year end was probably on the docket…  The Fed Heads acknowledge that inflation is higher than U.S. consumers like, but they decided to sit on their hands…. I do think that we should listen to Fed/Cabal/Cartel Chairman Warsh, we he indicates that a rate hike is coming… 

There were 3 Fed Heads that voted for a rate hike… so they’re coming around and by the next time they meet in 6 weeks, they should be ready to hike…. I’m just saying…

The Dollar continues to benefit from the War in Iran and other places…  And while it did lose some ground yesterday, that has not been the norm for the dollar… I can’t help but think that these folks buying dollars are going to rue the day they did that…  

Oh, and we were supposed to see a stock market collapse yesterday! I read a very long report where the guy pointed out all the stuff that I’ve pointed out and relayed it back to stocks, and said that on July 29^th the stock market would collapse… You know like in Rocktober 1987…  But, once again the collapse didn’t happen and now I would like to read a report from this guy saying that he was  wrong! 

Yes, is the stock market overvalued? Yes, it is…. and that’s all I can say about that!

The euro is showing some life these days, as it trades above the 1.14 handle… Of course that’s chicken feed when compared where the euro used to trade during the last week dollar trend!  Of course that was also before the PIIGS and all those other names for the countries of the Eurozone that realized that they had given away the store and needed to bailed out… I started calling them Club Med ….  Portugal, Italy, Greece and others were brining the euro down… 

The problems of Club Med haven’t just disappeared, the problems are still there, but they have been painted over at least for now… 

I personally think that Germany should tell the rest of the Eurozone good bye… But then that’s just me… 

The U.S. Data Cupboard today has quite a bit of data for us, starting with another revision to 2^nd QTR GDP… Then Personal Income and Spending for June will print. Then the PCE (supposedly the Fed Heads’ favorite inflation calc)  The funny and not funny ha=ha, thing is that the PCE will show that inflation dropped in June, but that’s not really true, as the price of Oil rebounded from its current lows in June… (I realize that it has fallen off again, but for how long?)

To recap… The dollar continued to show that it will remain stronger as long as the War with Iran continues, while Chuck was away, which normally brings about dollar weakness in his absence… but not this time! Oil is bouning around up and down… it goes up when the war is on, and down when the markets think there’s going to be peace…  

For What It’s Worth… Well, I don’t mean to rub this in, but at lease someone else goes along with me that the STUPID CPI is worthless and that real inflation is hurting consumers badly, and the article can be found here: Inflation Pain Is Worse Than the CPI Indicates, But You Already Knew That!

Or, here’s your snippet: “In 1971, President Richard Nixon severed the dollar’s last connection with the gold standard, making it a purely free-floating fiat currency.

When he announced the closing of the gold window, Nixon said, “Let me lay to rest the bugaboo of what is called devaluation,” and promised, “Your dollar will be worth just as much as it is today.”

Well, Campbell’s begs to differ.

Since that fateful day, the U.S. government, supported by the Federal Reserve, has aggressively devalued the dollar by printing more and more of them. This would have been impossible with the monetary discipline imposed by a gold standard (which is exactly why Nixon did away with it).

According to the Consumer Price Index data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the dollar has lost around 88 percent of its value since Nixon’s fateful decision. Meanwhile, the dollar value of gold has gone from $35 an ounce to about $4,000.

Of course, salaries have gone up as well, but inflationary boosts to income always lag behind prices, meaning this inflationary pressure is decimating the middle class and creating significant socio-economic shifts.

The Current Inflation Picture Is Much Worse Than Advertised

If you go shopping, you’re keenly aware of price inflation. Since January 2021, prices are up between 23.6 percent and 27.1 percent, depending on which metric you choose to use.”

Chuck again… this article goes on to discuss how a can of Campbell’s soup was 10-cents for decades, until after Nixon removed the Gold backing and we all became Keynsians… (well not me, and probably not you, but that’s what Nixon claimed)

Market Prices 7/30/2026: American Style: A$ .6972, kiwi .5839, C$ .7118, euro 1.1472, sterling 1.3384, Swiss 1.2300, European Style: rand 16.5916, krone 9.5741, SEK 96027, forint 315.62, zloty 3.7555, koruna 21.0688, RUB 79.83, yen 162.89, Sing 1.2882, HKD 7.8439, INR 95.67, China 6.7563, peso 17.40, BRL 5.1185, BBDXY 1,215, Dollar Index 100.69, Oil $83.76, 10-year 4.68%, Silver $58.22, Platinum $1,628.00, Palladium $1,309.00, Copper $6.44, and Gold…. $4,078

That’s it for today… A nice win, (finally) for my beloved Cardinals over the Cubs last night… It did take 10 innings, but a win is a win, and the team hasn’t had much of that lately! So, one and done this week… sorry, but that’s how the cookie crumbles… Next week there will be no Pfennig on Tuesday as it’s my monthly shot of chemo and visit to the oncologist…. But then I don’t have another Dr appt on my calendar for the rest of the month! YAHOO!  But that won’t last, as I’m always getting a doctor’s notice that they need to see me… UGH!  The Cranberries take us to the finish line today with their great song: Linger (the singer for the band, Delores O’Riordan had a voice that melted me, but we lost her way to soon)  I hope you have a Tub Thumpin’ Thursday today, and Please Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler

• The dollar sees selling on Tuesday
• But overnight everything clmed down

Good Day…. And a Wonderful Wednesday to you! Well, the National League’s bats fell silent VS the American League’s pitchers last night, and the American League won again… Good friend Rick came over and watched game outside with me… It’s always great to have someone watch a game with me…. I don’t like watching them alone! The Doobie Brothers greet me this morning with their song: South City Midnight Lady….  ( This song has special meaning to me)

Well, the dollar’s brief rally was just that, as the BBDXY lost 2 index points yesterday, and ended the day at 1,218..  Most of the downward move came late in the day, and therefore I was thinking that the overnight markets would continue the selling… And they did! 

Gold /Silver  held to their early morning gains and added to them as the day went on… Gold gained $50 on the day to close at $4,052, and Silver gained $79-cents to close at $58.57…  

The price of Oil continued to rise and yesterday it closed with an $83 hande…  No change in the status of ships going through the Strait of Hormuz, and so that means no Oil is being sent to countries that depend on the shipments… Gasoline reserves are still falling, and it won’t be long until the lines at gas stations are the norm again… 

And the 10-year Treasury’s yield ended the day, yesterday at 4.60%… All the things that I’ve said about the bond boys and the Fed Heads hold true, so nothing has changed here…

In the overnight markets last night….  The selling and buying calmed down and we didn’t see much movement in the dollar throughout the night… The rate hike callers saw that that had to take a back seat once the STIUPID CPI printed… I wish these forecasters would pick a lane… Decided which way they are going to go, and stick with it! As it is now, one week they are betting on a rate hike, and the next week it’s a rate cut! 

The price of Gold is seeing the SPTs early this morning, and is down $15 to start the day, while Silver is too seeing the same kind of trading, and is down 53-cents…  As long as the bets go either for a rate hike or cut, they will decide where these two metals head each day… 

The price of Oil saw some selling overnight and start today trading with a $79 handle, while the 10-year Treasury’s yield stayed put at 4.61%… 

Since this is my last Pfennig for about 9 business days as I start my traditional summer vacation tomorrow…  I wanted this Pfennig to be chock-ful-o-information…  But the news wires are bond dry this morning, unless your looking for news on the war or the Strait of Hormuz! 

You know, just last week Oil was briefly at $69 and today is $79… What a difference a week makes, but it wasn’t just a week that caused the price to jump like that… No, it was the renewed bombing and missile attacks in Iran…. Why can’t these two nations negotiate a true Peace Agreement? The world needs this to happen, now!  

And The STUPID CPI? Well, the BLS showed that inflation fell to 3.5% in June VS the 4.2% in May….  And they pointed to the price of Oil or gas if you will on consumers… They wouldn’t ever point the finger at their hedonic adjustments now would they? No. they wouldn’t!  But what’s going to happen to that 3.5% when the price of Oil is repriced in the $80’s?  So, what I’m saying is that this is a one and done STUPID CPI report…. Don’t get used to it for sure…  And I don’t think the Fed Heads would be stupid enough to fall for that one and done report… At least I hope they wouldn’t!

Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel chairman, Kevin Warsh, gave a testimony on the economy yesterday, and touted how strong it was…. Wait, What? Oh, well, he can have his opinion, because everyone has one… What’s that old saying? The one thing that Warsh focused on was telling the lawmakers that a “regime change” need to take place at the Fed…. That inflation was an awful tax and that his band of Fed Heads would do their best to rid Americans of this tax…. 

I’m from Missouri, and I’ll have to be shown that it can be done, with the current Money Supply… Because it can’t!   

The Petrol Currencies are seeing some love thrown their way… The Brazilian real has taken the leader of Petrol Currencies from the Russian ruble as Russia continues to fight in their own war…. Norwegian krone is also seeing some love, and the pound sterling is on the rally horse, even though the country is in shambles… 

Each day, I go through the currencies and look for one that stands out, and I can say that none of them stand out, but there one that keeps a foot in the door is the Chinese renminbi… Just thought you would like to know….

And this from Reuters this morning… The US House of Representatives overwhelmingly voted to pass ‌a bill making daylight saving time permanent and ending the twice-yearly practice of changing clocks that has been observed across most of the United States since the 1960s.  After all this time, they finally got around to changing it…  I shake my head in disbelief, but then I’m always reminded that we as a country put a man on the moon (supposedly) before we put rollers on suitcases…. Mental Giants, lawmakers are not…. I’m just saying…

The U.S. Data Cupboard will have for us today the June report of PPI (Wholesale inflation) and we should expect the same kind of rhetoric about how PPI dropped in June…. But don’t fall for it!

To recap… The dollar got sold yesterday and Gold & Silver had mini-rallies… The price of Oil keeps rising and the the 10-year Treasury is still 4.60% +….

For What It’s Worth… Well, in my attempt to fine worth FWIW articles. I came across this one about drought out west hurting farmers and that plays into how the cost of food keeps rising and it can be found here: In US West, drought pits farms against towns, industry in scramble for water | Reuters

Or, here’s your snippet: ” In Arizona, dead fish lie in the dry bed of a reservoir. To the north, a small Utah town could run out of water in months. And in Colorado, a rancher has sold a fifth of her herd as stock ponds stand empty.

The communities are linked by the Colorado River system, which supplies water to about 40 million people across seven Western states and Mexico and irrigates millions of acres of farmland. Decades of drought, compounded by this year’s record-low winter snowpack and the hottest March on record, have deepened shortages across the basin.

The drought is pitting farmers against residents of cities and suburbs as well as industrial users including data centers, solar projects and semiconductor plants. Federal officials are considering steep cuts in water allotted from the Colorado River to Arizona, California and Nevada.

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Near Casa Grande in central Arizona, farmer Nancy Caywood must pay a $21,000 annual fee to her local water district even though river water ran out in March.

Her approximately 250-acre (100-hectare) alfalfa and cotton farm relies entirely on irrigation from the San Carlos Reservoir on the Gila River, a Colorado River tributary.

In a catastrophically bad snow year, demand from farmers and towns has drained the reservoir to 1% capacity, leaving herons and pelicans to feast on bass and carp littering its parched floor.

“We have hung on for almost 30 years,” said Caywood, who has leased a neighbor’s fields with access to aquifer water.

“There are people approaching you saying, ‘Would you like to sell your land to put solar panels on it?'”

Chuck Again… Those poor farmers… here in S.E. Missouri we’ve had far too much rain… C’mon Mother Nature give us a break here…. 

Market Prices 7/12/ 2026: American Style: A$ .6985, kiwi .5820, C$ .7107, euro 1.1407, sterling 1.3413, Swiss $1.2350, European Style: rand 16.5692, krone 9.7201, SEK 9.6753, forint 314.74, zloty 3.7904, koruna 21.1180, RUB 77.99, yen 162.36, sing 1.2918, HKD 7.8389, INR 96.25, China 6.7753, peso 17.45, BRL 5.0779, BBDXY 1,218, Dollar Index 100.97, Oil $79.42, 10-year 4.61%, Silver $58.25, Platinum $1,624.00, Palladium $1,314.00, Copper $6.37, and Gold… $4,040

That’s it for today and this week…  I hate to leave you with nothing to read each morning for so long… When I was on the trading desk at EverBank, I had 2 and sometimes 3 backups to write in my place when I was gone… But now, it’s just lonely old me with no backups… So, you are certainly welcome to visit www.dailypfennig.com  and read an archived letter… My beloved Cardinals start the 2^nd half of the season in Arizona and then Anaheim… So, hopefully they are well rested and ready to go! The Strawbs take us to the finish line today with their great rock classic song: Autumn…. I hope you have a Wonderful Wednesday today and Please, oh please Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler

• The dollar goes right back to 1,220 in the overnight markets
• The bond boys are winning the fight

Good Day… And a Tom Terrific Tuesday to you! Well, who’s lame brain idea was it to televise the Home Run Derby on Netflx? So, I have to pay to watch it? Fuhgeddaboudit!  Oh wait! I forgot that son Andrew put his Netflix on my TV last year, so after suppling a code I was watching the Home Run Derby!  And the St. Louis Cardinals’ own Jordan Walker won the tournament!  Percy Sledge greets me this morning with his song: When A Man Loves A Woman…

On a sidebar here, I saw Percy Sedge sing that song on TV a year or so ago, and his voice was crystal clear and the same… It was truly amazing!

Ok… Well, the dollar bugs finally looked at the headlines and saw that the War was back on, and that spurred them to buy the dollar. The BBDXY gained 3 index points on the day to end at $1,222…

The SPTs have known that the war was back on, and they used that as their camouflage selling the metals short… Gold lost $119 on the day, and Silver lost $2.50… UGH! Gold ended the day at $4,002 and Silver at $57.78… It was an ugly day all around for Gold/Silver…  of course, the folks at Kitco won’t every mention the SPTs, so they wrote that the metals getting sold was because of the war… UGH!

The price of Oil really exploded higher as the missiles flew and ended the day with a $78 handle…. And the 10-year Treasury’s yield continued its ratcheting higher and ended the day with a 4.62% yield… 

In the overnight markets last night…. the foreign traders said Whoa There Partner toward all the dollar buying yesterday in the U.S. The foreign traders took the dollar back down to the 1,220 level in the BBDXY and said, “not so fast Tim”…. I think that they just thought that there needs to be some thought put into the dollar’s direction, and not just knee jerk reaction to news that the War is back on… 

Gold is up $26 in the early trading today, but that’s before the U.S. SPTs show up at their desks… Silver is also up 17-cents…  There’s a ton of data this week that should direct the dollar in one direction or other and with-it Gold/Silver should follow…  I like the comment by Sprott about how Gold is becoming the reserve assets of Central Banks… 

That means that Treasuries and dollars are no longer persona non gratis… Too much debt, too much war, too much drama plagues the U.S. former reserves… 

The price of Oil continues to rise,,, and this morning’s price is in the $80 handle… So, many economists had thought that inflation around the world would come back to this ozone, but they didn’t calculate that the Peace Agreement would fold like a lawn chair and that the price of Oil would rebound…  

And the 10-year slid a blip overnight and starts today with a 4.61% yield… 

This is becoming a fight of wills in bonds… The Bond Boys want yields higher to combat inflation, and the Fed Heads are not raising rates, but instead at the last FOMC meeting they kept rates unchanged… The Fed Heads keep interring the bond market to perform their “yield control”… They want yields lower…. The Bond Boys will win this fight… 

So, have you heard that researchers have figured out that the ocean’s floor is full of Gold? Some people seem to think that this new supply will hurt Gold’s price… But what they didn’t think of is: 1. How in the heck they will get the Gold from the ocean floor, and 2. Just how long it will take to perform this extraction… What a bunch of dolts!

Sprott, one of the world’s largest Gold dealers, recently said that Gold is becoming the reserve asset of the new multipolar world. Now that would be quite the accomplishment for Gold to be talked about like that…. 

The thing that comes to mind every time I see Gold lose more ground… That the summer months have historically been slow times for Gold growth… And pundits seem to always forget about the summer months. So, in my mind, when the summer months begin to fade and the sunlight days become shorter, that’s when I feel that Gold / Silver will come back with a vengeance! 

So, hold on…. It’s coming, Hold on… (Sam & Dave) 

The currencies are held hostage by the comings and goings of the dollar, but one currency that continues to hold strong VS the dollar is the Brazilian real.. The real is an Oil play for sure, but besides that… I don’t see where it gets its intestinal fortitude…  The Chinese renminbi, after a brief selloff is back to being allowed to gain VS the dollar…  I would keep an eye on these two if you are into that… 

I don’t have much more for you this morning, as the same problems with news stories continue… They are all about the war, the problems with the war, and the Strait of Hormuz…  So, we might as well go on to the Big Finish…

The U.S. Data Cupboard today has the STUPID CPI for June… I really can’t believe my eye that the forecasters are calling for The STUPID CPI to fall to 2.8% from May’s 3.2%… But they are… It’s as if the price of Oil was the only item that was causing higher inflation in prices…  All I know is that the cost of everything is higher and one item going down in price isn’t going to upset the apple cart, so to speak…

Tomorrow we’ll see the PPI (wholesale inflation) which should give us the total picture or inflation, that is IF there weren’t a ton of hedonic adjustments in the STUPID CPI… And after I board a plane for my winter home on Thursday morning, we’ll see Retail Sales for June…  The BHI (Butler Household Index) indicates to me that Retail Sales for June will be just OK… Nothing to write home about…  

To recap… The dollar bugs finally woke up and read the headlines that the U.S. was back at War, and decided to buy dollars. The BBDXY gained 3 index points on the day. Gold/Silver had a very ugly day as the SPTs saw that the dollar rally was good cover for short selling… Gold was down $119 and Silver was down $2.50  But the overnight markets said, “not so fast Tim” and brought the dollar back down to 1,220

For What It’s Worth…  Ok, this is part 2 of the 2 part FWIW article on Alan Greespan and free markets. Once again, it can be found here: Alan Greenspan’s Greatest Work | Jim Woods Investing

Or, here’s your part 2 snippet: “Another article he penned for “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal” was titled “Antitrust.” This was based on a 1961 paper that Greenspan wrote, and it argues that antitrust laws harm consumers by punishing successful, efficient companies. He asserted that true, harmful monopolies are only created through government subsidies and regulations, and not as a result of free-market competition.

Right again, as today’s antitrust laws are punitive, restrictive, wielded as a weapon for lawfare warriors and just simply anathema to a free society.

Finally, there was “The Assault on Integrity,” an essay that critiques government regulatory agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Greenspan argued that government regulation destroys the financial value of a company’s brand reputation. His view was that in a completely free market, the financial necessity of maintaining a good reputation naturally protects the consumer better than bureaucratic oversight.

Now, I read these three articles when I read “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal,” around the summer of 1986, or thereabouts. About a year later, on Aug. 11, 1987, to be exact, Alan Greenspan became the new Chairman of the Federal Reserve, a position he held for nearly two decades before his final day at the helm on January 31, 2006.

I recall reading Greenspan’s essays with a sense of clarity and admiration. He was a strong explainer of ideas and their consequences, ideas that I hadn’t really been acquainted with until then. Later, when I was exposed to the obligatory university litany of Marx, Hegel, Kant and Keynes, I recall being intellectually armed to confront these bad ideas — and I got that intellectual ammunition from Ayn Rand and Alan Greenspan, along with Ludwig Mises, Milton Friedman, Adam Smith and other freedom-oriented minds.

Interestingly, later in my journey as a free-market advocate, I was fortunate enough to collaborate with Mark Skousen, whose work in defense of liberty and free markets carries on the spirit and substance of these iconic intellectual figures.

If you’ve never read “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal,” do yourself a favor and buy it today. It will give you a whole new perspective on the meaning of freedom and free markets, and how capitalism isn’t just the most efficient, most practical political philosophy, but why it’s also the only moral political system.

So, thank you, Alan Greenspan. Your mind helped illuminate mine, and your work at the Fed helped steward a nation through a whole lot of tumult.”

Chuck again… I know that I was pretty bad talking about Big Al Greenspan through the years, but I guess I should have known him before he sold himself to become the Fed Chairman in 1987.. But I won’t EVER forgive him for creating the housing debacle…. 

Market Price 7/14/2026: American Style: A$ .6943, kiwi .5800, C$ .7088, euro 1.1407, sterling 1.3384, Swiss $1.2322, European Style: rand 16.4832, krone 9.7139, SEK 9.6752, forint 316.77, zloty 3.8030, koruna 21.2890, RUB 77.53, yen 162.22, sing 1.2917, HKD 7.8375, INR 96.30, China 6.7796, peso 17.49, BRL 5.1150, BBDXY 1,220, Dollar Index 101.46, Oil $80.06, 10-year 4.61%, Silver $57.95, Platinum $1,603.00, Palladium $1,271.00, Copper $6.35, and Gold… $4,028

That’s it for today… Good for Jordan Walker the Home Run Derby Champion! The All-Star Game is tonight, go National League! When I was younger the National League won all the time, but now it’s more of the American League wins…  Good thing, son Andrew had put his Netflix on my TV last year! Had lunch with classmates yesterday, it’s always good to see them and catch-up… Next one is 8/31, which seems like a long time from now, but it will be here before I know it! Stevie Wonder takes us to the finish line today with his song: My Cherie Amour…  I hope you have a Tom Terrific Tuesday today, and Please Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler

• The dollar is stuck in the mud!
• The 10-year’s upward moving yield hurts housing…

Good Day, and a Marvelous Monday to you! Well, the final four nations are in the World Cup… Spain, France, England and Argentina.. The Bluebloods of soccer, sans Germany, who was out of the tournament a long time ago! I thought early on, “Why not the U.S.” but after watching these teams play, the U.S. would not fare well VS them… We, as a soccer country have come a long way, but still have a long road in front of us if we ever want to play with the Bluebloods… The Allman Brothers greets me this morning with their song: Melissa… 

Well, another day on Friday saw the dollar drift about and ended the day remaining at 1,220… I really don’t know what was on the dollar bugs’ minds going into the weekend, as the BBDXY has been stuck at 1,220 for two days… The war is heating up, and maybe, just maybe, cause you never know, the dollar bugs are rethinking their stance of buying dollars while the country is spending Millions of dollars that they don’t have on bombs….  I guess we’ll have to wait-n-see if this continues to play out… 

Gold rallied on Friday $47 and ended the week at $4,122… Silver also rallied on Friday and ended the week at $60.01… The SPTs were sniffing around on Friday, but didn’t go all-out on an attack on the metals, so that was a good thing!

The price of Oil backed off its recent trend of going up on Friday, and ended the week with a $71 handle… And the 10-year Treasury stayed on track and ended the week with a 4.56% yield… Ive said it before, and I’ll say it again, the bond boys are telling the Fed Heads to move on inflation now…. If the Fed Heads don’t get the message, well, the bond boys will take yields even higher…

In the overnight markets last night… Well, the dollar finally moved off of 1,220 and slid to 1,219 overnight.. It’s about time the dollar bugs got off their duffs and moved the dollar, but C’mon, just one 1 index point? Oh well, it was a downward move, so at least there’s that!  Gold /Silver are getting whacked again in the early trading today… Gold is down $61 and Silver is down $1.50…  What’s up with that? Everything I read over the weekend stated that Central Bank buying was still strong, and that buying alone would pull Gold out of this malaise… 

The price of Oil bumped higher last night, and starts today / week with a $73 handle… And the 10-year Treasury’s yield bumped higher and starts today / week with a 4.59% yield…  After 40 years of the bond boys taking a back seat when it came to controlling yields, they’re back, and with a vengeance!  I remember a regular Friday morning meeting we used to have with the leader of Mark Twain Bank, and our top bond guy telling him that yields had peaked and it would be a while before we saw them at the current levels for some time… 

I didn’t know he was a prophet… But he was as right as rain, but it does appear that that time is over…. 

Well, just for fun, I thought I would talk a bit about this… in the latest report, guess what country had the largest average wealth?…. Switzerland… The U.S. came in second here… But… when you calculate the Median average the U.S. comes in 29th, with Luxembourg comes in first…  

For you out there that aren’t math quants, and have no idea what Median means… it’s when you take all the numbers and find the middle of them, that’s the median…. 

I remember when my former Big Boss, and my good friend, Frank Trotter used a median reference in one of his talks, and I not being a math quant, asked him what he meant… So, there, I was once uninformed….

There really isn’t a ton of new news to discuss, as the news outlets are just rehashing the Iran war and the Strait of Hormuz… It’s as if there isn’t anything else going on in the world to talk about other than those two items… UGH!

In a glimpse of what might happen here someday soon… Japan’s bond auction failed to gather enough buyers last week, and they had to take on their own debt…. And if you don’t think it’ll ever happen here, you should reserve that thought to yourself, because we are nearing it all the time… too much debt is the problem here, and we’ve just seen what happens when the world says “no mas”…. I’m just saying

Getting back to the 10-year….  With the 10-year’s yield rising, so do mortgage rates… new homes were down 10 million last month already, and soon people will have to get mortgage rates that are double digit…. 

And the yields have only just begun (Carpenters) to rise, in my humble opinion, because…. Just the other day I read a report that pointed out how Wall Street is coming around to see a rate hike is coming….  

Of course that would be a short-term rate hike in my opinion, because new FOMC Chairman, Warsh, has still to introduce us to how “he calculates inflation” which would point to a rate cut, not rate hike…. I’m just saying…

The U.S. Data Cupboard was empty on Friday and only had some Fed head speakers today… Tomorrow’s Data Cupboard has the STUPID CPI for last month… and looking at the Economic Calendar, I see that inflation is forecast to have dropped….  I guess the cost of fuel is the cause of that… 

To recap… The dollar was stuck in the mud on Friday, and so for the rest of the weekend with the BBDXY at 1,220…. I know, in their heart of hearts they know that they (dollar bugs) should be selling dollars but so far they haven’t budged… Gold / Silver rallied on Friday and went into the weekend on a good foot….And Japan saw its Gov’t Bond auction fail this past week…. A sign of things to come for us?

For What It’s Worth…  first of all, this is part 1 of 2 parts that I’ll have for you today and tomorrow. This is a great free markets professor and his thoughts on the late Alan Greenspan…  The whole article can be found here: Alan Greenspan’s Greatest Work | Jim Woods Investing

Or, here’s your snippet: “The death of Alan Greenspan brought out volumes of really thoughtful reflections about the iconic Federal Reserve chairman and his legacy. One article that I liked quite a bit and that I recommend was by Greg Ip of the Wall Street Journal, titled, “Greenspan Left a Lasting Mark on America — and Me.” I particularly liked Ip’s personal touch here, as it reminded me of my approach to writing. So, in the spirit of personal reflection over Greenspan, allow me to tell you how I become acquainted with the man’s thoughts even before he became Fed chair in 1987.

In the spring of 1985, just months before I began my undergraduate work at UCLA, I was introduced to the writings of Ayn Rand. I started with her seminal novel, “Atlas Shrugged,” which sent me into my bedroom for about two weeks with the sole mission of devouring the gargantuan literary adventure novel, one with a brilliant plot and a unique philosophic world view.

Reading “Atlas Shrugged” was then the most important event of my life, and thinking back on it, it is the event that shapes my intellect most to this day. Now, devotees of Rand’s work know that she didn’t just stop with brilliant fiction. In fact, she wrote non-fiction books and articles on aesthetics, morality, epistemology, social issues of the day and, perhaps most importantly, on capitalism, which she considered to be the “unknown ideal” in the realm of politics and economics.

Her book on this: “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal,” is a collection of essays by Rand on the virtues of laissez-faire capitalism and how a free society functions best. But Rand also included several contributors to this collection of essays, and here is where Alan Greenspan comes in.

Greenspan penned three articles that became part of “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal.” One of these articles was “Gold and Economic Freedom,” where he argues that a gold standard is vital for a free society. In the article, Greenspan argues that a fiat currency allows governments to dilute savings through inflation, concluding that gold serves as the ultimate protector of property rights.

From this article, my young, intellectually curious persona sent my mind down the path of gold advocacy, and that’s a position I’ve held ever since. And while Greenspan later chose to try and work from within the fiat currency system as Fed chairman, I think he knew that the ideal was the gold standard, however distant that might have been practically.”

Chuck again… Remember, this is just part 1 as part 2 will be in tomorrow’s Pfennig… See you then And by all means, I still haven’t given Big Al a free ride!

Market Prices 7/12/2026: American Style: A$ .6942, kiwi .5778, C$ .7074, euro 1.1424, sterling 1.3387, Swiss $1.2344, rand 16.3665, krone 9.7696, SEK 9.6534, forint 312.38, zloty 3.7857, koruna 21.7363, RUB 76.72, yen 162.15, sing 1.2925, HKD 7.8336, INR 95.62, China 6.7805, peso 17.49, BRL 5.1140, BBDXY 1,219, Dollar Index 100.29, Oil $73.28, 10-year 4.59%, Silver $58.58, Platinum $1,630.00, Palladium $1,287.00, Copper $6.30, and Gold… $4,061

That’s it for today… Well, after watching my beloved Cardinals get taken to the woodshed by The Brewers, the Cardinals turned things around and should have swept the Braves, but good acting and bad umpiring cost them yesterday, so they took 2of 3 from the Braves. It’s now the ALL-STAR GAME break, so rest up the 2^nd half of the season is in front of you! Remember I start my summer vacation on Thursday this week…. The Doobie Brothers take us to the finish line today with their song: Another Park Another Sunday… I hope you have a Marvelous Monday today, and Please Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler

I* dollar trading goes to sleep

• Iran war fuels higher fertilizer costs

Good Day… and a tub thumpin’ Thursday to one and all! It was about time! My beloved Cardinals finally beat the Brewers last night… They received a very well pitched game from the starter and +he bats came around… I sat outside to watch the game and it was a beautiful night…  Steeler’s Wheel greets me this morning with their song: Stuck In +he Middle With you!

My “t” is whacky this morning, and I’ve had to go back and retype everything the Morning… UGH@ If I miss something, please just go on…. It’s not my fault!

As I told you yesterday, the war is back on and so the dollar is getting bought… But yesterday the dollar traders must have pulled back on the reins and said “Whoa Partner” Because the BBDXY ended the day in the same clothes as it wore in the morning… The BBDXY was 1,220 all day… 

That didn’t stop the STPs from selling Gold & Silver… Gold lost $32 and Silver lost $1.70 on the day…  I continue to think that all the SPTs do is provide cheaper buying opportunities…  Invesco said in a report that Gold may have had a bad 2nds QTR, but Central Bank buying will continue and drive the price higher…  So, there!  And Rich Checkan at Asset Strategies Inc, said that “now is an opportune time to average into Gold… If you’re waiting for a lower level, you may miss what is right in front of you now.”  thanks for backing up my thought, Rich!

The price of Oil gained $2 on the day and ended the day with a $74 handle… And the 10-year Treasury saw some selling and the yield bumped higher to 4.58%

In the overnight markets last night…. The missiles flew, the drone flew, but the dollar remained anchored down at 1,220 in the BBDXY… Gold is trying to build a good price this morning as it is up $26, and Silver is up 39-cents… Yesterday’s STP selloff was, in my humble opinion, a last-ditch effort for this round of wash, rinse and repeat… I’m just saying… AAA

The price of Oil keeps stepping up and this morning it trades with a $74 handle… The 10-year treasury bumped higher overnight, so it starts today with a 4.59%…  Not much in the data cupboard, so the trading will all center around the War in Iran… UGH!

Well, the POTUS is at the NATO meeting and when asked if the war was back on, he replied “We retaliated last night So, I guess you can say that Iran lied, cheated and broke the Peace Agreement”…. 

That’s not a good thing for our debt situation in the U.S. for missiles cost a lot of money that we don’t have… and the cost of having Navy ships full of sea men on them is outrageous…  So, expect HUGE Budget numbers when they print… I’m just saying…

And sounding like a broken record here… The larger the debt, the larger the debt servicing (interest charge)… And sooner or later the debt servicing will cost more of our National Budget than any other item… 

And now to top it off… The Fed Heads are talking about hiking interest rates…  Well, not all of them that is… Kevin Warsh is whiskey bound to show us we’ve calculated inflation all wrong , and his was will bring about a rate cut…  While inflation is rising (our way of calculating it) and Money Supply is growing like a weed. 

I started to become dehydrated again yesterday, but started drinking water, ASAP, and I seem to have fought it off…  

Circling the wagons aound the War… Reuters had a good piece on other things that the war influences… here is a piece of that piece… “Modern farming depends on cheap fertilizer. The war with Iran has made fertilizer more expensive, with ships trapped, fertilizer plants shut down, farmers panicking and world food production thrown into peril

The war cut off 17% of the world’s natural gas supply and more than 30% of world nitrogen fertilizer supply. Almost half of the world’s exported sulfur, a critical component for another type of fertilizer, was trapped in the Middle East Gulf.

The disruption to the Strait of Hormuz means it will be months or years before some natural gas and fertilizer production returns to a pre-war normal.  “

Chuck Again…  just more pfodder for the⁠ items making up inflation… higher fertilizer costs… means higher food costs… and in the end, we as consumers shell out more disposable income… UGH!

The U.S. Data Cupboard yesterday had Consumer Credit (read debt) for May… yes, that was 2 months ago, but the propeller heads have been too busy to get this out timely….  Here’s the ABA’s view of the report: “Total outstanding revolving credit, largely a reflection of credit card debt, decreased at an annual rate of 4.7% to $1.344.2 trillion. Total outstanding nonrevolving credit increased at an annual rate of 1.6% to $3,810.3 trillion.

The Federal government holdings of student loans continue to be the largest portion of non-revolving credit, comprising 42.2% percent of nonrevolving credit.”

Chuck again… Long explanation but it is what it is…  The Data Cupboard also had the FOMC Meeting Minutes which I have for you in the FWIW section today

Today’s Data Cupboard continues the trend for this week, not much in the cupboard… Today we’ll only see the usual Weekly Initial Jobless Claims and then the Cupboard goes bare for the rest of today and tomorrow!

To recap… The dollar didn’t move much yesterday and ended wearing the same figure it had on the morning… Gold & Silver still saw the SPTs but, Chuck thinks that the SPTs have done nothing but created cheaper buying opportunities, and he had a special guest agree with him… 

For What It’s Worth… I told you above that I had something for you on the FOMC Meeting Minutes and I do… And it can be found here: Fed minutes June 2026: officials split on rates

Or, here’s your snippet: “Federal Reserve officials were split last month about the future of interest rates, with policymakers entertaining scenarios in either direction, according to meeting minutes released Wednesday.

In Kevin Warsh’s first meeting June 16-17 as chairman of the Federal Open Market Committee, participants saw outcomes where inflation could ease and allow lower rates, while others envisioned a scenario where price increases stay elevated and lead to hikes.

During his post-meeting news conference, Warsh billed the debate as a “family fight” that ended with the committee unanimously voting to keep the Fed’s benchmark funds rate anchored in a range between 3.5%-3.75%, where it has been for all of 2026.

However, the minutes did not elaborate on any drama that had taken place and outlined divergent views from members without a bias to which way the committee was leaning. The dot-plot grid of individual members’ expectations, in which Warsh did not participate, narrowly tilted toward one rate hike this year, then a cut in each of the following two years.

Asked to judge their most likely scenario, “many participants indicated that the appropriate level of the federal funds rate would be within or slightly below the current target range at the end of this year,” the minutes stated.”

Chuck Again… “a family fight”  but, as I said above, Warsh is going to attempt to sway his family and get to a rate cut…. I’m just saying…

Market Prices 7/9/2026: American Style: A$.6931, kiwi .5733, C$ .7051, euro 1.1425, sterling 1.3392, Swiss $1.2426, European Style rand 16.3909, krone 9.7604, SEK 9.6187, forint 313.88, zloty 3.7714, koruna 21.2321, RUB 76.15, yen 162.48, sing 1.2935, HKD 7.8364, INR 95.38, China 6.7959, peso 17.56, BRL 5.1507, BBDXY 1,220, Dollar Index $100.99, Oil $74.00, 10-year 4.59%, Silver $58.96, Platinum $1,616.00, Palladium $1,263.00, Copper $6.10, and Gold… $4,101

That’s it for today and this week… The Mighty Braves come to town this weekend to play my Cardinals… And then next Tues is the All-Star Game… 2 Cardinals were chosen, and will be in Philadelphia for the game… Well, I got through the letter today with my “T” being wonky, so I should get a gold Star! HA! Next week I start my summer vacation on Thursday… I’m so excited to get back to our winter home… The Great Al Stewart takes us to the finish line with his song: Time Passages… I hope you have a Tub Thumpin’ Thursday today, and Please Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler

• The war trade has the dollar climbing again
• And Gold/Silver getting sold… UGH!

Good Day… And a Wonderful Wednesday to you! Kathy and I were at a conference in Bermuda quite a few years ago, when a young man asked me, “Why do you start the day, so upbeat? I told him, because the day hadn’t beaten me up yet…  And so, it is, with my beginnings… J.J. Jackson greets me this morning with his song, and one we used to play in my first band: But It’s Alright… 

Ahhh, my first band, The Soul Wonders Revue… I was the main singer, mostly because the other band mates were scared to sing in public….   We had Gold shirts, and Gold lame pants and did dance steps with the music…  My mom used to sit in the basement while we practiced and tell us how good we were! 

I’m beating around the bush today, because… The war with Iran seems to be back on, as Iran bombed two ships yesterday, and the U.S. will, at some time retaliate…  UGH

So, that means, the dollar got bought and Gold & Silver were sold….  So, I’m not a happy camper this morning after reading that news… 

Gold lost $58 yesterday, and Silver lost $2.09…. Gold closed the day at $4,107 and Silver closed at $60.09…  I had really thought that Gold /Silver had crossed the bridge to better times, but a return to the start took place yesterday… 

The price of Oil jumped $3 to a $72 handle because of the renewed tensions in the Gulf… And the 10-year Treasury really saw its yield rise to 4.55%… No Fed Head intervention here, yesterday… 

In The overnight markets last night…  The war trade dug deeper into the minds of traders as the dollar wondered through the night, which puts the BBDXY at 1,220 to start our day today… 

The boys 7 girls of the STPs saw the opportunity with the war heating up to whack Gold & Silver more! Gold is down $39 and Silver is down $1.14 to start our Wednesday… Silver has lost more than $3 in the last two trading sessions, and has a $58 handle attached to it this morning… UGH!   The dollar and the price of Oil love this War tensions thing… And the stock jockeys? They shrug off everything and buy stocks…  

Well, the price of Oil has rebounded to trade with a $73 handle this morning… And just about the time that the pundits were writing off the price of Oil and calling for a less than $40 price for the black gold, Texas tea… I’m glad I didn’t fall into that way of thinking, I’m a jaded person here and I thought the Peace Agreement was a farce, which it has proven to be, and that the price of Oil was mispriced to begin with! 

The 10-year Treasury this morning has seen some yield control buying and its yield sits at 4.56% to start our day… 

I read this past weekend that 41 Tons of Gold was bought by Central Banks around the world in May…  They buy it and don’t get all caught up in the fact that Gold lost 11% in June…  China is the leader of the Central Bank buying, and I’m sure they really enjoy the dips as an extra incentive to buy more!

When the Central Banks started buy boat loads of physical Gold a couple of years ago, I said then that my dad taught me to follow the money, because money talks and B.S walks…  And because of that teaching I said that we as consumer, investors, etc. needed to follow the money which was going into Gold…. Because Gold is real money…. and not pieces of paper that say that it is backed by the Gov’t that printed it… like dollars that used to fill up the reserves of Central Banks…

Ok, enough of that! You know, as longtime readers that at times I go off on tangents, and it takes me a while before I come back…. I apologize, but I’ve always written what was on mind, and my minds seems to switch topics often! 

The short sellers continue to remain relevant, but something is awry with their numbers… The number of days of production that would be needed to produce the number of ounces of Gold/Silver sold short…. 

I remember when I used to tell you that Silver was up to 185 days of production to equal the ounces sold short, and Gold was up to over 80 days… But these days, Silver is down to 103 days needed to cover, and Gold is down to 42 days needed to cover…  So, at least these numbers are moving in the right direction…. Wouldn’t it be nice to live together, in a kind of world we belong? No, Wait! No Beach Boys are needed here! But it would be nice to have zero days of production to cover the shorts? That would be seashells and balloons in incredible amounts!

There are no Central Bank interest rate meetings this week, so the currencies have to fight off dollar strength because of the War… 

Yesterday we saw the latest Trade Balance for May and without tariffs, the Balance returned to a Deficit (like it used to be all the time) Here’s the WSJ: “The U.S. trade deficit ballooned in May to its widest since March 2025 as the country imported more products like pharmaceuticals, vehicles and semiconductors for the artificial-intelligence boom, while American-made exports declined.”

A lot of the AI purchases were front loaded which means that the companies that did the purchasing did so on Credit…  And that’s something I’m wondering about here…  Last week I told you that most of the AI companies were not making profits, and then they go deeper into debt buying AI stuff?  It doesn’t add up for me…  

And the other side of this report was an export number that was awful! So, we’re back to normal operations, buying more than we sell…  For a country that can make or produce just about anything, I find this to be not a good thing… I’m just saying…

The U.S. Data Cupboard today has the meeting minutes of the last FOMC meeting where it was Kevin Warsh’s first as chairman…  And we’ll also see the color of the latest Consumer Credit (Read debt) of which is forecast to have fallen in May from April… 

To recap… The war was back on yesterday, and that meant that the dollar received some love, and Gold/Silver got sent to woodshed…  Chuck goes the whole 9 yards on Gold/Silver this morning… so if you skipped through the Pfennig you might want to go back and see what you missed!

For What It’s Worth… Now, this is an article that I loved to read about! It’s about Gold being found in California and it could lead to a new Gold Rush, and it can be found here: $8B gold mining project in Mariposa brings California one step closer to new gold rush – ABC30 Fresno

Or, here’s your snippet: “More than a century after prospectors helped establish Mariposa during California’s Gold Rush, mining companies are once again turning their attention to the area in search of valuable minerals.

Mariposa, located within California’s historic Mother Lode gold belt, was founded during the Gold Rush era. Today, new mining projects are drawing attention from residents, investors, and industry observers as companies seek to develop sites with significant mineral deposits.

“We are the gold mining capital of all California; here was the biggest hit across the entire state. In fact, it’s coming back a little,” Jennifer Kiser, Mariposa County Supervisor said.

Two companies are leading the renewed interest in mining activity in the area.

Lode Gold is pursuing a high-grade development project at the historic Fremont Mine. Preliminary assessments estimate the site contains about $8 billion in gold.

“They did a lot of core testing and magnetic residence, all kinds of fancy stuff to prove yes there’s enough gold here,” said Randy Bolt, Mariposa Gem and Mineral Club”

Chuck Again… YAHOO! There’s Gold in them Hills! Let’s hope that this ends good and that we don’t see that the only people making money here are the ones selling shovels!

Market Prices 7/7/2026: American Style: A$ .6918, kiwi .5691, C$ .7048, euro 1.1400, sterling 1.3340, Swiss $1.2362, European Style: rand 16.4056, krone 9.7735, SEK 9.7049, forint 313.97, zloty 3.7809, koruna 21.2760, RUB 76.41, yen 162.53, sing 1.2946, HKD 7.8385, INR 95.56, China 6.8007, peso 17.59, BRL 5.1738, BBDXY 1,220, Dollar Index 101.21, Oil $73.96, 10-year 4.56%, Silver $58.95, Platinum $1,557.00, Palladium $1,239.00, Copper $6.09, and Gold… $4,068

That’s it for today… Another loss by my beloved Cardinals last night made them 0 for 2 as a double header was played yesterday… UGH! We just can’t beat the Brewers!  Any other team we take 2of 3 or whatever from but not the Brewers! And that’s bad because they lead our division!  I got dehydrated yesterday and had to go inside and rest and drink water… I don’t know how this happened, but I knew it was dehydration right away because I’ve been dehydrated before… The Rascals take us to the finish line today with their song: It’s A Beautiful Morning… I hope you have a Wonderful Wednesday today and please remember to Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler

• The dollar loses ground yesterday
• Where have al the jobs goine?

Good Day… And a Tom Terrific Tuesday to you! Well, all good things come to an end, and in this case the U.S. Men’s Soccer Team’s run in the World Cup… Europe always seems to have our number, when it comes to soccer, and so it was last night with Belgium… I had 2 TVs going last night one with the Cardinals and the other with the U.S soccer game… Both lost so I was no luck for them…   R.E.M. Greets me this morning with their song: The One I Love…

Well, the brief buying of the dollar yesterday morning petered out, and on the day the dollar lost 1 index point in the BBDXY, as it closed at 1,218…   You know, one of these days, the dollar bugs are going to sit down and read about all the problems in the U.S. and then, and only then, they will finally see that the writing is on the wall and that they need to be selling dollars… 

Gold/Silver never got the chance to turnaround their early morning losses as the SPTs kept the pressure on them all day… Gold ended the day at $4,165m down $11 on the day… And Silver ended the day at $62.18 down 34-cents on the day…  

The price of Oil remained trading with a $68 handle throughout yesterday and the 10-year fought the “yield control dastardly dudes” and the 10-year’s yield ended the day at 4.48%… 

In the overnight markets last night…  there was no movement in the dollar overnight, and the BBDXY starts today at 1,218…  It’s as if the dollar bugs have all gone on vacation or something… Who knows?

The price of Gold is flat this morning, after spending most of the night in the red, Gold has fought back to start the day in the same clothes as it wore at last night’s close… Silver is down 59-cents to start the day, but if Gold takes off higher from here it will drag Silver along for the ride… 

The price of Oil bumped higher to trade with a $69 handle this morning, and the 10-year remained trading with a 4.48% yield… 

A long-time reader of the Pfennig, Bob, sent me an article that gave me the shudders… I’ve cut a piece of it out here for you… This is from Quartz.com and here’s a piece: “Manufacturing’s decline didn’t arrive as a single event. It came in waves, separated by stretches of false recovery, and the communities hit hardest never fully came back. Now, as AI-driven displacement begins to reach white-collar knowledge workers, the manufacturing collapse is the closest historical template available.

U.S. manufacturing employment peaked at 19.6 million in June 1979, the Bureau of Labor Statistics found. By December 2009, that figure had fallen to 11.5 million. The drop wasn’t gradual. It happened in five distinct collapses, each tied to a recession, and after every one, employment never climbed back to where it stood before.

The question is whether anyone will learn from previous events before AI has the same effect on white-collar workers.

Some researchers say generative AI could reshape half the workload for nearly a third of the workforce, particularly those in law and finance. Others claim about 80% of the U.S. workforce could have at least 10% of their work tasks affected by large language models, with higher-income jobs facing the greatest exposure.”

Chuck again… C’Mon AI can’t be that darn good, that it can replace 10% of the work of 80% of the workers, can it?  I sometimes wonder if AI ends up doing as much for the economy as the internet did…  I’m just wondering… 

Well, the new el jefe of the Fed/ Cabal / Cartel, Kevin Warsh is saying the right things about wanting to slay inflation, but does he have the intestinal fortitude to do the job? I guess we’ll all have to wait-n-see, but in the meantime back at the ranch, inflation continues to rise and real inflation is probably around 8-9%… So, to me it would be helpful for Warsh to come out and say what inflation really is without hedonic adjustments… Only then, will we be able to start to whittle it down, by shutting off Money Supply…

I saw a report calling for Gold to reach a price of $4,600… Now, that was the first forecast that seemed reachable to me…  I’m just saying… 

The U.S. Data Cupboard today has the Trade Balance for us… And tomorrow, we’ll see the FOMC’s meeting minutes… They ought to be interesting as there was lots of discussion about rate hikes at the last meeting…  So, hold your horses, we’ll only have to wait until tomorrow… 

To recap… The dollar’s brief rally yesterday morning petered out and the dollar ended up losing 1 index point… Gold & Silver couldn’t find a bid and lost ground on the day… And Warsh wants slay inflation, he’s going to have to prove he’s the knight in white shining armor to do the job…

For What It’s Worth… Well, it had to come about sometime, the sooner the better as far as I’m concerned. What I’m talking about is how Wall Street if finally getting the picture that the Gov’ts economic reporting is bullocks!  That report can be found here: On Wall Street, analysts increasingly don’t believe the U.S. government’s ‘misleading’ job numbers

Or, here’s your snippet: “Jamie Cox, a managing partner at Harris Financial Group in Richmond, Virginia (with $1.3 billion in assets under management), had a visceral reaction to the June jobs number from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: “These data are misleading and should be disregarded,” he said in an email to Fortune. “There is zero chance leisure and hospitality posts a negative print in the midst of the World Cup. Revisions higher in the next few months are coming.”

He’s not alone.

Increasingly, analysts and economists at major banks and financial institutions are saying they don’t believe the numbers. Partly, this is a routine function of the way in which the U.S. government collects economic stats. It takes time to gather all the survey data needed to describe hiring (nonfarm payrolls, in the official lingo), and the BLS publishes a series of revisions to its numbers as the months go by.

So not believing the initial figure is par for the course. The numbers will always be revised later as straggling data sets and survey responses trickle in.”

Chuck again…  As soon as Wall Street starts to ignore the Gov’t’s economic reports, the Gov’t will have to change their stance that good reports fool the people into thinking that the economy is just rosy… 

Market Price 7/7/2026: American Style: A$ .6951, kiwi .5695, C$ .7034,  euro 1.1440, sterling 1.3388, Swiss $1.2414, European Style: rand 16.2280, krone 9.8036, SEK 9.6523, forint 309.07, zloty 3.7516, koruna 21.1777, RUB 76.17, yen 161.76, sing 1.2908, HKD 7.8422, INR 94.96, China 6.7930, peso 17.41, BRL 5.1334, BBDXY 1,218, Dollar Index 100.89, Oil $69.04, 10-year 4.48%, Silver $61.59, Platinum $1,662.00, Palladium $1,304.00, Copper $6.29, and Gold… $4,165

That’s it for today… well, the doctor’s suggestions worked for a few days, but then last night I woke up with stomach problems again…UGH! Oh, well, they only last about 10 minutes, but then it takes me a bit to get back to sleep… My beloved Cardinals couldn’t hold their 3=0 lead and lost to the Brew Crew last night… Two TV’s and two losses… Went to dinner last night with good friends, so it was good to do something different! Paul Simon takes us to the finish line this morning with his song: You Can Call Me Al… I hope you have a Tom Terrific Tuesday today, and Please Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler

• The dollar sees some buying overnight
• Our Debt, the gift that keeps on giving…

Good Day… And a Marvelous Monday to you! Well, did your 4^th of July celebration go well, without injuries and stuff? I sure hope so! Mine was low key, as it has been for the last 5 years… I really wanted to go out and celebrate, but my body said no way, Jose! I overslept last Thursday, thus the reason for the late Pfennig that day… Stevie Wonder greets me this morning with his song: I Wish…

And I wish, that all this debt would go away… Oh, the things we wish for…  I was really mad on Thursday morning last week, first for waking up late, and second for my not knowing what caused the selloff of the dollar…   But there it was right before my eye!

Right before my eye, and I had even mentioned it! The BLS surprise labor report that showed 57,000 jobs created in May, was THE reason… As, traders all saw that and said, “no way they can hike rates now”… of course, we all know it was a knee-jerk reaction to the news, of which could be changed next month for sure! 

OK, enough of all that… Now onto what happened going into the weekend… But first I want to mention that previous month’s jobs totals were downward revised… See? I told you they would get revised downward, but no one will notice and just move along… 

The dollar held its ground going into the weekend, and the BBDXY went into Friday’s close at 1,219. The euro remained trading above the 1.14 figure, so the dollar wasn’t getting any love, just not any hate either!   The currencies, as I’ve explained many times in the past, follow the lead of the euro, so as long as the euro is getting bought, the rest of the currencies are seeing some attention too… 

The price of Gold ended the week at $4,176 as it was up $52 on Friday… It seems to me that Gold has seen the depths for this cycle of wash, rinse, repeat from the STPs… I said last week that I wasn’t going to go out on a limb again and call for the selling of Gold to have stopped… But this I 3 days in a row that Gold has closed up, so that has to be worth something! 

Silver also went in the weekend with a gain of $1.43 and a close of $62.52…  

The price of Oil ended the week trading with a $68 handle. But I do expect the price of Oil to be on a downward movement, as the Oil flows out of the Gulf are starting… At least that’s what I read!

And the 10-year Treasury ended the week with a 4.49% yield…  I read this past weekend that the 6-year Treasury hit 4% yield last week, that’s quite high for the bond in quite a few years!  I think that the bond boys are telling the Fed Heads to get on with a rate hike or two, and ask them what are they waiting for?

In the overnight markets last night… The dollar is in the driver’s seat this morning as the BBDXY starts the day/week at 1,221…. I guess the selling due to the rotten as tomatoes labor report last week, has worn off… Fickle currency traders… That’s all I have to say about that!  

Gold / Silver are starting the day/week getting sold a bit. Gold is down $23 and Silver is down 20-cents…  It’s as if currency traders thought that Gold & Silver needed to be sold, but not by a lot… Those are easily turned around red figures, so that’s what I’m expecting today…

The price of Oil remained trading with a $68 handle overnight, and the 10-year saw some yield control by the Fed Heads and with that the yield on the bond dropped to 4.46% to start our day today…

The Japanese yen returned to the 162 handle overnight… I guess the Bank of Japan (BOJ) will be entertaining thoughts of wasting more money buying yen only to have the markets bring the currency back to where they believe it should be…. 

And the Brazilian real continues to hang tough VS dollar strength… while the Euro Wannabes (zloty, koruna and Czech) are still in rally mode, which indicates to me that the dollar buying will be short-lived… 

I found this on Yahoo Finance on Saturday…”Some 720,000 people left the labor force in June, helping the jobless rate edge down.

Of particular concern: The labor force participation rate for those in their prime working years fell to 83.3% in June, suggesting the trend wasn’t driven solely by people aging out of the workforce. “

Chuck again… The other thing that was weird about the BLS’s labor report was that those folks that have been unemployed for more than 27 weeks remains at 27% of the total number of jobless people… and the 720,000 number above isn’t just retiring baby boomers… put that in your tea!

Our debt continues to grow… This is really becoming a chase to the bottom, as each month we print a higher than the previous month’s debt total… We can’t escape it… When the debt was around $10 Trillion there was hope that higher inflation would help bring that back down, but now with our debt days away from becoming $40 Trillion we can forget about that!

Above, I talked about all this debt… and then I was reading Bill Bonner’s letter and he explained the problem much better than I… here’s Bill: “Today, an 8% interest charge on $40 trillion in debt would mean an interest hit of $3.2 trillion. As a percentage of GDP that is actually lower than the Volcker shock. But in raw numbers, it is much bigger…and it would be striking an economy that is much more brittle. Federal debt is only about a third of the whole credit load.”

Chuck Again… yes, he was talking about how Volcker raised the Fed Funds rate to 20% to combat 10% inflation…   That’s how he got the 8% interest rate as our inflation supposedly is 4%… 

And to top things off I read this weekend that Money Supply is soaring! And it has been growing since Rocktober last year… At the end of May it was in dollar terms of $23 Billion… And what have I taught you over and over again about Money Supply? That Money Supply leads right into inflation…  So, the Fed Heads may hike interest rates, but that will only increase the yield on T-Bills and short T-Notes, and as long as Money Supply keeps rising, the inflation isn’t going anywhere but up…. 

The U.S. Data Cupboard doesn’t have anything real to look at until Wednesday this week, and then it’s Consumer Credit (read debt) and the FOMC’s meeting minutes… So, nothing to help the dollar out of its malaise right now, and the only thing the dollar can hope for is for the War to pick up…

To recap… The dollar held on to its level on Friday, as the selling of the dollar abated… Gold /Silver went into the weekend on good terms for the first time in some time for the two… Chuck is all up in arms about our debt again…. And the unemployment numbers were weird…. 

For What It’s Worth… I spent some time on the BLS’s labor report and then this report just said, “print me” and so I did, and it can be found here: June jobs report shows just 57,000 payrolls, well below expectations

Or, here’s your snippet: “The U.S. economy added just 57,000 nonfarm payroll jobs in June, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Thursday, falling well short of analysts’ expectations. Analysts polled by The Wall Street Journal had expected 115,000 new jobs. The unemployment rate dipped slightly to 4.2%.

Downward revisions to prior months darkened the picture further. April’s count was cut by 31,000 to 148,000, while May’s was trimmed by 43,000 to 129,000, leaving the two-month combined total 74,000 short of what had originally been reported.

Analysts had anticipated the jobless rate would remain at 4.3% for a fourth straight month, so the dip to 4.2% was a mild surprise — though it was driven in part by workers stepping back from the labor market. Participation slipped 0.3 percentage point to 61.5%, and the employment-population ratio edged down 0.2 percentage point to 59.0%. The number of unemployed people held at 7.1 million.

Average hourly earnings for private nonfarm payroll employees rose 13 cents, or 0.3%, to $37.64 in June. Over the past year, wages are up 3.5%.

The June figure is roughly in line with the average monthly job gain over the prior 12 months, which stood at 36,000, the BLS said.

Federal Reserve officials are next scheduled to meet at the end of July. The report leaves Fed officials with little additional guidance as they continue to debate the direction of interest rates.”

Chuck again…  Just thought we would get the Jobs jamboree out of our system today… 

Market Prices 7/6/2026: American Style: A$ .6936, kiwi .5696, C$ .7032, euro 1.1416, sterling 1.3344, Swiss $1.2403, European Style: rand 16.2226, krone 9.8385, SEK 9.6500, forint 309.63, zloty 3.7564, koruna 21.1550, RUB 77.65, yen 162.35, sing 1.2935, HKD 7.8426, INR 95.42, China 6.7958, peso 17.47, BRL 5.1693, BBDXY 1,221, Dollar Index 101.06, Oil $68.56, 10-year 4.46%, Silver $62.22, Platinum $1,645.00, Palladium $1,302.00, Copper $6.22, and Gold… $4,153

That’s it for today… Well, on the 4th, I fired up the Big Green Egg and smoked some pork steaks (a St. Louis tradition) and boy were they yummy! My wife even complemented me on how good the pork steaks came out!  We are getting near my annual traditional summer vacation… I will last write on July 15^th and then return on July 30th….  So, mark your calendars! Sat & Sun I had just gotten finished cooking outside when a rainstorm came on and chased me inside… Emerson, Lake and Palmer take us to the finish line today with their song: Still Your Turn Me On… I hope you have a Marvelous Monday today, and Please Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler