- Currencies & metals rally on Monday
- Savings in America have gone up in smoke…
Good Day… And a Tom Terrific Tuesday to you! It had been a week since I had problem with my stomach, and I thought, hey, this might be the end of that! Well, until it wasn’t the end of that! So, I start this morning, wondering if I will have the same problem as yesterday… It’s not fun, folks, taking chemo every day… But, then it’s not a 3rd world problem so let’s not dwell on it, Chuck! The weather has turned downright cold here in my little river town, and longtime readers know that I do NOT LIKE COLD WEATHER But I have to endure it for another month, before I head south for the winter… Jack Jezzro and friends play their bosa nova style versions of Christmas songs, and this morning they are playing: Let it Snow!
Well, the dollar didn’t move any further down the line yesterday, as it began the day down 1 index point, and stayed the way throughout the day… Gold didn’t move from it’s early morning gain of $11, and Silver from it’s early morning gain of 30-cents… It was as if Monday didn’t happen…
The price of Oil gained 6-cents to get back above the $75 handle, while bonds were bought once again, what gives here? I thought it had been all talked about that the Fed Heads were not going to pivot soon? Oh, well, whatever…
In the overnight markets last night… The dollar was getting sold when I went to bed, and the BBDXY was down 3 index points, but this morning shows that the dollar is down only pennies… All the currencies look as if they were wearing the same clothes as yesterday… Gold & Silver are down pennies to start the day, so no biggie there… And the price of Oil is inching higher in the $75 handle.. Bonds ddidn’t have any life in them overnight either, with the 10-year’s yield at 4.41% to start the day… So… yesterday’s U.S. and European sessions were duds, and that was followed by the overnight markets also being duds… I guess no data yesterday, except the housing stuff, was the catalyst to the duds… So… we move along here, these are not the droids we’re looking for.
With little movement, if any at all, yesterday, the news articles about the markets were lacking at best… So, as I look at the blank screen, I’m thinking… Today will be short-n-sweet… But let’s play it out and see where this goes, eh?
I think I’ve beaten the dead horse, (no animals were hurt here), with regards to the Treasury issuance plethora, and the lack of buyers for the bonds, and what will do to bond servicing costs, (go higher and higher), and all that goes with that scenario… So, I won’t go through it all again today, but… If you are in need of some information on it, simply go to www.dailypfennig.com and find a previously written article and re-read it!
Well, the numbers are in for the Black Friday sales, and the cyber Monday sales, and the one thing that sticks out to me is the rise in Credit cards… Now, me personally auto pays my monthly purchases off each month… But I would have to think that I’m the minority here, because Credit Card debt has now gone past $1 Trillion!!!! American Savings has gone to zero… and Credit Card debt is soaring… That doesn’t have a good ending in my opinion… There will be tears, and they won’t be mine!
But sales for those two days were strong, and much stronger than last year, so the retailers have that going for them… That is as long as they didn’t discount everything to cost! Now that would be a real heart-ache for the retailers if they did that, which I doubt they did…
I titled yesterday’s Pfennig: Dollar Selling Begins to Gain Momemtun… And during the letter yesterday, I said that the momentum had been slow to gain… And yesterday was a good example of what I’m talking about… The down days for the dollar have been piling up… with only the brief rallies provided by the PPT, But the downward moves have been small, but that’s how a trend begins folks.. slow and steady, until it builds to a crescendo… So, dont’ be jumping the gun and thinking that the weak dollar trend that I’m seeing isn’t coming to fruition, it’s just taking its sweet time getting there…
Last week, at least I think it was last week, I talked about how the Chinese renminbi had rallied and looked much healthier than it had in some time… I came across this on Bloomberg.com that explains the renminbi rally: “China’s yuan is set to be boosted by year-end tailwinds and by speculation its recent rebound will encourage exporters to step up dollar sales, analysts say.
The currency has strengthened in both November and December in each of the past six years, with the biggest gains coming in 2022, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The yuan tends to rise in these months as exporters need more local currency to meet cash demand before year-end and Lunar New Year, China International Capital Corp. said in a report.”
Chuck again… For those of you new to currencies, etc. The official name of the Chinese currency is the renminbi, not the yuan… Sort of like here in the U.S. we have the dollar, but some call it the buck… I’ve always maintained that yuan is easier to spell and say for the media, and so they use that instead of renminbi… I’ll continue to always call it by its official name, renminbi… I’ve never been one to take short-cuts! So, why start now?
I do believe that it was in 2009 that I was asked by Forbes to write about the weak dollar trend, but to not use the euro in my piece… Well, that was easy for me, because the currencies of Norway & Sweden were just as strong as the euro! And they had higher interest rates than the Eurozone. So, I went about eplaining how Norway had a Sov Wealth Fund that was fully funded so that every person alive in Norway would have a retirement fund awaiting for them that was worth a lot… And that Norway was also a Petrol Currency, with their North Sea Oil business, and that was what had fueled their Sov. Wealth Fund… The article got printed, and I bought about 10 copies of the issue… Later that year, my family visited an aunt and uncle in Corpus Christi Tex… And the aunt, bless her heart, said, to me when I walked through the door, “here he is Paul, the famous writer in Forbes”! I was shocked that she even read Forbes!
All those things that I wrote about in 2006 about Norway remain to the present time… And so… it remains that I think if one wants to own a currency that isn’t the euro, that shifting their eyes to Norway or even Sweden, they not only get their association with the euro, but also Oil pricing…
Before that article, I used to write for the Currency Capitalist newsletter that the Sov. Society used to print… And I explained how Sweden had been through a banking crisis much like the U.S. had just gone through, but Sweden did it differently, instead of bailing out failing banks, they allowed them to fail… pick up the pieces and move on… To me, that was more like I was educated that businesses should be treated, and not nestled in the laps of Gov’t’s….
And to me, Sweden should be given credit for not succuming to the calls to shut everything down during the plandemic… They were called out for this, and people claimed that they were going to kill their people.. But when all the numbers were gathered, Sweden’ death rate was the same as before… They had not killed their people, instead they gave their people freedoms that we didn’t have in the land of the free and home of the brave…
The U.S. Data Cupboard didn’t have anything for us yesterday, except new Home Sales, which plunged 5.6% in Rocktober… As if we didn’t think that this would happen with mortgage rates at highs in 2023…
Today’s Data Cupboard has the Stupid Consumer Confidence for Rocktober, and the Case/ Shiller Home Price Index (HPI) for September… And then add in 5 different Fed Head speakers out on the road today…
To recap… The dollar selling momentum stalled in yesterday’s U.S. session, but the dollar didn’t gain either… It was as if Monday didn’t happen… Which, Chuck wishes was true, as his Monday was not fun… Gold has triple topped at $2,000, and Chuck pointed out yesterday, that it usuall means an upswide swing for an asset… Gold gained $11 yesterday, and Silver gained 30-cents… Data was weak, as usual, yesterday, and there wasn’t much to talk about today…
For What It’s Worth… This article came to me yesterday from long time associate, Doug Casey, who talks about something that I’ve hinted at for some time now, and that is people are finally waking up and seeing that everything is no hunky dory in the economy, and that article can be found here: www.internationalman.com
Or, here’s your snippet: “As the Great Unravelling progresses, we shall be seeing many negative developments, some of them unprecedented.
Only a year ago, the average person was still hanging on to the belief that the world is in a state of recovery, that, however tentative, the economy was on the mend.
And this is understandable. After all, the media have been doing a bang-up job of explaining the situation in a way that treats recovery as a general assumption. The only point of discussion is the method applied to achieve the recovery, but the recovery itself is treated as a given.
However, as thorough a distraction as the media (and the governments of the world) have provided, the average person has begun to recognise that something is fundamentally wrong. He now has a gut feeling that, even if he is not well-versed enough to describe in economic terms what is incorrect in the endless chatter he sees on his television, he now senses that the situation will not end well.
I tend to liken his situation to someone who suddenly finds all the lights off in his house. He stumbles around in the dark, trying to feel his way. Although he can picture in his mind what the layout of his house is, he is having trouble navigating, often bumping into things. This is similar to the attempt to see through the media and government smokescreens during normal times.”
Chuck again… Doug goes on to explain that everything starts out slow, like the recognition of things not being right, and then come on with a bang! So, be ready for the bang! Got Gold?
Market Prices 11/28/2023: American Style: A$ .6607, kiwi .6090, C$ .7355, euro 1.0952, sterling 1.2617, Swiss $1.1348, European Style: rand 18.6867, krone 10.6909, SEK 10.4333, forint 345.46, zloty 3.0624, koruna 22.2453, RUB 88.79, yen 148.56, sing 1.3364, HKD 7.7967, INR 83.34, China 7.1534, peso 17.18, BRL 4.8946, BBDXY 1,236.46, Dollar Index 103.26, Oil $75.56, 10-year 4.41%, Silver $24.62, Platinum $932.00, Palladium $1,065.00, Copper $3.75, and Gold… $2,013.77
That’s it for today… Only 2 more days in my most dispised Month… Yahoo! I didn’t feel like going out last night, so I missed seeing my darling granddaughter, Delaney Grace perform in a music show… UGH! You know I had to be feeling pretty weak to not go see her! I hope there are more times in the future to see her perform! Kathy’s Christmas Gift arrived Sunday, and I told her to go ahead and open it… She refused, so it sits there waiting for Christmas Day… She picked it out, so there’s not surprise there! I’ve found that this way is the best way, because as the year goes on, if she needs something, she buys it… This way, I get her what she wants! And not what I think she’ll want… The Great, Bing Crosby takes us to the finish line today with his version of the song: Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas… I hope you have a Tom Terrific Tuesday today… And please Be Good To Yourself!
Chuck Butler