- Currencies & metals get sold late last week
- Revisions and lies… they go together…
Good Day… And a Marvelous Monday to you! Well, my beloved Cardinals pulled a victory out of the depths of defeat yesterday, as a kid without his name on his jersey, came up in the 8th inning, with the bases loaded, and hit a grand slam! WOW! We’ve seen ties, and losses, but not too many victories this spring, not that it matters… It was a hot one, like seven inches from the midday sun, yesterday in my seats… but I endured, and stayed to see the grand slam! Alice In Chains greets me this morning with their song: Down In A Hole…
Just about every time I think the dollar is in trouble, it pulls a rabbit out of its hat, and rallies… This time it was all about how the latest PPI (wholesale inflation) was so strong that it got people thinking that the Fed Heads could be hiking rates soon, instead of cutting them… Bonds got sold like funnel cakes at a State Fair, currencies got sold, Gold got sold, Silver got sold, and the dollar rallied…
The BBDXY gained 5 index points on Friday, and finished the week at 1,233, after starting last week at 1,228… And then stayed around 1,228 Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, before rallying on Friday. The euro lost its hold on the 1.09 handle, and the rest of the currencies are back to looking like they need to be the sick bay…
Gold began the week, last, at 1,229, and ended the week at 1,255… And this was after getting sold on Thursday and Friday! Silver began the week at $24.34, and ended the week at $24.75 after also getting sold on Thursday and Friday…
The price of Oil bumped higher on Thursday, and then remained above the $80 handle on Friday… And the 10-year saw its yield rise to 4.30% after starting the week at 4.08%…
It appears that the shortages that I’ve talked about previously in Copper are finally showing up in the price of the metal.. Copper this morning is $4.12, kicking tail and taking names later!
In the overnight markets last night…. There was little to no movement in the dollar, and the BBDXY starts the week at 1,235… Gold is up $1 in the early trading, and Silver is down 8-cents… The euro is knocking on the door of 1.09 once again, and that ole Mexican peso continues to be the shining light for the currencies, and I can’t believe I just wrote that! The price of Oil has bumped higher again and starts the week with an $81 handle.
So, we start the week with the dollar drifting, Gold looking like it wants to rally again, Oil perking up, and the 10-year Treasury getting sold like funnel cakes at a State Fair!
Well, the BIG Thing on the Data Cupboard’s calendar for this week is the March FOMC rate discussion meeting that will be held on Wednesday this week. By now, I doubt there’s even one remaining doubting Thomas that the Fed Heads can’t stand still with rates… But you never know… eh?
The good Folks at GATA sent me this note the other day: “At King World News, GoldMoney founder James Turk remarks on the decline of gold holdings claimed by major exchange-traded funds despite the upward trend of the gold price.
Turk writes: “There are so many loopholes in the prospectus of some of the gold ETFs, it has been my contention that they are used by central banks and their bullion bank agents to control the gold price. Their aim is to make fiat currency look better than it deserves by killing the canary in the coal mine, which is the role of an unfettered gold market.”
I agree with James Turk… I have said for a very long time now that I wouldn’t trust those Trust Companies to actually have the correct amount of Gold in their vaults to cover all the ETF positions… And since there’s no audit of them, we are left to pick up the pieces and make out what we think is actually happening there…
Ok, moving on… Last week there were more stringent sanctions placed on Russia from the U.S…. So far, nothing’s worked… so why keep trying? All it does is push Russia and China together more… Right now, Nearly all Russia-China trade is now in yuan and rubles. As much as Russian trade with the EU fell by 68% in 2023, trade with Asia rose by 5.6% – with new landmarks reached with China ($240 billion) and India ($65 billion) – and 84% of Russia’s total energy exports going to “friendly countries”.”
But you can’t tell the Gov’t anything that they don’t want to hear… You could be in for a real long trip down a country road… But here goes: Sanctions don’t work!
Silver has really enjoyed a renaissance with investors, and continues to outperform Gold on a percentage basis… And last week I read where manufacturers that require silver are already bypassing bullion bank brokers and purchasing metal directly from mines. I like that… what they are saying to the bullion banks that keep shorting Silver, is to hello operator give me number nine, with you…
Well, maybe this week we can get back to the dollar being sold, and the metals enjoying the limelight…
Well, The U.S. Data Cupboard late last week was interesting… First, Retail Sales weren’t as strong as expected, but still stronger than the average bear, as the BHI forecast. The other piece of data on that day, was the PPI, the wholesale inflation rate, and it was much stronger than expected, at .6%… I hate to tell you this, but that data indicates that inflation is going to be higher in the future… And that news alone got the rate hike enthusiasts all lathered up, and that wasn’t good for Gold…
Then on Friday, Industrial Production for Feb, along with Capacity Utilization, and both were not items to talk about around the water cooler… IP was up just .1%, following a neg report in Jan. I just don’t get where people in the Gov’t keep telling us the economy is going great guns!
And here’s Zerohedge.com with something on the IP Print: “Another day, another downwardly revised dataset…
In today’s episode of ‘sh*t you believed in the past is not real at all’, U.S. Industrial Production in January was revised from a 0.1% decline to 0.5% decline. That is the 10th monthly revision lower in the last 11 months (and 14th of the last 17)…
Industrial Production rose 0.1% MoM in February (from that revised lower print), leaving the YoY change in IP at -0.23%…
On the pure manufacturing side, production rose 0.8% MoM, but that – again – was from a big downwardly revised January (from -0.5% MoM to -1.1% MoM)…
Just another endless stream of downward revisions…”
Chuck again… I keep harping about these downward revisions that come months after the markets hoop and holler about the first print…
This week’s Data Cupboard is pretty void of real economic data… We’ll get some housing data today and tomorrow, but then on Wednesday we get what the markets have been waiting for… The March FOMC… rate decision meeting… Well, for my money, I say that the Fed Heads will keep rates unchanged, and begin to talk about how inflation isn’t going away, and how they will have to keep rates at current levels longer…
To recap… the dollar turned around late last week, and instead of being on the tender hooks, it rallied… This time it was the stronger then the man of steel, Producer Price Index (wholesale inflation), which as we know will filter through to consumer inflation eventually, and that led those rate hike enthusiasts to believe rates will be raised instead of lowered soon… Overnight, the dollar didn’t move much, and so we start our week with the BBDXY at 1,235…
For What It’s Worth… Well, Mom… They’re doing it again! Who darling? Those wild and crazy guys at JPMorgan… There’re in trouble again and that skinny can be found here: JPMorgan Fined $348 Million For Failing To Monitor “Billions” In Trades | ZeroHedge
Or, here’s your snippet: ” JPMorgan Chase, has just added another notch to its criminal track record when it was fined $348.2 million by a pair of US bank regulators over its inadequate program to monitor firm and client trading activities for market misconduct, the Federal Reserve announced on Thursday.
The Fed fined the bank alongside the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), and said the misconduct occurred between 2014 and 2023. JPMorgan disclosed in February that it expected to pay roughly $350 million in civil penalties for reporting incomplete trading data to surveillance platforms. It said at the time it was also in “advanced negotiations” with a third regulator that may not result in resolution. The penalty consisted of $250 million from the Office of the Comptroller and $98 million from the Federal Reserve.
In a separate announcement, the OCC said JPMorgan failed to properly monitor “billions” of trades across at least 30 global trading venues. It ordered the bank to overhaul and improve its trade surveillance program and conduct a third-party review of its policies. The bank must clear any new trading venues with regulators under the new order.
“The consequences of these deficiencies include the bank’s failure to surveil billions of instances of trading activity on at least 30 global trading venues,” the OCC said in its consent order. The bank neither admitted nor denied the OCC’s findings.”
Chuck again… Eventually, someone has got to say, “no mas” to Jamie Dimon and JPMorgan’s illegal tricks of the trade… I’m just saying…
Market Prices 3/18/2024: American Style: A$.6568, kiwi .6083, C$ .7384, euro 1.0899, sterling 1.2733, European Style: rand 18.8322, krone 10.5827, SEK 10.3834, forint 361.78, zloty 3.9570, koruna 23.0926, RUB 91.87, yen 149.18, sing 1.3379, HKD 7.8196, INR 82.91, China 7.1981, peso 16.71, BRL 4.9959, BBDXY 1,235.41, Dollar Index 103.41, Oil $81.18, 10-year 4.30%, Silver $25.10, Platinum $921.00, Palladium $1,067, Copper $4.12, and Gold… $2,156.78
That’s it for today… Yesterday was St. Patrick’s Day, I hope you all celebrated safely… I felt strange going to the ballgame yesterday wearing a St. Pat’s shirt, and green Cardinals ballcap… But, it was St. Pat’s Day, and me being me, I had to celebrate it! Today is the Birthday of a good friend, Pete Landers… Happy Birthday Pete! My birthday will come at the end of this week, and I will be forever thankful that I get to celebrate another one! My current Chemo is really taking a toll on me, although I try to remain good to go! Wild Cherry takes us to the finish line today with their one hit wonder song: Play That Funky Music… That one will get you dancing in your chair! I hope you have a Marvelous Monday today, and will please remember to Be Good To Yourself!
Chuck Butler