April 4, 2022
* currencies & metals get sold on Friday
* What’s up with the BLS? only from the mind of Chuck!
Good day… And a Marvelous Monday to you! And welcome to April! Well, I’m still in S. Florida… I was supposed to be heading home on Saturday 4/2, but after delaying our flight for 3 hours, Southwest decided to just cancel the flight, leaving us right back where we started. We were lucky, because we had a place to go to. But people that had their monthly leases end, etc. would have had to find a hotel… I sat on hold for 3 hours and 20 minutes waiting for someone at Southwest, to pick up the phone and help me get my flight home rebooked. I had to call them because, Their website wasn’t working. I’m not here to complain about everything it’s just that I don’t get all this bad service that we Americans have to put up with and still pay for premium service. Robert Palmer greets me this morning with his son: Sneaking Sally Through The alley….
We’ll, the dollar continued its upward move that it began on Thursday. Last week, and ended the week on a strong note. The euro, which had rallied the first 3 days of last week, gave back 50 today ticks on Friday to end the week at 1.1050… The BBDXY gained two index points and ended the week at 1,193.84….
Gold never found a bid on Friday and closed the week at $1,926.60, and Silver lost 14-cents to end the week at $24.72…. one of these days the price manipulators are going to get caught in a short Squeeze… and I’ll be the happiest guy on the planet, watching them squirm and try to wiggle out from all the physical buying…. I’m just saying…
Bonds got sold on Friday and the 10-year yield closed the week at 2.39%… And the information I gave you last week about the U.S. releasing oil reserves came to light… and the price of Oil dropped $2 to close the week at $99.27…
In the overnight markets last night…. The dollar buying continued, and the euro is down almost 1-cent from last Wednesday. The BBDXY has added another 1.60 in index points and trades at 1,195 this morning. Gold is up $4 in the early trading, and Silver is up 15-cents this morning. Not much going on in the overnight markets, just some minor moves…
Last week we saw the euro rally nicely… From what I’ve seen, this rally was sparked by the European Central Bank (ECB) and their sudden change of heart towards rising inflation in the Eurozone… Now we’ll have to wait n see if the ECB has really gotten away from their dovish stance……
Ok, I read an article, this weekend, that was sent to me by multiple people, so I had no choice but to read about how the Russian deputy of the Russian Security Council, and former President of Russia, Dmitri Medvedev, believes that the sanctions that have been placed on Russia ” have not only failed, but are instead returning to the West like a boomerang.”
He went further to say that ” confidence in reserve currencies is fading like the morning mist. The era of regional currencies is coming.”
Ok. I get what he’s saying here countries all over the world that use dollars are going to ditch holding dollars in reserve and just trade with regional partners and each other’s currencies…
Long ago, and oh so far away, Frank Trotter and Chuck penned an article for the folks at Agora Publishing about how after Europe combined all this different currencies into just one (euro) we saw Asia being next to combine different currencies into a single currency that we named “the Pan”….
So, you would have a regional currency for Europe, one for Asia, one for the Americas, and then you would have the outliers like: sterling , Swiss, kroner, and krones, etc…
But I’m not talking about that old rumor regarding what people were so convinced was real, and that is the so-called Amero…..we’ve been down that road before and there’s no sense in going over it again…
We’ll last Thursday was the first day that countries who bought Oil from Russia had to pay for it in rubles, not dollars….
Oh and Fred Hickey tweeted this past weekend, that Russia now had 12,000 tons of physical Gold!
In case your math skills could use some work, that puts Russia and China ahead of the 8,133.5 tons of Gold the U.S. supposedly have…..
And what have I always told you about what would happen when the current Financial System collapsed? That the countries with the largest physical Gold holdings would be invited to sit at the table and make the rules of the new Financial System….
It sure seems to me like we’re getting closer to this whole shootin’ match coming to and end… I’m just saying…
Ok… I made it all this way without talking about the March Job Jamboree….in a month that already saw 4.3 Million job quits, and Jobless Claims jump
Higher…The BLS decided that they needed to add 23,000 jobs to the surveys from employers… and their grand total was 431,000 jobs created in March, which was below expectations and way below the previous month’s trumped up total of 750,000…
I’m going to do a little ditty here from my imagination of what took place with the jobs #… after posting a Job’s created number last month the BLS received a call from the deep state that went like this: ” hello? BLS? This is the boss… and you really outdid yourself this time with 750,000 jobs in a short month nonetheless ! Are you trying to make people/ investors believe that no rate hikes are needed? How will we ever bring the U.S. economy to its knees with reports like this? This is not in our major plan for the country, so you know what to do next month, right?”
Chuck again….I know it may be a bit far fetched but it’s what my mind was thinking!
We start the week of data prints with Feb Factory and Capital equipment Orders….there’s not a lot of data to see this week and what there is will be dominated by the FOMC Meeting Minutes on Wednesday…
To recap… the dollar ended last week on a strong note after spending the first part of the week on the selling blocks… Medvedev talks about how the sanctions on Russia will push countries to regional currencies…
For What It’s Worth…. Dennis Miller and I just put finishing touches on an upcoming article regarding the problems ahead for bonds… so this article carries on about the problems with bonds and it can be found here: David Stockman on the Coming Bond Bear Market… And What Comes Next (internationalman.com)
Or here’s your snippet: “If you didn’t think the $70 trillion global bond market was a train-wreck waiting to happen, surely last week’s yield surge was a wake up call. From the 2.15% close one week earlier, the 10-year yield soared to a peak of 2.50% just after mid-day last Friday; and that 36 basis point gain was, in turn, the culmination of a stunning 200 basis point rise from the cyclical low point (0.51%) recorded during July 2020.
Needless to say, an economy staggering under the weight of $87 trillion in debt, representing a record 365% of GDP, can’t take much interest rate increase in any case. But when the Fed is drastically behind the curve and will be forced to hit the brakes hard (and unexpectedly) in coming months, you are talking about a recipe for financial carnage.
Of course, the knuckleheads in the Eccles Building are just beginning to faintly recognize the trap they have backed themselves into. As Bill King aptly noted,
“….contributing to the bond carnage on Friday morning: NY Fed President Williams said the Fed will hike rates 50bps if needed, and inflation has been much stronger than the Fed expected. What dopes!!“
Chuck again… that was David Stockman doing the talking there… he used to be the head of the OMB under President Reagan…
Market prices 4/4/2022: American Style: A$ .7514, kiwi .6934, C$ .8003, euro 1.1005, sterling 1.3104, Swiss 1.0781, European Style : Rand 14.6375, krone 8.7015, SEK 9.4423, forint 335.75, zloty 4.2177, koruna 22.7087, RUB 84.63, yen 122.78, sing 1.3571, HKD 7.8349, INR 75.28, China 6.3629, peso 19.82, BRL 4.6591, BBDXY 1,195.44, Dollar Index 98.85, Oil $99.78, 10-year 2.40%, Silver $24.81, Platinum $992.00, Palladium $2,420.00, Copper $4.65, and Gold $1,930.58
That’s it for today… we’ll my plans to go to Ireland this summer had to be cancelled. I’m hoping that next year all this weird stuff going on in the world will settle down… as long as God is willing I’ll be traveling to Ireland next year… Baseball will start on Thursday this week and that makes me happy! I didn’t write on April 1st, and therefore I missed saying Happy Birthday to one of my fave people in the world… Happy Birthday to April Showers! I hope your day was grand! Radiohead takes us to the finish line today with their song: karma Police… I hope you have a Marvelous Monday and please Be Good To Yourself!
Chuck Butler