- currencies and metals make a comeback
- The BOE cuts rates!
Good Day… And a Marvelous Monday to you! Well, did you miss me? I missed writing, some days that is… I had a very relaxing and fun vacation with Adrew, Rachel, Braden and Evie… The Trade Deadline came and went, and my beloved Cardinals did nothing to improve their team this year, so it looks as though they’ve waved the white flag in 2025… UGH! Sammy Hagar greets me this morning with his song: Turn Up The Music… it’s a live version so it has me geared up this morning…
Well, while I was away, the dollar had a mini-rally, but as the days of my vacation grew near, the mini-rally began to fade… At first, the dollar rallied when it was believed that the tariffs the POTUS had announced for some countries would be replaced by new trade agreements… But soon, it was realized that new Trade Agreement or not, the tariffs were still in place, maybe not as high of tariffs, but still in place nonetheless…
Gold & Silver saw another engineered takedown by the short paper traders, and both have slowly worked their way back in the highlight…
The dollar ended the week last Friday, at 1,204… that was after the BBDXY reached 1,221 on 7/28… So, as you can see the dollar’s mini-rally is fading quickly… Gold ended the week last week at $3,396, and for a brief time on Friday last week it traded over $3,400… Silver ended the week at $33.96…
It was discussed last week that the POTUS may place tariffs on Gold bars coming into the U.S. The last time he said he would do that, it caused a HUGE transfer from London to New York, as dealers tried to get ahead of the tariffs… I think this is a case of fool me once… but not twice, as there has been no HUGE transfer taking place this time.
Or… maybe these guys are all from Missouri and will have to be shown! I know, I know, that can’t be the case, I was just throwing it out there for fun!
The price of Oil is seeing a lack of demand as the summer driving season comes to a close… And the price of Oil end the week trading with a $63 handle… And as we draw closer the next FOMC meeting the calls for a rate cut will grow louder and louder, and that has the yields on bonds dropping with the 10-year Treasury’s yield ended the week at 4.27%
In the overnight markets last night… The dollar has been bought a bit as the BBDXY is up 2 index points to start our day/ week. And I guess I shouldn’t have talked to glowingly about Gold above and its comeback, because overnight and in the early trading Gold is down $41 to start the day/ week! I can’t find anything on the newswires to explain this sell off, so… we’ll have to put this down as yet another engineered takedown… I guess the powers that be didn’t like Gold flexing its muscles at $3,400… Silve is also getting sold this morning and is down 58-cents to start our day/ week.
I have been away for two weeks, and nothing’s changed with the problems of the U.S. in fact, they may be worse, in that the latest auction of Treasuries went sour, and the primaries had to step in and sup up the unsold bonds…
Circling back to Gold… I think that that the tariffs applied to Gold bars, will do nothing but give the Gold bugs reason to take Gold higher, and so, I think that thought has crossed the short paper traders, and that’s why they’ve attacked Gold like they have this morning… For what that’s worth, it’s just my Pfennig’s worth…
And it gives those among you and anyone else that has twiddled their thumbs and procrastinated long enough to buy Gold at a cheaper price today… A Bue Light special if you will…
I came across this info while out… You will recall me telling you several times in the last couple of years that this is a deficit in Silver production… But now… I have the numbers! Check this out: The deficit in Silver production in 2024 was: 117 million ounces versus about 148 million ounces, in 2023. But if you add in the net investment into physical silver and then net investment into Silver ETFs, then you’re looking at the third highest silver deficit that we have on record.
In Ed Steer’s Saturday letter, he posted this info: “The Silver short position is now down to a still ugly 22,841 contracts…from the 32,888 contracts short position they held in last Friday’s COT Report — and now even further below the obscene 76,723 contracts they were short back on February 14. – Ed Steer www.edsteergoldsilver.com
So, if you take the fact that there is a HUGE deficit in Silver production and then add in the fact that the number of short contracts in silver are getting smaller, I think this all leads to a HUGE rally for Silver is coming… I truly see Silver getting to $40 before we turn the calendar on this year, and from there, $50 will be its next stop…
The Bank of England (BOE) cut rates by 25 Basis Points (1/4%) last week, citing a fall in inflation… Maybe the U.K. Gets real Bonafide true inflation numbers? I would certainly hope that at least one country doesn’t have their hands in the cookie jar all the time!
The currencies, as a whole, have begun to fight back and regain ground that was lost during the dollar’s goosing…
And as to Gold… I received this from the good folks at GATA: “In the early hours of trading today, global markets were shaken by the announcement by the Trump administration of a 39% tariff on imported gold bars weighing 100 ounces or more. U.S. December gold futures reached an all-time high price of $3,534.10 per ounce shortly after the declaration was made.
This sudden move injected uncertainty into the bullion market, unsettling dealers, refiners, and institutional investors trading in larger “exchange delivery” formats. While gold is rarely targeted by protectionist measures — unlike base metals, agriculture, or manufactured goods — this decision warrants close attention, both for its immediate market impact and potential implications for future monetary policy.”
My friends at the FXSTREET posted an article that was quoting a Fed Head… Let’s listen in: “his summer, we’ve started seeing cracks in the U.S. economic armor, including a significant weakening in the jobs market that could signal tough times ahead for many American workers.
While low at 4.2%, the unemployment rate is threatening to break out to a new cycle high, and layoffs are up significantly from one year ago.
This dynamic could accelerate a growing divide in the U.S. economy, which Federal Reserve Bank President Beth Hammack labels a “two-speed” economy.
Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack. lead.
Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland President Beth Hammack says there’s a “two-speed” economy.
The haves and have-nots in the U.S. economy
Hammack is the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland’s CEO, heading one of 12 regional Reserve Banks in the Fed’s Reserve System. She took over the role in August 2024.
The former cohead of global financing at Goldman Sachs and member of Goldman’s management committee was formerly the global head of short-term macro trading and repo trading, so she knows a thing or two about the markets and economy.
U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. lead.
Jobs report shocker resets Fed interest rate cut bets
Read More
Unfortunately, she sees a glaring and growing problem — an economy increasingly separating the haves from the have-nots.
In an interview with CBS News, Hammack said that means we’re in a “two-speed” economy, where the highest income earners are doing much better than everyone else.”
Chuck again… I know it was more like a FWIW article, but since the Pfennig will be hit-n-miss this week (I’ll explain in a bit) I thought I would load you up!
And this will round out the letter today, as it is being reported that the Indian Central Bank has been selling dollars and buying rupees to help the rupee… This is troubling news, in that this is not a coordinated intervention with several Central Banks partaking. And why is that? Because as I’ve explained many times in the past, the markets have deeper pockets than any Central Bank, and if the markets want the rupee to be weak, it my get a brief reprieve from the intervention, but then it will return to the underlying weakness… I’m just saying…
The U.S. Data Cupboard while I was gone, had the July Jobs Jamboree, which turned out to be very disappointing… The BLS said that 73,000 jobs were created in July… And that was after they had decided to add 257,000 jobs after the surveys were received… Which, if you used real math, and not the kind the Gov’t uses… it would mean that the economy lost 184,00 jobs in July… Another interesting piece of data while I was gone, was the ISM (manufacturing index), which fell from 48.7 to 48%, that’s going the wrong way folks… And finally while I was away, the FOMC left the Fed Funds Rate unchanged, which really ticked off the POTUS… I’m just saying…
And on top of that May and June’s jobs numbers were revised downward… Big Time! And then to add frosting to the cake, the POTUS fired the head of the BLS…
I came across this note from MarketWatch.com while gone, and copied it and saved it for today… “An increasing number of borrowers are falling behind on both their student-debt and mortgage payments — a development that’s worrying economists about the state of the housing sector and the broader U.S. economy.
Student-loan delinquencies are rising sharply, as are delinquencies on mortgages backed by the Federal Housing Administration, according to a new report by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.”
Chuck again… Tapped out? Well, I guess we’ll get a better picture of that chance this coming Friday, when Retail Sales are printed… Not that Retail Sales are the “everything” when it comes to consumer’s disposable income, and IT IS A GOVERNMENT REPORT, we must aways keep those things in mind…
To Recap… Chuck’s back, for a brief time that is this week… And during his absence the dollar rallied and then began to get sold again, Gold got sold and then began to come back, until this morning that is… The head of the BLS is gone… because he didn’t cook the books enough for the POTUS… Treasuries are having a rough go of it at the auctions, and the BOE cut rates…
For What It’s Worth… I read this email while on vacation and flagged it so I could come back to it for the FWIW article when I returned… This is how our value of the dollar has deteriorated through the years, and it can be found here: 2021 Meme Reveals the Relentless Devaluation of Your Money
Or, here’s your snippet: “I ran across a 2021 meme the other day that vividly illustrates just how quickly the government is destroying your money.
The meme points out that in 1964, the minimum wage was $1.25, or five quarters. That sounds really low, but keep in mind that before 1965, quarters were 90 percent silver. In 2021, the melt value of those five quarters was $23.34.
In other words, the five quarters a minimum wage worker earned in an hour in 1964 had $23.34 in purchasing power in 2021. There’s your “living wage.”
That’s pretty staggering in and of itself, but now fast forward a few years. As of today, the melt value of those five quarters is $34.45.
In other words, the value (purchasing power) of those five quarters has increased by another 47.6 percent in just three and a half years!
This reflects the relentless devaluation of U.S. money.
What Happened to Our Money?
Under the Coinage Act signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965, the U.S. Treasury removed all of the silver from dimes, quarters, and half-dollars. Instead, the government mints coins from “composites, with faces of the same alloy used in our 5-cent piece that is bonded to a core of pure copper.”
You will sometimes hear coins minted before 1965 referred to as “junk silver.”
In reality, we should call modern American coins junk.
Johnson promised that removing silver would have no impact on the value of U.S. coinage, asserting that “[The] Treasury has a lot of silver on hand, and it can be, and it will be used to keep the price of silver in line with its value in our present silver coin.”
You’ll be shocked to learn he was lying.
Richard Nixon told a similar fib when he severed the last tie between the U.S. dollar and gold. When he announced the closing of the gold window, Nixon said, “Let me lay to rest the bugaboo of what is called devaluation,” and promised, “Your dollar will be worth just as much as it is today.”
As we all know, that’s not what happened. The dollar buys a fraction of what it did in 1971, and U.S. quarters minted after 1965 are virtually worthless.
The meme tells the story. We don’t have a wage problem in the U.S. We have a money problem. And it is rapidly getting worse.
This is why you don’t want to hold fiat currency for any amount of time. It is losing value minute by minute. You need real money – gold and silver.”
Chuck Again… Good article in my humble country boy opinion! And I included the entire article for the snippet, because it was so good…
Market Prices August 11, 2025: American Style: A$ .6511, kiwi .5931, C$ .7279, euro 1.1631, sterling 1.3431, Swiss $1.0361, European Style: rand 17.6333, krone 10.2397, SEK 9.6151, forint 340.25, zloty 3.4183, koruna 21.0534, RUB 79.66, yen 147.88, sing 1.2859, HKD 7.8499, INR 87.66, China 7.1841, peso 18.60, BRL 5.3246, BBDXY 1,206, Dollar Index 98.39, Oil $64.17, 10-year 4.27%, Silver $37.74, Platinum $1,313.00, Palladium $1,414.00, Copper $4.43, and Gold… $3,355
That’s it for today… So, did you miss me? Well, I missed writing to you! Our last weekend down here I got to see the full moon rise over the ocean, it’s such a beautiful event! Ok, this week, no Pfennig tomorrow, but then I’m back on Wednesday, but then no Pfennig on Thursday because it’s infusion day… Next week, back to normal… While I was away, my darling granddaughter, Delaney Grace turned 18… She’s a senior in H.S. This year, and next year she’ll go away to college… (Where have the years gone?) When I left, I said that my beloved Cardinals were circling the bowl… But in the last week they’ve taken 2of 3 from both the Dodgers and Cubs… So, still circling but keeping their heads above water… The Cyrkle takes us to the finish line today with their song: Red Rubber Ball (The Cyrkle was the opining band for the Beatles!) I hope you have a Marvelous Monday today, and Please Be Good To Yourself!