- the dollar is on a run to higher ground
- The FOMC meets this week… So what?
Good Day… And a Marvelous Monday to you! Well, we had a weekend of spotty rain showers and sun… Friday night was a night game for my beloved Cardinals and we got the game in without anymore showers… The Cardinals pulled a loss out of the fire with a 9th inning rally… Not that you care, it’s just what’s on my mind…. I’ve always said you’ve got to experience rainy days to enjoy sunshine days! Paul McCartney greets me this morning with a song from a solo album: Every Night…
Well, it’s batten down the hatches once again, as the dollar has a wild hair and has rallied to close Friday at 1,208 in the BBDXY… The dollar traders must really have swallowed the POTUS’s words hook, line and sinker and think that the war will be over soon.. I hate to be the one to break the news to them, but here goes, the opponent will fight to death, they will not concede… I’m just saying…
Gold & Silver ended the week on a sour note, being down Thursday and Friday. Friday’s loss in Gold was $60, and it closed the week at $5,017, while Silver saw Friday’s loss at $3.31, to close the week at 80.44… There are lots of people running for the hills now with Gold & Silver, but not me! Inflation is just getting started growing again, and who knows where it will stop? Besides that, I wouldn’t be selling my Gold & Silver with or without inflation… I bought it, and forgot about it, other than knowing that I have stored some of my wealth…. And say no more…
The price of Oil ran up again on Friday at ended the week trading with a $98 handle… The oil traders get it that the war is going to go on, and now the Strait of Hormuz is closed… Good thing that the U.S. has strong Oil production or this could be a return to the 70’s… I remember sitting in gas lines, and sometimes getting up at 3 a.m. To go get some gas before everyone else woke up…
The 10-year is seeing the bond boys buy into the thought of higher inflation is coming and along with that will be rate hikes, and they are ratcheting the yield on the bond upward… The 10-year ended the week with a 4.28% yield…
In the overnight markets last night… The dollar ran into a roadblock and saw it get sold… The BBDXY starts the day/week at 1.212… That’s strong enough for the dollar, isn’t it? I mean with all the awful data printing, a war waging, and inflation rising, per the PCE last week, and other varied bad things going on, this dollar strength doesn’t have legs as far as I’m concerned…
The price of Gold is seeing some short selling this morning, so it starts the week below $5,000 down $34, and Silver is also getting whipsawed again, and has lost the $80 handle and trades this morning down $2.96 at $77.96… The short sellers have done a masterful job of bringing these two metals back to earth, and scaring the bejeebers out of investors…
The price of Oil bumped a little higher overnight and starts today with a $97 handle, while the 10-year Treasury continues to get sold and starts the week with a 4.26% yield…
The Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel will meet to discuss interest rates this week… It’ll be a 2-day meeting, so the board games will be being used again… By Joe, you’ve sunk my battleship! With all the unknowns going on right now, I don’t expect the Fed Heads in the FOMC to move rates this time around… And then there was all that awful data last week, which should have sealed the deal on a no rate cut verdict…
And one would think that going to war would be the biggest expense in a Gov’t… But the Department of Defense said, “not so fast Tim”… Get this: “The DOD spent $93.4 Billion in Sept… I have the story in the FWIW section today… no need to skip ahead, you’ll get there in just a few minutes…
On Sunday, I witnessed a video by Martin Weiss, of Weiss Ratings, tell me that the Medical System is about to blow up… And beginning in the 4th QTR of this year, when insurance premiums are mailed out to customers, the fuse will be lit…. He claims that this Medical System blowup will 75 times the size of the mortgage meltdown in 2008… I’ve known about Martin Weiss for decades, and for a while he was friendly to us at Mark Twain Bank World Currency Div. So, to say that he’s just a nut would be wrong… I’m just telling you this now so that when it happens, you’ll say, “Chuck told us it would happen”….
One trivia fact here… Did you know that over 90% of our medications, from penicillin to prednisone comes from China? And we continue to tick them off with tariffs…. What happens if… Nah, never mind, that’ll never happen… or will it?
What does all this have to do with economies, currencies, metals and dolts, which are my normal writing arrows are shot at? Well, if I have to explain that, you must be new to the Pfennig, because…. Most things come back to the economy, and that relates to the currency, and metals… and are usually implemented by dolts…
Circling the wagons on the dollar.. We find that overnight the dollar got sold… But it has risen so quickly and so hard, that the currencies haven’t been able to put up a defense, and the BIg Dog euro, has not only lost the 1.16 handle but also the 1.15 handle… The Swiss Franc seems to be the only currency trading with a bid this morning… The Chinese renminbi has slipped a bit form its lofty level VS the dollar last week.. The Japanese yen is getting torched once again along with the Russian ruble. So, as I described above, it’s time to batten down the hatches and walk away from all this chaos and dollar buying for a the time being.
The U.S. Data Cupboard last Friday was chock-full-o-data… starting with a revision of 4th QTR GDP, yes it has been delayed… But showed only .7% gain… That’s a rounding error folks, it could have easily been negative! Then we had the Consumer Spending and Income, both were up .4%… But then the Big Kahuna of data printed, and that is the PCE (Personal Consumption Expenditures) the Fed Heads’ favorite inflation calc. The PCE for Jan was up and the annualized PCE was 3.1%… With that inflation calc rising above 3%, I just don’t see the Fed Heads cutting interest rates any time soon… If they do, then we have a bigger problem, so let’s hope they see the light…
There were also Jan Durable Goods Orders, and they were flat 0% gain for the month… This follows up a negative -1.3% for December… The forecasters had pegged this data to recover to 1.3% gain, but that was not to be… And then there was Job Openings, and they increased by .3 Million… finally, there was the STUPID Consumer Sentiment, which dropped a mere.1 to 55.5 from 55.6… Don’t know why the propeller heads decided to print it!
The Data Cupboard for this week is dominated by the FOMC meeting on Wednesday… But first, we’ll see the color of the Feb. Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization… I can’t imagine in any world that these two are not weak….
Regarding the Data Cupboard for the rest of the world… The Reserve Bank of Australia is set to meet this week and I expect them to be the only Central Bank to hike rates this week…. We will see interest rate meetings in the U.K. And Switzerland this week too… Oh! And let us not forget that the Fed/ Cabal/Cartel will meet this week too!
To recap… The dollar has gotten a wild hair and is rallying… Batten down the hatches and remember that the dollar has an underlying weak trend going on… But in the overnight markets the dollar ran into a roadblock and was sold… I think that most markets will be subdued until the Fed Heads make their announcement on rates on Wednesday… But then, who knows?
For What It’s Worth… Well, I prebilled this and it’s as interesting as it sounds… This comes from longtime reader Bob, (thanks Bob!) and it chronicles the spending by the DOD in Sept… and it can be found here: Pentagon Should Focus on Defense Priorities, not Lavish Dinners, After Historic $93.4B “Use-It-or-Lose-It” September
r, here’s your snippet: “Open the Books has tracked the annual September spending bonanza for nearly a decade. Military spending has spiked every year, regardless of which party controlled the White House.
However, there has never been anything quite like September 2025, when $93.4 billion was spent on grants and contracts. Since at least 2008 — and presumably in history — no federal agency has ever spent so much on grants and contracts in a single month.
In the last five working days of September alone, the DoD spent $50.1 billion on grants and contracts. That’s more than the annual defense budget of countries like Israel and Italy. In fact, there are only nine foreign countries that spend that much on their military in an entire year!
These amounts only include money sent to entities outside the government, not salaries for service members and scores of other expenses.
Instead, the shopping spree encompasses luxury food items like lobster, high-end furniture and rushed IT purchases.
Here are some of the purchases….
$6.9 million on lobster tails
$2 million on Alaskan king crab
$15.1 million on ribeye steak
$139,224 for doughnuts
$124,000 for ice cream machines
$5.3 million on Apple devices
$4 million on Samsung devices, including a $4,000 98-inch monitor with “crystal UHD display”
$98,329 on a Steinway & Sons grand piano for the Air Force chief of staff’s home
Chuck again… Don’t you agree with me that the DOD should be spending our tax dollars on more important things other than luxury items?
Market Prices 3/16/2026: American Style: A$ .7039, kiwi .5833, C$ .7301, euro 1.1474, sterling 1.3269, Swiss $1.2688, European Style: rand 16.6137, krone 9.7230, SEK 9.3917, forint 340.65, zloty 3.7184, koruna 21.2906, RUB 81.08, yen 159.26, sing 1.2797, HKD 7.8304, INR 92.42, China 6.8926, peso 17.81, BRL 5.3237, BBDXY 1,212, Dollar Index 100.43, Oil $97.87, 10-year 4.26%, Silver $77.96, Platinum $2,082.00, Palladium $1.545.00, Copper $5.75, and Gold… $4,982
That’s it for today… A HUGE win by the U.S. Baseball team last night VS the Dominican Republic 2-1… Paul Skenes is a stud pitcher and I’m glad he’s on the U.S. team! Italy and Venezuela will play for the other spot in the finals tonight.. Our Blues road win streak ended last night in Winnipeg… UGH My beloved Cardinals won their game VS the Nationals yesterday… We ended up leaving a little early because the dark clouds overhead and our weather apps telling us that rain was minutes away, I’m glad we did! This should be an interesting week with the FOMC disappointing the markets… get ready for that announcement…Doucette takes us to the finish line today, with his great song: Mama Let Him PLAY… I hope you have a Marvelous Monday today, and Please Be Good To Yourself!
Chuck Butler