- Currencies rally on Thursday, get sold on Friday…
- Market sentiment changes toward Japanese yen…
Good Day… And a Marvelous Monday to you! Well, my annual winter vacation begins tomorrow, and I can already feel how nice it will be to sleep-in in the morning! The Big Butler House Gala went off without a hitch, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself, and I think everyone else did too! Well, our Billikens won their basketball game this weekend, while my beloved Mizzou Tigers didn’t! UGH! Nasty weather we’ve had here with the temps not that cold, but made to feel colder with the rain… The Stephen Kummer Trio greets me this morning with their version of: It’s The Most Wonderful Time of The Year!
The end of the week, last week, was two days of canceling each other out… First, Thursday saw the dollar get sold and the BBDXY lose 5 index points! Gold gained $9 on the day, and Silver gained 37-cents… It was one of those days when you thought, “The dollar was headed down stream”… But then long came Friday, and all was reversed… The BBDXY gained back the 5 index points it lost Thursday, Gold lost $16.30 to close the week $ 2,037.20, and Silver lost 27-cents to close the week at $23.87…
So, we closed the week on Friday with the dollar being bought, but if we had closed the week on Thursday, it would have closed with the dollar being sold… It’s all semantics… it depends on which one you focus on… The price of Oil rose to as high as $76 late last week, but has slipped back since… And the 10-year’s yield fell further to end the week.
In the overnight markets… The dollar drifted, without any conviction to buy or sell the dollar, and so the currencies all look about the same as they did to end the week. The one currency that is on the rally tracks, and I can’t believe I just typed that! is the Japanese yen … Yes the yen is now in a favorable light with traders, and investors… And it all stems back form the note I told you about a couple of weeks ago, that the Bank of Japan has signaled that they would be moving their interest rates out of negative territory…
With the Bank of Japan being the last Central Bank to still hold negative interest rates, this will be a BIG step for them… The BOJ already took their yield curve control off their Gov’t Bonds… So, for the first time in ages, Japanese Bonds are being bought, yen is being bought, and it all looks so strange to me! I bet there are some traders out there that have never seen Japanese bonds with yield! Youngsters…
Ok, Gold is up $5 in the early trading today, and Silver is up 10-cents… The price of Oil remained with a $72 handle overnight, and the 10-year’ yield trades at 3.90% this morning, to start the week.. .
You see, the sentiment has all changed here in the U.S. and I’ve talked about it before, but here goes again! Everyone and their brother now thinks the Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel is going to cut rates as soon as March 2024, and come back and cut them 2 more times throughout the year. I’m not on board with that thought, but that’s neither here nor there, for the markets control the direction of everything (well when intervention is in play) …
So, you can see why the Japanese yen is so darling in the eyes of traders, investors these days… The Bank of Japan would be hiking rates, while the rest of the world begins their rate cut cycles…
Whew! That wears me out talking about rate cuts, etc. I said above that I’m not on board with the thought that the first rate cut will come in March… So, there! I said it… write it down, whatever, just so you can throw it back in my face in March! HA!
Well, former U.S. State Dept. employee, Thomas Hill, recently went on a rampage about how the U.S. should be concerned about the BRICS and their dedollarization plans… He contends that with the core BRICS members, they have 90 countries aligned with them through trade and other agreements and these 90 countries could be swayed to sell their dollars too… I’m all on board with this thought folks… The BRICS are a major thorn in the side of the dollar bugs, and while their plans to rid the world of dollars may not be imminent, it is out there for everyone to see, and make plans accordingly, or don’t, and ignore them…
And this fun little comment cam across from Foxbusiness.com “You’ve probably read about the fact that we’re selling 1-ounce gold bars,” Richard Galanti, the chief financial officer of the wholesale retailer, said Thursday evening. “We sold over $100 million of gold during the quarter.”
Chuck again, WOW! Buying physical Gold from Costco! If that doesn’t beat the band! Well, as long as individuals are buying their physical Gold somewhere!
Speaking of Gold… Remember a week or so ago, when I told you that in the overnight markets, Gold had soared to $2,176? But then it was sold back by the short paper traders? Well, the good folks at GATA sent me this little note and I’m sharing it with you… “London metals trader Andrew Maguire tells Kinesis Money’s “Live from the Vault” program that last Sunday night’s explosion in the gold price was probably an Eastern based “warning shot” against the U.S. dollar and U.S. Treasuries, prompting emergency intervention against gold by the U.S. “plunge protection team” to deflect the attack.”
I have no doubt in my country boy mind, that Gold will return to that level once again, and it won’t be a long wait to to see it happen! But then, that’s just me, thinking out loud…
Both the Bank of England and the European Central Bank left their rates unchanged last week, as I suspected they would. These two central banks also followed the U.S. in aggressively hiking their rates, and now they need to sit back and see what needs to be done next, while the rate cuts move through their respective economies. There was some hope from me that the ECB would have one more hike in their system… But that didn’t come to fruition, and so we move along now, for these are not the droids we’re looking for…
And as always, Bill Bonner had some thoughts on the announcement that the Pentagon will receive $25 Billion in the latest budget works… Here’s Bill: ” No one worries about fiscal deficits in the US. Already, the federal deficit is headed for $2 trillion for 2024. Do the newspapers shout the alarm? Do the influencers – from the pulpits and podcasts – warn Americans that they had better change course? Do the politicians panic…and rev up the chainsaws?
Nah. They give more money to the gun-makers. ResponsibleStatecraft.org:
It’s that time of year, and despite all the budgetary drama unfolding on Capitol Hill, lawmakers have already finished most of their holiday shopping for their favorite children: Pentagon contractors.
Through cryptic “program increases” to the defense budget appropriations for fiscal year 2024, most with no listed author and little to no justification, Congress has added more than $25 billion to the Pentagon’s procurement and research accounts for fiscal year 2024.” – Bill Bonner from www.bonnerprivateresearch.com
The U.S. Data Cupboard late last week had Nov. Retail Sales.. .Remember when I said that for the first time the BHI could be wrong, when it was forecast that Retail Sales would be negative? Well fear no further, the BHI is still THE indicator of what Retail Sales will do, as the Nov. print saw a .3% gain… It is Christmas shopping season! But that wasn’t the end of the stronger economic news, as Industrial Production moved from a negative position in Rocktober to a .2% gain in Nov. But then to bring down all this euphoria over the data, the Empire State Manufacturing index printed negative -14.5 for this month… There always sees to be a fly in the ointment, eh?
This weeks’ Data Cupboard has a lot of housing data to start the week, and it won’t be until Friday this week that we see a piece of real economic data, when Nov. Durable Goods Orders print… the week before Christmas is not the time to be revealing data prints… at least that’s how I view it…
For What It’s Worth… well… the list for FWIW worthy articles was long this morning, but I think I found one that hit a nerve with investors, for it’s what I’ve been warning people about for years now… The implementation of digital currencies, and it can be found here: Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC): The Weaponization of Money? WHO’s Health Tyranny: Towards a Totalitarian World Government? No Way! – Global ResearchGlobal Research – Centre for Research on Globalization
Or, here’s your snippet: “Two kinds of absolute controls are being prepared to implement The Great Reset, alias UN Agenda 2030. A potentially straitjacket and total control by programmable Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), and an all-oppressive health tyranny by WHO, overriding national Constitutional rights and national sovereignty as far as health measures are concerned.
The former will be “managed”, coordinated and supervised for faultless implementation, by the so-called Central Bank of Central Banks, the Bank for International Settlement (BIS); the latter by the 1948 Rockefeller-created, falsely called UN-agency WHO. The emerging tyrant’s budget is to 80% pharma, Gates and otherwise privately funded. Both are criminal organizations.
These are plans, not yet implemented. But the world better be aware, so We, the People, may stop this terrifying assault on humanity in its tracks.
CBDC may be upon us, humanity, rather sooner than later. Programmable CBDC is a weapon of mass destruction. The weapon has been in the planning for decades – and it fits right into the Bigger Picture of the Great Reset / Agenda 2030.
Programmable – means the money can be programmed on how it is to be spent by an individual, or blocked, or made to expire, or made to be used for certain goods or services – or it can be totally withheld, wiped out, depending on how well you behave, according to the standards of the all-commandeering death cult elite.
CBDC is a master control element, a stranglehold on the population.
Simultaneously, an all-controlling health tyranny is being prepared by WHO. The plan is that the new totalitarian rules – Biden Administration initiated revised International Health Regulations (IHR), including a new Pandemic Treaty – are to be ratified by the World Health Assembly, presumably by the end of May 2023. If approved, by a two-thirds majority, the new rules will become effective in 2024.”
Chuck again… You should have seen the faces of the guys that I sat around the pool with over 2 years ago, when I told them about how their folding cash would one-day disappear, and digits would replace them in their bank accounts… it’s all coming back to me now said the blind man has he spit into the wind!
Market Prices 12/18/ 2023: American Style: A$ .6726, kiwi .6232, C$ .7483, euro 1.0913, sterling 1.2655, Swiss $1.1534, European Style: rand 18.4450, krone 10.3067, SEK 10.2232, forint 352.71, zloty 3.9882, koruna 22.4870, RUB 90.67, yen 142.67, sing 1.3316, HKD 7.7999, INR 83.06, China 7.1350, peso 17.26, BRL 4.9380, BBDXY 1,226.96, Dollar Index 102.51, Oil $72.19, 10-year 3.90%, Silver $23.96, Platinum $954.00, Palladium $1,193.00, Copper $3.81, and Gold… $2,023.12
That’s it for today, and for the next 9 days… Yesterday, was my former colleague, and longtime friend, Jen Mclain’s Birthday! And tomorrow is my former colleague, and longtime friend, Ty Keough’s Birthday! Happy Birthday to you both! I get to see Ty, much more these days than I get to see Jen… And I only see Ty a few times a year! UGH! Well, there are only 55 more days till pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training… See? I still have my priorities… I can’t wait to get down to S. Florida and see that the changes to Roget Dean Stadium look like… The day after Christmas is Kathy’s Birthday… People always say to her when they hear when her birthday is, “you got cheated!”… I always make sure I have Christmas presents, and Birthday presents separated! I’ve been listening to the Stephen Kummer Trio, CD titled: Christmas In The City, and they are playing my fave Christmas song: The Christmas Waltz to take us to the finish line today… I hope you have a Marvelous Monday today, and a very Blessed Christmas and please remember to Be Good To Yourself!
Chuck Butler