- currencies get sold on Wednesday…
- We have a new minister of lies for the BLS
Good Day… And a Tub Thumpin’ Thursday to one and all! I know, I know, I told you there would be no Pennig on Thursday, but after a review of my schedule, I determined that I could get “something” to you today before I have to leave for the hospital for my infusion… The Cardinals found yet another way, to lose a game yesterday… Tsk, Tsk… I sat outside to read yesterday, but had to have the umbrella up to provide shade as it was a hot one! I had to say to myself, of course it’s hot Chuck, it’s August in St. Louis! Gerry & The Pacemakers greet me this morning with their song: Ferry Cross The Mersey… Whenever that song comes on, my mind goes back to when son Alex was just a toddler, and I would rock him to sleep every night, while singing that song to him…
Well, the dollar gained back the 2 index points it had lost in the overnight markets on Tuesday… So, Wednesday in the U.S. Session, the dollar was bought by a bit, not a lot, but by a bit… When I checked it last night, it has lost those 2 index points already. Gold continued to come back from it last takedown by the short paper traders, and gained $3 yesterday to close at $ 3,357… Silver also continues to gain back lost ground last week, by gaining 16-cets to close at $38,57… The good witch, Glinda came out and told everyone to come out now that the Big Bad short paper traders have left…. for now…
The price of Oil remained in the $62 handle for the day, while the 10-year treasury’s yield dropped some more ending the day with a 4.23%
You know, all this talk of rate cuts, and the dropping 10-year’s yield, is helping Gold as we go along here…
In the overnight markets last night… the dollar didn’t move and stayed in the 1,201 handle of the BBDXY all night. So we start the day today at 1,201… Gold is Seeing some selling this morning and is down $2 to start the day, while Silver is seeing some heavier selling and is down 39-cents to start the day… The price of Oil remained in the $62 handle all night.. And the 10-year Treasury saw some more buying, which lowers the yield and it stats today with a 4.20% yield…
Well, looky here… The U.S. Debt crossed over to $37 Trillion in the past couple of days… A dear reader sent me a note about the $37 Trillion debt, and I thought to myself, ‘it was only a matter of when not if, it would reach $37 Trillion..
That means that we, as a country have added $1 Trillion to our debt in the last 5 months, and that’s how long it took to get to $36 Trillion too, just 5 months! It’s like a snowball rolling downhill, getting bigger and bigger as it goes…
I also saw that the monthly debt was HUGE… The U.S. Treasury reported that the Federal spending totaled $629.6 billion in July — 9.7% higher than July of last year.
Meanwhile, revenue totaled $338.5 billion — up only 2.5% from a year earlier despite a 290% leap in tariff revenue.
The result was a monthly deficit of $291.1 billion — up from $243.7
Thanks for the info from Dave Gonigam at the Paradigm Pressroom’s 5 Bullets…
So, the monthly numbers just keep getting larger… That’s going the wrong way as far as I’m concerned… We, as a country, should be looking for way to cut spending, and not for ways to spend more! The debt servicing on the growing debt is going to choke us… I’m just saying…
And speaking of interest rate cuts, Bloomerg.com had this from the U.S. Treasury, “US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent made his most explicit call yet for the Federal Reserve to execute a cycle of interest-rate cuts, suggesting the central bank’s benchmark ought to be at least 1.5 percentage points lower than it is now.
“I think we could go into a series of rate cuts here, starting with a 50 basis-point rate cut in September,” Bessent said in a television interview on Bloomberg Surveillance Wednesday. “If you look at any model” it suggests that “we should probably be 150, 175 basis points lower.”
Chuck again… I don’t know what “model” he’s using, but it sure isn’t the one that I use, which tells me that you don’t cut rates when inflation is still a problem and most likely to become an even bigger problem…
Did you see the nominated head of the BLS? He wants to change the reporting on jobs from monthly to quarterly… I just have one question for him on that, is that so the BLS has more time to cook the books? he also went on to admit that the current jobs reports are a mess…. Well, when you tell a lie, you then have to repeat it often, and embelish it quite a bit too! And the BLS has been a pack of lies for a very long time! And never before where their collective feet held to the fire, until now… But this guy isn’t going to ride in on a white horse, and make the jobs reports better… In fact since he’s one of the POTUS’s pals, the reports will probably be even larger lies! I’m just saying…
And in a heart felt mea culpa… on Monday I reported in the currency roundup that the Swiss franc was 1.03 something… I even had a dear reader question the price, but I responded to him that I had taken it from the Bloomberg currency prices page, so it must be right… Only to find the next day it was back to 1.24 something… So, Bloomberg must have had it wrong, and I swallowed it hook, line and sinker… Well, that won’t happen again!
The U.S. Data Cupboard yesterday was barren, with just some Fed Heads speaking… Today’s Data Cupboard has the usual Weekly Initial Jobless Claims for a Thursday, and that’s about it for today. Tomorrow we’ll see the July Retail Sales print… The BHI indicates that it will be better than the average Bear… And then Capacity Utiliazation, and Industrial Production for July will also print tomorrow…
To recap… The dollar staged a mini-rally yesterday in the U.S. after getting sold overseas the previous night. All this talk of rate cuts, is really underpinning Gold right now… And then you add In the fact that bond yields are dropping… That too, helps Gold… Well, it was a matter of when not if, we passed by $37 Trillion in debt… And our monthly budgets are faring too well either! And finally, Scott Bessent calls for 150 Basis Points of rate cuts!
For What It’s Worth… I came across this article last night while perusing the internet. It’s about how the POTUS really came unglued when Lola, I mean Goldman Sachs had this to say about tariffs. And it can be found here: As Trump berates Goldman, economists agree higher tariff inflation coming
Or, here’s your snippet: “Goldman Sachs is taking the heat for its call that heavier tariff-induced consumer inflation is ahead, but it’s far from alone in that view among its Wall Street brethren.
Despite investors’ embrace of Tuesday’s fairly benign consumer price index report, economists expect that the biggest impact to inflation is yet to come.
With pre-tariff inventories rolling off, effective tariff rates climbing higher and companies less willing to absorb higher costs from the duties, the general feeling is that consumers are increasingly going to feel the bite through the rest of the year.
“Tariffs could subtract 1% from GDP and add 1-1.5% to inflation, some of which has already occurred,” Michael Feroli, chief U.S. economist at JPMorgan Chase, said in a note. “There is considerable uncertainty around the degree of pass-through to consumer prices, given that this year’s tariff increases are well larger than anything in the post-war US experience.”
Chuck Again… and THAT is the reason the FOMC has kept interest rates steady Eddie… For they too know what the tariffs are going to do…
Market Prices 8/14/2025: American Style: A$ .6525, kiwi .5949, C$ .7245, euro 1.1689, sterling 1.3579, Swiss $ 1.2417, European Style: rand 17.77, krone 10.1689, SEK 9.5630, forint 337.84, zloty 3.6432, koruna 20.9318, RUB 79.65, yen 146.64, sing 1.2517, HKD 7.8426, INR 87.55, China 7.1704, peso 18.68, BRL 5.3976, BBDXY 1,201, Dollar Index 97.82, Oil $62.93, 10-year 4.20%, Silver $38.18, Platinum $1,361.00, Palladium $1,156.00, Copper $4.54, and Gold… $3.355
That’s it for today… Well, the mighty Yankees come to town tomorrow night for a weekend series with my beloved Cardinals… Both teams have really struggled since we turned the calendar to July… I want to apologize for all the typos in yesterday’s Pfennig… I usually try to scan it over before sending it out, but not yesterday, and then when I did scan it, all the typos showed up like a credit card bill after a spending spree! Tomorrow is 8/15… That was the day each year that we began summer football practices… 2 practices a day… Sometimes we wouldn’t even go home between the practices, and would take naps on the bleachers! Ahhhh…. those were the days! The Moody Blues take us to the finish line today with a song from my favorite album Seventh Sojourn: Isn’t Life Strange… I hope you have a Tub Thumpin’ Thursday today, and Please Be Good To Yourself!
Chuck Butler