- the dollar drifted around yesterday and last night
- More bad stuff for Treasuries…
Good Day… And a Tom Terrific Tuesday to you! I’ll be heading to the hospital for my oncologist appt, and infusion as soon as I hit send this morning… I hope it all goes off without a hitch… Which is not usual! I don’t feel like a million dollars this morning, but I’ll get through it… When I was a young man, I used to watch my dad get up in the morning and try like the dickens to loosen up his back to no avail, and go ahead and go on to work in major pain… That image has stuck with me all these years… And I’ve attempted to model my life after him, in that ever since 2007, I answer the bell no matter how awful I feel.. I may be a bit later in the distribution of the Pfennig, but better late than never! If ever I don’t answer the bell, you can bet your sweet bippie that I’m so sick that getting up would make me sicker. Cat Stevens greets me this morning with his song: If You Want To Sing Out…
Yes, I want to sing out the fact that the BLS lies, and cheats, and cooks the books! I want to sing out that The Fed Heads lie to us… I want to sing out that there are just a handful of Congressmen that would actually cut deficit spending, and they are not friends of the POTUS… And the Gov’t lies to us…
I’ll stop there… The dollar saw some minor buying as the BBDXY gained 1 index point and ended the day at 1,214… You could also say that the dollar lost 6 index points, if you go back to the ending price of Friday… Yeah, that sounds better, so I’ll stick with that! Gold & Silver started the week on a down note yesterday… Gold ended the day down $29 to close a $4,649 and Silver lost $1.02 to close at $72.13
The 10-year Treasury remained in a tight range, and ended the day with a 4.33% yield… I would caution against buying the 10-year as I truly believe that yields will be going much higher …. Of course, in 10-years the bond might be back to current levels, but in the meantime, you’re carrying a loss…
The price of Oil continues to rise, yesterday it gained $5 to end the day at $115… The Oil price is not as high as suspect it will go… but then I don’t subscribe to “Polly Anna’s book of everything is rosy”…
The rise in the Oil Price has really put a damper on economy… Here’s CNBC with their take on Oil…. ““Discretionary spending is typically where the cycle starts. Consumers pull back from items which are discretionary first,” said MassMutual Wealth chief investment officer Daken Vanderburg.
Vanderburg says higher energy prices act as a tax on consumers because they ripple across so many goods and services. If the war and its disruption is short, consumers will dip into savings and weather the higher costs. But a longer-duration conflict will cause consumers to cut back. “That slows growth and hits spending, and does it quite quickly,” Vanderburg said.
Chuck again… yes, if you go back to the first day that I wrote after my spring vacation, I said that the conflict with Iran would go longer than the pundits were calling for… And now we’re in for one month… and probably longer…
In the overnight markets last night… there was little movement in the dollar overnight, but it did get sold a bit and starts today with the BBDXY at 1,213… Gold is up a smidgen, but Silver is down to start our day today… Gold is up $12 and Silver is down 60-cents… I have something for you on Gold in the FWIW section today, so stayed tuned, don’t touch that dial!
The price of Oil slipped a but overnight and starts today at $114.71… And the 10-year Treasury saw some light selling overnight, and the yield rose to 4.34%…
Well, I tried to go back to sleep yesterday after sending out the Pfennig… But too much noise in the house kept me from falling asleep…. UGH!
The currencies all are looking a bit better these days, especially the Petrol Currencies… It’s been a month of Sundays since we last saw the Russian ruble below $80… The Norwegian krone is playing catch up with the Swedish koruna… And the Brazilian real quietly gains a bit here and there…
I wonder when the People’s Bank of China are going to allow the renminbi to gain big chunks VS the dollar? I know that’s not the “Chinese Way”… but at least they don’t have to worry about the lack of energy reaching them to harm their economy… The Iranians are allowing Chinese shipments of Oil to flow through the Strait of Hormuz, if they pay for the Oil in renminbi… No problem! The Chinese would love to pay with renminbi!
And a quick look at the currencies this morning I saw the renminbi was moved to a 6.86 from 6.88… that’s a big move for the Chinese… You know the more I think about this conflict with Iran, the only way to get them to open the Strait of Hormuz, is to get the Chinese and Russians involved in the peace talks, they are the only two countries that Iran will listen to, in my humble opinion…
And the Euro-Wannabes are not in rally mode right now. I’ve told you before that when you really want to know if the dollar is selling, first look at the euro, and then the Euro-Wannabes of Poland, Czech, and Hungary… These 3 always tell me if the dollar is really getting sold…
OK… That was back when we used the Dollar Index to check the pulse of the dollar, but now we use a more up-to-date index the BBDXY to see how the dollar fared against their major trading partners… But I still look at the Euro-Wannabes as a quick take on the dollar… I don’t know why, just old habits are hard to break, eh?
Back to bonds and their yields rising for a minute… The Fed hasn’t even raised rates yet, and the 10-year gathers yield thus making the pricing of mortgage loans even pricier… Mortgage rates hit 6.46% after climbing for fifth straight week. The average rate on the 30-year fixed rate mortgage averaged 6.46% as of Thursday, according to Freddie Mac. So much for a housing revival… I’m just saying…
The 30-year or the “long bond” that used to be the cat’s meow of bond traders, crossed over the 5% yield rate the other day… Well, it’s a good thing that they don’t use the 30-year to price mortgages!
And with a housing revival on circling the bowl, Housing as a whole should get cheaper… And with a lot of Americans using their home as at ATM or collateral on debt, this could get real ugly quickly… We’ve been through a housing debacle already in 2007-08… Don’t tell me we could heading back there again…. Nah, I don’t think so, but we could… The margin calls on debt are going to be the thing that makes people have to sell their most precious possessions…..
Hey, Chuck! Just because you feel awful this morning, doesn’t mean you have to make the rest of us ill with all this doom and gloom talk! I’m sorry, I just started typing and really just now saw what I wrote! Oh-No! Sorry about that… But I have just one question: Got Gold?
The U.S. Data Cupboard today has the Feb print of Durable Goods Orders, of which I think they’ll be negative… See more doom and gloom! I’m still fuming about the lie that the BLS told us about jobs created in March… 116,000 jobs created difference between the BLS and the ADP Employment Report… I know who’s flag I’m pinning my colors to!
For What It’s Worth… Well, I’ve been seeing headline printed a lot lately, so I thought that I’d give you a FWIW article that explained it… it’s about Central Banks selling Gold, and it can be found here: Some central banks have been selling their gold. That doesn’t mean you should too. – MarketWatch
Or, here’s your snippet: “Gold suffered its biggest monthly drop in nearly 13 years and some central banks have shifted from being buyers to sellers — but that actually proves the precious metal can be more valuable to investors than it’s ever been.
“The narrative that central banks have abandoned gold is just not supported by the data,” said Jan Skoyles, the U.K.-based head of marketing at precious-metals dealer GoldCore. The data, instead, show a “crisis-driven liquidation by a handful of countries under severe currency pressure. It is not a structural shift away from gold reserves.”
“Gold is the asset that has held its value well enough to be worth liquidating,” Skoyles said in a YouTube video posted on April 2. “That is not a weakness in gold. That is the entire point of gold.”
Central-bank gold buying was one of the strongest “pillars” underneath gold’s bull market, Skoyles noted. It was a big part of the reason why gold prices began a relatively steady climb in 2022 to repeatedly reach fresh record highs.
Gold futures, based on the most active COMEX contracts, reached their latest all-time on Jan. 29 of this year, trading as high as $5,626.80 an ounce.
Central banks purchased over 1,000 metric tons of gold each year in 2022, 2023 and 2024 — roughly double the average over the preceding decade, according to the World Gold Council. Buying slowed a bit in 2025, but remained high at 863 metric tons that year.”
Chuck again…. this article is behind MarketWatch’s paywall so unless you have a subscription to Market Watch, you’ll have to be satisfied with the snippet this morning… sorry…
Market Prices 4/7/2026: American Style: A$ .6933 , kiwi .5705, C$ .7185, euro 1.1556, sterling 1.3243, Swiss $1.2504, European Style: rand 16.8790, krone 9.6809, SEK 6.4663, forint 330.15, zloty 3.69.79, koruna 21.7232, RUB 78.83, yen 159.83, sing 1.2845, HKD 7.8360, INR 92.90, China 6.8645, peso 17.75, BRL 5.1445, BBDXY 1,213, Dollar Index 99.99, Oil $114.71, 10-year 4.34%, Silver $72.31, Platinum $1,958.00, Palladium $1,494.00, Copper $5.57, and Gold… $4,661
That’s it for today… I have to run out of here to the hospital for my appt with my oncologist and infusion… I know I said last week that I wouldn’t write today, but I did, so now you’re stuck with me! HA!
Congratulations to Michigan for winning the NCAA Basketball Championship last night…. My beloved Cardinals fought back and went ahead in the game las night only to blow it the next inning! UGH! They lost to the Nationals… They should have won against the Nationals but didn’t! Well, the Iranians have rejected our Peace Proposal, so the the new round of strikes against Iran will be devastating. They will begin at 20:00, Washington DC time on Tuesday… Geez, I hope it doesn’t have to come to that… Carlos Santana takes us to the finish line today with his song: Samba Pa’ Ti… It’s an instrumental so I’m not singing along with the song.. I hope you have a Tom Terrific Tuesday today, and Please Be Good To Yourself!
Chuck Butler