- Currencies & metals get sold overnight
- Frank Trotter visits us this morning!
Good Day… And a Tom Terrific Tuesday to you! Well, Game 7 didn’t disappoint, as it was very good… I sat outside reading for hours yesterday, the sun was warm, and I loved it! The temp was the highest it’s supposed to be the rest of the week, so I had to get in my outside time! Congrats to the Bue Jays, they will be the American League representative to play the Dodgers in the World Series that begins on Friday… I’m still not out of my funk I’ve been in since Saturday… And I received word on my chart of the scans results… No new cancer anywhere in my body… And the lesion in my jaw has shrunk significantly… Maybe I’ll start feeling better… Steely Dan greets me this morning with the title song of the album of same name: Aja
Well, once again Gold has grabbed the brass ring, and gone on to gain momentum once again. Gold gained $107 on the day Monday, as physical buyers of Gold tried to shove it the SPTs face after taking Gold down $75 last Friday. Silver tried to cut into its $2.25 loss last Friday, by gaining 58-cents… Gold closed the day at $4,357, and Silver closed the day at $52.44…
I don’t know how to express my feeling for the SPTs without cussing and calling them names and accuse them of awful things… So, I’ll just move along and be very glad that their engineered takedown was only a one and done…
The dollar had gained 2 index points overnight Sunday night, but gave one of them back during the trading day on Monday… The BBDXY ended the day at 1,208… I just keeping scratching my bald head, and wondering who’s buying dollars right now?
I found this on Reuters yesterday… “- The Federal Reserve will go into a policy meeting next week with its view of the economy obscured by a U.S. government shutdown that has suspended the release of key data, a less-than-ideal situation for policymakers divided over which risks deserve the most attention.
Official employment data hasn’t been released since the shutdown of the federal government began on October 1, but what information that remains available points to still-weak job growth. The Fed’s own economic field reporting, still underway at the self-funded central bank, showed possible cracks in consumer spending, and recent business confidence surveys pointed to a dip.
Chuck again… Yes, and even without any data that counts, the Fed Heads are ready to cut rates again next week when they meet at a 2-day meeting… and still the dollar gets bought here and there… Wonders never cease!
The price of Oil remained trading with a $57 handle, and the 10-year dipped below 4% yield to end the day with a 3.98% yield… I said about 10 days ago, that I wondered if the Fed Heads would be finished manipulating the yield lower when they got the yield below 4%? The 10-year’s yield did fall below 4% yield a week or so ago, but that didn’t last, so the Fed Heads had more work to do…
In the overnight markets last night… The short paper traders are at it again overnight, with Gold down $132, and Silver down $2.53… This is getting ugly today, and any bullion bank that has a short position should be closed! Gold had just gotten back on the rally tracks when the SPTs showed up to knock the metals off! This has got me so furious this morning, and with me feeling under the weather, the two don’t go together so nicely!
And to add salt to the wound, the dollar is rallying, as it got bought overnight, and the BBDXY gained 3 index points to 1,212… The PPT must be in to manipulate the dollar and keep it from falling because I know of no one that is buying dollars.. So, it’s a Manipulation Tuesday today… I guess we’ll just have to batten down the hatches and ride this out… As REO sang years ago, Ridin’ The Storm Out…
And the currencies have been sent to their respective sick bed, sans the Chinese renminbi,… Every time the currencies get out of their sick beds the manipulation in the dollar begins and sends them right back!
The price of Oil remains in the $57 handle and the 10-year Treasury’s yield starts today at 3.98%… The 10-year has seen so much manipulation that’s it’s difficult to tell when it’s the Fed Heads selling or another entity… UGH!
Tariffs are making items that we buy and use every day more costly… But the Gov’t doesn’t seem to care because… The U.S. government ran a slightly smaller budget shortfall in the most recent year thanks to higher tariff revenue — but the national debt still rose to another record high and shows no sign of slowing.
The annual budget deficit slipped to $1.76 trillion in fiscal-year 2025 from $1.82 trillion in the prior year, the U.S. Treasury Department said Thursday. The government’s fiscal year runs from October through September.
So, we as the people have that working for us, eh? NOT! Well, at least the national debt will not explode higher as it has in previous years, but… Your debt will certainly go higher because Citizens are going through their disposable income faster than a speeding bullet.
And, with consumers parrying back… The U.S. economy has lost momentum over the past 2 months, per the Fed’s/ Cabal’s/ Cartel’s Beige book findings… Only 4 of the 12 districts showed some growth… This is just the beginning, as the tariffs are just now starting to filter through to consumer items… Mark my words on this folks… We will be in a World of Woe coming to us sooner than you might think…
High inflation and lack of jobs leave Americans frustrated with the economy, and when “the people” get frustrated with the economy, they shut down… At least that’s what has happened in past slowdowns… And 75% of Americans say they’re struggling with inflation, a recent survey shows.
OK, what to talk about next? Should we talk about the US, Argentina Signing a $20 Billion Swap Deal Amid Deep Peso Rout… Now, I understand that China is moving in on most S. American countries for trade, and Brazil stands alone as a U.S. ally, I get it that the U.S. wants to help Argentina, but we have problems of greater degree here in this country, right? So, bully for Argentina… not so much for consumers here in this country…
The farmers are the group I’m talking about… Their bins are overflowing with crops that have nowhere to go… I’m all for the farmers they are the forgotten folks in the tariffs war… Buy local produce at the grocery store every time you need to buy some!
A dear reader sent me a link to a video yesterday of Warren Buffett talking about how Gold is going to come upon something terrible… Now, if you follow Mr. Buffett, you are aware that he has not owned Gold before, or ever… But, he does own stocks and bonds, mutual funds, and hedge funds. So, to me, it makes sense that he disses Gold to promote what he owns! If you want to view the video, send me a note and I’ll send it to you… Otherwise, file this away along with the folks that say that Gold will go to $25,000….
The U.S. Data Cupboard still is barren and yesterday supposed print of Leading Indicators failed to launch… Maybe they didn’t want to print it because it was so bad… Maybe, just maybe, because you never know… (Andujar)
To recap, it was Gold’s day, as it gained $107.00 on the day, thus more than making up for the $75 loss the SPTs hung on Gold on Friday… Gold also reached another new all-time record level of $4,457.00 The dollar drifted all day yesterday, and ended up giving back 1 index point in the BBDXY, of the 2 index points it gained overnight…
Chuck is concerned about the farmers… His grandfather was a farmer, so now you know…
And before we go to the BIG FINISH… I have a special treat for you today… It’s a note from Frank Trotter, President of Battle Bank, and my boss again.. Here’s Frank:
“Last week Chuck asked about the inflation-adjusted price of gold, but after all, what should be the price? Prior to December 31st, 1974 while it was not legal for US persons own gold, the price in US dollars was $35 as established by the US Treasury for limited conversion of US dollars by foreign central banks. As with any price fixing the real value was therefore unknown. Once the convertibility was lifted in 1971, and in 1975 US persons were allowed to own gold, the market began to discover prices. In the midst of the early 1980s inflation and Volcker-driven rates the price rose over 2,000% to $880 before falling off for around 25-years.
Sticking to Chuck’s question, between 2010 and 2025 the CPI (no, I don’t believe it either but . . .) increased a nominal 49% while gold rose 206%. One back-of-the-envelope method would be to say that in real terms therefore gold was up 157% (206-49). Well lookie there, not uncoincidentally M2 money supply, which after all defines actual inflation, was up – drum roll – 158%. Of course we might say that the value of gold hasn’t changed, the value of US dollars has declined. Linking that to the real world, an old saw in the precious metals analysis is that an ounce of gold will buy a quality men’s suit. Checking in with off-the-rack prices from a few Saville Row tailors last night pointed to a $4,000 price, and again lookie there, a roughly $4,300 market price for gold. What should the price be? Well, the invisible hand is pretty good after all.”
Thanks Frank!
For What It’s Worth… Well, we had Warren Buffett give us his take on Gold… And now we have Ray Dalio give us his take on Gold, and it can be found here: Ray Dalio Explains Why Gold & Why Now… | ZeroHedge
Or, here’s your snippet: “Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio stated on Friday that gold has started replacing some U.S. Treasury holdings as the riskless asset for investors, amid a continued surge in the yellow metal’s prices.
This comes after he said investors should allocate as much as 15% of their portfolios to gold even as the precious metal surged to new all-time highs this week.
“Gold is a very excellent diversifier in the portfolio,” Dalio said Tuesday at the Greenwich Economic Forum in Greenwich, Connecticut.
“If you look at it just from a strategic asset allocation perspective, you would probably have something like 15% of your portfolio in gold … because it is one asset that does very well when the typical parts of the portfolio go down.”
In a follow-up post on X, Dalio summarized his answers to the many questions and his views on the barbarous relic…
You seem to look at gold and the gold price differently from most people. How do you think about gold?
You’re right. I think most people make the mistake of thinking of gold as a metal rather than as the most established form of money, and they think of fiat money as money rather than debt and they think that fiat money will be created to prevent debt defaults. That’s because most people have never lived with gold being the most fundamental money, and they haven’t studied the debt-gold-money cycles that have occurred in almost all countries over almost all time. However, anyone who has seen gold-money and debt-money evolve over time has a different view. In other words, to me gold is money like cash—over time, it has had about the same real return (1.2%)—because it doesn’t produce anything. But like cash, it has buying power that can be used to create money that is borrowed and enable people to do things like build money-making businesses that are owned via stocks. If those stocks are solid and produce the cash needed to pay back the loans, then of course the stocks are better. When they can’t pay back the loans and fiat money is printed to prevent the default problems, then non-fiat money (gold) is most valued. So, to me, gold is money like cash, except unlike cash it can’t be printed and devalued. It’s a good diversifier to stocks and bonds when bubbles pop and/or when people and countries don’t accept each other’s credit, like in wars.
In other words, to me gold is the most sound fundamental investment rather than a metal. Gold is money like cash and short-term credit, but unlike cash and short-term credit which creates debt, it settles transactions—i.e., it pays for things without creating debt and it pays off debt.
Anyway, it has been obvious to me for some time that the relative supplies and demands of debt-money and gold-money were shifting against debt money’s value relative to gold money’s value. As for the right price for debt money to be relative to gold money, given the ratios of supplies and demands for each of them, and given the sizes of bubbles that could go pop, I know that I want to keep my piece of gold that’s part of my portfolio, and I think that those who are wrestling between having no gold at all or a small amount of gold are making a mistake.”
Chuck Again… Well, I’ve stated before that I read Ray Dalio’s books, and think of him as a very astute investor, very well read, and is up on history… So… I think I’ll stick with Ray Dalio on Gold…
Market Prices 10/21/2025: American Style: A$ .6493, kiwi .5723, C$ .7120, euro 1.1610, sterling 1.3397, Swiss $1.2578, European Style: rand 17.3177, krone 10.0510, SEK 9.4185, forint 335.56, zloty 3.6514, koruna 20.9393, RUB 81.18, yen 151.95, sing 1.2974, HKD 7.7715, INR 87.93, China 7.1187, peso 18.43, BRL 5.3882, BBDXY 1,212, Dollar Index 98.89, Oil $57.93, 10-year 3.98%, Silver $49.91, Platinum $1.554.00, Palladium $1,141.00, Copper $4.99, and Gold… $4,224.
That’s it for today… A very long Pfennig today… take that to heart when there won’t be a Pfennig on Thursday this week, as I’ll be at the hospital seeing my oncologist… and an infusion… UGH! So, I’ll cut the ending short today, due to the length of the letter… Have you ever wondered how I get so much into a letter and get it out early in the morning? Well, if you figure it out, tell me! HA The Pousette-Dart Band take us to the finish line today with their song: Amnesia… I hope you have a Tom Terrific Tuesday today and Please Be Good To Yourself!
Chuck Butler