June 28, 2023
* Currencies and metals get sold overnight…
* The short positions in Silver surge higher….
Good Day… And a Wonderful Wednesday to you! Well, that was some game last night! My beloved Cardinals got over their Jet lag and beat the Astros 4-2… I had a group of my pals over to watch the game with me outside, and we hooted and hollered our birds to victory… A haze had settle over the field, as the forest fires from Canada had come into the St. Louis area… It hasn’t affected us out in the suburbs yet… I had a normal day yesterday, my second all alone at home, no sugar problems… Good friend, Mike, who is a type 1 diabetic, was lecturing me on not taking my low blood sugar events so lightly… I get it, and I won’t from here on out! The O’Jays greet me this morning with their song: Love Train…
Well. the dollar started the day down, and didn’t budge much even with the El jefe, Fed Head, Powell, telling the markets that he believes the Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel, will have to hike rates at least 2 more times this year… I’m thinking that the currency traders just don’t believe him, otherwise the I would think that the dollar would have gone on a rampage, taking no prisoners… But that didn’t happen as the BBDXY started the day yesterday at 1,227 and ended the day trading at 1,227… Gold however couldn’t hold its early morning gain, and ended up losing $9.10 on the day to close at $1,914.70. Silver was able to hold on to some of its early morning gain, and ended up gaining 7-cents on the day, to close at $22.94…
Why on earth did Gold lose when the dollar was stuck in the mud? Short paper traders, haven’t gotten to the bottom yet apparently… The price of Oil remained trading with a $68 handle, and the 10-year saw its yield rise to 3.76%…
The euro remains trading in the 1.09 handle, getting ever-so-close to 1.10, that the euro traders can smell it, but… it just can’t seem to get over the hump… But in my opinion, it will, as ECB President, La Garde, told the markets yesterday that there are more rate hikes to come, as inflation remains a problem… So, interest rates in the Eurozone will be going higher, while those in Japan remain at zero, and those in the U.S. are on “pause”… That’s why I think the euro will eventually take out the 1.10 handle…
In the overnight markets last night… Well… the buying of the dollar overnight is the type of buying that has intervention written all over it… Any-old-way, the BBDXY has gained 5 index points , and is sitting pretty this morning. The dollar buying is crazy, folks… I guess Powell’s speech and words about 2 more rate hikes in 2023, really struck a chord with the overnight markets? Seems that the overnight markets heard you loud and clear, Jerome Powell!
Well, the stronger dollar this morning, has been bad news for the metals… Gold is down $7 to start the day, and Silver is down 37-cents… Gold is barely above $1,900, and it now appears to me that the short paper traders have a dip below $1,900 as their bottom… And as far as Silver is concerned, Ed Steer (www.edsteergoldsilver.com) tells me this morning that in the Silver ETF (SLV) the shorts surged… Here’s his piece on this: “The Wall Street Journal’s website early yesterday evening — and showed a disappointing increase in the short position in SLV…from 14.19 up to 18.81 million shares…an increase of 32.54%.”
So, as you can see there are short paper trades in Silver at the Comex, and there are short SLV shares on the ETF… I’m just not going to give the short paper traders any credit here, they amassed these outrageous short positions without any worry of repercussions from the regulators… sort of like, when the cat is away the mice will play, only here, the cat has never even shown up… I’m just saying..,
The price of Oil has slipped another buck and trades this morning with a $67 handle… How low can it go before the Oil companies just stop drilling for Oil? I guess we’re going to find out, eh?
Well, the digital dollar is coming to a theater near you, soon… The authorities have tested the digital currency, they’ve massaged it, they’ve even used it some trade… So, to say that we’re going to sidestep a digital currency is to be akin to saying pigs will fly… So, what will happen when everyone in American figures out that the digital currency is simply a ploy by the government to pry into the personal lives of every American? Well, I hate to say it but the cryptos will benefit, as too will Gold… (I don’t hate saying that about Gold)
Good friend, Dennis Miller sent me a picture yesterday of a woman in 1980, with her grocery shopping cart overflowing with goods, that she bought for $25… Now if that doesn’t illustrate how inflation has taken over this economy, I don’t know what would do better! I just went to the grocery store on Monday, and spent a large amount of money, and didn’t fill my grocery cart! When I first started driving a car, I could get gas for 22-cents a-gallon… That was 1971… And the list goes on, how the lawmakers of this country have sold us down the river with all thier deficit spending, after Gold was removed from backing the dollar…
All the Central Bank buying of physical Gold last year, and continuing into this year, has me thinking that they all see the writing on the wall for the currency financial system, and that the new one, when it comes about, will incorporate Gold as th financial systems’s base… At least that’s how I see it coming about, and I would debate anyone that would like to argue otherwise!
And Bloomberg.com tells us this morning that China is not following through on their Opening of their Economy from the Covid shutdowns… The domestic spending in China is weakening, and that’s not a good thing for the Chinese economy… Here’s Bloomberg.com “The rebound in consumption after China shed its Covid controls has propelled growth so far this year, but confidence is weak and evidence is mounting that the economy may need more help. After the central bank cut policy rates earlier this month, economists raised their expectations for more monetary and fiscal stimulus, and state-run media outlets have also published a series of articles in recent days highlighting possible avenues of support.”
Chuck again… The Chinese renminbi has weakened so much that the Chinese Gov’t is looking at intervention… But you know what’s crazy? Remember when the previous POTUS was in office, China’s weak currency was the center of attacks, on how the Chinese kept their currency weak to promote exports… And now? Crickets…. This is not a political comment, it’s just pointing out what was important to one and not another…
The U.S. Data Cupboard yesterday had a surprise for us, when the May print of Durable Goods, printed at 1.7% gain… I was suspected a negative number, and so immediately I thought of cooked books here… How does every other data print show rot on the vines of the economy and this one doesn’t? Cooking the books, that’s how… I’m just saying…
Today’s Data Cupboard doesn’t have much for us except for another Jerome Powell speach… How many times does he need to tell us that he expcets to hike rates 2 more times in 2023?
To recap… The dollar didn’t move off of the early morning figures from the overnight trading yesterday, even with Jerome Powell telling the world that he expect to hike rates 2 more times in 2023… Now that seemed strange to Chuck, but so be it… Gold saw a ton of short paper trades yesterday, and wasn’t able to hole on to its early morning gains… And Chuck points out that the digital dollar is coming, and should be a boon for Gold and the Cryptos… He even mentions that he hates to have to say that about the Cyrptos…
For What It’s Worth… I know, I know I said yesterday, that I would print a rebuttal to the FWIW article about how there wouldn’t be a gain to Oil during the summer driving season this year, today… But then this article came to me, and it has precedence over an Oil story… This is about all the corruption in the current admiistration, and what it will lead to, and it can be found Here: “Blatant Political Corruption”: The Rot In America’s Democracy Explained In Under 1000 Words | ZeroHedge
Or, here’s your snippet: “Over the last several weeks and months, a deluge of damning breadcrumbs have been revealed by various whistleblowers, congressional investigators, and investigative reporters – the entirety of which has been a shotgun blast of information overload.
When put together, they paint a picture of such shocking corruption, that one can only conclude that the period we’ve lived through, between the 2020 U.S. election, the funding, origins, and coverup of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the overt corruption of the Biden family, one can only conclude that we’re living through one of the worst, if not the worst, periods of political scandals and institutional rot in American history.
Making sense the current state of affairs is journalist Tom Elliott, founder of Grabien, who has assembled what may be the world’s most perfect tweet on how Joe Biden owes his 2020 election victory to “blatant political corruption.”
1) An IRS probe into the Bidens money laundering payments from hostile nations — the normal outcome of which would have ended his candidacy — was instead given a stand-down order
2) The FBI & IRS wanted to search Biden’s house in September 2020 but were given a stand down order.
3) The @FBI authenticated Hunter’s laptop a year before the NYPost first reported on its contents
4) Rather than use the laptop’s voluminous documentation of myriad felonies to initiate criminal investigations, the FBI hatched a plot to warn social media companies of an imminent “hack & leak” operation of what they heavily suggested was Russian disinformation
5) The FBI used its 2016 Russia collusion probe — which the Durham probe has since proven was essentially an extension of the Clinton campaign — to rationalize its meddling in the 2020 election.
6) The FBI also conducted an influence operation with various reporters at major newspapers to convince them that forthcoming damaging reporting about Biden that they knew was true was in fact not
7) The FBI was spying on Giuliani when he shared the laptop’s contents with the NYPost”
Chuck again… This article has 18 points to illustrate their thoughts that we live in a time when corruption in Gov’t has become the norm… I ask you to give this article the full read, and when done, ask yourself, this: “What’s our country coming to?
Market Prices 6/28, 2023: American style: A$.6623, kiwi .6082, C$ .7550, euro 1.0942, sterling 1.2660, Swiss $1.1140, European Style: rand 18.7267, krone 10.8200, SEK 10.7801, forint 339.70, zloty 4.0917, koruna 21.6771, RUB 85.84, yen 144.19, sing 1.3526, HKD 7.8321, INR 82.05, China 7.2465, peso 17.07, BRL 4.8273, BBDXY 1,232.43, Dollar Index 102.77, Oil $67.31, 10-year 3.74%, Silver $22.67, Platinum $918.00, Palladium $1,260.00, Copper $3.76, and Gold… $1,907.02
That’s it for today… Today is my youngest son, Alex’s Birthday! Little Alex, who at 3 would sit on my lap and help me write the Pfennig, turns 28 today! Alex has a doctorate in Physical Therapy, and is employed at a Rehab Center near us… He’s come a long way from the little chubby kid that sat at a computer most of the day… So, Happy Birthday Bud… I hope your day is grande! My day two of being all by myself, went along just fine… And then my friends all came over to watch the game with me outside, which took my mind off of being alone… Thanks Guys! I can’t believe that Alex is 28 today… Where’d those 28 years go? of all my kids, Alex looks out for me the most… And is always attempting me to try something else/ new, that will help me with my mobility… The great Percy Sledge takes us to the finish line today with his great 60’s song: When A Man Loves A Woman… I saw a 69 year old Percy Sledge singing that song on TV a while back, and he sounded the same at 69 as he did in 1966! I hope you have a Wonderful Wednesday today, and please Be Good To Yourself!
Chuck Butler