- The dollar gets sold on Friday and in the overnight markets last night
- 178,000 jobs out of thin air….
Good Day… Well, did you have a Blessed Easter? I do realize that all of my readers aren’t of that faith, but give me a break here, as I am, and to me, when I’m writing that’s all that counts! HA ! I speak from the heart folks; you should know that by now…. I attended Alex’s catholic confirmation and baptism Saturday night… I got home to watch the last part of the Michigan / Arizona game, of which Michigan was way ahead and won…. Son Alex remined us yesterday, that our St. Louis U. Billikens were the only team in this tournament to be within 10 points of Michigan… Yes, Michigan is THAT good! The Doobie Brothers greet me this morning with their song: Another Park, Another Sunday…
Well, after recovering nicely on Thursday, Gold & Silver were subjected to the SPTs on Friday, and ended the week down… Gold closed the week at $4,678, and Silver at $73.15… Ed Steer had this to say about Silver in his Saturday letter; “the gold/silver ratio remains at a farcical 64.1 to 1 as of Thursday’s close. The ‘normal’ and historical ratio is around 15 to 1…which would put silver at around $310 based on gold’s closing price on Thursday. And if priced at the ratio of 7:1 that it comes out of the ground at, compared to gold…that would put silver at around $670 an ounce.”
You can find Ed at www.edsteergoldsilver.com
Now those are some lofty prices for Silver dont’ you think? I really don’t see Silver returning to a 15-1 ratio, but if it did… There would be whole camp site of happy Silver owner campers…
The dollar ended the week with the BBDXY at 1,215… The PPT must have been in to manage the price higher for the dollar, as on Thursday the BBDXY had fallen 5 index points to 1,212… The currencies all look tired from all the attempts to get out of their respective sick beds… There’s been a ton of talk going around about how the paper currencies are all going to fold… This has been going around for years now, but got a lot louder, lately… I say, that we will know in plenty of time when to get out of the currencies…. And I’m sticking to that!
The price of Oil remained trading with a $111 handle and remained that way throughout the weekend, while the 10-year Treasury was its yield trade at 4.35% …
In the overnight markets last night… There probably weren’t any senior traders around, on Easter Monday, and there wasn’t much movement in the asset classes that I follow… The dollar saw a dip lower and the BBDXY lost 2 index points to start our day/ week at 1,213… Gold & Silver are positive, but the move higher is watered down this morning. We start the day/ week with Gold up $1 and Silver up 9-cents… Hey! It’s better than a sharp stick in the eye that the SPTs use on the metals when they get into the markets…
The price of Oil dipped a buck overnight and starts the day / week at $110… And the 10-yeare Treasury was its yield dip lower to start our day/ week at 4.33%
I found this over the weekend, and it’s from Barron’s.com, “The 10-year yield rose as high as 4.337% when ADP earlier this week, reported private employers added more jobs than expected.
Taken together, the two reports tell traders to reprice the value for bonds; if the labor market isn’t as weak as previously thought, they should be paying less for bonds, a haven asset that doesn’t perform well in good times.
Chuck again… another friendly reminder that when bond prices go down, the yield on the bond goes up and vice versa…
And here’s another tidbit on Treasuries that is scarry… The U.S. has over $10 Trillion in bond maturities in the next 12-months… Now, if we look back for a moment at the bond auctions of last week, we find that the U.S is dire need of buyers for their debt… That doesn’t spell tranquility in the bond markets going forward, now does it? No… it doesn’t, and that means that someone is going to have to buy the bonds that the markets wouldn’t absorb… And that Someone is most likely the Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel… And to buy the bonds (it used to be called Quantitative Easing) they’ll have to print the money to pay for them…
We’ve seen what that did to the money supply and inflation previously, right… Well, imagine bond buying on steroids… I’m just saying…
U.S. Treasuries have become the hot potato that no one wants to hold… This is going to be a real problem for our economy folks… I can’t stress this enough folks… And all this means that the Gov’t has chosen higher inflation for us… Not for them of course, but for us… Are you ready for all of this? And in another question…. Got Gold?
I overslept this morning… I was up sick during the night, so I said, ” to hell with getting up before dawn” and turned off the alarm… So, that means you’re in luck this morning, because this will be a short-n-sweet Pfennig….
The U.S. Data Cupboard last Friday, was the cause of all the euphoria in the markets, as the BLS created 178,000k jobs in March… Wait! What? The ADP Employment Report only that only 62,000 jobs were created in March… So, where did the BLS find another 116,000 jobs? Out of thin air, folks… The BLS is up to their old tricks… That report from the BLS was bad enough, but there were some sticking points in the report on for that I’m going to Forbes.com…
“Don’t get too comfortable, said Diane Swonk, chief economist at KPMG.
“The unemployment rate dropped, but for the wrong reasons: a loss in labor force participation,” Swonk told Fortune. The declines were concentrated among prime working-age men (twenties to thirties); young women between ages 20 and 24; and men over 55. In other words, the unemployment rate fell not because people found work, but because they became discouraged and stopped looking.
The broader U-6 measure of unemployment, which captures exactly those discouraged workers plus those stuck in part-time jobs when they want full-time work, actually edged up to 8%, even as the headline rate improved.”
Chuck again… this was under the hood, and the markets failed to look under the hood… Once again, they had a knee-jerk reaction to the report… I shake my head in disgust…
This week’s Data Cupboard has Durable Goods Orders, Personal Income and Spending, a second revision of the 4th Qtr GDP… As if we care about what happened 4 months ago? We’ll finish the week with the STUPID CPI and that will print on Friday, when I’m not writing… Thank goodness!
To recap… The dollar got sold to send the week and then saw some selling overnight, so people are seeing what’s going on I do believe…. Treasuries have become persona non gratis… And that’s a bad thing for us… And the BLS said that they created 178,000 jobs in March… Chuck disputes this number, as he normally does when the BLS makes these unbelievable reports up….
For What It’s Worth… I’ve mentioned on a couple occasions that the Private Credit market in the U.S. was having problems… this is getting worse folks… and the size of the Private Credit markets is on par with the housing collapse in 2008… So, keep an eye on this.. This article can be found here: Barings’ private credit fund limits withdrawals after redemption requests surge | Reuters
Or, here’s your snippet: “Asset manager Barings capped redemptions at one of its private credit funds at 5% of shares after investors sought to withdraw 11.3% in the first quarter, according to a regulatory filing on Monday.
Private credit funds have grappled with high redemption requests in recent months as jittery retail investors bolt for the door amid concerns over transparency, valuations and artificial intelligence-related disruption.
Non-traded funds, like Barings Private Credit, offer quarterly liquidity to investors through tender offers typically of up to 5% of shares.
Barings has accepted to purchase on a pro-rata basis roughly 44.3% of shares tendered in its offer, according to the filing.
“The fund’s liquidity framework is designed to protect the long-term interests of all shareholders. By applying this approach consistently, we seek to balance near-term liquidity needs with prudent”
Chuck again… Blackrock, and other Big Casino Banks that offer this service are finding that the goings on is not so easy… I’m just saying…
Market Prices 4/6/2026: American Style: A$ .6929, kiwi .5722, C$ .7188, euro 1.1553, sterling 1.3248, Swiss $1.2543, European Style: rand 16.8384, krone 9.7198, SEK 9.4655, forint 331.05, zloty 3.6926, koruna 21.2076, RUB 78.87, yen 159.34, sing 1.2839, HKD 7.8368, INR 93.06, China 6.8822, peso 17.78, BRL 5.1563, BBDXY 1,213, Dollar Index 99.89, Oil $110.25, 10-year 4.33%, Silver $73.24, Platinum $2,004.00, Palladium $1,523.00, Copper $5.65, and Gold… $4,678
That’s it for today… A strange night for yours truly… Man, the confirmation and Baptism celebration on Saturday night was a very long, affair… I am proud of Alex for a number of reasons, but he made this decision as an adult, which I feel is the right way to do it… Don’t send me messages telling this is wrong, this is what I feel… And that’s that! Did I tell you that Alex and his wife Grace, are expecting a baby at the end of June? I’m sure I did, but isn’t that great news? When he was just 3, he used to sit on my lap while I wrote the Pfennig, his input looked like this: @#23&^%$$… Gerry Raferty takes us to the finish line today with his song: Get It Right Next Time… I hope you have a Marvelous Monday today, and Please Be Good To Yourself!
Chuck Butler