The Dollar Buying Continues…

November 29, 2021

* Currencies & Gold rally on Friday in thin volume… 

* The Dollar Tree is now the $1.25 Tree… 

Good Day… And a Marvelous Monday to you! I trust you all had a very Blessed Thanksgiving? I did, and enjoyed seeing everyone once again… I was sad to hear that son Andrew, and his family, which includes my little Evie, would not be with us this year, at it was the year where they went to his wife’s (Rachel) mom’s for Thanksgiving… And that brought me back to old memories of the arguments Kathy and I used to get into about who’s house we would be going to on Thanksgiving…  But those all ended, thankfully, when I decided that we would host Thanksgiving at our house every year, and from then on… things have gone beautifully!  Silly things, that aren’t worth arguing about, eh? I made a typo error on Wednesday last week, I mentioned that I loved the song Winter Romance by Beegie Adair, but I typed Adams… UGH!  Well, she’s playing again this morning, her version of the song: Little Drummer Boy

Well, when I left you last week on Wednesday, the dollar was kicking tail and taking names later, and there appeared to be nothing to stop it.. .The BBDXY  on Wednesday closed at 1,190.43 up a lot from the beginning of the week… I had mentioned on Wednesday that the Datapalooza which took place on Wednesday could spell the end of the dollar buying…  Well, it took a day for that to happen, and on Wednesday it appeared that I was barking up the wrong tree… But after Thursday’s non-event market goings on, because of the U.S. Holiday, Friday came along, and PFFT, went the dollar buying.. So maybe Chuck was right, and it just took a days for it to come to fruition…  But probably not… Because there was something afoot in the markets on Friday… So, let’s go to the tape!

On Friday, with the markets pretty thin, as most senior traders were taking a 4 day holiday weekend, there came news that a new COVID Variant “Omicron” was spreading in S. Africa, and the markets went bananas… Stocks got sold like funnel cakes at a State Fair, Oil got sold down by $10, the biggest one-day drop since spring of 2020… The cryptocurrencies got sold,  and…. The dollar got sold…  The scare in the markets really pushed investors to run to bonds, which is just stranger than fiction to me, because who wants a bond that’s paying negative yield when you count inflation… But to each his own, right?  

Gold was bought on Friday, in some very thin volume, and ended the day up $3.40 to end the week at $1,792.80… Silver just can’t find a bid anywhere these days folks… the common man’s Gold ended the week at $23.19. 

The currencies, by virtue of the dollar selling found a rally deep inside the trading pits, with the euro finding its way back above 1.13… I don’t know if it’s time to come out, come out, wherever you are, like the good witch, Glinda, said to the munchkins, but this week will tell us if that is to be or not… But at least a tourniquet was wrapped around the bleeding currencies on Friday…  And there’s not much in the way of real economic data this week, until we get to Friday, so let’s see how the dollar fares…

In the overnight markets last night… Well, it appears to me that Friday’s trading was simply a case of light volume, and no real trading taking place, as the the dollar buying was reignited in the overnight markets last night.. The BBDXY rose to 1,1187, and the euro fell back below 1.13…  It will be interesting to see how the markets here in the U.S. feel about the Omnicron variant…  

The price of Oil rebounded a bit overnight, after taking on the selling that brought it down over $10 on Friday, Black Gold, Texas Tea, is up $3 and trades with a $71 handle this morning…  The selling of the S. African rand on Friday, due to the news of the new variant in their country,  and then again last night has been something to see… and not something good!  The Treasury’s 10-year yield has dropped to 1.54%, from last Wednesday’s 1.66%.. So, bonds were bought by the truckload, folks… 

Speaking of buying bonds… The Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel’s tapering does the exact opposite of buying bonds, and I’ve argued that I don’t see how the knuckleheads at the Eccles Building will be able to stay on the tapering course for too much longer…  And I’m not alone in that thought… I was scanning Twitter yesterday, and saw this quote from Stephanie Pomboy, of whom I really hold in high regard, for her knowledge of the markets and data… So, she was saying that she would wager a bet that the Fed will have to stop its tapering before they get to the end…    

There was also a point that she made about Retail Sales, which last week showed a rise of .9% in Rocktober… She said, that rise was brought on by higher prices, not increased sales…  Great Point! 

Ok… A couple of things that took place last week, while we stuffed ourselves with goodies… Dollar Tree, which has sold things for $1 for over 30 years, is raising their price to $1.25… Not that it’s the end of the world, just symbolic… But just shows to go ya, that inflation is hurting the common person, and not the elite… 

And this one really tore at me… I want to make this clear… I do NOT believe in tearing down statues to men that were an integral part of our history…  And so I was so distraught and angry when I read that in NYC they took down a statue of Thomas Jefferson…   Shame, Shame, Shame… 

And thanks to Tom Woods, who posted this in his letter on Friday, it’s a little history on Thomas Jefferson: “ Thomas Jefferson co-sponsored a 1769 bill to abolish slavery in Virginia, wrote the first draft of the law that banned slavery from the Midwest, called for and signed the law that abolished the international slave trade, wrote the most influential antislavery book in American history, drafted a bill (which failed by one vote in Congress) that would have banned slavery from most of today’s Deep South, and wrote the part of the Declaration of Independence that says “all men are created equal”

These people that think that they know all, and take down statues, make me sick… And that’s all I’ll say about that!

And finally… The St. Louis Post Dispatch ran an article on Thanksgiving showing the restaurant ads for Thanksgiving dinner in 1972….  You could get a full Turkey dinner with stuffing and all the trimmings and a piece of pumpkin pie, for…..  The whopping amount of $3.25…   We’ve come a long way from those days, now haven’t we? These days you probably wouldn’t be able to buy a slice of pumpkin pie for $3.25…  

I have some info on the new variant that spreading in S. Africa and how it affected the markets on Friday in the FWIW section today, compliments of Ed Steer… 

On Friday of this week we will hold the Jobs Jamboree for November… And I guess we have to count the seasonal workers for the Christmas shopping season in these numbers, but the thing I can’t get my arms around is the gigantic jobs creations each month, when on the other hand they are calling this the “Big Resignation”, with people quitting jobs left and right, and businesses having to close or shorten hours because they can’t find workers…

Like I said above, this week’s Data Cupboard is pretty empty most of the week…  Like today’s offering is just the Pending Home Sales report… Nothing to write home about for sure…

To recap… The dollar buying stopped on Friday, as a new COVID Variant spread throughout S. Africa, and spooked the markets with stocks getting sold, Oil getting sold, and the dollar getting sold… Investors bought bonds, for some reason unknown to the well educated, and Gold found some buyers in very light volume… Chuck goes out and puts some things down that are bothering him, and are you ready for a Jobs Jamboree?

For What It’s Worth… OK, I told you that I took this from Ed Steer’s letter, and it’s a blog posted by Doug Noland, of whom Ed thinks highly of, and so that means I do too!  This article about the Omnicron variant’s effect on the markets can be found here: Credit Bubble Bulletin : Weekly Commentary: Black Friday

Or, here’s your snippet: “I posted a link Thursday morning to a Bloomberg article, “New Coronavirus Variant a ‘Serious Concern’ in South Africa.” The seemingly small outbreak generated minimal media attention. Within 24 hours, however, global markets were in a tailspin, with Crisis Dynamics gaining critical momentum. The World Health Organization Friday in an emergency meeting designated the new B.1.1.529 – “Omicron” – a “variant of concern.”

Market reaction was swift and, in many cases, brutal. Pundits suggested panicked markets were overreacting. There is as yet no evidence of more severe symptoms from Omicron, and South Africa’s early recognition and communication offer the possibility of more successful global containment efforts. The U.K. and European Union moved quickly to restrict travel from South Africa, followed by Singapore, Japan, the U.S., Canada and others.

Once again, the wily Covid virus boasts ghostly timing. Omicron barges in with de-risking/deleveraging and global Crisis Dynamics attaining pivotal momentum. And with contagion rapidly enveloping the emerging markets (EM), disaster strikes for the vulnerable South African domino already in line for trouble.

The South African rand this week sank 3.4%, increasing 2021 losses to 9.8%. South African 10-year yields jumped 19 bps Friday (high since April 2020), boosting the week’s yield spike to 43 bps. South African CDS Friday surged 25 (43 for the week) to 252 bps – the high since March.

An index of EM CDS surged 19 Friday – the largest one-day rise since September 2020 – to 221 bps, the high back to October 2020. EM CDS surged 34 for the week, the biggest weekly gain since September 2020. Friday saw sovereign CDS surge 17.5 in Brazil to 268 bps (high since June 2020), 17.5 in Colombia to 218 bps (May 2020), and nine in Chile to 99 bps (May 2020). For the week, CDS jumped 26 bps in Brazil, 32 bps in Colombia, 27 bps in Mexico, and 11 bps in Indonesia.

The last thing Turkey needed was a stiff forearm shove toward a full-fledged financial and economic crisis. The Turkish lira sank another 2.8% Friday, pushing losses for the week to 8.9% – for the month to 22.1% and for 2021 to about 40%. Turkey’s 10-year (lira) yields spiked 80 bps this week, trading above 20% for the first time since May 2019. Turkey CDS surged 28 Friday (58 for the week) to a one-year high 504 bps. For a country with a population of 84 million – that saw living standards and expectations inflate right along with its Credit Bubble – the collapse is turning increasingly desperate.

Mexico is another key EM domino – with self-inflicted wounds placing it directly in the line of fire.”

Chuck again… Yes, I read this past weekend that Turkish citizens are dumping their currency and using U.S. dollars instead…  That to me is like jumping from the frying pan into the fire, but like I said above, to each his own…

Market Prices 11/29/2021: American Style: A$ .7147,  kiwi .6817, C$ .7852, euro 1.1289, sterling 1.3346, Swiss $1.0814, European Style: rand 16.1676, krone 9.0508, SEK 9.1148,  forint 326.56,  zloty 4.1605,  koruna 22.7419, RUB 75.40, yen 113.58, sing 1.3685, HKD 7.7993, INR 75.00, China 6.3920, peso 21.87, BRL 5.6083,  BBDXY 1,187.22, Dollar Index 96.20,  Oil $71.68, 10-year 1.54%, Silver $23.34, Platinum $977.00, Palladium $1,868.00, Copper $4.39, and Gold… $1,794.30

That’s it for today… Congratulations to the St. Louis University Billikens soccer team, who have advanced to the Quarterfinals of the college soccer tournament.. . They had to travel to Duke and play the Blue Devils, but they prevailed 4-3… And remain undefeated this year!  Saturday’s college football games were something for sure! Very exciting games, and a spanner was thrown into the works of the college playoff committee…  I attended a “Movember Party” on Saturday… It was a fundraiser for Prostrate Cancer… Thanks for the invite Duane and Dane!  Well, we turn the calendar over to a new month on Wednesday… My most disliked month will come to an end, thankfully!  We had another couple of days of warmer weather this past weekend, so my dislike of cold weather is getting a break… Rosemary Clooney takes us to the finish line today with her version of the song: Let It Snow… . and that reminds me of one of my fave movies of all time: White Christmas…  Ok, I hope you have a Marvelous Monday today, and please Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler

 

The Reserve Bank Of New Zealand Hikes Rates!

November 24, 2021

* currencies & metals get sold again on Tuesday

* The Aden Sisters drop by the Pfennig today… 

Good Day… And a Wild, Wacky, Wonderful Wednesday to one and all! We’ve been in a very strange weather pattern lately, where for a couple of days it warms up so it’s not so chilly, and then it goes right back to being bone chilling chilly! Yesterday and today, are the designated warmer days this week, before we head back to the cold… Longtime readers know that I abhor cold weather, and it’s the main reason I spend my winters in S. Florida… Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and I will give thanks once again for living in the U.S.A. We may have our problems here, but… People all over the world would love to live here, so apparently their problems are worse! Our Blues play the Detroit Red Wings tonight… Man, these games used to be barn burners…  But with the game the night before Thanksgiving, I’m sure the boys will be very gentlemanly tonight! HAHAHAHA! As if! Given all the rough play of a hockey game, have you  ever wondered what determines a “Roughing penalty”?  HA!  Chris Botti greets me this morning with his version of the song: The First Noel

So… tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and the official Christmas season will begin… I’ve been listening to Pandora’s Smooth Jazz Christmas station for 3 weeks now, so my Christmas season began then! And remember when I said that the talk of a shortage of Turkeys this year was Malarkey?  Why do people and media continue to hype things to scare people?  Oh well… Thanksgiving is a time when families and friends get together and count their blessings… Last year my family went around the table with each person saying what they were thankful for… When it was my turn, I said, “I’m thankful that the Good Lord has allowed me to live, so that I can be here with all of you”…

I’m really not into talking about the manipulated markets today, folks… so this is really going to be more about the things I’m thankful for, that are on my mind… But first, I will say that Gold got smacked around the head and shoulders again yesterday, and then I received a note from my publishers, the wonderful Aden sisters, Mary Anne and Pamela, and this is what they had to say about Gold’s recent downturn…

“The gold universe had a sharp fall this week, which was a big surprise. Why? Because it doesn’t make sense at all… All of the fundamentals are bullish for gold, silver and the shares, including the massive spending and debt inflation, greater demand and much more. The main reason given for gold’s decline was the reappointment of Jerome Powell as Fed head. But that’s ridiculous. Powell’s easy monetary policies have been very bullish for gold. We believe this is going to continue.

If so, then this decline will end up being an aberration. That’ll especially be true if gold holds near its current levels, which is a strong support level, and then heads higher. We’ll soon see what’s next, but the days ahead will be important for all of the metal sectors.” From the Aden Forecast…

The dollar continues to be on a rampage VS the currencies, and there’s no stopping it right now…  The BBDXY which began the week at 1,179.41, ended the day yesterday at 1,186.63… And the old Dollar Index, which hasn’t seen 100 in many years, continues its march toward 100…

The price of Oil shrugged off the news of 50 Million barrels of Oil being released from the Strategic Reserves, and gained about $2 on the day… I had a dear reader send me a note and tell me that in the whole scheme of things 50 Million barrels is a drop in the bucket and won’t change prices of gas…  So, like I said yesterday, this was a symbolic gesture by the POTUS, and nothing more…

In the overnight markets last night, the dollar continued to be bought, and we start today with the BBDXY at 1,188.35, so up some more… Gold and Silver are down again in the early trading today… My spider sense is tingling that today’s data in the U.S. could very well spell the end of the dollar buying, but I guess we’ll have to wait-n-see, eh? 

And the Reserve Bank of New Zealand / RBNZ, hiked rates again last night, marking their second rate hike in the last 3 months!  I once coined the phrase “Prudent Central Bank”, and the RBNZ was a part of that group, but in the last few years, with all Central Banks going to zero interest rates, buying bonds, and stimulating their respective economies, there were no more “Prudent Central Banks”… But The RBNZ appears to be re-applying for membership!  Way to go RBNZ! You Rock!

Please make sure that you tell at least one person tomorrow: Happy Thanksgiving…  No Happy Holidays, or any other bunk…  There’s no religion to this day, so go ahead and say: Happy Thanksgiving!

In our local newspaper yesterday, was this ditty… “A Missouri judge has stripped local health departments of their ability to issue orders designed to keep people safe during a pandemic.

In a case involving a St. Louis County restaurant owner, Cole County Circuit Judge Daniel Green said all health orders related to the spread of COVID-19 in the state should be lifted because they violate the state constitution’s separation of powers clause affecting the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government.”

I was always of that thought that they couldn’t tell businesses they had to close in this situation… Looks like I was correct, once again! HA

I just glanced at my wall board of pictures, and focused on one picture… It’s a picture of the World Markets Group that was once together at EverBank… In the picture Aaron Stevenson, Mike Harrell, Chris Gaffney, Ty Keough, Tim Smith, Antione Lawrence, Dane Moody, Christine Peplow,

Jen McClain, Mike Meyer, and Chuck Butler…  Now that was a great group of people to work with, and I am thankful that I got to know each and everyone of those folks, for they enhanced my life and made going to work each day a joy…

I’m thankful for my wife of 45 years.. That’s a long time folks, and while the last 15 have been very difficult for us, we’ve weathered the storms, and she has been a real trooper for me when I was in the depths of my cancer…

I’m thankful for my kids, Dawn, Andrew and Alex… and their partners, Jerry, Rachel, and Grace… Each of my children have carved out their careers in different ways, and all are successful. They love each other’s company, and we all get along great when together… I love spending time with each of them whenever I get the opportunity to do so.

I’m Thankful for my grandkids… The first grandkid, and the sweetest, Delaney Grace… Everett who turns 11 this week, and Braden who’s 10, are growing up to be fine young men, and then there’s little 2 year old Evie… It’s so much fun to have a little one around the house this time of year!

I’m thankful for my friends…  I’ve gone through quite a few friends through the years… But one constant friend, Mike Karvas, has been there since the 2nd grade… I worry about him, he worries about me, and still here we are! There are a plethora of names that are too many to mention each one, but I want them all to know that I’m a better person because of knowing them…

I’m thankful for my siblings… There were 7 of us to start, and only 4 remain… I miss my sisters, Brenda and Barbara, and brother David…  I trust they are in better places right now, while the remaining Butlers, Chuck, Terri, Joanie, and Mike continue to get through life, without them in our lives… I’m really thankful that I did get to spend meaningful years with them before their respective passing…

I’m thankful for you dear reader…  without you, what would I do? Talk to myself? I am so grateful that many of you dear readers have stuck with me from the beginning…  After reaching 20 years of writing the Pfennig in 2012, I signed baseball caps and sent them to the readers that had been with me those 20 years… I hope you still have those caps! They’ll be worth something someday… Well, probably not, but it was fun thinking that they would!

I’m thankful for the Aden Sisters, who were so kind, and gracious to pick me up when I was kicked to the curb, and offered to publish the Pfennig… They have been behind me all the way, and for that I’m Thankful!

And finally, like I said above: I’m thankful that the Good Lord has allowed me to live so that I can be here with all of you! 

And that brings me to the Datapalooza today… I warned you on Monday of this week that today would be a door busting day of data…  Personal Income and Spending, Core Inflation, Durable and Capital Goods Orders, and the Weekly Initial Jobless Claims, are the headliners, with other minor data prints also on the docket today…  I’m thinking that today, ends the dollar’s run to higher ground…

To recap… The dollar continues to kick tail and take names later while the anti-dollar assets get sold down the river… Gold got shellacked again yesterday losing the $1,800 handle once again, as it lost $14 on the day, and Silver dropped 53-cents on the day… Gold closed at $1,790.70 and Silver at $23.74…  The Aden Sisters take part in the Pfennig today with a quote from their excellent newsletter: The Aden Forecast.  And Chuck goes through a list of things that he’s thankful for on this day before Thanksgiving…

For What It’s Worth…  I’m straying from the normal FWIW Articles today, and going with some history/ Tradition that I love… You can find this whole article here: Thanksgiving 2021 – Tradition, Origins & Meaning – HISTORY

Or, here’s your snippet: “In September 1620, a small ship called the Mayflower left Plymouth, England, carrying 102 passengers—an assortment of religious separatists seeking a new home where they could freely practice their faith and other individuals lured by the promise of prosperity and land ownership in the “New World.” After a treacherous and uncomfortable crossing that lasted 66 days, they dropped anchor near the tip of Cape Cod, far north of their intended destination at the mouth of the Hudson River. One month later, the Mayflower crossed Massachusetts Bay, where the Pilgrims, as they are now commonly known, began the work of establishing a village at Plymouth.

Throughout that first brutal winter, most of the colonists remained on board the ship, where they suffered from exposure, scurvy and outbreaks of contagious disease. Only half of the Mayflower’s original passengers and crew lived to see their first New England spring. In March, the remaining settlers moved ashore, where they received an astonishing visit from a member of the Abenaki tribe who greeted them in English.

Several days later, he returned with another Native American, Squanto, a member of the Pawtuxet tribe who had been kidnapped by an English sea captain and sold into slavery before escaping to London and returning to his homeland on an exploratory expedition. Squanto taught the Pilgrims, weakened by malnutrition and illness, how to cultivate corn, extract sap from maple trees, catch fish in the rivers and avoid poisonous plants. He also helped the settlers forge an alliance with the Wampanoag, a local tribe, which would endure for more than 50 years and tragically remains one of the sole examples of harmony between European colonists and Native Americans.

In November 1621, after the Pilgrims’ first corn harvest proved successful, Governor William Bradford organized a celebratory feast and invited a group of the fledgling colony’s Native American allies, including the Wampanoag chief Massasoit. Now remembered as American’s “first Thanksgiving”—although the Pilgrims themselves may not have used the term at the time—the festival lasted for three days.”

Chuck again…  Norman Rockwell’s Thanksgiving painting is a favorite of mine, and illustrates what Thanksgiving means to so many Americans… I’m so glad I got this opportunity to share with you today what I’m thankful for…

Market Prices 11/24/2021: American Style: A$ .7205,  kiwi .6892, C$ .7874, euro 1.1214, sterling 1.3361, Swiss $1.0681, European Style: rand 15.8741, krone 8.9277, SEK 9.0837,  forint 328.79,  zloty 4.1733,  koruna 22.7242, RUB 74.77, yen 115.12, sing 1.3675, HKD 7.7968, INR 74.39, China 6.3883, peso 21.25, BRL 5.5886,  BBDXY 1,188.35, Dollar Index 96.74,  Oil $78.49, 10-year 1.66%, Silver $23.50, Platinum $983.00, Palladium $1,957.00, Copper $4.47, and Gold.. $1,786.20

That’s it for today, and this week…  So, will you be participating in the Black Friday sales? Our old EverBank office shared a parking lot with two major big box retailers, and there were times in the past when on Black Friday, parking was a madhouse… At least that’s what they would tell me, since I stopped working on the day after Thanksgiving many years ago! I guess most buying these days is done online.. I mean that’s where I go to buy things, but I have different circumstances… I love the food on Thanksgiving, but I especially love pumpkin pie with whipped cream!  And I love a turkey sandwich at the end of the night! I remember when the turkey we got on Thanksgiving would be the only turkey we would have all year! Now I eat turkey nearly every day!  So, onto Thanksgiving… Beegie Adams takes us to the finish line today with her version of the song: Winter Romance… I’ve got to say that this is one of my new fave Christmas songs… I hope you have a Wild, Wacky and Wonderful Wednesday today, and that you have a VERY Blessed THANKSGIVING tomorrow, and please Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler

 

 

50 Million Barrels Of Oil Released From Strategic Reserve…

November 23, 2021

* Currencies & metals get sold with vigor on Monday

* $152 Million in fines levied to the Bullion Banks, and still… 

Good Day.. And a Tom Terrific Tuesday to you! Well, have you taken your frozen turkey out of the freezer and transferred it to the fridge to begin the thawing? What are you waiting for?  I kid, I have no idea when that all is supposed to take place or go in order… All I know is that at some point Thursday afternoon, I’ll get called to come carve the turkeys… And that’s my contribution…. That and drinking a bottle of wine with dinner! HA!  Our Blues got back on the winning side of the ledger last night with a win VS Vegas…  On Wednesday and Friday, the Blues play the Red Wings and Blackhawks respectively… Before the realignment these teams were major adversaries for the Blues… Major fights, crazy games, etc. But now they play each other twice a year if that… The Stephen Kummer Trio greets me this morning with their version of the song: A Few Of My Favorite Things…

And one of those favorite things would not include the boys in the band showing up at the COMEX with arms full of short Gold paper trades…  Hearing that $152 Million in fines had been levied against the boys in the band (price manipulators) most definitely IS one of my favorite things to hear about!  But unfortunately, yesterday was the former of the two scenarios above… A slow day to start, soon became a monster of all selling days… Gold was sold by $40.50 yesterday, and spent the day searching for a bid, but never found one… Gold closed the day at $1.805.50

Silver lost a boat load of value too, losing 40-cents on the day, and falling to $24.26 to close the day… The news from Peru didn’t help matter either, as it was learned that Peru had  moved to close two of its mines on environmental grounds, deepening a clash between the mining industry and the left-leaning government….  C’mon can’t we all just get along? 

The dollar which didn’t have any data prints to illustrate the dollar’s problems yesterday, was on a roll early and often throughout the day… The BBDXY which began the day at 1,179.41, closed the day at 1, 184.86…  So, last night when I saw the BBDXY upward movement I immediately went to the currency screen, and believe it or don’t, but I couldn’t find one currency that was weaker VS the dollar any worse than what they started the day!  In fact, last night, the currencies were trading in the same clothes as they had on to start the day.  But, then I went to a different source and found that the Bloomberg quotes hadn’t updated! UGH! I almost fell for that one! 

So, in reality, the BBDXY did tell the correct story, and the currencies were chopped up by the dollar…  I told you last week that I feared that a battening of the hatches was in order, and I sure was bang on with that thought! 

In the Overnight markets last night… there was more dollar buying, as the BBDXY this morning is 1,185.47… And the currencies certainly are reflecting this strength of the BBDXY…  The dollar is the cat’s meow right now, folks…  I don’t get it one iota, but… it is what it is, and there’s nothing I can do about it, so I’ll just move along in the letter now… 

OK, back to the price manipulation in the metals yesterday… Longtime readers know that I’ve said this on more than 10 occasions, and that is… If enough physical demand is made on the COMEX, then the short paper trades will stop… But not until then, no matter how many Millions the price manipulators are charged for rigging metals prices, will they stop…  But you don’t have to just take my word on that, for here’s GATA Chairman Bill Murphy : “Amid explosive inflation in most assets, gold and silver are down for the year, GATA Chairman Bill Murphy notes in an interview today with GoldSeek Radio’s Chris Waltzek. But, Murphy adds, eventually demand for real metal will overwhelm the derivatives being used to suppress metals prices.”

The radio interview, should you want to hear all of it, can be found here:

https://goldseek.com/article/goldseek-radio-nugget-bill-murphy-physical-demand-will-inevitably-overwhelm-paper-shorting

One of these days, Alice! To the Moon!  Well, that’ll be what I say when Gold finally frees itself of all the short paper trades…  

Alrighty then, onto to something else… Oh, this is a good one folks… better strap yourself in for this one… The President told reporters that the new deficit spending bill, will not cost anything… He said that folks, I kid you not!  And he also contends that the additional debt will not cause any rise in inflation…  And somehow the gov’t tends to think that this $2 Trillion, which will probably be $5 Trillion over time, is going to do something  for the economy that the previous $5 Trillion that has been shelled out to the economy since 2019, hasn’t done…

And oh brother are there being games and gimmicks being played on the wording of the bill… Here’s the Wall Street Journal’s explanation of one of the gimmicks…

“The current $10,000 limit on the state-and-local tax (SALT) deduction increases to $80,000 through 2030. In 2031 it would return to $10,000. Penn Wharton says this gimmick would lead to $65 billion in additional tax revenue through 2031 though it would cost about $300 billion through 2025.”

Makes it all clear right? Clear as mud! And that’s the point of the wording to confuse everyone so that we don’t know what it is they are spending our tax dollars on, for if economists can’t figure out, how in the hell is anyone down on main street going to figure it out?  In my best Gomer Pyle voice, Shame, Shame, Shame…

This news just printed, so it’s hot off the press!  The President ordered 50 million barrels of oil released from the strategic reserve to help bring down energy costs, in coordination with other major energy consuming nations, including China, India, and the United Kingdom.

This was a response to OPEC who didn’t budge an inch when asked to increase production…  And it was also a political move to gain back some of the President’s lost popularity… But, maybe, baby, I won’t have to pay $3.55 for gas the next time I fill up like I did last week! 

The price of Oil is holding steady Eddie with this news… And I’m surprised by that… I can’t imagine that will continue for long. 

The U.S. Data Cupboard is still, for the most part, empty today, with only the Markit ISM  for the first part of this  month… But don’t forget that I told you that tomorrow will be a datapalooza and the dollar’s time on the rally tracks just might be derailed…

To Recap… Gold & Silver got sold down the river yesterday, all in short Gold & Silver paper trades… No matter how many millions the price manipulators get levied against them for price rigging, they will continue to defy the law…  The $152 Million in fines that have been levied on them for price rigging is just a “cost of doing business”…  The BBDXY rallied strongly during the day yesterday, and closed at 1,184.86…  but Chuck reports that as of last night, the currencies didn’t not reflect the move in the BBDXY… So, something was Amiss there…   And he found it! What a sleuth he is!  The Data Cupboard is still empty today, but gets restocked tomorrow!

Before I head to the Big Finish today, I want to throw this out there for everyone to think about: Ok… You know, from the start of the plandemic through to now, the public were told things that turned out to be wrong, falsified, and misdirected. But they were told that they needed to “trust the science”…  Well, let me see here… Last week that FDA filed for a 55 year waiting period before the public will get to review the documents of the vaccinations… Yes, people, if they are still around then, in 2076, will get to read documents… Maybe, Covid will still be around in 55 years, so it will be relevant news… But, probably not, and the folks will only be saying, “I remember my parents telling me stories of this plandemic”…  

For What It’s Worth… Well… there are so many negative articles to chose from, but this one isn’t so bad, and came to me from longtime reader Bob, and it’s about the Alternative Economy, and it can be found here: The Emerging Alt-Economy: “Buy Nothing” – DollarCollapse.com

Or, here’s your snippet: “Most of us own too much unnecessary stuff and have borrowed waaayyy too much money to buy said stuff. Meanwhile, all that debt is boosting inflation, making things that actually matter harder to afford.

But free people have a way of self-organizing solutions to their problems, and one of the more inspiring examples is the ‘Buy Nothing Project,’  through which members give or lend unneeded things to their neighbors. Think Craigslist without the asking prices.

Around two million Americans have joined related groups on FaceBook and elsewhere in the past year, bringing total participation to nearly five million.

In the best tradition of market-based fixes, “Buy Nothing” looks like a win for all concerned. Givers get the satisfaction of meeting and helping their neighbors while freeing up space occupied by things they no longer use. They also get to bank favors should help be needed in the future. Receivers, of course, get needed items for free.”

Chuck again… I sat there and thought about the stuff that we had bought through the years that we really didn’t need… And then I thought, no wait! I wouldn’t allow buying of stuff we didn’t need, so I have nothing to give to my neighbor…  Hmmm…

Market Prices 11/23/2021: American Style: A$ .7221,  kiwi .6924, C$ .7860, euro 1.1255, sterling 1.3368, Swiss $1.0728, European Style: rand 15.8552, krone 8.9471, SEK 9.0044,  forint 327.40,  zloty 4.1837,  koruna 22.6121, RUB 75.08, yen 114.88, sing 1.3663, HKD 7.7933, INR 74.42, China 6.3876, peso 21.15, BRL 5.6251,  BBDXY 1,185.47, Dollar Index 96.50,  Oil $76.36, 10-year 1.65%, Silver $23.80, Platinum $998.00, Palladium $2,017.00, Copper $4.43, and Gold… $1,790.40

That’s it for today… I was treated to a lunch with my very good friend, Ellie Williams, yesterday… We hadn’t seen each other in 2 years!  I asked her, “do you ever age?” Well, 58 years ago, I was on the AV team at school, and I was assigned to retrieve the Black & White TV and bring it my room, for something… When I went to pick it up to roll it into the room, I saw Walter Cronkite on TV telling about how President Kennedy had been shot… I quickly rolled the tv in the room and blurted out loud, “The President has been shot”… And my teacher said, “Are you sure, Charles?” I plugged the TV in and said “see for yourself”… And we as a classroom sat and watched the TV coverage for next couple of hours… The news of the assassination made for a somber Thanksgiving at the Butler House that year…  I’ve always thought that the assassination of President Kennedy was a multi-person job… I visited the building where Lee Harvey Oswald the supposed shooter, shot from, and visited the Museum there and watched the films, and came away with the same thought… I’m just saying…   OK… I was Well, to put us in a better mood, Stan Whitmire takes us to the finish line today with his band’s version of the song: Some Child, Come See Him…   I hope you have a Ton Terrific Tuesday, and please… Be Good To Yourself!

 

Chuck Butler

What Do We Have Here? A Hawkish Fed Head?

November 22, 2021

* Currencies, metals and Oil all get sold on Friday…

* The Gov’t’s $2 Trillion Spendalooza gets through the House… 

 

Good Day… And a Marvelous Monday to you! How about my beloved Missouri Tigers football team? What a great win Saturday VS Florida!  Also on Saturday I got to see my darling granddaughter, Delaney Grace, perform in Annie, for the Gateway Center for Performing Arts… She’s really into acting, singing and dancing… I just love her to pieces!  And Kathy came home, finally… My kids always ask, “How are you doing without mom around”… And I reply, “it sure is quiet”… HA! Well, there’s a lot to talk about today, so, let’s get it going… The Stephen Kummer Trio greets me this morning with their version of: I’ll Be Home For Christmas…

Friday was an all-out ugly day in the markets that we like to follow… Currencies got sold, metals got sold, and Oil got sold… Bonds on the other hand were bought, but that just means that lower rates, on the bonds,  are going more negative… So, that’s ugly, there folks… There was no news to speak of besides the spendalooza being passed (more on that in a minute)… The euro fell below 1.13 for the first time July 2020…  But while we’re talking about currencies, the two rebel currencies that aren’t being bullied by the dollar in recent trading days, the Indian rupee, and Chinese renminbi, both rallied a bit on Friday… So, there you go!  

We did have a Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel member, Waller, speak and he threw a grenade from left field onto the markets…  First of all, Waller is a voting member of the Fed/ Cabal. Cartel, and he expressed a more hawkish tone than any Fed member has in the past few months. While acknowledging that the spiraling level of inflation is much less transitory than first believed and will remain much longer than assumed.

Federal Reserve Governor Waller addressed the current level of inflation and described it as a “big snowfall that will stay on the ground for a while, rather than a one-inch dusting.” His statements highlighted the intrinsic and mounting concern by Federal Reserve members that inflationary rates have gotten way out of hand and added, “When snow is expected to be on the ground for a week, you may want to act sooner and shovel the sidewalks and plow the streets.”

OK, so he is a voting member, but… so far he is the just one vote and there have been no other members speaking as hawkish has Waller did… But his comments did stir the pot that was the markets on Friday… 

Well… let’s see, the House passed their $2 Trillion spendalooza bill, which just means that the Gov’t is going to throw more fake money at the economy, which entails printing more currency to pay for the Treasuries that will be up for sale that no one wants, because the yields are so low.  Before this spendalooza bill was passed, the U.S. had printed more than $5 Trillion in new currency since 2019…  And then there are economists out there that still say this inflation isn’t going to last… Well, as long as the Gov’t keeps stoking the inflation fire, the embers will burn hot for a long time…

But did this memo of more deficit spending and currency printing get Gold going on the day? Hardly… Gold lost more than $13 on Friday, and Silver lost 21-cents…  Now, how could that have happened?  Well, let’s go through the motions on this… The markets saw the spendalooza bill and decided that this just what the economy needs…  Yeah Right, as if the previous $5 Trillion was working and just needed an additional jolt!   Think about that for a minute, folks.. .My dad used to tell me about businesses that threw good money at bad programs…  Well, in this case we, as a country are throwing bad/ fake money at bad programs…  That’s even worse!

No… the reason Gold & Silver got sold on Friday, was the boys in the band decided to take a pound of flesh from these two metals, and walk away at the close on Friday, to the local pub/ bar, and buy a round of drinks, for they had just made a killing in the markets!  Why did they decide to take a pound of flesh?  Because they can… And no regulatory agency is going to come after them for rigging the price lower…  Sure the Bullion banks have paid $55 Million in fines for rigging the price in London, but that was easy to find… The kind of price rigging that the boys in the band use is more difficult to pin down… Shoot ask Gary Gensler, the present SEC head, for he said that he personally investigated the Silver price rigging claims when he was head of the CFTC (Commodities regulator) and said that he saw nothing…     I doubt seriously that he saw nothing, folks… I do believe that he was told to say that… and for that, we’ll remember you the next time a good job comes along, and voila, he’s the head of the SEC!

I’m sure that the powers that be, didn’t think anyone would be on top of that whole scenario, but they didn’t account for little old country bumpkin me…. 

So, like I said, Gold lost $13.50, and closed the week at $1,846.00, and silver lost 24-cents to close at $24.66… Friday marked two days in a row that these two metals got sold… And again, it makes no sense to me, but it does give lower/ cheaper prices to those that are just letting the fact that inflation is rising enter their hard heads!

In the overnight markets last night… There has been little to no movement in the currencies, and  Gold is down $3, while Silver is up 14-cents. The price of Oil was sold further down the river, and Bonds are flat to down a bit this morning.  There’s nothing in the Data Cupboard to get the markets going today, so we’ll have to see what the Trader sentiment is registering, ahead of a long holiday weekend at the tail end of this week…  The BBDXY is 1,179.41 to start the day… 

I guess I should be happy that Gold gained more than $110 in the last 10 days… And I read where Institutional interest in Gold is picking up again, and that’s a good sign for Gold to move even higher… I’m just saying

So… the dollar just keeps gaining momentum… What’s up with that?  Just two weeks ago, it appeared that the dollar was ready for a long trip to the woodshed, but then…  Well, I don’t need to tell you that the dollar mysteriously rallied…  I think that traders and investors are still under the thinking that this rising inflation is going to bring about higher interest rates here in the U.S. to fight the rising inflation…  (see previous discussion about Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel  head Waller) And that higher interest rates would allow the dollar to be more sought after… I wish these traders and investors would read this letter because I’ve explained several times now that the U.S. can’t hike rates (well not to the tune to more than inflation!)  because of the debt servicing requirements. (paying bond interest)

In the 1970’s inflation rose to 13%… And then Fed Chairman Paul Volcker raised interest rates to 20% to slay the rising inflation… So, to take that to today’s mess of inflation that we have, which, just for today’s lesson we’ll use the Gov’t’s claim that inflation is 6.2%… If you would want to slay that rising inflation you would have to hike rates north of 10%… And that’s not going to happen, not on my watch!  

I had a question last week when speaking on the Webinar that was hosted by Rich Checkan at Asset Strategies. (ASI) that centered on the thought of the U.S. not being able to hike rates, because of bond servicing costs… And the attendee to the webinar said, “but doesn’t the Fed pay the interest earned on bonds they bought back to the Treasury?”    And the answer to that question is yes, but that doesn’t take into consideration that the Fed owns a little more than 1/3rd of the existing Treasuries, So that’s still 2/3rds of Trillions that needs to be serviced….

And you shouldn’t worry about the existing stock of Treasuries, it’s the new ones that will be issued on a “roll”  when the existing stock comes to maturity… The new bonds would carry the new “higher interest rate”, and that’s when the problems occur for the government…

OK.. onto other things…  I’ve not spent a lot of time talking about inflation this morning, I know I’ve been like a broken record lately with inflation, so in lieu of me talking about it, I thought it to best to have someone else talk about it… And in that case I have Ayn Rand talking about inflation… Take it away Ayn:  “inflation is not caused by the actions of private citizens, but by the government: by an artificial expansion of the money supply required to support deficit spending. No private embezzlers or bank robbers in history have ever plundered people’s savings on a scale comparable to the plunder perpetrated by the fiscal policies of statist governments.” – Ayn Rand

I would think that she nailed it Governor!  And like I said above, more than $5 Trillion of new currency has been printed since 2019, and that’s before the latest spendalooza by the Government!  Got Gold?

Speaking of Gold, I read this weekend that demand for physical Gold in China has soared once again and is the strongest it has been in 3 years!  

The U.S Data Cupboard doesn’t have much for us today and tomorrow, but on Wednesday, it will be the datapalooza! I guess the folks that put together these reports wanted to fill traders and investors with as much data as they could put on their collective plates,  to stretch their stomachs prior to sending them off to Thanksgiving!  We’ll have Personal Income and Spending, Durable and Capital Goods, GDP, Core Inflation, and Weekly Initial Jobless Claims… All in one day!

But like I said there’s really nothing to see the first two days of this week…  And that usually means the dollar gets to breathe easier… But Wednesday’s prints could sent it reeling into the 4 day holiday for some…  

To recap… it was an ugly day on Friday for the currencies, metals and Oil… The anti-dollar assets were all on sale throughout Friday, and ended the week on a sour note. Gold had gained more than $110 in the previous 10 days, and a day of profit taking was due… But that’s not what happened, instead it was a day for the boys in the band…  Inflation is a real problem for bonds, folks… They are selling with negative real yields… Who wants some of that?   Chuck spends a lot of time talking about Gold today, Ayn Rand gives us her thoughts on inflation, and Chuck points out that Wednesday’s Data Cupboard will be a datapalooza!

For What It’s Worth…  Well, since I mentioned the boys in the band above today, I might as well tell you that more bullion banks have been found guilty of price rigging of Gold… This article appeared in a note that the good folks at GATA sent me…  Which means you can’t see the article, unless you are a GATA member, so I have the whole article here, so don’t you worry! 

Here’s your snippet: “Barclays Bank PLC, Scotiabank, Societe Generale, and the London Gold Market Fixing Ltd. agreed to pay $50 million to end claims that they illegally fixed prices on the gold market, the putative class of gold traders told a New York federal court Friday.

The deal, if approved, would be the third and final settlement in the putative class action and would bring the total take for the plaintiffs to $152 million, according to the gold traders’ motion for preliminary approval.

The motion also seeks certification of a class of “many thousands” who traded gold or financial instruments with gold as their underlying asset between January 2004 through June 2013.

“Studies have found that the median full-case antitrust recovery is 19% of single damages,” the plaintiffs said. “Thus, co-lead counsel would have to establish at trial a recoverable single damages figure of $800 million before the combined recovery from the three proposed settlements fall behind the pace of a median antitrust recovery rate.”

“Considering the risks and costs of continued litigation, both the combined result of all three settlements and this third settlement agreement even when viewed in isolation provide excellent results for the settlement class.”

The March 2014 putative antitrust class action represents 18 consolidated suits claiming that several banks were involved in a wide-ranging conspiracy to fix prices on the gold market.

London Gold Market Fixing members held secret meetings to share information on the real-time price of gold to set a rate beneficial to them, including Barclays, HSBC, and Deutsche Bank, according to the suit.”

Chuck again…  Like Ed Steer had to say about this article:” But regardless of any lawsuits, successful or otherwise, the price rigging continues, dear reader.” 

Market Prices 11/22/2021: American Style: A$ .7223,  kiwi .7009, C$ .7915, euro 1.1283, sterling 1.3451, Swiss $1.0787, European Style: rand 15.6712, krone 8.9008, SEK 8.9347,  forint 324.26,  zloty 4.1475,  koruna 22.4950, RUB 73.37, yen 114.04, sing 1.3603, HKD 7.7896, INR 74.16, China 6.3862, peso 20.80, BRL 5.6122,  BBDXY 1,179.41, Dollar Index 96.11,  Oil $75.73, 10-year 1.57%, Silver $24.80, Platinum $1,042.00, Palladium $2,126.00, Copper $4.35, and Gold… $1,846.70

That’s it for today…  A Big Congrats to my former colleague, Chris Gaffney, who was quoted in the Wall Street Journal last week!  That brought back memories of when the WSJ writer came to St. Louis to interview me many years ago, and when the article showed up, I went to the newsstand and bought 10 copies! In typical response from my wife, she said, “what are we going to do with all these copies?”  I had a blast last Wednesday night at the Sports On Tap Event… And even got an opportunity to spend a few minutes with childhood friend, Jim Thomas, who is the beat writer for the Blues! And my doctor visit was a non-event… except that my A1C was 5.7!!!! The doctor said I could have some pie on Thanksgiving! HA!  My Billikens Basketball team won again Saturday night, but the Blues lost! UGH! I really lounged around the house yesterday, it was well after noon before I changed clothes and got moving!  This is Thanksgiving week!  I just get so upset with all those people that try to take away the traditions of this country… And that’s all I’m going to say about that! The Count Basie Orchestra takes us to the finish line today with their song: Good SWING Wenceslas…   I hope you have a Marvelous Monday today, and please Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler

Dollar Buying Continues…

November 17, 2021

* Currencies & metals get sold on Tuesday… 

* China surpasses the U.S. as wealthiest nation… 

Good Day… And a Wonderful Wednesday to you! Our Blues played last night and lost their 4th game in a row. UGH!     And my St. Louis U. Billikens Basketball team played last night and they found out that they are not ready for prime time… UGH!   I had a long conversation yesterday, with good friend, Dennis Miller… He sounded much better than the last time I talked to him, but he’s still not out of the woods… He’s itching to do a letter, and drafted one, and sent it to me to look over… That’s the best medicine as far as I’m concerned… Get back on the saddle and ride until you can’t ride any longer! Stan Whitmire greets me this morning with his version of the song: Merry Christmas, Darling…

Well, I told you last week that you had better batten down the hatches until this recent dollar strength is over, and it didn’t appear to be near an end yesterday! The BBDXY rose from 1,173 in the morning to 1,178 to close the day… The euro is dropping through the 1.13 handle like a hot knife through butter… And every other currency not named the Indian rupee, or Chinese renminbi, is following the euro down and down, and down…

I read last night that traders are looking at the yield differential of the German 10-year Bund, VS the U.S. Treasury 10-year, and while the U.S. Treasury has the yield advantage, the writer said that the dollar would remain well bid… 

Well, I have to question that reasoning… For if it were true, then the 10-year’s yield would be dropping from all the buying, and it’s not dropping, instead its increasing, and last night when I checked it just to make sure I was saying the correct thing, the 10-year’s yield had increased to 1.63%…  There’s a reason investors and traders are buying dollars, but I don’t believe the yield differential is the main reason…  The main reason?  You got me, on that one, folks!

As I’ve mentioned recently, the only currencies that I see holding on for dear life are the Indian rupee and the Chinese renminbi…  With the price of Oil slipping and then rallying, rinsing and repeating, the Russian ruble can’t find any buyers until Oil stops slipping… 

Gold & Silver after experiencing 4 consecutive days of gains, have now given back gains 2 consecutive days… Gold lost $11.80 to close at $1,851.40, and Silver lost 24-cents to fall back below $25, to $24.90…  I really was beginning to think that Gold & Silver were on their respective ways to much higher ground…

Yesterday, the U.S. dollar got a big boost from the Rocktober prints of Retail Sales, Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization, which all three were improved reports from the previous month…  Like I said yesterday, last month’s prints were not so good, and didn’t exactly illustrate a strong economy, and I said that the powers that be, couldn’t have that, and that I was sure that this month’s reports would be cooked, massaged, and twisted and turned until they came out just right, as baby bear said!

So those reports had more to do with the dollar’s run yesterday than anything else… But… the one thing I would point out is that when these reports disappointed last month, the dollar barely budged lower, so apparently what’s good for the goose is not good for the gander…

In the overnight markets last night… The dollar buying stopped, for now, at least, but the dollar didn’t give back much. The BBDXY closed last night at 1,178.19, and this morning it is trading at 1,177.61… So, a little slippage, but not much…  Gold is up $11 in the early trading and Silver is up 27-cents, so these two have erased yesterday’s losses, but it is the early trading, and the price manipulators haven’t arrived at their desks yet… 

The price of Oil has slipped below $80 once again… Back and forth, back and forth, C’Mon oil traders pick a lane, any lane, and stay in it!  And Bonds continue to be on the selling blocks…  The Bond Boys, as they were once known, can’t get together to figure out what they need to do… I’m of the opinion that they need to get together and run yields higher to force the Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel, to step in and buy bonds again… 

This scenario would squash whatever credibility the Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel still has, for they had made such a Big deal out of their tapering, but if they had misjudged the markets, and had to come back to buy more bonds, well they could kiss their credibility with the markets good bye! 

Speaking of the Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel, they still don’t know who their leader will be for the next 4 years… Either it’ll be current chairman Jerome Powell, or Lael Brainard… And like I said previously, it doesn’t matter which one will be in the chair… They both will continue to not buck the system and print whatever currency they need to offset the deficit spending in Washington… 

I’m wondering what’s going on here… There was no email in my email box from Ed Steer this morning.. .Yesterday he said that his town was flooding and the town was under a mandatory evacuation order… Hope, you’re safe Ed… 

Yesterday, I spent the better part of the day reading a report from Switzerland… Many years ago at a conference I was introduced to Rob Vrijhof by friend, Michael Checkan, and through the years we would see each other at conferences, etc. and then when I retired Rob tracked me down, an one day he called me from Switzerland!  Rob was with the firm WHVP Ltd. But has now retired, and his daughter and son in-law run the investment firm. One of the things Rob did for me was get me signed up for their monthly newsletter: The Swiss View…

And this morning I’m going to share with you a small snippet of the report from WHVP Ltd.  They were talking about how investors have jumped back into stocks after the brief September selloff…

“However, we believe that changing the strategy due to frustration is the wrong move. We feel that the situation did not change for the better. Despite the markets rising, there are several new risks like the real estate market in China, the rise in inflation, and the rising tensions between China and the U.S., and Japan due to their provocations of Taiwan.”

I wish I had said it like that! But I couldn’t agree more… These are things that hanging over the U.S. markets like the Sword of Damocles, and they hanging by a thread…  And they didn’t even mention the soap opera-like goings on at the Fed/ cabal/ Cartel! Or the mid terms that are coming up with the debt ceiling question coming again…

The bizarre markets have gone even more bonkers folks… Last week, Elon Musk ran a Twitter poll on whether he should sell a large chunk of his Tesla stock, and when the poll suggested he sell, he did!  He left the decision on the stock that he owned in his own company, to Twitter followers?  Give me a Break!  Every day, there’s something else that illustrates how Bizarre the investment world is these days… 

I’ve said this before, that when things begin to get too Bizarre, I turn to publishing guru, and best selling author, Bill Bonner, to explain things… So here’s Bill on the recent Elon Musk Bizarre caper from his letter that can be found at www.rogueeconomics.com : “This is obviously a novel way of making decisions. And perhaps better.

If two heads are better than one… surely, the 3,519,252 poll respondents, including the 2,037,647 who answered “Yay,” raise the quality of the decision at least to a C+.

What is most amazing about the whole thing is that 3,519,252 people… all supposedly compos mentis… probably adult-ish… presumably with real lives… actually found the time to weigh in on a financial question that didn’t concern them.”

Thanks Bill…. 

The U.S. Data Cupboard for the rest of the week is weak at best… Besides the usual Thursday fare of weekly Initial Jobless Claims, the rest of the week has nothing but 2 & 3rd tier reports, and a full slate of Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel head speakers all around the country… Simple question, before Big Al Greenspan, did anyone ever know who the Fed heads were, much less who their chairman was?  But these days, they’re all out speaking all the time, getting their name, views, and thoughts out to the public…  Personally, I liked the way it used to be done… I’m just saying…

To recap… The dollar got bought like it was toilet paper during the plandemic…  the economic reports were strong for Rocktober, (Chuck told you they would be because the powers that be can’t have weak reports!)  Gold & Silver also got sold yesterday, for the second consecutive day… Bond yield differentials are being pointed to for the reason the dollar is so strong, but Chuck points out that if that were really the case, then U.S. Treasuries would be being bought, and that would bring the yield of the bond down… But the yield is going up… go figure!

For What It’s worth… This article came to me from longtime reader Bob… who said that if this is true, everyone needs to know about this….  Well, the Pfennig is a start, but not close to getting out to everyone! This is about China overtaking the U.S. in wealth… and it can be found here: China tops US as ‘wealthiest’ nation in the world, new McKinsey report claims | American Military News

Or, here’s your snippet: “China has overtaken the United States as the wealthiest nation in the world, according to a new report from the global management consulting firm McKinsey and Company released Monday. Researchers at McKinsey and Co. analyzed national wealth according to a nation’s net worth. 

The group’s analysis showed that China’s net worth soared from $7 trillion to $120 trillion between 2000 and 2020. The United States net worth, on the other hand, only doubled over the same period to $90 trillion.

“We have borrowed a page from the corporate world—namely, the balance sheet—to take stock of the underlying health and resilience of the global economy as it begins to rebound from the COVID-19 pandemic,” the report explained. “This view from the balance sheet complements more typical approaches based on GDP, capital investment levels, and other measures of economic flows that reflect changes in economic value.”

“Across ten countries that account for about 60 percent of global GDP—Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Japan, Mexico, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States—the historic link between the growth of net worth and the growth of GDP no longer holds,” the report continued. 

Worldwide net worth increased from $160 trillion in 2000 to $510 trillion by 2020. Among the countries listed in the study, the average per capita net worth was $66,000, with “large variations” present across economies, and “even more so across households within an economy.” Per capita net worth ranged from $46,000 in Mexico to $351,000 in Australia. 

“We are now wealthier than we have ever been,” said Jan Mischke, a partner at the McKinsey Global Institute in Zurich, according to Bloomberg.

Researchers also found that in both the U.S. and China, over two-thirds of the wealth comes from the richest 10 percent of households, and their share of the wealth continues to rise.”

Chuck again… Ahhh, the old wealth inequality thing again, eh?  I find this very interesting that China has surpassed the U.S. as the wealthiest country on earth…  That means they have more wealth to spend on miltary… I’m just saying…

Market Prices 11/17/2021: American Style: A$ .7286,  kiwi .7006, C$ .7956, euro 1.1314, sterling 1.3444, Swiss $1.0741, European Style: rand 15.5020, krone 8.7432, SEK 8.8590, forint 322.55,  zloty 4.11.91,  koruna 22.2810, RUB 72.83, yen 114.81, sing 1.3577, HKD 7.7871, INR 74.16, China 6.3839, peso 20.72, BRL 5.4713,  BBDXY 1,177.61, Dollar Index 95.90,  Oil $79.79, 10-year 1.63%, Silver $25.17, Platinum $1,073.00, Palladium $2,248.00, Copper $4.37, and Gold… $1,862.10

That’s it for today, and this week… Next week will also be a short week, with Thursday being Thanksgiving… I’m going to the Sports On Tap event downtown tonight, with good friends, Rick and Kevin, and my son Andrew… But I can’t be out late, as I have to report to the doctor tomorrow morning bright and early!  When I was younger I could stay out very late, and still get up bright and early in the morning to go to work… But not any longer! UGH!  So, good friend, Dennis Miller interviewed me for his upcoming letter… I didn’t pull any punches and just said what was on my mind…   Beegie Adair takes us to the finish line today with her version of the song: What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve… I love the Harry Connick Jr. version of that song… And with that, I hope you have a Wonderful Wednesday to day, and please Be Good to Yourself!

Chuck Butler

More Dollar Buying Has The Euro Very Oversold!

November 16, 2021

* Currencies can’t find a bid on Monday… 

* Gold & Silver rally in the overnight trading… 

Good Day… And a Tom Terrific Tuesday to you! Well, remember when I said that the Blues had gotten off to a great start, but it was important not to get too excited early, as it was a long season? Well, Sunday night they lost their third straight game… UGH! Sometimes I hate it when I’m right! HAHAHAHAHA! Recently, someone asked me if I still played the guitar, and I told them that it had been 2 years since I last picked up my guitar… That got me thinking last week, and I went and got my guitar, tried to tune a string, and it broke! Now I had to go online and buy new strings… So much for that wild hair, of playing my guitar!  Lunch yesterday, with Frank Trotter, was a real treat for me… We sat and talked about “stuff” for two hours… And then he was gone, and probably not seen again until next spring! UGH!  Jack Jezzio greets me this morning with his version of: Jolly Old St. Nicholas…

OK… yesterday, I read that the $480 Billion stop gap spending that was signed into law by the POTUS a month ago, has already been blown through… And it was supposed to have lasted until the December 3, debt ceiling drop dead date… that means that the U.S. is using “extreme measures” to pay the bills right now…  That’s scary isn’t it?  You betcha it is! And who’s to say that on December 3, the debt ceiling gets raised?  I’ve always detested the phrase, “this time it’s different”, but I’m going to have to say that this time, because…  The mid-term elections are coming up, and the GOP doesn’t want anything to do with a $7 Trillion increase to the debt ceiling, and therefore they will be real head busters on this debt ceiling thing.. Which could mean that the U.S. would be heading to a default…  No hype, no extra words needed…  That’s just the facts, ma’am… 

And think about this for a moment… That picture of the debt right now, was taken before the signing of the new $1 Trillion infrastructure deficit spending bill… Where’s that money going to come from? When you’re up to your arse with alligators because you forgot to drain the swamp, it’s no time to call and request more flood water come your way…   But that’s just what the folks in D.C. just did…. Ooh, we see that we’re now using “extreme measures” to pay out bills, so here’s some more bills to deal with!

And with all those thoughts, we turn to the dollar, and it got bought again yesterday… Starting the day after the overnight session saw the dollar drift, the BDDXY was 1,169.11, but the downward drift, soon got turned around, and the BBDXY rose to close the day at 1,172.60…  Now what in all that’s going on would tempt you to want to buy dollars? We have a soap opera-like mess going on at the Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel, we have inflation soaring, with nothing in its way to slow it down, and now we’ve gone to “extreme measures” with our debt/ bill paying… And traders are line up to buy dollars? C’Mon give me break!

And again, taking all that stuff into mind, Gold didn’t come much off its $3.30 loss in the early trading yesterday, ending the day down $3.00 to close at $1,863.20, and Silver ended up losing 27-cents to close at $25.14…  But not to worry, folks… the stock market just hit another high… I say that in jest… in case you didn’t get my drift there…

The price of Oil bounced back higher yesterday, gaining $2 on the day, and Treasuries got sold, with the 10-year’s yield rising to 1.61%… Remember with bonds, as the yield goes higher, the bond price goes lower… If the Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel wasn’t buying $105 Billion of bonds each month, yields would be much higher… But then who else would buy the $105 Billion of bonds each month?  And that, my friends is the manipulation of yields in bonds by the Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel… And when no one else steps up to the plate to buy the excess bonds that are left on the table each month, the only thing the Treasury can do, is to increase the yields to attract buyers… And that brings about another can of worms that I could spend all day explaining… So I won’t… at least not today… how about that?

In the overnight markets last night… There’s been more selling of the currencies, with the euro dropping below the 1.14 handle, and the BBDXY rising to 1,173.26 overnight.  Gold & Silver don’t seem to be caught up in the dollar buying though, as Gold is up $10 in the early trading and Silver follows up with an 18-cent increase this morning.   You know there’s one more point I want to make about the rising inflation, and that is… Prices for everything are going higher, but… will they ever come back down?  I doubt that seriously… So, higher prices are here to stay in my humble country bumpkin opinion… 

Oh, and there is speculation that today is the day that the White House will name the new Fed Chairman… My money is on a renaming of Jerome Powell to the chairman’s position… Not that it makes much difference who is in the seat, for whomever it is, they will continue to lead us down the road to ruins… 

OK… do you know who Ben Garrison is? Well, if you don’t, you should… Ben Garrison and his wife Tina, draw cartoons about what’s going on in the U.S. and I signed up for them a long time ago, and can’t believe this is the first time I’ve ever mentioned one of his cartoons…  Yesterday, he drew a gas pump that was 5 x taller than the guy trying to reach it to pump gas…  then he drew a grocery shopping cart that 5 x taller than the guy trying to reach it, Then he drew a house that had a balloon attached to it soaring high, and all these things were “out of reach”, and then he drew the POTUS and said “out of touch”…  

I’m not being political here… just pointing out that we as a country have no idea how to put a lid on this soaring inflation, and that’s a real shame… There are plenty of very intelligent people in the world, why can’t one of them come forward and say… “This is how we fix this”?  

Of course they could ask me, and I would tell them to 1. Stop deficit spending 2. Stop currency printing, 3. At least jawbone rates higher to put fear in traders that you could hike rates… But, just like my family, they won’t listen to me… I’m some crazed guy that sits in his basement writing stuff that they don’t understand, So instead of asking for me to explain, they just say, “don’t pay any attention to him, and absolutely do NOT listen to him!  You know like the sign at the zoo says, “Don’t Feed The Bears”…

I get why the Great Mogambo Guru used to complain about his daughter and wife, now I get it Mogambo… I see said the blind man has he spit into the wind…. It’s all coming back to me now…

I got a big laugh last week when I saw a picture of all the private jets that were used to shuttle people to the Climate conference in Glasgow last week… I guess all those jets didn’t’ produce an CO2, eh?  Fly to a Climate conference in a jet, and then tell everyone how you are going to do everything in your power to bring about changes…  Well, you could start by not flying a jet around and just call in on Zoom to the conference! You dolts!

Well, do you want to know what I’m really concerned about now? No? Ok, then just skip ahead, for I’m going to get up on my soapbox now….  After inflation takes its pound of flesh from the middle class of this country, guess what’ll be next to appease them so that they don’t show up at the Eccles Building with fire torches and demand the Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel heads be brought to them… Well, it’ll be UBI… Universal Basic Income…  The Gov’t learned last year that by sending people stimmy checks that they could appease them for a period of time… So now, they would just send them UBI payments each month…   

There’s just one question to ask about that… Where does the money come from?  I’m just asking… and oh… Got Gold? 

Talk about a greased track to socialism…  I’m just saying

OK… The U.S. Data Cupboard today has the Rocktober Retail Sales…  I said yesterday that the BHI indicated that the actual report would not meet expectations… I forgot to check the front porch for all the packages that Kathy has sent there while she was gone! So, now I have to amend my forecast for Retail Sales… We’ll also see Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization today for Rocktober… You may recall that these two reports were negative for September, and so, we certainly can’t have that now can we? The massagers and cooks, will do what they have to to make these two more representable for public display….  

To recap… The dollar’s downward drift only lasted one day and night, before traders lined up to buy dollars once again yesterday… Chuck wants to know how that happened? But we carry on despite the dolts we have to deal with! Gold lost $3 and Silver lost 27-cents yesterday, in light volume compared to normal days… And the price of Oil rebounded by $2, while bonds got sold… So it was a mixed up crazy day of trading in asset classes, but Chuck says don’t worry, the stock market just hit another high…. Chuck is really on a roll this morning, so don’t stop him… They didn’t stop the Germans when they bombed Pearl Harbor did they? HAHAHAHA! (That’s an Animal House reference there folks, Chuck knows who really bombed Pearl Harbor!

For What It’s Worth… Well, this one really is worthy of FWIW status… And you’ll want to take the time to click on the link and read the whole article, for this is a real doozy folks… Pam and Russ Martens of Wallstreetonparade.com feature a whistleblower at our fave bank (NOT!) JPMorgan Chase, and it can be found here: Wall Street On Parade

Or, here’s your snippet: “On Thursday, a female attorney, Shaquala Williams, who had worked in compliance at JPMorgan Chase, came forward. Williams has filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York with allegations that are so alarming that they should send the Justice Department, the bank’s outside auditing firm and the Audit Committee of the Board of Directors into a frenzy. (See the full text of William’s federal complaint here.)

According to the lawsuit, Williams has “approximately 12 years of experience in financial crimes compliance primarily for financial institutions.” She joined JPMorgan Chase in June 2018 and was working in its Global Anti-Corruption Compliance group. After reporting serious misconduct by the bank, she alleges that the bank retaliated against her by firing her in October 2019.

Williams makes numerous, stunning allegations that the bank was falsely reporting to the Justice Department that it was in compliance with the non-prosecution agreement it had reached in 2016 when, in fact, it was simply reporting what the Justice Department wanted to hear while gaming the terms of the agreement.

The Justice Department had charged in 2016 that JPMorgan’s Asia subsidiary had through “certain senior executives and employees of the Company conspired to engage in quid pro quo agreements with Chinese officials to obtain investment-banking business, planned and executed a program to provide specific personal benefits to senior Chinese officials in the position to award or influence the award of banking mandates, and repeatedly falsified or caused to be falsified internal compliance documents in place to prevent the specific conduct at issue….”

To put it bluntly, the bank was putting on its payroll the children of high Chinese government officials in order to further its business interests in China.”

Chuck again… It’s really imperative that if you want to know what JPM is up to these days to follow up on their previous convictions of various trading and compliance problems, then clock on the link above, I would think you would come away after reading the article , shaking your head in disgust, because I know I did!

Market Prices 11/16/2021: American Style: A$ .7340,  kiwi .7023, C$ .7977, euro 1.1363, sterling 1.3452, Swiss $ 1.0790, European Style: rand 15.2397, krone 8.6988, SEK 8.8266,  forint 320.43,  zloty 4.0897,  koruna 22.1689, RUB 72.51, yen 114.28, sing 1.3538, HKD 7.7886, INR 74.32, China 6.3808, peso 20.57, BRL 5.4361,  BBDXY 1,173.26, Dollar Index 95.51,  Oil $81.46, 10-year 1.61%, Silver $25.46, Platinum $1,107.00, Palladium $2,254.00, Copper $4.45, and Gold… $1,873.40

That’s it for today…  sorry if I ticked anyone off this morning… Just saying what was on my mind… And besides, where’s your thick skin? Well, my St. Louis U. Billikens travel to Memphis tonight to play the Memphis Tigers, in basketball,  a ranked team… So a real test for my young Billikens… My beloved Missouri Tigers play Florida, in football,  this coming Saturday… if they can win they’ll be bowl eligible, not exactly what they were thought they would be at this point, but… when you play in the SEC, a win is very difficult to come by… I thoroughly enjoyed being in the stadium last Saturday for the Tigers win… I don’t get to too many football games any longer… So that one was special!  In case you missed me telling you this… I’m listening to Pandora’s Smooth Jazz Christmas station, not Sirius XM, but Pandora… Once Christmas is over, I’ll switch back to my iPod… And with that,  Kenny G takes us to the finish line today with his version of the song: God Rest ye, Merry Gentlemen…  I hope you have a Tom Terrific Tuesday today… And please Be Good To Yourself! 

Chuck Butler

 

 

Chinks In The Dollar’s Armor Are Exposed…

November 15, 2021

* Currencies turnaround on Friday… 

* More of the “this is not the inflation you’re looking for, move along, talk from U.S. power elite… 

Good Day… And a Marvelous Monday to you!  Well, Saturday I traveled to Columbia, Mo, with son Alex, to take in a game with my beloved Missouri Tigers, and the S. Carolina Gamecocks… The day was sunny, but colder than a ….   I had 5 layers on, and the Tigers won, so I was able to survive the cold! Thanks to Alex for the invite. We had a good day together…   This Wednesday, I’ll be going to the Sports on Tap event, with oldest son, Andrew…  Kathy is still gone, I’ve gone two weeks being alone, but the time has flown by…  And next week is Thanksgiving! Time flies when you’re having fun! HA! The Laurence Juber Group greets me this morning with their version of the song: The Holly and The Ivy…

Well, the dollar buying that I left you with last Thursday continued throughout Thursday, and the euro reached a very oversold level, but all the pundits thought that it didn’t matter that the dollar was on a roll… The BBDXY rose to 1,172.55 on Thursday, and was, well, very strong… But then on Friday, there were some chinks in the dollar’s armor exposed, when the U. of Michigan Confidence Index dropped from 71.7 to 66.8, and that got traders thinking that they had over-thought their reasons for buying dollars, and suddenly, the dollar was getting sold…

On Friday, the BBDXY went from the lofty 1,172.55 on Thursday to 1,169.64 at Friday’s close… The euro still shows very oversold, and it will take a lot more downward movement in the dollar for the euro to get out from under that oversold rock…  Longtime readers know that the euro is the offset currency to the dollar, so for the most part, when the euro is down, the rest of the currencies are down too…  Late last week , we had a recurrence of a strange play in the currencies that was going on before the latest dollar upward run… And that is the Russian ruble and Chinese renminbi were the only currencies showing gains VS the dollar…

But that didn’t last long, as there was a secretly done release of Oil by the U.S. from it’s strategic reserves, and that brought the price of Oil down, and since I’ve always considered the ruble as an “oil play”, the rug was pulled from under the ruble too… So, it’s only the Chinese renminbi picking up the flag of the rallying currencies VS the dollar… 

Gold & Silver didn’t mind that the dollar was soaring on Thursday, because they too were moving higher… Gold closed up $12 and Silver up 62-cents on Thursday, and then they followed that up with a muted gain for Gold of $3.30 and for Silver of 6-cents on Friday… Gold closed the week at $1,869.64, and Silver closed the week at $25.42…  A good week for these two metals, as they finally get moving upward to combat the rising inflation…

Friend, Dave Gonigam, editor of the 5 Minute Forecast, had this from James Rickards in his Friday edition of the 5… “Russia paused its decade-long gold acquisition spree 18 months ago. “Now Russia is back on the buy side,” Jim tells us. “It purchased 3.1 metric tonnes in July 2021 and another 3.1 metric tonnes in September 2021 (August was unchanged).”

And that, my friend, could be a very good reason why, Gold has gotten back on the rally tracks… I’ve always said that if we had enough physical buying of Gold the price manipulators would have to step away from the market… 

And one point that we made in the webinar last week is that Central Banks around the world have been buying physical Gold, not Bitcoin…  I’m just saying…

In the overnight markets last night… the dollar has drifted lower, but not by much, as the foreign traders were scratching their collective heads and wondering what the hell was going on… Last week they had received the memo that they were to buy dollars, and then suddenly on Friday, after they had headed to the pubs and saki joints, their brothers in the U.S. began to sell dollars, and they hadn’t received any updated memo… What to do? So, like I just said, they were scratching their collective heads, and wondering what to do… 

So, the dollar simply drifted lower overnight, the BBDXY which closed at 1,169.64 on Friday, is starting today down to 1,169.11… So, as you can see with your own eyes, that dollar has drifted lower overnight…  Gold & Silver are down in the early trading today, with Gold down $3.60, and Silver giving back 19-cents…  

C’mon boys, this is NOT the time to be playing games with Gold & Silver! Inflation is climbing the wall of the economy, and these two metals need to shine even more during this time! 

All of you dear readers that sent me a note telling me I did fine in the webinar, were being too kind to me, as I viewed it again, I stumbled around a lot… UGH! (but thank you anyway!)  Hopefully I’m asked back to do another one, maybe I’ll sound more polished the next time around…   And… for all of you who couldn’t allocate the time to watch the webinar that I appeared on last week, I have for you, a link to the YOUTUBE of the webinar…  And here you go! On the Move Webinar Q4 2021 Featuring Chuck Butler – YouTube

Ok… I’m besides myself this morning because of this article on Bloomberg.com…  Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen, had the nerve to say, “ controlling the Covid-19 virus in the U.S. is the key to easing inflation.

“It’s important to realize that the cause of this inflation is the pandemic,”

Ok, no mention of all the new currency that has been put into circulation by the Treasury and Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel?  C’mon Janet, give me a break here…  Nothing, nada, nil, zip and big fat goose egg on any thought that the trillions of currency printed in the last couple of years has anything to do with inflation soaring?  I shake my head in total disgust, with her…

And in a follow up article on Bloomberg.com Neal Kashkari the President of the Minneapolis Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel  had this to say about inflation, “We need to take it very seriously, but my view is we also need to not overreact to some of these temporary factors even though the pain is real,”

C’mon Neal… I’ve got a quiver full of arrows to shoot at your statement… What makes you think that anyone is overacting to inflation? Certainly the Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel isn’t!  And wouldn’t it be better to hike rates now, stop printing new currency, and stop deficit spending, to squelch inflation, and then you could always cut them again later? 

So, all along, you, me, and everyone else in this country, except the Elite, are suffering with high prices in everything… I’ve long said that inflation is a “tax” that everyone has to pay, and there are no loopholes to dodge the inflation tax…  And all the while the powers in this country don’t give two hoots that you and I are suffering… They don’t, they really don’t… Take Mary Daly’s comments from the Pfennig last week, and add in Neal Kashkari’s and Janet Yellen’s and you get the picture, they just don’t care…  So, buckle up partner, this is going to be a very difficult ride…

Oh, and please stick around to the end today, for the FWIW is an article about how the rising inflation is all in the Gov’t’s plans… You won’t want to miss that one! 

Well… according to Danielle Di Martino Booth, who was on Grant William’s podcast that I listened to last night, (you have to be a subscriber to listen, so I don’t have the link) Jerome Powell, appears to be on the inside track to be named Fed Chairman for another term… I had read previously that the POTUS wasn’t a fan of Powell’s and recently called Ms. Brainard to the White House, which really caused some to think that she was going to be the POTUS’s choice to be the Chairman of the Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel… 

But according to Di Martino Booth, Ms. Brainard is not confirmable… And so we’ll be stuck with Powell for another term… Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a fan of Brainard either, as she has been on the inside circle of Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel heads for a long time and if anything has happened, the Fed / Cabal/ Cartel  has gained more control, which to me is a very bad thing…

Mexico’s central bank raised interest rates by a quarter point for its fourth consecutive meeting, sticking to a steady adjustment pace even as inflation accelerated faster than expected.

Policy makers, led by central bank Governor Alejandro Diaz de Leon, cast a split 4-1 vote to raise the key rate to 5% on Thursday. So, Mexico like Brazil have gone way out on a limb by hiking rates much higher than all other countries… I’ve always said that the Mexican peso needed a “risk premium interest rate”… One that  paid investors for their “risk” with the peso… Well, now Mexico has that “risk premium”… But… there’s a difference going on here, and that is their real interest rates is still  way below 5%… And so the peso remains a petrol currency only…

But.. kudos to Mexico’s Central Bank  Governor, he’s certainly not waiting for the U.S. to hike rates now is he? 

The U.S. Data Cupboard today, is basically empty, with only the Empire manufacturing index to print… no biggie… But tomorrow we will see Rocktober Retail Sales, which the BHI (Butler Household Index) indicates will be soft, and most likey will not meet expectations. We’ll also see the Rocktober prints of Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization… But that’s tomorrow, we’ll worry about tomorrow when that day comes.. Today, is all that’s promised to us…

To recap… Gold & Silver had a strong week last week, even with some price capping going on curtesy of the price manipulators… The dollar which was on a roll all week and appeared to be getting ready to take off to the moon, got a rude awakening on Friday when the U. of Michigan, confidence report dropped to a multi-decade low, and the dollar got sold to end the week. It appears that Jerome Powell will hold on to his Chairmanship of the Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel… And Mexico has hiked rates again bringing their central rate to 5%… But Chuck doesn’t believe it’s enough to provide a “risk premium” at this point. And in the overnight markets the dollar has just drifted lower, and Gold & Silver have given back a small piece of the gains last week. 

For What It’s Worth…  Well… longtime readers may recall me telling them over and over again, that the Gov’t wants to see inflation, for it’s the only way they can deal with the amount of debt that we have… And then longtime readers, Bob, sent me a link to an article about how  the Gov’t’s plans are all playing out, and it can be found here: National Economic Council Director Brian Deese Claims Inflation Working Perfectly – As Designed, a Collapsing U.S. Economy Demands More Congressional Spending – The Last Refuge (theconservativetreehouse.com)

Or, here’s your snippet:” JoeBama’s National Economic Council Director Brian Deese, the twenty-something central planner in charge of all White House economic policy, tells a curiously skeptical Jake Tapper that things are working swimmingly, exactly according to plan.

According to the Biden-Deese theory on sustainable economic policy, massive spending creates massive inflation; which creates an increased demand for government subsidy to afford basic products; which creates a growing dependency on the government; which creates a need for massive spending.  Wash-Rinse-Repeat.

This is exactly the expanding economic dependency model sold by socialists around the world for generations, which Barack Obama and his Biden administration promise they have now perfected in order to remove the pesky inequities always associated with unbridled capitalism.  Smile everyone, government cheese aplenty….”

Chuck again… Yes, either you live under a rock, or you are experiencing inflation that the Gov’t so desperately needs, but we as citizens don’t! No wonder the Gov’t doesn’t see this as real inflation, they’ve got to sell it to the sheeple that it’s only transitory, and won’t last…  

Market Price 11/15/2021: American Style: A$ .7365,  kiwi .7074,  C$ .7981, euro 1.1450, sterling 1.3430, Swiss $1.0871, European Style: rand 15.1977, krone 8.6617, SEK 8.7422,  forint 319.44,  zloty 4.0471,  koruna 22.0225, RUB 72.83, yen 113.86, sing 1.3567, HKD 7.7902, INR 74.35, China 6.3786, peso 20.52, BRL 5.4577,  BBDXY 1,169.11, Dollar Index 95.04,  Oil $79.64, 10-year 1.55%, Silver $25.22, Platinum $1.085.00, Palladium $2,182.00, Copper $4.49, and Gold… $1,862.60

That’s it for today… OK… I received a notice from my PCP that he needs to see me this week. So, this will be a short week for me as I will be reporting to the doctor bright and early Thursday morning…  OK… Congrats go out to the SLU Men’s and Women’s soccer teams as both won their conference’s (A10) tournament, and the SLU Men are undefeated so far this year!  Maybe they can return to the glory years when the great Harry Keough was the coach!   I have a special treat for lunch today… I’m going to receive a visit from longtime friend, and former boss, Frank trotter, who’s coming to the mountain to see the wise a….  on the hill! HAHAHAHAHAHA…   The David Ian Trio take us to the finish line today with their version of the Christmas classic: Silver Bells…  I hope you have a Marvelous Monday today, and please Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler

 

Consumer Inflation Jumps To 6.2%!!!

November 11, 2021

* The dollar gets bought by the bushelful on Wednesday

* Gold & Silver finally get on the inflation hedge rally tracks! 

Good Day… And a Tub Thumpin’ Thursday to one and all! Today is Veterans Day!  A day that should be a national holiday in my book, and not a semi-holiday… I’m getting my chimney swept for Veteran’s Day… I usually take a drive to the country to the burial grounds and put a new Flag on my Dad’s grave, but I think I’ll have to do that at another time this year, as it’s a rainy day…  This weekend, I’m going to go to Columbia Mo. My youngest son Alex asked me to go to the football game with him, and I couldn’t say yes fast enough! It’ll be a cold day, but at least it’ll be during the afternoon and hopefully the sun will be out…  And then next week I’m going to the Sports On Tap get together at Ball Park Village, with all the St. Louis Sports Writers.. Should be a good time! And the David Benoit band greets me this morning with their version of the Charlie Brown theme song…

Well, right out of the starter’s blocks yesterday morning, after I had hit “send” on the Pfennig, the Rocktober CPI (Consumer Inflation) printed… You know the one I said I wouldn’t put much credence in…  Well, CPI for Rocktober rose to 6.2%, the largest jump in inflation in 30 years!  And over at Shadowstats.com, John Williams has CPI at 10%…  Either one was enough to get Gold traders off their duffs and turn around the early morning selling. Gold was up $27 just minutes after the CPI number was released… And I was smiling like the Cheshire Cat!  But… then the profit takers and the price manipulators had to have something to say about this huge jump in the price of Gold, and they saw to it that Gold only gained $17.90 on the day, while Silver was able to gain 38-cents… 

Gold closed the day at $1,850.90 and Silver at $23.73…  In reading Omar Ayales weekly letter at www.goldchartsrus.net, I came across this quote from Omar, “Gold must now break above $1850 to clearly break away from its critical resistance area and show renewed strength that could reverse the year+ long downtrend and re‐establish the cyclical and secular bull markets that could push gold to its all time highs near $2100 initially” – Omar Ayales…

Well, after yesterday’s close, Gold was $1.850… So, now I’m looking for the shiny metal to reverse the year long downtrend, as Omar said! 

I always like to have some technical analysis thrown my way, just to mix with the fundamentals that I used to always rely on, but can’t any longer… And my two go-to guys when it comes to technical analysis are Sean Hyman, and Omar Ayales… 

Now, one would think that this latest inflation data would be enough to get the Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel Heads thinking about hiking rates to combat this rising inflation that, in my opinion, is going to keep getting worse…. But NOOOOOOO!   Here’s what Mary Daly, Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel president in San Francisco had to say about the quickly rising inflation… “Right now it would be premature to start changing our calculations about raising rates. Right now, uncertainty requires us to wait and watch with vigilance.”   I found that quote on Bloomberg.com and it just rankled me to no end, folks…

And guess what the dollar did on the day? It went bonkers! The dollar was the cat’s meow once again, and it soared higher… The BBDXY which started the day at 1,158.45, finished the day at 1,168.92…  On Monday this week I said that after the dollar selling late last week that the euro was climbing back toward 1.16… Well, the single unit fell very far and fast, and this morning it trades with a 1.14 handle… UGH!  So, why was the dollar so sought after yesterday?  Well, traders don’t seem to follow what the Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel Heads have to say I guess… The Traders think that with inflation soaring that interest rates will be rising too very soon…  Ahem… You Traders might want to take a look at what Mary Daly had to say… (above) … 

I was shocked when I saw the DDBXY quote yesterday evening… What on God’s Green Earth, did traders see in that CPI number that would cause them to buy dollars like funnel cakes at a State Fair? Well, we’ve been through all that already, so I won’t repeat myself….

In the Overnight Markets last night… the buying of Gold continued, and the shiny metal is up $6.40 in the early trading, and Silver is up 26-cents, to bring it very near $25… But… that Gold & Silver buying isn’t stopping the dollar, and it was bought by the basketful in the overnight markets. The BBDXY is up to 1,170.11, and there really doesn’t seem to be anything that will stop the dollar’s rise at this point.   Bonds got sold yesterday, along with Oil… 

This is all strange to me, folks… this is not playing out anywhere near what I thought would be happening, with zero interest rates, the Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel, beginning to taper their bond purchases,  and new deficit spending bills mounting up at the doorway, and above all, with inflation pointing its double barrel shotgun at the economy and your pocketbook… 

In the 70’s, when inflation began to creep higher.. .the dollar was sold daily, Gold & Silver gained daily, and the economy was circling the bowl… I would have thought that we would revisit those times that were the dark days of the 70’s… And remember back in the 70’s the U.S. Debt was nowhere near where it is today…  In fact, in 1973, the year that Gold was taken from the backing of the dollar, the U.S. Debt was $458 Billion…  And the debt creators had just begun to start to pile on the debts of the free floating fiat dollar… by 1982, we, as  country surpassed the $1 Trillion in Debt for the first time, at $1,142 Trillion…  

So, here’s more on the inflation going on right now… This is Jeremy Grantham speaking to Bloomberg.com “Every bull market before this one had low inflation.”

The 6.2% increase in the consumer price index in October “would have been enough in any market since 1925 — and for all I know long before that — it would have been enough to have crashed the market,” said the value-investing giant and co-founder of Boston-based asset manager GMO. “But this time the faith in the Fed is so complete that when they say it is temporary we believe it.”

Chuck again…  Why would stocks rally on the inflation news? Don’t these guys get it that inflation is going to eat away at consumer’s disposable income, and those purchases of Bit Screen TV’s, $100,000 cars, the latest blue tooth device, etc. will be put on hold…  And you thought Corporate profits were bad during the plandemic? These losses will be HUGE, because… They all stocked up on their widgets because the Fed told them the inflation was only transitory, and the Gov’t keeps telling us the economy is roaring back, and now they have all these widgets and no one to buy them…  Uh-Oh!

But not to worry, The President says he as an agenda that will deal with inflation!  Oh, so now that inflation is soaring, your people are getting off their duffs to do something about it? What about all the months previous that people that should have known better, should have been doing something? 

And, finally… the thing that really hits home with rising inflation is that wages are rising to keep in step with rising inflation… Wages are down 1-2% in the past year, while inflation is up more than 10%… Talk about negative yield, that’s negative disposable income, folks…  All brought to you by your friends (not!) at the Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel… 

OK, let’s talk about something else…  So…. Did you like the webinar last night?  I was glad I didn’t stumble, fumble, bumble during the webinar…  I saw Rachel yesterday, and she said, “You look nice”, and I said, “I have that webinar tonight, and I didn’t’ want to have to change clothes!”  Well, I think I got my point across that the markets are manipulated, and until someone with some gray matter in Washington D.C. brings it all to an end, we’re stuck with the manipulations…

Today’s Data Cupboard is empty… I guess the semi-holiday today has the data collectors off for the day… Tomorrow, we will see some 2nd tier reports like The Five Year Expectation For Inflation…. Wait! What? C’Mon, there’s no way we can tell what inflation is going to be next month, much less in 5 years! That’s just plain stupid, Charlie Brown! 

To recap… Well Consumer inflation is soaring higher, and Gold & Silver are finally getting on the inflation combatants rail tracks… Yesterday, Gold was up more than $27 at one point before the price manipulators brought it back to right at $1, 850…  The dollar got bought by the bushelful, and has Chuck scratching his bald head…  You don’t want to get in front of that runaway bus that is the dollar right now, so batten down the hatches, and look for bargains… 

For What It’s Worth…  It’s been a while since I quoted Pam and Russ Martens at www.wallstreetonparade.com  But this one caught my eye, and it talks about fears with leverage in the U.S. Financial System, and it can be found here: New Fed Report Shows High Leverage Poses Threat to U.S. Financial Stability: From Life Insurance Companies to Hedge Funds (wallstreetonparade.com)

Or, here’s your snippet: “New Fed Report Shows High Leverage Poses Threat to U.S. Financial Stability: From Life Insurance Companies to Hedge Funds

The word “leverage” appears 107 times in the Federal Reserve’s Financial Stability Report that was released yesterday. The second mention provides a warning of what happens when leverage blows up the financial system – something Americans learned all too well in 2008:

“Excessive leverage within the financial sector increases the risk that financial institutions will not have the ability to absorb even modest losses when hit by adverse shocks. In those situations, institutions will be forced to cut back lending, sell their assets, or, in extreme cases, shut down. Such responses can substantially impair credit access for households and businesses.”

Perhaps this is an understatement from the Fed. Not only did major institutions like Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers “shut down” from insolvency in 2008, putting tens of thousands of workers out of a job, but this is also what can happen when too much leverage props up dubious assets on Wall Street: the taxpayer can have a gun put to their head to bail out every major trading house on Wall Street; the government can have a gun put to its head to nationalize Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, and the giant insurer AIG in order to bail out the derivatives of Goldman Sachs and its brethren on Wall Street; millions of Americans can lose their jobs and their homes to foreclosure; the Federal Reserve can be forced to push interest rates to zero to prop up asset prices, thus forcing senior citizens to get by on a lot less of a return on their CDs and Treasury notes; and because so much capital was wasted on toxic assets instead of flowing to the real economy, the U.S. is still living through subpar economic growth, which is preventing tens of millions of Americans from earning a livable wage.

The Fed’s Stability Report had this to say on leverage lurking at life insurance companies:

“Leverage of life insurance companies remained at post-2008 highs. Corporate bonds, CLOs [Collateralized Loan Obligations], and CRE [Commercial Real Estate] debt continued to account for a large proportion of life insurers’ assets. If these assets lose value, life insurers’ capital positions—and, hence, their ability to honor debt obligations—could be impaired.”

We really hate to mention this to the Fed, but the reason that the U.S. government had to rescue the giant life insurance company, AIG, in 2008 was because mega banks on Wall Street, supervised by the Fed, had tied a derivatives umbilical cord around their neck and the neck of AIG.

Nothing much has changed today. Large life insurance companies continue to be counterparties to Wall Street’s derivative trades.

Chuck again…  Yes, thanks to the crooks on Wall Street, they almost brought down the U.S. financial system, and like Pam and Russ say, “nothing has changed”… And that’s scary if you ask me@

Market Prices 11/11/2021: American Style: A$ .7309,  kiwi .7031, C$ .7957, euro 1.1465, sterling 1.3405, Swiss $1.0857, European Style: rand 15.2070, krone 8.6811, SEK 8.6988,  forint 318.15,  zloty 4.0369,  koruna 22.0161, RUB 70.88, yen 113.96, sing 1.3540, HKD 7.7919, INR 74.35, China 6.3894, peso 20.54, BRL 5.4799,  BBDXY 1,170.11, Dollar Index 94.98,  Oil $81.74, 10-year 1.57%, Silver $24.99, Platinum $1,087.00, Palladium $2,142.00, Copper $4.50, and Gold… $1,857.30

That’s it for today…   Well, I made it through the Webinar last night… Thanks again to Rich Checkan for offering me the opportunity to speak… I think of my Dad all the time, and today especially… He was a veteran of WWII… And never really talked about it much…  I look at a picture of him, me and my little brother David, on the back porch steps that show how poor we were… So, I get to see him while he was still a healthy man, before cancer took him down to a weakened shell of the man he became, later in life… I was probably around 10 in the picture… So to all the veterans out there, thank you, from the bottom of my heart… My Billikens won again last night, not that there were any questions about them beating the team they played!  They have one more game they should win, before they travel to Memphis next week to play The Memphis Tigers… A nationally ranked team… YIKES!  Vince Guaraldi and his Trio take us to the finish line today with his song: Linus & Lucy… I hope you have a Tub Thumpin’ Thursday today, and please say thank you to a veteran… And then make sure you continue to Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler

Dollar Selling Gets Turned Around Overnight…

November 10, 2021

*Currencies and Gold rally on Tuesday… 

* But something occurs overnight, and the dollar rallies… 

Good day… And a Wonderful Wednesday to you!  Well, the sun never made an appearance here yesterday, but the weather was OK to sit outside for awhile… Our Blues, my Tigers, and Billikens all played last night… The Tigers and Billikens kicked off their basketball seasons last night, and our Blues traveled from Anaheim to Winnipeg to play last night, and all three teams won! The Blues won in a shootout, which I still say is the dumbest way to decide a professional game, and the Billikens won as did the Tigers… So, it was a good Tuesday night for my teams!  The Billikens play again tonight, and look to begin their season 2-0…  The Tigers will renew their border war with Kansas this year… Mizzou and KU, now that’s a game that will be watched by many! The Stephen Kummer Krio is playing their version of the song: Baby, It’s Cold Outside to greet me this morning… 

Well it was another day of dollar selling yesterday. Each day that the dollar gets sold, it’s not an all out assault on the green/peachback, just a steady slow selling, that I’ve explained many times in the past, is the way the U.S. would prefer to see it go down… The BBDXY which started the day at 1,159.64, ended the day at 1,158.45.. The Big Dog euro continue to ratchet higher to 1.16, and the Petrol currencies all rallied on the price of Oil’s $2 gain on the day.  Gold found a way to rally for the 4th consecutive day, and gained $8 to close at $1,833.00, while Silver couldn’t find a bid all day at lost 18-cents on the day to close at $24.35…

So, riddle me this Batman, how does Gold gain on the day, and Silver loses on the day?  Well, Robin, I do believe the answer can be found in these numbers… The number of days of Silver production to equal the number of ounces that are represented in short sale of Silver is 148, while Gold’s number is 78 days…  There’s just too much short positions to overcome a day when there is little physical buying, and that’s my story and I’m sticking to it!

In The overnight markets last night… I guess all this dollar selling was bound to attract someone’s attention that doesn’t like the way it’s going, and so they sent out the memo to correct it… I say that, because for some reason unknown to me, the dollar turned on a dime last night and rallied throughout the night to start the day today with the BBDXY at 1,162.08, which is up from yesterday’s close of 1,158.24…  

Gold is down, as is Silver, in the early trading, and bonds got sold, too… Bonds, I get why they would get sold, but Gold had put in 4 consecutive days of gains, before last night… I know trees don’t grow to the moon, but a 4 day winning streak for Gold is like a drop in the bucket… C’Mon  guys!  Leave Gold & Silver alone! Let them trade on their own merits… 

This came to me from the good folks at GATA yesterday regarding inflation… “The surge in inflation is leaving the world’s leading economies with their lowest real interest rates in decades, as central banks delay any abrupt tightening of the extra-loose monetary policy used to help weather the coronavirus crisis, arguing that the recent rise in prices is transitory.

Real interest rates, which subtract inflation from central bank policy rates, reflect the real cost of borrowing and real return on savings.

The combination of accelerating inflation in the US, eurozone, and UK, and their central banks’ decision to remain patient when it comes to rate increases, effectively raises monetary stimulus despite these countries being close to recovering lost output from the crisis.

Real interest rates “will remain at historically low levels for the next several years,” said Elena Duggar, managing director at the rating agency Moody’s.

In the US, where nominal interest rates are near zero, real rates stand at around -5.3 percent. They are at -3 percent in the UK, and -4.6 percent in Germany, according to Financial Times analysis. …

Chuck again…  the problem as I see this, is that normal people, Joe Six-pack, doesn’t know a thing about “real interest rates”, most people don’t know that the U.S. has real interest rates that are negative…  They don’t teach this stuff in school, unless you’re an old guy like me, that learned my economics from real economists, like Hy Minsky…  For if, most people did know this about our interest rates, they would be screaming bloody murder! 

Many of you know and read good friend, Dennis Miller’s letter: www.milleronthemoney.com  and that he’s been dealing with some  serious health issues lately, which means that his letter is reissuing previous letters instead of new ones… Dennis has been through hell and high water in the past year, and so when I received an email from him, I held my breath, but then seeing that he’s bringing something to my attention, I release that held breath!  Yesterday, he sent me a link to an article about the stock market’s bubble…  Fed May Trigger a Market Crash by Accident… (birchgold.com)    I gave you that in case you want to read the whole article, otherwise here are some facts that point out the stock market’s Bubble and they are as follows:

The Buffett Indicator shows the market Strongly Overvalued at 238% of GDP

The P/E ratio agrees: Strongly Overvalued at 96% over the historical average

The Mean Reversion Model also reads Strongly Overvalued, predicting the S&P 500 will drop about 50% promising a worse crash than the end of the dot-com bubble (for statistics nerds, the S&P 500 is 2.5 stan

The Interest Rate Model is slightly more optimistic, reading merely Overvalued 

Chuck again..  Oh, and just when you thought I had spent enough time on the stock market… I have something else indicating the Bubble might be ready to pop, in the FWIW section today… You won’t want to have missed that!

The U.S. Data Cupboard yesterday did print a report in between all those speeches by the Fed heads…  The Labor Department’s producer price index, which measures wholesale prices, rose 0.6% in October, translating into an 8.6% increase year over year. That’s inflation that’s in the pipeline and will come out the other side as Consumer inflation…  It’s real, folks… It’s not something that was a conspiracy theory thought up by the likes of me!  No, this inflation is real…  And guess what’s on the docket to print today? CPI (consumer inflation)… Of course I’m not going to put much credence in the hedonically adjusted CPI, but will instead go over the www.shadowstats.com and find out what the real inflation rate is… This is where John Williams the proprietor of shadowstats.com goes back in time to before the hedonic adjustments were added to the CPI calculation, back when there was a basket of goods that didn’t change, get adjusted, weighed up or down, or substituted each month, got their prices checked VS the previous month’s price….   But, the markets still care, for some unknown reason, about CPI, so… I’ll let you know what it did print in tomorrow’s Pfennig!

To recap… The currencies and Gold rallied again yesterday VS the dollar, but Silver couldn’t find a bid all day, and Chuck thinks that Batman has the answer to why that happened…  Chuck is all about inflation and the stock market’s bubble today.  And in the overnight markets last night… all the dollar selling stopped on a dime! And throughout the night, the currencies, Gold, Silver and bonds got sold…  This is all very strange and my spider sense is tingling again and pointing to price manipulation… 

Before I head to the Big Finish today, I wanted to talk about the markets and their lack of free trading… It’s this way with all markets, folks, Government intervention is taking over the direction of markets with their price manipulations… It just makes me sick to have to talk about how there are no free trading markets any longer… Stocks, bonds, currencies and metals are all subjected to Government intervention… The intervention may no be as brazen as it is with Gold & Silver, but it’s there and I don’t like it, and neither should you, or anyone for that matter! 

And one would think that the Fed’s/ Cabal’s/ Cartel’s announcement of tapering their bond purchases would mean that they are stepping away from manipulating bond yields… And while a part of my brain says that this could lead us back to fundamentals being important, the other side of my brain, says no way… I see this tapering playing out like this… The tapering continues, into next year, when inflation has really taken hold of the economy, worse than it is now, and the markets are screaming for the Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel to hike rates… But they can’t raise rates… So, they go back to massive bond buying to appease the markets… And we’ll be back to square one…  that’s my story and I’m sticking to it! 

For What It’s Worth…  Yesterday, I told you that the stock market was a bubble that was still getting air blown into it, but was also still floating around the room looking for a pin…  Well, then along came this article from longtime reader Bob, regarding Warren Buffett’s outlook for stocks, and I thought that this would be a good FWIW article to follow up my comment yesterday. The article can be found here: Warren Buffett’s cash pile a sign of how worried he is about markets (brisbanetimes.com.au)

Or, here’s your snippet: “Warren Buffett is signalling wariness with the soaring stock market as the billionaire investor extends a selling streak.

Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway was a net seller of equities for the fourth straight quarter, a trend not seen in data going back to 2008. The company ended up selling almost $US2 billion ($2.7 billion) more in stocks than it purchased during the period, adding to a cash pile that climbed to a record $US149.2 billion.

The selling streak indicates Buffett has struggled to find bargains with the stock market hitting all-time highs. A big, splashy acquisition also eluded the conglomerate, as the 91-year old and his investing deputies confronted a combination of sky-high price tags and fierce competition from the wave of special purpose acquisition companies.

“The big issue here is that Berkshire was a net seller of stocks again this quarter,” Jim Shanahan, an analyst with Edward Jones, said in a telephone interview. “That’s the primary culprit” of the cash pile continuing to rise.”

Chuck again…  Have you ever heard the phrase “follow the money”? of course you have… I’m just saying that if you’ve heard the phrase, and believe it, why then aren’t you following it?  I’m just saying…

Market Prices 11/10/2021: American Style: A$ .7360,  kiwi .7094, C$ .8043, euro 1.1556, sterling .13505, Swiss $1.0948, European Style: rand 15.1895, krone 8.5457, SEK 8.6184,  forint 313.51,  zloty 3.9903,  koruna 21.8141, RUB 70.97, yen 113.28, sing 1.3485, HKD 7.7895, INR 74.26, China 6.3908, peso 20.36, BRL 5.5169,  BBDXY 1,162.08, Dollar Index 94.29,  Oil $83.70, 10-year 1.47%, Silver $24.28, Platinum $1,068.00, Palladium $2,120.00, Copper $4.48, and Gold… $1,827.20

That’s it for today… Tonight is my BIG night! Tonight I’ll be appearing on the webinar with Rich Checkan and Chris Blasi and you can all join in on zoom by clicking here: Webinar Registration – Zoom

I want to thank Rick Checkan for this opportunity to speak to many people that have no idea who I am, or why I would be on a webinar…  Rich is Michael Checkan’s nephew, and Michael and I go back many years being introduced by Frank Trotter. Michael and I also have something in common… We both are cancer survivors, and live life the the fullest…  It’s been awhile since I spoke to a crowd, I sure hope I don’t stumble, fumble, bumble along… The first time I ever went out on my own to speak, I did it at a conference that was set up by Michael Checkan, so, there’s history there… Speaking of my long time friend, and former boss, Frank Trotter… I hear he’s involved in starting a new bank! Battle Bank is the name, and I’m sure you’ll be hearing a lot about it going forward!  My favorite recording of Santa Claus is Coming To Town is by the Ramsey Lewis Trio, and that’s what’s playing as we head to the finish line today…  I hope you have a Wonderful Wednesday, and please, Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler

 

 

NY Fed Poll Shows Inflation Expectations Rose to 5.7%!

November 9, 2021

* Currencies and metals continue their rallies on Monday

* Russian inflation soars…. Where are the rate hikes? 

Good day… And a Tom Terrific Tuesday to you! The results for the Gold Glove voting on Sunday night, really went the way of the Cardinals… 5 Cardinals received Gold Gloves, with the best defensive catcher, arguably, Yadi Molina, being the only Cardinals not to receive a Gold Glve this year…  5 Teammates with Gold Gloves the same year, is a new major league record… So, congrats to: Arenado, Edman, Goldschmidt, O’Neil, and Bader… Good jobs all! I fear that the collective bargaining agreement that baseball is run under, and comes up on December 1st, is in for a long drawn out negotiation, and could mean a delayed start to spring training… UGH! I sure hope the player’s Union, and the owners can avoid any delays… Vince Guaraldi and his trio greet me this morning with their version of the Great Pumpkin Waltz…

On a sidebar here… The Cardinals fired their manager, Mike Schildt, after his 3rd consecutive year of reaching the playoffs, and now Schildt is a finalist for Manager of the Year… Would serve the Cardinals’ front office, if he would win… I’m still quite upset with the way the whole firing went down… Come on Front office, we’re supposed to be better than that!

OK… sorry, but baseball has only been over for a week, and I already miss it! So, any hot stove baseball talk with me warms my bones!  

Do you know what else warms my bones? A day of markets trading the way they should be trading, well that is the markets that I write about… Who the hell knows what’s going on with stocks these days, as the bubble keeps floating around the room looking for a pin… And the non-currencies, the cryptocurrencies, is a market that is not really a market, it’s all smoke and mirrors as far as I’m concerned, and that’s that!

The currencies continued their late week rally of last week on Monday, and the BBDXY dropped from 1,160 in the morning to 1,159 at the close… The Big Dog euro, is slowly climbing toward 1.16. One currency that has fallen out of favor with traders in recent days is the Aussie dollar (A$), which was on a roll all during Rocktober, and reached 75-cents… But I warned you that this could happen to this currency, for it got all kinds of kudos for being associated with its kissin’ cousin across the Tasman, New Zealand, who saw their official cash rate get hiked… But there was no follow up from the Reserve Bank of Australia, so… Traders got tired of waiting…  And the A$ fell out of bed…

Gold gained $6.00 on the day to close at $1,825.00, and Silver gained 29-cents to close at $24.53… Yesterday, I said “It’s been a long time coming, it’s been a long time gone” quoting lyrics to a CSNY song of yesteryear… What I meant by that is that we’ve waited for Gold & Silver to begin to climb as inflation keeps rising, and it’s been a long since inflation has risen that it’s been a long time gone since Gold & Silver gained on inflation fears…

In the overnight markets last night… There’s been a little more slippage in the dollar, but not much. I guess traders are waiting for the other shoe to drop, to before they take the dollar down more… That “other shoe” could be a number of things that include: The price manipulators staying home, or more weak data, or other things that are weighing on the dollar each and every day.  

Gold and Silver are basically flat ahead of the New York open.  And the price of Oil has ratcheted higher to a $82 handle this morning.  What a run that Gold & Silver had on Thursday and Friday last week… And in the face of the Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel announcing their modest tapering..  This just in this morning: Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel head, Randall Quarles has announced that he will resign next month…  Smart man, getting out of Dodge before the street fighting begins…  I’m just saying.. 

OK… longtime readers may recall me talking about the tariffs that were put on Chinese exports to the U.S. a few years ago…. And I said then that they wouldn’t work, for there was no one watching the hen house… There was no ability for the U.S. to monitor if China was doing what it agreed to do. I even said that they probably had one hand behind their back, with their fingers crossed…  So, why am I rehashing this now?  Well, two reasons…   1. The U.S. just printed an all-time record Trade Deficit in September, and 2. China just posted a record Trade Surplus…    So… once again… who was right at the time of the tariffs being announced? 

Of course, it was little old me! But I digress…  You may also recall me going bananas over a report from an economist that said that the Trade Deficit doesn’t matter…  Remember when the U.S. was a creditor nation? Weren’t things much better at that time in the economy and financials?  I rest my case…

So, how does a President, who took an oath to uphold the laws of the country, go ahead with his demands of mandates, when the 5th Court of Appeals put a halt to the mandates, upon further review? You have to wonder, just what the foreign countries think of the goings on here in the U.S.  I’m just saying..

OK… back to the task at hand this morning…  This from the Moscow Times: “Inflation in Russia climbed to its highest level in almost six years in October as the government and Central Bank struggle to rein in rapid price rises which threaten to undermine economic recovery.

Inflation hit 8.1% last month, the Rosstat national statistics service said Wednesday — the fastest rate of price increases since February 2016, and more than double the Central Bank’s 4% target. That was up from a reading of 7.4% a month earlier and ahead of market expectations.”

Longtime readers know that I truly appreciate the work that Russian Central Bank President Elvira Nabiullina, and she was out front in her call that the inflation rising was not “Transitory”, but… One has to question what It’s going to take to get the interest rates rising in Russia?  Come on Elvira! You can do it… I know you can!

And this little ditty comes to us from Ed Steer’s daily letter this morning: “In the United States, consumers are shelling out more for most items, including essentials like food, rent, and petrol, as well as for big-ticket items like cars.

The New York Fed survey found that median inflation expectations at the one-year horizon increased to 5.7 percent in October – marking a 0.4 percentage point jump from the previous month and a series high for records dating back to June 2013.

The October bump was also the 12th consecutive monthly increase and was most pronounced among respondents who have at least a college degree and for people between the ages of 40 and 60.”

Chuck again… Inflation is real folks, pay no attention to that man behind the curtain that keeps saying its transitory… It makes no difference to me what causes it, whether it be supply chain disruptions, or massive currency printing, or a long period of zero percent interest rates, I could go on here, but you get the point… The time for excuses is over, and besides, as my old football coach used to say, “Excuses never won a ballgame for anyone”…  Got Gold? 

The U.S. Data Cupboard today will have the Rocktober Producer Price Index (PPI), which is wholesale inflation and should continue to rise…  There will be at least 4 different Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel heads out speaking today…  I read yesterday that the President interviewed Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel head, Brainard, for the chairman’s job….  Odds are that she has the inside lane for the job… But don’t expect any major changes in the way the Fed operates, as she has been in the inner circle that makes decisions for a few years now…

To recap… the currencies & metals both rallied on Monday, but their rallies were muted a bit, but still rallies nonetheless… There was no data on Monday, so the dollar got a bit of a reprieve for the day, but that could change with today’s data cupboard offerings… Chuck is wondering out loud, about how someone defies a court order… And not just any someone, the President who took an oath to uphold the laws of our country!  Russia’s inflation continues to rise, and Chuck is disappointed with his favorite Central Banker, for not hiking rates yet…

For What It’s Worth… This article couldn’t have printed at a better time! I just told you above that there will be at least 4 Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel heads out speaking today, and this article quotes Big Al Greenspan and his views on too much Central Bank talk, and it can be found here: Frequent Central Bank Communication Can Create Market Problems, Too – Bloomberg

Or, here’s your snippet: “Alan Greenspan realized that when it came to taming markets and managing perceptions of how the world’s dominant economy should be steered, a few carefully chosen words could be invaluable. It’s a lesson today’s central bankers from Sydney to London would do well to reflect upon, after investors were whipsawed by monetary policy decisions in recent days.

In forgoing a rate hike last week, the Bank of England’s big mistake wasn’t so much blindsiding the market as failing to appreciate the full power of officials’ messaging. The reason investors anticipated an increase was quite simply because top BOE authorities led them to believe it would happen, largely through interviews leading up to the Nov. 4 announcement. (Governor Andrew Bailey pushed back at a press conference later that day, saying he and colleagues had never identified a particular date to start tightening.)

The communications kerfuffle — which sent bond yields tumbling and the pound lower — is a lesson that central banks’ expansive outreach over the past few decades, and especially since the global financial crisis, may not be so useful in plotting the exit from pandemic-era easy money.”

Chuck again…  Yes, I talked about this  kerfuffle yesterday, regarding the Bank of England… but I take this as Big Al’s dig at the U.S. Central Bankers and all their speeches… 

Market Prices 11/9/2021: American Style: A$ .7404,  kiwi .7151,  C$ .8038, euro 1.1578, sterling 1.3564, Swiss $1.0933, European Style: rand 15.0131, krone 8.5011, SEK 8.5484,  forint 311.83,  zloty 3.9675,  koruna 21.7546, RUB 71.27, yen 113.03, sing 1.3470, HKD 7.7899, INR 74.04, China 6.3933, peso 20.35, BRL 5.5456,  BBDXY 1,159.64, Dollar Index 94.08,  Oil $82.44, 10-year 1.46%, Silver $24.43, Platinum $1,061.00, Palladium $2,162.00, Copper $4.49, and Gold… $1,825.90

That’s it for today… 8 Days a Week…  no wait! 8 days alone… Yes, that’s what I wanted to talk about… I’ve been able to sit outside and read in the sun the last two days, and it appears we have 2 more days and then the warm weather will be gone…  Probably for the year…  I’m getting my chimney swept on Thursday this week, I love a wood burning fireplace, and we haven’t used our inside fireplace for a couple of years (we are gone in the winter), but there will still be time to have a fire in the fireplace before we leave… And so I wanted to be safe, and sure before I went to building a fire! I had an allergic reaction to something on Sunday morning I woke up with red splotches all over my face…  I sure they go away before I’m live on the Zoom for the webinar tomorrow night! I don’t know what it was that caused these splotches, whatever it was, I need to stop it! HA! My neighbor Chris, collected the leaves in my front yard with his riding mower contraption, and saved me a couple of hours of work… So, thanks Chris!  Steve Erquiaga, plays his acoustic guitar for the Windam Hill Holiday album, and does his jazzy version of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen…  I hope you have a Tom Terrific Tuesday, and please Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler