Is The ESF and PPT Working Overtime These Days?

January 28, 2020 

* Currencies can’t find a bid these days… 

* Gold gives back yesterday’s gain… 

Good Day… And a Tom Terrific Tuesday to you! Well, my trip to the wound center left me in near tears again… They tell me it’s healing, but… why then does it hurt so much when they dress it? I go back tomorrow, as they want to see me quickly and not wait until the usual Thursday date. So, no Pfennig tomorrow… But I promise I’ll be back on Thursday, God willing! I learned last night that 100 people have been tested for the coronavirus and only 5 have tested positive, so… so far, no mass spreading here like in China. That doesn’t mean we should let our guard down… I could kick myself, because I didn’t practice safety the other day. I shook the hand of a friend I hadn’t seen in a year, and then he told me he had a bad cold! UGHH! You see, when you’re on Chemo, your immune system is at risk, and need to stay away from sick people, because if I come down with a cold, it’ll be a doozy! I used to tell the folks on the trade desk to stay home if they were coming down with something… I guess the next few days will tell if I contracted a cold… UGH! The Band titled Lighthouse greets me this morning with their rock classic song: One Fine Morning…

Yesterday morning, I meant to tell you just how beautiful the sunrise on the ocean was… And then it slipped my mind and I went onward… UGH!

OK, so the currencies lost more ground to the dollar yesterday, not as much as late last week, but some lost ground nonetheless. And Gold, which was up over $12 in the early trading couldn’t hold or add to that gain, and ended up gaining $9…. But add that to Friday’s gain of over $9 and you had a pretty good move the last two days… There wasn’t any news from the Eurozone or down under, or Japan or even Russia to change the direction on the currencies, so they suffered through another day of dollar bugs dancing in the street.

In the early trading in Gold, it seems the markets believe there is no threat of a spread of the virus and have knocked $8 off the price of Gold…  And the price of Oil has wrapped a tourniquet around the bleeding in the price, and fought back about $1 in the past 24 hours.  That move allowed the Russian ruble to put up a roadblock on the selling, but with all the weakness in the euro, the Norwegian krone can’t find a bid right now. 

You know something that’s really eating at me these days? Well, it goes like this… One side of the Government has tied up the country for over a month, and in the end, they will have wasted our time and tax dollars… But that’s not really what gets me these days, it’s more the traders not paying attention to the goings on with the Fed NY, and all their cash injections into the Wall Street Casino Banks… Now I get that maybe U.S. traders don’t want to rock the boar, but foreign traders? They should be slicing the dollar up like it’s a piece of salami each and every night! And it leads me to believe that this whole incestuous thing going on has gotten out of hand, and that everyone is in this together…

On a side bar…. Back in the day at EverBank, we had weathered the storm of 2007-08, and didn’t need to take any Gov’t bailout money… But then the TARP money came around, and the management team at EverBank received a call from the Gov’t, who said, “How much TARP money should we send your way?” Basically, they made the bank take some TARP money! That way, the bank couldn’t go out and say, “ we never took a dime”, and then we would be thrown in with all the other banks that either did or didn’t need the money…

Now, I’m not saying all that to make my former employer look good… I’m saying it because, who knows who’s receiving all this money the Fed has pumped into the casino banks since the repo market tried to correct itself on Sept. 17 of last year… the Fed NY has hid the names behind a curtain and will refuse to pull the curtain back… So, if you’re in Minnesota, it could be your bank that’s in need of cash, or if you’re in Nevada, it could be your bank and so on all across this country…. But…. Traders aren’t dealing with it correctly… 1. Bond yields should be diving, they dropped a little, but no diving taking palce… 2. Gold should be soaring, it had gone up $18 in the past two days trading, but that’s small potatoes compared to moves it should be making… 3. Stocks should be getting blasted, the price/ earning numbers are horrible, the economy is slowing, and Corp profits will be at risk…

Who knows I may end up on some gov’t list of known problem children, for spouting off like I do, but shoot Rudy, I’m just getting started! 

Is the Exchange Stabilization Fund, or the Plunge Protection Team working overtime these days, keeping American investors eyes diverted from the real problems so they keep buying and spending?  I do believe that to be the case folks…  We are a country of spenders, it’s what we do! The bad part of that is that we tend to go overboard, and spend what we don’t have…  Governments, corporations and individuals should take my good friend Duane’s thoughts to heart, as he has been known to shout out, “I’ve got money I haven’t spent yet”!  

The U.S. Data Cupboard finally has some real economic data to print today, and soon this morning, the color of the December Durable and Capital Goods Orders will print… As I said yesterday, the November prints of these two pieces of data was pretty weak, and while I expect today’s print to have recovered a bit, it will remain weak…  I say that because that’s the trend that’s in place with economic data folks…  

You know how they say that in a bull market you could throw a dart at a wall of investments and it doesn’t matter which investment the dart lands on it will rally?  I take that thought over to the economic data and say that when the country is in a recession/ depression, you can say that any piece of data will be weak, and be right!  

To recap… The currencies just can’t find a bid or a safe harbor these days, as the dollar bugs continue to dance in the streets. Gold gave back some of its early gain yesterday to end up $9 instead of over $12 it had gained early…  However, Gold is down $8 this morning, so the fear of contagion of the virus from China seems to have waned…  I think that’ll end up being the wrong decision, but then that’s just me! 

For What It’s Worth…  This is something that I’ve been saying for some time now… That the manipulations and bad ethics of U.S. corporate America will never end as long as the heads of the corporations are hauled into jail… The fines are one thing, but when they don’t compare to the amount of money the Corp made unethically, or unlawfully, the Corporations will just say the fine was the “cost of doing business”..  this article today talks about the CEO from Wells Fargo, and how his fines didn’t mean squat to his bottom line, and it can be found here: https://www.blacklistednews.com/article/76076/wells-fargos-exceo-will-pay-175m-in-fines-and-never-work-in-banking-again-but-he-is-still-very-very.html

Or, here’s your snippet: “When John Stumpf (previously) was CEO of Wells Fargo, he oversaw a string of scandals including literally millions of acts of bank fraud, and still managed to walk out of the business with millions in bonuses and no criminal prosecutions.

He remains a multi-multi-multi-millionaire, but will have to surrender $17.5m in fines for his role in the scandals and is barred for life from working in banking. Many of his accomplices from Wells Fargo’s C-suite are facing their own fines and restrictions on future involvement in the industry.”

Chuck again…  Yeah, until they haul these guys into jail along with the monetary fines, this stuff will continue…  

Currencies today 1/28/20 American Style: A$.6755, kiwi .6535, C$ .7581, euro 1.1006, sterling 1.3191, Swiss $1.2089, European Style: rand 14.6252, krone 9.1490, SEK 9.6280, forint 306.26, zloty 3.8840, koruna   22.9303, RUB 62.59, yen 109.08, sing 1.3580, HKD 7.7758, INR 71.20, China 6.9337, peso 18.82, BRL 4.1932, Dollar Index 98.07, Oil $53.43, 10-year 1.62%, Silver $17.90, Platinum $984.03, Palladium $2,294.89, and Gold… $1,573.77

That’s it for today…  I know, I know, later than usual, but late is better than never! HA!  I didn’t sleep well with the pain in my leg waking me up off and on. I usually wake up on my own before the alarm goes off, but not today! So… here we are…  Our Blues started the second half of the season with a loss in Vancouver last night. UGH! The second half of the season last year is when the Blues got on a roll all the way to the Stanley Cup!  It’s so difficult to win the Stanley Cup, and so to think the Blues could win two in a row, is wishful thinking… but they can try! Pitchers and catchers report in two weeks! YAHOO!  Spring Training games start even earlier this year, with the first game on Feb. 22nd!  Darn baseball leaders think that starting earlier allows them to end before Halloween!  Not shorten the season or the playoffs, just start in February! UGH!  OK… I’ve got to get this out the door… no Pfennig tomorrow… and the Beatles take us to the finish line today with their song: Getting Better…    I hope you have a Tom Terrific Tuesday and will Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler