Palladium… On A Moon Shot!

January 17, 2019

* Front and center today with the Palladium move… 

* Danielle Di Martino Booth, talks about the recession train!  

Good day… And a Tub Thumpin’ Thursday to you… This is also going to be a start to a 4-day weekend for yours truly, as Monday is a National Holiday… YAHOO! I need to get my sleep pattern ironed out, and not having to get up so early will help with that.. I went to Roger Dean Chevrolet Stadium yesterday to pick up my spring training season tickets… They know me at the ticket window now, and they had them waiting for me before I even told them who I was! For 11 years now, I’ve said something when people say, “it’s good to see you”… I always respond, “it’s good to be seen”… And I was “seen” at Roger Dean yesterday! HA! They did mess up my order on additional game tickets, so I’ll have to return to sort that out… Blues Image greets me this morning with their song: Ride Captain Ride… 73 men sailed off from the San Francisco Bay…

Front and Center this morning, take a peek at the currency roundup and check out the Palladium price… Ok, back now? Boy that’s a head scratcher, isn’t it? But from what I can figure out, the buying of Palladium began with a hammer, on news that there’s a shortage of the metal, and that hammer turned to a sledgehammer and Palladium is up over $70 in the past 24 hours! 

That’s a great move, right? But I have to take a step back, and wonder if this is like a flash crash in reverse? Did someone enter a trade to buy that got the decimal in the wrong place?  I mean, shortage, I get that move, but not $70… Shoot Rudy, there’s been a shortage of Silver for a few years now, and we haven’t seen a breakout move in Silver!  Watch this today, to see if there’s a trade problem that’s identified, or if this was the real McCoy… 

Well, the real economic data (Retail Sales) we were looking forward to seeing yesterday, was delayed, because of the Gov’t showdown… That’s one way of keeping the bad news out of the markets minds… Have you seen the earnings reports from JP Morgan and Citi? They aren’t good, but that’s not stopping the stock jockeys from hiking up stock prices once again. I can hear the stock jockeys saying: Things can’t possibly be THAT bad can they?

I’ll bet a dollar to a Krispy Kreme that they are!

Another day of dollar buying and I have no idea why… Bloomberg had a good headline yesterday, they said, “ China is stuck. Theresa May is stuck. The U.S. government is stuck. Sears is stuck. They could just as easily added the Fed, and the economy… But you get the picture, Things around the world are a mess right now, but the things that affect our daily lives are the things that go on here in the U.S. I wouldn’t worry too much about China… Theresa May is a different story, she did survive a vote of confidence, which surprised me, but her problems are just beginning…  Sears is a real problem, and the U.S. Government? If you look up the word (stuck) in the dictionary, it’ll have a picture of Uncle Sam… And right under that would be pictures of the Eccles Building (Fed’s HQ), and a chart of the U.S. GDP going downward…

Gold struggled all day yesterday to get out of the red, but right at the end, a white knight rode in and pushed the price of Gold higher on the day, by $4… And like I said above, Silver trudges along, trying to avoid the potholes that are represented as short Silver paper trades… I was telling a dear reader yesterday, that it takes more than 180 days of Silver production to equal the ounces represented in short paper trades… That’s redonkulous!  But here we are… 

Well, Russia and other OPEC members came forward yesterday, and announced that they are behind the production cuts that the Saudis have proposed for the Cartel… That should have been fuel to move the price of Oil higher, but it doesn’t appear to have worked… The price of Oil is trading in the same clothes as 24 hours ago.  

Funny (not funny ha, ha) that this news on production cuts, did help the Russian ruble to rally, but not any of the other Petrol Currencies… I guess that would be more filed under Strange, not funny… 

It sure is pile on the Eurozone week… I’ve seen more articles this week that talk about how the Eurozone is headed for a recession… Eventually, if they keep saying that, it will become reality…  The euro has been stuck around the 1.14 handle, with no ammunition to move higher at this point. 

Speaking of a recession… Well, well, well… looky here… One of my fave economists, Danielle Di Martino Booth, had this to say on her Twitter account yesterday: “Are we headed to a recession? I think we are. I think the train has left the station….

Chuck again… Now where have I heard that said before? Oh, that’s right I said it! Those are my exact words, the recession train has left the station! Does this mean that Ms. Booth is a Pfennig Reader? I doubt it, but it does show that great minds think alike! Boy am I being egotistical today or what? Me, having a great mind? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!  Now, that would be funny HA HA! 

Another dear reader cut-n-pasted something I said yesterday about how the world would return to a Gold currency regime… And asked me how in the world that would happen, and I replied, ” It would require a major reset in the price of Gold, upward, and then held at that price” Just something to think about… What would the knuckleheads in D.C. do if they had limits to their spending?  Now, that’s something I would pay to see! 

Well, there’s no data to report today, as D.C. is a mess right now, because three people can’t get together and agree on an issue… Compromise, that’s the key…  But that’s a word that’s been missing in D.C. for years now… 

To recap…  The moon shot mover in the past 24 hours has been the price of Palladium… Chuck wonders if the move came about from a flash crash in reverse?  The currencies are stuck in tight ranges, with the Russian ruble the best performer overnight.  With the Gov’t. shutdown, data prints are being delayed, which means the dollar has to trade on its own… That’s usually not a good thing for the green/peachback… 

For What It’s Worth…  Well, this was sent to me from the GATA folks, so there’s no link that I can share with you, but it was taken from the Financial Times, which is also restricted to subscribers only… But I have a snippet for you, so not all’s lost!   This is an article about how investors are being drawn to Gold because of all the mess around the world… 

And here’s your snippet: “If gold is anything to go by, investors are increasingly anxious about the state of the world.Volatile equity markets and fears of a global economic slowdown have helped gold rally 10 per cent from its August lows, putting it among the best performing metals over that period.

It is a sharp contrast to much of the past two years, when rising U.S. interest rates, a strong dollar, and buoyant equity markets hurt gold bugs and the shares of miners such as Barrick Gold, Newmont Mining and Goldcorp. And when there was a correction in U.S. stocks in early 2018, the gold price failed to benefit.

Almost a year on, the big question is whether 2019 could prove a profitable year to own gold, which is typically bought as hedge or haven by investors.

The amount of physical gold in exchange traded funds has risen to 71.9 million ounces, close to the record high of 72 million touched in May 2018.

“We haven’t seen flows like this since the first half of 2016, when the gold market really took off,” says Joe Foster, a portfolio manager at VanEck in New York.”

Chuck again…  Boy if that was really going on, eh? I say that because if it were happening as stated, Gold’s price would be on the move upward… I’m just saying… 

Currencies today 1/17/19 American Style: A$.7175, kiwi .6744, C$ .7530, euro 1.1405, sterling 1.2875, Swiss $1.0081, European Style: rand 13.7025, krone 8.5572, SEK 9.0165, forint 281.20, zloty 3.7565, koruna 22.3957, RUB 66.64, yen 108.80, sing 1.3556, HKD 7.8437, INR 70.91, China 6.7571, peso 18.91, BRL 3.7216, Dollar Index $96.04, Oil $51.63, 10-year 2.71%, Silver $15.59, Platinum $813.64, Palladium $1,436.18, and Gold… $1,294.29

That’s it for today and tomorrow, and Monday! Today, I do believe is my good friend, and former neighbor, Kevin Yanker’s birthday! Happy Birthday Webbie!  OK, important stuff here… I saw a line yesterday that Pitchers and catcher report in 29 days…  Now that’s important stuff! I did something to my left elbow… OMG! It hurts! and swollen, you would think I was a crafty old left handed pitcher with elbow problems!  I can’t imagine what caused this, but I’m a hurtin’ bird for sure! UGH!  I’m not alone here any longer…  My darling daughter Dawn, sent me a link to a video that highlighted the performance of her daughter, my little d, Delaney in the Music Man production at the school… She’s going to break hearts boys… Just so yo know now…  She performed like a professional actress and singer! WOW!   OK… Blackfoot takes us to the finish line today with their song: Highway Song…   That’s one of the top 10 Highway driving songs!  I hope you have a Tub Thumpin’ Thursday and a Fantastico Friday! And please remember to Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler