A Bear Raid On Metals…

April 17, 2023

* Gold & Silver get whacked on Friday… 

* The IMF introduces a globalist currency.. 

Good Day… And a Marvelous Monday to you! WOW! I don’t mean to start the letter today with a raging coment about the Commerical Traders in metals, but I will… They brazenly took down Gold ( & Silver) on Friday, and it got very ugly… More on that later, but first… I went to my first StL City SC soccer game Saturday night. Major storms blew through the St. Louis area, tornados, Hail, damaging winds and tons of rain… Alex and I had made into the stadium before the shut the gates and didn’t allow anyone else in. We then spent the fist hour in the storm shelter, with hundres of other fans… Then the next hour we sat in the concourse and watched it pour… But then two hours after the orginal game start time, the game started. My seats are amazing! And the STL City SC team won big time! I got to meet up with good friends, Jack and Ty, but Frank was a late arrival and never made it to the stadium… I did have to stand a bit, during the game, but everytime my hip began to bark at me, I sat down so it wasn’t  big pain…  Billy Joel greets me this morning with his song: Stranger… 
So, I’m going to start today’s letter with a comment from Ed Steer… Take it away Ed! “I was disappointed, but not overly surprised to see that bear raid manifest itself yesterday…being Friday and all…plus the bearish setup in gold. As I mentioned further up, it’s my opinion that the rally in the DXY was as equally manufactured…especially between 8:30 a.m. and 11:05 a.m. EDT — and was used as cover for the commercial shorts of whatever stripe as they went about their business.

All of gold’s gains since Tuesday, plus a bit more, vanished yesterday — and it’s RSI trace is approaching market neutral. Almost all of silver’s gains since Tuesday have vanished as well” Ed Steer in his Saturday letter… 
So, Gold got sold to the tune of $36.10 and finished the week, just above $2,000, at $2,005.00, and Silver saw 49-cents off its value on Friday, and ended the week at $25.43… As Ed mentions above, the dollar was also manufactued upward, after falling all week, the BBDXY gained 5 index points on the day. The euro lost the 1.10 handle, and the rest of the lot came in much weaker to close the week.. .
I just have to say that I was leery of this happening, and then it did… The price manipulators made sure there were no short term profits taken, and they brazenly flauntered their short paper trades… Geez, I wish we had a Presdient, Congress, somebody to stop this from happening, but when, as I keep telling you, the Gov’t is behind this, then that’s not going to happen… 
So, all the gains in the currencies and metals that were booked before Friday last week, were wiped out in one day’s short paper trading… That just makes me sick! 
In the overnight markets last night…  There was a little more dollar buying but not much, as the BBDXY gained 1 index point overnight… The dollar strength isn’t holding back the Swiss franc… The franc has now moved into the $1.11 level!  Gold is up $3 in the early trading this morning… I can see Gold traders, sheepishly going into the market and placing buy orders this morrning and looking around and over their collectve shoulders for the men that  hang out in the dark alleys, and prey on Gold & Silver… 
The price of Oil remains steday with an $82 handle, while the 10-year Treasury’s yiedl has suddenly gotten the urge to combat inflation… The yield has risen from 3.38% last week to 3.54% this morning… I have to say that I truly believe that the 10-year and 30-year bond’s yields will react o a Fed pause by rising quickly… So… All you Fed Heads out there, have you thought about that? I doubt it they don’t have a clue as to what moves bonds… There’s not one former bond trader among them… 
Well, one of these days… I’ll laugh as the price manipulators are all hauled off to jail… I had just watched a video from Mike M. where he discusses the his thoguht that Gold is going to $8,000… Now, We’ve all heard these cries for $5,000, $8,000, 10,000 Gold, and the ATM in our head begins to explode… But seriously, how high do you think Gold or Silver would be at this point in our lives, IF there were no price manipulators? Think about all the times they’ve had their engineered takedowns, or just caps on high points of a day… I would say that we would be talking about Gold at least at $4,000, and Silver at $75… But, that’s all pie in the sky stuff, and it doesn’t do us any good to discuss it further… 
And the dollar… every time it seems the dollar is ready to go into a long term weak trend, the PPT comes in and makes any trader scared to sell dollars untl the pain is forgotten… I just shake my head in disgust, folks… I dont’ know what else to say about how dastardly these manipulations are… 
Well, how about the kid, I call him a kid, as he’s only 21, that got arrested for distributing those secret documents, that apparently aren’t secret any longer?  All I know is that if the St.Louis Prosecuter had his case, he would go scott free, with a wrist slap!  And that’s all I have to say about that!
So, we pick up the pieces and start over again… UGH! momentum just never gets a chance!   
On a lighter note…. Ahem…  get this information: “A new global currency just launched, but 99 percent of the global population has no idea what just happened.  The “Universal Monetary Unit”, also known as “Unicoin”, is an “international central bank digital currency” that has been designed to work in conjunction with all existing national currencies.  This should set off alarm bells for all of us, because the widespread adoption of a new “global currency” would be a giant step forward for the globalist agenda.  The IMF did not create this new currency, but it was unveiled at a major IMF gathering earlier this week…”
 
That was taken from “theeconmiccollapse.com” site… if you want to learn more about this move to a globalist agenda… Me? I’m still thinkin’ and wishin’ and hopin’ and prayin’ that I don’t see this happening in my lifetime… 
 
Have you ever read 1984 by George Orwell? Tha book scared the living daylights out of me… To think that a nation could end up like that? And then I compared it to what’s going on in the world today, and OMG!  
 
I was talking to good friend, Dennis Miller last week, and he said something to me that made the light bulb go on over my head… Let’s see how this works…  He had sent me a link to a letter that JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon wrote to his clients after the Bank failures…  In it were these bullet points from Dimon:
· We should want a system in which a bank failure does not cause undue panic and financial harm.

· We want proper transparency and strong regulations.
· Regulation, particularly stress testing, should be more thoughtful and forward looking.

· We should decide a priori what should stay in the regulatory system and what shouldn’t.

 
And that got me thinking about what would I ask Mr. Dimon if i were a reporter in the room when he gave that talk….  it would go something like this:  Ooh, ooh, call on me, call on me!  And Mr. Dimon would say, Ok, let’s give this Chuck Butler a shot at a question for me, go ahead… And I say, ” Mr. Dimon, sir, in looking at these bullet points, I get the feeling that you’re calling for the reurn of Glass/ Stegal, is that correct?”   Crickets… no reposonse from Jamie Dimon, and that leaves the crowd wanting…  But i really wanted to know what his answer would be! That’s not fair! He answered every other reporter’s questions!  
 
Well, I’m going to take his no answer as a Yes… he is in favor of bringing back Glass / Stegal….  
 
OK, that didn’t really happen, but… if it had, this is how I see it playing out.. 
 
The U.S. data Cupboard on Friday last week was a humdinger!  We saw the color of March Retail Sales, which were down or negative -1.0%…  What ever happened to the Spring Surge? Not happening this year, adn the folks at Zerohedge.com see it this way: “Looking at the components, the biggest drop by far was in gasoline stations which is the result of the drop in gas prices in March, which have however since rebounded strongly. Additionally, we saw a big drop in motor vehicle stores, furniture, clothing, food & beverage, general merchandise, and of particular note, electronics and appliance stores, which have had a very rough time since the pandemic. Also note the -10.3% drop in nominal retail sales for the category: when adjusted for inflation this means that retail sales for electronics are plunging more than 15% in real times.
Bottom line: the ‘lag’ from monetary policy, coupled with the hit to spending following the bank crisis is starting to catch up.”
We also saw Industrial Production, which was trumped up by the increased Utility Output to Heat the March Freeze up north… So I’m not buying the thought that the economy is just fine….   And above all the laughter at that last comment, the stupid Consumer Confidence for March showed an increase in confidence! Wait! What? Yes, apparently they only surveyed folks that have been living under rocks…   I’m just saying… 
 
I read this past weekend the  number of insurance derivatives that protect against a U.S. default, have hit reford amounts!   C’mon… you know how this game is played, and there will be a spedning increase in the 11th hour… But, if you really think about what a default is… one could argue that the U.S. has already been in default for years, as they have to issue new debt to pay the interest on the old debt…   
 
That thought is picking at needles in a haystack… but it is what it is… 
 
To recap… It was Black Friday for the currencies and metals last week… When Black Friday comes, I’ll stand down by the door, And catch the gray men when they Dive from the fourteenth floor…. Steely Dan… The price manipulators came into the markets with both guns blazin’ and they didn’t stop with metals, they included proping up the dollar, and all other sorts of devilry…   The IMF intorduced a Global currency….  Chuck’s spider sense says that they have done this with a globalsist thought in mind… Bas%^$#ds…  And overnight has been basically a dud… 
 
For What It’s Worth…  Ok, this article came to me from the good golks at GATA… And is about how Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen, has finally realized that the sanctions that the U.S. has placed on Russia and other countries, may not have been such a good idea… And it can be found here: Yellen says sanctions may risk hegemony of US dollar | Al Arabiya English
Or, here’s your snippet: “Economic sanctions imposed on Russia and other countries by the US put the dollar’s dominance at risk as targeted nations seek out an alternative, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Sunday.

“There is a risk when we use financial sanctions that are linked to the role of the dollar that over time it could undermine the hegemony of the dollar,” Yellen said on CNN.
“Of course, it does create a desire on the part of China, of Russia, of Iran to find an alternative,” she told the network’s Fareed Zakaria in an interview. “But the dollar is used as a global currency for reasons that are not easy for other countries to find an alternative with the same properties.”

The robust US capital markets and rule of law “are essential in a currency that is going to be used globally for transactions,” she added. “And we haven’t seen any other country that has the basic… institutional infrastructure that would enable its currency to serve the world like this.”

Chuck again… Well, she talks like a two handed economist, right? on one hand we have this and on the other hand we have that… Worthless dribble, from our Treasury Sec….. 
Market Prices 4/17/2023: American Style: A$ .6706, kiwi .6195, C$ .7483, euro 1.0976, sterling 1.2411, Swiss $1.1183, European Style: rand 18.1808, krone 10.3547, SEK 10.3386, forint 338.42, zloty 4.2171, koruna 21.2171, RUB 81.54, yen 134.04, sing 1.3314, HKD 7.8499, INR 81.97, China 6.8706, peso 18.01, BRL 4.9086, BBDXY 1,223.37, Dollar Index 101.64, Oil $82.11, 10-year 3.54%, Silver $25.40, Platinum $1,051.00, Palladium $1,503.00, Copper $4.09, and Gold… $2,008.64
That’s it for today… My beloved Cardinals could only gain a split of 4 games at home VS the Pirates… The Pirates don’t just roll over and let you scratch their bellies any longer! They are scrappy! I just can’t get over the experience at the brand spanking shining and new soccer park, besisdes the game was awesom, the fans wer awesome, the food was great, and the only thing that wasn’t good was the Damaging storms that came before the game and delayed the start over 2 hours! i had lots of fun with my youngest son, Alex… Many of you are longtime readers that may recall him sitting on my lap in 1998, and helping me write the Pfennig… Well, he’ll be 28 this June… Amazing, right? And he has a Doctorate in Physical Therapy… From what I hear, everyone loves Dr. Alex! Today is the Boston Marathon… It’s been 10 years since the horrific ending of the marathon…  Well, I’ve gone on too long today, it’s time…. The Strawbs take us to the finish line today with their great 70’s song: Autumn… I hope you have a Marvelous Monday today, and please Be Good To Yourself
Chuck Butler