The Fed Heads Said They’ll Do What?

May 8, 2023

* currencies & metals get whacked on Friday… 

* ECB and RBA both hike rates… 

Good Day… And a Marvelous Monday to you! We’ll, after losing the first two games of their weekend series Vs Tigers, my beloved Cardinals woke up, and started to hit the ball all around the yard!  So the team salvaged one game in their 6- game home stand… it finally warmed up here in my little river town… Yahoo!  The original Santana band greets me this morning with their song: Of A Lifetime… Don’t know that one? YOUTUBE it… I think you’ll like it! 
Well, everyone got a big jolt on Friday, when the BLS reported that 253,000 jobs were created in April… That was way more than the so-called experts had forecast (180,000), and it brought about all kinds of conjecture about how this strong jobs report will most likely mean the Fed Heads will hike rates again in June… Now, I’m on record as saying that there would be two more rate hikes of 25 Basis Points, but I doubt that this jobs report seals that rate hike up… There will be another Jobs Jamboree before the next FOMC meeting on Flag day..  There is one little caveat I want to mention about this 253,000 jobs  created report… The BLS had to add 378,000 jobs to the surveys… So what does that tell you about what the surveys reported? Well, if you did the simple math, you get a gold star for the day, because the number would have been negative! 
This new thought by the markets that the FOMC will hike rates again in June, provoked the paper traders to attack Gold & Silver… They can always say that the markets warranted it, since interest rates will be going higher still… But to me, it’s nothing more than an excuse to show up at the COMEX with arms full of short Gold/ Silver trades… I had  dear reader ask me once; “what would you do to change the current situation with the price Manipulators”… Ok, this is easy… 1. I would prohibit shorting any metal that you don’t own in your portfolio… You see, a sell order should only represent what you own, and nothing more.. 2. I would send to jail without passing Go, and collecting $200 any bank, broker, etc. that violated that requirement… 
But when the Gov’t is behind the curtain pulling the strings on when the short paper traders need to act, there’s not much hope of this every changing… I’ll repeat myself here but, so what?   The Gov’t needs to keep a lid on Gold & Silver because it takes away from the glitter of the dollar… They need the dollar to be strong, to prevent importing inflation… And because they all have egos the size of the Hindenberg… I’m just saying… 
Oh, and there’s one other thing that needs to be mentioned about the jobs Jamboree print… Remember a month ago, when they said that March payrolls were 236,000, and I said bulderdash? Well, there was a revision to the March payrolls, and they were really just 165,000… See, what happens when the BLS adds jobs out of thin air, and they don’t materialize? The sad part is that the markets rarely pay any attention to the revisions…  But what do you think the dollar would have done if last month’s print was just 165,000?   But that’s water under the bridge now, move along Chuck, these are not the droids you’re looking for… 
So… The dollar didn’t gain or lose any ground on Thursday, but on Friday, even with the thought that the Fed Heads will hike rates again, the dollar lost ground. The BBDXY lost nearly 3 index points, the euro climbed back above 1.10, and the rest of the currencies all took the cue from the euro to rally…  Last week, the European Central Bank (ECB)  hiked rates 25 Basis Points, and the Resereve Bank of Australia (RBA) also hiked rates 25 Basis points… So, those two respective currencies saw some buying on Friday… But the buying wasn’t the kind of buying that, back in the day of fundamentals ruling, would have taken place… I’m just saying.. 
Gold lost  $32.70 on Friday, as the short paper traders won the day. Gold ended the week at $2,018.60, and Silver lost 34-cents on Friday to close the week at $25.77… The levels these two metals were sitting after the trading day on Thursday were looking like they were ready for blast off… And that must have scared the bejeebers out of the price manipulators, so they showed up the COMEX with arms full of short trades…  
The price of Oil rebounded from the selling that occurred earlier in the week, and gained $3 to end the week trading with a $71 handle… Maybe, just maybe, cause you never know, someone read the Pfennig, and they were reminded that the summer driving season is coming…  HA!  The 10-year saw  It’s yield rise to 3.43%… There was just one day last week where the yield on the 10-year dropped like a rock (from 3.50% to 3.36%) And after that was over, the yield began a slow rise upward once again…  You don’t think that the Fed Heads were in buying Treasury bonds again do you?  Because it had to be a HUGE purchase to move the yield like that… if it wasn’t the Fed Heads, then who? 
In The overnight markets last night…  the BBDXY lost another 2 index points, and the old Dollar Index is looking like it will fall below 101 this week. The euro is pushing the currency envelope across the desk, while the other currencies are booking their own gains… The Big mover last night was the Russian ruble, with the pound sterling coming in second.  Gold is up $6 in the early trading this morning, and Silver is down 16-cents, I can’t make head or tails of that, so I’m going to go with the thought that Silver will turn around that loss to a gain today. 
The price of Oil continues to rebound after last week’s drubbing that nearly brought the price of Oil to its knees… Oil has a $73 handle this morning, and the 10-year Treasury, has a 3.46% yield… 
Each day the calendar turns over to a new day, means we, as a country,  move closer to the day when the “extra funding” for the country runs out… Treasury Sec. Yellen says that June 1 is the day, which means that something will have to be worked out before we head into the Memorial Day Holiday Weekend!   You and I know that an 11th hour deal will be made to extend the funding, and then the debt ceiling will be raised for the 79th time..  I’m just saying… 
Well.. did you hear that Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel Chairman, Powell, told reporters that his merry men of ruining economies, would be happy to buy the defaulted Treasuries, should the U.S. default next month… Now, just where will he get the money to buy those worthless pieces of …  you know what? Well, just like when the banks were in trouble last time, the Fed/ Cabal. Cartel bought all the treasuries that the Primary dealers didn’t want, and trust me on this one, they didn’t want, or couldn’t accept any more Treasuries at that time… And how did they pay for those bonds? They printed new cash… (I know they don’t really print cash any longer, they just hit a button on a computer, and voila, Bank X has money in their account!)
Now doesn’t that make you wanna sit up and holler? Go ahead, yell at the walls, it always seems to help me get through the dolts and the demons that run our country! 
The new King of England was coronated on Saturday… Something tells me that the rest of the world couldn’t care less about this coronation…  But for the Brits, they had their day of monarchy! 
Well, zerohedge.com had this news on Friday, and it wasn’t very good looking forward… Here it is: “The world has a handful of shipping companies, and one of the ones we follow is A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S, which warned of a “radically changed business environment” as profits declined in the first quarter due to slumping transport volumes and sliding freight rates, Financial Times reported.”

So, we have that going for us… NOT! 

Well, the banking crisis is still gaining legs… I read this past weekend where $360 Billion of deposits have been withdrawn in the last 3 weeks…  Good friend, Dennis Miller of www.milleronthemoney.com  asked me on Saturday, that if these withdrawals are just going to another bank, isn’t that just reshuffling the deck? 
I responded that, I had read recently that the withdrawals are going in Gold and money markets that pay higher interest rates…  Those money market accounts are probably held at brokerage houses… not all of it, but at least the bulk of it… 
And it made sense, since Gold was ratcheting higher and higher each day, until the price manipulators threw down the spiked tire deflation strips that the police use… I look at it like this… The population sees what’s going on, and the buying will continue,  in my humble country boy opinion… 
And one of the things that the population is seeing, is the end of the Empire (the U.S.), and wonder what kind of new world order will take the U.S.’s place…  I told you all that I was reading Ray Dalio’s book titled: The Changing World Order… and here’s a snippet from that book: “In other words, there is little doubt in my mind that the existing world order is changing rapidly in challenging ways and that people who are living on the assumption that things will work in the orderly ways that they have gotten used to will be shocked and hurt by these changes to come.” – Ray Dalio
The U.S. Data Cupboard on Friday had the Jobs Jamboree that I spent a  good part of the letter today addressing.  Friday also had the Annual Hourly Wages, and they increased 4.5%… That’s still below the inflation rate, so there’s no joy in Mudville here… And then to finish off Friday’s data serving, Consumer Credit (read debt) rose from 15 Billion to $26 Billion in March… YIKES! That’s not going to end up in seashells and balloons folks… Tears are more like it… 
The Data Cupboard starts this week with a whimper… And doesn’t have anything market moving until Wednesday’s stupid CPI print for April… The dollar is on its own for a couple of days, let’s see where that takes us… 
To recap… The trumped up BLS Jobs Report for April came in hot, and above the expectations and that gave the price manipulators the cover they needed to show up at the COMEX with arms full of short trades in Gold & Silver.. Gold lost $32 on the day, and Silver lost 34-cents… The jobs report had 378,000 jobs added out of thin air by the BLS after receiving the surveys.. And March’s 236,000 print was revised downward to 165,000… Chuck says, see what happens when the BLS’s imagined jobs don’t materialize?  
For What It’s Worth…   Ok, I first saw this in Ed Steer’s Letter that can be found at www.edsteergoldsilver.com , and thought it was FWIW worthy.. It’s about how miners are warning the world that there will be a Copper shortage, and it can be found here: Copper mine flashes warning of ‘huge crisis’ for world supply – MINING.COM

Or, here’s your snippet: “As demand for copper surges, supply is increasingly likely to come from mines like this one on the arid steppe: expensive, technically complex, outside traditional copper jurisdictions and operating under the eye of governments jealously guarding their natural resources.

“There’s a huge crisis,” says Doug Kirwin, one of the earliest geologists to work at the deposit that became Oyu Tolgoi, or Turquoise Hill, named after the area’s rocks, stained by oxidized copper.
“There’s no way we can supply the amount of copper in the next 10 years to drive the energy transition and carbon zero. It’s not going to happen,” adds Kirwin, now an independent consulting geologist. “There’s just not enough copper deposits being found or developed.”

Analysts at Wood Mackenzie estimate a greener world will be short about six million tons of copper by next decade”

Chuck again.. And you want to change our energy grid?  Get rid of gasoline powered cars and replace them with electric cars that require tons of copper? Hmmm… how’s that going to work? Does anyone ever think of the consequences of their statements or moves?  I’m just asking… 
Market Prices 5/8/2023: American Style: A$ .6792, kiwi .6346, C$ .7495, euro 1.1046, sterling 1.1251, Swiss $1.1251, European Style: rand 18.3287, krone 10.4755, SEK 10.1461, forint 337.15, zloty 4.1385,koruna 21.2065, RUB 76.92, yen 135.04, sing 1.3245, HKD 7.847, INR 81.88, China 6.9174, peso 17.77, BRL 4.9514, BBDXY 1,217.22, Dollar Index 101.08, Oil $73.20, 10-year 3.46%, Silver $25.65, Platinum $1,073.00, Palladium $1,522.00, Copper $3.82, and Gold… $2,024,76
That’s it for today… I asked a lot of questions this morning… I know you don’t have the answer to them, no one does at this time!  Saturday was Kentucky Derby Day! I attended a Kentucky Derby party in the neighborhood, thanks to Denny and Nancy Franz, for hosting!  It was something to take my mind off the bumbling, fumbling Cardinals…  I start my new chemo med Tomorrow… Need to stop this growing tumor in its tracks, fast! I used to have to carry tea bags with me everywhere, because I never knew when my jaw would start to bleed… It’s been at least 3 years now since that has happened, and so I hope this new drug does the trick!  Jackson Browne takes us to the finish line today with his song: These Days…   I hope you have a Marvelous Monday today, and please remember to Be Good To Yourself! 
Chuck Butler

They Have To Blame Someone!

May 2, 2023

* currencies and metals get sold on Monday… 

* Ron Paul drops by the Pfennig this morning… 

Good Day… And a Tom Terrific Tuesday to you! A Chilly day here in the Midwest yesterday… I was talking with good friend, Frank Trotter last week, and I described the weather that was forecast for that night’s soccer game… I told him, (who spends winters in Colorado) “to you it’s not cold”, but to me( who spends winters in Florida) it is cold!” This has been a normal spring if you ask me… Some warm days, but once the sun goes down, it gets quite chilly… Some years we go right from cold to June 90 degree days in May… I got me a new Blackstone griddle last week! And I made steak fajitas on it! Now those were tasty! Oldest son, Andrew, helped me put it together, and drag it around to the backyard, so thanks Andrew! The Cure greets me this morning with their great song: Close to me… I used to work with Laura Mayhew, who loved to hear my play the Cure on the trade desk, back in the day… 
Well, after all that talk I went through yesterday about how the sentitment toward the dollar was changing, due to the idea that the Fed Heads’ rate hike are nearing an end, didn’t help the currencies or metals yesterday… The dollar got bought and the BBDXY gained 5 index points on the day… The euro fell back below 1.10, and the Japanese yen saw more selling. Gold lost $8.10 yesterday to close at $1,983.50, and Silver, which was up in the early trading yesterday, ended up losing 9-cents to end the day at $25.06…  

It’s nice to see that there are more traders, hedge funds, etc. out there that are thinking like I am… I pulled this from Bloomberg.com: “Investors are piling into bets against the US dollar as this week’s expected Federal Reserve interest-rate hike is likely to bring the steepest tightening cycle in a generation to a halt.

Hedge funds and other large speculators boosted their net bearish position on the greenback against major peers to more than 70,000 contracts as of April 25, the most since June 2021, data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission show. The currency is set to erase all of the gains posted since the Fed started raising the cash rate last March, according to Bloomberg’s gauge of the dollar against major trading partners.”

Chuck again… So, when will all these shorts begin to weigh on the dollar? Soon… I’m of mind to say… 
In the overnight markets last night… There wasn’t much movement in the dollar, the BBDXY did lose 2 index points, but the euro is still trading below 1.10, and the Japanese yen is trading with a 137 handle this morning, so I’m not seeing what currencies have gained overnight… There were a couple of smaller currencies that did see some gains overnight, they include: rubles, Aussie dollars, and kiwi…  I think that traders are sitting on their collective hands right now, waiting to hear what the el jefe at the FOMC says after they hike rates tomorrow afternoon…  The price of Oil is steady with a $75 handle, and the 10-year’s yield continues to get whipsawed and trades this morning with a 3.52% yield…  
I have to take issue with all those folks that keep blaming the Banking Crisis on the Fed’s rate hikes… What? Did they want the Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel to just keep rates low and allow runaway inflation?  Yes, for those banks that bought zero rate Treasuries, they have problems, but that’s their management’s problem, not the Fed’s… The Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel has a mandate and that is to protect price stability…  And under that price stability umbrella is inflation, and to keep it at bay…  So, quit your whining! 
Gold is up in the early trading this morning $6, and Silver is getting whacked, down 30-cents to start the day…  The Silver short paper trades must be in play this morning… And that just makes me sick to my stomach… or maybe that’s my chemo? Either way, it’s not fun! 
I read a piece this morning, that there are now 10 more banks out there that have problems… Of course I would have to sign up for the subscription to the letter and pay through the nose, to get the actual bank names… So, we don’t know which ones they are, but we do know that the Banking Crisis is far from being over!  But isn’t that just what these younger people all do now… Blame someone else for something?  So… let’s blame the ISM that’s still below 50! What a bunch of dolts! 
So, have I got a treat for you today in the FWIW section… Ron Paul drops in to tell us that all the talk about a debt ceiling agreement, and budget agreement is theatrical at best…   You’ve gotta love some Ron Paul to start your day! 
Did you hear about the IMF’s forecast for global growth in 2023? It was only 2.8%, and if you ask me, I think they overstated the growth number!  Countries all over the globe should be shaking in their respective boots, because this is the worst/ slowest forecast by the IMF in 50 years!  But you know what? I’m sure not one Congress person even know about the IMF’s forecast, and if they do know, they think, “hey, 2.8% isn’t bad”… They have’t a clued that it’s the worst/ slowest forecast by the IMF in 50 years!  That is unless they read the Pfennig! HA! AS If! 
Longtime friend, Addison Wiggin is coming out with an update version of his book: Demise of the Dollar. The first Demise of the Dollar, was written in 2005, and the second revision was written in 2008, and yours truly, yes me, wrote the foreword for the 2008 book! You can order the new book online so don’t wait, be the first one on your block! And this time, Addison got a Big Name to write the foreword, James Rickards! 
I have a treat for you, or at least I think it is… This is a snippet of my foreword in the 2nd revision of the book: The Demise of the Dollar, remember this was written in 2007: “Today, the U.S. Current Account Deficit requires $3 Billion a day in foreign financing. How long can we continue to depend on the kindness of strangers? And that should bring you to the conclusion that the Demise of the Dollar is more of a reality in 2007, than ever before?”
So, yesterday I said that the European Central Bank didn’t meet again until 5/24, but that was incorrect… You would think that if you went to the ECB’s website, and looked at their schedule of meetings there would be no chance of an error… The ECB meets again on 5/11, next Thursday… And with inflation showing that it is resilient in the Eurozone, I expect another rate hike from the ECB… 
The U.S. Data Cupboard yesterday had the ISM Manufacturing Index, and for the 6th consecutive month, it printed in contraction. In other words, below 50… In March it was 47.1, which was better than Feb’s 46, but it’s still below 50, and I would bet a shiny quarter that April’s print will be worse once again… I’m just saying… I read online that one writer said that Gold & Silver got sold because the ISM was better than expected… Hmmm… That sounds really fishy to me… 
Today’s Data Cupboard has the March Factory Orders. You may recall that Feb’s Factory Orders were negative… So, I expect March’s Orders to at least be positive… But as with the ISM, I truly expect this data to return to very disappointing next month… 
To recap… The dollar got bought yesterday, despite what Chuck told you about how Traders and Hedge Fund mgrs. were shorting the dollar… Bloomberg. com had an article about this confirming what Chuck had told you yesterday… Gold got sold yesterday, along with Silver, and while I’m sure there were some short paper trades submitted to the COMEX, this looked more like normal trading… The IMF has issued its slowest GDP growth forecast for the Globe in 50 years!   And look! Chuck is the only person talking about that!   
Before we head to the Big Finish today, I wanted to take a moment to remember Mike Shannon… Mike Shannon was a St. Louis kid that became a key member of two World Series teams and 3 Pennant teams before a kidney problem made him retire, and he went right to the broadcast booth, where he stayed calling games on the great KMOX for 50 years! Every year, I knew it was spring when I heard Mike’s voice on the radio! Mike Shannon was a great high shcool athlete, as he was named Mr. Missouri in both football and basketball, and was signed to play quarterback at the University of Missouri, but the the Cardinals dangled a paying contract in front of his and he played the love of his life, baseball instead… Everybody in St. Louis knows a Shannonism, where he messes up the english language, but that was part of him… We all loved him, and will miss him, as he died last week at age 83… 
For What It’s Worth…  there was a little press on the House’s submittance of a budget deal last week… This has a snowball’s chance of surviving in hell… But it was worth a try, eh? Spending cuts, etc.  So… as you would surmise, Ron Paul had something to say about this, and his weekly letter can be found here: ‘Congress Ignores Real Debt Ceiling Drama’ – Ron Paul’s 1 May Column (mailchi.mp)

Or, here’s your snippet: ” Last week the House passed legislation increasing the debt ceiling. The bill was supported by all but four Republicans. For some Republicans, this was the first time they had ever voted for a debt ceiling increase. Perhaps the reason they did so this time was because the legislation also promised to reduce federal spending by $4.5 trillion over the next decade. Most of those spending reductions are achieved by rolling back Fiscal Year spending to 2022 levels and then limiting increases in spending to one percent for the next ten years. The bill also returns unspent COVID relief money to the US Treasury and eliminates President Biden’s student loan forgiveness programs.

Perhaps the most significant part of the bill is the REINS Act. This legislation requires congressional approval of any new federal regulation that will have an impact of more than $100 million, will have significant harmful impact on the economy, or will increase consumer prices. Even though the bill increases spending and debt, there are reasons a supporter of limited government might vote for it.
However even in the unlikely event that this bill is passed in the Senate and signed into law by President Biden, it is unlikely that the one percent spending cap would remain in force for the full ten years. Historically, spending caps imposed as part of a balanced budget or debt ceiling deal do not last for more than one or two Congressional terms. This is because every spending program is “protected” by members of Congress whose constituents and/or donors benefit from the program. This process already occurred with this bill before it was even voted on, as Speaker McCarthy had to remove provisions limiting ethanol subsidies to appease several farm state Republicans.
Surely lobbyists for the military industrial complex are already plotting to use hysteria over China, Putin, Iran, or one of the US’s many other designed enemies to justify greater than one percent increase in military spending.
The only reason the US government is able to run up such huge deficits without experiencing a complete economic meltdown is the dollar’s world reserve currency status. But the growing de-dollarization movement-fueled by the US government’s fiscal recklessness and hyper-interventionist foreign policy should be a wake-up call to Congress.
Sadly, few in DC seem to be paying attention.

The government’s fiscal situation will soon worsen, as both the Social Security and Medicare trust funds will likely be bankrupt within the next decade, forcing Congress to find an additional $116 trillion to fully fund them.”

Chuck again… I’ve told you before that I think Ron Paul was the last of a breed of conservative legislatures… The Conservatives are spend thrifts just like the liberals… It’s a sad day, when as Ron says, “few in DC seem to be paying attention to the de-dollarization going on”… 
Market Prices 5/2/2023: American Style: A$ .6697, kiwi .6205, C$ .7367, euro 1.0971, sterling 1.2470, Swiss $1.1147, European Style: rand 18.3662, krone 10.7065, SEK 10.2839, forint 338.82, zloty 4.1741, koruna 21.4937, RUB 79.82, yen 137.28, sing 1.3341, HKD 7.8500, INR 81.88, China 6.9184, peso 17.93, BRL 4.9878, BBDXY 1,229.81, Dollar Index 102.12, Oil $75.46, 10-year 3.52%, Silver $24.76Platinum $1,052, Palladium $1,455.00, Copper $3.87, and Gold… $1,989.74
That’s it for today… No Cardinals game last night, so at least they didn’t lose again! But then maybe they did… As a coach told us once, “You’re so bad, you couldn’t beat bye”… OUCH!   I go for my scan this afternoon… This scan was scheduled at the last minute last week, so no early morning scan was available to me… I always like being one of the fist in the scanner, because then, they haven’t gotten behind schedule… And then tonight, I’m going to go downtown! I was invited to the Cardinals game VS the Angels… YAHOO!  The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim with Mike Trout and Shoie Ohtani… This will be fun! As a kid I always liked the Angles, because of their baseball caps that had a halo on top! Great marketing! Quck reminder, no Pfennig tomorrow, I’ll be back on Thursday, unless they size me up for a white suit and commit me! I guess i shouldn’t take that scene so light hearted… Sorry! Crowded House takes us to the finish line today with their 80’s song: Don’t Dream It’s Over… I hope you have a Tom Terrific Tuesday today… And please Be Good To Yourself!
Chuck Butler  

The 2nd Largest Bank Failure Is In The Books!

May 1, 2023

* currencies & metals rally a bit on Friday

* Are you ready for a Global Agenda? 

Good Day… And a Marvelous Monday… And welcome to May! It’s May Day! Time to celebrate May Day with flower crowns, maypole dancing, and by making flower baskets to share with loved ones. Well, the weekend brought me bad news… Ok, it all started with my stroke in January, it was finally determined last week that it caused by one of the chemo drugs I take. So, I stopped taking it, leaving just one chemo drug, that apparently isn’t doing the job, as the tumor in my jaw is beginning to pop out again… So… I have to deal with this now… I go for a scan tomorrow, to see how much growth there is, and then on Wednesday, I go back to the oncologist, who is franticly searching for a new chemo drug for me to take… I’ll find out then, what it might be.. So, no Pfennig on Wednesday this week… And I thought my beloved Cardinals had problems! They all take a back seat to health… I’m just saying…  King Crimson greets me this morning with their classic rock song: In The Court of the Crimson King… 
Well, I guess you’ve heard the news by now that First Republic Bank had to be sold… The Feds waited until the bitter end to deal with FRB… I’m just saying that there was more to do if they would have just reacted at the first sign of a problem with the bank…   zerohedge.com had this to say about the deal to take over the bank.. “And so JPM, which is already the largest US bank is about to get even bigger, by scooping up all the good FRC assets while leaving US taxpayer holdings on to the toxic ones.”
Isn’t that the way it always is? We the taxpayers get stuck with the bill…  So, it was announced overnight that JPMorgan will take over most of the deposits and assets from FRB… The devil in the details has not been worked out yet…  Oh, and FRB was the second largest Bank failure in the U.S. This is getting serious folks… You can’t be sure if your bank is solid or not… I’m just saying… 
So… the dollar on Friday didn’t really move … Gold didn’t really move, nor did Silver, and so we went into the weekend with the BBDXY at 1,225.46, Gold at $1,991.60, and Silver at $25.15… Both were up on Friday, but the amount they were up wasn’t anything to write home about, so we’ll just say they were flat, like the dollar was on Friday, and move on… The price of Oil rose by $2 on Friday, in what was its biggest upward one day move in a month of Sundays. I’m telling you this now so you can hear me later, but one day, not too far off in the future, the whole world will realize that Solar and and wind mills aren’t going to power the world’s needs for energy, and the whole green thing will be scrapped for further review, and the switch back to Oil, diesel, nuclear, coal will come back stronger than ever!   At least that’s how I see this shaping up…  Shoot Rudy, in the U K. the Gov’t there has already scrapped their lofty ideas about leaving Oil and Coal, and have opened the Coal mines back up… And what have I aways told you about when things happen in the U.K.? They come to our shores in about 6 months… 
In the overnight markets last night…  Well, there was some dollar buying, not much, but some… The BBDXY has gained 2 index points overnight, but the euro is still above 1.10, so there’s that… The worst performer overnight was the Japanese yen, which is trading this morning with a 136 handle, after being in the 134 range all last week… This is where I bashfully say, “I told you so”, about the yen…  Gold is down $3 in the early trading this morning, nothing that can’t be reversed easily… Silver is up 7-cents to start the day… 
The price of Oil slipped a buck overnight and trades this morning with a $75 handle… And there was more selling of the 10-year as its yield has risen to 3.48% this morning. 
Well, did you hear the story about how the Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel Chairman Jerome Powell, got punked by Russians? Oh, this is so good, that I had to read it from different sources to make sure it was true… I mean the people that run this country don’t have “false callers id on their phones?  Well, if they don’t now, they will have pretty soon, don’t you think?   So.. Apparently Powell thought he was talking with the Ukraine President, and told him that the Fed Heads are prepared to hike 25 Basis Points 2 more times… May and June… I would have loved it if the pranksters had asked him his opinion about Congress and the POTUS…  But a prank call by Russians, had Powell believing that he was talking to somebody important, that needed to know what direction interest rates were going… Pretty stupid if you ask me, but then… oh never mind… 
So, with that bit of news going around the markets on Friday, the dollar stopped in its tracks as it was rallying prior to the prank call being made public… You see, the markets, supposedly like to “look forward” and trade accordingly, and if they know that the Fed  Heads are only going to hike 2 more small rate hikes, and then pause, then they see this as the end of the dollar strength because of rate hikes… It’ll be all up the PPT and their Exchange Stabilization Fund (ESF) to prop up the dollar going forward… What happens if their treasure chest of funds runs out? Will they go hat in hand to congress and request more?  I doubt it… I’m just saying
In other news did you hear about the new digital coin that that will act as a global currency that will interact with all other currencies was introduced by the IMF? This new digital currency called the “unicorn” was not created by the IMF, they just introduced it… And if you ask me, this is really scary, folks, and shoud send shudders donw everyone’s respective spine, for this is the gateway, the pathway, the greased tracks to the Global Agenda… Oh My! What else are these power hungry elites going to spoil the world we have now, next? 
I have to tell you that I’m glad I’m old, and not going to be around in the next 20 years, which would mean I would have to only put up with the new Global Agenda a few years, and if I keep my head down and not criticize it in public, I might get through this without a heart attack! 
I told you all about the cartoon I cut out an posted on our refrigerator a few years ago, right? Well, here goes, the cartoon shows a mom, and two young kids sitting around a fire pit, with some kind of meat on the spit, in a cave… The mom say’s “Ok, your dad warned us about this, but we didn’t listen”… 
The FOMBC meets this week on Wednesday, and will announce their rate decision… The Bank of England is next on 5/11, and the European Central Bank doesn’t meet again until 5/24… Expect all three to hike rates… 
What that will go the Gold’s price rally is anybody’s guess, you see Gold got sold most of last year, when it looked like the tracks were greased for many more rate hikes… But recently, (this year so far), Gold hasn’t been bothered with the FOMC rate hikes… That doesn’t mean the short paper traders won’t throw out road blocks from time to time, but the price of Gold is what it is… And I don’t get all too concerned if it’s on a hard rally, or a hard engineered takedown, for I know it will never be zero, and I own it as a store of wealth,  and a hedge against dollar weakness…   I saw this quick quote from Egon Von Greyerz of Gold Switzerland.com  and thought it fit well here…  Here’s Egon: “Most investors are totally ignorant of the purpose of gold or its historical significance.

After all, Gold is the only money that has survived in history but virtually nobody is aware of this vital information.
That’s why only 0.5% of global financial assets are invested in gold.  Still most people put their trust in paper money.”
And then there was this that just like the news that the Saudis agreed to sell oil in other currencies than the dollar, was swept under the rug by the media, and it was only folks like me that told you this WAS HUGE! This news was also swept under the rug… But the good folks at GATA sent me this note: “China’s push for greater use of its currency in bilateral trade settlements has made further inroads in South America, with Argentina set to follow Brazil and start to pay for Chinese imports in yuan rather than U.S. dollars.

Economy Minister Sergio Massa confirmed on Wednesday that Argentina, following a meeting with Chinese ambassador Zou Xiaoli and companies from various sectors, had “activated the swap with China”.
Argentina will, Massa added, pay for US$1.04 billion of Chinese imports in April in yuan instead of U.S. dollars and then US$790 million per month from May.
“These types of measures give our reserves greater strength and are key to improving the prospects for net reserves, giving us greater freedom and capacity to intervene in the face of those who speculate and over-speculate with the economic situation,” he added on his official Twitter account.”
Chuck again… currency swap agreements that remove the dollar from the term of trade, have been going on for years, and were first reported by me, in the Sov. Society’s Currency Capitalist newsletter, at least 10 years ago! But then they were with little countries… But I warned then that it would begin to get serious when the Chinese and Saudis worked out a currency swap agreement… And since then we’ve had Brazil, and Argentina sign up with the Chinese… Uh-oh! 
The U.S. Data Cupboard on Friday had the Fed’s PCE (personal Consumption Expenditures) And I’ll let Zerohedge.com tell you how it came out: “After U.S. and German GDP gravely disappointed and inflation measures on both sides of the pond remain far more elevated that hoped for, this morning’s print of The Fed’s favorite inflation indicator will likely drive today’s early action among the algos.

Core PCE was expected to be flat at +4.6% YoY (and it was, but Feb was revised up to +4.7%) but the headline PCE printed hotter than expected at +4.2% YoY (although well down from the +5.1% prior)..”
Chuck again… yes, and Personal Income was up .3% in March, but… Personal Spending was flat 0%… And normally when the economy is going good and no one is worried about the future, Spending would be equal to Income, and the world would be good… For years, it was a case of Spending always being greater than Income, and that’s not a good thing for the future of the economy, and it turned out to be bang on! 
This week’s Data Cupboard is chock-full-o-data, starting with the ISM Manufacturing Index for March… This index’s number has been below 50 for a few months now, and if it slips toward 45, then it’s a good barometer of a recession going on… 
To recap… Friday’s price action in currencies and metals was nothing to write home about, the BBDXY ended the week at the same level as it was Thursday morning… Gold & Silver ended the week in the positive column, and the price of Oil jumped higher by $2 on Friday! And the 10-year’s yield ended the week at 3.45%… Which I’ll say that my hunch that a big entity (the Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel?) made a huge purchase that drove the yield down to 3.40% last week, after spending the previous week at 3.60%… Jerome Powell got punked… China signs a currency swap agreement with Agrentina, following up on their agreement with Brazil… And First Republic was put in receivership on Friday, and waiting for the best bids from the Big Casino Banks… 
That’s it for Today… I’m all about Gold today, folks… And so this came to me from the good folks at GATA, but I do have a link for the article that’s about the return of hard currency… And it can be found here: BullionStar Blogs with Ronan Manly, Torgny Persson & JP Koning
Or, here’s your snippet: “As the US Federal Government and Federal Reserve head ever more into the abyss of destroying the value of the US dollar, continually breaching debt ceilings, creating asset bubbles, and intervening in and manipulating financial markets, there is an accelerating counter force emerging in the US that is the antithesis of this Federal Government and Federal Reserve madness.

That is the Sound Money movement in the US. Generally speaking, a sound money is a money that is able to maintain a stable purchasing power over time and does not significantly fluctuate due to inflation or deflation. Sound Money is most often associated with a tangible asset, such as gold, which has a low supply increase (or tight monetary controls) to ensure its stability. To , a sound money can “protect against arbitrary actions by sovereigns to depreciate the currency.”
“Sound money is money that is not prone to sudden appreciation or depreciation in purchasing power over the long term, aided by self-correcting mechanisms inherent in a free-market system.”

The movement for Sound Money in the United States is most powerful and effective on the State level, and its a movement which is grounded in grass roots activism and in the tireless advocacy and promotional work of groups”

Chuck again… When the financial system blows up from all this debt, we’ll return to a system based on Gold or maybe even Silver… And then we’ll start all over again… This is what happens on regular historic intervals, folks… So, get ready for it… You know the old saying, “he who has the Gold, makes the rules”… 
Market Prices 5/1/2023:  American Style: A$ .6636, kiwi .6175, C$ .7362, euro 1.1011, sterling 1.2524, Swiss $1,1195, European Style: rand 18.3593, krone 10.7191, SEK 10.2929, forint 338.15, zloty 4.1766, koruna 21.4090, RUB 80.05, yen 136.84, sing 1.3351, HKD 7.8499, INR 81.83, China 6.9181, peso 17.95, BRL 4.9876, BBDXY 1,228.91, Dollar Index 101.81, Oil $75.08, 10-year 3.48%, Silver $25.32, Platinum $1,082.00, Palladium $1,502.00, Copper $3.87, and Gold.. $1,988.91
That’s it for today… So no Pfennig on Wednesday, I go tomorrow to get the scan and then on Wednesday I have to be at the hospital early to see my oncologist to see what the scans tell her, and to discuss a new chemo…  Then I’ll be back Thursday morning, God Willing and Creek don’t rise! The Creek is referring to the Creek Indians, no the creek that runs behind your house! A lot of you probably don’t recall the days when the tumor in my mouth was so bad, that I was sick all the time… Let’s hope it doesn’t go there again! I’m not worried folks… I know my oncologist will take care of me… My beloved Cardinals come limping home from going 2-8 on the road trip… That’s horrible! And our STL City SC soccer team lost on home turf Saturday night, on a very bad hand ball call in the box… UGH!  Ok, you won’t believe this but the Carpenters take us to the finish line today with their song: Superstar  ( I just love the way Karen Carpenter sang that song)… I hope you have a Marvelous Monday today, and please be diligent about Being Good To Yourself! 
Chuck Butler  

New Mortgage Rules!

April 27, 2023

* Currencies & metals get sold on Wednesday

* Lola is in love with yen… 

Good Day… And a Tub Thumpin’ Thursday to one and all! Another game in S.F, and another loss for my beloved Cardinals last night, despite Paul Goldschmidt’s 2 home runs! The problem that I see, so far, is 1. our pitching stinks, and 2. we have our best run producing hitter batting 2nd..  Hmmm… if it were up to me, Goldy would be the clean up hitter each and every day… I’ve not been getting a good night’s sleep lately, the pain in my left foot keeps me awake, and it only comes in the middle of the night! So, I took a 2 hour nap yesterday, during the day… Gotta get my sleep!  Redbone greets me this morning with the song: Come And Get Your Love…  Boy, they sure made some great music in the 70’s, before disco that is… 
Well, the dollar ended the day yesterday down 4 index points, not as much as it was down when we started the day from the overnight selling, but still down… The euro is trading well into the 1.10 handle once again, maybe this time it can get through the level and trade with a 1.11 handle… Maybe…   Gold lost $9.10 on the day, losing  to close at $1,989.60… You may have noticed yesterday that gold has reached $2,000, well that was an intraday price, and before the short paper traders arrived at their desks… I’m just saying…  Silver seems to be getting the brunt of shot selling these days, and the daily losses for Silver have been larger than the average bear…  Silver lost 13-cents yesterday, to close the day at $24.96…   
I read a note yesterday on Blomberg.com about how Lola, (Goldman Sacs) has come out with their recommendations for  currencies to buy, once the Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel decide to cut rates… They are calling for euros, and yen to be their best bets… I told you yesterday that I was hearing about the currency houses thinking that the yen is bound for a strong move VS the dollar, because they believe the new Bank of Japan Gov. will be the yen’s savior…  I still say that the Bank of Japan has disappointed too many time previously, and so I’m on board with them doing that again, and not giving the currency traders long yen what they want… (a move out of negative rates) If you are so inclined to go with what Lola says, then go right ahead, for they may be right, but I have my doubts…  I’m just saying…
In the over night markets last night… There was some dollar weakness, the BBDXY lost 1 index point overnight, so no big movement… Gold is up $8 in the early trading today, and Silver has wrapped a tourniquet around its price and is up 3-cents in the early trading today. i’m thinking that once again currency traders are befuddled as to what they should do… Buy or Sell dollars?  They know they should be selling dollars, but there’s those sneaky bas*&^%d;s at the PPT, who keep making those that short dollars pay for their positions, when the PPT comes in a throws millions of dollars at propping up the dollar…  This is where currency traders need a pep talk, and since Knute Rockne isn’t here, I’ll have to do…  “Boys & girls, you’ve come so close to pushing the dollar where it belongs, circling the bowl, and there have been some interruptions, but this is not the time to give up! So, let’s go get ’em!”   Chuck, that was lame as far as a pep talk goes… Sorry, it’s been years since I had to deliver a pep talk! 
In Bill Bonner’s daily letter yesterday he had this to say about the debt ceiling, “We’ve got news. There is no debt ‘ceiling.’ US government debt is in an elevator that just goes one direction – up. The ceiling goes up with it. But as it rises, so does US vulnerability — to defaults, bankruptcies, market crashes…and inflation.”
I laughed till I cried over that comment… Because it’s tru, it’s tru, I did see a putty tat! Why on earth would they cakk ut a “debt ceiling” when it’s been raised 78 times in the past!  We all know how this is going to turn out, we get the 11th hour in June, and they miraculously come up with an agreement to allow our deficit to go higher… I’m currently reading a book by Ray Dalio, and he describes the past Empires the rise, their fall, and what happened in between, and then I’m sitting there imagining the U.S. empire, and we are on the down side from the top, and we have nothing but hard times ahead of us…  Got Gold? 
Bill Bonner ended his discussion about the debt elevator that only goes up with this though: ” Once again, overspending, over-borrowing, and over-printing matter. It’s not the debt ceiling that poses a problem; it’s the debt itself. Thanks to the reserve currency status of the dollar, excess greenbacks are still absorbed in overseas swamps. But as we saw yesterday, the swamps are being drained and dried out. Now, dollars accumulate at home…and raise consumer prices in the USA.” – Bill Bonner from bonnerprivatereserearch.com 
You know, I keep telling you about how countries all over the world are coming up with plan to de-dollarize…  And I guess I shoudl talk about how having the reserve currency of the world, and having a currency that is used in terms of transactions, are two different things… The dollar is losing its grip on the dollar being used in the terms of transactions, but it’s reserve status still has some time to run, for there isn’t an obvious challenger that could wrestle the reserve status away from the dollar…  In 1999, when the euro was introduced, and within a couple of years was already the offset currency to the dollar, I thought then, that the euro could end up as the challenger to the dollar… But then debts of the Club Med countries were exposed in 2011, and the euro lost its lofty position, and value… 
Then I thought the Chinee renminbi would overtake the dollar, but China’s capital markets/ bonds etc. didn’t have the distribution that Treasuries have, and so it was back to the drawing board…  China may still overtake the dollar, but it’s not going to happen overnight, folks… It will be a long time coming… I’m just saying… 
But you know what? How about a currency from a united front? Like the BRICS?? Why not? they have the so much going for them in terms of things that make a country rich, and ready to take the lead in the world… Think about that one, and I’m sure you’ll see the light… 
OK, shifting gears… The good folks at GATA sent me this note yesterday regarding the Bank of England: “British families must “accept that they’re worse off” after a surge in inflation and stop pushing for a pay rise, a senior Bank of England official has said.

Huw Pill, the Bank’s chief economist, warned that rising prices have made the whole country poorer and said that attempts to bid up wages were merely prolonging the agony

It came just hours after another senior Threadneedle Street official insisted that the Bank would have been powerless to bring inflation under control even if it had acted faster on interest rates.”

Chuck again… Can you imagine our Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel, coming out and saying something like that? They would be tarred and feathered and hung out  on a line for everyone to see!  The article went on to talk about how the British people will have to learn to live cheaper, and without so many things…   I applaud the Bank of England or coming out telling people the truth, and not a pack of lies like our Central Bank does! 
The U.S. Data Cupboard yesterday had the Durable Good Orders for March, of which I told you I thought given the surprises in data prints so far this week, the print would be positive VS the negative print in Feb…  And print positive it did, by 3.2%, a very strong showing, but there had to be some one time orders in there… I’m just saying…  
Today’s Data Cupboard has the first revision of 1st QTR GDP… The first print was 2.6%… But I’m thinking that if all the reports in the first 3 months were counted, the GDP print will be revised downward… Probably just 2%… We’ll also see the usual print on Thursdays, the weekly initial jobless Claims, which have been inching higher lately, I’m sure that will continue… unless some bean counter masages the data first! 
To recap… The currencies rallied on Wednesday, and tried to get the bad taste of the Monday beatdown out of their collective mouths… Gold lost $9 on the day, and Silver lost 13-cents… Chuck is really on the idea that the Debt Ceiling talks are worthless… They will raise our ability to add to the deficit, for 79th time…   Got Gold? 
For What It’s Worth.. This was sent to me from a trusted source, Brian K… And it made the hair on the back of neck stand up, and soon I was yelling at the wall,  and pounding my fist on the desk with anger!  This is about a new mortgage loan program that’s being started in a bank or mortgage lender new you… UGH! Well, there is a link to the article and here it is: What new rules on mortgage rates mean for people with higher credit scores – CBS Minnesota (cbsnews.com)
Or, here’s your snippet:”According to Experian, prospective buyers in Minnesota have averaged a FICO score of 742 in 2022 and 2021 – the highest average among all states – and those higher scores have typically rewarded buyers who pay bills on time with more affordable interest rates and closing costs. On the flip side, those with lower credit scores have needed to pay more to compensate for the lender’s higher risk in approving that loan.

Come May 1, however, new rules from federal regulators will tweak that formula by adjusting Loan Level Price Adjustments (LLPAs) that are set by underwriters Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

In its announcement earlier this year, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) said the changes are designed to level the playing field and empower buyers from marginalized communities to compete in the hot market.

Danny Kovack, a Minnesota-based mortgage broker, told WCCO News the LLPAs will mean buyers with higher credit scores could be paying more in closing costs than they would have before, but it’s still better than having a lower score.

“Someone with a lower credit score is paying more to get the same rate as someone with a good credit score – still,” Kovack said. “It just used to be they were paying a lot more. They’ve made it closer to those with good credit. The better credit score, you’re getting a way better deal. They just made it just a tad bit worse for you.”

Chuck again,,, Ok, so now I’m trying to figure out what is the cause of this change? Is it to spread the wealth? This reminds me the Clinton/ Greenspan debacle to get inflation low so interest rates would drop and allow more pople to get a home loan… That turned out to be quite disastrous (housing bubble), and this too will turn out just as bad… mark my words on that! 
Market Prices 4/27/2023: American Style: A$ .6619, kiwi .6150, C$ .7342, euro 1.1033, sterling 1.2476, Swiss $1,1193, European Style: rand 18.2549, krone 10.6184, SEK 10.3189, forint 338.59, zloty 4.1610, koruna 21.3023, RUB 81.54, yen 133.47, sing 1.3363, HKD 7.8500, INR 81.84, China 6.9210, peso 18.15, BRL 5.0450, BBDXY 1,225.70, Dollar Index 101.43, Oil $74.62, 10-year 3.46%, Silver $24.99Platinum $1,096.00, Palladium $1,520, Copper $3.85, and Gold… $1,997.03
That’s it for today… And this week… It’s been a long week for yours truly… Late nights, not much sleep, and the days are getting chillier again… UGH!  But, the sun is lasting longer each day, and that is a good thing in my book! A day game today, but it’s supposed to be rainy day here, so I guess I be sent inside to watch it! I love middle of the week day games, of course, I’m one that thinks the majority of games should be played during the day… That’s my longtime wish… Good luck with that! I realize that people have jobs and can’t go to ballparks, but… In the times when there were no lights, they used to play day games that were well attended… I’m just saying…  Robin Trower takes us to the finish line today with his song, and a place I keep going to: Bridge of Sighs… Robin was the lead guitar player for the band Procol Harum before going out on his own…  There’s some rock trivia for you to remember! HA   I hope you have a Tub Thumpin’ Thursday today, a Fantastico Friday tomorrow, and that you will try to Be Good To Yourself!
Chuck Butler

The Banking Crisis Is Over? Hardly!

April 26, 2023

* Currencies & metals get sold on Tuesday… 

* But then rebound in the overnight markets… 

Good Day… And a Wonderful Wednesday to you! Well, my beloved Cardinals found another way to lose a game last night… I know its early in the season, but this is getting serious, folks… UGH! I went to City Park to watch our StL City SC team last night, and sat with Frank Trotter! I also saw, Ty Keough, Jack Stapleton, and Dane Moody! It was an EverBank reunion! I’ve been to two games now, and each game has been won by the good guys by a score of 5-1… Maybe the owners of the team might want to get me to every game, eh? By now, you’ve heard the news that Frank Trotter is starting a new bank (EverBank2), this one is called Battle Bank, and he’s got all the pieces in place to virtually open, just waiting on the FDIC to bless the bank… If you haven’t been to his website yet, here it is: www.battlebank.com     The Band, Missouri, greets me this morning with their great driving song: Movin’ On… 
Tuesday was not a good day to be a currency not named dollar… The dollar bugs went on a rampage and at the end of the day, the BBDXY was up 6 index points, and the euro had dropped back below 1.10, with the other currencies taking their whipping from the dollar. This dollar rally was something out of left field… I say that because according to my estimate of how many traders, economists, hedge fund gurus, that are talking about how the fed/ Cabal/ Cartel, is going to be cutting rates later this year, one would think that the trade would be to sell dollars, since they bought dollars when rates were going up… Gold was getting beaten about the head and shoulders and then turned around… Gold did lose just $1.40 on the day to end the day at $1,288.50… Silver, too, turned around, but not as much as Gold did… Silver, which was down 70-cents in the early trading yesterday, rallied a bit to close down 43-cents on the day and close at $24.80… 
In the overnight markets last night… There must have been someone with an ounce of gray matter say, “Hey, why are we buying dollars, when we should be selling them?” And that got traders and investors to exam what their counterparts had done during the day on Tuesday, and that got them selling the dollar… And as we start the day today, the BBDXY has given bak 4 index points, the euro is back above 1.10, and Gold is back to $2,000… Now, this looks more like what the trading should be doing to me…   The price of Oil slipped lower again in the past 24 hours, to trade this morning with a $76 handle… It’s a daily battle between the Oil bulls, and the Oil bears… I do believe in my heart of hearts that the Oil bulls will be the eventual winner here.. 
The 10-year Treasury continues to see its yield drop… This morning the 10-year is at 3.40% yield… That’s crazy folks, but… it does poit out what I was saying above about how many folks are calling for the Fed Heads to be cutting rates later this year…  I guess it all depends on the data that prints betwen FOMC meetings… Speaking of which, I’m still calling for a tiny 25 Basis Point rate hike at the next FOMC in May… 
I was reading yesterday about the Japanese yen, and how a glut of investors, traders, etc. are betting that the yen is a ONE-Way street to stronger levels VS the dollar based on the idea that the new Bank of Japan (BOJ) Gov is going to do more than drop the control of the Gov’t Bond yield…  I read that and thought, but… hasn’t the BOJ disappointed the markets time after time previously?  And I’m of the thought that the yen will see 1.40, before it sees 1.25… (remember, yen is European Pricing, so the lower the price, is a good thing for yen) 
I was telling Frank last night, that I had come up with a currency mix that would be a good combo to combat dollar weakness… And he asked me, if I had talked to the folks on my old trading desk about that… And of course I hadn’t, because they don’t want to hear from me any longer.. I’m a “has been”…  He laughed, and said, that I should anyway… Well, I said, if they read the Pfennig still, they know what I think… 
For those of you, who skipped over that part yesterday, where I listed the combo mix of currencies, that I would be looking to own to offset dollar weakness… They are: euros, francs, Aussie dollars, kiwi, and rubles…  You’ve got the offset to the dollar in the euro, you’ve got a safe haven in the franc, you’ve got an Oil play in rubles, and you’ve got currencies with interest rates either higher than the dollar or going to be higher than, when the Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel begins to cut rates…  
That would make a good combo currency CD, in my humble country boy opinion… I’m just saying… 
Well, the good folks at Gata sent me this note yesterday, “Shares of First Republic continued to plunge on Tuesday as regulators in Washington and financiers on Wall Street scrambled to come up with a plan to stabilise the ailing bank.

The California-based lenders stock price, which is down by more than 93 per cent this year, fell by a further 49.4 per cent, a day after it revealed its customers had withdrawn $100 billion of deposits during last month’s turmoil.”

So, Ahem, Janet Yellen, do you still believe that the banking crisis is over? Well, knowing how she thinks, since I’ve been following her moves since she was the San Francisco Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel President, I would say that she knows deep down that the crisis isn’t over, but she has to tell us all that it is, so that there are no more bank runs… 
The top 30 banks with uninsured deposits have a total of $7 Trillion in deposits over the $250,000 FDIC max insured deposit. That’s a lot of uninsured deposits, don’t you think? And if you do, then do you believe that if any of these 30 banks can’t make it, that the banking crisis is just in the 3rd inning?  Yeah, that’s what I thought, so don’t pay attention to the woman behind the curtain… (Janet Yellen) I read an article yesterday that called Yellen, the “high priestess” of the economy… I laughed until I cried!
Well, the other news yesterday was that the POTUS has decided to run again in 2024, when he will be 81 years old… Did anyone mention a competency test? I mean in general, shouldn’t anyone running for President of this nation, and holder of the button to ignite nuclear bombs, have to take a competency test before being elected? I’m just saying.. . No politics here, just an observation from the cheap seats… 
Before we head to the Big Finish today, I have a funny for you… Dennis Miller sent this to me and said when he saw this it reminded him of me!   I played in a small band named The Hinges… We opened for the Doors! HA! 
The U.S. Data Cupboard yesterday had the stupid Consumer Confidence report and it believe it or don’t, it actualy showed that Confidence fell in March! Yowza! Now that’s something to write home about! Maybe, just maybe, cause you never know, the folks that take the surveys, actually called someone else besides their uncles and aunts!  In another surprising data print yesterday, Case/ Shiller says that home prices actually rose in February .1%, but a rise nonetheless… Stranger than fiction, but it is what it is… So, we’ll move along to today’s Data Cupboard… Today we’ll see the color of Durable Goods Orders for March… February’s Durable Goods were negative, so in keeping with the surprise data prints, I’ll say today’s print for March will be positive! 
To recap… Tuesday was not the day to be a currency not named the U.S. dollar… The BBDXY gained 6 index points on the day, and the euro fell back below 1.10, Gold got sold big time early, but fought back to only lose $1.40… Chuck questioned the thought process fo buying dollars, given is seems most everyone’s opinion is that the Fed Heads will cut rates this year…  In the overnight markets calmer heads with an ounce of gray matter, decided that buying dollars was dumb, and they proceeded to sell dollars, and the BBDXY gave back 4 index points, and the euro moved back above 1.10…  Lots of other things to talk about today, so if you came here first, you might, just might, cause you never know, want to go back and read the whole letter! 
For What It’s Worth…  Long ago and far away, I had the opportunity to talk to Dennis Gartman… He’s a very famous investment advisor, newsletter writer, etc. And every now and then he sends me a note about something I said in the Pfennig… Well, yesterday, Kitco News had something on Dennis, so this time, I’m going to print something he said!  And it can be found here:Dennis Gartman remains bullish on gold, recommends University of Akron endowment fund increase its exposure to 5% | Kitco News
Or, here’s your snippet: ” Gold’s inability to hold its ground above $2,000 is disappointing; however, it remains an attractive safe-haven asset, according to famed commodity investor Denis Gartman.

In his latest investment letter, Gartman said that as chairman of the University of Akron’s Foundation’s endowment investment committee, the precious metal has outperformed in the portfolio. He noted that the university’s endowment fund reduced its equity holdings by 3% two years ago and put that into gold.
“As of today, GLD was up 15.7% over that time, while the broad Russell 2000 stock index was down by approximately 18.9% over that same period,” he said.
He also recommended the fund increase its gold holding to 5% of the portfolio.
In his personal investments, Gartman reiterated his bullish positioning in gold and Treasuries. He added that he is also long-term bearish on equities.
“I’m still holding 80.6% of my portfolio in 2-year notes and 2.2% in cash. I am short of 6.4% of my portfolio via derivatives and I’m long of 10.8% via gold using GLD and GDX with a focus upon the latter,” he said.
Gartman’s bullish outlook for the precious metal comes as prices look to regain their foothold on $2,000 an ounce. The yellow metal sold off sharply last week, falling to a two-week low as market expectations around the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy started to shift.
Markets have all but priced in a 25-basis point hike at next week’s monetary policy meeting. At the same time, markets are pushing back the first potential rate cut after the summer.

The gold market has also seen some profit-taking as concerns over the banking sector eased after the failure of major regional banks in the U.S. and the collapse of Credit Suisse in Europe last month.”

Chuck again… I agree 100% with Dennis on this… And I thank him for participating, although he wasn’t aware of it until now! 
Market Prices 4/26/2023: American Style: A$.6600, kiwi .6126, C$ .7339, euro 1.1046, sterling 12477, Swiss $1.1252, European Style: rand 18.4000, krone 10.6246, SEK 10.3072, forint 340.28, zloty 4.1575, 
koruna 21.2630, RUB 81.77, yen 133.34, sing 1.3357, HKD 7.8500, INR 81.76, China 6.9237, peso 18.08, BRL 5.0534, BBDXY 1,224.64, Dollar Index 101.35, Oil $76.82, 10-year 3.40%, Silver $24.96, Platinum $1,106.00, Palladium $1,519.00, Copper $3.88, and Gold… $2.000.14
That’s it for today… Man I went back to look for something in yesterday’s Pfennig and noticed that it was quite long… Well, sometimes I have a lot to say, and sometimes I don’t… Yesterday, was a day when I had a lot to say! 
I’m still very impressed by the new City Park, nice and new, clean, and the food is good, while the soccer is good too! And, besides all of the steps, I love my seats! Especially now that I know that my good friend, Frank Trotter has the two seats next to mine! I don’t go back to the Park until May 27th, as I share some of my tickets with good friend, Rick Baur… Speaking of Rick, a child of the 80’s, he’ll love this one… We are taken to the finish line today with a song from the Outfield titled: Your Love…  I hope you have a Wonderful Wednesday today, and please Be Good To Yourself!
Chuck Butler

Forgetting The Pain?

April 25, 2023

* currencies & metals rally on Monday… 

* the dollar turns the table in the overnight markets

Good Day… And Tom Terrific Tuesday to you! Another late game last night, and I couldn’t for the life of me, stay up to watch it all, so when I woke up at 3 am, like i do every night, I checked the score, to see that my beloved Cardinals lost, yet again!  UGH! The Cardinals aren’t even 1/2 through their road trip out west… More late games are in store…  I’m going to the City SC Park tonight for a club match game with Union of Omaha… I had difficulty getting someone to go with me… Everyone is “busy”, or had to arrange their sock drawers..  Poor, poor pitiful me… (Linda Ronstadt) Ok… did you know that this is earnings week or the big Tech stocks? Could their bad earnings, if that’s what happens, be the decider of a Fed Heads rate hike in May? I guess we’ll have to wait-n-see… Faces greet me this morning with their great 70’s song: Ooh, La, La… 
Well, the first day of the week brought about some dollar selling, and the BBDXY lost nearly 3 index points… The euro, once again, moved higher in the 1.10 handle, and the Swiss franc continues to kick rear end and take names later… It was about at this level that the PPT stepped in and bought dollars with their Exchange Stabilization Fund (ESF)… And that put a brief end to the dollar selling… But sort of like forgetting the pain, traders and investors continue to sell dollars any chance they get… Gold gained $5 on day and ended the day at $1,289.90.. Dave Gonigam in the 5 Minute Forecast, said that Gold was just trying to get its bearings after a beat down on Friday… 
Silver gained 7 -cents on the day, to end the day at $25.24… I have to give you this from Ed Steer’s letter on Saturday, www.edsteergoldsilver.com  “Ted is still of the opinion that Bank of America is short about one billion ounces of silver in the OTC market, courtesy of JPMorgan & Friends. He’s now of the opinion that they’re also short around 25 million troy ounces of gold…with the same bunch of crooks on the long side.

If BofA gets hung out to dry, they could possibly end up being the next Bear Stearns. However, there won’t be anyone to save them…except the Fed, or maybe the Exchange Stabilization Fund.
The situation regarding the Big 4/8 concentrated commercial short positions in silver and gold is still obscene…with that obscenity in gold growing larger by the week…as per the above COT Report. How much it has improved since Tuesday’s cut-off, is debatable.
As Ted has been pointing out ad nauseam forever, the resolution of the Big 4/8 short positions will be the sole determinant of precious metal prices going forward. And as I’ve been mentioning for a month now, they have been very reluctant to add to their short positions in silver over the last two months and a bit — and have only done so with great reluctance these past two reporting weeks.

And, as always, nothing else matters — and that should be obvious to all by now, except the willfully blind, of course…plus those whose so-called ‘reputations’ and careers depend upon them not seeing it…to paraphrase Upton Sinclair.”

 
Chuck again… I agree the shot position in Silver is obscene… And I’ll say no more.. today on this…  And the Ted that Ed is talking about above is Ted Butler, the silver guru, and no relation to me that I know of! 
 
In the overnight markets last night….  When I went to bed last night, the dollar was continuing to get sold, but something turned traders around on the night, and the dollar rallied the rest of the night. The BBDXY regained the 3 index points it lost on Monday, and things just look rotten to the core this morning. Gold is getting sold in the early trading, and is down $10 to start the day, while Silver is down 70-cents to start the day.  These bear raids are giving me a rash! Central Banks keep buying physical Gold, and the price manipulators keep showing up at the COMEX with arms full of short Gold / Silver paper trades…  
 
I mentioned yesterday, that there could be something to the thought that the Central Banks are behind the the engineered takedowns, because they need to buy more physical Gold, and they don’t want to be seen chasing a market higher… I’m just saying… 
 
In the other markets, the price of Oil is trading with a $78 handle this morning…  The price of Oil just keeps getting driven lower by the outlook for a major slowdown in the U.S. economy, at the same time its getting bought by the people that see the supply issue being a plus for Oil…  This is a major conflict going on right now, and it will be interesting to see who wins… my money, is on the supply issues driving the price of Oil higher…  Hmmm… What do you think of that? 
 
The bond boys all have gone in all-in, on the thought that the Fed is going to pause, and that they will indeed begin to cut rates in 2023, and so the 10-year’s yield continues to drop lower, this morning the 10-year is trading with a 3.44% yield, down from Friday’s yield of 3.62%…  I just don’t know what to think of this thought by the bond boys..  They really believe that they have the Fed Heads figured out… If they end up being right, then I’ll bow down before them and say I’m not worthy! For I believe they are barking up the wrong tree, here… 
 
Well, did you hear the news that the Chile Gov’t is going to nationalize the lithium market… I had to laugh when I saw that, because I dont’ know why Gov’ts seem to think they know how to do something better than the private entities… . Chile has three lithium companies, 2 of them were private, and did a great job, and the 3rd was a national entity, and was known as a real screw-up… And now they want to take it all over.. Good luck, with that! I would say that given this information, one might just want to take a position in Lithium, because to me this asset is about to be in short supply, which should drive the price higher… I’m just saying… 
 
Speaking of shortages…  I was thinking about this, this past weekend… Given that we know that Central Bank purchases of physical Gold last year amounted to 1,136 Tonnes, it means there was less physical Gold to go around to everyone else that wanted to buy it… Now, you’re not going to read about a physical Gold shortage in the news, because that’s the last thing the short Gold paper traders want to be heard!  But do the math, and it points to problems going forward, and like I’ve always said, “if everyone bought phsyical Gold, it would put the short paper traders out of business”.. So, let’s keep it going! buy, buy, buy! 
 
There was another country that signed up for Russian Oil and to leave dollars out of the terms of transaction… Bolivia and Russia signed an agreement for Russian Oil that will be paid in rubles… That means Bolivia will have to swap some of their dollar reserves for rubles…   
 
I used to give presentations all over North and Central America, and in them I would tell people about the trade agreements that China was signing with trade partners, that would leave dollars out of the terms of transactions, and I would tell the audience that, “when China signs an agreement with S. Arabia, then it’s all over but the shouting for the dollar as a petrol currency”… Guess what happend last month, that I reported on, but no one else in the universe did? You guessed it China agreed with S. Arabia to exchange their respective currencies when buying Oil, leaving dollars out… now, if S. Arabia is doing this, what other oil producing countries in the Middle East will follow? So, bye, Bye, Miss American petrol dollar…  I’m just saying… 
 
There was a time when I did a weekly video for the Sovereign Society, and their publication The Currency Capitalist… I also was one of 3 editors for that publication… Ahh, so long ago… and oh so far away… 
 
A week or so ago, I talked about the Chinese renminbi, and how it has been getting stronger… Well, I found this on Bloomberg.com yesterday, and so here it is: ” the Citigroup’s Economic Surprise Index for China rose close to the highest since 2006 this month and yet the yuan is up only about 1% against its trade-weighted basket so far in 2023. The yuan should rise, but it’s worrying that the currency has been almost impervious to good news, as it’s hard to imagine what more the nation can do to impress. Aside from ongoing geopolitical risk, it may simply be that investors need time to get used to the idea that the China trade is back.”
 
And the Swiss franc continues to take no prisoners… What’s gotten into the franc, and why is it so in demand by investors?  Well, other than the Swiss National Bank (SNB) hiking rates to combat inflation, there’s the good old Safe Haven buying going on… But even more than that, there’s this idea that the SNB isn’t finished with hiking rates, and that has got franc investors all lathered up… 
 
I really do believe that this time… will be a real long term downward trend for the dollar… And so, what does that bring to your mind as to what must be bought?   I’ll go out on a limb here and tell you that a nice mix of: euros, francs, Aussie dollars, kiwi, and rubles would give you the offset currency to the dollar, give you the safe haven currency, and 3 currencies with interest rates that either are or will be higher than that of the dollar… 
 
You could call it: Chuck’s Solution to Dollar Weakness….   
 
The U.S. Data Cupboard gets back into action today with the Case/ Shiller Home Price Index for Feb… I’m sure this data set will continue to show that home prices keep falling… And we’ll see the stupid Consumer confidence index, that somehow keeps showing gains each month… Who are these survey people calling? They don’t call me, that’s for sure! There was something that I mentioned yesterday from the previous Friday’s reports… The Philly Fed Manufacturing Index printed at negative -31.2, and one point about that I failed to make yesterday is that whenever, in the past, this index went to -30 or more, it signaled that a recesssion is on the way…  oh, and I can’t forget to mention that Bed Bath & Beyond filed for bankruptcy… 
 
To recap… The dollar got sold to start the week yesterday, with the BBDXY losing nearly 3 index points… Gold gained $5 in attempt to gain its bearings after Friday’s beat down… The euro has returned to trade above 1.10, and the Swiss france is taking no prisioners these days. Chuck talks a lot about Silver and the short positions in the metal, and then switches to talk about shortage that must be taking place in physical Gold, after all the Central Band Buying last year… You won’t hear aout that on TV or the newspaper!  And get this… The Gov’t in Chile thinks they know how to mine and market and produce Lithium better the private arena! That’s downright laughable!
 
For What It’s Worth… Well, I’ve explained to you previously a few times at least that I love the articles that Matthew Piepenberg writes at Gold Switzerland, and todays’ FWIW is Matthew talking about the coming disasters in finance and economies and it can be found here: So Many Open Signs of Financial Disaster Ahead and Gold Working – Matterhorn – GoldSwitzerland
Or, here’s your snippet: “From oil markets to treasury stacking, backdoor QE, investor fantasy and hedge fund prepping, it’s becoming more and more clear that the big boys are bracing for disaster as gold stretches its legs for a rapid run north.

Recently, I dove into the cracks in the petrodollar as yet another symptom of a world turning its back on USTs and USDs.
Gold, of course, has a role in these headlines if one looks deep enough.
So, let’s look deeper.
Diving Deeper into the Oil Story
The headlines of late, for example, are all about “surprise” OPEC production cuts.
Why is this happening and what does it say about gold down the road?
First, let’s face the politics.
As noted many times, it seems US policy, on everything from short-sighted (suicidal?) sanctions to the “green initiative” makes just about zero sense in the real world, which is miles apart from the “keep-me-elected” fantasy-world of DC.
After all, energy, matters, which means oil matters.
But the current regime in DC has been losing friends in Saudi Arabia and cutting its prior and once admirable shale production outputs (think 2016-2020) in the US despite a world that still runs on black gold fighting against green politics.
The DC attack on shale may make the Greta Thunbergs happy, but let’s be blunt: It defies economic common sense.
Saudi, by cutting production, is now showing a still very much oil-dependent world it is not afraid of losing market share to the USA in the face of rising oil for the simple reason that the USA just aint got enough oil to fill the gap or flex its energy muscles.
In the meantime, Chinese demand for crude is peaking while Russian oil flows to the east (including to Japan) are hitting new highs at prices above the US-led price cap of $60/barrel.
If DC has any blunt realists (wrongly castigated as tree-killers) left, it will have to re-think its anti-oil policies and get back toward that recent era when US shale was responsible for 90% of total global oil supply growth.

If not, oil prices can and will spike, making Powell’s war on inflation even more of an open charade.”

Chuck again… Matthew goes on to discuss inflation and other things, so if you’ve got the time, we’ve got the beer, no wait! we’ve got the article for you! 
Market Prices 4/25/2023: American Style: A$ .6652, kiwi .6157, C$ .7356, euro 1.1025, sterling 1.2434, Swiss $1.1262, European Style: rand 18.2794, krone 10.6081, SEK 102561, forint 340.57, zloty 4.1638, koruna 21.2971, RUB 81.66, yen 134.20, sing 1.3368, HKD 7.8496, INR 81.91, China 6.9218, peso 17.96, BRL 5.0529, BBDXY 1,225.27, Dollar Index 101.59, Oil $78.62, 10-year 3.44%, Silver $24.53, Platinum $1,069.00, Palladium $1,495.00, Copper $3.87, and Gold… $1,977.78
That’s it for today… It’ll be along night tonight, so I had better get a nap in this afternoon! Today is the birthday of my nephew: Eddie… I haven’t seen Eddie on quite a few years now… He’s a grown man with a family so he’s got his own life to live… I don’t recall all my nieces and nephews birthdays but for some reason I always remember Eddie’s…  Happy Birthday bud! I forgot to tell you about all my doc visits last week: My heart doctor gave me a gold star sticker! HA!, my dermatologist didn’t find any other growths, My dentist was happy with me, and my oncologist solved the mystery of why I had a heart stroke! It was caused by one of my chemo meds… So, I stopped taking that one immediately! And other than that we put off my next scan for June! So, it was a good week! Head East takes us to the finish line today with their song: Never Been Any Reason…  I hope you have a Tom Terrific Tuesday today, and please, oh please, Be Good To Yourself!
Chuck Butler

 

How’d We Get Here?

April 24, 2023

* metals see another engineered takedown on Friday

* A credit crunch is here… 

Good Day… and a Marvelous Monday to you! Man, it’s cold outside this morning… my iWatch tells me it was 33 degrees when I awoke… YUCK! I do not like cold weather! Saturday and Sunder never even got close to normal temps for this time of year! I said to Kathy yesterday, “let’s go back to Florida”, to which she replied, “It’ll warm up here”… So, I guess I’m stuck here in the cold… UGH! The Cardinals are cold, and that’s a bad thing… I met up with the normal crowd at our local watering hole on Friday, and then was treated when a friend from High School days showed up! It was great seeing Linda Bilgere Moore again… Her laugh is so different, you could be in a crowd of people and know that she was there when she laughed! The Guess Who greets me this morning, with their song: No Sugar Tonight/ New Mother Nature…   Burton Cummings, the lead singer of the Guess Who, was always a fave of mine…
Well, the bears performed another engineered takedown of Gold on Friday last week… It just doesn’t make any sense to me besides their profits they make by shorting Gold (& Silver)… But it is what it is… And to me, all the Central Bank buying of physical Gold is the only thing standing in the short paper traders’ way…  So, on a day when the dollar barely moved… The U.S. data was bad… Gold was sold to the tune of losing $21.40 on the day and closing the week at $1,984.90… Silver saw it’s value lose 17-cents to close the week at $25.17… The currencies are range trading with the dollar barely moving, while the price of Oil sunk $2 on Friday, and ended the week trading with a $77 handle.. The 10-year Treasury trading was boring, with the 10-year’s yield ending the week at 3.61%
I mentioned the Central Bank buying, and it just so happens that the good folks at GATA sent me this note: “Central bankers who manage trillions in foreign exchange reserves are loading up on gold as geopolitical tensions including the war in Ukraine force them to rethink their investment strategies.

An annual poll of 83 central banks, which manage a combined $7 trillion in foreign exchange assets, found that more than two-thirds of respondents thought their peers would increase their gold holdings in 2023.”

Makes you wonder, doesn’t it? That the Central Banks could be behind the short paper traders, having them get the price of Gold lower so they can buy more phsyical Gold?   Stranger thing have happend through the years folks, all you have to do is think, “what would I do I was a Central Bank Gov.? ”  
In the overnight markets last night… It was boredom city… There was little to no movement in the currencies and metals, Oil remained trading with a $77 handle, and the only asset class that moved, bonds…  The BBDXY is trading in the same clothes as Friday, 1,225, Gold is flat this morning and Silver is down just 3-cents in the early trading… The euro did move back above 1.10 overnight, so there was that… The 10-year saw some major buying overnight, I wonder by whom? That is strange folks… the other asset classes were flat as a pancake (Head East), but bonds got bought? The 10-year’s yield this morning is 3.53%, down from Friday’s close of 3.62%… That’s a big overnight move, that was caused by some major buying… And again, I look at the Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel and accuse them of backdoor QE…  I’m just saying… 
I really got to thinking this past weekend, about how we got into this mess, and i started with the fact that it began a long time ago with transfer payments…  We, as a country began to pay out monthly payments to people that couldn’t work, and that was fine, until… Our illustrious (NOT!) leaders decided to win more votes they could make promises to more people, and the deficit spending on these programs started mounting… The defict began to grow, like a weed… Then somewhere along the way, we began to believe that the Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel was our savior… The markets would swoon over Big Al Greenspan, who started the bailing out of economy a regular occurance for the Central Bank.  The Dot.com bubble, lead to the Housing Bubble, which lead to the stock/ bond market bubbel, and the free money just kept being printed and distributed…  But to me, that era is over…  Interest rates are rising, and we have inflation volatility, and deflation at the same time, and it’s all just getting started folks…  
Longtime friend, and best-selling author, and publishing guru, Bill Bonner, has been describing what happened in Argentina to bring the country to hyper-inflation and currency debasement, and he had this warning to Americans… “How many people have a Plan B… some gold under the floorboards… some silver coins… a crypto wallet… a foreign bank account… anything outside the State’s strangulating system?” Bill Bonner at Bonner Reseach.com
 
Chuck again… Or, you could just go with my solution to this mess… Got Gold? 
 
You know, dear reader, that the responses to the Pfennig, haven’t been working for a couple of months now, and it’s a shame that it’s like that, for I no longer get to see what’s on your mind, after reading the Pfennig each day. There is a work around that they showed me, but I thought it was too junky and full of things that had to be done, and so I scrapped it,  and asked them to come up with something else…  I don’t know, something like, rewriting the template with a new link to the web responses? Sounds like a solution to me, but then I’m not even your last choice as a Tech guy! 
 
Last week was Earth Day… Did you know that? I recall in the 70’s Earth Day was a BIG DEAL in St. Louis… 
 
Did you hear about the Gold heist in Canada? This is good… stay with me here: “More than $20 million worth of gold and other high-value items have been stolen from Toronto Pearson Airport, Peel Regional Police said today.

Duty Inspector Stephen Duivesteyn told media police are investigating the theft that took place early Monday evening after a plane that arrived at the airport was unloaded and its cargo transported to a holding facility.
“Once this cargo was offloaded at a holding facility, subsequent to its arrival, this high-value container was removed by illegal means,” said Duivesteyn.

“The container contained a high-value shipment. It did contain gold, but was not exclusive to gold, and contained other items of monetary value.”

 
Chuck again… Now doesn’t that sound like a trailer for a movie?  Like I said above: stranger things have happened… 
 
More than $20 million worth of gold and other high-value items have been stolen from Toronto Pearson Airport, Peel Regional Police said today.

Duty Inspector Stephen Duivesteyn told media police are investigating the theft that took place early Monday evening after a plane that arrived at the airport was unloaded and its cargo transported to a holding facility.
“Once this cargo was offloaded at a holding facility, subsequent to its arrival, this high-value container was removed by illegal means,” said Duivesteyn.

“The container contained a high-value shipment. It did contain gold, but was not exclusive to gold, and contained other items of monetary value.”

 
Chuck again… Now doesn’t that sound like a trailer for movie? Like I said above: Stranger things have happened… 
 
The U.S. Data Cupboard today has no data for us… nada, nil, zero, a Big Fat Goose Egg! And that’s probably a good thing, considering the uglyness of last week’s data… On Thursday alone the data was so ugly, it could make onions cry! Here’s the rundown of the Thursday data prints… Weekly Initial Claims were up 5,000 to 245,000, The Philly Fed Manufacturing Index was a negative -31.2, which followed Feb’s negative -23.2, so things here are just getting worse… That was followed by Existing Home Sales, which were down 2%, and finally the piece de’ resitance… Leading Economic Indicators followed Feb’s negative -.5%, with a March print of negative -1.2%, if that data doesn’t spell a recession is coming then I’m a monky’s uncle! 
 
And I found this on www.wallstreetonparade.com: “On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve released its Beige Book, a compilation of current economic conditions in each of its 12 Federal Reserve districts. The information that was collected in each of the regional reports was gathered on or before April 10 – so it is relatively current.

It is not a good sign that three of the Fed districts that pump out a significant chunk of U.S. GDP reported that bank credit had tightened noticeably, ostensibly as fallout from the banking collapses in March and depositor runs.

The New York Fed reported that credit conditions in the Second Fed District, which includes New York state, the 12 northern counties of New Jersey, Connecticut’s Fairfield County, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, “deteriorated sharply.” “

 
Chuck again… Uh-oh… The credit economy is in trouble…  I’m just saying… 
To recap… The dollar was boring to  end the week last week, but the metals saw another engineered takedown , by the short gold paper traders… And lost $21 to end the week… Chuck points out that if it weren’t for all the buying of physical Gold by Central Banks, Gold would be in deep dookie… And then Chuck goes and give us his thoughts that ran through his mind this past weekend about how we got into this mess…  The data last week was very ugly, and I would just point to the Thursday data prints if anyone says to you that the conomy is strong… 
 
 
For What It’s Worth… All this talk about dedollarization that’s going on these days, prompted me to look for an article that would explain why other than the sanctions and this one does it… And it an be found here: Dollar May Fall to Yuan, Crypto But Not Soon: Niall Ferguson – Bloomberg
Or, here’s your snippet: ““Every night,” the president mused, “I ask myself why every country needs to trade in the dollar. … Who decided it was the dollar after the disappearance of the gold standard? … Today, countries have to chase after dollars to export, when they could be exporting in their own currencies.”

The president in question was Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil, and the venue was the New Development Bank in Shanghai on April 13. There was a great deal of interest in this latest news about Lula when I visited Sao Paulo last week. To me, however, the striking thing was how un-new it was. Lula’s words immediately brought to my mind the musings of another president more than half a century ago:
The convention whereby the dollar is given a transcendent value as an international currency no longer rests on its initial base. … The fact that many states accept dollars … in order to make up for the deficits of [the] American balance of payments, has enabled the United States to be indebted to foreign countries free of charge. Indeed, what they owe those countries, they pay … in dollars that they themselves can issue as they wish. … This unilateral facility attributed to America has helped spread the idea that the dollar is an impartial, international [means] of exchange, whereas it is a means of credit appropriated to one state.
The speaker then was President Charles de Gaulle of France, and the date was Feb. 4, 1965. It was de Gaulle’s broadside against the dollar that prompted his finance minister, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, to coin the memorable phrase “exorbitant privilege,” which encapsulated the French complaint.

Being fed up with the dominance of the mighty dollar is, in other words, old hat. Indeed, it is such a recurrent theme of financial journalism that one can identify cycles in the use of the phrase “exorbitant privilege.” Recent peaks, according to Google, were in 2007, 2011 and 2014. The Google “program” for “de-dollarization” follows a similar path.”

 
Chuck again… the writer goes on to say that dedollarization isn’t going to be a thing that happens overnight, if it actually does happen it will be years in the coming…  But then just last week I ran across an article that talked about how the pace of dedollarization really picked up steam last year… Hmmm…
 
Market Prices 4/24/ 2023: American Style: A$ .6683, kiwi .6142, C$ .7387, euro 1.1004, sterling 1.2435, Swiss $1.1235, European Style: rand 18.1192, krone 10.5767, SEK 10.2085, forint 341.36, zloty 4.1878, 
koruna 21.3018, RUB 81.26, yen 134.64, sing 1.3348, HKD 7.8486, INR 81.93, China 6.8927, peso 18.08, BRL 5.0504, BBDXY 1,225.81, Dollar Index 101.66, Oil $77.76, 10-year 3.53%, Silver $25.08, Platinum $1,106.00, Palladium $1,590.00, Copper $3.98, and Gold… $1,984.21
 
That’s it for today… Tough weekend in Seattle for my beloved Cardinals…Salvaging one game on Sunday..  They’ve found just about every way possible to lose a game so far this young season, I sure hope they turn things around soon.. Our soccer team, StL City SC played to a draw in Colorado… It’s never a bad thing to play to draw on the road… Great Goaltending by the City team kept them from being blown out in that game… The City team has to play a Cup game on Tuesday night, a very quick turnaround…  Man did the weather revert to cold this past weekend! I was grilling for my son, Andrew’s, water polo tournament in 40 degree weather! Eric Burdon and the Animals take us to the finish line today with their song: We Gotta Get Out Of This Place… I hope you have a Marvelous Monday today, and please Be Good To Yourself! 
 
Chuck Butler
 

Another Bear Raid On The Metals Overnight…

April 19, 2023

* Currencies and metals rally on Tuesday

* Metals get whacked in the overnight markets

Good Day… And a Wonderful Wednesday to you!  Everything has gone wrong for my beloved Cardinals, so far this spring… It’s a long season, and while there’s plenty of time to get things worked out, I have a very uneasy feeling that it’s going to be a loooooonnnnnggg year!  I saw my heart doctor yesterday, and he was quite concerned that I suffered that stroke in January…  He was quite happy that I had no ill effects from the stroke, and then looked at my pacemaker’s report, listened to my heart, and told me that I was doing well… And there were no changes, and he’ll see me in 6 months!  So, one DR. Appt. down, and two more to go… Thursday and Friday this week… So, this will be the last Pfennig this week, and I’ll pick it back up next Monday…  Steve Winwood greets me this morning with his song: Arc Of A Diver…  I saw Steve Winwood in concert at our Muny outdoor Ampitheater… It was a great concert!   
Well, there was all kind of weird stuff going on yesterday, that I’ll get to after the markets reports, you’re not going to want to miss these goings on, I mean it! 
The dollar fought back after losing 3 index points overnight, the dollar won back 1 of those lost points, so in the end the BBDXY lost 2 index points yesterday… No biggie… But there was selling of the dollar, keep that in mind, for the rest of the week… Gold was up nicely at one point in the day, and had to settle for being up just $10.30 to close at $2,006.10… Silver too was up nicely at one point yesterday, but had to settlle for being up just 18-cents, to close at $25.28…  Yes, the short paper traders were back this time with just some “trimming”…  The price of Oil kept the $80 handle throughout trading yesterday, and the 10-year added 1 basis point to its yield at 3.58%… 
Who’s afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? I thought it to be very important that the currencies and metals got back on the rally tracks yesterday, proving that while the price manipulators can take down these asset classes, they can’t keep them down… Very important to traders and investors to see that, the coast is clear, and it’s ok to get back in the water…  But the short paper traders saw to it that their trip back o the water was not safe… 
In the overnight markets last night…. Well, the dollar wasn’t bought or sold overnight, and its trading in the same clothes as yesterday, at this point… The short paper traders (manipulators) showed up and performed yet another engineered takedown of Gold & Silver… Gold is down $32 this morning, and I can tell you what I think happened… The short paper traders saw Gold gain yesterday, and they didn’t like the talk that all was clear, and so they decided to hit it hard once again, and cause some real damage and concern to investors… Silver is down 44-cents this morning, and it looks like its going to be a very ugly day, which it is already!  
The price of Oil slipped another buck and now trades with a $79 handle… lack of demand is outweighing the news that the U.S. Oil supplies are dwindling… And the 10-year just keeps getting sold, with its yield rising to 3.62%… 
I just can’t get these short paper traders out of my mind this morning, they have gone and ruined a nice rally in Gold & Silver, and they have no qualms about doing it again and again… I know that I shouldn’t get upset with these bas&*^$ds…  I own Gold and I’m not selling it, and so it doesn’t matter to me if Gold gets whacked, because I know that eventually all that will be behind us… Gold is a store of wealth… not a commodity that gets bought an sold willy nilly… so price movements like this shouldn’t get me upset… beathe Chuck, count to ten… now isn’t that better?  I guess… 
OK… this wierd story is going to lead us off today, because it could very well be the wierdest!  So, we all know that the N. Korean Chairman is a nut case, correct? I mean he keeps shooting off Balistic Missiles getting closer and closer to Japan… And now, he has issued a proclomation that he will confiscate all forieng currencies being used…  The bulk of those in use in N. Korea are dollar and renminbi… While I doubt that his confiscation of dollars will amount to a hill of beans for dollar issuance, it could bring about other countries implementing the same kind of laws…  For instance, I could see China banning dollars, Russia banning dollars, India banning dollars, Brazil banning dollars, and then other countries following their lead…  I just think this is something we need to keep an eye on  going forward, don’t you? 
Next up is this story about war mongering…  here it is: “Senior U.S. Defense official Douglas Macgregor said politicians who support Israel are driven by money & the pro-Israel lobby in the US is trying to drag America into war… ‘John Bolton has become very, very rich and is in the position he’s in because of his unconditional support for the Israeli lobby. He is their man on the ground.” 
 
Well, the next story comes from the leaked documents, and that is that the U.S. already has some special operations on the ground in Ukraine…  Now, I’m sure Russia has heard about this, and that could lead to escalation … Don’t you think?  Scares the bejeebers out of me… 
 
And finally, this isn’t so wierd… China reported that their 4th QTR GDP grew 4.5% from a year earlier, when they were shut down for Covid…  They also reported that  Retail sales jumped 10.6% in March from a year earlier, the highest level of growth since June 2021. In the January to March months, retail sales grew 5.8%, 
 
A long time ago, i was told by a client that used to do business in China that I should believe only 1/2 of what the Chinese report…  But even doing that, they are on the right track to get back to where the were previously! 
I have more weird stuff going on, but I don’t have the time or space to include them all… So, let’s move along… 
 
The Chinese renminbi has been gaining VS the dollar too during this time… The currency has been pretty Steady Eddie around 6.96, but recently is has moved to 6.87… Not a super-duper strong move, but when the currency is only allowed to move so much during a day, it’s a nice move, and one that is being noticed by traders and economists, and me! 
 
I also surprised at the strength of the Swiss Franc… They just recently got back to positive rates, it’s not like they are New Zealand and have 5% rates! But any time the franc sees buying like it has recently, it’a a sign that investors are nervous, and are seeking a safe harbor…  
 
The Brazilian real has been on the rally tracks recently, and just this week the real fell below 5.0, for the first time in a month of Sundays.. .Interest rates are high in Brazil, and I mean high at 12.25%, to combat thier own inflation… And those high rates are attracting investors… I’m just saying…
 
The U.S. Data Cupboard today has the Fed’s Beige Book, which is a combination of the regional banks reports on how the economy is doing in their neck of hte woods… This used to be a very watched piece of data, that now just flies under the radar each month, and gets very little notiice… 
 
To recap.. .The dollar got sold yesterday, but did fight back to win back 1 of hte 3 index points it had lost in the overnight markets yesterday… But it was sold, and Chuck thinks that the fact that it got sold was HUGE to investors and traders that want to get back into the water…  N. Korea does their own version of dedollarization…  And Chuck is not happy that the war in Ukraine could see escalation… And finally, China’s 1st QTR GDP was 4.5%… 
 
Before I head to the Big Finish today, I have a funny for you… This link will take you to a page and on the page will be a short video that you should click on to see how Banking is done… here’s the link; Watch “how the banking system works three stooges the 20 bucks i owe you” – LewRockwell
For What It’s Worth… I found this on Bloomberg, and its’ written by Stephen Jen, someone that I used to read his stuff all the time, but in recent times he had evaporated…  It’s about the dedollarization going on around the world, that a lot of analysts are ignoring… And it can be found here: De-Dollarization Is Happening at a ‘Stunning’ Pace, Jen Says – Bloomberg
 
Or, here’s your snippet: “The dollar is losing its reserve status at a faster pace than generally accepted as many analysts have failed to account for last year’s wild exchange rate moves, according to Stephen Jen.

The greenback’s share in global reserves slid last year at 10 times the average speed of the past two decades as a number of countries looked for alternatives after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine triggered sanctions, Jen and his Eurizon SLJ Capital Ltd. colleague Joana Freire wrote in a note. Adjusting for exchange rate movements, the dollar has lost about 11% of its market share since 2016 and double that amount since 2008, they said.
“The dollar suffered a stunning collapse in 2022 in its market share as a reserve currency, presumably due to its muscular use of sanctions,” Jen and Freire wrote. “Exceptional actions taken by the US and its allies against Russia have startled large reserve-holding countries,” most of which are emerging economies from the so-called Global South, they said.
Jen is the former Morgan Stanley currency guru who coined the dollar smile theory.
 
Last year, Bloomberg’s gauge of the greenback surged as much as 16% as the conflict helped fuel a rise in global inflation that triggered widespread interest rate hikes which sank bond and currency markets alike. It finished the year up 6%.
Biden’s Dollar Weaponization Supercharges Hunt for Alternatives

Smaller nations are experimenting with de-dollarization while China and India are pushing to internationalize their currencies for trade settlement after the US and Europe cut Russian banks from the global financial messaging system known as SWIFT. There’s also concern the dollar may become a permanent political tool, or be used as a form of economic statecraft to put extra pressure on countries to enforce sanctions that they may disagree with.”

 
Chuck Again… Well, I think I was way ahead of the crowd in saying that the dedollarization would eventually come back to hurt the dollar… The pace this is going is unreal though… 
 
Market Prices 4/19/2023: American Style: A$ .6699, kiwi .6184, C$ .7443, euro 1.0941, sterling 1.2429, Swiss $1.1117, European Style: rand 18.2847, krone 10.5554, SEK 10.3311, forint 345.44, zloty 4.2467, koruna 21.4523, RUB 81.62, yen 134.85, sing 1.3371, HKD 7.8499, INR 82.23, China 6.8948, peso 18.13, BRL 4.9855, BBDXY 1,224.07, Dollar Index 102.03, OIL $79.40, 10-year 3.62%, Silver $24.75, Platinum $1,060.00, Palladium $1,616.00, Copper $4.04, and Gold… $1,972.70
 
That’s it for today, and this week, sorry about no Pfennig tomorrow, but I’ve got to be at the hospital bright and early in the morning… And then Friday I go right back there to see my oncologist, who hasn’t seen me for 4 months, and to tell you the truth, I miss her! Well, our Blues are playing Golf, instead of hockey, our Cardinals have started the year with a dud, but…. We still have our St Louis City SC team that’s in first place, and has scored the most goals of al lthe teams in the league, while being an expansion team! Day game at Busch Stadium today, and I’m not going! UGH! I tried, but couldn’t get any of my working friends to play hooky to go to the game with me… 🙁  It’s tough being the only retired guy that wants to go to day games! We’re in for a cold front to move through this weekend, and I won’t like it, but I’ll have to wear long pants! And sweatshirts! with hoods! YUCK!  The Stealers Wheel takes us to the finish line today with their great 70’s song: Stuck In the Middle With You…  I hope you have a Wonderful Wednesday today, and please, pretty please with sugar on top, Be Good To Yourself!
 
Chuck Butler

 

It’s Tax Day!

April 18, 2023

Pfennig tradition calls for this recognition of Tax Day… 
 
Let me tell you how it will be

There’s one for you, nineteen for me
‘Cause I’m the taxman
Yeah, I’m the taxman
Should five percent appear too small
Be thankful I don’t take it all
‘Cause I’m the taxman

Yeah, I’m the taxman

 
those lyrics come from the Beatles… 
* Currencies & metals rally in the overnight markets
* A Patriot Act 2? 
Good Day… And a Tom Terrific Tuesday to you! My poor beloved Cardinals, they seem to be so overmatched early this year… I remember grandson, Everett, telling me after spring Training that the Cardinals had won the Grapefruit League, with the best spring training record… He said, “That should be good for this year, right? ” I told him to not get too attached to their Spring Training record, as it doesn’t mean anything… After the next two games at home, the Cardinals go on a very long West Coast trip… That will either make or break them this year, in my humble country boy opinion!  I have an oldie but goodie today, the Drifters greet me this morning with their great song: Under The Boardwalk… 
Well, it was another day of wackiness in the markets yesterday… The dollar got bought once again, this time though, at a watered down pace, and Gold got sold again, brining it back below $2,000…  So… I think the paper traders (manipulators) did that just to show me how wrong I was… In case you don’t recall, I had made a point of saying that once Gold closed firmly over $2,000, that it would not be looking back any longer…But I was wrong, oh so wrong, I got caught in the rush hour, fellows started to shower you with love an affection, No wait! C’Mon Chuck, no time to be singing songs from the 60’s… I was wrong, and I apologize for that… I really was under the thought that once Gold started going higher, there was nothing that would stop it for some time to come… The price manipulators made sure that I was proven wrong! 
So, Gold lost $9.20 yesterday and Gold closed at $1,995.80, and Silver lost 32-cents to close at $25.10… The BBDXY gained 4 index points on the day… You know that just last Thursday the BBDXY had fallen to 1,216… And yesterday ti closed at 1,226…   On Thusday last week the euro was trading 1.1050, and yesterday it ended the day at 1.0931,,, So, the PPT’s protection of the dollar, worked, for at least a day or two… We’ll see just how far that goes, eh? 
The price of Oil lost a buck yesterday, and closed the day wtih an $81 handle, while the 10-year continued to get sold, and watch its yield rise to 3.59% yesterday… 
In the overnight markets last night… Well, we returned to the dollar selling after all the dust had settled on the brazen price manipulation last Friday… The BBDXY lost 3 index points overnight… The usual suspects of currency gains were in play, with the euro leading them through… Gold is up $9 in the early trading today, bringing Gold back above $2,000, and Silver is flat as a pancake (Head East)…  If the markets turn completely around from Friday, and begin to move in the direction they were moving before Friday, then the price manipulators will be exposed once again for their fraud… 
The price of Oil slid another buck last night and right now is barely hanging onto to an $80 handle… Demand or better, lack of demand still weighs on the price of Oil… But remember, the summer driving season is quickly coming toward us… I’m just saying…  I said something yesterday, that I thought would get more of a reaction… I said that the 10 year & 30 year Treasury Bonds would see their yields rise if the the Fed Heads do decide to pause, and let inflation sit at 5%, instead of 2%, (they said they would get it down to 2%) … Apparently, the Fed Heads are thinking that the people of the U.S. will be OK with inflation here, and interest rates here too… I’m not one of those that they called, were you? No, I didn’t think so… I won’t be happy with inflation here, and the costs of everything higher, but then I see things for what they truly are… And this is in the vocabulary of the 70’s… A Cop Out…  And I for one wouldn’t be proud of my country’s Central Bank for Copping Out…   
 I have to give credit to a reporter that reported the facts of the documents thing… He talked about how… well, I’ll let him tell you:” I can’t think of an incident, Tucker, that reveals more vividly the real function of our nation’s largest media corporations than what just happened here. If you’re a real journalist, somebody who’s devoted to transparency, shining a light on the most powerful government actors when they lie to the American people and informing the public, you would be celebrating this person who stepped forward and risked his security to show his fellow citizens that the government was lying about this incredibly important war with a nuclear-armed power, that we have actual troops deployed on the ground in Ukraine, there’s going to be no diplomatic resolution through at least 2023, that Zelensky is planning on using our weapons to strike deep into Russia — which we were told would never happen — risking escalation.”
 
No, it’s not right to steal documents, and then put them online… but, I do believe that most people would give him a pass for exposing the truth… Don’t you?  Edward Snowden, Wikileaks, etc. 
 
So…  it’s been reported by the number crunchers with the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, the government is borrowing roughly $6 billion a day.  Let’s see… 6 x 365 = 2,190… Trillion!  Now that’s some spending, eh? And since we don’t know what the tax receipts will be yet, this is all deficit spending…  So, put that in your pipe and light it up! 
 
I found this on www.blacklistednewscom  “It’s estimated that the amount this country owes is now 130% greater than its gross domestic product (all the products and services produced in one year by labor and property supplied by the citizens).

According to the Committee for a Reasonable Federal Budget, the interest we’ve paid on this borrowed money is “nearly twice what the federal government will spend on transportation infrastructure, over four times as much as it will spend on K-12 education, almost four times what it will spend on housing, and over eight times what it will spend on science, space, and technology.”

In ten years, those interest payments will exceed our entire military budget.”

 
Chuck again… And to think that I began pointing out our growing debt back in 2002!… Twenty two years later, we as a country continue to rack up debt that will not ever be paid back…  The burdens on our kids and grandkids will be enormous… mark my words on that! 
 
Oh, but just one question that should follow that piece, and it is: Got Gold? 
 
The reason I keep saying that “Got Gold?” is I want to make certain that everyone I talk to is aware of the fact that our debt is unsustainable, and the future of our financial system is in question, and that owning Gold wil protect your investment portfolio from a meltdown… I’m just saying… And besides that… Gold is s store of wealth…  nothing more needs to be said… 
 
OK… how about some real strange news? Something to test our bite on… Dave Gonigam who is the editor of the 5 Minute Forecast, had this to say about the RESTRICT ACT that’s beeing bandied about in Congress right now, Take it away Dave!  “Ostensibly, the legislation would give the president the authority to ban the TikTok app. In reality, it grants the executive branch the authority to “enforce any mitigation measure to address any risk” to national security, broadly defined. Indeed the language is so broad that U.S. citizens could be designated as “foreign individuals” who pose a national security threat.”
 
Chuck again… So, basically we’re giving away more freedoms… no wonder Dave called it Patriot Act 2… 
 
The U.S. Data Cupboard yesterday had some housing data, and in it was the Home Builders Confidence report, which last month’s report showed Confidence had fallen below 50, at 44…  And this month’s report showed it came in at 45… So both are very negative outlooks for Home Builders…   Hmmmm…. 
 
Today’s Cupboard just has some more housing data, and a couple of Fed Heads out speaking… No biggie… 
 
To recap… the dollar continued to get bought yesterday, not on the same pace as Friday, but bought nonethelesss… Gold lost $9 on the day and fell back below $2,000, which made Chuck do a mea culpa, and Silver lost 32-cents yesterday… Chuck goes to bat for the Truth!   The U.S. is reported to be spending $6 Billion per day… Oh My! And now we have to deal with an ACT that may get passed in congress that would ban Tik Tok, and any web site that has damaging information about the Gov’t… A Patriot Act 2!  
 
For What It’s Worth…  OK… longtime readers know that I truly admire James Grant… His newsletter, Grant’s Interest Rate Observer, is one of THE best letter out there… And any time I can get a free sniipet from his letter, I jump at the chance, and so it is that way today… This is about Gold, and it can be found here: Gold can protect investors from the Fed’s monetary mayhem – Grant’s Interest Rate Observer | Kitco News

 

 
Or, here’s your snippet:” Despite gold’s failed attempt to break to new all-times, the precious metal still has room to move higher, according to one market strategist.

In an interview with Kitco News, James Robertson, an analyst at Grant’s Interest Rate Observer, said that the potential for the Federal Reserve to end its most aggressive tightening cycle is creating a lot of volatility in financial markets and gold remains an attractive hedge against monetary policy mayhem.
He added that last month’s banking crisis with the failure of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank along with the collapse of Credit Suisse, one of Europe’s largest banks, shows that pressure in the global economy is starting to build and the “rivets are starting to pop.”
“The monetary disorder that we have seen is far from over, and right now, we are just waiting to see how it will spread,” he said. “This will continue to support gold prices.”
Robertson’s bullish outlook on gold comes as the precious metal is holding support just above $2,000 Friday after falling from a 13-month high posted Thursday. Heading into the weekend, June gold futures last traded at $2,019 an ounce, down 1.77% on the day.
Robertson said that gold has room to move higher as Western retail investors are just starting to jump back into the gold market. Speculative positioning in gold remains below the August 2022 highs, even as bullish momentum has increased in recent weeks.

According to monthly data from the World Gold Council, March was the first time the gold market saw net monthly inflows into global gold-backed exchange-traded products ending ten months of consecutive outflows.

Chuck again… Ok, so that wasn’t James Grant himself speaking, but his right hand man is good as far as I’m concerned… 
Market Prices 4/18/2023: American Style: A$ .6742, kiwi .6220, C$ .7474, euro 1.0973, sterling 1.2438, Swiss $1.1159, European Style: rand 18.1446, krone 10.4438, SEK 10.2934, forint 338.76, zloty 4.2092, 
koruna 21.2981, RUB 81.58, yen 133.88, sing 1.3319, HKD 7.8499, INR 82.04, China 6.8765, peso 17.98, BRL 4.9433, BBDXY 1,223.19, Dollar Index 101.69, Oil $80.69, 10-year 3.57%, Silver $25.11, Platinum $1,075.00, Palladium $1,611.00, Copper $4.08, and Gold… $2,004.30
That’s it for today… Hopefully my beloved Cardinals can find a way back in the win column tonight! I fired up my Big Green Egg yesterday, and got all the junk out of it, and then smoked some Pork steaks, (they are popular in St.Louis only) and when I was finished the meat was falling off the bone… Yum Yum! This Saturday, I will cook for my oldest son’s water polo tournament… Chicken breasts and bratwurst… So sandwiches can be made and easily dealt with by the referees and coaches at the tournament… I’ll have the Big Green Egg working as a gril, and my Weber kettle both going at the same time… I’ve done this for a number of years now, so It’s old hat for me!  Today, I had my heart doctor make my appt for later in the day, so it wouldn’t interfere with writing! Aren’t you glad? HA! Well, The Climax Blues Bank take us to the finish line wih their song: Couldn’t Get It Right… I hope you have a Tom Terrific Tuesday today, and please Be Good To Yourself!
Chuck Butler

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