It’s Opening Day!

March 30, 2023

* the currencies & metals trading has slowed… 

* why aren’t the dollar bugs seeing the writing on the wall? 

Good Day.. And a Tub Thumpin’ Thursday to one and all! It’s Opening Day in baseball! YAHOO! I said yesterday that this should be a national holiday, and while it’s not, it doesn’t mean that many workers, and school kids, won’t be sneaking out early to attend an Opening Day ceremonies and game near them! It’s the next best thing to Christmas Day in my book! My beloved Cardinals will play the Toronto Blue Jays this afternoon, but before the game begins, we’ll have the coaches, and players brought into the stadium in convertible cars to wave to the fans… Then the Cardinals Hall of Famer Players will meet the current players at home plate, and then, the piece de resistance… The Clydesdales will enter the park and take a route around the ballpark… These are the most magnificent animals on earth, in my opinion… Jackson Browne greets me this morning with his song: These Days… 

That song is the song I quote the line from all the time: These Days I sit on cornerstones, and count the time in quartertones to ten, my friend, don’t confront me with my failures, I , had not, forgotten them…

So, what did the markets do yesterday? The dollar got bought, but not by the bushelful, instead in dribs and drabs that added up eventually to a 2 index point gain in the BBDXY. Gold lost $9.20 on the day, and Silver gained… are you ready for this? Drum roll please…. Ratatatatat.. 1-cent! That’s right I said 1 Abe Lincoln… Pretty crazy that the powers that be couldn’t just round down and have Silver trade flat for the day…  Gold ended the day at $1,965.60, and Silver $23.43…

The price of Oil slipped just a tad, yesterday, but still traded with a $73 handle at the end of the day. And the 10-year Treasury got sold a bit, with its yield rising to 3.57%

In the overnight markets last night… There was little to no movement in the dollar, the BBDXY is trading in the same clothes as yesterday, along with the Dollar Index doing the same. Don’t know what to make of this non-moving market last night… There are no Central Bank meetings to be weary of, there is very little in the U.S. Data Cupboard, and no banks have raised a white flag.  Gold is up $4 in the early trading today, which is a good start to a day that could see the shiny metal reach for the sky… Silver is going gangbusters this morning already up 30-cents!  

The price of Oil slipped a  little in the past 24 hours, but still has a $73 handle… Someone in the Oil trading area, said, “Hey wait! We’re marking the price of Oil higher, but the demand is not there? So, what are we doing here? “  That makes sense to me… while I believe that the price of Oil will eventually move higher, we have to get through this patch of low demand…

The 10-year Treasury at 3.57% is more than 100 basis points lower than the 1-year Treasury at 4.59%.. And inverted yield curve that has remained inverted for some time now, as if to say, “Psst, Hey! Over here! Look at me, I’m inverted, and you know what that means? But still you numbskulls continue to buy stocks like I don’t exist!”

Ok, right out of the starters blocks this morning, I have this from the good folks at GATA: “China and Brazil have reached a deal to trade in their own currencies, ditching the U.S. dollar as an intermediary, the Brazilian government said today, Beijing’s latest salvo against the almighty greenback.

The deal will enable China, the top rival to U.S. economic hegemony, and Brazil, the biggest economy in Latin America, to conduct their massive trade and financial transactions directly, exchanging yuan for reais and vice versa instead of going through the dollar”

Uh-oh! Now China has gotten Saudi Arabia to price their Oil in renminbi, and add to that China has gotten Brazil to turn its back on the U.S.  Chalk that up to another chink in the armor of the dollar!

Did you all hear the story about how while reporter Matt Taibbi was testifying before Congress regarding, regarding Big Tech (particularly Twitter) and its connections with the federal government when it came to suppressing dissident speech, the IRS was visiting his house? The IRS left a note on his door, saying that they would like to talk to him… Coincident? I don’t think so!   See what happens when you tell the truth about the Government?  I guess I had better what my back, eh?

I can’t begin to tell you how upset I was to read about that…  It just makes me sick to my stomach, and I don’t have time to deal with an upset stomach today, not on Opening Day!

I’m on a roll this morning, don’t stop me now!

Well… longtime readers will recall me talking about Japan being a basket case…  Well, they remain one, even with the change in the Bank of Japan Leadership… Mr, Kuroda, who cut interest rates and bought bonds like no man before him, has stepped down, and the new BOJ Chairman, is thought to want to dismantle Kuroda’s, zero interest rate policy, and stop buying bonds…  What that will bring about is a HUGE amount of funds that have been sent overseas by Japanese Investors in search of higher yields… And that could lead to inflation getting a hold of the Japanese economy… Something that hasn’t happened in a generation or two!

And here we go again with Saudi Arabia and China… I told you about how these two countries have agreed to trade Oil in their respective currencies and not use dollars… I told you how China has agreed to build a refinery in Saudi Arabia, and now this, from the good folks at GATA: “Saudi Arabia is joining an anti-Western influence bloc formed by Russia and China, in a sign of Riyadh’s deepening ties with Beijing as the U.S. pivots away from the Middle East.

The kingdom’s cabinet approved a plan to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation as a “dialogue partner,” a precursor to being granted full membership, state news agency SPA announced today.”

Chuck again… I still can’t believe that dollar traders haven’t seen the writing on the wall here… What’s it going to take to get them to sell dollars the way dollars need to be sold?  This set of news is HUGE, and the dollar traders are just shrugging it off…  I’m just saying…

I had a fellow down here ask me if I thought the dollar was undervalued? You should have seen my expression that was on my face! I was astounded that he thought it was undervalued…  I immediately began to list off the items that should be weighing down on the dollar, and he just sat there and then said, when I had finished, that none of that matters, because the dollar is the reserve currency, and nothing else matters… 

I walked away shaking my head, knowing that no mater what I said, it was going to fall on deaf ears… I then wondered what it was he was doing asking me if it was undervalued? Oh, I did a V-8 head slap, and said, I get it! He just wanted somebody to agree with him!  Well, he picked the wrong partner to dance with that’s for sure! 

I have always been one of those guys that says what’s on his mind, no matter what the odds are in the room… 

For What It’s Worth…  I have a treat for you today… It’s another video from Matthew Piepenberg, of Gold Switzerland…  Here’s the link to the video: Bond Destruction, Banking Waste and the Tilt Toward CBDC – Matterhorn – GoldSwitzerland   in the snippet today, I’ll give you a preview of what to expect in the video, which is 21 minutes long, so if you don’t have the time… here’s the snippet:

Or, here’s your snippet: “In this extensive and now English-translated, interview with Jan Kneist of Investor Talk, Matterhorn Asset Management principal, Matthew Piepenburg, addresses the critical themes of the ongoing banking crisis. In this substantive, 21-minute conversation, Piepenburg squarely addresses the ripple effects and larger implications of the current banking crisis, namely: 1) its bond crisis origins; 2) the ultimate pretext for (and direction toward) political and financial centralization culminating in CBDC; 3) increasing consolidation away from the smaller banks toward larger banks; 4) the nearly inconceivable waste behind the Credit Suisse bailout; 5) the percolating and equally inconceivable dangers within the derivative markets; 6) the collapse of trust in the USD as evidenced by the rise of the BRICS; and, of course, 7) the growing importance and role of gold in a world heading inevitably toward more centralized controls and currencies. As Piepenburg has warned and repeated throughout 2022 and 2023, all debt-soaked systems inevitably resort to desperate measures and greater controls, of which currency debasement and increased centralization, symbolized by the drift toward CBDC, is no surprise or exaggeration”

Chuck again… I behoove you to check out the video when you have the time to devote to it… I try not to miss anything that Matthew Piepenberg puts out there…

Market Prices 3/30/2023: American Style: A$ 6700, kiwi $6236, C$ .7380, euro 1.0865, sterling 1.2343, Swiss $1.0914, European Style: rand 18.0617, krone 10.4294, SEK 10.3969, forint 350.76, zloty 4.3094, koruna 21.6718, RUB 77.21, yen 132.76, sing 1.3287, HKD 7.8499, INR 82.23, China 6.8870, peso 18.07, BRL 5.1353, BBDXY 1,232.00, Dollar Index 102.47, OIL $73.60, 10-year 3.57%, Silver $23.73, Platinum $981.00, Palladium $1,446.00, Copper $4.10, and Gold… $1,969.90

That’s it for today, and this week… I honestly thought that if I think today should be a holiday, then I shouldn’t write! HA!   But here I am…   back home, March came in like a lamb, and is going to go out like a lamb, it was lion in the middle of the month! Just two weeks ago, it was snowing and freezing cold there for the soccer match!  Our Blues get back on the ice tonight in Chicago to face the Blackhawks! These two teams used to be HUGE rivals, but not so much so any longer… But it’s always still nice to beat them! My time down south is winding down, just two more days here before I head back home…  It was a great winter down here… I did have that stroke in January, but besides that I’ve been in good health and getting plenty of vitamin D! (Florida is known for sunshine!) Smokey Robinson takes us to the finish line today with his song: Cruisin’   ( I love this song!) I hope you have a Tub Thumpin’ Thursday today, and a Fantastico Friday tomorrow, and all that time, please Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler