July 8, 2021
* Currencies get sold on Wednesday…
* Gold inches higher this week in daily trading…
Good Day… And a Tub Thumpin’ Thursday to you! Before I get started on today, let me tell you that I’ve not heard from the doctor yet about what they found causing my head to ache like of sonofagun! I’m sure the radiologist didn’t get finished with their reading until late… So, today is the day… I’ve not taken anything for pain since Sunday morning, and either I’ve grown accustomed to the pain, or it has subsided by a lot… And that’s a good thing! Little Evie was here again yesterday, as she has a GI virus, and can’t go to Day Care… Yesterday, I didn’t get to spend much time with her, as I was preparing for my MRI… You know… showering, shaving, putting on regular clothes, acting like I was going out on the town! But she’ll be back this morning, so it will be play on Garth, play on Wayne, with little Evie! Elton John greets me this morning with his song, and one of my fave song of his: Mona Lisas And Mad Hatters… They don’t write songs like that any longer, folks…
So, who on God’s green earth is buying dollars? Central Banks around the world know what the scorecard says, and that is that the U.S. knows that they need to inflate their way toward some semblance of deficit spending control, and these same Central Banks around the world are backing up the trucks and buying Gold, not dollars… And I’d like to think that my former brothers in the currency trading business are not falling for that, “Well the Fed is going to hike rates in 2 years, so we may as well bulk up on dollars now, line” Because if they are, they are NOT the traders I thought them to be!
So, with all that said, yesterday, the dollar once again booked gains VS the currencies… The BBDXY started the day at 1,143.35, and ended it at 1,145.51… The euro fell back below the 1.18 figure, and the Aussie dollar (A$) fell back below 75-cents… The Petrol Currencies saw most of their gains booked last week during the uptick in the price of Oil, all fade away in the last two days of trading… This is not how I had thought, a couple of weeks ago, the currencies would be in two weeks… If we turn back the time, and go back two weeks, we would find the BBDXY trading around 1,124… and all the currencies looking like they were ready to go on a long trending run higher… But that was before the Plunge Protection Team (PPT) stepped in and all the currency euphoria was over…
So, what’ the PPT got to be thinking here? They buy dollars and think what? That this is a good investment? Come on, give me a break here! That can’t possibly be the reason you’re buying dollars, for we all know that whether the inflation hits hard this year, or next year, that it’s coming, and that will reduce consumers buying power, and the economy will come to a standstill, and then dollar holders will all be rushing toward the exit door at the same time… You’ve got to be kidding yourself if you think for one minute that we as investors that read this newsletter, don’t know what’s going on, and I take a great offense at that thought, that we’re all a bunch of bumbling idiots!
I told you on Tuesday morning that this could happen with the markets going haywire over the Fed’s FOMC Meeting Minutes, of which the Fed heads did dive into the topic of tapering, but came away from the meeting with the idea that nothing was imminent… But the markets didn’t hear that last part, they only heard about how the Fed Heads dived into the Tapering discussion… Lame Brained idiots, is what I think of anyone that’s swayed by these Minutes…
So… Gold yesterday did the same thing it did the day before, it traded up in the early morning, by double digits, and by noon it was fighting to keep any of those gains… Gold started out yesterday up $10 and ended the day up only $6.90… Silver once again lost all its early morning gains, and ended up with a 24-cent loss on the day to close at $26.20, and Gold closed at $1,804.90…
In the overnight markets last night… The Dollar Index has slipped back to a 1,144 figure, and the euro has climbed back over 1.18. But that’s it as far as currency highlights… This is all going to end up in tears for dollar holders, I’m telling you now, so you’ll listen to me later… Gold has gained nearly $8 in the early trading this morning and Silver is down 2-cents as we start the day…
And have you been tracking the yield on the 10-year Treasury? It has really dropped in recent days… Just two weeks ago the yield on the 10-year Treasury was 1.50%, and today it’s just 1.26%… is this yield curve control? Well, we’ll never be told that, but it sure quacks like duck to me…
And talk about dropping like a rock… The price of Oil began the week at $76, and this morning its trading with a $71 handle… I guess it just shows to go ya, that a lack of announcement on Oil production from our friends, (NOT!) at OPEC, doesn’t go as far as it used to! I have to say that I’m really surprised by this drop in the price of Oil… I really thought it was going to test the $80 handle in the coming weeks… It may still, but chances are ’cause I wear a silly grin, every time you’re near, no… wait! Chances are that it won’t test the $80 handle any time soon now…
Before I go on… Do you believe the U.S. Mint’s statement that they halted the sale of Silver coins because they’re experiencing a shortage of raw Silver from their sources? I don’t believe it, you see… The U.S. Mint has sources for their Silver that goes back 100 years, and these sources are to feed the U.S. Mint Silver before any other Mint… So, what’s behind their coming out with these lies? Is the U.S. Mint’s workers being like other people in the country that don’t want to work any longer? That’s the only thing I can think of because I’m not buying what the Mint is selling…
While we’re on the subject of Gold… here’s some news that should be sending Gold over the moon in price… I took this from Dave Gonigam’s 5 Minute Forecast yesterday… So, here’s Dave:
“On July 1, Ohio became the 41st state to end sales tax on precious metals — gold, silver, platinum and palladium — bullion and coins. And the moratorium on Ohio’s precious metals sales tax goes into effect on Oct. 1, 2021.
“These efforts are common sense,” says state Rep. Kris Jordan (R). “We should not be taxing money” (emphasis ours).
“This form of double taxation discourages Ohioans from buying precious metals in the state and drives their business elsewhere,” he says. “Ohio precious metal dealers [can now] better compete with our neighboring states as well as on the online marketplace.”
Alongside the Buckeye State, 40 U.S. states now exempt precious metals — fully or partially — from state sales taxes.
Leaving nine states – including Vermont, New Jersey, Maine, Tennessee, Kentucky, Wisconsin, New Mexico, Mississippi, Hawaii and the District of Columbia — that still penalize residents who buy historic safe-haven assets.
“Of those remaining nine states,” Money Metals says, “Hawaii, Maine, Mississippi, New Jersey, Tennessee and Wisconsin have recently considered measures to remove the sales tax in their states.”
We see you, Vermont, Kentucky, New Mexico and D.C.…” – Dave Gonigam, The 5 Minute Forecast
Chuck again… if more people in this country knew that the inflation we’re seeing, while some of it is distribution chain supply problems caused by the pandemic, but most of it is being brought on you by your Government, then seeing that Gold is no longer being taxed in 41 states, I would think that Gold would be taking off to the moon… But you’ll never hear about this stuff on the nightly news, or cable news, folks… to that would mean your news outlet would be banned! So, feel free to share the Pfennig with however many people you care to share it with… That brother-in-law that always brags about his McMansion and boat, you might want to leave him off your list!
The U.S. Data Cupboard today has the usual fare of Weekly Initial Jobless Claims for last week… And Consumer Credit (read debt) … I would think that with the stimmy checks in our rear view mirror now, that Consumers are racking up the debt again… But I guess we’ll have to wait-n-see…
Here’s a snippet of the FOMC Meeting Minutes yesterday… The Fed members saw a less clear signal from incoming data and cautioned that reopening the economy after a pandemic left an unusual level of uncertainty which required a “patient” approach to any policy change, stated the minutes, which were released on Wednesday.
Still, “a substantial majority” of the officials saw inflation risks “tilted to the upside,” and the Fed as a whole felt it needed to be prepared to act if those risks materialized.”
Ok… who didn’t see the word Transitory used to describe our current inflation, as in previous meeting minutes? I wonder where the word went? Now, you’re not going to hear the Fed Heads say, “we were wrong, about the inflation being transitory”… But just leaving the word out of their meeting minutes is akin to saying just that!
To recap… Another day of dollar strength, and Chuck wants to know who’s buying dollars in the face of Government generated inflation? Gold couldn’t hold its early morning gains once again, and ended the day up only $6.90, which Silver lost 2-cents on the day… Chuck points out that 41 states are now eliminating sales tax from Gold Sales… Chuck believes that if all Americans knew that the Government is sponsoring the inflation they’re seeing, and that in 41 states there’s no longer sales tax on Gold, then Gold would be trading over the moon right now…
For What It’s Worth…. Today’s FWIW is a quick and dirty article that appeared on the Financial Times, which requires you to have a subscription to read it… So, I’ll give you the link, but you’ll have to decide if it’s worth your while to subscribe just for this article that do have the gist of it in the snippet today… This is an article about how Europe is following China in choking off the use of cryptos in their payment system, and you can find it here: https://www.ft.com/content/bf99e9e3-d104-4a92-81a1-8bd70b884b3f
Or, here’s you snippet: “In an email to users today, the exchange said that from 8 a.m. universal coordinated time Wednesday, customers would no longer be able to deposit crypto funds through the Single Euro Payments Area, or SEPA, schemes. Its move was due to “events beyond our control,” the exchange said.
The network, a European Union project that aims to harmonize euro payments across the region, allows consumers to send euros across three dozen countries.
Binance, which typically accesses SEPA through payment intermediaries, described the move as “temporary.” But the restriction marks the latest prohibition on customers moving funds on to the exchange from conventional banks and other types of financial accounts.
Deposits through the UK’s Faster Payments network have also been disabled over the past week. Barclays, one of the region’s biggest lenders, said Monday that it is barring UK clients from buying cryptocurrencies on the exchange using bank cards. …”
Chuck again… I had a reader send me a note that last time I wrote something about the cryptocurrencies and said that I only wrote about them when things were going bad for the… Well, he won’t be disappointed today, because that’s what this article was all about!
Oh, and here we have another Gov’t agency using the term “temporary”… Yeah, like the removal of Gold backing the dollar was only “temporary”, along with taxes, and many other things Governments have used the word “temporary” to lesson the blow of the announcement… I’m just saying…
Market Prices 7/8/2021: American Style: A$ .7445, kiwi .6975, C$ .7966, euro 1.1832, sterling 1.3793, Swiss $1.0901, European Style: rand 14.3385, krone 8.7562, SEK 8.6032, forint 302.34, zloty 3.8342, koruna 21.8026, RUB 74.44, yen 109.98, sing 1.3512, HKD 7.7695, INR 74.64, China 6.4677, peso 20.07, BRL 5.2141, BBDXY 1,144.91, Dollar Index 92.52, Oil $71.55, 10-year 1.26%, Silver $26.18, Platinum $1.081.00, Palladium $2,926.00, Copper $4.26, and Gold… $1,812.30
That’s it for today… I apologize for not being able to tell you what’s up with my brain… But I’m at the mercy of the messengers here! So, I guess you’ll know next Tuesday… My Beloved Cardinals couldn’t complete a sweep of the Giants, as they lost the last game of the series with the best team in the NL… They now make that 3.5 hour flight from San Fran to Chicago to play the Cubs this weekend before the All Star Game break… The Cardinals only had two All-Starts named to the team… UGH! But I guess when you have a team batting average of like .250 there aren’t any outliers there! The Cardinals are usually a strong second half team, so hopefully that will hold true again this year! I’m going to leave you this week with a funny, to lift your spirits… Good friend Dennis Miller sent this to me and now I’m sharing it with you: here goes: Cross a four leaf clover with poison ivy and you get a rash of good luck. HA! Carlos Santana and his band take us to the finish line today with their upbeat song: Everybody’s Everything… That song got little Evie bouncing this morning! I hope you have a Tub Thumpin’ Thursday, and a Fantastico Friday tomorrow, and please Be Good To Yourself!
Chuck Butler