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Weekly Survey of Gold and Silver Prices
Single Ounce Silver Market Price Benchmark
Money Daily has been providing business and financial market news, views, and coverage on a nearly continuous basis since 2006. Complete archives are available at moneydaily.blogspot.com.
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Wednesday, February 26, 2025, 9:11 am ET Elon Musk, via DOGE, recently sent an email to about two million federal employees, asking them to essentially make a list of five bullet points on what they accomplished at work last week, so I thought I'd take a stab at it. Bear in mind, I am not a gevernemnt employee. I run my own operation, ergo, I don't have a boss. Here goes:
Oops, that's six. Ok, it took me about 2 1/2 minutes for those six, and, if you've ever run your own business, you can understand that I could have kept going. I did a lot more than just those six things, which, actually, are about 30 or 40 things. The point of Musk's email was probably not to see what everybody was doing all week but to see how many did not respond. He suspects many government "jobholders" are fake, the workers non-existent, and the money being paid to whomever constitutes fraud. He's probably right, though just how right is a scary prospect. The number of no-show jobs could be hundreds of thousands, though I suspect it will amount to maybe 70-150,000 total. At least I hope it's a small number because the stories coming out of DOGE and D.C. have been fairly disturbing, in a manner that leads people to believe their tax dollars - in addition to all the money the government borrows - is being wasted in a very large way. My point is different. It is about work ethic and accountability. Federal workers need a boss or manager to tell them what to do, how to do it, when to do it, etc. In my situation, I have built accountability into my "job." If I don't write my three daily pieces, nobody else will and my readers will notice. I will lose readers and money. Same goes for the monthly idleguy.com commitment and building out the online store (long overdue, sorry). Perhaps government work should be restructured. Instead of unions negotiating automatic annual pay raises and congress rubber-stamping them, government jobs should come with incentives and penalties. Do good, high quality work, get a bonus. Slack off, no raise, probation, possible firing, for the most egregious, loss of pension. Reform of the federal government is long overdue. President Trump received a mandate (twice now) to fix the broken system in Washington and beyond. Having the world's richest man overseeing efforts that will root out the waste, fraud, and abuse is a godsend. Complain all you like about Elon Musk, but he's not getting paid to do this. Besides, were he on the payroll, what would his salary be? $150,000 a year. $250,000? A couple of million? Any amount would likely be a bargain, but Musk, not needing the money, does it for free because he knows it is the right thing to do and he knows how to do it. Americans are fortunate to have a two verified genius businessmen working for their benefit. The complainers are people who don't see the problem with $36 trillion of debt, workers who aren't required to even show up, and members of congress who win elections as middle class and emerge after a few years as multi-millionaires. Those who complain are the status quo who have been getting their palms greased for years, even decades. They're the problem, not President Trump or Elon Musk or J.D. Vance, Tulsi Gabbard, RFK Jr., Kash Patel, Scott Bessent, or Pam Bondi. Trump was sent by the people to fix the system and he's assembled a team to do just that. The problem, when all is said and done, is that unemployment in the D.C. metro area is going to skyrocket, money previously going to workers, contractors, anybody with a hand out, is going to dry up and it will snowball from there. Fewer dollars circulating though the economy - a lot fewer - will likely precipitate a recession. How mild or severe it becomes depends on how deep is the rot in D.C. and how deeply Trump, Musk, et. al. carve it up. One might suspect that cuts to the general grifting system will be quite severe. And that's why Wall Street is nervous. An economy slowly grinding down before it is rebuilt isn't exactly a blueprint for profits. People will limited means tend to spend less. Unemployed people spend even less and the U.S. economy is dependent on people not just spending, but spending more every month, every quarter, every year. With hundreds of thousands of government workers out of a job and possibly millions of illegal aliens sent packing, tons of money that was being spent isn't going to be any more. It's coming. Count on it. The bright side is that once all the rot is ripped out, loafers fired, endless regulations rolled back, Americans can actually start doing what they do best, innovating and creating new businesses to take advantage of new opportunity. America is not known as "land of opportunity" for nothing. It's everywhere, and with government and hordes of slack-jawed rule-writers out of the way, it will be widely available. Bottom line, there is likely to be a recession and it is likely to be deep but probably not long. It has probably already begun and will last maybe through the end of this year or into the first half of next year. That's when the fun begins. Prosperity, jobs, innovation, opportunity. It's all there. Meanwhile, Wall Street remains spooked because they're focused on the here and now, on the immediacy of profits, and stocks are obviously a little pricey. There seems to be only one way stocks can go now unless Wall Street's biggest players want to extend and pretend until nobody can deny the economic condition. If so, the rush for the exits will be a stampede, a crash. It's probably better that Wall Street continues to be in denial and the decline is slow and gradual. As the case may be a 30-40% correction isn't going to happen overnight. Give it six months to a year. Then buy back in. What do you think Warren Buffett is going to do with his $350 billion war chest? For now, he's waiting, but, rest assured, the old man knows his stuff and he'll be buying at or near the bottom. So far this week, markets have been a bit messy, but help is on the way. Lowe's (LOW) and AB InBev (BUD) reported before the open and both stocks are sporting 4-5% gains pre-market. Advance Auto Parts (AAP) reported earnings that beat consensus but issued iffy guidance, sending shares marginally lower. Elsewhere, Instacart (CART), reporting after Tuesday's closing bell, missed fourth quarter estimates and offered downbeat guidance for the first quarter. Shares are trending down about 10%. Intuit (INTU) topped expectations, returning $3.32 per share. The stock price is rising pre-market, up eight percent. First Solar (FSLR) announced fourth quarter earnings of $3.65, short of estimates, but the stock is trading four to five percent higher. After the bell, Nvidia (NVDA) and Dow Component SalesForce (CRM) report, so Wednesday looks to have great expectations. WTI crude got hammered lower on Tuesday, dropping as low as $68.75, with more room to fall. Back in September, it bottomed at $65.75, and, even though that may have been politically-motivated, all indications point to lower oil prices ahead. Bitcoin plunged to a low of $86,468 on Tuesday, recovered a bit overnight but is falling again this morning ($87,338.03) Gold lost ground on Tuesday, currently around $2,925, with silver just above $32. Stock futures, expectedly, are soaring.
At the Close, Tuesday, February 25, 2025:
Tuesday, February 25, 2025, 9:14 am ET OK, markets have entered the phase of denial called "fake it 'til you make it." In other words, nobody has a single clue about the future of stocks, bonds, commodities, currency, nations, anything. Anybody who purports to "knowing" what's ahead is either a reincarnation of Nostradamus or is smoking some powerful weed and isn't sharing it with anybody (bogarting). Nothing in the current climate is quantifiable. Maybe some company dividends will still be delivered on their quarterly schedules, but stock prices - having been bid into the stratosphere over years of neglect and misappropriation - may wipe out any profits one may have from those same dividends. Maybe not. Stocks could go parabolic and too the moon or beyond. Honestly, at this point, nobody knows. Everybody's guessing. One thing that seems likely is the absolute chance at a major pullback or correction in stocks if only because the market dislikes uncertainty, and uncertainty is all that there is currently. Diversifying into assets other than stocks and fixed income may be sensible, lest we are reminded again that the most prolific and successful investor of our age, Warren Buffett, is sitting on some $350 billion in cash. He's obviously waiting for chips to fall so he can pick them up on the cheap. Real estate, precious metals, energy, transportation would provide a good mix, but there's no guarantee any of them may appreciate or even hold their value except maybe gold and silver, their gains simply a symptom of crumbling currency value. The publication, Fast Company, posted the musical question this morning, "Crypto crash: Why are Bitcoin, XRP, DOGE, and TRUMP prices plunging today?" Answering their own question with two possible reasons (poor form, chaps) the magazine's response was, "Concerns over tariffs and the recent breach of a crypto exchange may be fueling a decline not seen since President Trump's election victory in November." Sure, tariffs, like that would affect bitcoin. A recent crypto breach may be closer to the correct answer. How about this: They're all fake, worthless slush funds for criminals and government officials (same thing) hiding ill-gotten loot. Bitcoin, Trump-coin, Doge, etc. are simply vaporware. Anybody putting actual money into these fictions other than for a quick profit on speculation is an idiot. Plain and simple. None of these crypto-currencies (a rather loosely-used term) are worth anything. Nada. Nothing. And the market is beginning to reflect that reality. All of Bitcoin could vanish in a millisecond. Same with the other alt-coins, fraud-coins, stable-coins. Seriously, they have no value whatsoever. Bitcoin plunged below $90,000 this morning. In case anybody thinks that's a big deal, stick around for the dive below $80,000 and deeper. With the opening bell a half hour away, stock futures are up. Dow futures are +110; S&P futures +2; NASDAQ futures (oops) -9. Monday ended badly, so today, best wishes.
At the Close, Monday, February 24, 2025:
Sunday, February 23, 2025, 11:22 am ET Commentary will be limited in this week's WRAP as conditions are changing by the day. Just for openers, WTI crude oil feel for a fifth straight week. Gold finished higher an eighth straight week. Stocks got a serious reality check on Friday, leaving the three major indices - Dow, NASDAQ, and S&P 500 - clinging to gains of one to two percent. If it wasn't for a severe downdraft the final four trading sessions of 2024 (December 26, 27, 30, 31), all but the Dow would be down for the year. As it is, they're each well off recent highs.
Friday was a train wreck, sending all the indices into the red for the week. Charts are eerily reminiscent of either 2020 or 2022. With Friday's report of a new deadly virus discovered in China, some are betting on 2020, though for the intellectual class of covid/shutdowns/vaccine-deniers, the message delivered after the close of European markets Friday by the dubious Daily Mail, citing the Wuhan Institute of Virology as its source, amounts to nothing more than EU-inspired fake news, promulgated in response to U.S. President Donald Trump's attempt to impose peace upon Ukraine, thus flushing the EU's plan to permanently enslave their populations down a proverbial toilet. NASDAQ's 438-point drop wasn't even as deep as the January 27 613-point wreck, so, nothing new here, just another in a series of dumps, which have been frequent since (ah-ha!) Trump's election. There's probably more pain to come. The recent patterns suggest distribution (pump-and-dump). Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway is sitting on $334 billion in cash, and that's after the firm paid $27 billion in taxes. Democrats may lament billionaires, but Berkshire is certainly paying its "fair share." Things are getting hairy and scary. The U.S. is attacking drug cartels in Mexico, Musk continues to slash and burn via DOGE, Pope Francis is in critical condition, Trump fired the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Air Force General Charles Q. Brown Jr. (ha, take that, Charlie Brown), Kash Patel was confirmed as Director of the FBI on Friday, and there's a critical election in Germany TODAY. Upcoming full year and fourth quarter earnings reports: Monday: (before open): Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B), Owens Corning (OC), Domino's Pizza (DPZ); (after close) Cliffs (CLF), Chegg (CHGG), hims | hers (HIMS) Tuesday: (before open) Keurig Dr. Pepper (KDP), Home Depot (HD), Krispy Kreme (DNUT); (after close) Instacart (CART), Workday (WDAY), Intuit (INTU), First Solar (FSLR), AMC Entertainment (AMC) Wednesday: (before open) Advance Auto Parts (AAP), AB InBev (BUD), Stellantis (STLA), NRG (NRG), Lowe's (LOW); (after close) Nvidia (NVDA), SalesForce (CRM), Kratos (KTOS) Thursday: (before open) Norwegian Cruise Lines (NCLH), Gray Communications (GTN), TB Bank (TD), Warner Brothers Discovery (WBD); (after close) Bloom Energy (BE), Dell (DELL), SoundHound (SOUN) Friday: (before open) Frontline PLC (FRO), Butterfly (BFLY), 1st Dibs (DIBS), Fubo TV (FUBO). The second estimate for fourth quarter GDP is released Thursday, along with durable goods data for January. Both reports should bear weight on markets. The coming week's data will close out with the PCE Price Index for January - the Fed's preferred inflation gauge - on Friday before the opening bell. This is a readout that is losing its significance as the Fed's influence on markets in general is being sent to back-burners.
For whatever reason, the Fed added a 6-week bill to the treasury stack. It is not included here this week, but will appear at some point going forward. There's likely to be some volatility to the new issue, so it will deserve some attention, though not much. Steady as she goes on spreads, with 2s-10s slightly elevated by two basis points to +23. Full Spectrum returned +31 at week's end. The Fed is becoming increasingly irrelevant. With any luck, they'll still be in business by this time next year, though its extended future is very much in doubt. Having robbed Americans blind via inflation for the past 112 years, the people have had enough of fiat currency and fractional reserve banking, amounting to nothing better than counterfeiting. Americans are unlikely to get their money back, but at least they'll be rid of what "Old Hickory" Andrew Jackson called "a den of vipers" when he abolished the Second Bank of the United States. History can't repeat soon enough. Spreads:
2s-10s
Full Spectrum (30-days - 30-years)
WTI crude oil prices continue to fall, from $77.37 at the New York close on January 17, to $74.60 on January 24, to $73.81 on January 31, to $71.06 on February 7, $70.56 on February 14, and finally, 70.25 at the New York close this Friday. Five consecutive weeks of falling prices by a cumulative nine percent should have convinced enough people that the price of oil is not going back up any time soon. Gasbuddy.com is reporting the national average for a gallon of unleaded regular gas at the pump has finally begun to fall, at $3.13 (down two cents) a gallon Sunday morning, reflecting the lag time between crude prices and gas prices. The price of gas nationwide should continue falling for the next four to six weeks, longer if oil prices continue to slide, which they should. California remains top of the heap, up only two cents from last week, at $4.80. Pennsylvania was fell two cents, at $3.35, the Keystone State remaining the price leader in the Northeast. New York is a distant second, stable at $3.15. Connecticut ($3.07) and Massachusetts ($3.01) were pretty much unchanged. Maryland dropped down to $3.03. New Jersey is back to an even $3.00. Even Illinois was down a couple of cents, to $3.23. Ohio ($2.89) and Indiana ($2.92) were down the most in the Midwest. Mississippi ($2.63) fell two cents, holding at the lowest in the country, just slightly better than Louisiana ($2.65) this week. Texas was next at $2.70. Oklahoma was actually higher, checking in a $2.72. Tennessee ($2.71) fell six cents. Alabama ($2.75), Kentucky ($2.76), Arkansas ($2.77) and South Carolina ($2.78) are next. Kansas and Missouri are both at $2.82, followed by Missouri ($2.85), all lower. Georgia dropped two cents ($2.98). Florida continues to fluctuate, up seven cents this week to $3.08. Sub-$3.00 gas can now be found in five more states than last week. At least 26 U.S. states have prices under $3.00. The West continues to suffer the highest prices in the country. Arizona ($3.41) was off just a penny. Oregon showed another penny increase, at $3.74, while Nevada dropped one cent, to $3.82. Washington was up to $4.13, joining California in the tiny club of mainland states at $4.00 or higher. Utah ($3.02) was stable, and Idaho ($3.18) fell by two cents.
This week: $95,900.56 Bitcoin has not been over $100,00 since February 4. Hodlers are becoming impatient, former "diamond hands" turning to granite, eventually to sand as they see profits slip through their fingers. The price rise from $50,000, $60,000 to above $100,000 took place in September, October, and November of last year and has stalled out, with the all-time high now a look back to December 17 ($106.490.10). There's growing dissatisfaction with the Trump administration over moving bitcoin and crypto in general to a higher plain amid speculation that the President was pandering for votes in his pro-crypto messaging during the election cycle. Otherwise, with gold and silver soaring this year (after soaring last year), people may be awakening to the idea that bitcoin and crypto isn't "digital gold" but really all a fantasy, i.e., fool's gold. Rational people who largely agree that bitcoin is nothing more than vaporware and a slush fund for criminals and Wall Street firms like BlackRock (same thing) have watched the fluctuations in price and sentiment and are seeing chart patterns eerily similar to those in 2021, which plateaued at higher levels before falling sharply, decimating both price and sentiment. In the end, crypto speculators will get what's coming to them in a cascade of rapid declines, just like previous iterations.
Gold:Silver Ratio: 89.84; last week: 88.63 Per COMEX continuous contracts:
Gold price 1/26: $2,777.40
Silver price 1/26: $31.04 Gold continues to shine, the price continuing to make new highs week after week. Silver made nominal gains over the course of the week, once again smacked down on Friday after reaching a high for the week of $33.77 Thursday. On the COMEX, Gold has finished every Friday this year (eight straight) higher than the previous one. Year-to-date, precious metals are outpacing stocks by a wide margin. Silver is ahead by 14.02%, gold up 11.83%. By comparison, the S&P 500 is up 2.24%, the Dow, 2.08%, NASDAQ, 1.10%. Call it the "Trump Effect" or whatever, but Trump's promise of a "Golden Age" for America has been nothing but good for PMs. Here are the most recent prices for common one ounce gold and silver items sold on eBay (numismatics excluded, free shipping):
The Single Ounce Silver Market Price Benchmark (SOSMPB) was higher for a second straight week, at $41.04, a gain of 64 cents from the February 16 price of $40.40 per troy ounce.
Despite what most people in the Eastern half of the U.S. are thinking after another bout with severe cold and prime winter conditions, good times are ahead. Spring is officially less than four weeks away. Baseball's Spring Training is already well underway in Florida and Arizona. MLB's regular season Opening Day is March 27.
At the Close, Friday, February 21, 2025:
For the Week:
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