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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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Stock Rally Runs Out of Gas, Taking Most Other Assets Down with It

Friday, February 10, 2023, 8:48 am ET

Another wild Wall Street week comes to an end.

It's Friday. Notwithstanding the Powell schmooze rally on Tuesday, all the averages hit the skids each other day this week, with Thursday's decline particularly brutal. Stocks were bid early, but highs of the day were achieved before 10:00 am ET, precipitating a long slog into the red, breaking through a few meaningful levels at 4011 on the S&P, 33,771 on the Dow, and NASDAQ 11,900, which now serve as resistance to any upside moves.

Thursday's selling was robust, broad, and sustained until the final half-hour of the cash session, when the usual suspects lifted the averages off their lows. It produced a quite standard bear market daily chart, with hope and highs early on, followed by dips, dives, and eventual desperation. All of the indices moved in unison. Nothing was spared.

Other asset classes were similarly shot down. Bitcoin fell from its perch at $22,989.40 at the start of the day to $21,800.60 at the end, a reality check of $1,188.80 to the dreamers of $23,000, $24,000, and $100,000 someday in a mythical kumbaya universe.

Precious metals tumbled as well. Gold, which had hit $1959 just a few weeks back, was trampled again, from just over $1900 early in the day, to $1873 by the close of business in New York. Silver continues to receive regular beatings. On January 13, it was $24.37. By late last night a troy ounce was worth only $21.87, though it has recovered in overnight sessions to around $22.15.

WTI crude was not so harshly affected, dropping from the mid-$78/barrel level to the high $77s, though early this morning it jumped up above $80, currently holding steady in the high $79 range. The bump up in price was a reaction to Russia's announcement overnight that it would cut 500,000 barrels a day of its production beginning in March, a response - so they say - to the enormously unsuccessful Western alliance "price cap" on Russian crude.

Russia's production slowdown arrives just four months after OPEC's cuts of 2 million barrels a day and serves as more of a sign that there's no oil shortage anywhere. Rather, the cuts come as demand has waned and prices should be going down, not up. If a producer of any other good would oversupply, their product would be discounted until supply/demand equilibrium was achieved. Not so with oil, apparently, another fully rigged (pun intended) globalist market.

Western economies are cratering. Over a million people have died in the last two years from Covid alone in the United States and even more in Europe. That's a dent in demand. Today's cars get ridiculous MPG compared to 20 or 30 years ago, if not partially or fully electric. Work from home has reduced driving in many big cities. The winter has been relatively mild other than a few extreme cold snaps, which are normal. There are a plethora of rationales why oil should be closer to $50/barrel than $90 and anybody who says differently likely is deeply invested in XOM, CVX, or some other energy-related concern. Oil companies made enormous profits in 2022 by raping their customers' wallets. Fuel prices are artificially high and purposely so. There's no shortage anywhere in the world because there's more than enough being pumped, obviously.

Thus, we have the makings of a tumultuous close to the week's trading in advance of America's Super Bowl, a welcome respite from the propagandized media flung daily.

Stocks will have to rally hard to make it into positive territory for the week. As of Thursday's close, the Dow is down 226 points, the NASDAQ is off 217, and the S&P is lower by just about 55 points, none of these levels unachievable on a one-day basis, though futures are pointing in the opposite direction and European stocks are down 3/4 to 1 1/2 percent across the board an hour before the open in New York.

Good luck.

BTW: Fearless Rick came out of the Handicapper's Retirement Shed to call the game 28-27 for the Chiefs, OVER 51 probably the most reasonable gambit.

At the Close, Thursday, February 9, 2023:
Dow: 33,699.88, -249.13 (-0.73%)
NASDAQ: 11,789.58, -120.94 (-1.02%)
S&P 500: 4,081.50, -36.36 (-0.88%)
NYSE Composite: 15,828.60, -106.12 (-0.67%)


Stock Market Lacks Direction with Short-Squeeze Running Dry

Thursday, February 9, 2023, 9:09 am ET

Stocks took a turn for the worse on Wednesday as the short squeeze that made January a winning month is running out of buy candidates. The NASDAQ was up more than 15% on the year until Wednesday's downdraft. The rally to begin the year appears to be running on fumes. Trading has been choppy the past few sessions.

Reporting after Wednesday's close for the fourth quarter, 2022, the Walt Disney Co. (DIS) beat estimates, top and bottom line, putting up EPS of 99 cents per share, compared to 1.06 a year ago, but far better than the 30 cent loss from the third quarter. The company also announced plans to eliminate 7,000 positions in coming months. As of Wednesday's close, Disney shares were up +24.90 (+28.66%) to 111.78. The stock is looking to add to those gains during the regular session Thursday.

Citing a price-hiking strategy for the second consecutive quarter, Pepsico (PEP) beat earnings estimates after deducting for one-time charges, posting net income of $518 million, or 37 cents a share, in the fourth quarter, down from $1.322 billion, or 95 cents a share, in the year-earlier period. Adjusted for non-recurring items, the company had EPS of $1.67, which, of course, is fully non-GAAP nonsense. PepsiCo also announced a 10% increase to its quarterly dividend, a share buyback plan and issued guidance slightly below advance estimates. Shares are hovering around unchanged in pre-market trading.

Initial and continuing jobless claims rose in the most recent reporting period, from 183,000 to 196,000 and from 1.65 million to 1.68 million, respectively. Despite a spate of layoff announcements, the overall trend for initial claims has been lower, but that may be beginning to change as the announced layoffs and furloughs actually begin to take place.

Being a lagging indicator, labor tightness has contributed to a more dovish approach in the markets in terms of the Fed's rate-raising inflation fight. Job displacement and shedding headcount seems to be indicated at many larger firms, though the degree has not been great enough to cause alarm. As the business cycle progresses, more and more companies will be looking to cut costs in order to shore up sagging profitability.

Signs that the falling hatchet is moving beyond the tech space include cuts at Disney, Boeing, and JP Morgan Chase.

Futures are indicating a higher open and European stocks confirm, with the Germany's DAX and France's CAC-40 each ahead by more than one percent. The NASDAQ and S&P indices are both tracking negative for the week.

At the Close, Wednesday, February 8, 2023:
Dow: 33,949.01, -207.68 (-0.61%)
NASDAQ: 11,910.52, -203.27 (-1.68%)
S&P 500: 4,117.86, -46.14 (-1.11%)
NYSE Composite: 15,934.72, -86.90 (-0.54%)


Pump, Dump; SOTU Love/Hate-Fest, the Fed, Usury, and Hyper-Inflation

Wednesday, February 8, 2023, 9:30 am ET

Now, wasn't Tuesday just so special?

Fed Chair Jerome Powell answers some softball questions at a luncheon held by the Economic Club of Washington D.C. (who knew there was such a thing?), and while the attendant dunces were entertained, stocks executed a pump and dump, and, when Powell was excused, a re-pump.

How to describe such antics?

Disgusting.

Disturbing.

Shameful. And not real markets.

In case some readers are not already aware, Tuesday's market activity serves a reminder that everything, from the news, to the politics, to the energy complex, to the stock, bond, derivative, commodity markets themselves, are 100% rigged. Once one completely understands this, then one can make intelligent, informed investment choices. Those relying on brokers, agents, wealth managers, or financial advisors are probably not going to do as well as those outside the markets and into alternatives like gold, silver, barter, collectibles, one's own business.

The suckers who play by the rules, keeping their funds in accounts managed by scoundrels, cheats, and grifters will receive their just rewards, albeit less than they could have achieved on their own accord and counsel. So, let them play with your money. It's all just paper, fiat, worthless scraps of counterfeit anyhow. Good luck. The best amongst us has already departed the casino and are forging a new path called economic freedom, where currency issued as debt is shunned or at least employed in such a manner as to limit its power.

US dollars, the current favored currency, is on its way out. This much is obvious to those attuned to the rising new world order, which is at least bi-polar, if not multi-polar. The East is rising, the West declining, and the rest of the world (ROW) is tilting Eastward.

US dollar hegemony, backed by military might, has been a destructive force since the end of the Great Depression and accelerated after the demise of Bretton Woods, particularly acute since the 1971 slamming shut of the gold window by then-president Richard M. Nixon.

Just about any multi-decade chart will show the steepening incline of inflated assets, higher prices, and a severe reduction in purchasing power of the major currencies of the West: the yen, euro, dollar in particular. Apartments that were $350 a month in 1972 are now approaching $1200. The median cost of an existing home in 1973 was $32,500. As of 2022, that number was $428,700.

A 1973 Mustang Mach 1 Fastback had an MSRP of $3,088. In 2021 the Mach 1's MSRP was $52,720, 17 times more expensive. (Yeah, the new one has bluetooth.)

The politicians want to talk about sustainability when inter-generational inflation of the past 50 years has increased by an order of magnitude of 13-17 times. If you made $300 a week in 1973, you need to be making $4,500 a week or $234,000 a year just to keep up. One could safely wager that the vast majority (over 90%) of people aren't because the Federal Reserve has failed miserably in fulfillment of their "price stability" mandate. Wages have not kept pace with inflation, not even close.

The problem stems not completely from the sketchy grifters that continue to be re-elected to high offices in the nation's capitol, it's deeply ingrained within the very system they support. The Federal Reserve has failed in its mandates so often and so consistently that it almost seems to be by design and many are beginning to believe that it is, always has been and will continue to be so until the entire apparatus is dismantled or implodes under its own weight, the former solution not even remotely possible, the latter, expected and underway.

So, today, everybody seems to be upset that official inflation is around seven percent, but they forget the years and decades past when inflation was "tame" but kept rising, year after year, relentlessly stripping away the wealth of individuals, families, and small businesses. And, what inflation didn't take away, the government was there with outstretched hands to steal the rest.

Such a scheme, run by a foreign bank, sanctioned by congress, slavishly adhered to by the citizenry, is not the stuff of science fiction. It is the reality of our days, our nights, our cold winters and hot summers. The American public has been lied to, robbed, beaten down, subjected to ridicule and scorn by the elite class of politicians, businesspeople, banks, and Federal Reserve counterfeiters who create currency out of thin air, indebt the entire nation to the tune of $31 trillion, charge usurious interest rates while paying out paltry dividends.

The following is often attributed to Thomas Jefferson, though it might better be assigned the speaking of Andrew Jackson:

If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered.... I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.... The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.

There's nothing remotely federal about the Federal Reserve and there are no reserves. The Federal Reserve cut the cash reserve minimum to zero percent effective March 26, 2020. The currency is backed by (ha, ha) the good faith and credit of the US government, a government in which few have any faith and is indebted to various and sundry stakeholders to the tune of $31 trillion. Americans and much of the rest of the world is using a currency backed by absolutely nothing.

The United States is in the early stages of a hyper-inflation. As more and more people become destitute and more realize he fraud of fiat currency, the worse inflation will become. The $3 or $4 or $6 loaf of bread you're buying today will be $60, $100, $200 unless a radical change occurs. Hyper-inflation is the usual route of all fiat currencies. If the United States takes the same path as Weimar Germany, it will engage in a massive war, lose, and be forced into paying enormously impossible reparations, to the utter destruction of the economy and the society.

As Dr. Chris Martenson is fond of saying, "it doesn't have to be this way," however, it appears to be the path upon our nation's leaders are guiding us.

At Tuesday night's democrat love-and-hype-fest, fondly remembered as the the annual ritual of the state of the nation address, Brandon, the hollow hologram of leadership, boasted, scorned, praised the usual suspects, all based on the government's own phony show numbers and news bites, and concluded by saying, "God bless you all, and God bless our troops."

Most people fail to notice that Brandon has never once uttered the words, "God bless America." It's a serious problem, and it needs to be fixed. Maybe he needs to step down. Soon.

Approaching the opening bell this 8th day of February, futures are trending lower, Yum! Brands (YUM) (Pizza Hut, KFC, etc.) beat expectations top and bottom line. Uber (UBER) also beat, and CVS Health (CVS) announced its purchase of Oak Street Health (OSH), barely beat low expectations and issued disappointing guidance for the rest of 2023.

Why are futures pointing lower? It's all rigged. Pump, dump, re-pump, re-dump, rinse, repeat.

Your pronouns should be "gold, guns, goats, guts, and glory."

At the Close, Tuesday, February 7, 2023:
Dow: 34,156.69, +265.67 (+0.78%)
NASDAQ: 12,113.79, +226.34 (+1.90%)
S&P 500: 4,164.00, +52.92 (+1.29%)
NYSE Composite: 16,021.62, +126.26 (+0.79%)


New Paradigms, Old Families, Mythical Great Reset, Recession and Another Big Short

Tuesday, February 7, 2023, 9:30 am ET

Steve Eisman, senior portfolio manager at hedge fund, Neuberger Berman Group, thinks there's a mild recession on the horizon, but he's focused on what he calls a paradigm shift.

Attuned readers should immediately recognize the name. He was renamed "Mark Baum" in the film, "The Big Short", an adaptation of the same-named best-selling book by Michael Lewis, and played brilliantly by actor Steve Carrell.

Another character from that movie, Michael Burry (played by Christian Bale), thinks there's a much harsher economic reality ahead, at least that's what some of his cryptic tweets suggest.

However, according to how stocks initially reacted after the latest FOMC rate hike, a large crowd on Wall Street seems to believe that a recession is either unlikely, that the Fed can avoid creating one, or that even if there is a recession, it will be short and mild. Maybe they're right. After all, these are some of the same geniuses who thought Enron, Pets.com, and Salesforce (CRM) were all good bets.

It may be better to stick with people who've been through crashes, like Burry and Eisman, than place trust on the opinions of people making the rounds on CNBC, Fox Business, and Bloomberg.

There's a very good likelihood of a recession this year, if we're not already still ensconced in the one that began in January of last year. Of course, a recession isn't the end of the world for everybody. The United States has endured booms and busts before, having been through 12 or 13 (depends on who you ask) recessions since the end of World War II), though it is for some.

Recessions hit the poor and middle class - what's left of it - the hardest. Judging just by the events of the past three years of pandemics, lockdowns, Russiaphobia, war, and the shortest recession in history (February-April 2020), if there's a recession this year or next, it may not even be news for two reasons. First, most Americans are already suffering from inflation's sticker shock in food and energy which makes everybody feel poorer, and, second, the Biden administration and media pundits will just change the definition, like they did last year.

In the grand scheme of things, politicians and their wealthy donors and string-pullers will not suffer one little bit. Everybody else may experience a mixed bag, depending on their individual financial conditions, geo-location, job status, and a host of other factors.

Anything resembling the Great Depression will take more than some simple stock market declines, most likely some concerted action by the Fed and the federal government (remember: two different entities) to slam the economy into reverse while traveling at 50 MPH needs to occur. Trust them; they're working on it.

The rate hikes by the Federal Reserve are a smoke screen, covering up what has generally been a coordinated effort to raise retail prices along with interest rates on credit cards, lines of credit, HELOCs, mortgages and student loans.

As usual, the biggest banks are at the center of the malady, with credit card rates at 20% or more while offering less than four percent (if even!!) on savings. They're not making big commercial loans and they're all worried, adding billions to provisions for loan losses and credit defaults, harking back to the Big Short of 2007-2009.

Tying it all together, here's some light reading on the subject of generational wealth:

The Federal Reserve Cartel: The Eight Families

Rothschild Family Offers To Take Flagship Bank Private In $4 Billion Deal - interesting development, make sure to read the comments, which contain more links.

The Richest Man in the World - probably not who you think it is.

As the opening bell approaches, we're all supposed to think the stock market is going south because Fed Chair Jerome Powell is making a speech this afternoon at the Economic Club of Washington. They also have some bridges they'd like to sell you.

You don't have to play. Ask questions. Be skeptical.

At the Close, Monday, February 5, 2023:
Dow: 33,891.02, -34.99 (-0.10%)
NASDAQ: 11,887.45, -119.50 (-1.00%)
S&P 500: 4,111.08, -25.40 (-0.61%
NYSE Composite: 15,895.36, -104.05 (-0.65%)


WEEKEND WRAP: Short Squeeze Sends NASDAQ to 5th Straight Weekly Win; Rigged Gold, Silver Markets Breaking Down

Sunday, February 5, 2023, 9:57 am ET

There's a timeless maxim that goes something like this:

When a man with experience meets a man with money, the man with experience will gain money and the man with money will gain experience.

So, which do you prefer? A little money or a little experience?

From a generational perspective, the Baby Boomers have the edge. They've got both, money and experience. Underway is a transfer of wealth from the Boomers to Millennials or Generation X, Y, or Z, and it's a tricky business, especially since there's always the man in the middle with hands out, the government, the tax man. Avoiding the middle man, or at least keeping his take to a minimum, should be a primary consideration of anybody involved in the grand global generational hand-me-down.

To that end, it is best to be very quiet about one's financial affairs. The tax man is always lurking, sneaking about, looking to get an undeserved cut of some unsuspecting citizen's wealth. Personal transfers of valuable art, artifacts, cash, precious metals, tools, collectibles, and other items of value should be undertaken within the confines of families or close friends. Giving your comic book collection or gold pieces to a son, daughter, niece, nephew or any offspring should be a matter of conscience and confidence and should be done prior to one's death, not afterwards, when control is out of one's hands, permanently. The government should not know about such exchanges. They are none of their business, even though they'll insist they are. Any financial advisor who tells you otherwise is probably just looking to collect a fee and should be jettisoned as quickly as possible.

If, in some cases, asset transfer needs to be public, such as a business enterprise or one involving real estate, that's the time to contact a professional, and he or she better be top notch. There's nothing worse (well, maybe probate, the ugliest aspect of dying's aftermath) than having to rehash a transaction five or ten years down the road.

Now that we're all straight on that, here's a look at the week just commenced and the one straight ahead:

Stocks

Centered around the Fed's FOMC rate policy meeting which concluded Wednesday afternoon with the announcement of a 0.25% (25 basis points) hike to the federal funds target rate, stocks were up Monday, lower Tuesday. After the Fed put the new base rate at 4.50-4.75%, stocks mostly banged higher Wednesday and Thursday, before taking on losses after Friday's surprise January non-farm payrolls checked in at an astronomical and clownishly comical 517,000 net new jobs, a 9-sigma surprise.

Heaviest activity was seen on the NASDAQ, which roared ahead for its fifth straight weekly gain. S&P 500 and the NYSE Composite both finished positive, winning the fourth week of five this year. Only the Dow suffered losses, likely on late-stage profit-taking, as the 30 dividend-yielding blue chips were least-loved as money moved to the short squeeze on the NASDAQ. The Dow finished the week in the red for the second time this year.

Thursday's after-the-bell earnings miscues by the big three tech stocks - Apple (AAPL), Amazon (AMZN), and Alphabet (GOOG) - helped bring stocks closer to reality on Friday, but the larger issue was the overbearing, enormous jobs number, a shock most likely due to recalibration of seasonal factors at the BLS. January's jobs report was so out of whack with reality that many refused to take it seriously. Estimates and methodology used by the BLS have been highly criticized for years and Friday's report re-cemented investor distrust of government figures.

With January CPI and PPI not released until February 14 and 16, respectively, market movers will focus on earnings reports, which have come in largely disappointing. On top of that, many of the economic indicators have consistently delivered below standard results, pointing again toward recession.

Here's a quick rundown of top companies reporting in the week ahead (BO - Before Open; AC - After Close):

Monday: (BO) Tyson Foods (TSN), CNA Financial (CNA); (AC) Pinterest (PINS), Spirit Airlines (SAVE), Activision Blizzard (ATVI).

Tuesday: (BO) British Petroleum (BP) Royal Caribbean (RCL), Hertz (HTZ), Dupont (DD); (AC) Chipolte (CMG), Prudential (PRU).

Wednesday: (BO) Uber (UBER), CVS Health (CVS), Wendy's (WEN), Yum Brands (YUM), UnderArmor (UAA); (AC) Disney (DIS), GoodYear (GT) Robinhood (HOOD).

Thursday: (BO) Pepsico (PEP), Hilton (HLT), Kellogg's (K), Toyota (TM); (AC) PayPal (PYPL), Lyft (LYFT).

Friday: (BO) Honda (HMC), Enbridge (ENB) Fortis (FTS).


Treasury Yield Curve Rates

Date 1 Mo 2 Mo 3 Mo 4 Mo 6 Mo 1 Yr
01/06/2023 4.32 4.55 4.67 4.74 4.79 4.71
01/13/2023 4.58 4.59 4.67 4.73 4.77 4.69
01/20/2023 4.69 4.64 4.72 4.75 4.80 4.68
01/27/2023 4.61 4.64 4.73 4.76 4.81 4.68
02/03/2023 4.61 4.67 4.70 4.80 4.82 4.79

Date 2 Yr 3 Yr 5 Yr 7 Yr 10 Yr 20 Yr 30 Yr
01/06/2023 4.24 3.96 3.69 3.63 3.55 3.84 3.67
01/13/2023 4.22 3.88 3.60 3.55 3.49 3.79 3.61
01/20/2023 4.14 3.83 3.56 3.51 3.48 3.77 3.66
01/27/2023 4.19 3.90 3.62 3.58 3.52 3.77 3.64
02/03/2023 4.30 3.96 3.67 3.61 3.53 3.77 3.63

Other than one-year and two-year notes, which each advanced 11 basis points on the week, there was relative calm in Treasuries, almost as though the FOMC rate hike of 25 basis points was inconsequential (it was).

The entire curve - from 1-month out to 30 years - is inverted to a degree of 98 basis points, a one basis point steepening from the prior week.

The worst inversion occurs between the six-month (4.82%) bill and 10-year note (3.53%), an historic bulge of some 129 basis points, continuing to point towards a recession likely to be longer and more severe than most of Wall Street desires. Household budgets are stretched thin by inflation, corporate earnings are being eroded quarter by quarter, but the mainstay for many publicly-traded firms returns to stock repurchase programs, many large ones either restarted or newly minted in recent weeks, the effect of which is higher EPS and bigger bonuses for executives, not enterprise enhancement and a robust economy.


Oil/Gas

$73.23 was the closing price of a barrel of WTI crude on Friday, taking a severe dive from last week's number, $79.38. Demand destruction is underway, evident in the sliding crude price, another expose of the soon-to-be-infamous BLS employment figure. Slumping demand does not jibe at all with the lowest unemployment figures in decades, nor the 517,000 new jobs supposedly created in the cruel, cold month of January.

Prices at the pump have stopped rising, gasbuddy.com reporting the national average at $3.45, down five cents from last week's $3.50/gallon. California and Washington remain the lonely two states averaging above $4.00, at $4.55 and $4.02. In the Northeast, Pennsylvania, at $3.76, is the highest in the region, even above New York ($3.52) and Illinois ($3.60). Perhaps that is the punishment for allowing a brain-damaged, hulking toady to represent the Keystone State in the US Senate.


Bitcoin

Bitcoin was diving as this report was being prepared, quoted at 23,257.00 just before 8:00 am ET Sunday morning. The level is a few hundred dollars short of last Sunday's mark. Really, who cares?


Precious Metals

Gold/Silver Ratio: 83.83; last week: 81.91

Gold price 01/06: $1,870.50
Gold price 01/13: $1,923.00
Gold price 01/20: $1,944.50
Gold price 01/27: $1,943.90
Gold price 02/03: $1,877.70

Silver price 01/06: $23.98
Silver price 01/13: $24.42
Silver price 01/20: $24.06
Silver price 01/27: $23.73
Silver price 02/03: $22.40

The idea that precious metals price signal is the product of a derivative trade mechanism is as unsound as is its practice. That is one of the reasons why Downtown Magazine and Money Daily arrived at the creation of the Single Ounce Silver Market Price Benchmark (SOSMPB), based on relevant, timely eBay prices, the additional fees charged by eBay roughly equivalent to the processes of assaying, smelting, refining, designing, and processing raw 1000 troy ounce bars into fashionable one troy ounce coins, bars, and rounds.

eBay's market being among the most fluid in the world, Money Daily's weekly Sunday morning surveys have become a steady indicator of retail pricing and value, now about to enter its third complete year of coverage.

Precious metals took a u-turn to the downside following the FOMC rate hike announcement. Gold's price was slashed on the COMEX, from a high of $1973.50 just after the decision went public to the close on Friday at $1877.70, a nearly $100 shave in a metter of just more than two days.

There was little enthusiasm curbing in the silver department, with the market price dipping by only a nickel, despite the absurd COMEX price hack. On the COMEX, silver priced at a high of $24.59 at 9:30 am ET Thursday morning, dropping to $22.40 as of Friday's close, a decline of $2.19 in less than two days. Of course, price-rigging like this only occurs when trading worthless scraps of paper instead of actual metal, as is the common practice in COMEX and LBMA fantasies.

Naked shorting by bullion banks, specs, and other participants has been a feature of the effort to disparage precious metals for decades, this most recent just another example of the desperation by the backers of debt-issued fiat currencies and fractional reserve banking, the banes of modern economic functionality.

Apparently lost on the COMEX rigging consortium is the entirely enormous price dislocation between their fixes and obvious shorting and actual world real metal at retail. As time grows shorter for the adherents of paper currencies and the philosophical and psychological divide between East and West grows larger by the day, the schism has arrived, or will shortly, as the BRICS and nations of the "Global South" continue headlong towards commodity-backed currencies which will leave the West empty-handed and sufferers of a self-imposed poverty.

Time's up. COMEX and the LBMA have been fully exposed as fewer and fewer fall for the fraud.

Here are the most recent prices for common one ounce gold and silver items sold on eBay (numismatics excluded, free shipping included):

Item/Price Low High Average Median
1 oz silver coin: 29.99 42.00 37.18 38.30
1 oz silver bar: 31.00 45.95 36.95 35.98
1 oz gold coin: 1,958.67 2,085.85 1,993.40 1,990.53
1 oz gold bar: 1,941.31 1,979.20 1,960.08 1,963.79

The Single Ounce Silver Market Price Benchmark (SOSMPB) held fairly steady, dropping to $37.10, a decline of a mere five cents from the January 29 level of $37.15.


WEEKEND WRAP

Five straight weeks of NASDAQ short-squeezing has sent some stocks to extremes. So far this year (five weeks, two of them holiday-shortened) Apple is up 23%, Alphabet +17%, Amazon +20%, Netflix +23%, Nvidia +47%, Meta +50%, and Tesla higher by a stunning 75%. At least Elon Musk's car company has the excuse of being mercilessly crushed from over 400 (November, 2021) to under 120 at the end of 2022, a not-so-well-disguised attempt by the deepest of deep state operations to destroy him for buying Twitter and taking it private. The others are just pump jobs of the most beaten down stocks of last year.

As with all market-rigging operations, this one will come to an end. After a while, the price-jumping just becomes to obvious, straining credulity to the point of unbelievability. It's not only that these price-hiking short-squeezing wealth liquidators run out of victims, they all eventually want their money back and will sell into this rapid, vapid rally when the time is rife with market absurdities and valuations approaching levels of off-course meandering Chinese weather balloons.

Bubbles in stocks, real estate and elsewhere were supposed to go "pop" in 2022 and 2023 or at least that's what everybody had been told. There's been no great pin-pricking yet, and even the market that was most damaged in 2022 (NASDAQ) has been patched up and is being re-inflated.

This should end badly. Discovering exactly when the end begins is the task at hand.

At the Close, Friday, February 4, 2023:
Dow: 33,926.01, -127.93 (-0.38%)
NASDAQ: 12,006.96, -193.86 (-1.59%)
S&P 500: 4,136.48, -43.28 (-1.04%)
NYSE Composite: 15,999.40, -123.17 (-0.76%)

For the Week:
Dow: -52.07 (-0.15%)
NAASDAQ: +385.25 (+3.31%)
S&P 500: +65.92 (+1.62%)
NYSE Composite: +36.82 (+0.23%)


Disclaimer: Information disseminated on this site should not be construed as investment advice. Downtown Magazine Inc., Money Daily and it's owners, affiliates and/or employees are not investment advisors and do not offer specific investment advice. All investments have risk. You should consult a professional investment advisor or stock broker or use your individual judgement when making investment decisions. By viewing this site, you hold harmless Downtown Magazine Inc., Money Daily, its owners, affiliates and employees against any and all liability. Copyright 2023, Downtown Magazine Inc., all rights reserved.

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idleguy.com October 2024
IdleGuy.com October 2024, Vol. 1 #9