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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.
PRIOR COVERAGE:
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Friday, May 10, 2024, 9:20 am ET Editor's Note: Plenty of rain overnight Wednesday managed knocked out power and internet, so unable to post as usual on Thursday. Back up and running late in the day. What began as a dull-looking week turned out to be rather exciting, especially for holders of Dow Industrial stocks (except maybe Boeing). The Dow recorded gains every day of the week, including Thursday's colossal, 331-point blow-off, extending its string of winning sessions to seven. For the week through Thursday's close, the Dow is up a whopping 712 points, NASDAQ is ahead by 190, S&P up 86, and the NYSE Composite posting a gain of 329 points (1.85%). With the Dow running all stops, the 30 blue chips are just 420 points from the all-time high made on March 28, of 39,807.37. The S&P has closed to within 40 points of its all-time high, also made less than two months ago (5254.35, March 28). With emotions (FOMO) guiding investors devoid of logic, the indices could reach those levels on Friday. If not, surely next week when CPI figures for April are released. Wall Street bulls continue to bang the "rate cut" drum loudly, as they are well aware of the fragile state of the U.S. economy. Their argument is just short of complete insanity with inflation still running fairly hot and fed speakers routinely talkative about delaying any notion of rate cuts. Fed representatives Michelle Bowman, Neel Kashkari, and Austan Goolsbee are among those likely to make pronouncements today with Wall Street tuned in, as if they were reincarnations of Delphic oracles. On Thursday, Atlanta Fed chief Raphael Bostic said he sees a single rate cut late this year, echoing Mary Daly's preference for more indications that price pressures are easing, which, of course, they're not, at least not in supermarkets or at gas stations. Housing remains a key component of price inflation. Rents and home sale prices are through the roof thanks in large part to the Fed's high interest rates on mortgages, keeping many homeowners with lower-rate mortgages from selling. Additionally, the high prices are keeping new home buyers out of the market, especially, young Generation Z, so-called "Zoomers", many of whom have completely given up on what used to be part of the American dream of home ownership. No matter what is said by Fed speakers or implied by economic data, Wall Street cheerleaders continue their crusade for lower interest rates, which, in their eyes, fuels more corporate buybacks at a discount. If the current level of stock repurchasing - expected to be at an all-time high this year - wasn't such a sad state of affairs, it would be laughable. Such antics, which reduce the number of shares available, thus boosting EPS by sometimes significant amounts, used to be illegal. Today, as demonstrated by the criminal gang at JP Morgan Chase, nothing is off the table, unless one gets caught and fined, generally referred to as "the cost of doing business." Mafioso bosses used the same phraseology. So, if you're among the gang who cheers on the stock market, Huzzah! You are winning big time. Elsewhere, gold and silver are streaking higher, with investors of precious metals also aware of the handwriting on the walls of the Fed's Eccles Building. Gold hit $2,384 per ounce on the COMEX continuous contract this morning, just $30 short of its all-time high from April 20. Silver was seen just short of $29 per ounce, and though not close to any record level, it is in a zone that is in the highest in 11 years, when it was being crammed down from nearly $50/ounce in 2011. The little temper tantrum by COMEX shorts and the U.S. Treasury's Exchange Stabilization Fund of the past three weeks hasn't been very effective in keeping real money from making its presence felt. Gold is up $64 this week; silver has added $1.83, a tidy 6.8% gain in four days. Once silver breaks through $29, and then $30, it's off to the races for both precious metals. Silver could easily hit $45 by election day in November if it breaks out over the next few weeks. With a little less than an hour to Friday's opening bell, stock futures are higher, though slipping a bit, WTI crude oil is closing in on $80 again ($79.66), Israel has initiated another ruthless assault on the Palestinians in Gaza, and NATO is being destroyed via Russian advances in Ukraine. All of this somehow adds up to higher stock prices and slightly lower yields on long-dated treasuries. The 10-year note is yielding between 4.45% and 4.49% this week, which isn't so very far from the 2024 high of 4.70% just a few weeks ago (April 25). Since there's no limit to the amounts of manure Wall Street hucksters can shovel, it appears the only advice being offered is to ride this this wagon train as far and as long as possible.
At the Close, Wednesday, May 8, 2024:
At the Close, Thursday, May 9, 2024:
Wednesday, May 8, 2024, 9:35 am ET On Tuesday, Neel Kashkari, President of the Minneapolis Fed, suggested that interest rates may not be lowered any time soon, and, in fact, the Fed could actually raise rates if inflation continues to be an issue. Well, Neel may be on to something there. Inflation, as measured by shocked looks at grocery counters, is a major issue, and, so long as the Federal Reserve and Treasury Department keep playing ping-pong with the money supply, it's likely to remain one. Just after the FOMC voted to remain muted on interest rates a week ago, Fed officials are once again employing "open mouth operations" in addition to open market operations to keep the U.S. economy from complete capitulation and recession. While the Fed appears to be pumping the brakes in a monetary sense, reducing quantitative tightening - AKA, reducing their balance sheet - Treasury is busy spending above and beyond revenues brought in by taxes, resulting in fiscal year 2024 adding $2 trillion to the national debt disaster (fast approaching $35 TRILLION). Net of Fed tightening and Treasury spending is the painful circumstance of "stagflation," a stagnant economy with rising inflation. While Chairman Powell admits to seeing nothing of the sort, he's either lying to himself or to anybody and everybody listening. It's probably the latter. GDP, which is hardly an accurate measure of a nation's economic health - but it's all they're offering - at 1.6% annualized from the first quarter of 2024, and CPI around 3.5% is about as close as one needs to get to a definition of stagflation before it hits you right between the eyes. The Chairman, who should be able to spot these things a mile away, apparently prefers the public see him as a person with eyes closed, stumbling around in the dark. There are any number of camps concerning the Fed and their policies, but the two largest contingents are those that think the Fed is all-powerful and will do the right thing, and those that believe they've no clue. The middle ground, wherein the Fed understands full well what's happening, but has only theories on how to correct it, is probably close to the truth. As always, there exist significant cross-currents in the U.S. and global economies, some deflationary, some inflationary, some downright scary. Probably the worst of these is the understanding that the measure of economic activity is dollars or yen or euros or pounds or francs, all of which are nothing more than money substitutes, which helps explain why central banks have been buying up all the gold they can over the past five years. They KNOW. Central bankers are fully aware that the era of fully floating fiat currencies backed by promises and debt is coming to an end. They are preparing for a new world order, one in which gold will be the standard backing of currency rather than treasury bills, notes, and bonds. Sound money is a requirement of sound economies and there is not one nation in the world - except maybe Zimbabwe, which introduced a gold-backed currency unit recently - that isn't caught up in the vortex of a global debt trap. Signs are emerging that all the debt-based currencies are headed down the drain. Credit card delinquencies are on the rise, most notably at Discover (DFS) and CapitalOne (COF), two of the largest purveyors of unsecured credit at nosebleed interest rates, which is one of the reasons they're planning to merge. The deal would create the biggest U.S. credit card issuer by balances and the sixth-largest bank by assets, in other words "too big to fail" and the perfect set-up for a govenment bail-out. Between them, the two credit card giants charged off more than than $15 billion last year, roughly double what the second and third largest charge-off practitioners - JP Morgan Chase and Citibank - each managed to write off in 2023. That's a lot of trouble in consumer financing, leading to the belief that American borrowers are close to being tapped out, thanks largely to inflation, the direct result of 15 years of Fed policy that held interest rates at close to zero and a U.S. congress and Treasury that isn't capable of balancing its budget. Once the consumer - which accounts for close to 70% of the U.S. economy - falls off the economic wagon, stagflation may become anachronistic, replaced by recession. Prices will fall, jobs will be lost, GDP will actually register negative for a couple of quarters, or longer, and, then, after much hand-ringing and speechifying, the Fed will begin to lower rates. It won't matter. It will only buy time. Wall Street wishes for lower rates, but they're going to get economic circumstances that will eventually affect the prices of their beloved stocks. It's all a matter of timing at this juncture, and the timing appears to be right around November, probably sooner. The forces of the Fed, Treasury, and the media can hold back the storm only so long.
At the Close, Tuesday, May 7, 2024:
Tuesday, May 7, 2024, 9:30 am ET Not much going on, taking a break from the usual screed. Disney (DIS) reported Q2 adjusted earnings of $1.21 a share, topping expectations and above than the $0.93 the company reported in Q2 2023. Shares are off 7-9% in the pre-market. Monday's gains were follow through from Friday's melt-up on hopes the economy would falter sufficiently for the Fed to lower interest rates. In Wall Street's view, a wrecked economy is good for stocks, and business, and partying in the Hamptons this summer. Futures are higher. Gold is lower. No surprise there. Happy hunting!
At the Close, Monday, May 6, 2024:
Sunday, May 5, 2024, 12:33 pm ET On Friday morning, (5/3), Money Daily suggested that the U.S. economy was a "bag of turds." Proving that assessment to be a correct one, access to X.com (twitter) was corrupted for roughly the following 24 hours. A day without tweeting: such cruel punishment is the meter of autocracy. Now, about that rally Friday, based wholly upon the April non-farm payroll report from the BLS, showing job gains of 175,000 over the month and the unemployment rate ticking up to 3.9% igniting the notion that the Fed might consider lowering interest rates based upon a weakening labor market: clownish, preposterous, propagandist gurgling. If not for the "hope for worse" rally on Friday, the major indices would have all ended the week in the red, which is right where they should have been and will likely be headed in weeks ahead. While there is ample evidence of a weakening economy, one which produces, in the main, inflation, garbage food, and drugs, the Fed denies any serious discussion over first quarter GDP growing at just 1.6%, Chicago PMI checking in at 37.9, the fifth straight decline and down from a 2021 high of 76.1, rising credit card delinquencies, and inflation rising instead of falling. Rather, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell glibly remarks that he doesn't see any "stag" or "flation" at last week's post-FOMC press affair. This from a guy who euphemistically couldn't find his backside with both hands. The Sunday morning talk shows focused on - in no particular order - college protests, Gaza, Israel, Hamas, a cease fire, abortion, Trump's show trial, and the elections. What was never mentioned was Ukraine, where NATO-backed AFU is being pummeled into submission by Russia. They got their $61 billion funding passed, so that's that. No surprise. Russia will likely have taken most of Ukraine east of the Dniper river by September, if not sooner. NATO nations will have to find some kind of excuse for their massive blunder, but that won't be discussed until it's too obvious to hide, if at all. Mainstream media will stick to its script, i.e., propaganda.
Stocks remain massively overvalued. The current Shiller PE Ratio stood at 34.05 as of Friday, May 3. The only times it has been more elevated were at the peak of the dot-com boom (November 1999) and the easing off from the plandemic October, 2021). Caveat Emptor. All of the major indices posted gains for the week, albeit small ones and only the result of Friday's ultra-bogus rally. The clear intent of big money players is to convince everybody of the infallibility of stocks and denial of any mention of inflation, recession, or capitulation. Inside actors have been working overtime to keep stocks elevated and interest rates under the thumb. The canary in the coal mine is the Dow Jones Transportation Index, which continues to display very identifiable signs of bear market impulse, closing for a third straight week below its 200-day moving average despite its second consecutive weekly gain. Dow theorists will contend that the transports will lead into correction, with the industrials to follow and confirm. Naturally, there needs to be consideration of insider effects, the usual pumping and dumping, tape-painting, the PPT, political considerations, and all manner of tin-foil-hattishness. On the earnings calendar for the upcoming week are some secondary stocks, the bulk of the majors having already posted. Monday (5/6): (before opening bell) Spirit Airlines (SAVE), FreshPet (FRPT), Tyson Foods (TSN); (after close) Palantir (PLTR), Vertex (VRTX). Tuesday (5/7): (before) Disney (DIS), British Petroeum (BP), Crocs (CROX); (after) Rivian (RVN) Wynn Resorts (WYNN), Lyft (LYFT). Wednesday (5/8): Uber (UBER), Shopify (SHOP), Toyota (TM); (after) Beyond Meat (BYND), AMC (AMC), Air B&B (ABNB), Robinhood (HOOD). Thursday (5/9): Warner Brothers Discovery ((WBD), Constellation Brands (CEG); (after) ADMA Biologics (ADMA), Blink (BLNK). Friday (5/10): (all before the open) Enbridge (ENB), Construction Partners (ROAD). The week ahead is devoid of meaningful economic data, only Monday's senior loan officer opinion survey from the Federal Reserve and Friday's University of Michigan preliminary consumer sentiment data for May should supply any market impact.
Engaging in some degree of Yield Curve Control (YCC) this week, the Fed, with ample forward assistance from Treasury, which will be buying back its own issuance (AKA, self-dealing), interest rates plummeted from their high of a week ago, with the 10-year note yielding 17 basis points less (4.50%) and the two-year dropping 15 (4.81%). Yields on long-dated maturities are still elevated, but if there's any truth to the rumor that the Fed is engaging in easier policies, albeit in a clandestine manner, like cutting back on QT from $60 billion to $25 billion a month, rates should continue lower over the short term. That assessment is predicated on no re-ignition of the banking crisis, which remains a latent predicament for the Fed and the economy. There are a couple of hundred small and medium-sized banks in the throes of a liquidity crisis, but, for now, it's back burner stuff. There's an election ahead, after all, despite the Fed's insistence that they are apolitical. With the Fed and its stockholders (major banks, primary dealers) engaged in the treasury market, yields should head lower. As far as the Treasury Department itself is concerned, buying back its own issuance is likely to push yields down even further. In reality, Treasury should be able to buy back its issuance. It, in fact, should have no need to issue debt, only currency, without the aid of the Federal Reserve, which is nothing more than a huge counterfeiting and skimming operation that creates currency based on debt out of thin air. It has produced enough debt to bankrupt the government, millions of citizens, and itself, to the tune of a 98% (and growing) loss of purchasing power of the U.S. dollar, or, formally, Federal Reserve Notes. There never has been a need for the Fed other than to fatten the wallets of banking interests, but congress and multiple presidents have not exercised their authority to revoke or not renew its charter, being in their own best interests to avoid a monetary and currency dislocation. Spreads:
2s-10s
Full Spectrum (30-days - 30-years)
WTI crude oil was crushed this week, closing Friday in New York at $77.99 per barrel, down sharply from the prior week's $83.66. Higher gas prices and squeezed consumers over the past few months have resulted in enough demand destruction for a one week decline of 6.8%. Gasbuddy.com reports the national average for a gallon of unleaded regular gas at the pump eased a bit, down another two cents from a week ago, at $3.63, though still at unacceptably high levels. California remains at the top of the price chain, with a gallon of unleaded regular running $5.34 on Sunday, down from last week. Pennsylvania is atop Northeast states, holding steady at $3.80. Prices remained elevated in the Mideast leader, Illinois, though it was down seven cents, to $3.88 a gallon. There have been no states with gas prices under $3.00 for eight straight weeks. Mississippi ($3.09) is nearest. Other than Georgia ($3.45) and Florida ($3.60), the Southeast cluster from Oklahoma east to South Carolina are all hovering in a range between $3.14 and $3.31, about six to eight cents higher than a week ago. Arizona ($4.05) has been above $4.00 for three weeks straight, joining California, Washington ($4.68), Nevada ($4.50), and Oregon ($4.46) in the $4+ club. Utah ($3.83) and Idaho ($3.87) have been backing away as consumers balk and cut back on fuel purchases.
This week: $64,457.00 No comment.
Gold:Silver Ratio: 86.26; last week: 85.41 Per COMEX continuous contracts:
Gold price 4/5: $2,349.10
Silver price 4/5: $27.60 The price of gold on the COMEX fell another $39.50 over the course of the week. Silver's drop of 73 cents was much less severe than the prior week. Precious metals are back in COMEX suppression mode, though unlikely to last. U.S. currency is on its death-bed; Japan's yen even worse. A massive revaluation of everything is in the works, thanks to bone-headed U.S. reserve currency policy, proxy wars and BRICS emergence. It will likely take years to fully evolve, but, as has been the case since 2020, that change is well underway. Foreign central banks are swapping U.S. treasuries for gold, as the dollar inflates itself out of existence. Year-to-date, gold is up 11.42%, silver, 11.84%. Even with dumping the past two weeks, they're still even with or beating stocks in 2024. Here are the most recent prices for common one ounce gold and silver items sold on eBay (numismatics excluded, free shipping included):
The Single Ounce Silver Market Price Benchmark (SOSMPB) slipped begrudgingly over the week, to $38.54, a loss of 21 cents from the April 28 price of $38.75 per troy ounce. The cram-down by the COMEX has thus far been ineffective in terms of crimping demand. The mania hasn't even begun.
Other than gold and silver, everything is fake, manipulated, and delusional.
At the Close, Friday, May 3, 2024:
For the Week:
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IdleGuy.com June 2024, Vol. 1 #5