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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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Stocks Flatten Out for the Week, Fed Chairman Powell to Speak at Jackson Hole; Travers at Saratoga Friday, August 23, 2024, 8:54 am ET Even with all the cards falling right into place for an interest rate cut at the next FOMC meeting, traders just couldn't resist selling on Thursday, putting a rather abrupt end to the two-week long stock market rally. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell is slated to speak at the annual Economic Symposium at Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Friday morning at 10:00 am ET. Investors and observers will be tuning in to see if the Chairman drops any clues about the highly anticipated rate cut and whether it will be 25 or 50 basis points. As of the closing bell Thursday, the Dow managed to hold onto a 53-point gain for the week, while the NASDAQ is down 13, and the S&P is up 16, so the major indices look to be on track for a second straight week in the black. Other than the usual market noise, it's become pretty quiet as the week draws to a close. With less than an hour to the opening bell, stock futures are up sharply, gold is reversing some of its losses from Thursday, and even WTI crude oil is up, currently pricing at $74.38. The Travers Stakes is on tap at Saratoga Saturday. There are plenty of possibilities in the eight-horse field of three-year-olds, including 2023 Breeders' Cup Juvenile champion, Fierceness, Kentucky Oaks filly, Thorpedo Anna, Dornoch, winner of the Belmont Stakes, and Sierra Leone, runner-up in the Kentucky Derby and third in the Belmont. Should be a good one.
At the Close, Thursday, August 22, 2024:
Thursday, August 22, 2024, 9:35 am ET On Wednesday, this space featured a story about benchmark revisions to the BLS Establishment Survey, noting that even the writers at Barron's were looking for numbers that were half a million short of what the government had been reported for the prior year, ending with March, 2024. Well, it turned out that not only was the revision far worse than those highly-paid financial writers expected, at 818,000 few fewer jobs than originally reported, but the agency best known for flubs and fictions like its "birth-death model", seasonal and other strange adjustments to actual jobs data, screwed up the release as well. Supposedly embargoed until 10:00 am ET, the agency didn't release the numbers until after 10:30 am, frustrating scores of trading professionals (and even amateurs), but going so far as to release the numbers to at least three investment firms who actually called the agency by phone before the data appeared on the website. ZeroHedge, which has been pounding the table for the past year and more about the inaccuracy of employment data, has the complete, sordid story. It's yet another indictment of the government under Joe Biden's administration that seems incapable of handling anything in a professional manner. From the ongoing conflict in Ukraine to the disaster at the U.S. southern border, the incompetence is absolutely stunning. And it's not about being partisan. The government routinely sucks, big time, no matter who is president. The BLS is particularly shameful, their data so corrupted and misaligned as to be hardly believable. The latest foible a crowing achievement in helping regular people lose all faith in government (we might add, with good reason). What's worse is that the BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics) is also responsible for perhaps the most important monthly data releases of all, CPI and PPI, upon which the Federal Reserve supposedly partially bases its federal funds interest rate policy upon and which - in the case of CPI - is used to determine cost of living adjustments (COLAs) for millions of retirees on Social Security. Accused of reporting inflation figures purposely well below what is real at street level, the BLS is likely responsible for wildly inaccurate perceptions about inflation and continual debasing of the U.S. dollar currency. Not to be confused with that other scion of misinformation and lies, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the group that can only determine whether the U.S. is in a recession six months after the fact and changes the very definition of a recession to suit the needs of Wall Street and the government, everybody at the BLS should be fired, not replaced, and the agency completely defunded. Unless you're a congressperson and enjoy the benefits that gross negligence and incompetence affords, that would be a reasonable conclusion. Of course, nobody will be fired. The news media - even the financial media - either doesn't report on these revisions and failures or merely glosses over them. This morning, according to the Labor Department, in the week ending August 17, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 232,000, an increase of 4,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised up by 1,000 from 227,000 to 228,000. It's also worth noting that continuing claims are at their highest levels since November 2021. This, as the BLS unrevised data kept telling us how Joe Biden's administration was creating jobs at an outstanding pace month after month. Between the BLS reporting nearly a million more jobs created the past year, CPI at its lowest rate of growth (still rising, mind you) in two years, the BEA's inability to forecast a recession, and the Fed nearly promising a rate cut in September, one best be ready for some real economic carnage ahead. Wall Street, meanwhile, discounts everything as if the economy were chugging right along. At the end of the day, and any time before or after, the ageless wisdom applies:
"How can you tell a politician is lying? His lips are moving."
At the Close, Wednesday, August 21, 2024:
Wednesday, August 21, 2024, 9:27 am ET Revisions? We don't need no stinkin' revisions. That statement may or may not be true, but the Bureau of Labor Statistics will release its 2024 Preliminary Benchmark Revision to Establishment Survey Data at 10:00 am ET on Wednesday (today), so there may be something of a market disruption right after the first half hour of trading. The revision, depending on its severity, could be good or bad for stocks, depending on whether the market considers bad news good, good news good, or good news bad. They also might consider the old standard, bad news is bad, if Barron's is right and the Bureau revises jobs for the 12 months ending in March 2024 down by half a million. Not that 500,000 fewer jobs than reported should make a whit of difference given the electricity of election season, and besides, the BLS has been revising monthly data lower longer than Joe Biden's been lying about, well, everything, but these figures should be taken in stride by market participants. Tuesday's small declines, ending winning streaks for the majors, might have been a little bit of a rehearsal for the big event. So, stocks may be a little under the radar until the 10:00 am ET release, but, in reality, who cares if the BLS reported 500,000 or a million more jobs than were actually created in the past year? These are government bean counters, and those beans, be they revised, natural, unvarnished, braised, massaged, smoked, or covered in hollandaise sauce are just as likely to be wrong as the ones they fed the public in the first place. Government numbers are about as trustworthy as the word of a two-bit hustler, and these days, when everything can be made up or rendered through the magic of AI, promises made by even a one-bit grifter (re: Kamala) might be a better bet. After all, probably more than 50% of all Americans receive some sort of government benefit, whether they're working or not, so the money flow remains consistent. And, if that's not enough, the border patrol can just let in a few more million illegals and grant them social security, food stamps, driver's licenses and whatever else is needed to keep the skids greased for the perpetual multi-national corporate Ponzi scheme. Let's see. There's Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, Disability, Veteran's Benefits, the earned income tax credit, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, food stamps), rent subsidies, mortgage assistance, and a plethora of other lesser-known programs for various individuals, business entities, non-profits and schools. From the perspective of money flow alone, jobs are irrelevant. Jobs that are reported by the BLS even less significant than off-the-books employment, which the government cannot even begin to fathom. They gave up trying to gauge the "underground economy" back in the early 1970s. And then the politicians make an issue of not taxing tips. What's next? No more baby-sitting or lawn mowing gigs? The amount of tax revenue the government takes in will still manage to fall well short of what congress spends, so what's the big deal? So, jobs? This is America. We don't need no stinkin' jobs.
At the Close, Tuesday, August 20, 2024:
Tuesday, August 20, 2024, 9:24 am ET In case you thought last week's manufactured rally was out of the ordinary, you haven't been paying attention. After the fearful shakeout on Monday, August 5, with word that the beloved JPY:USD "carry trade" was coming unraveled, all of a sudden that wasn't the case, and stocks would just have to pull themselves up, investors shake off their trepidation and move higher. Including Monday's vapor-trail gains (245 points on the NASDAQ is nothing to sneeze at but becoming more and more common), tech Valhalla, aka the NASDAQ, has put on 2168.23 points, from the low of 15,708.54 to Monday's close of 17,876.77. That's a 13.8% gain in just two weeks. Not bad for a part-time gig. Since August 5 - 10 sessions - there actually was one day in which stocks turned lower. That was Wednesday, August 7, when apparently everybody was not on board with the narcissistic plan of cutting interest rates at the September 17-18 FOMC meeting, no recession, soft landing, and Kamala! At dawn the following day, those people were taken out behind the Eccles building and executed prior to the opening bell, their final request, to short the QQQ, denied. Since then, with doubters and miscreants out of the way, stocks on the NASDAQ amd S&P have posted gains eight straight sessions. The Dow is up seven of the last eight, the only loser being Monday, August 12, when the venerable old index lost 140 points, though that misstep by the old broad was rectified the following day with a gain of more than 400 points. The ongoing eight-day streak on the two broader indices are the best since October and November of last year, when this insane rally began with a nine-day rally. From the fateful NASDAQ close on October 26 of 12,595.61, through Monday, tech Nirvana has gained 41.93%. The S&P, which bottomed out at 4,117.37, a day later, on October 27, ran up eight straight sessions and is now good for a gain of 36.21%. All of the major indices are not yet at all-time highs, but they're getting closer. The S&P is just 61 points from its record close (July 16), and the NASDAQ less than 800 points away from its high close on July 10 (18,647.45). The Dow could make a new ATH today, exceeding the July 17 close (41,198.08). It only needs another 302 points to get there. Meanwhile, gold made a new high on the COMEX just moments ago, at $2,567.20, silver is back above $30, and WTI crude hit a six-month low at $72.61 earlier this morning. Higher stocks, cheaper gas, Kamala!
At the Close, Monday, August 19, 2024:
Sunday, August 18, 2024, 10:10 am ET Stocks went ballistic and so did gold. Bitcoin barely budged, which speaks volumes about crypto. There was much to be learned from market activity the past two weeks, the key takeaway being persistent inflation, this week showing up in asset prices as opposed to the dollar index, which, as U.S. currency continues to be debased, will cause stocks to rise and yields (other than those set by the Fed) to fall. The dollar fell to its lowest level in eight months against competing currencies like the yen, pound, and euro. More importantly, it fell to its lowest level EVER against gold, as the price of gold made yet another record. Intriguing is the lack of coverage of gold's ascendance as the world's only reliable form of money. Stocks will naturally rise in price as the value of the U.S. dollar fiat currency falls, as will the price of all goods and services. The Federal Reserve is poised to make a policy error - lowering the federal funds rate at the September FOMC meeting - that will be more or less a kill shot to the U.S. economy and reserve currency status. We're living on borrowed money and borrowed time.
It was a banner week for Wall Street, the best of the year. It didn't matter what stocks you owned, only that you owned stocks. Equity holders were kings of the world this week. The major indices - indeed, all international indices - rebounded off the lows of August 5 like a dead cat equipped with rocket boosters in its ass. The S&P and NASDAQ closed out the week on a roll of seven straight winning sessions. The Dow gained on six of the last seven, but stocks ended the week still below recent all-time highs. The Dow needs another 500 points, the NASDAQ a little more than 1000, and the S&P about 112 to get back there. Considering the giddy atmosphere on Wall Street, that should be taken care of in less than two weeks. Keep buying. The current thinking is that everything is going to be covered until the election, at which time Kamala Harris will be crowned Miss Universe, and Trump supporters derided in the media as loser luddites stuck in a glorified, white supremacist past. Just keep buying.
Beginning to become something of an annoyance to the rich and powerful, the inverted yield curve has persisted for more than two years. Despite recent compression in the 2s-10s spread - this week deepening to -17 - the full spectrum from 30 days out to 30 years has reached extremes not seen since late December through early January. Despite mixed signals from economic data and the Fed itself, money managers convinced the Fed is going to cut rates at the September FOMC meeting, now just a month ahead. Should the Fed embark on a course of lowering short-term interest rates, money will flow even more rapidly to longer maturities, lowering yield, a condition which has been seen manifesting over the past two weeks, with two-year, 10-year, and 30-year yields at levels last seen eight months ago. Lowering rates will produce a number of outcomes, probably the most prominent being to lower the borrowing cost of the the U.S. government, whose profligate spending of money they do not possess has produced a gargantuan problem with the high cost of interest on government debt, now a major single spending item alongside the budgets for defense, social security, and medicare. The monstrosity that is the combined U.S. debt market and government spending remains the main threat to democracy and the continuance of the representative republic form of government that is supposed to represent the will of the people of the United States, but has long since been abandoned. Whatever comes of the elections in November, the actions of the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury will have much more profound effects on the lives of the general population, none of them particularly pleasing, because, should the Fed embark on a pathway to lower interest rates, it would imply better access to currency at a lower cost, fueling another, even more devastating round of inflation than has been the experience of the past two years. The yield curve, distorted and inverted as it has been, may not return to a normal upwards-sloping state for many years, if ever. In these tumultuous times, it may be prudent and wise to ditch paper instruments and exchange them for gold or silver or other hard assets which may ameliorate the negative effects of hyperinflation. Spreads:
2s-10s
Full Spectrum (30-days - 30-years)
WTI crude oil was lower this week, closing Friday in New York at $75.49, down 21 cents from the prior Friday close of $75.70. Oil pricing is being held down by somewhat of a stalemate in the Middle East, with Iran apparently willing to wait out hostage negotiations before retaliating against Israel, if they even respond at all. From the April high of $86.91, WTI crude is down 13%. The U.S. election looming - now just more than 11 weeks out from November 5 - the most probable direction for gas, and, by extension, crude oil, figures to be lower, though changes in the Middle East situation could easily disrupt conditions. Gasbuddy.com reports the national average for a gallon of unleaded regular gas at the pump at $3.40 a gallon, down another three cents from last week, which appears to be an ongoing trend. In three of the past four years, gas prices have been lower in November than in August and that should be the case this year, with the election on the horizon. In 2022, the national average fell from $3.96 on August 11, to $3.79 on November 11. Last year, the average price fell 50 cents, from $3.84 on August 12, to $3.34 on November 12, so an expectation for the national average gas price falling below $3.25 would be reasonable. On August 1 of this year, the national average was $3.48, so the trend is already developing. California remains the highest in the U.S. at $4.56 a gallon, the lowest Golden State price in more than six months. Pennsylvania prices were down slightly, to $3.56, with the Keystone State remaining the price leader in the Northeast. New York is next, at $3.52. Other Northeast states saw insignificant declines over the course of the past week, with Connecticut down three cents ($3.46), Massachusetts ($3.39) off two cents, though Maryland prices fell 12 cents to $3.37 per gallon. Prices in the Midwest continue to stabilize and fall. Illinois, down another 10 cents this week, has dropped from just above $4.00 two weeks ago to $3.77 on Sunday. Mississippi continued with the lowest prices in the country, at $2.92 per gallon, joined under $3.00 by Oklahoma ($2.93), Louisiana ($2.97) and Texas ($2.98). Tennessee checks in at an even $3.00, with Arkansas at $3.01 and South Carolina at $3.03. Georgia ($3.19) and Florida ($3.28) both were lower on the week. The Midwest ranges between lows in Kansas ($3.12) and Missouri ($3.16), to highs of $3.45 in Michigan, $3.39 in Ohio, and $3.33 in Indiana, all lower, almost all others in a range between $3.20 and $3.40, noting that most of the states with the biggest price drops this week are all left-leaning. Arizona, at $3.42, remained below $4.00 for a 15th straight week, leaving only California and Washington ($4.20) above the $4.00 level. Oregon checked in at $3.82 and Nevada at $3.92, each down marginally. Utah ($3.58) and Idaho ($3.57) continue stabilizing at elevated levels.
This week: $60,093.30 Bitcoin did not rally along with stocks, or gold, for that matter. Probably because it's not really money, or even useful currency as a medium of exchange. What it is, as is all crypto, is a huge fraud and a means of laundering dirty money, much of it in the hands of governments and politicians. Akin to medieval English use of tally sticks, they will eventually cease to exist, or only exist in some etherial made-up cyberspace developed by weird people like Mark Zuckerberg.
Gold:Silver Ratio: 86.31; last week: 89.71 Per COMEX continuous contracts:
Gold price 7/19: $2,402.80
Silver price 7/19: $29.41 Gold and silver both had huge weeks, punctuated by Friday's lift-off which sent gold soaring to a record high price above $2,500, a psychological barrier that's now been breached. Silver, which gained nearly $2.00 over the week, continues to lag, though the price is now approaching recent highs. There is a concerted effort to demonetize silver by relegating it to industrial metal status. This has been an ongoing effort by central banks since the 1800s, when silver was officially currency in many countries around the world. Today it is currency in none. That should not deter stackers in the least, since silver was currency/money for thousands of years prior, and is likely to be used as currency again, though it may remain under siege for years, if not decades. Whatever the price of silver becomes, it still beats paper, and, with the gold:silver ratio remaining at historically obscene levels, it is regarded by many proponents as extremely undervalued.
Remember the long-held adage: Also, "Because gold is honest money it is disliked by dishonest men." Ron Paul 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 the week, rising to $37.97, a gain of 90 cents from the August 11 price of $37.07 per troy ounce. Sunday's survey of gold and silver prices on ebay once again showed a short supply of non-numismatic one ounce gold coins offered for sale, either at auction (almost none) or at set prices. Also noticeable, there now are emerging many more fractional gold pieces for sale, ranging from one gram to 1/4 ounce, with quite a few offerings being listed in grams as the price of gold continues to spiral higher. Goldbacks are becoming more prominent items for sale. Inflation continues to rage across Western economies despite official voices attempting to tell the public that prices are stabilizing, causing gold's price rise. The fiat currency system has reached a state of fragility from which it will never recover and that is evident not only in the rapid rise in the price of gold, but also in the frenzied equity markets.
In case a hint of skepticism or cynicism was detected in today's note, it was purposeful. The world as it is currently constructed benefits nobody other than oligarchs, politicians, and criminals, mostly those who can be categorized as all three. Stock markets are rigged, our fiat currency is a collapsing sham, the media is nothing more than a propaganda arm for the government, and the so-called "world leaders" of the West are undeniably the most inept, groundless, immoral miscreants since the dawn of humanity. For regular folks, avoidance of any and all forms of authority is becoming de rigueur. A lot of people have given up and even more are about to join the ranks of the downtrodden and defeated. Many more simply don't give a flying F. It appears to be a trend. Best of luck.
For the Week:
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