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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, August 29, 2025, 9:50 am ET Just like boiling frogs or lobsters, the heat is rising gradually on American consumers, otherwise known as citizens, muppets, or chattel. Trump’s overt betrayal of his base is astounding. Campaigning on ending the Ukraine conflict in one day and promising lower prices for Americans, Trump has done little if anything to relieve his countrymen of a rising cost of living as living standards continue to deteriorate and the Ukraine war intensifies, the recent summit in Alaska with Russia and meeting with European allies afterward, all in the name of peace, provided cover for escalating the conflict. Most people identified as middle or lower classes in the United States can barely get through a week without reaching for a credit card to pay everyday expenses. Food prices have remained high and continue to increase. Rents are outrageous and buying a home is almost completely unattainable for anybody making less than $100,000 a year.
Late Thursday, President Trump approved an $825 million arms sale to Ukraine that will include extended-range missiles and related equipment. Trump's timing on this latest betrayal could not have been better, right before a three-day weekend celebrating The Trump administration has also close the de minimus exemption on shipments coming into the United States. For years, packages coming into the United States valued at under $800 were exempt from tariffs. That will no longer be the case. The new policy places tariffs on all shipments into the U.S. unless they are under $100 and identified as "gifts." Good luck with that. Inbound postal supply lines are beginning to experience bottlenecks because of the tariff collection issues, including Asia's Korea Post and SingPost, halting standard parcel services. Japan also warned of delays. In Europe, Norway, Finland, Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, and the UK are suspending or limiting services. Deutsche Post/DHL halted all business parcels to the U.S. via postal networks. Shipments through Australia to the U.S. have been paused as well. FedEx and UPS are fighting a logistical nightmare from the new tariff fees, as their businesses specialize on small packages. In effect, U.S. consumers will henceforth pay higher prices for imported food and goods because of the tariffs and added shipping and compliance costs. Companies that specialize in small packages, like DHL, have already halted shipments to the United States Consumers and small businesses will suffer and trade will decline. American consumers of some products need not worry about higher prices because there won't be any available on the empty shelves of the few retailers remaining open. At the same time the federal government will collect more taxes and congress will waste it on bailouts, the MIC, militarized policing, more lawfare, and tax breaks for the already wealthy campaign contributors. The BEA announced the latest statistical lie Friday morning, the Personal Consumption Index, the Federal Reserve's favored inflation gauge (because it is the least accurate). From the same month one year ago, the PCE price index for July increased 2.6 percent. Excluding food and energy, the PCE price index increased 2.9 percent from one year ago. For the month of July, Real PCE, +0.3; PCE price index, +0.2; PCE price index, excluding food and energy, +0.3. Annualized, the so-called "Super Core" PCE (Services less Shelter) rose to 3.32%. Apparently, neither President Trump nor Fed Chairman Jerome Powell pay much attention to these numbers, as Trump has urged - and Powell now appears willing to comply - the Fed to lower interest rates. Politicians and bankers come from the same cloth. They all lie, all the time.
Thursday, August 28, 2025, 9:09 am ET U.S. stocks continued their relentless rally on Wednesday, as bourses in other countries struggled for gains. India's SENSEX has been particularly hard hit, down three of the past four sessions, while European stocks have chopped along to lower levels. With Nvidia (NVDA) reporting generally positive results after the close Wednesday, invstors seemed concerned about the prospects for continued growth from the world's leading AI chip maker, the stock trending about two percent lower in the aftermarket and prior to Thursday's opening bell. At the same time, gold and silver prices have spiked higher, with gold heading for record prices on the futures market, hitting $3,466 around 8:30 am ET. Silver was bid very strongly, with $39.72 the most recent price. A number of important retailers reported Thursday morning. Briefly, Dick's Sporting Goods (DKS) beat expectations and issued positive guidance, but the stock is marginally lower over concerns about its recent acquisition of Foot Locker. Best Buy (BBY) reported modest sales recovery fr the most recnt quarter, but issued a warning of sorts, expressing a view that tariffs are complicating its turnaround efforts. Shares are down less than two percent in the pre-market. Dollar General (DG), one of the nation's largest discount chains, reported strong earnings and raised fiscal year guidance, saying that shoppers are seeking bargains on household items, which is making their stores a destination for struggling consumers, though sales have been consistent. The stock is trading up about five percent prior to the open. Surplus retailer Ollie's (OLLI) reported strong results for the second quarter, with revenue at $679.6 million versus analyst estimates of $661.9 million (17.5% year-on-year growth, 2.7% beat), and adjusted EPS of $0.99 against analyst estimates of $0.93, a 6.8% beat. Shares of the company are soaring pre-market, up as much as six percent. At 8:30 am ET, the BEA issued the second estimate of second quarter real GDP, revising the initial estimate 0.3% higher, to 3.3% for the quarter. Weekly unemployment claims were moderate, at 229,000 intial claims, down 5,000 from last week. Continuing claims remain stubbornly high, with nearly two million seeking work. That news moved the neddle slightly, but U.S. stock futures fluctuated around unchanged. The Dow was the most prominent, up around 50 points less than an hour before the bell. Strong showings by a handful of companies, consumer spending relatively stable, a solid employment market and GDP at 3.3% doesn't exactly scream "rate cut," though that continues to be the preferred path for the Fed following last week's Jackson Hole speech by Chairman Jerome Powell. With the S&P making another record high close on Wednesday, the Shiller PE (CAPE) hit 39.04 and appears to be heading toward the record level of 44.19, made in December, 1999, at the peak of the dotcom boom. This time the techology pushing stocks is AI. The biggest names in tech - Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Meta Platforms - have invested heavily in data farms and faster chips required to power the Large Language Models (LLMs) on which AI relies. There is some concern that the hundreds of billions spent on building out AI might be a bridge too far, as there have only been spotty financial results stemming from the boom, though it is still early in the game. So far, this week has been positive for stocks, despite a handful of issues overhanging the markets, but, heading toward the end of the month and a three-day weekend, U.S. stocks appear to be in good shape.
At the Close, Wednesday, August 27, 2025:
Wednesday, August 27, 2025, 9:30 am ET Attempting to figure out U.S. equity markets has become an exercise in futility. Amid geo-political upheaval from heavily-indebted countries in Europe - France, Germany, and England in particular - tariff and inflation concerns in the U.S., ongoing conflicts in which the United States is deeply intertwined, and President Trump's unpredictable actions domestically, stocks have been oddly complacent and accommodating to shareholders, with all of the major indices at or near all-time highs. Tuesday's trading was a case-in-point. While stocks were down everywhere from Asia to Europe, U.S. markets displayed remarkable resilience as if it was on its own trajectory and conditions in the rest of the world didn't matter, when, naturally, they do. Wall Street and the money fueling the rallies seems to have little in the way of conscience or risk assessment. On Tuesday, in a rare move, Donald Trump fired Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve board of governors. The markets didn't even blink. Perhaps the assumption is that Trump's firing was more misdirection or revenge and that the Supreme Court will nullify the president's attempt to stack the board with appointees more favorably aligned with his "lower rates, now" mantra. But, what if the court decides that the firing is within Trump's constitutional authority? It makes the Fed vulnerable to outside influence by setting a precedent that the current president can use to his political and economic advantage, along with future presidents who may use the firing mechanism as a tool of fiscal policy. The Fed itself is not beloved by most people, especially consumers and anybody who has a credit card or mortgage. The Federal Reserve consistently acts in its own interests, not in those of the American public. If they did, the U.S. dollar would not have been ravaged by inflation over the many decades the Fed had control of the currency in the U.S. and the greenback was the reserve currency of the world. Compared to its value at the Fed's birth in 1913, the dollar has lost nearly all of its value, debased by a minimum of 97% and currently on a trajectory to eliminate the last three percent of value within a very short time. Still, the Fed stands between the government and constitution. Federal Reserve Notes, which Americans and most of the world regard as "money" are only IOUs, debt instruments created either out of thin air or by bank loans. While they continue to be a safe medium of exchange, they are by no means a store of value. They lose value consistently over long periods of time. Beyond the relative security of everybody using the same currency as issued, the Fed also acts as a lender of last resort, especially during crises, as has been obviated as recently as 2008, when they bailed out most of the world's leading banking institutions. Should U.S. presidents gain control of the institution's policy mechanics, the next crisis could be the Fed's last, and maybe that's a good thing. Heading into Wednesday's "Nvidia day" (the company reports after the close), futures have essentially flat-lined, which leads to no consensus on direction. How long stocks can remain bubbly is something nobody seems able to reasonably predict, only that they'll fly high until the next crisis hits, although one might consider the imminent economic collapse of both England and France, waving white and red flags, to indicate the next crisis is already well underway.
At the Close, Tuesday, August 26, 2025:
Tuesday, August 26, 2025, 9:15 am ET If you like your deli meats to be of the fake variety, i.e., phoney baloney then the U.S. stock market is where you want to be. On the heels of the big upside rally on Friday, sparked by Fed Chairman Jerome Powell's acquiescence to rate cut pressure, stocks took an alternate route to reality on Monday, shedding more than 300 points on the Dow, the S&P slip-sliding away, and the NASDAQ, which notably did not mark a new record high on Friday, pumping and dumping all in one strange session. Down more than 90 points just after the open, the index was up 75 by midday, only to lose is all and finish 47 points in the red. Stock trades on the NAZ were probably made with assistance from AI, which has shown itself to be vastly overrated and magnificently overpriced in terms of what big tech firms have been spending on implementing newer, better, faster iteration of chatboxes. The Large Language Models (LLMs) that the likes of Google, Microsoft, Apple, X.com, and others have been developing have come with enormous up-front costs in material, learning, coding, and implementation, and the ongoing costs of maintaining the hardware for these massive server farms figure to be extreme, to the point of negative marks on company balance sheets. While getting answers quicker than a Big Mac at a drive-through may be a marvel of technology, in basis terms, it costs a ton of money to find out who had the highest batting average in the National League in 2004 or what's the best way to make pizza at home. It used to be a matter of just cruising the internet until one found a site with the information, but, in their infinite knowledge and commitment to not being evil (looking at Google here), big tech decided to glom up all the traffic on the internet and keep it on Google or Bing or wherever the AI beast has been positioned, taking the best from the websites that produced the information in the first place and paying them nothing for it. Webmasters and site owners around the world are very upset at this development, especially those which relied on traffic from the search engines for revenue, via ad programs such as Google AdSense, which the AI option has canabalized. Thus, Google gets more traffic and hits on their self-generative ads, websites get nothing for providing the information, and, ultimately Google just plain eats itself. So far, AI has done little other than stifle innovation on the internet and made more than a few humans a little bit dumber, as if that was a prerequisite goal of AI, which, it must be constantly remembered, stands for Artificial Intelligence. Yes, there have been real profits and stock price jumps, but the piper is playing and he likes to get paid. It's beginning to look like the only real thing about AI was the hype, as in, it was really, really hyped to the max! With stocks in the tech space rivaling valuations from the dotcom era, there's a high degree of risk in owning these names presently. Sure, in 1999-2000 the internet was the thing and all companies needed to do to launch an IPO was attach .com to their name and come up with some funny ad campaigns and $100-500 million would come into their coffers. The AI craze is a little bit different, because the internet is still there, it's more robust, and AI is just another app, or SaaS (Software as a Service) to be monetized by the tech titans. Could be an "oopsie!" moment waiting to happen. It's worth pointing out that the Dow Industrials made an all-time closing high on Friday, but the Transportation Average, which, according to Dow Theory, needs to confirm, is nowhere near record levels. For purists, the primary trend remains bearish. While Monday's trading indicates that Friday's rally was built entirely on hype and hope, Tuesday's set-up is not encouraging for the bull camp. President Trump intensified efforts to oust Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, fanning the flames of the ongoing rift between the Fed and the White House. Inflation concerns are sending bond yields higher as tariff issues intensify. The Commerce Department reported orders for durable goods fell 2.8% after declining 9.4% in June. Around the world, stock indices are lower everywhere from Tokyo to New Delhi to Berlin and London. France is being ravaged, with the CAC-40 off more than 1.25%. Stock futures in the U.S. are dropping a half hour before the open. Gold and silver are bid, WTI crude oil is lower. Bitcoin continues to be sold off, dropping below $109,000 earlier Tuesday morning. From the looks of things, if Friday's rally was a last hurrah for stocks in a buy the rumor, sell the news kind of way, the remainder of this week could become very interesting.
At the Close, Monday, August 25, 2025
Sunday, August 24, 2025, 11:49 am ET Jerome Powell's keynote address at the annual Jackson Hole Economic Symposium set off waves of buying Friday as the Chairman of the Federal Reserve signaled a September rate cut. After keeping the federal funds target rate at 4.25-4.50% for eight months, Powell tap-danced through a myriad of economic assumptions and vague possibilities, eventually arriving at the conclusion that it was due time for the Federal Reserve to change interest rate policy, leaning dovishly toward lower rates, longer term. It wasn't so much that Powell, who will be replaced in May, capitulated to demands by President Trump for lower interest rates, but more that he saw the hand-writing on the soon-to-be-glistening new walls of the Eccles Building after two Trump appointees to the Federal Reserve voted their dissent last month to keeping rates on hold. Powell's assumption that risks to employment outweighed those to inflation is likely incorrect, given Trump's own dual mandates of deportations and tariffs are positive for employment and negative for inflation. Powell just limped through his address in order to please his actual bosses on Wall Street. The Chairman's message implied at least a 25 basis point cut in September - possibly 50 - with more cuts in November and December. As interest rate policy goes, lowering the federal funds rate always invites asset appreciation and just as certainly as night follows day, asset appreciation foments consumer price inflation. Adding a minimum 15% boost on imports, Americans are sure to see inflation reignited with the flame-thrower of tariffs. While Wall Street was overjoyed and politicians slobbering over their new-found gains, the average American consumer was suffering repeated bouts of sticker shock at every trip to the grocery store. Powell may like to believe that 2.7% is close enough to the Fed's Maginot line of two percent long term inflation to rationally lower interest rates, but he will be forever despised after leaving office when inflation reaches four or five percent or higher, next year, despite what the phony CPI calculations from the fudging data-crunchers at the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) might report. As the soap opera of Trump tariffs, deportations, and the government investing in private companies continues, America's middle class continues to shrink, all while the naked emperor in the White House praises Wall Street's success and increased flows to the U.S. Treasury, which benefit nobody other than the spendthrifts in congress and the overblown federal bureaucracy. For now, American consumers continue being beaten like rented mules via higher prices, a debased currency, and the propagandized mainstream media, all in the name of MAGA and the bumper-sticker rhetoric narrative that "we're number one" as the American Dream fades into the sunset of empire.
Friday's gains were good enough to lift the Dow Jones Industrial Average to a new record close along with the NYSE Composite and S&P 500. The NASDAQ made gains as well, but not enough to avoid a week that ended in the red, down a little more than 1/2 percent as the AI boom faced headwinds on valuation and capital expenditure concerns. On Friday, the Advance-Decline ratio, which has consistently hovered around zero for most of the year, registered 10:1. Only the worst of the worst lost ground as even stocks that are basically bad investments gained. Everything was up, putting it mildly. It's not that stocks are not massively overpriced, it's that Wall Street, by virtue of Powell's dovish position on interest rates, had a narrative with which it could run, luring more people into the casino to take up positions, while the insiders begin liquidating their own with considerable profits in days and weeks ahead. The one-day wonder of Friday's massive rally will be tested Monday and through the coming week to see if it has suitable legs. With the catalyst of earnings reports coming to a close, companies of substance reporting the week ahead are the following: Monday: (before open) Napco (NSSC); (after close) Semtech (SMTC) Tuesday: (before open) BMO (BMO), Scotiabank (BNS); (after close) Ooma (OOMA), Box (BOX) Wednesday: (before open) Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF), Kohl's (KSS), J.M. Smucker (SJM), Williams-Sonoma (WSM); (after close) Nvidia (NVDA), Crowdstrike (CRWD), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ); Urban Outfitters (URBN), Five Below (FIVE) Thursday: (before open) Dollar General (DG), Best Buy (BBY), Dick's Sporting Goods (DKS), Ollie's (OLLI), CIBC (CM), TB Bank (TD); (after close) Dell (DELL), Gap Inc. (GAP), Petco (WOOF), Ulta Beauty (ULTA), Marvell (MRVL), Affirm (AFRM) Friday: (before open) Alibaba (BABA), Frontline (FRO). Obviously, much of the focus will be on Nvidia after the close Wednesday, but retailers like Kohl's, Best Buy, Urban Outfitters, Gap, Dollar General, Dick's and others may offer better insight to tariff and inflation realities. The economic data calendar will be brisk, beginning Monday with July New Home Sales and the Dallas Fed's Manufacturing Index. Tuesday brings up July Durable Goods data, the Case-Shiller Home Price Index, Consumer Confidence, and the Richmond Fed. The EIA weekly report on crude and distillates appears Wednesday. On Thursday, weekly unemployment claims are released along with the monthly PCE calculations and the second estimate of second quarter GDP. Friday's PCE Index will be closely watched after Powell's claim that inflation is either "well-anchored" or not much of an issue. The University of Michigan's Consumer Confidence poll will conclude data drops for August as the final trading session Friday precedes the three-day Labor Day holiday with markets, banks, and many businesses closed Monday, September 1.
The yield curve, which has been partially inverted for the past six weeks and the better part of the past two years, is now inverted from 30-day bills out to 10-year notes, declining from 30-days out to 3-years, then reversing from thereon out to 30-year bonds with yields rising out to the longest maturities. Chairman Powell's Jackson Hole speech managed to drop yields significantly. Notes of 2-year through 10-year durations dropped anywhere from seven to nine basis points. Bond vigilantes will be out in force, though recent machinations by the U.S. Treasury continues to distort the fixed income market, which is usually less than transparent and is now operational by a grab-bag of foreign investors, primary dealers, and stablecoin issuers, which are clouding the picture in unique manners. Spreads:
2s-10s
Full Spectrum (30-days - 30-years)
WTI crude oil closed out the week at its highs, $63.77 in New York Friday afternoon, only because of the Jackson Hole speech by Fed Chair, Jerome Powell. Fundamental do not support much of any price increase anywhere in the world. Up from last Friday's $62.29, all of the gain made Friday to close out the week. It is unlikely to hold at that level since the actual "hike" by the Fed won't happen until mid September. Until then, it's all speculation and supply-demand driven. Crude has hovered between correction and bear market since the January 15 peak of $78.71, currently down 17%, still seeking lower levels. It is not going back there because it is not suject to tariffs and most people, after basic necessities like rent, mortgage payments, and food, cannot afford excessive fuel purchases. Besides, after Labor Day, which is a week from Monday, summertime vacation driving tails off significantly, so demand for gasoline will be down, reducing the need for crude. It's the one bright spot in an overall dismal situation, wherein the government receives all the benefits (money) from the tariffs and consumers pay via increased prices. It is grossly unfair to the American public. It's bad policy that will ultimately result in global chaos or depression. Gas prices have leveled off over the past month and remain near the low end, but were up a couple of cents to $3.14 on Sunday, as Gasbuddy.com reports. State-by-state numbers show California remaining at the top, at $4.53 per gallon a nickel higher, with Washington a nearby second, $4.38. Other than Kentucky ($2.94) there are no states north of the 42nd parallel and east of Iowa and Missouri under $3.00. west Virginia is lowest ($3.01), with the high end dominated by populous states, Illinois ($3.39), Ohio ($3.33), Michigan ($3.29),and (Pennsylvania ($3.27). In the Midwest, Kansas ($2.80) is the lowest, followed by Missouri and North Dakota ($2.86), Nebraska and Iowa, both $2.88. All of the South, from North Carolina to New Mexico, is sub-$3.00, with Oklahoma the lowest in the country, at $2.63. The Sunshine State checked in at $2.90, down a whopping 16 cents from last Sunday. Sub-$3.00 gas can be found in 20 states, two fewer than the prior week, exclusively concentrated in the South and Midwest.
This week: $114,536.60 Crypto is nothing more than slave money for the 21st century. Repackaged fiat in flashy technology, none of it has any intrinsic value of any kind. It cannot be seen, touched, mined, melted, torn, or altered in any physical manner. Crypto, and bitcoin in particular, is fully a figment of global imagination, hoarded by whales, who own 90% or more of the vacuous creations. It's understandable that stupid people would prefer vapor-money to physical gold and silver, though it needs to be pointed out that both of the precious metals - despite constant price suppression - have outperformed bitcoin year-to-date. Silver is up 35.29%; gold, up 29.44%; bitcoin, up 22.67%. These types are probably heavily into meme stocks, anime, and Pokemon as well. Curiously, while bitcoin did bounce about $5,000 on Friday, launching from a five-week low of $112,061 to $117,063 within minutes of Chairman Powell's lip-flapping at Jackson Hole, but has since retreated and continues to lag precious metals. Those looking for alternatives to depreciating fiat currency might begin looking elsewhere, outside the crypto-universe.
Gold:Silver Ratio: 86.75; last week: 88.95 Per COMEX continuous contracts:
Gold price 7/25: $3,338.50
Silver price 7/25: $38.33 If the Fed, the president and most of Wall Street insists on lowering interest rates, gold and silver will (should) soar. One can see the effect that the mere insinuation of lower rates did for precious metals on Friday. Thank you, Mr. Powell. The next levels to watch are obviously $40.00 for silver and $3,500 for gold. Since most of the Western economies are complete debt-service slaves to central banks, debasing their currencies as expeditiously as possible, the price of gold in fiat terms should be orders of magnitude higher in coming months and years. Stocks, money market funds, money in banks pale by comparison as measures of true wealth to precious metals, hard assets, and real estate. Nothing more needs to be said. The price appreciation of precious metals since the pandemic years has outpaced all other asset classes and their durability, portability, and use as media of exchange are unparalleled. Soon enough, and already underway is fraction silver in denominations of under an ounce. eBay sellers and online dealers are hawking 1/2, 1/4, and 1/10-ounce and gram-weight silver bars and coins because it's nearing a point that the average stacker can't afford multiples of one ounce coins or bars, as already happened with gold. One gram gold bars are now plentiful. One gram of silver is already worth more than $1 US, and that price is advancing. Countries with plentiful supplies of silver in reserve and in-ground - China, Peru, Mexico, Argentina - may soon consider issuance of silver coinage as currency, as fiat currencies begin to fail globally. It's not as far-fetched an idea as some may want to believe. Hugo Salinas Price, owner of the second largest gold mine and silver mines in the state of Durango, Mexico, has long advocated for a return to silver coinage. 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) rose modestly for the week, albeit to a new record high since Money Daily began recording in 2021, of $46.70, a gain of $0.62 from the August 17 price of $46.08 per troy ounce.
Brace for impact! Inflation is coming back. No wonder people in Gaza are starving.
For the Week:
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