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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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Friday, September 13, 2024, 9:12 am ET The Federal Reserve is - by most accounts - planning to lower the federal funds target rate by either 25 or 50 basis points (0.25% or 0.50%) next Wednesday after holding the rate steady at 5.25-5.50% for over a year. Even though the August CPI and PPI reports released this week came from the flawed workspace of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), they did reveal slight, albeit measurable, increases in the core rate of inflation, indicating that the Fed has spent the better part of the last 2 1/2 years floundering about and has not completed its task of bringing inflation down to their nebulous two percent target. Matter of fact is that inflation is still increasing, prices are still rising. Even though the rate of increase has slowed, that is not nearly enough to ease the burden on Americans. What's needed is actual disinflation or outright deflation. No matter the case, the Fed appears to be intent on lowering interest rates as it now apparently senses trouble in the labor market and Chairman Powell might have found some "stag" and "flation" while rummaging around the Eccles Building. This won't be the first time the Fed has committed a policy error, but it may be their most egregious. While there may be some disruptions in the labor market, unemployment is still historically very low. The stock market's major indices are close to all time highs, treasuries are dis-inverting and have rallied recently, and, beyond anything else, the federal funds target rate of 5.25-5.50% is not historically high by any stretch of the imagination. But, Wall Street insists, so the Fed complies. And, lest we forget, there's an election in just 53 days. Early voting starts 29 days before Election Day in California and Ohio, 40 days before Election Day in Illinois, 45 days before Election Day in Vermont and Virginia, 46 days before Election Day in Minnesota and South Dakota. Many other states offer early voting anywhere from 10 to 28 days before Election Day, which is November 5. People will being voting in some states in about a week. It's a delusional process with mail-in voting the process du jour, so the Fed can't allow any kind of crisis, like a stock market pull-back, until all the votes are counted (sometime in early December?). Many of what Wall Street refers to as "analysts" are on board with cutting rats at this juncture. Many more have been calling for the Fed to cut sooner, some as far back as 2023. Most of these people have never studied economics and are bought and paid by their employers, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Bank of America, et.al., so, their views are clouded by the conflicting interest of stocks always going higher. Some more sane people out in cyberspace don't think the Fed should cut now, many of them actually believe the Fed never raised rates high enough to begin with to counter inflation or think they should be raising rates still. Of course, those people, most of whom do understand economics, are criticized, shunned, or banned by the propagandist media. Of those sidelined realists, many are of the opinion that the inflation that's occurred since 2021 has been caused by government policies and the rapid increase in the money supply during Covid. The Fed has managed to reduce its balance sheet somewhat, from nearly $9 trillion in 2022 to just over $7 trillion today, and that has helped, but together with the U.S. treasury running $2 trillion deficits, that has had minimal effect. It's arguable that had the Fed cut its balance sheet down my $3 or $4 trillion, the government would have just run a higher deficit to compensate. Comparisons to the late 1970s and early 1980s, when Paul Volker battled a double dose of inflation because his initial effert fell short and was ended too soon, are valid. The Fed's dual mandate of full employment and stable prices isn't being met on either front, though one might say employment is doing OK, while prices increasing at more than 2.5% annually doesn't quite fit the description of "stable". In six months, as the Fed cuts rates back even more, we'll begin to see the effects of their policy. It's a safe bet that inflation - even as measured by the fraudulent CPI - will be less than two percent. It's more likely to be around four percent, possibly higher. What the stock markets might do is anybody's guess, though the betting is on stocks going higher, as usual. Policy mistakes might be intended rather than accidental, and the Fed, no matter what they say on the matter, is politically-motivated. At the same time, gold, the ultimate hedge against inflation and everything else is signaling trouble. With its 33rd new high this year alone, hitting $2,598 overnight (silver, $30.50) on the COMEX continuous contract, the ultimate store of value is saying that the dollar will continue to be debased and consumers will be struggling to pay bills even more in 2025 than they are now. Other elements come into play, like the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, China policy, and general economic decline worldwide, but, in the end, the polices the Fed has pursued the past 25 years have been massively inflationary and the world's leading central banks appear either unable or unwilling to stem the demise of their own currencies. Overnight, 33,000 unionized workers at Boeing rejected the company's contract offer, which included a 25% wage increase. Boeing workers really know how to time their strikes to coincide with catastrophic economic events. Their last strike, ironically, was on September 7, 2008. Another irony is that Boeing stock rose five percent on Monday, when the contract offer was announced. Excuse the cynicism, but that seems to have been just another pump-and-dump maneuver. Boeing is basically a bankrupt company, kept alive by ridiculously-priced government contracts. ZeroHedge gets the award for Zinger X Post of the Day:
What else needs to be said? Oh, that's right, it's Friday the 13th. Rub something, like a rabbit's foot.
At the Close, Thursday, September 12, 2024:
Thursday, September 12, 2024, 9:00 am ET If Joe Biden was tracking Wednesday's market action, he might exclaim that it's "malarkey", given how battered stocks were in early trading after the August CPI report showed core inflation rising, not falling, as many hoped or expected. Just after 10:00 am ET, Nvidia CEO, Jensen Huang, speaking at a conference held by ever-trusty Goldman Sachs, said demand for Nvidia's high-tech products is "so great" its customers are "tense." Whatever that meant, a buying frenzy materialized, with word spreading fast across the Wall Street complex, sending shares of the AI chip-maker zooming ahead by eight percent by day's end and carrying the rest of the market with it.
At right are charts for NVDA, NASDAQ, and the S&P 500 on Wednesday. Notice any similarities? Pure MALARKEY. Plain and simple. Ruled by algorithms and 0DTE options, US equity markets are, like so many other aspects of America in the 21st century, a complete travesty. Once momentum begins, sparked by whatever useless nonsense emanates from CEOs, top analysts, or government operatives touting guesstimated and woefully inadequate economic data, herd mentality sets in and Wall Street traders make fortunes overnight. It's sickening to the point of projectile-vomit-inducing and not at all constructive in any realistic sense. Stocks are overvalued by orders of magnitude. Nvidia, for instance, pays a dividend yielding 0.03% and carries a P/E above 50, meaning it would take 50 years of earnings to recoup an investment in the company. There are far better bargains out there, like canned green beans, or maybe baseball cards. Then there's the oil complex, characterized by WTI futures, which are traded virtually around the clock by people nobody cares to know. Lately, oil has been getting hammered, despite continuing drawdowns of oil supply, counteracted by rapidly softening demand. On Wednesday, however, big oil rigs were shutting down in advance of Hurricane Francine, a category 1 storm, characterized as "menacing", and "high end". (Forget pronouns; adjectives are the new normal now.). Francine made landfall mid-afternoon, packing winds of 64 MPH. Whoo! Scary! New Orleans residents were out in the streets getting free showers. More hype. More malarkey. WTI crude futures advanced by more than two percent on the day, which, if one was positioned correctly, resulted in a lot of quick cash. And that's what U.S. and many international markets are all about. The quick buck. The smart trade. Fundamentals only matter when earnings reports are made public. Otherwise, it's all guesswork, laying your bets, and pitching your book. It is not investing, nor is it sustainable. Eventually, probably in the days after the Fed hikes the federal funds rate a whopping 25 basis points next Wednesday, some reality might set in for a few days before the next over-weighted, off-the-cuff, event or remark out of the blue. Besides, we're in the heart of election season, meaning nothing really matters until the votes are counted on November 5, or 6, or the following week. It's not easy being an unpaid financial analyst, especially given the circumstances presented by the propagandized political media and heavy doses of Wall Street stock cheerleading. Two things to keep in mind: Orange man Bad. Stocks go up.
While on the subject of manipulation, fraud, open deceit, and blatant lying, consider anybody who talks about bitcoin being about to break out to new highs to be not your friend but rather somebody working to retain his (Michael Saylor) or her (Cathie Wood) investment. Since bitcoin's magical "halving" around March/April of this year, the price of bitcoin soared to a high of $73,096 on March 13. Since then, the world's most prominent cryptocurrency has recorded a series of lower highs and lower lows. Even the most amateur chartist can spot the obvious pattern that's developed in typical Wall Street pump-and-dump fashion. Let's just look at the lows, because they're the most important element.
Recent bitcoin lows: It's easy to see each subsequent low is occurring at a faster pace - roughly monthly - though the declines are not as extreme as the first two ($11,000 and $3,600). This is known in certain criminal circles as letting the rubes down easy. So as not to spark a panic - and to get their funds out reasonably intact after re-pumping - the ETF manipulators are just pulling the levers and spinning the dials slowly, but the result is an inexorable decline to bitcoin's long term support between $16,000 and $25,000. Once it gets down to those levels again - and it will - it will languish there for months, maybe years, until the next hype-fest declaring bitcoin to be the elemental currency which cannot be broken. Of course, as bitcoin cascades lower, whales and Wall Street sharpies will be selling while telling unsuspecting customers that it's a buying opportunity. It happens all the time, everywhere, with stocks, bonds, commodities, etc. There's another four year before the next halving, affording the gamers in the system to bounce the asset around, make all kinds of claims about it going to $100,000 or a million or more, suck in more suckers and fleece them again. Wash, rinse, repeat. Oldest game in the book. What the halving does is reduce the block reward to miners by 50%, theoretically reducing available supply, i.e., creating scarcity. The problem with that, besides miners having to invest in more expensive and faster computers that devour more energy, is that bitcoin has not, and probably never will be, widely adopted, except in places like Nigeria or El Salvador or the Republic of the Congo, with associated disastrous effects. In the U.S., EU, England, and other countries, bitcoin is either banned or heavily regulated and taxed, making it not the anonymous peer-to-peer master currency that was promised to replace fiat, but simply another Wall Street-controlled, government sanctioned long-term skimming operation. Just look at the IRS 1040 form [PDF]. Right after Filing Status, there's a two-line section called "Digital Assets", with the question: At any time during 2023, did you: (a) receive (as a reward, award, or payment for property or services); or (b) sell, exchange, or otherwise dispose of a digital asset (or a financial interest in a digital asset)? Yes or No are your only choices. Thus, the government is telling you right up front that they want to know and track all of your activity in the cryptoverse. And, they want to know about any and all digital assets (thousand of them) you buy or sell. Um, sorry, no thanks. So, what do you get for investing in bitcoin? Losses, taxes, and surveillance. You'd have to be a complete moron to put any money into any crypto and expect a positive outcome. Fortunately for the government and high finance folks in lower Manhattan, there are hordes of morons with plenty of cash on their hands that they can keep fleecing and skimming from for many years to come. Bitcoin will eventually fail, though failing is a subjective term. In many ways, it has already failed, and continues to fail. The point today is that no asset class is immune from the prying eyes and grubby hands of government and the financial plumbers. Meanwhile, insidious inflation eats away at your prosperity, every minute of every day. Even gold, silver, platinum, and palladium, aka, precious metals, are subject to IRS reporting requirements, though for most people it involves only capital gains when selling such, not when buying. Also, many states have eased laws, restrictions, and regulations on precious metals. Thus, if you only want to hoard precious metals as insurance against currency debasement or other cataclysmic events, you're good to go. It's when gold hits $8,000 or $10,000 an ounce or silver someday breaks above $30 and heads toward the stratosphere that you're required to report. A reading of the tax codes and laws is advised, because when precious metals become very valuable, when the dollar, yen, euro, pound and other fiat currencies crash, the authorities (or what remnants of them there are) will come looking for that gold or silver that you claim was lost in a tragic boating accident. Bear in mind that holding or acquiring gold was illegal in the United States from 1993 through 1974, made illegal by FDR's Executive Order 6102 and ownership restored to legal status by President Gerald R. Ford, via Executive Order 11825. So, technically, it was only by presidential fiat that owning gold was made illegal and then legal, not a law passed by congress. Governments, what a fun bunch! Cash, gold, silver and other hard assets (art, comic books, baseball cards) are protection against government theft of your wealth. Guard them with the utmost care. For the rest of you muppets, just remember to keep piling your dough into that 401k basket full of stocks and hope that the day of reckoning on the government's soon-to-be $36 trillion in unsecured debt doesn't come too soon. As a public service Money Daily repeats its fair warning: be very careful from now until the election and likely for a few weeks after that. Weird things are almost certain to occur. ****** Thursday morning, the BLS reported August PPi rising 0.2% month-over-month, with core PPI up 0.3%, both above expectations. Sure, go ahead, FOMC, lower interest rates with inflation re-accelerating.
At the close, Wednesday, September 11, 2024:
Wednesday, September 11, 2024, 9:30 am ET Trump lost the debate and CPI ticked lower in August. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased 2.5% over the prior year in August, a deceleration compared to July's 2.9% annual gain in prices and the lowest annual rate since early 2021. For some reason, unbeknownst to anybody except maybe the dome-heads at the Federal Reserve, initial response to the CPI report was negative. Stock futures sank. Gold and silver sold off. Maybe it's this:
On a "core" basis, which strips out the more volatile costs of food and gas, prices in August climbed 0.3% over the prior month and 3.2% over last year. Core prices rose 0.2% month over month and 3.2% on an annual basis in July. Or, it just could be that conditions are so perfectly "Goldilocks" that the Fed is more likely to only cut 25 basis points rather than Wall Street's preferred 50 basis points. It's just never enough for the purveyors of digital scrip priced in fiat dollars created out of thin air. By 9:00 am ET, a half hour after the CPI figures were released and before the market was to open, stock futures reversed course and were heading higher. Same with gold. Silver was even sporting a gain. By most accounts, Trump lost the debate. Harris won. Trump's message was the same one he's been campaigning on: we're losing the country, thanks to the policies of Biden-Harris. Meanwhile, Kamala Harris was smiling, smirking, and baiting Trump, calling for a revival, a rebirth, a country and an economy of "opportunity." The underlying message is clear: People don't want to hear that the country is going down the drain, even if it is. They'd rather hear a message of hope and change (heard that one before), even though the current conditions were caused by the person who for three-and-a-half years was responsible for much of the damage. In market terms, perhaps John Maynard Keynes said it best: "Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent." At this juncture, stocks are probably headed for new all-time highs, or another gut-wrenching correction, or both, as the dollar continues to weaken to support inflationist policies from congress and the Fed. Conspiracy theorists who contend that everything - from football games to politics to markets - is rigged may be on to something.
At the Close, Tuesday, September 10, 2024:
Tuesday, September 10, 2024, 8:40 am ET Who knew a dead cat could bounce so high, or that buying the dip was still fashionable, even after Labor Day? Assuming that traders may be breaking with tradition and still wearing white, following up Monday's gallop higher might be more than their portfolios can handle. After all, there's no denying the reality of slippage in the labor market or the fallout in the tech sector, not to mention the NASDAQ and S&P settling between their 50 and 200-day moving averages. The love affair with all things AI seems to be souring. Heavy investment in super-fast chips by mega-cap companies like Alphabet (GOOG), Apple (AAPL), and Microsoft (MSFT) and others has resulted in raising the price of their shares but little else. Tangible developments from AI, chatbots, and search have been negligible and investors are wondering whether all the hype and money spent on the most recent technological advancement is worth it. While AI and tools developed from it have given the tech giants more power - at a higher energy cost - enhancing their ability to spy, track, and anticipate the behavior of consumers won't translate into higher profits if people are tapped out and still wary of inflation. All the metrics concerning consumer finances seem to be pointing in the same direction. After more than two years of sticker shock at grocery stores, gas stations, and auto dealerships, the so-called middle class has been shrunk down to a sliver of what it was formerly. Only the massive spending spree at the federal level and stock buybacks have kept the money spigots open, but, with congress already wrangling over the next round of spending for fiscal year 2025, it is no wonder that Wall Street is pining for rate cuts, and either a bigger one (0.50%) at the start or a series of cuts to bring lending rates back down to levels at which companies can fund their own profligate manners. There isn't much doubt about who was doing the buying on Monday, just as those doing the selling over the past few weeks was no surprise. Hedge funds, and the biggest holding companies - Blackrock, Vanguard, Berkshire-Hathaway - have been net sellers. Monday's bump was just a little bottom-fishing for the true adventurists. While Monday's session put a smile on some faces, the fact of the matter is that stocks seem serially overvalued and overdue for a clubbing. The question of why stocks have been under pressure of late needs asking, especially on illogical days like Monday. Whether the FOMC meeting next week produces a 25 or 50 basis point cut in the federal funds rate is somewhat meaningless near term. The few beneficiaries would likely be confined to stock market investors, many of whom are already fully positioned, having priced in the rate cuts. Fed actions in the rate environment take time to manifest into the real world, with lag times of six months the standard assumption. Consumers won't see much easing of prices, if any, since cutting rates is essentially designed to spur economic activity and hiring. The likelihood of inflation returning increases, though it's hard to imagine prices going even higher than they presently are in the midst of a recession, which is also overdue. It's possible that the fed has waited too long to cut or actually hasn't actually slayed the inflation dragon, complicating the argument. Disinflationary forces are also in play, especially when it comes to oil, which continues to drag. Even a storm in the Gulf of Mexico isn't enough to scare prices higher. There's a noticeable lack of demand, and that concerns anybody and everybody engaged in risk assets. The presidential debate is Tuesday night. August CPI appears Wednesday morning before the opening bell. There's a very good chance that Tuesday's session will be more treading water than a continuation of the nascent rally that sprung to life out of nowhere. Tonight's debate may change everything. Unless Kamala Harris can convince Americans that she's a serious candidate and not just a reluctant choice of desperate Democrats, the tide will turn strongly in Donald Trump's direction, taking much of the drama over November 5 out of the political equation and shifting it over to House and Senate races. Naturally, one has to be ready for surprises, and it's not even October.
At the Close, Monday, September 9, 2024:
Sunday, September 8, 2024, 12:26 pm ET With the presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump scheduled for Tuesday night, the first two days of the week ahead may be some degree calmer than what was experienced the first week of September. After Tuesday night, however, all bets and gloves are off, as markets attempt to deal with the bare knuckle politics of a likely presidential shift to Trump. More focus by the media will be directed at House and Senate races, the "balance of power" becoming the latest catchphrase as early voting begins in various states. Of course, the balance of power argument is just as fake and phony as the Covid scam and the rest of the misinformation fed to the public by the mainstream media on a regular basis. There's a uni-party in Washington, and little to nothing - voting be damned - is going to disrupt that structure. Therefore, as the election comes closer, wild happenings in finance, politics, and society are the only things certain.
The degree of distrust in markets could not have been more pronounced than it was this week. Volume was higher than normal, especially Tuesday and Friday, the sessions in which the indices fell the most. For the week, the S&P 500 lost 4.25% and the Dow fell 2.93%. Both were the largest weekly percentage losses since March 2023, amid the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. The Nasdaq declined 5.77% for the week, which was the greatest weekly percentage loss since January 2022. The S&P 500 index's 11 sectors were all lower, with the biggest drops in communication services, information technology and consumer discretionary. So-called Big Tech stocks were pummeled, as shares of mega-cap companies including Nvidia Corp, Tesla Inc. and Google parent Alphabet Inc. continued to slide. Nvidia (NVDA) is down nearly 25% since its high of 135.58 in June. Alphabet (GOOG) is down 21% and Tesla is off 20% since July 10th. At the end of the week, the Dow was up 6.97% year-to-date; the NASDAQ, 13.04%; S&P 500:, 14.03%. Equity faithful would have been better off holding bitcoin (+22.67%), gold (+21.76%), or silver (+17.66%) with a lot less stress and probably better future outlook. Looking ahead, the economic calendar is highlighted by the August CPI report Wednesday, August PPI report and government budget Thursday, and the University of Michigan consumer survey Friday. The earnings calendar is very light, with Oracle (ORCL) on Monday, and Kroger (KR), and Adobe (ADBE) on Thursday. CPI, PPI, and the debate (Tuesday night) are likely to be the most impactful. CPI and PPI are likely to come in rather tame, fueling some calls for a 50 basis point cut, but the debate overrides everything going forward.
The 2s/10s Treasury yield curve dis-inverted on Friday, marking the end of a 546-session stretch where the bond market was turned on its head, according to Dow Jones Market Data, though other analysts have noted dis-inversion for very short time spans - usually intra-day - in the precent past. The yield curve at the most impactful level dis-inverted (normalized) for the first time in over two years, as two-year notes dropped an astonishing 25 basis points, yielding 3.66% while the yield on the 10-year fell 19 basis points, to 3.72% At the most basic level, this means that stocks and other risk assets, such as bitcoin and all other crypto are being sold, funds flowing into fixed-income vehicles such as treasuries, and at all maturities. Even 30-day bills fell 13 basis points in anticipation of a series of cuts to the federal funds target rate. At the extreme, the full spectrum spread from 30-days out to 30-years remained somewhat elevated at -125, though, with a federal funds target rate easing almost certain to be announced at the upcoming FOMC meeting September 17-18, that is also almost certain to be followed in short order by more cuts, sending the overnight rate down to a range of 4.00-4.25 from the current 5.25.-5.50%, likely within six months, if not sooner. The current debate has moved from not whether the Fed will cut - it will - but by how much. Ongoing expectations are highly favorable toward 25 basis points, with some stalwart enthusiasts of free money calling for 50 basis points and a full one percent by year's end, with further cuts anticipated at the November and December meetings. Present yields are at their lowest levels since the Fed paused their hiking regime last July and are likely to fall further in the months ahead and into 2025. The Fed is trapped, playing a losing hand, as they attempt to thread the needle between keeping the stock market elevated and the U.S. economy out of recession and losing control of the currency. There's a good possibility that they will fail in both regards because the currency as a store of value is already toast, and soon to become burnt toast. As for the stock market, it's wildly overvalued and due for a crisis crash, along with the economy, which is simply over-hyped and characterized by false and misleading government economic indicators such as GDP, CPI, PPI, and the unemployment rate. Better gauges of economic vitality are to be found in manufacturing and services PMI (Purchasing Manager's Index) and ISM (Institute for Supply Management), both of which have cratered in recent months and are screaming contraction and recession. With the presidential debate slated for Tuesday, it couldn't be more clear where the economy is headed: straight off a cliff, as Kamala Harris will prove no match for Donald Trump's articulation skills. Unless the election is stolen (again), Trump will be elected president in a landslide, the debate likely shifting the absurd national polling from a slight edge for Kamala to an overwhelming advantage for Trump. The rigged economy will be a basketful of pain, dumped directly on Donald Trump's lap. Democrats, in their overtly partisan manner, will attempt to derail his presidency and any plans he may have for repairing the damage done by four years of insane Biden/Harris policy. That's just the way American politics rolls these days. Spreads:
2s-10s
Full Spectrum (30-days - 30-years) Oil/Gas The price of WTI crude oil absolutely collapsed this week, as has long been expected, closing Friday in New York at $68.16, down from $73.65 the prior Friday, a mammoth drop of $5.59 and now at an 18-month low (March, 2023). The price fell to as low as $67.17 on Friday and found strength only though shorts covering their bets heading into the unknown of the weekend. Expectations for $100 oil touted by the serial liar analysts at Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan never materialized and are unlikely to do so any time soon, unless the powers that rule financial markets continue to attempt to break the laws of physics and economics simultaneously. On one hand, lower oil prices mean lower prices for gas at the pump, home heating, and just about everything else. On the other, lower oil also signifies deteriorating economic conditions. Prepare to shift thinking from inflation and fear to recession, a Greater Depression and even more fear, though longer term, lower oil prices, when coupled with reasonable government policies (the missing element for most of the past 30 years), spurs economic growth. Gasbuddy.com reports the national average for a gallon of unleaded regular gas at the pump at $3.24 a gallon, down another seven cents from last week and the lowest national average price since February, 2023. Yes, there's an election in less than two months. California remains the highest in the U.S. at $4.64 a gallon, amazingly up four cents from last week. The Golden State is home to absurdities at every turn. Pennsylvania prices were down five cents, to $3.42, with the Keystone State remaining the price leader in the Northeast because Kamala needs them to frack and needs the votes. New York, at $3.39 is closing the gap, with prices on Long Island and around NYC much higher than upstate. Other Northeast states saw more significant declines over the course of the past week, with Connecticut down nine cents ($3.26), Massachusetts ($3.25) off another six cents, and Maryland prices falling six more cents to $3.19 per gallon. Prices in the Midwest continue to decline, with Illinois down sharply this week, just above $4.00 five weeks ago to $3.53 on Sunday, down from $3.64 a week ago. Oklahoma took the low price spot in the country this week a penny below Mississippi, at $2.74 per gallon, joined under $3.00 by a slew of Southern states, including Texas ($2.81), Mississippi ($2.75), Louisiana ($2.79), Alabama ($2.81), Tennessee ($2.80), Arkansas ($2.88) and South Carolina ($2.83). Georgia ($3.04) and Florida ($3.14) both were down sharply for the week. The Midwest ranges between lows in Kansas ($2.98) and Missouri (2.97), to highs of $3.22 in Michigan and $3.27 in Indiana, almost all others in a range between $3.05 and $3.20. Arizona, at $3.41, remained below $4.00 for an 18th straight week, leaving only California and Washington ($4.12) above the $4.00 level. Oregon is at $3.71 and Nevada at $3.93. Utah ($3.54) and Idaho ($3.56) continue to stabilize at elevated levels but are well off summer highs.
This week: $54,398.87 Bitcoin remains in a long-term downtrend. It should, because it's fake. It has no backing in hard assets or reality other than blind faith, similar to any ordinary fiat currency, like dollars, euros, yen, yuan, etc. Year-to-date, bitcoin is up 23%, a far cry from the 40+% gains from March, April, and May. At this juncture,
Gold:Silver Ratio: 89.38; last week: 86.70 Per COMEX continuous contracts:
Gold price 8/9: $2,470.60
Silver price 8/9: $27.54 Gold was marginally lower for the week, with silver getting smacked silly again, boosting the gold:silver ratio towards the Maginot line of 90. A rough rule of thumb promoted by renowned gold and silver analyst, Mike Maloney, is to buy silver when the ratio is higher than 90, buy both when the range is between 75 and 90, and gold when it is below 75. That's roughly speaking. Adjustments can be made according to one's own preference and allocations. So far, it's been a solid year for precious metals and the future looks equally shining. 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 on the week, rising to $39.38, a gain of 97 cents from the August 25 price of $38.41 per troy ounce.
In case people need direction, it's pretty simple. Stocks are not where one should want to be over the next few months, or, for that matter, even longer term. Gold is outpacing everything, indicating nothing less than complete and utter debasing of the currency. So, if your asset allocation is in stocks, bonds, or any kind of paper or crypto, inflation has been responsible for most of the recent gains, your investments not nearly as wonderful as Wall Street would have you believe. Cash, which is becoming kingly again should a deep recession occur, can be readily exchanged for gold, or gentlemen's preference, silver. Precious metals are still cheap because the dollar still has about two percent of its purchasing power left, but it's not going to last much longer unless radical changes commence.
For the Week:
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