May 31, 2017

We Have A Reverse Bubble In Gold

Big banks simply pursue their own self-interest and certainly Wall Street does not want the price of gold going up they want the price of stocks going up, they want the price of bonds going up that's where they generate all their fees so they have a vested interest in being negative gold. 

But it's also a kind of a self-perpetuating prophecy if they keep selling into the rallies and you have so much gold that trades in paper markets where it's not real, you have people buying gold from people who don't even have it and they're selling gold they don't own to people who don't want it but you have this huge paper market and there's a lot of selling pressure there. 

But I think ultimately the price of gold is going way up and the fact that maybe it's suppressed maybe it's intentional maybe it's just a result of people pursuing what they think is right but all bubbles are like that. You had bubbles in the dot-coms, you had bubbles in the housing market. 

This is almost like a reverse bubble in gold. We have a bubble in fiat currencies, we have a bubble in the US Dollar and when that bubble pops, those currencies are going to crash and you're going to see the collapse in the price of gold because the price of gold rising will be the collapse of the fiat currencies.

May 30, 2017

Trump: Tariffs On German Cars?

If they're going to slap tariffs on cars made by Germans it's because the government is trying to say we want a different outcome than the outcome that the free market is determining. In the free market Americans are choosing to buy these German cars, we don't want them to make that choice we want to alter the free market by artificially raising the cost of buying a German car relative to the cost of buying a different car. And now we have a different outcome not the outcome that would be determined by the free market but the outcome that is determined as a result of government intervention. (General Motors (GM), Ford (F), Tesla Motors (TSLA), BMW)

Markets: US Dollar, Gold and Interest Rates

If the Federal Reserve doesn't raise interest rates in June it is going to shock the markets. In fact I think the US Dollar is poised to decline even if the Federal Reserve raises interest rates. I think gold (SPDR Gold Trust ETF (GLD)) is poised to rise even if the Federal Reserve raises interest rates but if it doesn't obviously those moves will be even bigger because the markets are completely prepared for a another hike.

May 29, 2017

U.S. Economy: Recent Weakness Likely To Persist

The economic data that has come out recently including this week has been pretty bad on balance in fact the data that we're getting confirms to me that rather than being transitory the weakness in the first quarter is likely to continue.

May 24, 2017

Markets: Gold, Silver, US Stocks

So far in 2017 the S&P 500 Index (SPDR S&P 500 Index ETF (SPY)) is up just under 7 percent but the price of gold (SPDR Gold Trust ETF (GLD)) and silver (iShares Silver ETF (SLV)) are up about 7.5%

Now despite the fact that both precious metals and the US stock market have performed about the same thus far in 2017, Americans are rushing to buy US stocks yet they're completely ignoring precious metals. This despite the fact that the Dow Jones Industrials (DJIA) or the S&P 500 Index (SPDR S&P 500 Index ETF (SPY)) is at an all-time record high and the valuations are clearly in bubbled territory. Yet when it comes to gold and silver even though they're doing well this year, gold prices are about 30 percent below their peak price in 2011 and silver is better than 60 percent below its peak price. 

So despite the fact that gold and silver are outperforming the S&P 500 Index (SPDR S&P 500 Index ETF (SPY)) this year they have a much further way to go to get back to their highs.

May 23, 2017

US Dollar: The Decline Has Just Begun

The US Dollar continues its losing streak. The US Dollar Index was down for the 8th time in nine days. The US Dollar Index actually traded below 97 for the first time since Donald Trump was elected President, so we have wiped out 100 percent of the ill-gotten dollar gains that were racked up in the wake of that victory. and if you remember when the dollar was rallying as a result of the Trump victory I said it was a sucker's rally that it was a head-fake rally and sure enough that's exactly what it was but the US Dollar decline has only just begun.

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