Ever wondered what the yield curve’s favorite song is? Neither have I, but I bet in July it was Britney Spears’ hit, Oops, I Did It Again, as the yield curve inverted again last month, for the second time in 2022. It means that long-term rates fell below those on shorter-dated bonds.
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Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the technical recession! According to the initial measure of the Bureau of Economic Analysis, real GDP dropped 0.9% in the second quarter, following a 1.6% decline in the first quarter
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Zimbabwe has begun issuing 1oz (22-carat) gold coins as legal tender to be cashed in, used for trade, transactions, and as a security for loans. 1,500 coins were released on 25 July), and there are a further 2,000 in the pipeline.
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If you had to pick 3 things that drive the gold price many would say inflation hedge, safe haven in economic turmoil, and war. As we sit here today, 3 August 2022, the headlines are screaming all 3.
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Stanford Economics professor says that the Fed will neither stop raising interest rates nor limit rate hikes to just one or two more. Instead, he thinks the Fed needs to jack up interest rates to 9%, possibly higher, to truly deal with inflation.
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With last week’s second 75 basis-point rate hike, the Federal Reserve now claims it has achieved a “neutral” monetary policy stance. That would mean, in theory, that interest rates are neither stimulating nor restraining the economy.
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The World Gold Council’s quarterly Demand Trends report for Q2 2022 have just been released and as usual we summarise for you. Overall despite Q2 weakness, strong first quarter ETF inflows fuelled a notable H1 recovery.
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It’s Official: Unemployment Claims Are on the Rise. We keep hearing the job market is proof of our economy’s strength, but labor force participation is at a near-50-year low and unemployment claims are actually on the rise.
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Support for aggressive tightening has strengthened within the FOMC. Indeed, the current tightening cycle is much steeper than the two previous ones, in which the Fed usually raised interest rates in 25-basis point moves, as the chart below shows.
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Gold investors shouldn’t look forward to a reversal in the Federal Reserve’s tightening policies because a flip-flopping Fed would create the kinds of economic instability that not even the biggest gold investors would appreciate.
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In what feels very much like a ‘here we go again’ moment, the market was looking for any cue that the Fed will soon pause or pivot signalling a return to easy money. And so, whilst raising rates a whopping 75bps, the first sentence of the statement delivered…
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Good news, says a sizable chorus of observers: Peak inflation finally has arrived. We can count President Biden among those who are singing that tune. But does a moderation in fuel prices signal that peak inflation has been realized?
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An economic hurricane is coming. Brace yourselves! This is at least what Jamie Dimon suggested last month. To be precise, he said: “Right now, it’s kind of sunny. Everyone thinks the Fed can handle this. That hurricane is right out there down the road, coming our way.
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S&P Global Market Intelligence just released both their Euro and US PMI’s and at the time that both central banks are tightening monetary policy, both of two of the worlds largest economies are showing clear signs of heading into a recession.
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The dollar rose this week, from 17.87mg gold to 18.24mg (that’s “gold fell from $1,740 to $1,705” in DollarSpeak), a gain of 2.1%. In silver terms, it rose from 1.61g to 1.67g (in DollarSpeak, “silver dropped from $19.24 to $18.64), or 3.7%.
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We’re hearing an increasing number of warnings that a stagflationary event could not only materialize, but persist for an entire decade. I don’t want to believe it. Even so, it’s starting to look like a certainty. The latest 9.1% inflation reading hit the financial markets hard.
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The Bank for International Settlements (BIS), also known as the “central bank of central banks,” recently released a survey which states that at least 81 central banks around the world have been accelerating plans to release their own cryptocurrencies.
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The hangover is coming. The best cure is – except for the broth – gold. 75 basis points! This is how much the FOMC raised interest rates in June. As the chart below shows, it was the biggest hike in the federal funds rate since the 1990s.
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Given that not a single banker went to jail in the aftermath of the GFC, any actual time behind bars for the JP Morgan trio of Michael Nowak, Gregg Smith and Jeffrey Ruffo would send a powerful message to major commercials with heavy paper shorts on the COMEX.
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Bloomberg recently did a fairly comprehensive report on insider trading of precious metals by traders (most notoriously) at JPMorgan, and other large banks as well. JPMorgan pled guilty in 2019 and paid over $920 million to settle charges…
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“When will the US Fed pause or reverse and ease rates?” is quite simply most important question in global finance. This question is not simply one of US interest rate impacts, US inflation or US financial markets plunging off the back of all that liquidity being removed.
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March of this year, Merryll Lynch disclosed an investment thesis called FAANG 2.0. It’s a fascinating idea and gold plays a prominent role. Why is gold considered a safe-haven asset? The answer is simple but profound.
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After going essentially straight up for more than a year, the Dollar Index chart is now looking extremely overbought. The Federal Reserve note may be due for a retracement against its foreign counterparts. That will likely spark a rally in metals markets.
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Any discussion of gold’s price action must inevitably look at what’s happening in China, easily the worlds largest buyer of the precious metal. The softness of the metals price of late has many scratching their heads amid rampant inflation and a war.
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The bears awoke from their winter sleep and took control of Wall Street. However, they haven’t conquered the gold market yet! It’s official: there is a bear market in equities! We can firmly state that bears took control of Wall Street for the first time since the pandemic crash.
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Households Sacrifice Retirement Contributions to meet Cost of Living Increases. As inflation has forced Americans to slash retirement plan contributions, trillions of dollars have been wiped from 401(k)s and IRAs.
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Something has happened which has not occurred since 2009. The silver basis—our measure of abundance of the metal to the market—has gone way under the gold basis. This means silver is less abundant to the market than gold.
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New technology has shown billions of dollars worth of gold perfectly preserved on the floor of the Caribbean Sea. Some experts believe there to be at least 200 tonnes of gold, silver and emeralds in the legendary San Jose galleon shipwreck
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