As you can see, the “civilian labor force” declined by 469,000 people in August from July. The number of “employed” dropped 423,000. The “not in labor force” increased by nearly 700,000. With these facts in mind (“facts” at least as far as the BLS numbers contain any shards of credibility), how can the Government claim that 201,000 “jobs were created” in August? Full Story
Gold and silver were thrashed this past summer, relentlessly pounded to deep new lows. That has fueled extreme bearishness, with traders convinced the precious metals’ fundamentals are rotten. But epic all-time-record futures short selling by speculators was the real culprit. These unprecedented shorts must soon be covered with proportional buying, which is super-bullish for gold and silver prices in the coming months. Full Story
Twenty-five percent tariffs on $200bln or 40% of China’s exports to the U.S. are due to go into effect today or shortly thereafter. There seems little doubt that the U.S. will proceed with these tariffs: the U.S.’ trade deficit with China hit a new record high in July. All that remains to be determined is how they will implement them and how will China respond? Full Story
By: Jordan Roy-Byrne CMT, MFTA - 7 September, 2018
The recent rally attempt of the gold stocks fizzled out as the December 2016 lows failed to hold. Now the miners are making new lows. As they pine for the next support they figure to be even more oversold as more bulls throw in the towel. These are the conditions needed to engender a significant counter-trend rebound. While we aren’t predicting it yet, look for a bullish reversal to begin sometime in the next few weeks. Full Story
By: Sound Money Defense League - 7 September, 2018
The battle to end taxation of constitutional money has reached the federal level as U.S. Representative Alex Mooney (R-WV) today introduced sound money legislation to remove all federal income taxation from gold and silver coins and bullion. Full Story
You’d think the previous decade’s housing bust would still be fresh in the minds of mortgage lenders, if no one else. But apparently not. One of the drivers of that bubble was the emergence of private label mortgage “originators” who, as the name implies, simply created mortgages and then sold them off to securitizes, who bundled them into the toxic bonds that nearly brought down the global financial system. Full Story
We are on the verge of recession. The Fed tightens and in the past it has never ended well. Yield curve is almost flat. When it inverses, it will be the end. All the bubbles will burst, pushing the global economy into another crisis. It will be more serious than all the previous cases, especially given that Trump will trigger a trade war or maybe even a conventional one. Full Story
I have spoken about this many times in the past, but the fact is that very few understand our financial markets. While no one is perfect when it comes to being able to identify turning points in the market, I think we all know that there has been a significant increase in that lack of perfection when it comes to the US stock market over the last three years. Full Story
Members of the American libertarian movement, particularly extremist preppers, are often associated with a belief that a complete breakdown in society is the only outcome from government economic policies and will lead to complete social disintegration. At the centre of their concerns is monetary destruction, with other issues, such as the erosion of personal freedom and the right to bear arms, important but peripheral. Full Story
President Donald Trump’s administration is playing a game of high-stakes international chess with Russia, Iran, Turkey, China, and other countries viewed as adversaries in trade and geopolitics. It’s not necessarily the case that tariffs, sanctions, and blustering will result in a hot war. More likely, escalating strife between the U.S. and a bloc of much more populous adversaries will push them to unite more closely to undermine and ultimately dethrone King Dollar. Full Story
Gold prices have fallen hard since April – under $1,200 as of September 5. When people are depressed about their investments, such as now with gold, it is wise to remember that everything changes, and highs follow lows which follow highs. Full Story
The information provided in the BIS' monthly statements is not sufficient to calculate a precise amount of gold-related derivatives, including swaps, but the bank's total estimated exposure as of August 31 was about 370 tonnes of gold, down 115 tonnes from the approximately 485 tonnes as of July 31. The bank's gold swaps and derivatives had increased by 17 percent from June through July. During this period the gold price fell by about $100 per ounce. Full Story
Many of our Readers have been asking about the recent traders’ position at the Comex. Because we care about investors, we decided to analyze the latest CoT report, which presents the gold futures positions. As a reminder, it is one of the most important publications about the U.S. futures market, including the precious metals market. Although it is issued on Friday with a three day lag, it is a valuable publication, which provides investors with a breakdown of open interest positions, showing the market sentiment. Full Story
This year, commodity prices have been under pressure from a strong U.S. dollar and trade war fears. This has made a huge dent in the balance sheet of many net exporters of resources, in turn weakening their currencies. However, commodities could be on the rebound and are flashing a massive buy signal. Full Story
As I have mentioned in prior articles, Elliott theorized that public sentiment and mass psychology move in 5 waves within a primary trend, and 3 waves within a counter-trend. Once a 5 wave move in public sentiment has completed, then it is time for the subconscious sentiment of the public to shift in the opposite direction, which is simply the natural cycle within the human psyche, and not the operative effect of some form of “news.” Full Story
The precious metals sector is now on a long-term sell signal, which is suitable for trading and not for long-term holding. Short term is on mixed signals. The cycle is down. COT data is at extreme levels, which suggests a recovery may have already begun. We are looking to exit our long-term positions upon a recovery rally. Full Story
Gold is a relic of the past. There is no interest from the millennials for gold. The cryptocurrencies are taking demand away from gold. Central banks have been selling gold over the last few years. Interest rates do not support a rally in gold. Gold funds have been closing of late, which evidences the lack of demand for gold. Full Story
Last week the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) refused to approve nine different proposals for bitcoin exchange traded funds (ETFs). This comes on top of a number of prior SEC refusals of bitcoin-based funds, including the SolidX Bitcoin Trust and two separate denials of the Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust, the first in 2017 and the second this summer. Full Story
Putting this all together, we must once again warn precious metal investors and traders to avoid "catching the falling knife". Though it may appear that price is near a physical floor... and though it may appear that the CoT positioning is near historic levels... and though it may appear that the charts look oversold... none of this will matter if the emerging markets continue to melt down and China continues its regime of devaluations against the US$. In this scenario, COMEX precious metal prices will continue lower, despite all traditional metrics. Full Story
The recent FOMC minutes show green light for a September rate hike. Although some analysts believe that the Fed may pause in December, we keep our forecast of four interest rate hikes in 2018 unchanged. The markets odds are signaling a 98 percent probability of a rate increase in September and almost a 66 percent chance of another upward move in December. Don’t fight the market. Full Story
The death of U.S. Energy Independence will occur when the collapse of shale oil production begins. And when U.S. shale oil production finally peaks and declines, it could fall much more rapidly than we realize. The rate at which U.S. shale oil production declines in the future is based on two key factors, remaining reserves, and the oil price. Full Story
Let’s start with a little background. The mid-2000s economy boomed in part because artificially low interest rates had ignited a housing mania which featured a huge increase in “subprime” mortgage lending. This – as all subprime lending binges eventually do – began to unravel in 2007. The consensus view was that subprime was “peripheral” and therefore unimportant. Here’s Fed Chair Ben Bernanke giving ever-credulous CNBC the benefit of his vast bubble experience. Full Story
Fresh statistics show that US gold jewellery demand is now about five times the size of US gold coin and bar demand. Back in 2014 I predicted this would occur, and it’s happening on schedule. What’s particularly interesting is that mine supply is barely growing and likely peaking, while US, Indian, and Chinese gold jewellery demand is growing at about 6% - 8% annually. Full Story
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. A tale of two world leaders, U.S. president Donald Trump and China president Xi Jinping—both of whose countries have among the world’s best economies right now. But whereas Xi is playing Santa Claus to the rest of the world, doling out loans to finance-starved countries, Trump is playing Scrooge, waging an economic war with Canada, the European Union, China and others. Full Story
Summing up, it’s very likely that the pause in the precious metals market is over and the next big move down is already underway. The move is likely to be sharp and the profits on the current short positions are likely to change from being huge to being enormous and then finally to being ridiculous. You might consider taking advantage of this move as well. Full Story
Today I document and analyze gold and oil prices and their ratios from January 1970 to August 2018. This is the second part of our research and analysis on gold-oil ratios since World War II. As a reminder, we use monthly average London gold prices provided by Kitco.com and monthly average oil prices for West Texas Intermediate Crude (WTI) sourced from the United States Energy Information Administration (EIA). Full Story
This week, we are back to our ongoing series on capital destruction. Let’s consider the simple transaction of issuing a bond. Party X sells a bond to Party Y. We will first offer something entirely uncontroversial. If the interest rate rises after Y buys the bond, then Y takes a loss. Or if the interest rate falls, then Y makes a capital gain. This is simply saying that the bond price moves inverse to the interest rate. Full Story
The best performing metal this week was palladium, up 5.04 percent as hedge funds flip to net bullish on the metal this past week. Despite gold facing a fifth month of losses and bullion-backed ETF holdings reaching a 10-month low, analysts and traders are bullish on the yellow metal, according to a weekly Bloomberg survey. Full Story
This leaves me concluding my write-up as I will likely continue to do for the coming weeks. As we continue moving higher, I want to remind you that we are setting up for a 20-30% correction, which can potentially take the SPX back down to the 2100SPX region within the next year or two (with a minimum expectation of the 2400-2500 region). So, even though, as of now, we still retain potential to rally as high as the 3225SPX region (which we set years ago), please keep in mind that risks continue to rise the closer we get to our long-term upside targets, as our minimum target for a topping point is in the 3011 region. Full Story
In recent weeks, global financial markets have been increasingly spooked by an intensifying crisis in emerging market currencies including those of Turkey and Argentina. Add to this the ongoing currency crisis in Venezuela and the currency problems of Iran. While all of these countries have economy specific reasons that explain at least some of their currency weakness, there are some common themes such as a stronger US dollar, high domestic inflation rates, economic mismanagement, reliance on foreign borrowing, and in some cases economic sanctions imposed by the US. Full Story
I posted a worst-case target of 9.35 here earlier, but because things might not turn out that bad, I am proffering an alternative at 13.527 that allows for a less dire outcome. However, that is my minimum downside projection for now, and regardless of what your long-term strategy is for silver, I would not recommend buying any more of it until 13.527 is reached. For purposes of bottom-fishing, you can expect a significant bounce from that number, given the precise bounce in December 2017 from p=16.024. If you don't subscribe to Rick's Picks, just click here for a free two-week trial. It will give you instant access not only to the chat room, but to actionable 'touts', intraday alerts and impromptu ‘requests’ sessions online. Full Story
Nick Barisheff of Bullion Management Group (BMG) and author of $10,000 Gold: Why Gold's Inevitable Rise Is the Investor's Safe Haven (2013), returns. Venezuela, Argentina, Brazil, Iran, South Africa and Turkey could become the norm throughout the global financial world. Peter Grandich of Peter Grandich and Company and Pete Speaks says he's pushed all his investment portfolio chips into the PMs. Our guest views panic related capitulation-selling as an opportunity to procure the metals at fire sale prices. Full Story
Fortunately, we can readily identify the sheepdogs and the sheep on our COT charts, the sheepdogs are the purple bars on our charts, the Commercials, who take the other side of the trade from the sheep, who are the blue bars, the Large Specs. Let’s now look at a pair of charts, a 1-year chart for silver itself with the COT chart stacked directly below it, which is for 1-year too, in order to see how the sheep are always wrong. As we can see the sheep, the Large Specs (blue bars) always have their biggest long positions at or just ahead of peaks in the silver price. Full Story
As you may have noticed, I’ve been in a pensive mood lately. I’m re-thinking a lot of things as I process economic developments, personal issues, and the clock ticking as I reach birthday number 69 in a few weeks. Many good things are happening but with them comes change. Full Story
Ted Butler comes on to talk about the silver market, and why JP Morgan is now in prime position to let silver rise organically for the first time in decades. Should those of us that own physical silver be rooting for JP Morgan? And if they do let the price rise significantly, what's next? More manipulation, or will silver begin using something more organic for price discovery? Full Story
David Morgan of The Morgan Report joins Mike Gleason of Money Metals Exchange to talk about what the coming months are likely to have in store for the metals and the markets, tells us how the smart money has already exited stocks and shares his secret to finding value and success in any market. Don’t miss my interview with the Silver Guru. Full Story
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