According to data compiled by the Chicago Fed, financial conditions have reached the loosest level in the US since January 1994. This despite Federal Reserve tightening over the last year.
On Nov. 10, the Chicago Fed National Financial Conditions index hit -0.93. As Peter Schiff pointed out in his most recent podcast, that was early on in the dot-com bubble. The Fed has been raising interest rates and talking about shrinking its balance sheet. Why is it that financial conditions are looser now then when rates were still at zero?
Peter said it’s because the Federal Reserve is way behind the curve.
Over the last year, we’ve talked a lot about geopolitical risk. Could turmoil around the world now be the new normal?
Some analysts think so.
Conventional wisdom holds that an interest rate hike in December will be bad for gold.
But will it?
There is actually evidence the opposite could be true.
The Texas Bullion Depository took a step closer becoming operational earlier this month when officials announced the location of the new facility. The creation of a state bullion depository in Texas represents a power shift away from the federal government to the state, and it provides a blueprint that could ultimately end the Federal Reserve’s monopoly on money.
Analysts at Thomson Reuters expect the price of gold to push back over $1,300 and then continue to rise above $1,400 through next year, primarily driven by overvalued stock markets, according to the GFMS Gold Survey 2017 Q3 Update and Outlook.
The world silver market may be on the verge of a major supply crunch.
Two-thirds of the top silver miners have suffered significant production decreases in 2017, according to information released by World Metal Statistics.
Through the first eight months of this year, silver production in Chile has dropped 20%. Australian production has fallen by 19%. Silver production in Mexico is down 2%. Peru has seen a 1% production decline. And China has had the biggest drop in mine output, according to the report, falling by a whopping 25%.
Last week, Peter Schiff did an interview on The Street and talked about the US stock market, saying, “Well, the bubble keeps getting bigger.” We’ve been talking about this ballooning bubble for months. After a while, it’s easy to blow us off as pessimistic contrarians who just don’t get it. But amazingly, large numbers of investors also believe the stock market is way overvalued.
But they keep buying anyway.
Bank of America called it “irrational exuberance.”
Every once in a while, a mainstream news outlet publishes a piece about the national debt. Here and there, politicians trot out the surging debt as a talking point to make some political hay. Now and then, an economist will wave the red flag. But by-and-large, the national debt just kind of looms over us.
We’ve gotten used to the shadow it casts, and we generally don’t give it much thought. It’s kind of like people living at the foot of a volcano. They know it’s there. It might cause some low-level anxiety. But they really don’t pay much attention to it – until it erupts.
So, just how bad is the national debt? We all know it’s pretty bad. But would you believe it’s actually worse than you probably think?
After surging in August and September, inflows of gold into gold-backed ETFs flattened, but remained in positive territory in October.
Global gold-backed ETF funds added 3.3 tons of gold last month, as inflows into European funds offset outflows in North America. according to the latest report by the World Gold Council.
If you saw the headlines last week, you know overall global gold demand fell steeply in the third quarter of this year. But as we reported, there was a lot of good news for gold buried beneath the gloomy headlines.
Slumping Q3 gold demand in India was a big driver in the overall global decline, but even there, we see some signs of optimism. Indian gold-buying dropped off primarily due to new taxes and regulations imposed by the Indian government over the summer. There are already signs the market is adjusting
