Do you have silver in your portfolio?
You should!
According to research by Oxford Economics, investors would benefit from an average of 4 to 6 percent silver allocation within a diversified portfolio. This is far below the average investor’s exposure to silver.
If the Keynesians are right, Hurricane Ian will create an economic boom here in Florida. After all, breaking windows creates demand and that stimulates the economy. And after this massive hurricane cut through Florida, there were a lot of broken windows — and much worse.
Money Supply growth was barely positive in August at $2B and sits well below the $233B seen last year. As the chart below shows, Money Supply growth has collapsed since February. Last year started with five straight months above $200B, whereas 2022 has only seen one month above $100B and that was January.
This is starting to look a lot like the popping of the dot-com bubble with one big difference — inflation.
Beginning in mid-June, we saw a significant bear market rally in stocks. But the recent declines have wiped out those gains and more. For instance, the Dow jumped 14% during the 2-month rally. By the close on Friday, Sept. 23, it was once again down 20% from its all-time high. That same day, the NASDAQ closed just 2% off its June low after a 23% rally.
Given historically high inflation, why haven’t we seen a big rally in gold and silver?
There are a number of factors that have weighed on precious metals, but as the World Gold Council points out, it’s important to put gold and silver’s recent price movements in a broader perspective.
In fact, gold has been one of the better-performing asset classes in 2022.
The student loan forgiveness program recently announced by President Joe Biden stirred up quite the political brouhaha. Progressives praised Biden for helping students burdened by overwhelming student loan debt. Conservatives decried it as an unfair giveaway. But as with most issues, the popular political debate misses the bigger picture.
The student loan crisis was primarily a problem of the federal government’s own creation. And no matter what you think about the forgiveness program, it fails to address the root of the problem.
Hurricane Ian is taking aim at Florida. That means there is already talk of “price gouging.”
People have a visceral emotional reaction to people raising prices during a disaster. But it is nothing but feelz. In fact, “price gouging” serves an important economic function. Not allowing prices to rise actually causes more harm.
The Fed has talked a big game lately. Many people (including me) assumed the Fed would fold a long time ago. There is a very good reason — the Fed will crush the economy and the US Treasury with higher interest rates.
In reality, the Fed is holding a losing hand and trying to bluff its way to victory.
Last week the Fed raised interest rates another 75 basis points and continued to insist it was fully committed to doing whatever it takes to bring inflation back down to 2%. In his podcast, Peter argued that Powell still thinks he can pull off the impossible.
He can’t.
Even as the August inflation data was coming out higher than expected, President Joe Biden was bragging about his “Inflation Reduction Act.” Peter Schiff appeared on NewsMax and argued that the president is putting Americans at risk just so he can improve his image as we approach election time.
