The price of gold is up over 9.5% since the beginning of the year. One strategist who appeared on CNBC yesterday says he sees it going even higher – as high as $2,000 by the end of the year.
David Roche heads London-based Independent Strategy. During an interview on CNBC’s Squawk Box, he said he sees bad things to come in the stock markets but gold will shine.
I actually believe financial markets are now poised to crumble like a sand pile.”
For the seventh straight month, China added a significant amount of gold to its official reserves.
The People’s Bank of China’s gold hoard grew another 10.3 tons in June, according to information released by the bank. Over the last seven months, the Chinese have increased their gold reserves by just over 84 tons.
Markets reacted strongly to the June jobs report on Friday. Stocks fell. Bonds and gold got clobbered. The dollar got a boost.
In his latest podcast, Peter Schiff said the markets overreacted to the report. In fact, he said the jobs numbers were “no big deal.”
Central banks bought more gold in May according to the most recent data released by the World Gold Council.
Globally, central banks purchased a net 35.8 tons of gold in May. Year-to-date, reported central bank net purchases of the yellow metal total 247.3 tons. That represents a 73% increase over the same period in 2018.
So athletes in the 2020 Olympics are going to be competing for junk.
No joke. The medals for the Tokyo games will be made entirely out of recycled e-waste.
Gold has gone through some wild mood swings this week. It plunged back below $1,400 per ounce on Monday only to rally and climb back above that key level on Tuesday. What’s driving these fluctuations? And what should investors be focusing on? Mike Maharrey talks about it in this week’s Friday Gold wrap. He also touches on some positive signs in the silver market, the global movement toward de-dollarization, and he remembers a friend of liberty who passed away this week.
If I mention a “green metal” you might think of copper due to its propensity to turn green as it oxidizes. But as it turns out, silver is a “green metal” as well – green as in environmentally friendly. In fact, silver is playing an increasingly large role in efforts to protect the environment.
As you probably know, silver is an important component in the solar energy industry. Now scientists have discovered that silver works better than copper as a catalyst to transform greenhouse gas. This story was highlighted among other technological innovations using silver in the latest edition of the Silver Institute’s Silver News.
Gold dropped well below $1,400 on Monday. Mainstream analysts said sell-off was because hope for a resolution in the trade war interjected some optimism into the markets, pumped up risk sentiment and put a damper on safe-haven buying. But that optimism apparently faded fast. On Tuesday, gold began to rally again and pushed back above $1,400.
The fact is economic realities don’t support optimism.
In his latest podcast, Peter Schiff said he sees a lot of days with big moves up for gold in the future because the yellow metal has a lot of catching up to do.
The total amount of negatively-yielding debt globally surged to more than $13 trillion for the first time ever late last month.
The amount of negative-yielding bonds has grown precipitously since the Federal Reserve did a monetary policy 180 with the Powell Pause earlier this year. The European Central Bank poured fuel on the fire last month when it hinted at new rate cuts or even another round of quantitative easing. Since then, Austria, Sweden and France joined other countries with 10-year bond yields below zero. Meanwhile, Japanese and German rates plunged to all-time lows.
SchiffGold’s own Mike Maharrey recently appeared on RT to talk about the potential consequences of US policies that effectively weaponize the dollar.
We’ve been reporting extensively on efforts by Russia, China and other countries to minimize their exposure to the dollar. Russia and China recently agreed to increase trade using their own national currencies. This is another in a series of moves globally to reduce dependence on the US dollar. Currently, about 10% of trade between Russia and China is conducted in yuan and rubbles. Under the new deal, it will increase to about 50%.
