Gold had a strong year in 2019 and a World Gold Council report says the outlook for 2020 remains bullish.
We expect that many of the global dynamics seeded over the past few years will remain generally supportive for gold in 2020.”
Gold charted its best year since 2010 last year. The price increased by 18.4% in dollar terms. The yellow metal also reached record highs in every G10 currency except the dollar and the Swiss franc. There were record inflows of metal into gold-backed ETFs and central banks continued to gobble up gold.
Donald Trump and Chinese Vice Premier Liu signed the Phase 1 trade deal on Wednesday. The mainstream was generally bullish on the news, but there was some underlying concern because the deal did not bring substantive tariff relief. Peter Schiff broke down the deal in his latest podcast, saying that despite all the hype, the deal was really much ado about nothing.
On Jan. 13, Peter Schiff appeared on RT Boom Bust with Bubba Horwitz to talk about the yuan, the dollar, the stock market and the US economy. Peter said the dollar is eventually going to collapse and it’s going to be a rude awakening for Americans.
The Chinese yuan has been gaining strength against the dollar in recent weeks, in part because of optimism that there will eventually be a resolution to the trade war. But the Chinese currency is still over 17% lower than it was when the US imposed its first tariffs. Does this mean the markets are cautiously positioning for a deal, or is there still skepticism about the phase 1 deal? Peter focused on the bigger picture.
The US federal government ran a budget deficit of over $1 trillion in the 2019 calendar year. It was the first budget deficit over $1 trillion in any calendar year since 2012 — in the midst of the Great Recession.
The budget shortfall from January through December totaled $1.02 trillion, according to the latest report issued by the Treasury Department. That continued a rapidly accelerating upward trajectory. The 2019 budget gap was 17.1% bigger than the 2018 deficit, which was a 28.2% increase over 2017.
The war drums have quieted for the time being. But while the threat of a hot war seems to have diminished, economic warfare continues. President Trump announced another round of economic sanctions on Iran.
We have written extensively how about how the US weaponizes the dollar and uses it as a foreign policy tool. This is one of the reasons many central banks are buying gold. The flip side of that equation is also true. The US government uses the military to support the dollar – specifically by controlling oil resources.
A week ago, nearly $100 billion in short-term liquidity was added via the Federal Reserve Bank of New York offering cash in the repo market.
As a reminder, the repo market is the overnight market of repurchase agreements. This is where one sells an asset with an agreement to purchase it back at a slightly higher price the next day. In other words, very short term collateralized lending.
In his latest podcast, Peter talks about sudden silencing of the war drums, the risk that remains in the markets, the stealth bull market in gold, the risk of a socialist president, rampant economic illiteracy, inflation and more.
As Peter put it – what a difference 48 hours makes.
Is now the time to get into gold? Peter Schiff appeared on Fox Business last week to talk about it with Charles Payne.
Peter said the current bull run in gold started about four years ago when the Federal Reserve started raising interest rates in 2015. Over the past four years, the price of physical gold has risen by about 50% and gold stocks have doubled that. In fact, the return on gold stocks has been about 50% better than the S&P500 as a whole over that time.
Have you ever had one of those experiences where you knew something was too good to be true, but you were still disappointed when you found out it really was too good to be true?
The sound of war drums dominated this week. After Iran launched missiles at US bases in Iraq in retaliation for an airstrike that killed an Iranian general, gold spiked to over $1,600 an ounce — an eight-year high. But tensions seem to have eased and the price of gold with it, as the war drums have quieted. So, what did we learn from this and what’s next for the gold market? Host Mike Maharrey talks about it in this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap podcast.
