Despite the better-than-expected headline number, the job market continues to slow.
According to the BLS, the economy added 261k jobs in October with a big upward revision in September from 263k to 315k. October was a beat against median expectations of 205k. The employment rate (black line) increased from 3.5% to 3.7% while the labor force participation ticked down from 62.3% to 62.2%.
The September Trade Deficit increased for the first time in 6 months to -$73.3B. The deficit had been getting help from exports out of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
As shown by the chart below, the increase this month was from a drop in Exports combined with an increase in Imports. The current value is still well below the record set back in March.
The Federal Reserve delivered a 75-basis point rate hike at its November meeting, as expected. But what’s next? That’s a little harder to decipher. In this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap podcast, host Mike Maharrey digs into the mixed messaging that came out of the Fed meeting and concludes the central bank’s monetary policy is “a wing and a prayer.” He also covers the recently released Q3 gold demand data.
Proving that most people have no idea what causes inflation, the majority of Americans in a recent poll said they want the federal government to hand out stimulus checks to combat inflation.
The Federal Reserve sent out mixed messages after its November FOMC meeting leaving markets wondering just how much more the central bank will tighten monetary policy.
As expected, the Fed delivered another 75 basis point rate hike, pushing the Fed funds rate to between 3.75 and 4%. The last time interest rates were this high was in January 2008.
Gold demand rose 28% year-on-year in the third quarter, driven by robust consumer demand for physical gold and central bank buying, according to data released by the World Gold Council.
Year-to-date, demand is up 18% compared to the same period in 2021, a return to prepandemic levels.
Artificially low interest rates blew up a big housing bubble. In a podcast, Peter Schiff explained that it is actually a bigger bubble than the one preceding the 2008 crash. But this time, it is combined with an overall bubble in the entire economy that dwarfs ’08. Peter said all of this has the makings of another massive financial crisis.
There are reasons to be bullish on silver, not just because of its role as a monetary metal and inflation hedge, but also due to its importance as an industrial metal. Doug Casey recently talked about silver’s many uses and what it means for the future with International Man.
Despite all kinds of economic bad news, as of Friday, the Dow Jones was on pace for the best October in history. As Peter Schiff explained in his podcast, this demonstrates the fact that for now, bad news is good news, and stocks are priced for perfection in an imperfect world.
Managed money has controlled the gold and silver market over the last several months. But there are other dynamics going on unnoticed under the surface.
Please note: the CoTs report was published 10/28/2022 for the period ending 10/25/2022. “Managed Money” and “Hedge Funds” are used interchangeably.
