Gold took a hit on Tuesday but held a key support level and rebounded as the week went on, even as stocks set new records. Why does gold continue to keep showing strength even with all the headwinds? Is it just coronavirus? Or is something else going on? Host Mike Maharrey talks about it in this week’s Friday Gold Wrap podcast.
The Coronavirus has officially reached the “pandemic” status. It’s a scary word that means the coronavirus has crossed international boundaries. So, what does this mean for the markets?
Corporate debt has blown through the roof over the last several years. So much so that the Federal Reserve has issued warnings about the increasing levels of corporate indebtedness.
Borrowing by businesses is historically high relative to gross domestic product (GDP), with the most rapid increases in debt concentrated among the riskiest firms amid weak credit standards.”
But as Brandon Smith of alt-market.com noted in an article published at LewRockwell.com, this is a subject the mainstream media “seems specifically determined to avoid discussing these days when it comes to the economy.
The Dow Jones fell 603 points on Friday and was down about 1% through the first month of 2020. As Peter Schiff pointed out on his latest podcast, if the old saying “so goes January, so goes the year” turns out to be the case, 2020 could longest bull market in history could be at its end.
The S&P 500 also had a big 1.8% drop on Friday and is slightly in the red in 2020. The Nasdaq fell Friday, but remains the only index that is positive on the year. The Russell 2000 is down about 3.3% on the year.
The Federal Reserve held its first FOMC meeting of 2020. It was mostly met with yawns as the Fed held rates steady, and despite a somewhat dovish tone, indicated that it probably wouldn’t make any moves on interest rates this year. We’ve grown so used to low interest rates that it barely registers that the Fed is actually engaged in extreme monetary policy. Extreme has become the new normal. In this week’s Friday Gold Wrap podcast, host Mike Maharrey talks about it. He also touches on the Q4 GDP report and some interesting gold supply and demand trends.
The CBO projects the federal government will run massive budget deficits into the foreseeable future and says the ballooning national debt poses “significant risk” to the economy and financial system.
According to the CBO, the federal budget shortfall will hit $1.02 trillion in FY 2020 and rise into the foreseeable future. Deficits will average $1.3 trillion per year between 2021 and 2030 and top $1.5 trillion by the end of the decade. The CBO projects cumulative deficits over the next decade to total $13.1 trillion.
Bernie Sanders has gained in the polls of late and only trails Joe Biden by about three percentage points, according to the latest Fox News poll. On top of that, Sanders matches up against President Trump. He leads 48% to 42% in a head-to-head matchup.
Peter Schiff told Fox Business that a Sanders presidency would be an economic disaster for the US, but it would be good for gold.
If Sanders becomes president in 2020, the price of gold will be well above $2,000 on the day after election night.”
The spread of coronavirus in China has made markets jittery. Stocks have gone into a slide and gold has pushed up on safe-haven buying. Last week, Peter Schiff appeared on RT Boom Bust to talk about it. He said that 2020 may well be a bad year for the stock market, but probably not because of the virus. The real problem is markets are overvalued and the air will eventually come out of the bubble.
While impeachment proceedings kicked off at home President Trump was in Davos, Switzerland, talking up the US economy. He called it the best economy in American history. Is it though? In this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap podcast, host Mike Maharrey talks about the economy, what’s really driving it, and why this might be a good time to think about gold.
Rick Rule talked with David Lin of Kitco News at the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference. Rule is the senior managing director at Sprott Inc., and he’s bullish on gold. During this discussion, Rule explains why, touching on a range of subjects including the Federal Reserve, the trade war, the US dollar, the bond market and more.
To kick off the interview, Lin points out that gold has been rather range-bound since the price spiked in the wake of tensions in the Middle East. Rule said this is a sign of a healthy gold bull market.
