Physical gold investment was up by 5% year-on-year in the first quarter.
Investors bought 302 tons of gold bars and gold coins in Q1 with a value of $18.4 billion. This was 14% above the 5-year average, according to the World Gold Council.
Peter Schiff recently appeared on Real America with Dan Ball to talk about the ongoing banking and financial crisis. Peter emphasized that the Federal Reserve and the US government are trying to fix a problem that they caused. And their cure is going to unleash an inflation tsunami.
After a record-setting 2022, central banks continued to buy gold in the first quarter of 2023, setting a new Q1 record.
Overall, global central bank gold reserves increased by 228 tons through the first three months of 2023. This was 38% higher than the previous first-quarter record set in 2013.
While the US government is not currently adding to the national debt due to being up against the debt ceiling, it is working overtime trying to keep the government afloat.
Significantly, the interest on the national debt is skyrocketing even with the temporary lull in borrowing.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that 256k jobs were added in April with major revisions down in previous months. Meanwhile, the Household Survey reported only 139k jobs in April, the lowest amount since November last year.
In 5 days, the COMEX has seen 4,190 contracts open and stand for immediate delivery. This is the strongest start to a month going back at least 2 years, which includes the start of the war in Ukraine and the February 2021 Reddit silver squeeze.
The Federal Reserve raised rates yet again during its May FOMC meeting. Now everybody is trying to decipher the messaging coming out of the Fed to figure out what’s next. But what if the words Powell and Company are saying don’t really matter? In this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap podcast, host Mike Maharrey talks about the latest moves by the Fed and suggests we should focus on the realities over the rhetoric.
The March Trade Deficit decreased for the first time in four months. The total deficit came in at -$64.2B, which is the second smallest deficit since January 2021. This might seem like good news but it’s yet another indication of a weakening economy.
On May 2, a Texas House committee passed a bill to create 100% reserve gold and silver-backed transactional currencies. Enactment of this legislation would create an option for people to conduct business in sound money, set the stage to undermine the Federal Reserve’s monopoly on money, and possibly create a viable alternative to a central bank digital currency (CBDC).
The CoTs report is a breakdown of open interest in the major futures markets as reported by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission
Please note: the CoTs report was published 04/28/2023 for the period ending 04/25/2023. “Managed Money” and “Hedge Funds” are used interchangeably.
