For the first time in 10 months, gold flowed into ETFs in March with global gold ETFs recording net inflows of 32 tons, representing an increase of about $1.9 billion.
The BLS reported that 236k jobs were added in March. Similar to December and January, the Household survey greatly exceeded the Headline Report with 577k jobs added. The Household Survey was surprisingly strong given the current economic environment.
The dollar may be king, but its throne is getting a little tippy. In this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap podcast, host Mike Maharrey talks about the slow but steady erosion of the dollar’s global dominance and the possible ramifications. He also explains how Federal Reserve monetary policy is like poison.
Bills introduced in the Texas House and Senate would create a state-issued, gold-backed digital currency. Enactment of this legislation would create an option for people to transact business in sound money, set the stage to undermine the Federal Reserve’s monopoly on money and create a viable alternative to a central bank digital currency (CBDC).
Yesterday (April 5) marked the anniversary 0f the signing of Executive Order 6102 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. It was touted as a measure to stop gold hoarding, but it was in reality, an attempt to remove gold from public hands.
Many people refer to EO-6102 as a gold confiscation order. But confiscation is probably not the best word for what happened in practice.
The February Trade Deficit increased for the third month in a row, rising by $1.9 billion. Net Goods came in at -$92.9B with Net Services at $22.4B to reach a total of -$70.5B.
Based on the latest Commitments of Traders (COT) report, the latest price action is potentially even more bullish than normal. The latest price moves have been supported by Managed Money but the data clearly shows there is more driving the upward movement.
Please note: the CoTs report was published 03/31/2023 for the period ending 03/28/2023. “Managed Money” and “Hedge Funds” are used interchangeably.
There’s no sign of a slowdown in central bank gold buying.
In February, central bank gold reserves rose by another 52 tons, according to the latest data compiled by the World Gold Council.
It was the 11th straight month of central bank net gold purchases.
Gold has been seeing a large number of contracts roll in the final day of the contract. That did not happen this month. This has resulted in a large delivery volume.
By now it should be common knowledge that the Fed has blown up its balance sheet rather quickly to combat the current banking crisis. As the chart below illustrates, the Fed added a gargantuan sum to its balance sheet in March, netting an increase of $324B.