The Federal Government ran a deficit of -$85B in December. While this was much smaller than the deficit posted in November, it marks one of the largest December deficits ever.
That pushed then 2022 calendar year deficit to over $1.4 trillion.
The CPI cooled again in December driven by a massive fall in Energy prices. As shown below, the fall in Energy has been a big reason for the recent drop in inflation. Commodities have also been a driver down as Used Cars and Trucks fell -2.5% MoM and -8.8% YoY. That said, stickier items like Shelter continue to increase.
The headline numbers from December’s CPI report give the impression that price inflation is continuing to cool. Markets are giddy at the prospect. But in this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap podcast, host Mike Maharrey argues that “cooling” price inflation is most likely transitory and the markets still don’t really understand the Fed’s position. He also gives an overview of gold’s performance in 2022.
A bill introduced in the Alaska House would exempt gold and silver bullion from local sales tax and make them both legal tender in the state. Ending the sales tax would relieve some of the tax burden on investors, and take a step toward treating precious metal bullion as money instead of a commodity.
Despite market headwinds, gold managed to post a small gain in 2022 thanks to a strong rally in December.
Gold gained 3% in the final month of the year, driving the price of the yellow metal to $1,814 an ounce to close out 2022. This represented a 0.4% gain on the year.
Central banks globally added another net 50 tons of gold to their reserves in November, driven in part by the first official purchase by China since 2019.
The US government has once again run up against the debt ceiling. Meanwhile, interest payments on the debt keep growing.
The Treasury only added $6B of debt in December, allowing short-term debt to mature and replacing it with longer-term debt. This makes sense as long-term rates are below short-term rates with the inverted yield curve.
The headlines keep telling us the US has a robust job market, but a deeper dive into the data tells a much different story.
You have questions. Friday Gold Wrap host Mike Maharrey has answers. In this episode of the podcast, Mike answers questions submitted by listeners. He covers topics ranging from the American Silver Eagle shortage to the best states for sound money.
The November Trade Deficit saw the first contraction in four months and actually fell to the lowest level since October 2020. This was primarily driven by a collapse in Imported Goods as shown below.
