They tried to deny it for months, but now everybody knows we have an inflation problem. The president, Congress and all of the central bankers at the Fed are trying to find ways to solve this problem. But as host Mike Maharrey explains in this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap, all of their solutions are the equivalent of dumping buckets of water on a drowning man.
A few years ago, CNBC commentator Jim Leventhal made a pretty astounding comment. When asked about gold, he said he had no interest in it because gold has no uses as a metal.
This is a pretty absurd statement. Gold has multiple uses. And it would probably have even more if it wasn’t so rare and expensive.
In 2021, gold demand came in at 4,666 tons. Where did all of that gold go?
Outflows of gold from Comex vaults have accelerated. Meanwhile, there is some shuffling of inventories of silver.
This analysis focuses on gold and silver within the Comex/CME futures exchange. See the article What is the Comex? for more detail. The charts and tables below specifically analyze the physical stock/inventory data at the Comex to show the physical movement of metal into and out of Comex vaults.
The Federal Reserve just gave us the biggest interest rate hike since 1994. A month ago, we were told a 75 basis-point hike wasn’t on the table. It almost seems like the central bankers are winging it. Or as Friday Gold Wrap podcast host Mike Maharrey puts it, it’s like they’re playing darts while wearing blindfolds. In this episode, Mike breaks down the rhetoric coming out of this Fed meeting and speculates on what might be next.
After running the largest monthly surplus ever in April, the Treasury was back to running deficits in May. The Federal government spent $455B in May and collected $389B in taxes, which resulted in a net deficit of $66B.
The latest seasonally adjusted inflation rate for May came in scorching hot at 0.98% MoM and 8.62% YoY, beating expectations of 0.7% and 8.3% respectively. All prices rose in May with 9 of 11 categories rising faster than the 12-month trend, representing 97.5% of the total CPI.
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) data for May came out this morning. The projection was for another hot headline number but some relief in core CPI. This would seem to indicate we’ve passed peak inflation. In this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap podcast, host Mike Maharey explains why “good news” in the CPI data would be bad news for inflation. Then he reacts to the data in real-time. (Hint — it wasn’t good news.)
The Czech National Bank is about to go on a gold-buying spree. Incoming CNB Governor Ales Michl said he plans to increase the bank’s gold holdings nearly 10-fold during a recent magazine interview.
The April trade deficit came in at -$87B. This was the first time in 5 months that a new record had not been set (pink dot below). The Net Goods Deficit remained below -$100B for the fifth straight month. This Trade Deficit comes on the heels of an absolutely massive -$108B Deficit in March. It’s likely that some of the April deficit was counted in March, so expect a rebound in the May number.
The Treasury increased the total debt by $125B in May after a brief drop in April. This brings the total debt increase so far in 2022 to $880B. More importantly, though, the cost to service the debt is exploding. Total annualized interest has increased by $40B or 13.5% since the start of the year!
