The Federal Reserve released the minutes from the December FOMC meeting this week. They were even more hawkish than expected. That sparked a big taper tantrum in the markets. In this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap podcast, host Mike Maharrey gives an overview of the minutes and then asks seven poignant questions they raise that aren’t being asked by the mainstream.
November 2021 charted a total trade deficit of -$80.2B just shy of the record -$81.4B in September. However, the data this month is far more concerning when digging into the details.
After a massive surge in the trade deficit occurred in September, October saw a big pullback to -$67.1B. The details showed that the volatility was driven by a data anomaly where Exported Goods from September were pulled into October. This created a series of Exported Goods values of $149.8B in August followed by $142.7B and $158.8B in September and October. Essentially, $8B moved from September to October, driving the trade deficit to all-time records.
I love exploring data to try and understand complex situations. My career has mainly been in finance giving rise to the name: Exploring Finance. Using data to explore the current financial landscape shows an unsustainable situation, which has led me to identify gold and silver as the best defensive investments.
After losing its grip in 2020, managed money is back in the driver’s seat pushing the price of gold and silver around. This analysis is written to explain the short-term price movements, which can be confounding given the strong fundamental backdrop. After very low volatility and a disappointing year in precious metals, it’s likely activity will pick up in 2022. Tracking the positioning of managed money will provide insights into the short-term price moves.
As 2021 goes into the history books, Peter Schiff looks back over what he calls “a year of peak speculation.”
Of course, the big story of the year was inflation.
As reported last week, Comex January’s open interest activity was looking strong in silver and modest in gold. The initial results are promising, especially given the probability contracts will open mid-month for immediate delivery.
This analysis focuses on gold and silver physical delivery on the Comex. See the article What is the Comex for more detail.
While on the surface, it appears the Federal Reserve asset purchase taper has started, it’s not as easy to prove when you dig into the details.
The Fed is certainly not being as aggressive as they promised, and for good reason. As the Fed leaves the bond market, who will fill the gap? Since 2019, the Fed has quadrupled the Treasury purchases of international holders and has been one of the biggest players in the Treasury market.
We’re on the cusp of a new year. We certainly had a wild ride in 2021 with continuing coronavirus drama, inflation that turned out to be not so transitory, and a record-breaking stock market bubble. So, what was the biggest story of 2021? Friday Gold Wrap host Mike Maharrey thinks it was a story that wasn’t told – the story of real interest rates. He wraps up the year by telling that story.
Gold may be the key to finding space aliens!
After years of development, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) was launched into space on Christmas day.
Despite talk about a war on inflation and a quantitative easing taper, the money supply continues to expand at a rapid clip, fanning the inflationary fire.
M2 increased by $249.2B in November.
