People in the financial media tend to talk about inflation as an academic exercise. As a result, it’s easy to forget that rising prices cause real pain for real people. And Americans are feeling that pain today. In this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap podcast, host Mike Maharrey highlights some ways inflation is impacting regular people. He also explains why he thinks stagflation is the most likely outcome of this inflation fight.
Walmart recently announced better-than-expected third-quarter sales growth. This may seem like great economic news until you realize the reason behind the retailer’s big jump in sales.
As it turns out, wealthier shoppers are flocking to Walmart to make ends meet as rising prices squeeze pocketbooks.
Markets have rallied since we got cooler-than-expected CPI data for October. But in his podcast, Peter Schiff said we are in the eye of the inflation hurricane, and investors have been lulled into a false sense of security.
With real wages decreasing and inflation running rampant, Americans are burying themselves in debt to make ends meet.
After setting a new record in the second quarter, household debt increased at the fastest pace in 15 years during Q3, as American consumers have run up credit card balances month after month this year as they cope with higher prices. Meanwhile, rising interest rates have ballooned mortgage balances.
After running a $1.3 trillion deficit in fiscal 2022, the US government took up right where it left off to start fiscal 2023 — running a big budget deficit.
The October budget deficit came in at $87.8 billion despite another month of healthy government receipts, according to the latest Treasury statement.
The October CPI data came in a bit cooler than expected, but the market reaction was hot and furious. Peter Schiff broke down the CPI data and the market reaction to it in his podcast. Despite the spin, Peter said the Fed isn’t making any progress in fighting inflation.
They say perception is reality. Based on the October CPI data, the perception is inflation has peaked. But what’s the reality? In this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap podcast, host Mike Maharrey digs into the CPI data along with the markets’ reaction to it and wonders if the inflation victory dance is a little premature. He also talks about the big rally in gold and central bank gold buying.
The perception is that CPI cooled significantly in October, but the data doesn’t quite bear this out.
The latest seasonally adjusted inflation rate for September came in at 0.44%. The YoY rate was 7.7%, or 7.8% when adjusting for Household Ops. which has not been consistently reported over the last year. The increase was actually above the previous month of 0.38%, but the YoY number fell because last October was 0.87% and fell off the report this month.
Gold rallied by over $50 an ounce last Friday and the rally has extended into this week with the yellow metal moving back above $1,700 an ounce. In his podcast, Peter Schiff explained why he thinks that gold has bottomed and this is a significant reversal.
Last week, the Federal Reserve delivered a 75-basis point rate hike, but Fed Chair Jerome Powell failed to deliver the more doveish rhetoric that many expected. The messaging did not indicate much softening in the stance on the future trajectory of rate hikes, despite an apparent “soft pivot” the week before.
In his podcast, Peter broke down Powell’s messaging and pointed out a number of very scary admissions that came out of the Fed meeting.
