Stocks took off on Friday on several big news items – most significantly President Trump’s announcement that the US and China have worked out phase one of a trade deal. In his podcast, Peter broke down the news. He also made an interesting observation: Trump and the Federal Reserve seem to be reading off the same script.
Yesterday, Jerome Powell announced that the Fed will soon launch another round of quantitative easing. Except he insisted it will not be doing quantitative easing.
This is not QE. In no sense is this QE.”
What the Fed will be doing, according to Powell, is expanding its balance sheet. Powell said details of the process will be explained in the following days, but it will involve the purchase of Treasurys.
This sounds an awful lot like QE, as Peter Schiff emphasized in his podcast.
Last week, we got bad news in the manufacturing sector. The ISM index of national factory activity dropped to a 10-year low. It was the second straight month the number was below 50, which indicates a contraction in manufacturing. That news sent stock markets into a tailspin. This was followed up by a very week service sector report the following day.
In his most recent podcast, Peter Schiff said the service sector is about to follow manufacturing into recession. He also talked about the recent employment numbers and explained how the Fed is acting like a Soviet Politburo.
The Federal Reserve isn’t the only central bank cutting interest rates. In fact, the world is awash in easy money.
The Fed met market expectations during the September FOMC meeting and lowered interest rates another 25 basis points. It was the second cut of the year and pushed the interest rate down to the range of 1.75 – 2%. Meanwhile, the European Central Bank took a decidedly dovish turn over the summer. It has even hinted at another round of “shock and awe” stimulus.
And it’s not just the big central banks slashing rates.
The Fed did exactly what markets expected during the September FOMC meeting and lowered interest rates another 25 basis points. It was the second cut of the year and pushed the interest rate down to the range of 1.75 – 2%.
And yet we’re told that this is the economy is “great.”
What gives? Economist Robert Murphy said things might not be so great. In fact, it appears the central bank has basically put the economy on life support.
Gold and silver are down this week. There was some more hopeful trade war news and stronger than expected economic data that drove markets this week. In this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap podcast, host Mike Maharrey covers it, plus some news that’s being mostly ignored. And he ponders a question: should we be looking at the economic glass as half-empty or half-full — and why?
The Federal Reserve upped the ante in its efforts to hold short-term interest rates down this week, injecting longer-term cash into the financial system.
Central bankers suffer from what some might call fatal conceit. They actually believe that if they tinker enough, they can come up with a policy that will work “just right.” Maybe we should call it the Goldilocks Syndrome.
But the truth is they don’t know.
Peter Schiff has been saying that the price of gold and silver are going to take off.
But why?
Peter isn’t just taking a wild guess or gazing into a mystical crystal ball. He’s basing this prediction on the unavoidable economic consequences stemming from decades of Federal Reserve mechanizations. In s nutshell, the central bank has checked us into a monetary roach motel. Once it entered the current policy there was no way it would ever be able to leave.
In this SchiffGold Videocast, Peter explains exactly what the Fed has done, what it’s doing now, and why no matter what it does next, gold and silver are going much higher!
It was Fed week. As widely expected, the central bank cut interest rates another 25 basis points on Wednesday. But the real Fed action happened on Tuesday morning and most people didn’t even notice.
In this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap, host Mike Maharrey talks about all of the Fed mechanizations – not just the rate cut – and what it all could mean.
