The bond market flashed a major recession warning sign as the yield curve inverted this week. Meanwhile, Trump whipsawed markets when he appeared to blink in the never-ending trade war with China. That made for an interesting week for gold. In this week’s Friday Gold Wrap podcast, host Mike Maharrey breaks down the events of the last few days and their impact on precious metals. He also remembers an important day in history that went mostly unnoticed in the mainstream.
The Federal Reserve has the US economy on monetary life support and Daily Reckoning managing editor Brian Maher says it will never again breathe on its own. As hedge fund manager Kyle Bass put it, the economy is trapped within the inescapable tractor beam of zero percent interest rates.
The price of gold surged this week, breaking all-time records in a number of currencies. It also did pretty well in dollar terms, hitting six-year highs and pushing above the key $1,500 level. Meanwhile, silver had its best single day in over three years. What drove this week’s precious metals rally? And can we expect it to continue? Host Mike Maharrey talks about it in this week’s Friday Gold Wrap.
Gold pushed above $1,500 again Wednesday (Aug. 7) and silver joined the party, charting its biggest single-day gain in nearly three years.
Silver surged 73 cents on the day for a 4.4% gain, closing above the key $17 level for the first time since January 2018.
Negative yielding debt has exceeded $15 trillion globally for the first time ever.
This pile of negatively yielding paper includes government and corporate bonds, along with some euro junk bonds.
WolfStreet called it a “race to hell.”
The Federal Reserve FOMC met this week. When it was all said and done, the Fed did nothing. We’re stuck in neutral.
As expected, there was no rate hike. Fed Chair Jerome Powell indicated that the central bank would likely maintain this neutral stance into the foreseeable future, staying patient, neither raising nor lowering rates. So, why in the world did markets react like the Fed just jacked up interest rates? On this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap, host Mike Maharrey talks about it. He also gives an overview of the most recent World Gold Council demand report.
The Federal Reserve Open Market Committee meeting wrapped up yesterday with Fed policy still in neutral.
As expected, the FOMC left interest rates unchanged and seemed to indicate it doesn’t plan to do anything at all in the near-term. Jerome Powell’s comments dampened expectations that the central bank might move to cut rates in the coming months.
The committee is comfortable with current policy stance. Don’t see a strong case for a rate move either way.”
Most took Powell’s comments to be less dovish than expected, but Peter Schiff said he thinks the Fed is a lot more dovish than it admits.
Month after month, the Trump administration runs multi-billion dollar deficits. The national debt has ballooned to over $22 trillion. According to the most recent Treasury Report, the US has a net worth of negative $21.5 trillion. And this understates the problem.
As Wolf Richter of WolfStreet puts it, the US government has “debt out the wazoo.”
Is this sustainable?
When the Federal Reserve artificially manipulates interest rates, it’s messing with our minds by distorting important signals that prices provide in a free market. As investment guru Jim Grant put it in a recent article in Barron’s, central bank interest rates are nothing but crude price controls.
Like all price controls, the Fed’s interest rate mechanizations create some winners and some losers. But in the long run, the distortions caused by the central bank’s interventionist monetary policy makes us all losers.
We got more signs that the economy is slowing down this week. And yet pundits and policymakers keep insisting everything is great.
In his latest podcast, Peter Schiff says he thinks people like Donald Trump and Larry Kudlow know deep down that things aren’t that great, but they want to keep kicking the can down the road for political reasons.
