The Federal Reserve opens its March Open Market Committee meeting today. Most analysts say there is a 100% chance for a rate hike during this go-round. Overall, there is a decidedly hawkish attitude when it comes to the Fed. The real debate right now revolves around whether the central bank will hike three or four times in 2018.
But Peter Schiff said in his most recent podcast he isn’t certain about all of these rate hikes.
The fact is I’m still not 100% sure the Fed is going to hike on Wednesday. Now, I would argue or agree that it’s more likely than not that the Fed is going to hike because they’ve been hiking interest rates all along. The Fed, so far, has not given any indication that they’re not going to hike because they don’t want to give up the ghost of this vibrant recovery where they need to raise rates because everything is going so well. But that whole narrative, that whole illusion, seems to be fading very quickly.”
So, could we see a more dovish Fed before the week is out?
The Federal Reserve claims to be tightening. According to the conventional wisdom, the Fed will raise interest rates at least three times in 2018 – maybe even four. And last fall, the central bank announced its plan to begin shrinking its balance sheet.
But have you actually looked at the Fed’s balance sheet? Dan Kurz of dkanalytics.com has. In fact, he has dug deep into the Federal Reserves opaque world of financing and concluded all of this talk of shrinking balance sheets and normalized interest rates is pure fantasy.
As sure as night follows day, before all too long the world’s leading central banks will be abandoning both fledgling interest rate increases and QT fantasies (reducing the size of their balance sheets by selling bonds and stocks) out of ‘status quo necessity.'”
The SchiffGold Friday Gold Wrap podcast combines a succinct summary of the week’s precious metals news coupled with thoughtful analysis. You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes.
Could rising interest rates pop the renewable energy bubble?
As the Federal Reserve and other central banks try to turn off the easy money spigot, we will likely see a growing number of corporate bankruptcies in the coming years. The renewable energy sector is particularly vulnerable and exemplifies broader problems in the global economy.
In a podcast last week, Peter Schiff said rookie Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell couldn’t be more wrong about the economy. He sees smooth sailing ahead. Peter sees a storm.
Former Reagan Office of Budget Management director David Stockman made a similar observation in a column last week.
What’s ahead is tumult, not smooth. That’s because the disconnect between a flat-lining main street economy and Wall Street’s bubble-ridden financial house of cards is blatantly unstable and unsustainable. Indeed, this fraught condition, which Powell and his Keynesian posse fail to see, will soon give rise to a thundering upheaval triggered by the Fed’s own action.”
The SchiffGold Friday Gold Wrap podcast combines a succinct summary of the week’s precious metals news coupled with thoughtful analysis. You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes.
Ten-year Treasury yields flirted with 3% this week, hitting a four-year high of 2.95. Does the Treasury yield hold the leash of the stock market?
Peter Schiff talked about it in an interview with Liz Claman on Fox Business, saying the Fed has kept rates artificially low for years, but given current conditions, it’s inevitable that the market will lift rates toward “normal.”
The result?
Gold is going to “go ballistic.”
The dollar has shown some resilience this week. The dollar index clawed back after hitting multi-year lows last week. Meanwhile, gold saw its worst single-day decline in more than a year on Tuesday.
One thing that hasn’t changed is the upward pressure on bond yields. In his most recent podcast, Peter Schiff said he thinks this is the reason we’re still seeing some life in the dollar and downward pressure on gold.
The mainstream investment world is starting to worry about the federal debt.
Goldman Sachs sees a tidal wave of red ink — and it may drag the US economy into its undertow.”
Goldman recently released a note to clients saying virtually the same thing Peter Schiff has been saying for months. The US economy won’t likely get the promised economic growth out of GOP tax cuts – at least not over the long-haul.
Stock markets have settled down after an awful couple of weeks earlier this month. On Feb. 5, the Dow Jones suffered its largest-ever drop in terms of points. It was down 1,600 at one point and ultimately lost 1,175.21 points, a 4.6% drop that day. At one point during that week, the Dow was off 10% in correction territory. But everything is calm now and most of the mainstream is once again feeling bullish and optimistic.
Peter Schiff spoke at the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference 2018 last month before the market tanked. But his message remains relevant in the aftermath of the plunge and the subsequent recovery because the dynamics in the market remain pretty much the same. Conditions are still ripe for a 1987-style market crash.
Investors have not been this optimistic…since 1987. They are even more optimistic than they were at the height of the technology bubble, the dot-com bubble, the new era. Of course, 1987 didn’t end well, right? We had a stock market crash, and there’s a lot about what’s happening today that reminds me about what was happening in ’87.”
