Jerome Powell was on Capitol Hill this week (at least virtually) to talk to Congress. During his two days of testimony, the Fed chair insisted that there is no inflation. In fact, he claimed it will take years for the central bank to reach its 2% target. SchiffGold Friday Gold Wrap podcast host Mike Maharrey says Powell is lying. But if you listen closely and read between the lines, you can dig a bit of truth out from the lies.
The Federal Reserve released the minutes from its January meeting this week. It featured some pretty thick Fed-speak. In this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap podcast, host Mike Maharrey translates and tells you what the Fed is telling you about inflation. He also talks about why he thinks gold and silver are both struggling in an economic environment that should be bullish for precious metals.
Why buy gold?
The Relevance of Gold as a Strategic Asset report released by the World Gold Council offers four reasons to add gold to your portfolio.
Silver enjoyed a moment in the spotlight when the Reddit Raiders turned their attention to the white metal. The online investors weren’t able to pull off a short-squeeze in the silver market, but we’ve said all along that there are fundamental reasons to be bullish on silver. Given the supply and demand dynamics coupled with the prospect of inflation, $30 silver is likely quite a bargain.
With Joe Biden in the White House and Democrats controlling both houses of Congress, it seems pretty certain we’re going to get a federal $15 an hour minimum wage. In this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap podcast, host Mike Maharrey discusses the economic ramifications of minimum wage laws. Hint — they are not good. He also talks about Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s comments this week and why they should make you even more bullish on gold.
Silver got a brief boost when the Reddit Raiders turned their attention to the white metal. The online investors weren’t able to pull off a short-squeeze in the silver market, but we’ve said all along that there are fundamental reasons to be bullish on silver, the attention of Reddit Raiders notwithstanding.
New demand projections for silver in 2021 bear this out. Silver demand is expected to rise 11% this year and reach 1.025 billion ounces, according to the Silver Institute’s forecast.
After two consecutive months of outflows, gold-backed ETFs became net buyers of gold again last month. Gold-backed funds added 13.8 tons of gold to their holdings globally, driven by inflows in Europe-based funds, according to the latest data from the World Gold Council.
The tale of GameStop has much more to say about the current state of investing.”
The central idea in the classic Mel Brooks comedy “The Producers” is that unscrupulous Broadway impresarios could succeed fabulously by creating a play so uniquely awful that it would close on its first day. Their idea was to oversubscribe shares to investors, to the point where hundreds of percentages of ownership could be claimed. But if the show failed spectacularly, there would be no proceeds to fight over, all the investors would accept that their shares were worthless, and no one would know that they had been conned. The producers could pocket the excess money. The only way they could fail would be by producing a hit.
It’s been a crazy, volatile week for precious metals. The Reddit Raiders pushed silver to over $29 an ounce and the white metal took gold up with it. But the run was short-lived and we saw a big sell-off in both metals later in the week. In this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap, host Mike Maharrey tries to cut through all the smoke and mirrors and talks about the underlying fundamentals in both the gold and silver markets.
Last year’s surge in demand for investment gold and silver continued into January if sales at the US Mint are any indication.
American Gold Eagle bullion coin sales were up 455% in 2020 and the selling continued through the first month of 2021. The mint called the current market demand for precious metals coins “exceptional.”
