The Federal Reserve launched QE infinity this week. The Fed has committed to buy an “unlimited” amount of US Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities. But that’s not all. The central bank also announced it will buy some corporate bonds for the first time ever.
In effect, this is money-printing on a massive scale. And of course, pumping trillions of dollars into the economy will have ramifications. We may well be on the path to hyperinflation.
It appears we’ve pretty much reached complete panic mode.
The longest bull market in history came to an abrupt end on Wednesday. Wall Street followed up with another massive sell-off on Thursday. The S&P 500 had its worst day since Black Monday in 1987. Even gold was down. Meanwhile, the Fed tried to stem the tide, announcing a new round of quantitative easing. But the tide wasn’t stemmed. In this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap podcast, host Mike Maharrey gives an overview of the week’s events and talks about the elephant in the room.
Stock markets have been getting hammered, ostensibly because of the economic impacts of the coronavirus. Peter Schiff has been saying this isn’t really about the virus. It was the pin that pricked the bubble. If it wasn’t coronavirus, it would have been something else.
Regardless, the Fed hit the panic button last week and slashed interest rates by half a percent. Peter has described this as throwing gasoline on a fire. In other words, the central bank is exacerbating the problem.
It’s been a roller-coaster ride on Wall Steet. Stocks whipsawed up and down — mostly down. Gold dipped and then rebounded. And the Fed cut rates in a move that looked an awful lot like a replay of 2008. In this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap podcast, host Mike Maharrey gives an overview of the topsy-turvy week, and tries to make sense out of what’s going on and where it might lead us.
Last year at the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference, Peter Schiff bet Brent Johnson a gold coin that the Fed’s next move would be a rate cut. At this year’s conference, Peter collected his gold coin.
Brent and Peter went on to debate the future of the US dollar. Brent says the dollar will go up this year. Peter thinks it’s going down. Peter put his money where is mouth is and went double or nothing against the dollar.
Jerome Powell went to Capitol Hill this week. During his testimony before a congressional committee, the Fed chair insisted, “There is nothing about this economy that is out of kilter or imbalanced.” In this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap Podcast, host Mike Maharrey takes issue with Powell’s assessment and points out some things that are, in fact, way out of kilter.” He also touches on coronavirus and the markets, consumer debt, and Donald Trump.
Last week, Peter Schiff gave a speech at the Orlando Money Show and made the case that all the hype about the greatest economy in history is just that – hype. Nobody should be taking credit for the economy. We should be asking who is to blame.
Last October, the Federal Reserve relaunched quantitative easing. Of course, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell insists it’s not quantitative easing. But as Peter Schiff pointed out in a recent tweet, that debate is really just semantics.
The argument over whether the current Fed balance sheet expansion constitutes QE is pointless. QE was always just a euphemism for debt monetization. The Fed monetized debt in the past, its monetizing more debt in the present, and it will monetize even more debt in the future!”
Those peddling the narrative that the US economy is great keep pointing to the stock market. Indeed, stocks have continued to push higher, setting records along the way. But Peter Schiff has been saying that stocks aren’t being driven higher by a great economy. In a recent interview on RT Boom Bust, Peter said that if you look at the economic fundamentals, stocks should be coming down.
The Federal Reserve held its first Federal Open Market Committee meeting this week. As expected, the central bank held interest rates steady but the overall posture of the Fed came off as rather dovish. Quantitative easing will continue into the near future and Fed Chairman Jerome Powell left the door open for future rate cuts.
The Federal Reserve funds rate will stay locked in at 1.5 to 1.75% and the vote was unanimous. Powell said, “We’re comfortable with our current policy stance and we think it’s appropriate.”
