Despite the better-than-expected headline number, the job market continues to slow.
According to the BLS, the economy added 261k jobs in October with a big upward revision in September from 263k to 315k. October was a beat against median expectations of 205k. The employment rate (black line) increased from 3.5% to 3.7% while the labor force participation ticked down from 62.3% to 62.2%.
The September Trade Deficit increased for the first time in 6 months to -$73.3B. The deficit had been getting help from exports out of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
As shown by the chart below, the increase this month was from a drop in Exports combined with an increase in Imports. The current value is still well below the record set back in March.
The Federal Reserve delivered a 75-basis point rate hike at its November meeting, as expected. But what’s next? That’s a little harder to decipher. In this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap podcast, host Mike Maharrey digs into the mixed messaging that came out of the Fed meeting and concludes the central bank’s monetary policy is “a wing and a prayer.” He also covers the recently released Q3 gold demand data.
There are reasons to be bullish on silver, not just because of its role as a monetary metal and inflation hedge, but also due to its importance as an industrial metal. Doug Casey recently talked about silver’s many uses and what it means for the future with International Man.
Managed money has controlled the gold and silver market over the last several months. But there are other dynamics going on unnoticed under the surface.
Please note: the CoTs report was published 10/28/2022 for the period ending 10/25/2022. “Managed Money” and “Hedge Funds” are used interchangeably.
“How did you go bankrupt?”
“Very slowly at first, and then very quickly?”
The data shows that the Comex is in the middle of experiencing a run on its vaults that is really taking its toll and continuing to accelerate. If you read no further in this analysis, first just take a look at Figure 8 and Figure 18 – those two charts will tell you everything you need to know about the impact of the vault exodus.
The Fed is supposed to be reducing the balance sheet by $95B a month. This is up from $47.5B before September. As the chart below shows, the Fed has only succeeded in meeting or exceeding its goal a single time (August) in 6 months.
In the latest month, the Fed came up 25% short with a taper of only $72B. Even when removing the $10B increase of “Other”, which is a range of other instruments not related to MBS or Treasury, the Fed was still over $12B short of target.
The third quarter GDP data came out this week and it looks like the recession is over. (If there ever was one.) But in this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap podcast, host Mike Maharrey digs into the data and says, “Not so fast!” He also talks about a mainstream economist who sounds a lot like Peter Schiff and a big problem brewing with diesel fuel.
Money Supply shrunk last month by $129B, the largest monthly fall ever going back to 1959. April and June also set records at the time from a gross change perspective. From a percentage amount, Feb. 1970 had been the largest contraction ever (-6.5% annualized), but the current month beat that number at -6.9% annualized.
The Federal Government ran a $430 billion deficit in September. It was the largest monthly deficit since March 2021 when the last Covid stimulus bill was passed. The massive surge this month was due to another Biden giveaway in the form of $437 billion in student loan forgiveness.
