Is inflation transitory, as Federal Reserve Jerome Powell has claimed for months? Or are we on the verge of hyperinflation, as Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey recently warned? In this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap podcast, host Mike Maharrey talks inflation, digs into the data, and concludes that it’s pretty clear we’re in an inflationary spiral.
In the latest period, M2 increased by $163 billion and sits just shy of $21 trillion. This represents a 0.78% MoM increase which annualizes to 9.8%. This is below last month’s rise of $254B and last September’s rise of $223B.
The federal budget deficit for September 2021 was $61.5 billion, down from the $171 billion in August. Even though the deficit fell 64% MoM, it was driven primarily by receipts. Spending was up 18.7% MoM but receipts were up 71.2% driven by a surge in corporate and individual taxes.
The analysis last month showed that selling exhaustion may be near in the gold market. Since then, gold continues to be range-bound between $1750 and $1800 running up against both solid resistance and support. Meanwhile, silver has shown a mini-breakout.
The $1800 level for gold is in play this week and could open the door for a big move if it gets through it soon.
Both gold and silver are seeing quieter activity in Comex contracts. This is not atypical for October and November which are slow months in the lead up to December.
This analysis focuses on gold and silver physical delivery on the Comex. See the article What is the Comex for more detail.
In this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap podcast, host Mike Maharrey answers listener questions. Some of the topics covered include bitcoin, fractional reserve banking, the silver/gold ratio, gold as a safe haven, precious metals in a crisis, and more.
Gold and bonds are both considered to be safe havens. But in a recent podcast, Peter explained why bonds are not a safe haven in an inflationary environment. In fact, bonds – including US Treasuries – are risk assets when inflation is running hot. If you want safety from inflation, you need to buy gold.
Both physical gold and silver have been draining from Comex vaults this year. There was a 1% decline in stocks of both metals over the last month.
This analysis focuses on gold and silver within the Comex/CME futures exchange. See the article What is the Comex? for more detail. The charts and tables below specifically analyze the physical stock data at the Comex to show the physical movement of metal into and out of Comex vaults.
Last week’s jobs numbers came in weaker than expected. September’s CPI came in hotter than expected. That puts the Federal Reserve between a rock and a hard place. Does it tighten monetary policy to fight inflation? Or does it keep stimulating to boost the economy? In this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap, host Mike Maharrey breaks down the data and says it’s about time for the central bank to pick its poison.
The CPI data for September came in hotter than expected at 0.4%. That pushed the yearly gain to 5.4%. But an honest CPI calculation would come in even hotter.
I am doing something different this month. In past reviews of the CPI, I typically take the BLS data and recalculate the values to get a more detailed number that is rounded to two decimal points instead of one. This methodology also allows me to show the impact of each component on the top-line number.
