The bond market flashed a major recession warning sign as the yield curve inverted this week. Meanwhile, Trump whipsawed markets when he appeared to blink in the never-ending trade war with China. That made for an interesting week for gold. In this week’s Friday Gold Wrap podcast, host Mike Maharrey breaks down the events of the last few days and their impact on precious metals. He also remembers an important day in history that went mostly unnoticed in the mainstream.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell below the yield on the 2-year for the first time in 12 years, stoking recession fears and tanking stock markets.
Yield curve inversions have preceded all nine recessions since 1955. This was the first time the 10-year Treasury yield has dropped below the 2-year yield since June 2007 – the cusp of the Great Recession.
Gold will likely shine over the next six to 12 months as heightened risk meets easy money — this according to the World Gold Council’s mid-year outlook.
Gold ranked as one of the best-performing assets through the first half of 2019, beaten only by stock markets – which have also been supported by the turn toward looser monetary policy – and oil. And if you combine gold’s gains through H1 2019 and the Q4 2018, nothing beats it.
The price of gold is up over 9.5% since the beginning of the year. One strategist who appeared on CNBC yesterday says he sees it going even higher – as high as $2,000 by the end of the year.
David Roche heads London-based Independent Strategy. During an interview on CNBC’s Squawk Box, he said he sees bad things to come in the stock markets but gold will shine.
I actually believe financial markets are now poised to crumble like a sand pile.”
Markets reacted strongly to the June jobs report on Friday. Stocks fell. Bonds and gold got clobbered. The dollar got a boost.
In his latest podcast, Peter Schiff said the markets overreacted to the report. In fact, he said the jobs numbers were “no big deal.”
The Dow Jones just had its best June since 1938. Overall, stocks were up around 7% last month. It was also the best first half for stocks in 22 years.
Meanwhile, gold gained about 8% on the month. As Peter pointed out in his latest podcast, while stocks had significant gains in dollar terms, they actually lost value in terms of real money.
And as Peter also pointed out, when you look at the recent stock market gains, you have to put them into context.
Back in December, Peter Schiff said the Federal Reserve’s was about to do the last rate hike of the cycle. He went further and said the “Powell Pause” wouldn’t be enough and the next step would be rate cuts and another round of quantitative easing. Fast forward to today and nearly everybody expects that the Fed will cut rates at least once this year.
Jim Grant appeared on CNBC Markets Now on June 17 and shocked the panel when he said he thinks the Fed will actually cut rates during this week’s meeting. Most analysts expect the central bank to hold pat during this meeting and then possibly cut in July.
Whether or not he’s right about the timing, Grant offers a good explanation as to why the Fed will cut and the likely results. He says the central bank is pursuing a dual mandate of arsonist and fireman.
During a recent interview, President Donald Trump lamented the fact that we don’t have a bigger bubble and blamed Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. Trump said that even though Powell was his pick, he “disagrees with him entirely.” He said that if it weren’t for the Fed, we’d have even stronger GDP growth.
Frankly, if we had a different person in the Federal Reserve that wouldn’t have raised interest rates so much, we would have been at least a point and a half higher. I’m not happy with what he’s done.”
As Peter Schiff pointed out in his podcast, this is the exact opposite of Trump’s position when he was campaigning. Now that he’s in the White House, Trump has turned into a Keynesian on steroids.
The following is a market update as it related to precious metals prepared by SchiffGold intern commodities analyst Jason Mezhibovsky and SchiffGold News managing editor Mike Maharrey.
Equities Overdone
Most mainstream analysts believe we remain in the midst of the longest bull market in history. If you consider the post-crisis S&P 500 low of March 9, 2009, as the beginning of this bull run, then it’s well over a decade long.
Peter Schiff believes the bull market actually ended last fall. He predicted that the December rate hike would be the last. Turns out he was correct in that prediction.
Last week was a good one for the stock market. Peter Schiff raised an important question in his latest podcast: why?
Answer: it’s all about the Fed.
Everybody is giddy because they think the central bank is going to save the day once again. In this podcast, Peter explains why they are wrong.
