Despite all kinds of economic bad news, as of Friday, the Dow Jones was on pace for the best October in history. As Peter Schiff explained in his podcast, this demonstrates the fact that for now, bad news is good news, and stocks are priced for perfection in an imperfect world.
Physical metal has continued to drain from COMEX vaults. This is particularly true for silver, which now has 17.4 paper ounces for every registered ounce.
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/inventory data at the Comex to show the physical movement of metal into and out of Comex vaults.
This is starting to look a lot like the popping of the dot-com bubble with one big difference — inflation.
Beginning in mid-June, we saw a significant bear market rally in stocks. But the recent declines have wiped out those gains and more. For instance, the Dow jumped 14% during the 2-month rally. By the close on Friday, Sept. 23, it was once again down 20% from its all-time high. That same day, the NASDAQ closed just 2% off its June low after a 23% rally.
Inflation continues to surprise to the upside. Meanwhile, the economy continues to surprise to the downside. But the markets continue to believe that the Federal Reserve can slay the inflation monster while still guiding the economy to a so-called “soft landing.” FedEx announced some news last week that undercuts this narrative. In his podcast, Peter Schiff talked about why the landing is going to be hard. And when the economy crashes, the Fed inflation fight will be over.
We got the August CPI data this week and it came in hotter than expected. Stocks suffered a big selloff. Everybody is betting on the Fed to get even more aggressive in its inflation fight. In this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap podcast, host Mike Maharrey breaks down the data and exposes a dirty little secret that the mainstream still hasn’t come to grips with.
Jerome Powell and other central bankers at the Federal Reserve are still talking tough about their inflation fight even as the economy continues to deteriorate. Peter Schiff says we’re nearing an inflection point, but the markets don’t get it yet. As he explained in his podcast, the Fed’s monetary tightening is causing a recession, but ultimately, the central bank will surrender to inflation. There is a day of reckoning ahead and we can’t avoid it much longer.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell insists the central bank can fight inflation because the economy is strong. President Joe Biden keeps telling us the economy is strong. The talking heads on CNBC insist the underlying economy is strong. In a recent podcast, Peter Schiff talked about the economy. As it turns out, it’s not so strong.
When we got the March CPI data last month, the mainstream crooned that it looked like we were at peak inflation. This was wishful thinking. The April CPI data that came out this week, along with the producer price numbers, indicate that we’re still climbing that inflation mountain. In this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap podcast, host Mike Maharrey digs into the data and discusses how it could impact the trajectory of Fed monetary policy and the economy.
Last week, the Fed raised interest rates by 0.5%. It was the biggest rate increase since the year 2000. But it was hardly aggressive in light of the current bout of inflation. Not only that, Jerome Powell took a future 75 basis point hike off the table. In his podcast, Peter Schiff argued that no matter what the Fed does, it has already lost the inflation fight.
The Fed hiked rates 0.5% this week in an effort to stem the inflation tide. But the economy already looks shaky and the central bank has barely started this inflation fight. Friday Gold Wrap host Mike Maharrey breaks down the messaging that came out of the Fed meeting and concludes the central bank is getting closer and closer to a crossroads. What will the central bank do? And what will it mean for the economy?
