Precious metals news

The pilot program intended to assist the city's arts community during the pandemic is drawing both interest and criticism from proponents of unconditional cash transfers.

Barron's: Price spikes in appliances and other household goods are already starting to reverse, while disinflation in everything from rent to health care to college tuition is becoming more pronounced.

"Perhaps the Fed’s move to average inflation targeting won’t make much of a difference. But it nonetheless risks further politicizing the Fed. To the extent that it means the Fed will engage in even more credit allocation and Congress will take a more active role in guiding those credit...

Silver Bullion Coin Sales Rise 65 Percent Over Same Period

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Wednesday urged the International Monetary Fund and World Bank to work judiciously within their existing resources to fight the coronavirus pandemic and urged G20 countries to endorse a proposed debt restructuring framework.

The bottom line: Yet so far when challenged about what the Fed can do so that the next crisis does not result in a windfall for the wealthy and more pain for the poor, the Fed chair hasn't had much to say.

The Economic Cycle Research Institute’s Lakshman Achuthan highlights his latest inflation call in a special chart.

The race among central banks to launch sovereign digital currencies is heating up. China has made considerable progress, with hopes of using its nascent digital currency to help internationalist the yuan, but several other nations are warming to the idea of relying less on cold, hard cash in more flexible...

Argentina’s dollar shortage, fueled by a growing crisis of confidence, is threatening to wipe out the country’s dwindling foreign reserves, testing the ability of a nationalist government to avoid another full-blown economic and financial crisis in Latin America’s third biggest economy.

"If we only had 500 years… And the Fed, mired in misfeasance and in blatant collusion with the Treasury Department, has placed capitalism in America at grave risk."

After almost two decades of quantitative easing by the world’s major central banks, investors find themselves deep down the rabbit hole. The more than $16 trillion of bond and stock purchases by central banks since the financial crisis alone has artificially boosted asset prices. Although these purchases bolstered confidence in the financial system, they failed to achieve their primary goal, which was to spark faster inflation.

Will loan losses from the coronavirus recession get worse, much worse or extremely worse over the next six-to-12 months? All of the above, bank executives said this week.

It’s being called the “big bang,” and it has derivatives traders on high alert.In a critical development in the global shift away from old benchmarks that was triggered by Libor’s shortcomings, interest-rate swaps on more than $80 trillion in notional debt will transition this weekend...

A grim reality is setting in across the U.S. hospital sector: a surge in coronavirus infections is encroaching while most facilities are still recovering from the onset of the pandemic.The growing number of cases is threatening the very survival of hospitals just when the country needs...

A flood of mortgage-bond supply combined with a dearth of credit for lower-quality borrowers point to how the U.S. housing market is becoming more uneven when it comes to access to historically cheap debt.

Treasury Secretary Mnuchin signaled that he will give ground on a key issue in stimulus negotiations with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Even with the U.S. still reeling from the coronavirus pandemic, Washington fell short in delivering more stimulus before the election, whipsawed by President Donald Trump and hobbled by the diverging agendas of the top Republican and Democrat in Congress.

In response to any economic downturn, the Federal Reserve cranks up the money printing press. The reaction to the economic chaos caused by the government response to the coronavirus pandemic was no different. The Fed launched what many have called "QE infinity," and has increased the money supply at a record pace. A lot of politicians and pundits see no problem with this approach. After all, "inflation" remains muted despite the money printing.
It's true that by some measures, we haven't seen the rising prices you would expect after injecting trillions of dollars created out of thin air into the economy. But that doesn't mean there isn't inflation. In fact, defined correctly, increasing the money supply is inflation. And with our without rising consumer prices, inflation has pernicious effects.

The Treasury market is now so large that the U.S. central bank may have to continue to be involved to keep it functioning properly, according to Federal Reserve Vice Chair for Supervision Randal Quarrels. The U.S. rates market has faced several significant dislocations in the past couple...

...data from California, the most populous state, continue to remain frozen as they deal with the massive fraud that permeated their unemployment rolls...