Precious metals news

Leaders have pledged they will not embark on massive stimulus like that during the 2008-09 global crisis, which saddled the economy with a mountain of debt.

2020 could bring another year of turmoil for Latin America after the dramatic events of 2019 from the Caribbean to Chile

The US economy & financial system – including being able to maintain & fund the gargantuan trade deficits & fiscal deficits – has become reliant on the dollar being the dominant global reserve currency.

The odds of a policy mistake are rising and the safety valve of easy money for the equity market is limited as well. And if history proves to be a reliable guide the equity market peak will occur in Q1 2020. 

The December Federal Open Market Committee meeting minutes will be released at 2pm New York time on Friday - That's 1900 GMT. The Fed injected epic amounts of liquidity into markets over the Christmas / New Year period …

Spot price for gold is testing six-month highs at around $1,546 per ounce, a rise of more than 1% on the session. Silver is higher by almost 1 percent...

What have we learned about the gold market in the past twelve months, and what can we glean from this knowledge?

Once again we are back to my central gold theme question. Is everything under control or not?

Much has been made of late regarding the heavy commercial short positions pointing to a major drop in the gold market. Yet, history suggests otherwise.

By some estimates, the world is short $400 trillion to pay for its aging population.

Large, unfunded state pension liabilities are a costly problem—and the cost is already reflected in current bond prices.

Public-employee pension plans across the United States are trillions of dollars short of what they need to pay out the generous retirement benefits politicians have promised state and local government employees.

In 2019, gold had its best year since 2010. Peter Schiff appeared on the RT Dec. 31 and said he thinks the yellow metal should have done even better. And given the current economic conditions, he believes the 20's will be an explosive decade for gold.
You know, the reason the US stock market went up this year is because the Fed surprised everybody by doing exactly what I had been predicting they would do. They aborted their feigned attempt to normalize their interest rates and shrink their balance sheet. They went back to rate cuts and quantitative easing. This is extremely bullish for gold."

Gold ended 2019 up 19%. It was the best year for the yellow metal since 2010.
A strong surge during the last two weeks December pushed the gold above the $1,500 mark and it closed out the year at $1,520.90. After a sluggish fall, gold gained 3.4% in the final month of 2019.
Silver also had a good year. The white metal ended 2019 at $17.89, a 15.6% gain.

As economist Thorsten Polleit pointed out, inflation has pernicious effects on the average person, while tremendously benefiting the chosen few. Inflation the money supply is a policy intentionally carried out by central bankers around the world. Polleit calls this an “inflation scam.” With the Federal Reserve signaling that it is willing to let the inflation monster run loose, you should be prepared to see the value of the dollar erode even further in the future.
In essence, inflation facilitates a transfer of wealth from the average Joe and Jane to the politically connected. You can't talk about wealth inequality without pointing a finger at the Federal Reserve. After all, it is the central bank that generates inflation by effectively creating money out of thin air.

Reuters has dubbed the 2010s the "decade of debt."
The Reuters report focused on the ballooning levels of corporate debt, but consumer and government indebtedness has skyrocketed over the last 10 years as well. This massive debt bubble poses a significant systemic risk to the financial system and the economy. Some in the mainstream are starting to hint at this, but they still don't seem to recognize the magnitude of the problem.

Consumers represent two-thirds of GDP in the U.S. And yet, when consumers run into trouble, they don’t get a handout from the Federal Reserve – they are forced to file bankruptcy.

I was stunned to see that retirement wealth, measured in 2016 dollars, had declined. That is, the wealth holdings for the late boomers (age 51 to 57) were actually lower than the wealth holdings for the mid boomers (age 57 to 63) at the same age.

“The slowdown we have already seen, which is a fact in both manufacturing and trucking in 2019, is typical of the year before a recession.

This overconfidence then feeds into public markets, where investors get their cues on price and relevant metrics from private market investors, leading to inflated values in those markets.