Precious metals news

Demand for mortgage refinancing has plunged to a level not seen since Lehman filed for bankruptcy, and the near-shutdown in the mortgage pipeline is wreaking havoc on bank lending revenues.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac stock crashed starting in Q4 2007 culminating in both being placed into conservatorship with their regulator, FHFA. Where they remain today.

Rising Inflation and slowing growth is what were seeing

"The dominant narrative--the rightness, goodness, and sustainability of endless growth of consumption and debt--will unravel."

David Tice, formerly of the Prudent Bear Fund, discusses his latest market outlook, gold and more

The US Dollar Index was higher at 89.751 .DXY, but still remains close to a 2-week trough as investors’ cautious nature prevails.

Nomi Prins says the central banks are colluding and meddling in the markets daily, and the bankers can keep it up for quite a long time. Here's why...

Chris Powell takes a deep dive into the various interventions in the gold market. Here's just how bad the interventions have become...

Jeff Berwick put his fiat where his mouth is and has turned his cryptos into gold. Here's the details...

You can say, "Everything is great," all you want. But if it isn't, it isn't.
Pundits and politicians keep trying to talk up the economy. They might be able to keep optimism running high for a while, but at some point, expectations will run headfirst into economic reality.
In his most recent podcast, Peter Schiff argued that nobody is ready for the long-term pain that's ahead. That's because the mainstream is mostly ignoring the warning signs. By-and-large, the message you'll get watching CNBC or Fox Business is that "everything is great!" Peter has been hammering on this theme. In an earlier podcast, he noted that everybody is still optimistic about the economy because the stock market is so high.

There were more signs of a retail apocalypse in the first quarter of this year.
Defaults by retail companies rated by Moody's hit an all-time high in Q1. There were a total of nine defaults among Moody's-rated retail corporates. According to Wolf Street, total corporate defaults in Q1 were up 22% from last year, and the nine retailer defaults accounted for nearly 1/3 of them.
As Wolf Street put it, these are not mom-and-pop stores.  These are retailers large enough to be rated by Moody's -  "corporations that make up the core of the Brick-and-Mortar Meltdown."

I think the risk vs reward here is very much skewed in favor of the bulls.

Cash-out share of all refis hits pre-crisis levels. It was only a matter of time that people started using their homes as ATMs.  It is clear that the housing cheerleaders are drinking a mega dose of housing Kool-Aid and somehow think that people are immune from repeating past mistakes.

"*FED SEES `SIGNIFICANT' FISCAL-POLICY GROWTH BOOST NEXT FEW YRS"

"I don’t think it’s clear to anyone, including some of the people closest to Donald Trump, what exactly his strategic objectives are."

The DX probed lower (DX to 89.35) and drove gold through the $1356-57 double top and the 2/16 high at $1362 to reach $1365.25 (11-week high).

The trend on core inflation from the Consumer Price Index (CPI) is increasing, but is still at only 2.1% YoY and 2.4% YoY for CPI. Core PCE Price growth is at 1.6% YoY. Rent inflation (from owners …

"As the population ages, government spending as a share of the economy must rise if retirees aren’t forced to accept a lower quality of life."

Investors were anticipating a more volatile 2018, but few expected the severity and frequency of the swings seen on Wall Street this year.

SRSrocco says "investors need to understand ENERGY and the FRAGILE NATURE OF CURRENCIES. Unfortunately, a large percentage of..."