Precious metals news

Will a shift away from the dollar in the global oil trade really lead to a big relative decline in the dollar? Probably and eventually. But a number of other dominoes would need to fall first, most especially the domino we call “Eurodollars.”

Change is already afoot. The current account surpluses of China, Russia and Saudi Arabia are at a record. Yet these surpluses are largely not being recycled into traditional reserve assets like Treasuries, which offer negative real returns at current inflation rates. Instead we have seen more demand for gold (see China’s recent purchases), commodities (see Saudi Arabia’s planned investments in mining interests) and geopolitical investments such as funding the BRI and helping allies and neighbours in need, like Turkey, Egypt or Pakistan. Leftover surpluses are held increasingly in bank deposits in liquid form to retain much-needed options in a changing world.

Central banks resumed trend of consistent monthly net buying during 2022...

Russians bought an all-time record number of gold bars in 2022, finance ministry data showed on Friday, as tax cuts on precious metals encouraged people to stock up on bullion as a safe asset.

China's foreign exchange reserves rose in December, official data showed on Saturday, as the dollar fell against other major currencies.

Is that the picture that the market is clinging to when it prices in rate-cuts this year? And if that's true, why did the BLS just report a massive surge in jobs?

If central banks are not stopped from doing what they are doing—causing booms and busts by manipulating market interest rates downward and relentlessly expanding the quantity of money created out of thin air—their actions will eventually lead to a level of inflation well beyond what we have witnessed over the past year and a half. From this perspective, the sharply contracting real money stock in the world economy is—it has to be feared—the harbinger of a new round of super-easy monetary policy and super-high inflation, even hyperinflation, further down the road.

'Good' news on the labor market is a disaster for the 'soft landing' narrative and sent rate-hike expectations soaring above pre-Powell levels...

The bottom line is that there will be no disinflation of the currency supply. Jerome Powell may be partially correct, however, in forecasting price pressures to ease in certain areas of the economy as it softens. We are currently seeing home prices and car prices come down. We could also see downside pressure come to bear on economically sensitive commodities.

Ahead of today's payrolls report, we warned that there is the possibility for a lot more "market whiplash" because as Goldman explicitly warned, there is the risk for an outlier strong report in January due to massive seasonal adjustments...

QT is starting to make a visible dent.

By the end of 2023, about half of the states will have cut rates on income within three years. But some Progressive states are intent on driving away businesses and consumers.

Japan's Government Pension Investment Fund — the world's largest — reported a fourth consecutive quarterly loss on Friday, taking it to its longest losing streak in 20 years.

It is a warning that Wall Street executives, busy skimming fees off retirement nest eggs, want you to ignore. The longer the warning goes unheeded, however, the bigger the financial time bomb may be for workers, retirees and the governments that pay them.

Oil headed for a second weekly decline as dimming optimism over a recovery in Chinese demand and rising US stockpiles offered the latest indications that the market remains soft.

President Joe Biden dislikes them. The taxman is coming after them. And Wall Street strategists warn the boom won’t last. Yet against all odds, Corporate America continues to splurge on its own shares — a force that has fueled the new year rally.

The US stock rally has already gone too far, and investors face brutal declines if economic growth crumbles in the second half of the year, Bank of America Corp. strategists say.

Late to the global interest-rate hiking party, the European Central Bank is trying to convince everyone that it will also be one of the last to leave.

Bullish markets are increasingly pricing in a second-half reversal of the global monetary tightening wave, making it tougher for central bankers to vanquish inflation once and for all.

Bond traders are growing ever more confident that central banks are nearing the end of their tightening cycle.