No military action for Greenland

• The Dollar selling stops.
• Ray Dalio visits the Pfennig today.

Good Day... And a Tub Thumpin' Thursday to one and all! We've gone into a rainy period down here with yesterday, today and tomorrow all filled with rain. UGH! A day without sunshine is a day without a meal, very empty... Florida is supposed to be the "sunshine state"... not the "monsoon state"! I truly have no idea how the folks in the Northwest deal with all the rain they get!  I wouldn't last that's for sure! The Outlaws greet me this morning with their great song: Green Grass And High Tides... This is a over 9-minute song on the album but when performed live it would go on for at least 20 minutes! 

Well, the dollar sellers were going along just selling dollars yesterday, when suddenly there were frantically trying to keep control of the trading. The dollar selling quickly turned to dollar buying (on no news), which immediately got me thinking that the PPT must have entered the market and kept the dollar from falling down the rabbit hole... The BBDXY started the day at 1,204 and the selling brought it to 1,202, before turning around and ending the day at 1,206... UGH!  

The price of Oil bumped higher to end the day trading with a $60 handle (Still a long way from the break-even price of $80) And the 10-year's yield stopped rising yesterday, after the POTUS promised no military action to take Greenland and ended the day with a 4.25% yield. 

The price of Gold rallied on Wednesday, while the price of Silver saw a ton of SPTs.. And lost ground on the day... Gold closed at $4,832, and Silver at $93.22... The SPTS have to let us know that they are still around and that makes me very angry! For instance, Gold was $55 higher at one point in the day, and Silver was higher at $2.38... See? Yes, Gold was allowed to gain on the day, but the SPTs had taken their slice of flesh... And Silver just continues to be in the middle of the price war between the SPTs and China... I'm pinning my flag to the mast of China on that one!

In The overnight markets last night... The dollar drifted lower a bit with the BBDXY starting this morning at 1,205... I really dislike the fact that the dollar has a "savior" in the PPT and the exchange stabilization fund... Why can't the powers that be just let the markets decide which way the dollar goes? Well, with inflation still kicking our tails at the Grocery store, and everywhere else, having a weak currency allows inflation to be imported into the economy... That's why.... But in my mind, if something needs to be weakened because of fundamentals, then so be it! 

Gold is down and Silver is up this morning, a reversal of recent price action... Kitco.com shows Gold down $5 to start the day, but my records I show Gold flat at $,4,827... And Silver is up 28-cents to start the day today... Don't know what Kitco.com is smoking, but I'm going with my numbers! 

The price of Oil is bouncing between $59 and $60 these days, and this morning it has chosen the $59 handle... And the "sell America" is really building steam folks... this is not good either! A Dutch firm issued a statement that they would sell their total Treasury holdings ($100 Million) just as a warning shot across the bow of the U.S. and their Treasury issuance... With that the 10-year Treasury's yield starts the day trading with a 4.25% yield...

I want to circle the wagons and go back to something I talked about last week and that is the rise in yield in Japanese Gov't bonds (JGBs)... The world is spinning right now about this rise in yield... The Japanese Gov't Bond 10-year reached 2.35% yesterday... I know you're saying that's not much... But it is, considering that Japan's interest rates have been zero percent for two decades! 2.35% in Japan is HUGE! 

I've explained in the past that most of Japan's debt is self-financed, by issuing the bonds and the Japanese people would buy them.... The citizens own a very large chunk of JGB's, so right now they are sitting on large losses in their bonds, should they need to sell them into the market.

Remember, when yields rise in bonds, the price of the bond goes down, and vice versa.

The other thing that's getting wiped out by the rise in JGB's, is the carry trade... For years, Japanese housewives would sell yen and buy a higher yielding currency, and use their JGB as collateral... But all of that is coming to an end too.

This year is starting out very strange, don't you think?

Japanese bond yields are rising, Gold & Silver can't be stopped, and the dollar is starting out the year on a down note... I didn't even mention the weaker stock market too, but then I'm not even your last pick for a stock jockey! 

I've told you about my fondness of the writings by Ray Dalio and so he had something to say yesterday that I think all should hear: "Ray Dalio says global 'capital wars' favor gold over US bonds.

The U.S. Dollar's reign as the world's favored reserve currency is under increasing pressure as trade wars discourage foreign central banks from buying U.S. debt, pushing Treasury yields higher.

"The monetary order is breaking down," said Dalio in an interview with CNBC today. "Fiat currencies and debt as a store of wealth is not being held by central banks in the same way."

Chuck again... yes, when there's a Capital war countries decide to not hold other country's debt and currency, and instead flock to hard assets... i.e. Gold.

And I told you yesterday about Michael Checkan's tale of the Taels that I would search for and print again in the Pfennig... Instead, Michael and Rich Checkan sent me the pdf of the tale, and after reading it again I thought, "this is very long and would take up a full Pfennig: so, I'm going to give you the PDF so you can click on it and read it... This is very important that you do read it, for it tells the story of one refugee with Gold, and the other refugee with paper currency that was now worthless...  Oh darn! I can't figure out how to get it copied here... Shoot Rudy! I guess when I figure it out I'll give it to you... sorry about the pre-billing and then pulling it away.

The U.S. Data Cupboard finally gets something to look at today... First up is the Weekly Initial Jobless Claims, then Personal Income and Spending for Nov... (like this isn't stale...) then the first revision of 3^rd QTR GDP, ad finally the PCE for Nov. I don't like stale bread, and I don't like stale cookies, and I don't especially like stale economic data... I mean they might as well just skip printing it and try to catch up so that the next time around the data is fresh! Oh, well, it is what it is.... 

To recap... The dollar was getting sold yesterday, until it wasn't, indicating that some dollar intervention had entered the markets... Gold rallied for the day, but Silver got whacked by over a $! Ray Dalio says we as a coutnry are in a Capital War... (Chuck listens to Ray Dalio) And Japanese bond yields are rising and that has effects all over the globe including the U.S.

Here's your snippet: " Geopolitical and macroeconomic fears are pushing sovereign yields into dangerously high territory – with gold the chief beneficiary – while commodities, small caps and international equities will likely steal Big Tech’s thunder ahead of the midterms, according to Michael Zinn, managing director and senior portfolio manager at UBS.

In a Tuesday interview with BNN Bloomberg, when Zinn was asked how concerned he was about the ongoing market impacts of U.S. threats toward Greenland, he said markets appear more concerned with fixed income yields in Japan.

“This seems like it's going to be a year of policy uncertainty and that's just another example of it,” he said. “It's a midterm election here in the United States. I would say that wasn't necessarily on our bingo card a week or two ago. I think what's driving markets, maybe a little more profoundly today is what's going on in Japan, where we are seeing yields surge a little bit. That, I think, is a little bit more of a concern, because rising bond yields in Japan have been tugging on global yields for a while now.”

“Days like today, where they push the top end of the ranges and push U.S. rates to the top ends of their ranges, those begin to discourage investors from taking risks and encourage them to go into other things like gold.”

 Zinn said he wasn’t seeing much improvement in market conditions toward the end of Tuesday’s trading, with U.S. and Japanese 10-year yields remaining high and stocks languishing near session lows. “You're seeing gold near its high of the day,” he noted. “That probably means investors might be advised to be a little bit patient, see how this works out.”

“We think this is all landing in a fundamentally pretty strong backdrop,” he added. “I don't think this is going to haunt us for the rest of the year by any means. But these kinds of yield-spawned sell-offs can be sharp declines, and you want to just be mindful of patience sometimes being rewarded.”

Turning to which sectors may perform well in 2026, Zinn said the opportunities will be found less in tech and more in commodities.

“It's a change in the music, I think, from the previous couple of years,” he said. “Of course, in the past, tech has been leading the charge, and the Mag 7, of course, have been on the top of everyone's favorite playlist. This year does feel a little different.”

Chuck again... Yes, at least the start of the year seems a bit different in my eye, so I agree with Mr. Zinn.... And if he's correct that commodities will be the big winners this year, then the commodity currencies will be popular... They include the A$, kiwi, C$, RUB, BRL, and some lesser ones.

Market Prices 1/22/2026: American Style: A$ .6805, kiwi .5875, C$ .7234, euro 1.1702, sterling 1.3421, Swiss $1.2610, European Style: rand 16.2110, krone 9.8971, SEK 9.2580, forint 327.40, zloty 3.5920, koruna 20.7818, RUB 75.71, yen 158.65 sing 1.2837, HKD 7.7975, INR 91.62, China 6.9774, peso 17.48, BRL 5.3165, BBDXY 1,205, Dollar Index 98.77, Oil $59.83, 10-year 4.25%, Silver $93.92, Platinum $2,508.00, Palladium $1,876, Copper $5.76, and Gold... $4,830.

That's it for today and this week... A short week for me, (YAY!) The Stl U. Billikens have an afternoon affaire at St. Bonaventure tomorrow... I sure hope they worked on finishing out a game on the road... I really like this Billikens team this year, they all score and that's a good thing! Only 19 more days until Pitchers and Catchers report for Spring Training! Our Blues still can't put together a win streak of more than 2 games... And when they lose they just can't generate any scoring... So, that's a problem they need to correct... The Troggs takes us to the finish line today with their song that I heard on TV Commercial the other day: With a Girl Like You I hope you have a Tub Thumpin' Thursday today and Please Be Good To Yourself!