The Dollar is slipping as markets look ahead to the FOMC rate cut

• Currencies & metals see selling on Friday.
• Watch what you ask for in AI.

Good Day... And A Marvelous Monday to you! In what seemed to feel like a very long weekend, I did not attend our subdivision's Progressive Dinner, and watched my beloved Mizzou Tigers Basketball team play Kansas... Other than those two things, I really didn't do anything, so I don't know why it seemed like a very long weekend... Maybe because I was stuck inside for most of it! After last week and having no Dr appts, I will miss writing tomorrow, because of a Heart Doctor appt. That's across town too... That will be more than I drove my car in the last 3 weeks! A real jazzy version of the song: Deck the Halls is being played by Rick Braun this morning to greet me.

The dollar didn't really get much play on Friday last week; it did gain 1 index point in the BBDXY, but besides that it was a "meh" day... The euro ended the week above the 1.16 handle, so the rest of the currencies breathed a bit in ease... Gold tried like the dickens to post a gain, but in the end it ended the week down $10 at $4,199, and Silver won back the ground it lost on Thursday, ending the week up $1.22 and closing the week at $58.39.

It was quite apparent to me that the SPTs were not going to allow Gold to close above $4,200 and Silver above $59... I mean, the SPTs were quite prevalent and showing off their ability to engineer a takedown of the metals... Ed Steer had this to say in his Saturday letter: "The U.S. government shut-down has allowed the commercial traders free reign to do as they see fit, without oversight -- and their handiwork won't be fully exposed for another six weeks. And not that I have a conspiratorial mind...but the thought has crossed it on more than one occasion that this government shut-down was allowed to happen -- and even encouraged, so that 'da boyz' could hide what they had to do from prying eyes for as long as possible. As Yoda said..."Never underestimate the power of the dark side of The Force."

OK... The price of Oil bumped higher to a $60 handle to close the week, and the 10-year Treasury's yield rose again this time ending the week with a $4.14% yield... The bond boys sure have it in their heads that the Fed/ Cabal / Cartel is going to have to reverse their rate cuts in 2026... It's nice that the bond boys and me are on the same thought pattern here.

In the overnight Markets last night.... The dollar is getting sold at the moment, as the overnight markets are looking toward the FOMC rate cut, or debasement of the dollar and trading it accordingly. The Petrol Currencies have perked up with the price of Oil wanting to trade over the $60 handle. The Russian ruble has really picked up the pace, along with the Mexican peso and Brazilian real. Their moves higher VS the dollar aren't anything to write home about, but they are at least moving higher.

The price of Gold starts our day/ week up $10 and back over the $4,200 level that the SPTs were so adamant about keeping Gold below it to end last week. Silver has started the day/ week down 10-cents, so no biggie, and it can be reversed easily... C'mon Silver, you can do it!  

The price of Copper has really taken off, and it trades around $5.47 this morning... Short supplies remains the story with Copper... And without interference, as there has been some recently, Copper should be able to continue to rise in price.

The price of Oil slipped overnight to a $59 handle, but it certainly was looking as if it wanted to go higher on Friday, so I'll keep an eye on Oil to see if that "want to go higher " urge comes back... And the 10-year Treasury is starting the day/ week, trading at 4.15% yield... I'm telling you now, so maybe you'll listen to me later... The Bond boys believe that the Fed/ Cabal/ Cartel will have to reverse their rate cuts in 2026, and that they are marking the 10-year accordingly.

Well, tariffs or negotiating tools as the WH would call them, have done the trick of alienating countries away from the U.S.... Take India for example... I found this on apnews.com: "Russian President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi finalized an agreement aimed at increasing annual trade to $100B by 2030. Bilateral trade totaled $68.7B last fiscal year and was heavily skewed in Russia’s favor. The nations are also pursuing a free-trade agreement for India with the Eurasian Economic Union, a Moscow-dominated bloc of five post-Soviet states. "

Chuck again... sure, it just might me temporary but... Didn't Nixon tell us that the move off of a Gold Standard was "temporary"? Why, yes, he did and there are a number of scenarios in our history that at the time were titled "temporary"... But in the end, they were endless... I'm just saying.

De dollarization... it's the new old-fashioned way... And no, we're not rockin' around the Christmas Tree with Brenda Lee this morning! And the POTUS has a plan to make the dollar great again... it involves the use of stablecoins... I just don't' see this as the way out of this mess for the dollar, but I'm probably wrong about that, as I was calling Bitcoin a "Ponzi Scheme".

Well, the FOMC begins its meeting tomorrow; this is one of those two-day meetings, where the FOMC members get all the board games out and begin to pass the time at the ECCLES Building by playing board games... I always think that you could hear shouts of " You Sunk My Battleship"...I think that they should at least play a game of Monopoly, so they can see how money flows... I'm just saying.

The U.S Data Cupboard today is empty, but Friday's Data Cupboard had the Sept prints of Personal Income and Spending, which saw Income rise .4%, and Spending come in at plus .3%...  Spending was down from August's back to school gains... Usually, we see Spending outdo Income... And I aways wondered how long this could go on? I guess it all depends on how the credit card companies deal with consumer debt...  And last Friday, we saw the color of the Fed/Cabal/ Cartel's preferred inflation calculation in the PCE print at 2.8%... Proving what I've said all along that inflation is sticky... And it will continue to be sticky and growing by tiny steps into 2026.

And in a different galaxy far from here... Inflation would remain below our wages... But a recent report showed that: Food Away from the home, Food at Home, services other than rent, and Shelter are all ahead of wages... Only Alcohol and recreation were below wages... So, we can go to a game drink some beer, and know that we were within our wages...  Great!  

Regarding data... I came across this article late last week and though, "oh my".

And if you don't want to click the link... here's the gist of the article: "U.S. employers have announced more than one million job cuts in 2025 as restructuring, AI adoption, and tariffs intensified layoffs. November saw 71,321 cuts, bringing the year’s total to 1.17 million — the highest since 2020 and 54% above last year. Verizon’s 13,000-plus reductions and AI-related cuts across tech led the surge, while tariffs drove more than 2,000 November layoffs. Planned hiring fell sharply to 497,151, down 35% from 2024."

Chuck again... I think that when 2026 is about over, we'll think that these numbers for 2025 were good... I'm just saying.

To recap... Well, we were data filled today... which is a good way to start the week, in my opinion, as it sets up the week for us to think about... The dollar is in trouble, folks... By next May the new Fed el jefe will be in charge and it is thought to be Kevin Hasset, who is a good ally of the POTUS, so guess what he'll be bringing to the FOMC? Can you say more rate cuts? I knew you could! And that will be a black shadow for the dollar... I'm just saying.

Here's your snippet: "Artificial Intelligence doesn’t know the truth and it never will. It can’t.

All it can know are patterns stitched together from whatever it digests. And like any organism, it becomes what it consumes. I know this all too well from personal experience: a bad diet has bad results.

But at the risk of sounding hypocritical, I have to say it: AI is eating garbage. Tons of it.

And the junk food sitting right at the top of its diet? Wikipedia and Reddit.

The people building today’s AI systems choose what these models are trained on and how much credibility each source gets. They calibrate the entire information diet, and we see the consequences in the outputs.

Take Elon Musk. His model, Grok, is trained primarily on X data.

Meanwhile, models like ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini gorge themselves on a steady stream of Wikipedia pages and Reddit threads.

In effect, Reddit and Wikipedia have become the “primary sources” for the machines shaping our political, cultural, and educational landscape.

Think about that: some anonymous basement dweller upvoting a joke on Reddit now influences the answer you get to a serious question about geopolitics, ethics, or history. When you browse Reddit on your own, you understand the context: this is not an authoritative space. But when AI spits that same information back to you, all the context is stripped away.

The information has been laundered, filtered from a questionable source into a polished, authoritative-seeming format.

It would be funny if it weren’t so dangerous."

Chuck again... Please, be careful out there using AI... I'm just saying.

Market Prices 12/8/2025: American Style: A$ .6639, kiwi .5785, C$ .7242, euro 1.1653, sterling 1.3320, Swiss $1.2416, European Style: rand 16.3937, krone 10.1134, SEK 9.3937, forint 328.93, zloty 3.6207, koruna 20.8125, RUB 76.65, yen 155.56, sing 1.2964, HKD 7.7807, INR 90.08, China 7.0682, peso 18.18, BRL 5.4153, BBDXY 1,212, Dollar Index 98.95, Oil $59.28, 10-year 4.15%, Silver $58.29, Platinum $1,667.00, Palladium $1,492.00, Copper $5.47, and Gold... $4,209.

That's it for today... So, like I said above, no Pfennig tomorrow, but I'll be back on Wednesday... Tonight is the Dubinsky, Trotter, Lisner Christmas gathering of former Mark Twain Bank employees... It's held every year at this time, and I really get a kick out of seeing some of my old colleagues... We, as a group, have really grown old, but that doesn't stop these people from running the world! They are some real go-getters! Not a late night, just an evening soiree... My beloved Mizzou Tigers Basketball team learned that they had some growing to do after losing to rival Kansas yesterday. And what's happened to the KC Chiefs? Ron Brown takes us to the finish line today with his version of the song: Joy To The World... A real bluesy version too... I hope you have a Marvelous Monday today, and Please Be Good To Yourself!