Another day of “corrections”, but i still doubt it

Good Day... And a Wonderful Wednesday to you! Well, another game, another loss for my beloved Cardinals last night, and after they had rallied late and took the lead, only to see it wither away by the bullpen... UGH! The Cardinals were 1 for 10, with runners in scoring position last night... You won't win many games with stats like that! Every day, I feel a bit stronger, but I should, as I recline in my chair with my feet up all day long... I know I wasn't that active before this blood loss caper, but at least I would get outside and move around... Oh, well, there's nothing for me to do around the house, since we are not hosting our Butler Labor Day BBQ & Pool Party this year... Golden Earring greet me this morning with a real rocking song: Twilight Zone...  

Well, it was a nothing day for the dollar and currencies again yesterday, with the BBDXY ending the day at the same level it ended it the day before: 1,225.... I had thought that maybe it would be a Turn-Around Tuesday yesterday, but nooooooo.... I guess that no mater what color of the markets bonds, stocks, currencies, energy, metals, etc., they are all waiting for the earnings report from NVIDIA that will come to light this afternoon... I normally don't talk about individual stocks, but this is so glaringly obvious, what's going on here... 

Gold did use yesterday as a turn-around Tuesday, as it wiped out its early trading loss of % 9.00 to gain $6 on the day, and close at $2,525.48... Silver also turned its early trading loss 6-cents to a gain of 18-cents, and close above $30 at $30.12... It's time for Gold & Silver to start taking no prisoners, and start a long-winded rally upward in price... I'm just saying... 

The price of Oil slipped again yesterday and ended the day trading with a $75 handle.. I guess the article about Libya halting production only held the Oil traders and investors attention for a day... The 10-year rebounded a bit yesterday, and ended the day trading with a 3.81% yield... 

In the overnight markets last night... Well, apparently, the overseas traders haven't gotten the memo that the Fed Heads are preparing to cut rates next week, thus debasing the dollar, because they went head over heals to buy dollars last night... The BBDXY isn't working today, so we have to use the old Dollar Index, which shows it approaching 101, again... After being in the low 100's to start the week... The euro remains above 1.11 but not as strong as it looked a couple of days ago, when it was knock, knock, knocking on heaven's door, Wait! No, it was knocking on the door to 1.12... 

The short paper traders must have gotten an early wake-up call today, because they have already begun to engineer a takedown of Gold & Silver this morning... Gold is down $20 to start the day, and Silver is down 62-cents... These guys just can't stand to have Gold setting new all-time record highs, and Silver trading above $30... Again, on Kitco.com this morning they are calling this a "correction"... I say, wake up and smell the coffee buckos! That's the problem I have with Kitco.com, that they have never, ever talked about short paper traders causing Gold & Silver so many headaches... They refuse to acknowledge, what everyone else and their brothers know... But that's fine, at least they are consistent with their explanations of Gold sell offs... 

The price of Oil slipped again overnight, and after seeing a brief runup to $77 earlier this week, the price of Oil trades this morning with a $74 handle... Makes no sense to me folks... Shipping Oil is becoming a turkey shoot, and our friends (NOT!) at OPEC are maintaining their production cuts... To me, these two things alone outweigh any demand issues... But apparently, not...  

The 10-year's yield remains at 3.81% this morning... i read an article on this bond earlier this morning, that talked about how maybe, just maybe, because you never know, the rally in bonds is over... Well, it's about the sanest thing I've read about bonds, so there's that!

Well, there's not a lot of news from around the world that hasn't already been hashed and rehashed by the pundits, and media... There was this that I found interesting: Canada, following the lead of the US and European Union, said it would impose a 100% tariff on imports of Chinese electric vehicles and announced a 25% tariff on imported steel and aluminum from China.  

Two questions i have for our friends up north... How many electric cars do you currently import from China? If this is similar to the U.S. sanctions on EV cars from China, of whom they didn't import any... And second, did you happen to see the news the other day when China reported record Trade Balance with the U.S? So much for our sanctions, eh? And I'm sure you'll find the same given time... 

Yes, China's trade surplus with the United States rose to nearly $32 billion last month, up from $29 billion a year earlier, as China exported more and bought less. Looks like to me that those sanctions and tariffs are really working, doesn't it? NOT!

And I don't know if you been keeping track in the currency roundup, but China's renminbi has been on the rally tracks in recent weeks... So, as Sgt. Steve McCroskey would say... We, as a country picked a bad time to be importing so much from China, when their currency is rallying.... Remember Sgt. Steve McCroskey in Airplane? I picked the wrong day to stop sniffing glue....  HA! 

And there was an article this morning about the New Zealand dollar/ kiwi... Longtime readers know that I simply adore kiwi, and so any time I see something written about kiwi, I'm all over it like a cheap suit! Here are the folks at FXSTREET.com "“Position-wise, CFTC data reported that speculators have trimmed their net short positions after aggressively dumping their six-year high net long positions during the unwinding of JPY carry trades in the past two months.”

Chuck again... They also talk about how the .6252 kiwi hit overnight is the highest kiwi has been since Jan2, 2024... The writers believe that kiwi can get to .6350 by year-end...  Hmmm....

You know how much I abhor taxes.... I find them to be excessive, and never fault anyone for avoiding them when they get caught... I was reading a piece by Jeff Thomas who writes for Doug Casey's International Man Communique, and Jeff was talking about the fall of Rome, and how taxes had gotten so large, and burdensome that, well... I'll let him take it from there:

"By the fifth century, the situation was so dire that tax riots and rebellion were the order of the day for those who had remained in Rome, but even this did not stop taxes from rising and more people being provided with largesse by the government.

It’s been written that "those who lived off the treasury were more numerous than those paying into it." (An eerie occurrence, as we too have now reached that point.)"

I point to that last line regarding the number of people living off the treasury VS those paying into it... That's a scenario that can't go on forever, folks... If The Romans were still around, you could as them how it worked out for them, but instead you have to believe what you read...  And when you pull the punchbowl away from the mob, watch out! There will be civil unrest... I'm just saying... 

Bill Bonner was pointing out the other day that prices in the U.S. are up 39% since 2012... I like to point out that prices for things have been going up for a long time now... When I was a young man, and played baseball, and would come home from practice, and would stop at the corner confectionary, and get a 16oz RC Cola and moonpie, for the shiny quarter I had in my pocket... And get some pennies back in change! Try to buy those two things today with a shiny quarter!   The reason I talk about this stuff is that there are a lot of misconceptions about what inflation really is....  

I remember having discussions with our in-house economist from SLU, and I would point out that inflation in it base description is nothing more than money supply...  M2 Money Supply was just $12 Billion a month 10 years ago... Then it began to rise steadily until reaching $20 Billion in 2021, and setting a record in 2022 of $22 Billion...  Those are monthly numbers folks... So if you calculate them out Money Supply for the last 10 years, you'll find that more than $1.78 Trillion has been added to Money Supply... Now, what do you think prices would do with all that cash spreading around?  BTW... The in-house economist would argue with me that inflation was not Money Supply... I never played my Hy Minky card on her... We would just disagree... 

The U.S. Data Cupboard doesn't have anything for us today, but yesterday it had the Case/Shiller Home Price Index for June, and it surprised observers by gaining .5% in price after months of downward movement in home prices, it appears they are on the rebound.

To Recap... The dollar did nothing in the U.S. session yesterday, but somehow the overseas traders hadn't received the memo about the Fed Heads cutting rates at their next meeting, and so they rushed to buy dollars last night... Strange, I know, but it is what it is... Gold is getting whacked already this morning, the dirty dog short paper traders can't stand to hear or see Gold hitting all-time record highs... Canada is following the U.S. down the sanctions road, thus proving they haven't learned a thing from the U.S.  And kiwi has finally wiped out its losses for this year.

For What It's Worth... I saw this article on Ed Steer's letter yesterday, and immediately thought that it was FWIW worthy! This article covers an interview with the Swiss Finance Minister Gov. 

Here's your snippet: "Debt levels in the United States and Europe are a risk for international financial stability and for Switzerland, Swiss Finance Minister Karin Keller-Sutter said in a newspaper interview published on Saturday.

In an interview with Swiss daily Blick, Keller-Sutter extolled Switzerland's "disciplined" finances, which she said had enabled the country to deal with the economic challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

By contrast, other countries are "so indebted they're hardly able to act any more", she said, giving France as an example.

"Or take a look at America. That's a time bomb. The mini-crash on the stock markets at the start of August was a warning shot," the minister was quoted as saying.

"It was an expression of investors' fear of a recession. Debt levels in the U.S. and Europe are a risk to international financial stability and a risk for Switzerland," she added.

Keller-Sutter also discussed a government proposal to make Swiss bank UBS hold more capital in the wake of its acquisition of former rival Credit Suisse following its collapse last year.

She defended the additional capital requirements as necessary to protect Switzerland from another banking meltdown.

UBS CEO Sergio Ermotti has criticised the proposal, and she was asked whether she was in touch with him about it, saying:

"No, I haven't been in contact with him any more. This is now a normal political process."

Chuck again, and you got a bonus here in that she also talked about how the Swiss dealt with a bank... 

Market Prices 8/28/2024: American Style: A$ .6775, kiwi .6247, C$ .7421, euro 1.1127. Sterling 1.3223, Swiss $1.1867, European Style: rand 17.7784, krone 10.5254, SEK 10.1864, forint 353.82, zloty 3.8625, koruna 22.5192, RUB 91.90, yen 144.42, sing 1.3095, HKD 7.7999, INR 83.96, China 7.1274, peso 19.60, BRL 5.5091, Dollar Index 100.96, Oil $74.60, 10-year 3.81%, Silver $ 29.50, Platinum $940.00, Palladium $961.00, Copper $4.22, and Gold... $2,504.30.

That's it for today... Man, I woke up at 5 am this morning, and couldn't go back to sleep, so I got up and began to write... That reminded me of my days at EverBank, when I would get up at 3:30 am, get to the office at 4:30 am, and begin to write, so that it could get to the editor early, and I could have it out the door by 6:30 am... Then I would begin to work my daily job... By 11 am I was beat... In the early days of EverBank, I would be at my desk for 14 hours a day... I ate dinner at my desk many a night... I'm not whining here, just marking the times and how hard I worked back in the day... Nowadays, I get winded if I have to climb the stairs! What a change and difference! Oh, well, time doesn't wait for no one, and it doesn't wait for me, that's for sure! Van (the man) Morrison takes us to the finish line with one of my fave songs: Moondance... I hope you have a Wonderful Wednesday today, and please, oh please with sugar on top, Be Good To Yourself!