Dollar trading is B-O-R-I-N-G

Good Day, and a Marvelous Monday to you! Well, the final four nations are in the World Cup... Spain, France, England and Argentina... The Bluebloods of soccer, sans Germany, who was out of the tournament a long time ago! I thought early on, "Why not the U.S." but after watching these teams play, the U.S. would not fare well VS them... We, as a soccer country have come a long way, but still have a long road in front of us if we ever want to play with the Bluebloods... The Allman Brothers greets me this morning with their song and my favorite Allman Brothers song: Melissa... 

Well, another day on Friday saw the dollar drift about and ended the day remaining at 1,220... I really don't know what was on the dollar bugs' minds going into the weekend, as the BBDXY has been stuck at 1,220 for two days... The war is heating up, and maybe, just maybe, cause you never know, the dollar bugs are rethinking their stance of buying dollars while the country is spending Millions of dollars that they don't have on bombs.... I guess we'll have to wait-n-see if this continues to play out... 

Gold rallied on Friday $47 and ended the week at $4,122... Silver also rallied on Friday and ended the week at $60.01... The SPTs were sniffing around on Friday, but didn't go all-out on an attack on the metals, so that was a good thing!

The price of Oil backed off its recent trend of going up on Friday, and ended the week with a $71 handle... And the 10-year Treasury stayed on track and ended the week with a 4.56% yield... Ive said it before, and I'll say it again, the bond boys are telling the Fed Heads to move on inflation now.... If the Fed Heads don't get the message, well, the bond boys will take yields even higher...

In the overnight markets last night... Well, the dollar finally moved off of 1,220 and slid to 1,219 overnight.. It's about time the dollar bugs got off their duffs and moved the dollar, but C'mon, just one 1 index point? Oh well, it was a downward move, so at least there's that! Gold /Silver are getting whacked again in the early trading today... Gold is down $61 and Silver is down $1.50... What's up with that? Everything I read over the weekend stated that Central Bank buying was still strong, and that buying alone would pull Gold out of this malaise... 

The price of Oil bumped higher last night, and starts today / week with a $73 handle... And the 10-year Treasury's yield bumped higher and starts today / week with a 4.59% yield... After 40 years of the bond boys taking a back seat when it came to controlling yields, they're back, and with a vengeance! I remember a regular Friday morning meeting we used to have with the leader of Mark Twain Bank, and our top bond guy telling him that yields had peaked and it would be a while before we saw them at the current levels for some time... 

I didn't know he was a prophet... But he was as right as rain, but it does appear that that time is over.... 

Well, just for fun, I thought I would talk a bit about this... in the latest report, guess what country had the largest average wealth?.... Switzerland... The U.S. came in second here... But... when you calculate the Median average the U.S. comes in 29th, with Luxembourg comes in first...  

For you out there that aren't math quants, and have no idea what Median means... it's when you take all the numbers and find the middle of them, that's the median.... 

I remember when my former Big Boss, and my good friend, Frank Trotter used a median reference in one of his talks, and I not being a math quant, asked him what he meant... So, there, I was once uninformed....

There really isn't a ton of new news to discuss, as the news outlets are just rehashing the Iran war and the Strait of Hormuz... It's as if there isn't anything else going on in the world to talk about other than those two items... UGH!

In a glimpse of what might happen here someday soon... Japan's bond auction failed to gather enough buyers last week, and they had to take on their own debt.... And if you don't think it'll ever happen here, you should reserve that thought to yourself, because we are nearing it all the time... too much debt is the problem here, and we've just seen what happens when the world says "no mas".... I'm just saying

Getting back to the 10-year.... With the 10-year's yield rising, so do mortgage rates... new homes were down 10 million last month already, and soon people will have to get mortgage rates that are double digit.... 

And the yields have only just begun (Carpenters) to rise, in my humble opinion, because.... Just the other day I read a report that pointed out how Wall Street is coming around to see a rate hike is coming....  

Of course that would be a short-term rate hike in my opinion, because new FOMC Chairman, Warsh, has still to introduce us to how "he calculates inflation" which would point to a rate cut, not rate hike.... I'm just saying...

The U.S. Data Cupboard was empty on Friday and only had some Fed head speakers today... Tomorrow's Data Cupboard has the STUPID CPI for last month... and looking at the Economic Calendar, I see that inflation is forecast to have dropped.... I guess the cost of fuel is the cause of that... 

To recap... The dollar was stuck in the mud on Friday, and so for the rest of the weekend with the BBDXY at 1,220.... I know, in their heart of hearts they know that they (dollar bugs) should be selling dollars but so far they haven't budged... Gold / Silver rallied on Friday and went into the weekend on a good foot....And Japan saw its Gov't Bond auction fail this past week.... A sign of things to come for us?

For What It's Worth... first of all, this is part 1 of 2 parts that I'll have for you today and tomorrow. This is a great free markets professor and his thoughts on the late Alan Greenspan... 

Here's your snippet: "The death of Alan Greenspan brought out volumes of really thoughtful reflections about the iconic Federal Reserve chairman and his legacy. One article that I liked quite a bit and that I recommend was by Greg Ip of the Wall Street Journal, titled, “Greenspan Left a Lasting Mark on America — and Me.” I particularly liked Ip’s personal touch here, as it reminded me of my approach to writing. So, in the spirit of personal reflection over Greenspan, allow me to tell you how I become acquainted with the man’s thoughts even before he became Fed chair in 1987.

In the spring of 1985, just months before I began my undergraduate work at UCLA, I was introduced to the writings of Ayn Rand. I started with her seminal novel, “Atlas Shrugged,” which sent me into my bedroom for about two weeks with the sole mission of devouring the gargantuan literary adventure novel, one with a brilliant plot and a unique philosophic world view.

Reading “Atlas Shrugged” was then the most important event of my life, and thinking back on it, it is the event that shapes my intellect most to this day. Now, devotees of Rand’s work know that she didn’t just stop with brilliant fiction. In fact, she wrote non-fiction books and articles on aesthetics, morality, epistemology, social issues of the day and, perhaps most importantly, on capitalism, which she considered to be the “unknown ideal” in the realm of politics and economics.

Her book on this: “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal,” is a collection of essays by Rand on the virtues of laissez-faire capitalism and how a free society functions best. But Rand also included several contributors to this collection of essays, and here is where Alan Greenspan comes in.

Greenspan penned three articles that became part of “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal.” One of these articles was “Gold and Economic Freedom,” where he argues that a gold standard is vital for a free society. In the article, Greenspan argues that a fiat currency allows governments to dilute savings through inflation, concluding that gold serves as the ultimate protector of property rights.

From this article, my young, intellectually curious persona sent my mind down the path of gold advocacy, and that’s a position I’ve held ever since. And while Greenspan later chose to try and work from within the fiat currency system as Fed chairman, I think he knew that the ideal was the gold standard, however distant that might have been practically."

Chuck again... Remember, this is just part 1 as part 2 will be in tomorrow's Pfennig... See you then And by all means, I still haven't given Big Al a free ride!

Market Prices 7/12/2026: American Style: A$ .6942, kiwi .5778, C$ .7074, euro 1.1424, sterling 1.3387, Swiss $1.2344, rand 16.3665, krone 9.7696, SEK 9.6534, forint 312.38, zloty 3.7857, koruna 21.7363, RUB 76.72, yen 162.15, sing 1.2925, HKD 7.8336, INR 95.62, China 6.7805, peso 17.49, BRL 5.1140, BBDXY 1,219, Dollar Index 100.29, Oil $73.28, 10-year 4.59%, Silver $58.58, Platinum $1,630.00, Palladium $1,287.00, Copper $6.30, and Gold... $4,061.

That's it for today... Well, after watching my beloved Cardinals get taken to the woodshed by The Brewers, the Cardinals turned things around and should have swept the Braves, but good acting and bad umpiring cost them yesterday, so they took 2of 3 from the Braves. It's now the ALL-STAR GAME break, so rest up the 2^nd half of the season is in front of you! Remember I start my summer vacation on Thursday this week.... The Doobie Brothers take us to the finish line today with their song: Another Park Another Sunday... I hope you have a Marvelous Monday today, and Please Be Good To Yourself!