The Dollar is taking no prisoners

Good Day... And a Tub Thumpin' Thursday to one and all! My beloved Cardinals woke up last night and won 5-1 VS the Pirates... There's only 4 more games for the team since they won't be in the Playoffs... And then, baseball will be over for me, until Spring Training 2027... Oh, I'll watch the playoff games and World Series, but without a dog in the hunt it won't be the same for me... Kathy came home yesterday and immediately took the stove top off and cleaned it as I had cooked on it for over a week and I guess left it a mess... Oh well, that's the price you have to pay for being in S. Florida for over a week! The Yardbirds greet me this morning with their song: For Your Love.

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Alrighty then let's get to the meat... The dollar continued its onslaught on the currencies yesterday with the BBDXY gaining 4 index points to 1,212... All the things I told you about yesterday that were the reasons for this dollar rally still hold true... The price of Oil did stop to slip downward yesterday though, but it's still much lower than it had been. 

Gold/Silver didn't fare well on the day either... The SPTs were hot and heavy in the metals markets yesterday, and Gold lost $42, while Silver lost $1.72... Gold lost the $4,300 handle it had held for a while, and Silver lost the $65 handle it too had held... I'm sure the tech gurus would point to something on the charts that told you why... But I'm no technical person, although I do check in my tech guru, every now and then to get the skinny of what he's thinking.

The price of Oil recovered a bit of its recent losses... You see, there were some rumors that tons of barrels of Petrol had gotten out the strait, but those proved to be false words, and then the POTUS spoke annihilating Iran and that proved to be the spark that the Oil price needed and it ended the day at $91.58.

And the 10-year saw its biggest one day upward move in yields in a month of Sundays, as the yield rose to 5.12%... I've told you before that I was a foreign bond trader at one of my stops in my career, and I moves I see these days are amazing to me.

In the overnight markets last night... More dollar buying has the currencies on the run to cover... Don't peek ahead at the Currency Round up because you won't like what you see... Shoot Rudy, even the Chinese renminbi has weakened to the 6.71 handle, when just a couple of days ago it was trading with a 6.69 handle... The BBDXY gained another 2 index points and starts today at 1,214... The dollar is taking no prisoners right now, and it pains me to see this going on.. These rate hike thoughts are really fueling the dollar run, and that's it, because the price of Oil has rallied to a $93 price this morning.

The 10-year closed above 5% last night, and this morning it's at 5.13% yield... The bond boys are thinking that rates will be much higher in the coming months... and that has the dollar on a rampage.

So much so, that the price of Gold is getting whacked again this morning and is down $27 to start the day, while Silver is seeing the same treatment, and is down $1.12 to start the day... This is getting out of hand, folks... Serenity Now! 

Well, what's going on with the diversification of your investment portfolio? I know it doesn't look very good right now, but the idea here is that while one asset class in your portfolio is doing bad the other asset class is doing well... So, right now, bonds are doing awful, while stocks continue to be the bubble floating around the room looking for a pin... Currencies were on top of the world 2 weeks ago, and now they are back in their sick beds, with the same scenario following the Gold/Silver around.

The idea is to not have all your eggs in one basket... because if the basket gets dropped, the losses will be greater... So, you spread the risks out among asset classes... that way, if your one set of eggs get dropped you have the other eggs to even things out.

I sure hope after all this time that I've written about diversification and talked about it back when I used to travel to conferences and speak about diversification that you've done your homework and diversified accordingly... I would hate to think that I spent all the time writing and talking about diversification that nobody followed through.

The Eagles did a song titled: Wasted Time... and a piece of the lyrics goes like this: You never thought you'd be alone This far down the line But I know what's been on your mind ....You're afraid it's all been wasted time.

Chuck again...So, let's make sure that I don't feel like it's been wasted time.

China continues to take over the Gold market from London and NY, as they came out with a Gold denominated Bond, and now this: "We have recently reactivated our gold contract in the U.S. dollar. But in the future, perhaps sometime early next year, we will be coming up with a yuan-denominated gold futures contract,” said Gregory Yu, managing director and head of markets at HKEX. They are growing up right before our eye... Soon, they'll be king of the hill, and there's nothing that's going to stop them.

This is BIG folks... From the AP this morning: "Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in Washington on Wednesday, where he was met with a rare planeside greeting from President Donald Trump after their top officials agreed to extend a trade truce until January.

Trump’s Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced the extension of the truce — under which the countries agreed to scale back tariffs and refrain from imposing new trade restrictions — during a Fox News Channel interview as Trump welcomed Xi at Joint Base Andrews just outside Washington.

“I don’t know whether a bigger deal can be done. I don’t know whether we will just roll the current deal,” Bessent said in the interview, noting the extension to Jan. 10 could give the leaders more time to talk about the issues at upcoming international summits in China in November and Florida in December."

Chuck Again... Are we kowtowing to the Chinese? In my opinion, yes, but we need to at this point, because everybody has a distaste for the U.S. right now and we need a friend... I'm just saying.

I don't have anything else for you today, so we'll head to the Big Finish and then get ready for Mizzou's next game at Mississippi St. on Saturday... 

The U.S. Data Cupboard does have the Weekly Initial Jobless Claims for last week to print today, and then that's it... Tomorrow we'll see the color of the August Durable Goods Data... We'll also see the U. Of Michigan's Consumer Survey, which last month showed a drop from July 51.7 to 47.8... I would expect this data to fall even more in September, for nothing has improved for Consumers.

To recap... The dollar is on a rampage right now, as I read that some believe that there will be 3 more rate hikes coming to us... Can you say more money to be used for Bond servicing should they hike 3 more times... Gold/Silver saw tons of SPTs contracts, and it wasn't allowed to garner any Long Bids... And Chuck goes through diversification once again just in case there are new students to class.

Here's your snippet: " Gold continues to struggle as prices fall below critical support at $4,300 an ounce; however, one bank sees limited downside for the precious metal as the environment looks ripe for a renewed drive above $5,000 an ounce.

In his latest market commentary, Ryan McKay, Senior Commodity Strategist at TD Securities, said that although gold continues to face headwinds from higher interest rates, underlying investment demand remains resilient and is starting to strengthen across several important segments of the market.

“The time is coming for the next leg higher in gold,” McKay said. “The yellow metal has shown the ability to hold strong despite Fed hikes, and with investor and central bank appetite growing again, gold looks poised to make a renewed run at prices north of $5,000/oz into 2027.”

Although rising interest rates and elevated real yields would traditionally be expected to weigh on the non-yielding precious metal, McKay said gold’s traditional relationship with interest rates remains broken.

He noted that there is historical precedent for gold prices to rally alongside rising real rates, particularly when other macroeconomic risks dominate investor sentiment. TD Securities sees elevated geopolitical uncertainty, de-dollarization, concerns about currency debasement, deteriorating fiscal conditions and persistent inflation fears continuing to support investment demand.

At the same time, McKay pointed out that markets have already priced in three additional Federal Reserve rate hikes. He said that creates an asymmetric risk for gold, as any failure by the central bank to meet those expectations could accelerate the precious metal’s upside."

Chuck again... lots of things to take in, but in the end this guy is telling you the same thing I've been telling you... So, that's that!

Market Prices 9/24/2026: American Style: A$ .7066, kiwi .5668, C$ .7059, euro 1.1371, sterling 1.3224, Swiss $ 1.2082, European Style: rand 16.4322, krone 9.4884, SEK 9.9097, forint 322.11, zloty 3.8541, koruna 21.4553,  RUB 85.03, yen 158.88, sing 1.2799, HKD 7.8424, INR 95.96, China 6.7112, peso 17.57, BRL 5.1756, BBDXY 1,214, Dollar Index 101.25, Oil $93.35, 10-year 5.13%, Silver $63.68, Platinum $1,755.00, Palladium $ 1,288.00, Copper $6.81, and Gold... $4,261.

That's it for today and this week... hopefully next week is a better week for the asset classes that we follow... Like I said above, my beloved Mizzou Tigers travel to Starksville Miss. To play Mississippi State on Saturday and their new Heisman level Quarterback... Big game for my Tigers... Let's fight Tigers! I woke up the other night with a panic attack, I was scared at first, but then figured out what was going on, but still couldn't go back to sleep... It was a long day the next day... It must have been a dream, but really, I don't know what caused it... The great Smokey Bill Robinson takes us to the finish line today with his song: Crusin' ... I hope you have a Tub Thumpin' Thursday today and Please Be Good To Yourself!