The metals just keep keeping on

Good Day... And a Tom Terrific Tuesday to you! I hope you had yesterday off work, I sure did! The metals markets didn't, and that ended up being a good thing! The NFL Conference Championships games are set for this coming weekend. My Bills got hosed by the referees in their loss! Good Games at least. Our Stl Univ Billikens continued their winning ways on Saturday, and my beloved Mizzou Tigers lost on the road in Baton Rouge... UGH! The Rolling Stones greet me this morning with their song: Can't You Hear Me Knocking?

Yesterday, being a national Holiday in the U.S. meant the stock and bond markets were closed but the metals now traded globally, were doing their very best to make the holiday one to remember! Gold, without intervention, gained $74 on the day to close at $4,672, and Silver gained $4.18 to close at $94.47...

These moves were so pronounced to the upside that I fear what the SPTs do to the metals today... Before I retired last night, I checked to see what the metals were doing, and Silver had already given back $1.21... The STPs are so brazen now that they don't have to disguise their short selling.... But the Chinese said, "oh no you don't"... 

Remember last week when I went all postal on TD Securities and their "new short Silver trades"?

I got the biggest kick out of an email that long-time reader and friend, Craig sent to me late last week... Ok, let me set this up... about two weeks ago, I pointed out that TD Securities were getting back into a short position in Silver and they were calling for Silver to fall to $40.. I also said that I hoped that TD Secs got their A&$^ handed to them... And guess what? They did! Here's the title of an article on Kitco.com: "TD Securities takes a second hit on silver short, losing $606k." I laughed until I cried! Serves them right! 

Apparently, TD Secs put a lot of eggs in the rebalancing basket that didn't pan out, and now they are getting margin calls out the ears!  

In my humble opinion, I see Silver reaching the $100 figure this coming spring... so, the folks at TDS had better take those short contracts and tear them up... 

In the overnight markets last night... Well, the selling stopped in the metals as the Chinese said, "Oh, no you don't" to the SPTs. Gold is up $55 to start the day, and Silver is up 96-cents... The dollar got ambushed overnight, and the weakness it showed in yesterday's activity carried over to the overnight markets and the BBDXY starts the day down 4 index points from where it closed yesterday, and that makes the dollar down 7 index points from where it closed last Friday. 

This ends the brief rally that the dollar was in prior to yesterday. Didn't I tell you that the dollar's rally would be short-lived? Sometimes, even I get what's going on right! HA! All this Greenland talk really has the metals roaring and the dollar sinking... 

The price of Oil remains trading with a $59 handle to start the day today. And the 10-year Treasury has really taken off for higher ground... Its yield sits at 4.29% this morning... Yes, I said 4.29%... That's going the wrong way for the Fed Heads and I'm surprised that they haven't stepped in to do some yield control... 

In keeping with the BRICS and their desire to unload Treasuries... Business Insider reported that China's holdings of US treasuries fell to $682.6 billion in November last year, down from $688.7 billion in October, this is a 17-year low... China instead is filling their coiffures with physical Gold... 

China is doing it why not Americans? Because Americans believe in the dollar and their investment advisors / brokers won't even begin to tell them that they need to diversify into currencies and metals...  I should know, because I've been extolling the benefits of a diversified investment portfolio for over 40 years, and there are still investors that don't diversify...  

And one of the reasons you might want to be diversified was talked about yesterday in Bill Bonner's daily letter when he said, "about $105 trillion total debt in the US. Or, about $1.5 million per family. At 4% interest, that would saddle the family with monthly payments — interest only — of about $5,000 per month...or about half of the average family’s take home income."

Chuck again... YIKES! So why do I think this is a bad thing for the economy to have all that debt? Because to keep the debt cycle going it needs more debt, and more debt etc. and then who's going to pay for debt servicing? You guessed right if you said you and me... in taxes, and then there goes the disposable income being used instead for taxes... And then... oh, and the bond yields are rising again, which makes this arrangement tricky at best... 

To finance the debt, we must sell Treasuries... When will other countries no longer finance our debt, things will get real hairy... I think the kindness of strangers is at the edge of being no more, and then the U.S. would have to print dollars to buy their own Treasuries.... And we've done that before, only to have money supply explode and bring about inflation that we as a country hadn't seen since the mid-to-late 70's.. This time there will be no saviors come riding in on a white horse to save the U.S. economy from collapsing...

And what will you have at your disposal to keep the food on the table, heat in winter, clothes on your children? Gold & Silver... I'll say no more...

Speaking of Oil and its price... I found this on X (Twitter) and it speaks volumes... "In the ever-volatile world of oil markets, few voices carry as much weight as that of Harold Hamm, the billionaire wildcatter and founder of Continental Resources. He argued that U.S. shale drillers require oil prices around $80 per barrel to viably develop higher-cost fields beyond the Permian Basin."

See why I've held onto Oil producing countries, Canada and Russia? The price of Oil will eventually go back to its breakeven price, and I'm counting on that!  

Speaking of the currencies... I've read many an article lately calling for the currencies of the world to all collapse... All at once? C'mon give me a break here... Throw me a bone! Sure, currencies will collapse under the weight of their self-imposed debt debacle, but that's sometime in the future. Let's not let that get in the way of a diversifying your investment portfolio with some good ones... What? You want me to do your homework for you? Well, maybe I'll give you one off the top... Singapore (no debt, low yield, but strong manufacturing and exports) ...

I've always contended that a currency is the "stock of the country", and you set your value criteria on the country much like you do a stock when you are looking to buy it... Debt, yield, leadership, etc. And when you do this you end up with a handful of currencies for you to look to buy...

Battle Bank has this recent post on LinkedIn: "You know what most Americans are overexposed to?

No, it’s not cable news reruns. It’s USD.

- Your travel plans: dollars.

- Your vacation home: dollars.

- The grandkids’ birthday gifts? All dollars.

When everything in your financial life depends on a single currency, that’s not stability — that’s risk in disguise. "

Chuck again... yes, Frank Trotter and I used to extoll the virtues of diversification with currencies and metals, and now Frank is continuing that mantra at Battle Bank...

The U.S. Data Cupboard doesn't have much for us today or tomorrow... But Wednesday will bring the latest FOMC Meeting and rate announcement... No one is talking about this meeting, and that concerns me a bit... Will the Fed Heads cut rates again this month, or will they delay the inevitable? Rate cuts are coming, so why not make them now and get them over with?  I'm just saying...

To recap... The week ended last on a down note in Gold & Silver, but yesterday's price movement was spectacular for metals owners... Chuck is concerned about what the SPTs will do today, after yesterday's gains. $80 is the break even for the oil producers, so why is it $11 below that figure? Chuck believes that the price of Oil will return to is break-even price,

eventually... And Chuck talks about how the debt is going to be our ruin as an economy...  

For What It's Worth... This came to me by way of the good folks at GATA...

Here's your snippet: "Sell the dollar, buy gold. Few investment strategies have worked better than this over the first year of Donald Trump's second presidency, and it looks set to continue that way.

In the past year the dollar has undergone its worst overall devaluation since the 1970s. At the same time, the price of gold has surged nearly 75% to record highs.

No commodity acts better than gold as insurance against inflation, financial instability, and geopolitical turmoil.

Call it Trump Derangement Syndrome if you like, but financial markets are increasingly betting on all three.

Almost everything the Trump White House does seems deliberately designed to undermine the dollar, last weekend's renewed attack on the independence of the Federal Reserve being only the latest example."

Chuck again... Ahh, back to normal TWIW articles! I remember following Bill Bonner's trade of the decade in the early 2000's... Sell dollars, buy Gold... I'm forever grateful to Bill for that recommendation... I've been a Gold Bug since then... I remember at our usual Friday watering hole, many years ago, telling the boys to buy Gold, and they all looked at me like a deer in headlights... Then a few years later the boys were discussing what they should buy, and my good friend, Duane, said, "if we had listened to Chuck we would all be much richer!"...  I got the biggest kick out of that and will remember it for years to come for sure! 

Market Prices 1/20/2026: American Style: A$.6733, kiwi .5836, C$ .7234, euro 1.1727, sterling 1.3466, Swiss $1.2659, European Style: rand 16.7332, krone 10.0125, SEK 9.1282, forint 328.98, zloty 3.6057, koruna 20.7467, RUB 77.85, yen 157.85, sing 1.2824, HKD 7.7983, INR 90.97, China 6.9541, peso 17.61, BRL 5.3656, BBDXY 1,204, BBDXY 98.49, Oil $59.57, 10-year 4.29%, Silver $95,43, Platinum $2,417.00, Palladium $1,888.00, Copper $5.85, and Gold... $4,728.

That's it for today... Today is my good friend Kevin's Birthday! Happy Birthday Webbie! I hope your day is grande! You have now caught up with Kathy! In age that is... Duane, you're next! Congrats to Indiana U. For their win in the National Championship Game for college football last night.... I really thought that Miami had a chance, but that was not to be.. Well, we're one month away from the start of Spring Training games... They start earlier every year, and end earlier too! Spring Training games will be over before my birthday! I hope that nothing happened to me health-wise so I can celebrate my birthday this year... Last year, I celebrated my 70^th birthday in hospital! Boy was that fun.... NOT! Dion takes us to the finish line today with his hit song: Runaround Sue.... I hope you have a Tom Terrific Tuesday today, and Please Be Good To Yourself!