The Dollar gets bought, big time

• Currencies & metals get sold on Monday & overnight.

• Happy Birthday to: Mike! 

Good Day... And a Tom Terrific Tuesday to you! Sitting among the ruins... That's what I was doing yesterday... I sat in my basement trying to read, and being distracted by all the "stuff" sitting around me, and the stripped-down walls, and the torn-up flooring... I called it, sitting among the ruins... No baseball for my beloved Cardinals last night, so, instead, I watched the Toronto Blue Jays game... The Blue Jays are in my top 5 teams other than St. Louis teams, and the team is exciting to watch with all their "sons of former players" on the team. I visited my oncologist yesterday... All's well, except that by body is not accepting the new chemo the way it should... More on that as we go down the road... Head East greets me this morning with their song: Never Been Any Reason

Well, we started the week yesterday, with the dollar getting bought hand over fist... This is quite the change from the goings on we saw before I left on vacation... Then, the dollar was getting sold daily, and was on the edge of the cliff... But then it wasn't... And since then, the dollar has been bought daily, with the only exception, being last Friday. There's been nothing that would warrant the dollar's return to glory... Sure, the FOMC hiked rates, when everyone and their brother thought they wouldn't, but that's not what has caused the dollar to be bought daily since... If I were a betting man, I would go all-in on the bet that the the PPT came to rescue the dollar when it was a hanging chad, and since then traders are a little leery of selling the dollar in fear that the PPY could come back and ruin their day...  

The BBDXY was up 7.75 index points yesterday... Now that's a rally! And one that I'm surprised to see, given the state of the U.S. Debt... Business Insider said yesterday, that the U.S. will add over $5 Billion of new debt per day for the next decade... Ok... doing the math on this I came up with a budget deficit of over $1.8 Trillion per year, and then for the next ten years our $32 Trillion current debt would have over $18 Trillion added to it, bringing the total to $50 Trillion... Back in my day of currency trading, stuff like that news would have sent the dollar to the woodshed, but then back in the day, there was no Exchange Stabilization Fund for the Treasury to use any ol' time they wanted to... 

The price of Gold saw some major selling during the day but rallied back to "only" lose $6.20 on the day, to close at $1,937.40. Silver saw the same price action as Gold, and lost 52-cents on the day to close at $23.21... I talked at length yesterday about Gold, so I won't go down that rabbit hole again today... See? Always writing with you dear reader in thought... 

All the price of Oil needed was for me to talk glowingly about it, to end its current rally. And the price of Oil lost $2 on the day and trades this morning with an $80 handle. The 10-year's yield was stopped on a dime yesterday, just as it reached 4.10%, it began to fall again, and ended the day trading below 4% yield... 

In the overnight markets last night... There wasn't much movement, as traders tried to recover from the shock of yesterday's moves... 

Well, how about that? Remember back in the day, when I would write about how there would be 10,000 baby boomers retiring for the next 10 years? Well, now we have a new time bomb... And it's the $5 Billion per day in new debt for the next 10 years... Frankly, I don't think we'll make it to see that come to fruition... I truly believe that our financial system that we've all come to know and love, will no longer exist, as the weight of the debt will overtake the system and cause to imitate Humpty Dumpty... 

And when that happens, and it will... people will be looking up their local coin dealer and asking if they have Gold for sale... And then the sticker shock will cause their heart to skip a beat, and after picking themselves up off the floor, they will realize what I tried to tell them for years... That when that time comes, there will be no Gold to purchase, and the Gold that is there will be at price that shocks you! 

The U.S. Data Cupboard doesn't have anything to move the markets today, unless you consider a Fed Head speaking worthy... Tomorrow the Data Cupboard is empty, so the next day will have the Stupid CPI... I have something for you on inflation in the FWIW section today...

To recap... The markets didn't move much yesterday... Gotcha! Just making sure you were paying attention... The dollar went on a rampage and the BBDXY gained over 7 index points! Gold got sold, Silver got sold, Oil got sold, and the dollar got bought, along with bonds... A very strange day indeed... 

Here's your snippet: "Perhaps one of the most bizarre recent developments in economic news has been the attempt by establishment media (and the White House) to declare US inflation “defeated” despite all the facts to the contrary. Keep in mind that when these people talk about inflation, they are only talking about the most recent CPI, which is supposed to be a measure of current inflation growth, not a measure of inflation already accumulated. But, the CPI is easily manipulated, and focus on that index alone is a tactic for misleading the public on the true economic danger.

The way current US inflation is presented might seem like a fiscal miracle. How did America cut CPI so quickly while the rest of the world including Europe is still dealing with continuing distress? Is “Bidenomics” really an economic powerhouse?

No, it’s definitely not. I have addressed this issue in previous articles but I’ll dig into inflation specifically, because I believe a renewed inflationary run is about to spark off in the near term and I suspect the public is being misinformed to keep them unprepared.

First, lets be clear that there are four types of inflation – Creeping, walking, galloping and hyperinflation. We also should distinguish between monetary inflation and price inflation, because they are not always directly related (usually they are, but events outside of money printing can also cause prices to go up).

If we calculate CPI according to the same methods used during the stagflationary crisis of the 1980s, real inflation has been in the double digits for the past couple years. This constitutes galloping inflation, a very dangerous condition that can lead to a depression event.

There are multiple triggers for the inflation spike. The primary cause was tens-of-trillions of dollars in monetary stimulus created by the Federal Reserve, the majority of which took place on the watch of Barack Obama and Joe Biden (there have been multiple GOP Republicans that have also supported these measures, but the majority of dollar devaluation is directly related to Democrat policies). This epic “too big to fail” stimulus created an avalanche effect in which economic weakness accumulated like sheets of ice on a mountainside. The final straw was the covid lockdowns and the $8 trillion+ in stimulus packages pumped directly into the system. Then, it all came crashing down."

Chuck Again... The article is a good one to read through, so please carve out the time to do so... 

Market Prices 8/8/2023: American Style: A$ .6507, kiwi .6042, C$ .7413, euro 1.0940, sterling 1.2690, Swiss $1.1398, European Style: rand 18.9187, krone 10.3377, SEK 10.7527, forint 356.24, zloty 4.0705, koruna 22.1625, RUB 96.68, yen 142.98, sing 1.3488, HKD 7.8118, INR 82.83, China 7.2178, peso 17.19, BRL 4.9265, BBDXY 1,233.21, Dollar Index 102.75, Oil $80.37, 10-year 3.98%, Silver $22.80, Platinum $904.00, Palladium $1,211.00, Copper $3.75, and Gold... $1,929.18.

That's it for today... Today is the birthday of one of my longest friends... my buddy, my brother in arms, Mike Karvas... Happy Birthday brother! We met in the 2nd grade, and have been close friends since, with him being the best man in the wedding of Chuck and Kathy... Mike's health hasn't been tip top lately, so here's hoping that he wishes for good health when he blows out the candles of his birthday cake! My beloved Cardinals get back on the field in Tampa Bay tonight... Well, this was a short one this morning... After all I had to say yesterday, I was searching my mind for other things to talk about, and came up empty... So, take it and run with it! I'm having a problem with pain in my left wrist this morning, which is problem some for me as I use my left hand to hold my cane to walk with... Ahhh, the trials and tribulations of the life of Chuck... Oh well, Stevie Ray Vaughn takes us to the finish line today with his song: The Sky Is Crying... I hope you have a Tom Terrific Tuesday today, and please remember to Be Gold To Yourself!