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Weekly Survey of Gold and Silver Prices
Single Ounce Silver Market Price Benchmark
Money Daily has been providing business and financial market news, views, and coverage on a nearly continuous basis since 2006. Complete archives are available at moneydaily.blogspot.com.
PRIOR COVERAGE:
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Friday, April 12, 2024, 9:10 am ET This week ends with first quarter bank earnings (if you want to call them that). JP Morgan (JPM), the nation's largest bank, earned a profit of $13.42 billion, or $4.44 a share, compared to a profit of $12.62 billion, or $4.10 a share, in the same period a year earlier. Despite the gains, shares are down more than two percent in pre-market trade. Wells Fargo (WFC) reported diluted earnings of $1.20/share, down from the same period a year ago ($1.23), but better than Q4 2023 ($0.86). The company repurchased 112.5 million shares, or $6.1 billion, of common stock in the first quarter of 2024. That, and a 27% reduction in credit loss provision (adds to bottom line) from $1.28 billion to $938 million, made up for losses in net interest income, consumer and corporate banking, and wealth management (down 20% from a year ago). Shares are trending low, though by less than one percent. Citigroup (C) said net income fell to $3.4 billion, or $1.58 per share, in the three months ended March 31, compared with $4.6 billion, or $2.19 per share, a year earlier. Amazingly, shares of this overgrown hedge fund are rising prior to the opening bell. Investors see a 7,000 large reduction in headcount as a positive. That's likely to change when the cash session starts. Also, credit loss provision fell 75% from last quarter and 73% from a year ago, from $478 million in Q4 2023 to $119 million in Q1 2024. All three banks reduced credit loss provisions, which helped boost EPS. It needs to be re-emphasized that bank earnings are among the most opaque in the financial realm. Their accountants can change losses to profits merely by moving numbers around. These earnings - good, bad, or indifferent - should be disregarded and focus should be only on share price and how it relates to dividend yield. These are companies largely owned by Vanguard, BlackRock, State Street, Berkshire-Hathaway, and themselves, and thus, subject to manipulative trading by those firms. State Street (STT), the banker's bank, saw quarterly profit fall nearly 16% to $463 million, or $1.37 per share, due to a 6% rise in its expenses, including $130 million to replenish the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation's insurance fund. In line with broader industry trends, State Street's net interest income (NII) in the quarter declined 6.5% to $716 million in the quarter ended March. 31, from a year earlier. In a similar vein, BlackRock, otherwise known as the Fed's right arm, reported blowout net income of $1.57 billion, or $10.48 per share, in the three months ended March 31, from $1.16 billion, or $7.64 per share, a year earlier. The company now manages $10.5 trillion in assets, making it one of the most dangerous forces in the global financial economy. Shares of the company are up more than two percent in the pre-market. So, with bank earnings in the mix along with rising March CPI and PPI, that leaves the major indices in somewhat of a middling condition. Through Thursday's close, the Dow is down some 445 points while the NASDAQ is up 193, thanks to some spirited buying of Mag7 stocks on Thursday. The S&P is down five points on the week. The NYSE Composite has a 207-point loss. From the appearance of stock futures, Friday is shaping up to be a testy session. Just before 9:00 am ET, Dow futures are off 125 points, NASDAQ futures down 101, and S&P futures are sliding by 21 points. Elsewhere, gold has rocketed to another all-time high, reaching $2,417 on the COMEX continuous contract early Friday. Silver has been priced as high as $29.29 overnight and has tremendous upside momentum. As has been repeatedly mentioned here at Money Daily, gains in gold and silver are signaling the death-knell of the U.S. dollar, the world's reserve currency as they rise relentlessly against the value of greenbacks. There's nothing even remotely positive about debasing fiat currencies. It means hyper-inflation for most of the western world. Banks, and the Federal Reserve backing them, are experiencing the last gasps of a dying system. Prepare accordingly.
At the Close, Thursday, April 11, 2024:
Thursday, April 11, 2024, 9:30 am ET After Wednesday's stock market drubbing and coincident treasury yield spikes, the fear was that Thursday morning's reading on the Producer Price Index (PPI) would confirm a return to higher inflation. However, those who were surprised by the 0.4% monthly and 3.5% yearly increase on the March CPI, were equally stunned when March PPI came in like a lamb, gaining only 0.2% over the month, with the annualized rate a soft 2.1%. Final demand prices moved up 0.6 percent in February and 0.4 percent in January, so the March number was regarded as a sign of improving conditions at the wholesale level, reflected in spiking stock futures. Prior to the release, futures had been doused in red ink, but the friendly PPI numbers changed the tenor of pre-market trading. By 9:00 am ET, Dow futures were up three points, with NASDAQ futures gaining 43 points, and S&P futures ahead by four. How Wall Street and the financial media will likely characterize the differences in CPI and PPI is likely to call the March CPI a one-off, with the March PPI signaling an easing of consumer inflation ahead. So, one might expect a serious rally, erasing all the losses from Wednesday, turning the majors positive for the week. Beyond inflation expectations, the possibility of a rate cut at the June FOMC meeting will now be back in play. On Wednesday, amidst the mass selloff in stocks, odds for a rate cut in June had fallen to well under a 50% probability with only 38 basis points in cuts priced in for the entire year. That will all change, like everything else in the yo-yo clown world of Wall Street. The major averages, which have suffered back-to-back losing weeks, are all down for this week, with the Dow dropping the most, 442 points. Gold and silver responded positively to the latest data release, with gold heading towards another record high and silver maintaining price over $28/ounce, the highest since the June 11, 2021 peak of $28.15. Should silver manage to stay above that level for any considerable length of time, say, two weeks, the potential for a coiled-spring-like short squeeze becomes more and more probable. Silver remains well below its all-time high of nearly $50 an ounce from 2011. Looking out towards Friday, the first important earnings reports for the first quarter will be released prior to the open, with big banks strutting their numbers. Wells Fargo (WFC), JP Morgan Chase (JPM), CitiGroup (C) all report, along with insurance provider Progressive (PGR) and fund giant BlackRock (BLK). Get ready for a wild roller coaster ride to finish the week. As stock-pickers pore over the PPI figures, there's certain to be some concern over the headline 2.1% annual rate, which happens to be the highest since April, 2023 (2.3%). Also of interest will be the suspect seasonal "adjustment" on the gasoline sub-component, with a reading of -3.6, when the actual "unadjusted" figure was +6.3%. Did somebody accidentally juxtapose the number and turn a positive into a negative. The seasonally-adjusted reading for the entire energy component was -1.6%, which skews not only the entire monthly and annualized PPI, but also affects the "core", change in final demand less foods, energy, and trade from 12 months ago (unadjusted). These suspicious numbers casts an entirely different shadow on the veracity of reports from the BLS, which has a pretty poor record already. Stocks may not perform as well as earlier expected.
At the Close, Wednesday, April 10, 2024:
Wednesday, April 10, 2024, 9:15 am ET Wednesday morning saw the release of the March Consumer Price Index (CPI) which affirmed that inflation is not easing as readily as officials at the Federal Reserve - or, for that matter, American consumers - would like. With an increase of 0.4% for the month, CPI rose at an annualized rate of 3.5% over the past 12 months. Contributing more than half of the total increase were shelter and energy as the cost of renting an apartment or paying a mortgage on a home continued to rise, as did the price of gas at the pump. Laughably, food prices were reported to have risen only 0.1% in March, when just about any shopper experienced price increases for groceries. Even more absurd is the BLS finding that the price of food has risen just 2.2% over the past 12 months. Essentially, the government's gauge of inflation, the CPI, is complete nonsense, its measures not even close to actual price increases experienced by most American citizens. Worse yet, even these ridiculously low estimates of consumer inflation reveal that the Fed hasn't done nearly enough to halt inflation and start brining prices down. Rather, the price of just about everything continues to rise, except for workers' wages, which traditionally lag price inflation. Core inflation, which excludes food and energy, increased 0.4% and are up 3.8% over the past 12 months. It is becoming clear that the Fed should not be entertaining rate cuts, as further interest rate increases may well be warranted. Upon the release of the CPI data, stock futures absolutely tanked. At 8:45 am ET, Dow futures were down 465 points; NASDAQ futures fell 280, while S&P futures were down more than 75 points, and still falling. Yield on the 10-year note rose 13 basis points, to 4.50%, the highest rate this year. Even more amusing than the lack of foresight on major investors to not see this coming is the price suppression on gold and silver. Straight upon the release of the CPI report, both precious metals suffered losses, though within minutes they began to reverse. It's becoming apparent that the U.S. government and the Federal Reserve have their fingers in too many fires and cannot manage all of them. The most obvious victim will be the stock market, which is long overdue for a severe correction. Inflation is wrecking the U.S. economy, and the Fed, rather than fight it with serious force, has not moved the needle in nearly a year, keeping the federal funds rate at 5.25-5.50 since last June. Bidenomics doesn't seem to be working out so well for most people. Time for a change was early November, 2020, when it was obvious that the Democrats had stolen the presidential election and probably a good number of House seats. Now it may be too late. If the Fed doesn't raise rates at the next meeting (April 30 - May 1) or sooner, then once again the American public is being force-fed bad data that's being interpreted and acted upon by the false prophets at the Fed. These so-called economists have failed constantly for many years. The purchasing power of the U.S. dollar has lost 98% since the inception of the Federal Reserve in 1913. It's well past time to get rid of this cancer upon the U.S. economy. Congress has the power to repeal the Fed's charter, and should do so at its earliest opportunity. Of course, they won't. Keep taking it up the behind, America. For your apathetic approach to government and politics, you've earned it. Go buy some Doritos for $7 a bag and watch the Disney channel, you morons.
At the Close, Tuesday, April 9, 2024:
Tuesday, April 9, 2024, 9:35 am ET Anybody who has been paying attention to finance and politics should know by now that Western economies and their fiat currencies are being flushed and discarded by much of the rest of the world. Recent gains in the price of gold and silver are shouting from the rooftops that a major change in money and monetary matters is well underway and gathering momentum. For those not paying as much attention, thinking their stocks, their homes, and other assets will be sufficient to protect them from the coming volcanic financial and monetary eruption, there's still time to purchase gold and silver, especially the latter. Silver has been rising at an accelerated pace. The near-term bottom on February 13 was $22.15. At the moment, silver is pricing at $28.18. That computes to a gain of 27.22% in less than two months. Are stocks doing that? Is bitcoin doing that? No, and no. Silver has been money for as long a time as gold and is currently undervalued by enormous degrees of magnitude. The standard ratio of gold:silver used to be 12:1 or 16:1. It used to be based on the amount of raw ore being mined. Lately, for the last 60 years or so - a speck of time in the long history of gold and silver money - the gold:silver ratio has been based on the repressed values of the COMEX and LBMA. Currently, the ratio is around 85. Considering that the actual ratio of above ground and freshly mined silver to gold is somewhere in the neighborhood of 6:1 or 10:1, well below the traditional measures. If silver is to be properly priced, even at a ratio of 20:1, the price of silver should be 118.50 (price of gold, 2370.00 / 20). Even if gold goes no higher, or the ratio doesn't change, owners of silver will still have bars, coins, rounds, or junk (pre-1965 US coins) in hand and it will always be worth something. The time has come for "investors" to stop thinking about making gains and to attend to retaining assets for protection against what surely appears to be a major financial event.
At the Close, Monday, April 8, 2024:
Sunday, April 7, 2024, 12:18 pm ET Welcome to April. The start of a new month and new quarter was kind of a bummer for people holding Dow stocks (-2.27%), but sensational for long-suffering gold and silver stackers. While stocks were playing their usual games interpreting the results of ADP private payroll data (Wednesday) and BLS non-farm payrolls (Friday), it was becoming apparent that the preferred narrative for lower interest rates was just plain hokum. Friday's NFP was a blowout number of 303,000, which implied a strong economy, with job gains in a fairly tight labor market, a positive for wage increases. Wall Street traders, having seen and heard enough of the "bad news is good news" nonsense that's been circulating since October, just went their own way and put in a huge rally Friday on oversold conditions. So, now that the five-month-old rally that's been attributed to the concept of expected rate cuts by the Fed has been thoroughly trashed and exposed as financial mainstream disinformation, the truth can finally be told. Well, maybe. It all depends on where you look, your level of financial understanding, relative normalcy or recency bias, and what you want to hear and see. Without straining credulity too much, it's easy to see that stocks were headed into a black hole last October even as treasuries were being shunned. Spreads were thin and the yield curve was threatening to dis-invert, or, put another, simpler way, return to the normal state of affairs with low rates at the short end and high longer-term rates. 2s-10s stood at -14 and 30-day-30-year (full spectrum) hit a cycle low of -47 on October 20. From October 20 to November 3, bonds executed an abrupt about-face. The 30-year bond fell from 5.09% to 4.77%. The 10-year note, which had been recently as high as 5.00%, dipped from 4.87% to 4.55%, a whopping 32 basis points in just two weeks time. Other long-dated treasuries saw similar declines. By the weekend of October 27-29, the whisper campaign about rate cuts had begun, circulating amongst primary dealers that were privy to internal Fed discussions. Stocks jumped higher on Monday, Octoebr 30 and continued to rally through the week, entering November. By the December 12-13 FOMC meeting, the whisper became a shout, when the FOMC statement and Chairman Jerome Powell expressed an opinion that rate increases were at an end. Now, the only question was how soon will they begin cutting. Word had it that three 25 basis point cuts would occur in 2024. That was more than enough to send the Dow to new all-time highs, withe the S&P soon to follow and the NASDAQ bringing up the read on February 9, when it too closed at a record level (16.091.92). Insiders had gotten the early word right at the near term market bottom. The rest of the herd followed. As it turns out, there's little possibility of the Fed lowering rates this year. The economy has shaken off the effects of higher interest rates, liquidity is ample, and there are no signs of a recession. Underlying all this good news, however, is the nagging perseverance of inflation. It refuses to relent back to the Fed's targeted two percent level and indications are that it is rising again. The Fed, trying desperately to please everybody with a "soft landing", hasn't done enough to quell the inflation monster. That brings us all the way to the past few weeks and the rally in gold, and now, silver. Everybody has U.S. dollars, and more of them. But the inflation bogeyman keeps making those dollars worth less until they eventually become worthless. This process has been years, decades, in the making, but is now accelerating. With the Fed keeping rates on hold, the U.S. government continues to spend beyond its means, racking up what will likely be a $2 trillion deficit for fiscal 2024. The rest of the world has taken notice that the United States has abused its reserve currency status, weaponized the dollar, lacks fiscal discipline, and continues to threaten other nations with sanctions, military, and financial intervention. In other words, the end game has arrived for the era of fiat currencies. It's lasted too long - nearly 53 years - and U.S. debt obligation of $34 trillion is likely never to be repaid, or, if so, with greatly debased currency. Think Weimar Germany and wheelbarrows full of reichmarks to buy a loaf of bread. And that's to say nothing of U.S. unfunded liabilities, particularly Medicare and Social Security. Cash is quickly becoming trash and gold, silver, Russia, China, BRICS+ are calling it out. Stocks, bonds, and those cute crypto-currencies are nothing but empty paper promises, more noise for the money-mongers to strip-mine the few remaining assets from the populace. There's an election coming up in the U.S., but it doesn't really matter who wins unless that candidate commits to put the country back on a solid footing of sound money, a gold standard of sorts. The chances of that happening are close to zero. Interest on the federal debt is now over $1 trillion a year and will become the single largest government expenditure within six months. The recent gold rally didn't happen in a vacuum. Gold has been flowing from West to East for the better part of this century and now, the East has more. As gold's golden rule stipulates, "he who has the gold makes the rules." It's over. Everything else is noise and most people are unprepared for the economic volcano that's about to erupt.
Even though stocks should have cratered on Friday with the blowout BLS announcement of 303,000 jobs in March, they didn't. Ignoring their own rate cut narrative, stocks rallied hard on Friday. The laughable mainstream touting the day's gains to "improving job market," and other nonsense. Ooops. Did we forget that weakness would beget rate cuts and without them stocks would suffer? Apparently so. Such is the lying nature of financialization. Ukraine is lost. Israel, should a full-scale Arab uprising proceed, faces annihilation. Watch what happens this week. Stocks are overdue to correct, if not crash, from excessive valuations alone and the process well underway. Because of FOMO and inflation, stocks may not suffer badly right away, but cracks in the facade are beginning to become obvious.
Call it the "Great Leap Forward." Long-dated treasury yields took off like rockets over the past week with the 30-year bond up 20 basis points, 10-year yields up 19. Spreads were compressed, with 2s-10s at -34 and full spectrum out to -93, a massive move of 23 basis points (0.23%). Whatever the Fed wishes to do, or does, won't matter. They will have to keep buying treasury issuance. Spreads:
2s-10s
Full Spectrum (30-days - 30-years)
WTI crude oil ended the week at $86.73, close to a six-month high ($88.37, October 19, 2023). Russia and Saudi Arabia are keeping production quotas low, squeezing Europe and the Americas, but mostly European and American consumers (Canada would be on the list as well, but that country already seems to be a lost cause). Gasbuddy.com reports the national average for a gallon of unleaded regular gas at the pump at $3.59, a six-month high, up seven cents from last week. California remains the most expensive place to fuel up, with a gallon costing $5.33 on Sunday. Pennsylvania, atop the Northeast, was higher by five cents, to $3.68. Prices are up in Illinois by more than a dime, to $3.97 a gallon. Neighboring Indiana is paying $3.71. There have been no states with gas prices under $3.00 for four straight weeks. Colorado is reporting the lowest in the country ($3.02). Other than Georgia ($3.32) and Florida ($3.45), the Southeast cluster from Oklahoma east to South Carolina are all hovering in a range between $3.10 and $3.20, with most of them slightly higher than last week. Mississippi is at $3.07. Texas, $3.21. Arizona ($4.01) jumped 22 cents, joining California, Washington ($4.62), Nevada ($4.49), and Oregon ($4.35) in the $4+ club.
This week: $69,743.90 Good luck!
Gold:Silver Ratio: 85.11; last week: 89.83 Per COMEX continuous contracts:
Gold price 3/8: $2,186.20
Silver price 3/8: $24.52 Gold, in March, rose 9.65%, while silver nearly matched that gain, up 9.64% through last Friday (3//29). The rally, which appears to be just getting started, continued into the first week of April, and may be gaining momentum, especially as regards silver. Gold was up another 4.18% on the week, with silver tacking on an incredible gain of 9.96%. Once silver surpassed the long-standing resistance level at $26.23 late Tuesday, it was off to the races. As the week progressed, it became more and more apparent that silver's prior resistance point had become support. Both on Wednesday and Thursday, attempts were made to cram the price back below $26, and both times the efforts were met with failure as strong buyers stepped in. By Friday morning, it was all over for the shorts, capitulation complete, with silver ripping nearly a dollar higher before markets closed for the weekend at 5:00 pm ET in New York. The next target for silver is $30, and after that, the all-time highs close to $50. There will no doubt be setbacks and fluctuations along the way, but precious metals appear to be the best place to invest over the next five years, with prices very possibly rising to levels touted by the likes of Peter Schiff, James Rickards, Mike Maloney, Alasdair Macleod, and many others. By 2030, gold will likely be above $8000, and silver somewhere in triple digits. The gold:silver ratio cannot remain out of whack indefinitely. Even a ratio of 40 implies $200 silver with gold at $8000. Year-to-date, gold is up 13%, silver, $15%. This is only the beginning of a 15-year commodities super-cycle. Here are the most recent prices for common one ounce gold and silver items sold on eBay (numismatics excluded, free shipping included):
The Single Ounce Silver Market Price Benchmark (SOSMPB) remained at a high level, rising to $37.16, a gain of 37 cents from the March 31 price of $36.79 per troy ounce.
You can say you own stocks when in reality you only hold paper promises. You can say you own bitcoin. If you have gold and silver in hand, in a vault, in your possession, nothing needs to be said.
For the Week:
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IdleGuy.com April/May 2024, Vol. 1 #4