Tag Archives: Jerome Powell

So, is that it? Have rates peaked? Is the long bear market finally over?  The market decided last week that interest rates have peaked for this cycle. And if rates have peaked then all the assets that have been pressured over the last two years can finally come up for air. Since October 18, 2021, over two years ago, investors have had few places to hide. Of the major asset classes we follow closely, only two – gold and commodities – were higher by more than a...

Anyone who has decided to buy gold, or follows the gold price will be aware of how powerful the US Federal Reserve is. This year the Federal Reserve will turn 110 years old, only in recent years is dollar hegemony appearing to falter. Below we look at the central bank’s origins and three lessons we can learn from the history of the world’s most powerful bank, in order to help our investment decisions in 2023.  Is the FED’s institutional history about to repeat...

Markets were rather volatile last week. That’s a wild understatement and what passes for sarcasm in the investment business. Stocks started the week waiting with bated (baited?) breath for the inflation reports of the week. It isn’t surprising that the market is focused firmly on the rear view mirror for clues about the future since Jerome Powell has made it plain that is his plan, goofy as it is. Stocks were down slightly Monday and Tuesday fearing the worst and...

The Federal Reserve has been on a mission lately to make sure everyone knows they are serious about killing the inflation they created. Over the last two weeks, Federal Reserve officials delivered 37 speeches, all of the speakers competing to see who could be the most hawkish. Interest rates are going up they said, no matter how much it hurts, no matter how many people have to be put on the unemployment line, because that’s the only way to kill this inflation, to...

Nothing happened last week. Stocks and bonds and commodities continued to trade and move around in price but there was no news to which those movements could be attributed. The economic news was a trifle and what there was told us exactly nothing new about the economy. A report that wholesale inventories rose 0.6% cannot be turned into market moving news no matter how hard the newsletter sellers try. Jobless claims fell 8,000? Yawn. Exports rose $500 million? In a...

It would be easy for those who have decided to buy gold and silver bullion to lose heart over the precious metals, had they seen how prices reacted to Chairman Powell’s comments, last week. However, to do this would be very short-sighted. Whilst Powell may well have signaled that the Fed will stay on this path of tightening this does not mean that they have resolved the issue. Rather, it likely means that the Fed is reacting a little too hard, a little too late and...

Gregory (Scotland Yard detective): “Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?” Sherlock Holmes: “To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.” Gregory: “The dog did nothing in the night-time.” Sherlock Holmes: “That was the curious incident.” From Silver Blaze by Arthur Conan Doyle, 1892 It is hard to determine sometimes what causes markets to move as they do. Take last Friday’s stock market selloff. The widely cited “reason”...

New home sales were reported for July as down nearly 13% to 511K, a number that is just about the average since 2010 (543k). But that doesn’t tell the whole story obviously. New home sales have fallen sharply since December of last year, down 39%. The drop from the peak in August 2020 is even more dramatic, down nearly 51%. Obviously, the fall this year is related to rising mortgage rates but that can’t be the reason sales have been falling for nearly two years....

If you have decided to buy gold bullion or to buy silver coins in the last few months then you may have been delighted with how last night’s Fed press conference went. If you’re still wondering if or how to invest in gold then it might be worth paying attention to what central banks are doing in the coming weeks. After all, how do central banks make their decisions when it comes to monetary policy? In years before it might have been quite straightforward...

When “whatever it takes” means confiscation of wealth One of the reasons people decide to buy gold bullion or add silver coins to their portfolio is because they cannot be devalued. No one can suddenly decide to print more gold or silver! Sadly, this is exactly what happens with currencies around the world. And the last two decades have been prime examples of this. As governments rush to patch up past mistakes, missed warnings and election cycles they resort to...