Tag Archives: newsletter

The calendar last month hadn’t yet run out on US Industrial Production as it had for US Retail Sales. The hurricane interruption of 2017 for industry unlike consumer spending extended into last September. Therefore, the base comparison for 2018 is against that artificial low. As such, US IP rose by 5.1% year-over-year last month. That’s the largest gain since 2010. While that may be, over the last five months American...

In one of the most profound developments in the central bank gold market for a long time, the Hungarian National Bank, Hungary’s central bank, has just announced a 10 fold jump in its monetary gold holdings. The central bank, known as Magyar Nemzeti Bank (MNB) in Hungarian, made the announcement in Budapest, Hungary’s capital. The details of Hungary’s dramatic new gold purchase are as follows: Before this month,...

Swiss Franc The Euro has fallen by 0.13% at 1.1449 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, October 17(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: Led by a dramatic recovery in US stocks, global equities are moving higher today. Before last week, decline, the US stock market lacked breadth, but not only did the S&P 500 and NASDAQ post their biggest advance in several...

The plans foresee continued government subsidies to ensure animals’ well-being. The main Swiss business federation has released its recommendations for the government’s sensitive reforms of the agriculture sector. Farmers’ groups reacted with cautious approval. Economiesuisseexternal link gave its appraisal of the government’s 2022 agricultural reform plans on Monday, an appraisal that mostly centred around the...

The decline in the global equity market is the most serious since the February and March spill. In this Great Graphic, the white line is the S&P 500. With the setback, it is up a little more than 8% for the year. It managed to recover fully from the sell-off earlier in the year. The fuchsia line is the MSCI World Index of developed countries. It is up 1.25% year-to-date, and it never managed to take out the high set...

The clock really was ticking on this so-called economic boom. A product in many economic accounts of Keynesian-type fantasy, the destructive effects of last year’s hurricanes in sharp contrast to this year’s (which haven’t yet registered a direct hit on a major metropolitan area or areas, as was the case with Harvey and Irma) meant both a temporary rebound birthed by rebuilding as well as an expiration date for those...

A Chirp from the Deep Level Mines Back in late 2015 and early 2016, we wrote about a leading indicator for gold stocks, namely the sub-sector of marginal – and hence highly leveraged to the gold price – South African gold stocks. Our example du jour at the time was Harmony Gold (HMY) (see “Marginal Producer Takes Off” and “The Canary in the Gold Mine” for the details). Mining engineer equipped with bio-sensor ...

Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.32% at 1.1461 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, October 16(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: Although the S&P 500 was unable to sustain early gains yesterday, the largely consolidative session was part of the stabilization of equities after last week’s jump in volatility. Asia and European stocks are also cautiously...

Italy’s structural weakness explain higher level of concern around its deficit target. Each EU member state is currently preparing 2019 budget plans for formal submission to the European Commission (EC) before mid- October. Among them, France and Italy’s budget plans have been raising eyebrows. Why is the EC concerned about Italy’s proposed 2.4% GDP deficit target for 2019 and not France’s target of 2.8%? Is Italy being...

You Actually Can Eat Gold, But Its Nutritional Value is Dubious “You can’t eat gold.” The enemies of gold often unleash this little zinger, as if it dismisses the idea of owning gold and indeed the whole gold standard. It is a fact, you cannot eat gold. However, it dismisses nothing. This gives us an idea. Let us tie three facts together. One, you can’t eat gold. Two, gold is in backwardation in Switzerland. And three,...