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While China has been banging the nationalist drums in its government-owned tabloids, warning daily of the adverse consequences to the US from either a trade war, or from Trump’s violating the “One China” policy, a more tangible concern for deteriorating relations between China and the US is that Trump could, and most likely will, brand China a currency manipulator shortly after taking over the the Oval Office. Even Bank...

See the introduction and the video for the terms gold basis, co-basis, backwardation and contango.   Supply-Demand Fundamentals Improve Noticeably Last week was another short week, due to the New Year holiday. We look forward to getting back to our regularly scheduled market action. Photo via thedailycoin.org - Click to enlarge Gold and Silver Prices The prices of both metals moved up again this week. Something very...

Headlines Week January 09, 2017 Who has read Milton Friedman knows that the Trump reflation trade is now showing its positive side. US wages are rising by 2.5%, while inflation is still relatively low. According to Friedman, inflation will increase only later. This implies that speculators are long the dollar and short the Swiss franc and the euro during the weak inflation period. The last ECB meeting showed that the...

Swiss Franc Speculators were net short CHF in January 2015, shortly before the end of the peg, with 26.4K contracts. Then again in December 2015, when they expected a Fed rate hike, with 25.5K contracts. The biggest short CHF, however, happened in June 2007, when speculators were net short 80K contracts. Shortly after, the U.S. subprime crisis started. The carry trade against CHF collapsed. The...

The Swiss National Bank has announced 24 bn profits from 2016. Profits came from the dollar, yen and Canadian dollar, while the pound retreated by 15%. The EUR/CHF is only slightly weaker, mostly because the SNB actively supported the euro. SNB profits on USD, CAD and JPY, loses on GBP . The SNB mostly profited on rising U.S. stock markets, in particular the S&P500. SNB Profit Increases Thanks to Well Performing...

Summary: Odds of a March Fed hike edged up last week, and Q4 GDP figures were revised higher. Many continue to expect the new US Administration to pursue pro-growth tax reform, deregulation and infrastructure spending. Although many other high income countries are growing, near trend divergence of monetary policy continues. United States The major US equity indices reached record highs before the weekend even...

United States The dollar and US yields are recouping more of yesterday’s decline. A break of $1.0480-$1.05 would suggest the euro’s upside bounce is exhausted. A dollar move above JPY116.80-JPY117.25 would also hint that the greenback was going to make an other run toward JPY118.30-JPY118.60. Sterling support is seen in the $1.2285-$1.2310 area. The Canadian dollar is struggle to sustain it upward momentum. A US dollar...

Marc Chandler Source: cnbc.com - Click to enlarge Two central banks were particularly active today.  Chinese officials appear to be engineering short squeeze that has lifted the yuan 1.2% over the past two sessions. While this does not sound like much, it is a record two-day move, for the still closely managed currency. In addition to formal and informal capital controls, Chinese officials have reportedly used moral...

The train, which takes sightseers to the Jungfraujoch in the Bernese Alpes, carried 916,500 passengers in 2016, significantly fewer than the year before. In 2015, a record 1,007,000 made the journey. Despite the decline, 2016 was still the second best performance recorded. And, at the price of CHF 218.80 for a first class round trip, brought in a lot of money. The ski season saw a large drop in the number of passengers...

Here’s the problem with central banks seeking higher inflation: costs go up but wages don’t. It’s easy to quantify the annual cost of Social Security/Medicare, and not so easy to calculate the cost of Cartel Cronyism and Central Bank-created inflation.Cartel cronyism is a hidden tax on the entire economy, as is Central Bank-created inflation. That makes it easy for the financial-political Oligarchy to continue their...