Who’s Still OK With Deficit Spending Now?

I had to laugh yesterday when the New York traders came in and didn’t sell the currencies right away… I said to myself, “Self, maybe the ‘big boys’ read the Pfennig and now know that I’ve uncovered their ‘game,’ so they have to lay low for a while!” HA! Whatever the case, the currencies held their gains most of the day, and even added on in some cases.

[Read more...]

Home Prices Keep Falling

Good day… Should be an interesting week, as the ECOFIN people meet and Greece is still working on their debt and… this will be my first full week of work in over a month, so all in all, pretty interesting!

What I also found interesting on Friday was the price action of silver… I don’t know if you follow silver or not… I do — very closely, I might add! But silver was outperforming gold by a long shot, rising over $1 on the day, which you don’t normally see in the silver price action. My colleague Aaron yelled over the desk to ask me what was going on with silver, as he too watches it closely… I couldn’t really find anything out there, so the thought came to me very quickly that silver must be playing “catch-up”…

[Read more...]

Weekly Jobs Data is Positive, Pushing the Dollar Lower

As mentioned in yesterday’s Pfennig, we had a long list of data released yesterday, and most of the numbers indicated that the US economy may be picking up a bit of steam. Producer prices came in right where they were expected, increasing 0.3% MOM and 5.7% YOY. The ‘core’ figure, (ex food and energy) is the one the Feds monitor and both showed modest increases over last month. The biggest surprise came in the form of the Empire Manufacturing number which came in at 9.53 on December versus 3.00 last month. This number reflects manufacturing activity in the NY region, but has a history of being very volatile and therefore an unreliable indicator of future manufacturing growth.

[Read more...]

New and Improved Jobs Plan

Front and center this morning, I want to make a public service announcement, and make every aware that The US has received specific and credible intelligence showing al Qaeda militants in Pakistan may be preparing to carry out car bombings in Washington, D.C., and New York City, timed to coincide with the 10-year anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. Be careful out there!

[Read more...]

From Employment to Housing: “Reality” in a Great Correction

We can barely keep up.

One report tells us things are getting better. The next tells us that they are getting worse.

Last week, for example, we thought we might finally be seeing the sell-off we’ve been waiting for. But yesterday, the Dow rose. Gold rose. And oil rose. Gold’s back over $1,500…and oil is back over $100.

[Read more...]

Investing in Gold When Governments Take Action

I was kind of amused at the CNBC headline that read “Welfare State: Handouts Make Up One-Third of US Wages,” as if this is something new.

I mean, where have these CNBC weenies been the past decade?

Well, their complete cluelessness was immediately evident when they started out with the phrase, “Even as the economy has recovered,” which makes me laugh and laugh and laugh, and then I try to stop laughing because my stomach hurts from all that laughing, and then I get grumpy and fussy because my stomach hurts, and I put the blame squarely where it belongs; with the clueless CNBC saying, “even as the economy has recovered,” which still makes me want to laugh at its utter stupidity, and I would laugh, too, if my stomach didn’t hurt so much.

[Read more...]

US Recession: What’s Really Behind the Economic Data

You just can't keep a good economy down. At least, that's what you think upon reading the headlines this weekend.

“Fears of double-dip recession recede,? was the headline in The Financial Times.

Why the receding fear?

The private sector created 235,000 new jobs in the past three months, the paper explained.

[Read more...]

Personal Spending Outpaces Income

Well, the happy morning for the commodity currencies turned sour on the day, as the risk assets all got slapped around by the markets. The risk assets went sour after the personal income/spending data printed…

Say it ain't so, Joe!

Is this a case of “here we go again??

Here's the skinny of what I'm talking about… Yesterday, personal income printed at 0.2 less than personal spending! So… Are we back to spending more than we make? I sure hope not… But, that sure seems to be the bill of fare here. I have to say that I'm not surprised that the US consumer continues to spend during the recession and labor depression that we have, for this is the main reason I've said that this will be the difference between Japan's multi-year deflation, and the US… However, I am surprised at how strong that spending is…

[Read more...]

Going for the Gold

It seemed as though everyone with functioning financial sensibilities was aware of and understood the many factors driving up gold. Everyone, that is, except America's top financial expert:

Bernanke Puzzled by Gold Rally

[Read more...]