Global Market Commentary, Analysis and Investments
Clang-clang! Clankety-clank! Clang-clang!
Do you hear that sound, dear reader?
Hmmm…if we are not mistaken, that’s the sound of someone kicking a can down the road.
Oh wait…no…that’s the sound of Congressmen kicking a can down the steps of the Capitol building, out into the streets of American taxpayers…present and future.
[Read more...]Gold is drifting listlessly, adding to yesterday’s losses. At last check, the spot price has retreated $16 from its record high, to $1,586. Silver’s latest rise above $40 didn’t last long; it’s back to $38.47.
The gold price fell off a cliff yesterday at 1:30 p.m. EDT – right after the Comex closed and electronic trading began. Coincidentally or not, the drop came precisely at the moment President Obama announced a “breakthrough” in the debt ceiling drama.
[Read more...]It’s a semi-Risk Off Day today, so far that is… The Greek Confidence Vote went as thought… The budget that included austerity measures was passed, and also as expected, the Greek people protested… Just another day in the Eurozone “South”… One would think that this would be a cause to rally for the euro, being a “relief” and all… But I think that rally was already priced in yesterday, when the single unit rose to 1.44, then fell to 1.4346, and then back to 1.44, and now 1.4375…
[Read more...]The feds got over the first hurdle. They cut a deal to keep the government in business a while longer.
But that’s not the end of the story. It’s just the beginning.
The New York Times has the story:
Congressional Republicans are vowing that before they will agree to raise the current $14.25 trillion federal debt ceiling – a step that will become necessary in as little as five weeks – President Obama and Senate Democrats will have to agree to far deeper spending cuts for next year and beyond than those contained in the six-month budget deal agreed to late Friday night that cut $38 billion and averted a government shutdown.
[Read more...]Well… How does a euro (EUR) – that was supposed to be collapsed by now – at 1.43, look? And what do we have here? Political will to do something about the deficit? Well… Maybe… because…
Under the category of “wouldn’t it be nice if we could wake up, in the morning when the day is new, and never have to worry about the deficit, only because it would ruin the whole day through”…
[Read more...]As we were saying yesterday, there are several schools of thought regarding the present economy.
1) We're recovering… (Geithner, Summers, et al)
2) We're not recovering…we're headed into inflation (Faber, Stansberry, Casey)
3) We're not recovering…we're headed into hard-core deflation (Prechter, Shilling)
While the markets are hot, the economy is cool.
Nearly 7,000 people go bankrupt every day a record number. And in March, M3, the broadest measure of the money supply, recorded its biggest drop ever.
And get this. Peak to trough, December 07 to February 10, 8.3 million jobs were lost. As we reported yesterday, take away the statistical tricks and the number of people with real jobs actually fell last month despite reports of an additional 163,000 new jobs in March.
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Cutting Federal Spending…One Way or Another
The Dow fell 248 points. Oil dropped to $96. And gold down a whopping $46. Why?
“Deficit Effort Nears Collapse”
Thus did yesterday’s Wall Street Journal describe the latest Congressional failure. To put it into perspective, a group of well-meaning, intelligent members of Congress had been asked to do something very simple. Every head of a household in the nation does it. Every businessman does it. Even some college students do it.
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