Mario Draghi is by no means going to stop his Quantitative Easing program. All my sources behind the curtain express fear what will happen when Draghi leaves. Who will buy the government debt and who will keep subsidizing the governments of the Eurozone? Draghi has not merely declined to end Quantitative Easing, he has pledged to continue to reinvest in debt when it matures because he knows the... read more

In a pattern all too familiar to gold traders, the price of gold dropped from its latest attempt at breaking out from its multi-week, sideways trading range on Thursday. This puts the gold price right back at square one as the lateral pattern continues and the bulls must now reassert control over the immediate trend. However, as we’ll discuss in today’s commentary, gold’s technical backdr... read more

The US Dollar Index was higher at 89.751 .DXY, but still remains close to a 2-week trough as investors’ cautious nature prevails. Traders are worried about Donald Trump following through on his tweets yesterday which suggested military action for the recent gassing of citizens in Syria. Those geopolitical concerns did help to shift the concerns of a brewing trade war with China; however, over... read more

The Least Surprising Headline: The Fed Thinks Trump Tax Cut Is Great! The rational reaction to the Trump tax cut: “This is lunacy. How can we ramp the deficit to over a trillion dollars while slashing the primary source of funds to pay for our spending?” The central bank reaction: “Looks good to us!” In the Fed “Everything Is Awesome” echo chamber, there are no cloudy days an... read more

At any given time, in all trade in all places around the world, there is finite capacity. In material inputs, labor, finished goods. The limits to all of these factors change, but they always have limits. At present, there is no finite capacity for US dollars. Any system based on a discrete pool of supply in a limitless ocean of monetary demand is broken from the start, and when you add the no... read more

The federal budget deficit hit $598 billion in the first half of the 2018 fiscal year, according to the Congressional Budget Office, quickly outpacing the deficits of recent years. At the same point in 2017, the deficit was $78 billion lower. That year, the entire deficit amounted to $666 billion, just 11% higher than the amount the U.S. government had to borrow in the first half of 201... read more

Predicting a 40% stock market crash seems like a bold call in this day and age. It's far too easy to forget that peak-to-trough, the Nasdaq cratered 80% over the course of 31 months from March 2000 to October 2002. At the time, anyone who suggested such a complete rout was in the offing for the "new paradigm"/"this time it's different" market was quickly and loudly derided as a bitter Chicke... read more

April 6 (Reuters) - Gold prices rose on Friday as investors sought safer assets after U.S. President Donald Trump proposed $100 billion in new tariffs on China, raising concerns about an escalating trade spat between the United States and China. FUNDAMENTALS * Spot gold was 0.4 percent higher at $1,330.78 per ounce as of 0032 GMT, and the U.S. gold futures... read more

Americans have become inured to so-called financial “crises”. How can one not be jaded when the federal government repeatedly hits some supposed “debt ceiling,” which then magically goes away, time and time again. Or when things get so bad the government has to shut down altogether. Of course, when government shuts down in this fashion, nothing changes during that time for the averag... read more

It’s dawning on a lot of people that The Fed is now in an impossible position. Inflationary pressure fomented by a decade of stimulus is demands that rates rise to keep it from roaring out of control. A structurally weak, debt-hamstrung economy is highly vulnerable to higher rates, and demands that they stay at historically low levels. Pick your poison. Do you allow runaway inflation an... read more