Revenge of the Gold (and Silver) Bugs As Dollar Crashes

Stocks may be hurtling towards infinity and beyond, but the long-suffering holders of gold and silver are about to be rewarded for their patience and prescience.

Overnight, the dollar index breached the 90 level to the downside extending the trend which saw the dollar lose the most value in 14 years in 2017.

As the dollar falls, gold and silver can do nothing but appreciate in dollar terms, and with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin speaking out in favor of a weaker dollar, the trend seems set to accelerate.

Meanwhile, the US Postal Service continues to cater to the Amazons of the world by hiking postage rates (particularly to retail and the lowest tier of commercial rates, Commercial Base) and punish small business.

Likewise, cell carrier Verizon continues to throttle the speeds of users of its "unlimited" bandwidth service in spite of regulations and court rulings which forbid the practice.

The corrupt news media continues to taunt the public with stories that President Trump is about to be grilled by special prosecutor Robert Mueller in the "Russiagate" probe, while all along the true traitors are still employed by the FBI and Department of Justice.

It seems that the tree of liberty is ready to be to be quenched again.

At the Close, Tuesday, January 23, 2018:
Dow: 26,210.81, -3.79 (-0.01%)
NASDAQ: 7,460.29, +52.2568 (+0.7054%)
S&P 500: 2,839.13, +6.16 (+0.22%)
NYSE Composite: 13,474.11, +3.74 (+0.03%)

Trump and Republicans Carry the Day (and Water) for Wall Street

Just to be certain that the big government shutdown over the weekend was a big puff of smoke that left nothing other than a fog and stench, here is a comment made by a presumably knowledgeable person on how big business perceives the machinations and meanderings of the politicians in Washington, DC.

So far Wall Street is the dog that didn't bark in the night time. Indeed, all of Big Business is.

I work coordinating business meetings, mostly for Fortune 500 companies; the companies that spend enough on meetings to bother hiring professionals to handle them. I'm usually pretty busy during these meetings, but I keep an ear open for interesting tidbits when I can, and sometimes I have nothing to do but listen to every word.

Usually these companies do discuss politics, and how they plan to position themselves vis-a-vis the political climate. Not lately, they haven't been. Almost nary a peep. And that includes pharmaceutical companies, which usually are about as attuned politically as anyone.

The companies I work for, and you've heard of them, are ignoring:

- Attempts to change ACA (they know the entire healthcare finance system is already broken anyway, and they have to buy their employees health insurance no matter what happens so they don't care);

- Efforts to raise the US minimum wage to $15/hr. (they're already planning to raise pay because they can't hire people at the prevailing suppressed wages);

- The tax bill (they already pay corporate taxes at an effective rate so much lower than the headline rates it doesn't matter, and their top executives already mask most of their income from the tax system so effectively no legislation conceivable in the current political climate matters at all to them);

- Immigration (they simply don't care because they have no liability or consequences no matter what);

- Carbon-based fuels (they're all getting out of them anyway because they're too expensive and inefficient; if Trump wants to subsidize them while they're doing it they're fine with that);

- Government regulations (they pay their way out of them anyway, one way or the other, and write off the costs);

- Global trade agreements (all the methods they use to evade existing duties, tariffs and sanctions supersede such things anyway); etc.

- War and rumors of war (None of the wars involve or will involve anything they have an interest in. They have deep enough contacts to know there isn't going to be a nuclear war, and no other wars on the table pose more risk than profit opportunities to corporate interests);

- Ethics investigations, "RussiaGate," Uranium 1, PizzaGate, FISA-gate, or any of the popcorn nonsense dominating the partisan media (who invented ad campaigns in the first place?).

Indeed, most of the issues we concern ourselves with don't even interest the executives of the biggest corporations in America.

This is reflected in Wall Street. Where it matters, they know they've got the system dicked. It simply doesn't matter to them one way or the other, which faction of the Oligarchy has the upper hand today or tomorrow.

Here's the link to the comment (from a site on which the Money Daily staff has been banned twice for speaking truth to power).

Thus, stocks gained on the eve of the shutdown and also on the end of the shutdown. The shutdown was bad theater engineered by obstructionist Democrats who have nothing left in their quiver of attack arrows outside of assiduously assaulting the sitting president.

...and, apparently, it wasn't even close to being enough, as their gambit blew up in their collectivist faces, and especially so on the visage of one NY Senator Chuck Schumer, a sell-out to his constituents and to his party.

At the Close, Monday, January 22, 2018:
Dow: 26,214.60, +142.88 (+0.55%)
NASDAQ: 7,408.03, +71.65 (+0.98%)
S&P 500: 2,832.97, +22.67 (+0.81%)
NYSE Composite: 13,470.37, +85.91 (+0.64%)

Conceptually, Wall Street is Irrational and Stocks Are Poor (at best) Long-Term Investments

Follow the logic:

US federal government shuts down, stocks go up.

US Dollar collapse: stocks go higher (but inflation kills your purchasing power).

Nuclear war: stocks go ballistic (parabolic path, but the world is mostly ash).

TEOTWAWKI: Stocks take off towards infinity (no way to cash out, i.e, can't take it with you, though).

Ergo, bad news is good news, again.

And you thought investing was easy...

At the Close, Friday, January 19, 2018:
Dow: 26,071.72, +53.91 (+0.21%)
NASDAQ: 7,336.38, +40.33 (+0.55%)
S&P 500: 2,810.30, +12.27 (+0.44%)
NYSE Composite: 13,384.13, +68.55 (+0.51%)

For the Week:
Dow: +268.53 (+1.04%)
NASDAQ: +40.33 (+0.55%)
S&P 500: +24.06 (+0.86%)
NYSE Composite: +90.12 (+0.68%)

Does Wall Street Take a Government Shutdown Seriously?

Late Thursday afternoon, US stock indices took a decided turn to the downside as legislators in Washington DC failed to agree upon a plan to meep the US government operating past Friday night.

A favorite parlor game for the noise-makers in the nation's capitol, threatening to shut down the government because there's no budget or continuing resolution may have become passe´ to the general population, but Wall Street may take the issue a bit more seriously.

A partial shutdown of the federal government - because it doesn't really shut down critical operations or necessary functions - isn't taken seriously, though it could become a real issue, if it were, in fact, an absolute reality.

Considering the amounts of money the federal government handles on a regular basis, a complete shut-down would be devastating to the nation's economy. Imagine welfare, social security, and disability recipients not receiving their regular checks or direct deposits.

Imagine the nation's largest workforce going without paychecks for an extended period. Imagine the US Postal Service shut down, the entire military on leave, contractors idled, and an assortment of other regular activities closed, ceased, ended. The US treasury would cease operations, causing all US treasury bonds to become worthless.

Least of all, the bickering by members of congress would least be missed, since they are the supposedly responsible people.

An actual shutdown is a scary thought. Trying to scare the populace with a fake shutdown, caused solely by inter-party disagreements and politics, may be nothing now, but it could be seen as a conditioning effort for a true federal failure.

In such a case, the president would likely declare martial law, a necessary action to ensure civility, especially in cities. That's unlikely to happen at this juncture, but, the more the politicians play politics instead of enacting laws that do good for the American people, the closer the nations comes to a severe and lasting crisis.

Passing a two, three, or four-week resolution merely kicks the can down the road a little, making the government appear no better than that of a third-world banana republic.

If that's what's happening, all investors should take appropriate actions to safeguard not only their liquid assets invested in stocks and bonds, but also move to protect their friends and families.

The United States is headed for disaster if the congress and the news media continues on the destructive path of irresolution, political posturing, fear-mongering, and division.

Let's hope it doesn't begin to unravel further over the weekend.

At the Close, Thursday, January 18, 2018:
Dow: 26,017.81, -97.84 (-0.37%)
NASDAQ: 7,296.05, -2.23 (-0.03%)
S&P 500: 2,798.03, -4.53 (-0.16%)
NYSE Composite: 13,315.91, -36.48 (-0.27%)

Tail Wags Dog: Fed 'Beige Book' Provides Rationale for Dollar Buying

Wall Street professionals wiped off all the poop from yesterday's 300+ price collapse on the DJIA and set about to bidding up risky assets to even riskier levels, sending the Dow and other averages soaring to new all-time closing highs.

Making matters even more preposterous, sinister, or outlandish was the reading of the Fed's Beige Book at 2:00 pm ET, which sent the US Dollar index off three-year lows to near the highs of the day at 4:00 pm ET, the closing bell on Wall Street.

If there's a soul left on the planet that hasn't bowed to the power of the Federal Reserve and its host of central bank and commercial cronies, then that person is simply out-of-touch.

Silver and gold have wallowed near multi-year bottoms for four long years while stocks have gone absolutely ballistic. Paper promises are worth much, much more than solid gold or silver in today's phony funny money world.

It's almost enough to make one give up writing on the subject (pondered here nearly every damn day).

Today's gains on the Dow Industrials were the largest since the election of November 8, 2016.

At the Close, Wednesday, January 17, 2018:
Dow: 26,115.65, +322.79 (+1.25%)
NASDAQ: 7,298.28, +74.59 (+1.03%)
S&P 500: 2,802.56, +26.14 (+0.94%)
NYSE Composite: 13,352.39, +105.53 (+0.80%)