Sell in May and go away?
Balderdash.
Summer slump?
Nonsense.
Stocks have had an amazing run through July and August, thanks to ultra-low bond yields driving money into stocks, momentum, and oodles of dollars going straight to Wall Street from the Federal Reserve.
As noted by countless economists, columnists, and stock enthusiasts, the backstops provided by the Fed have servd the interests of Wall Street in glorious ways, sending stocks soaring, the S&P and NASDAQ having made multiple record highs over the past eight weeks.
While the NYSE Composite Index and Dow Jones Industrial Average have not made it yet to new records, they're getting close and the Dow, specifically, will get a significant boost on Monday (the final trading day of August) when Exxon Mobil (XOM), Raytheon (RTX), and Pfizer (PFE) are replaced with Salesforce (CRM), Amgen (AMGN), and Honeywell (HON).
Already within 900 points of its all-time closing high (29,551.42, 2/12/20), it's within similar range of the intraday high of 29,568.57, which was also made on February 12. The added boost from the booting of three laggards with three high-fliers should send the industrials over the top, possibly this coming week.
Just how good the summer has been to investors is illustrated by the weekly closes for the past eight weeks, beginning July 6 and ending this past Friday, August 28. The slowpokes among the indices was the Dow and NYSE. The latter rose from a July 2 close of 11,991.52 to 13,170.96. It closed on the plus side seven of the eight past weeks for a 9.84% gain.
The Dow Industrials gained in five of the eight weeks, rising more than 2800 points from its July 2 close of 25,827.36, a gain of 10.94 percent.
The S&P closed at 3,130.01 on July 2, and added 378 points during the past eight weeks for a solid 12% upside, while the NASDAQ took home the top prize, vaulting from 10,207.63 eight weeks ago to its most recent record close of 11,695.63, a 14.6% gain. The S&P was up in seven of the past eight weeks while the NASDAQ finished in positive territory in six, including the last five straight.
So, whoever said the era of passive investing was over obviously hasn't taken account of the performance of index funds, which have sparkled recently, despite the narrative supplied to the market by the FAANMGs, the six tech stocks that have largely been responsible for the bulk of the gains in the NAZ and S&P. Facebook (FB), Amazon (AMZN), Apple (AAPL), Netflix (NFLX), Microsoft (MSFT) and Alphabet, parent of Google (GOOG) account for roughly 25% of the market capitalization of the entire S&P 500. Throw in Elon Musk's Tesla (TSLA) and one could make a very strong point about picking the right stocks over passive investing.
Apple, which recently announced a 4-for-1 stock split, was up 39% over the past eight weeks. Tesla gained a whopping 54%, while Amazon gained only 19%, though it and the other FAANMG components have been steady outperformers for years.
Warren Buffett, who turns 90 today, made news this week when it was revealed he was selling off some banking stocks while picking up shares of Barrick Gold. The information came from the latest 13F filing from Bershire Hathaway, the holding company for Buffett's global portfolio.
The punditry of the investment world made plenty of noise over the move, especially since Buffett had previously claimed to not think much of gold as an investment. One of the most-cited quotes attributed to Buffett's disdain for gold is "[Gold] gets dug out of the ground in Africa, or someplace. Then we melt it down, dig another hole, bury it again and pay people to stand around guarding it. It has no utility."
While Buffett's purchase of some Barrick Gold shares (roughly $600 million) may look like a departure from the Oracle of Omaha's norm, the truth of the matter is that the shares account for a smidge more than 0.2 percent of Bershire's 250 billion stock portfolio. What's interesting about the move was that Berkshire closed its position in Goldman Sachs (GS), eliminating the Vampire Squid entirely from its holdings. It also trimmed positions in JPMorgan Chase (JPM) and Wells Fargo (WFC), but upped its position in Bank of America (BAC), which is now the second-largest holding, well behind #1, Apple.
It will be another three months before we'll know whether Berkshire intends to keep buying Barrick or even other gold-related stocks. For all anyone knows, Buffett could have a secret stash of gold and silver coins buried in his back yard, just in case.
Speaking of reasons to own gold and silver, the second estimate of second quarter GDP was released on Friday, and it was a slight improvement from the initial reading, but not enough of one to matter. The decline, which was estimated to be a record 32.9%, was revised to a 31.7% loss, still the largest on record by far. Making matters more concerning, it's been a fact for some time that the government spending portion of the GDP calculation has been inordinately high, and it now accounts for more than 50% of GDP. The other roughly one-half of GDP is largely consumer spending, people buying things they don't need with credit cards they can't afford to pay.
In the oil patch, the slow, relentless rise in the barrel price of oil continued apace with WTI crude peaking at $43.34 on the 26th - the highest price since March 3rd - before settling at $42.97 on Friday afternoon. Theprice of WTI crude has been below $40 just twice since July 2nd, with the recent prices nearing the top of the recent tight range. With the Labor Day holiday a week off, prices for crude and gas at the pump may begin to decline as the traditional end of summer normally results in lower prices, though these days have been anything but normal.
Treasury yields peaked on Friday, with the 10-year note ending at 0.74% and the 30-year at 1.52%, both the highest since June 16. Shorter-dated maturities were little affected by market noise nor Fed Chairman Jerome Powell's virtual keynote for the Jackson Hole symposium in which he promoted increasing inflationary policy incentives at the Federal Reserve. Powell's insistence that inflation of two percent or more somehow equates to the Fed's mandate of "stable prices" serves to point out what an abject liar he is and what a complete failure the Federal Reserve as a whole has been since its inception more than 100 years ago. The Fed has failed spectacularly in achieving both of its mandates as the dollar has lost 97% of purchasing power since 1913 and full employment - the other mandate - is about as far from the minds of the regional Fed presidents and governors of the FOMC as the Earth is from planet Jupiter.
Gold regained some respect on Friday, up $35 to close out the week at $1,964.83. Since peaking at $2,063.54 on August 6, the trend has been lower, but $1900 an ounce appears to be very strong support. With supply strained and demand still very high, recent dips look more like consolidation than manipulation, even though the spot price is subservient to the eminently exploitable futures market where daily claims on precious metals often exceed a year's production. Eventually, the futures market will face an untenable situation when the punters stand for delivery of real metal rather than a paper equivalent of dollars, yen, or euros. Once the COMEX fails to deliver physical in a timely manner - a possibility that's growing increasingly worrying - it's game over for the paper markets, where the rigging has kept the true price of gold to be discovered for decades.
In order to prevent such an occurrence, the CME has been and will continue to raise margin requirements for futures trading in precious metals until none but the biggest players - central banks, bullion banks, private banks, investment and commercial banks, insurance companies, and sovereign trusts - will be able to afford the buying and selling of futures contracts. Thus, the compression of prices could continue indefinitely while physical premiums soar beyond the rooftops.
Silver also appears to be in a consolidation phase, ranging between $26.45 and $27.67 the past two weeks. It finished up Friday near the top end, at $27.50. Considering the recent smackdown sent silver from a high of $29.13 to $24.79 in the course of one day, the recent close puts the loss at less than six percent, a complete nothing-burger in the highly volatile silver market. The inability of the futures' players to keep a lid on silver indicates that the riggers are losing control. Silver's market is much smaller than gold's, and the demand for physical has bordered on a mania recently due to its affordability and monetary and commercial value.
Here are the most recent prices on eBay (shipping - often free - included) for selected items (numismatics excluded):
Item: Low / High / Average / Median
1 oz silver coin: 31.90 / 48.95 / 39.05 / 37.98
1 oz silver bar: 32.95 / 42.00 / 36.75 / 35.98
1 oz gold coin: 1,985.00 / 2,178.90 / 2,090.41 / 2,107.55
1 oz gold bar: 2,006.16 / 2,114.59 / 2,078.62 / 2,081.75
An historical survey of prices from April, 2020 to the present is available here.
Concluding this edition of the WEEKEND WRAP, a reminder: There are just 65 days until Election Day and 117 days until Christmas. With any luck, we'll all know who the president is by the time we're unwrapping presents.
At the Close, Friday, August 28, 2020:
Dow: 28,653.87, +161.60 (+0.57%)
NASDAQ: 11,695.63, +70.30 (+0.60%)
S&P 500: 3,508.01, +23.46 (+0.67%)
NYSE: 13,170.96, +102.15 (+0.78%)
For the Week:
Dow: +723.54 (+2.59%)
NASDAQ: +383.83 (+3.39%)
S&P 500: +110.85 (+3.26%)
NYSE: +261.89 (+2.83%)
Sunday, August 30, 2020
Friday, August 28, 2020
The Whole Story Out of Jackson Hole Is Inflation; "Woke" Protests Cancel Sporting Events
Just in case you weren't invited to this year's annual celebration of all things central banking at Jackson Hole, Wyoming, fear not. The usually cozy conclave is being held virtually this year, as in "online" so that the Fed can be seen as holding up their end of the SCAMDEMIC COVID-19 bargain, like any of these globalist counterfeiters don't already have the antidote.
As a sideshow, Jackson Hole is pretty convenient. It usually allows the stuffed shirts which generally populate the world of finance, get into flannels and jeans out in the wild. Well, not so much this year.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell set the agenda with his keynote address, signaling that the Fed is hellbent on creating inflation, targeting two percent, even if they have to go beyond it sometimes. It's not enough that the Fed has the following programs already operating on the US economy (killing it while boosting stock prices):
That's a lot of facilities. They need one more: a hospital facility to house the mentally ill economists running the world's currencies and businesses into the ground.
The Fed has gone full retard on inflation, which benefits who exactly. Most people don't really insist on higher prices all the time. Lower prices would be a welcome change, but, in the Fed's mind, the part of their mandate being price stability is somehow interpreted as two percent inflation. Yes, full retard. They'll soon be sending money directly to corporations negatively affected by not just COVID-19, but just about anything.
The Fed's message is crystal clear and applies to everything from food to consumer goods to houses to stocks:
BUY NOW BEFORE PRICES GO UP!
As far as full retard mode being in effect, the Fed and Wall Street may have to take a back seat to professional sports. Not only has the NBA pretty much destroyed any remaining shred of credibility by cancelling playoff games Wednesday night, they topped that off by cancelling (postponing) three more playoff games on Thursday. Not to be outdone, players from 14 MLB teams caused the postponement of seven games, including the scheduled Thursday night national telecast on Fox of the Phillies-Nationals game.
Not that anybody cared much. The Phillies are sub-.500, while the Nationals - last season's World Series winners - are in last place in the NL East. No fans were affected since MLB is still not allowing any fan presence at any games. Plenty of other games - like the WNBA, which nobody watches anyway - were also cancelled.
All of these protests are over the shooting of a black man who was in violation of an order of protection, threatening an ex-girlfriend and upon whom restraint and tasers had already failed, was trying to get inside his car to retrieve a knife for some reason, after police had told him not to enter the car and had guns drawn. Some guy named Jacob or something. We are supposed to honor criminal behavior now?
Well, that's why sports players play sports. Most of them are too stupid to do anything meaningful. If they protest and "boycott" their own games, for which they are paid ridiculous sums of money, maybe the owners will just lay them all off, cancel the whole season, dissolve the leagues and go into some other business where the workers don't stage revolutions every two weeks.
Thankfully, the weekend is upon us and we can all relax(?) for a few days, unless there's a pandemic, hurricane, cop shooting or something else to set people off on looting and rioting. It's kind of like that old hockey joke: "I went to a boxing match and a hockey game broke out," except this time, it's "I went to a basketball game and a protest broke out."
Yikes. We're screwed.
At the Close, Thursday, August 27, 2020:
Dow: 28,492.27, +160.37 (+0.57%)
NASDAQ: 11,625.34, -39.76 (-0.34%)
S&P 500: 3,484.55, +5.82 (+0.17%)
NYSE: 13,068.81, +26.31 (+0.20%)
As a sideshow, Jackson Hole is pretty convenient. It usually allows the stuffed shirts which generally populate the world of finance, get into flannels and jeans out in the wild. Well, not so much this year.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell set the agenda with his keynote address, signaling that the Fed is hellbent on creating inflation, targeting two percent, even if they have to go beyond it sometimes. It's not enough that the Fed has the following programs already operating on the US economy (killing it while boosting stock prices):
- Primary Dealer Credit Facility
- Money Market Mutual Fund Liquidity Facility
- Primary Market Corporate Credit Facility
- Secondary Market Corporate Credit Facility
- Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility
- Paycheck Protection Program Liquidity Facility
- Main Street Lending Program
That's a lot of facilities. They need one more: a hospital facility to house the mentally ill economists running the world's currencies and businesses into the ground.
The Fed has gone full retard on inflation, which benefits who exactly. Most people don't really insist on higher prices all the time. Lower prices would be a welcome change, but, in the Fed's mind, the part of their mandate being price stability is somehow interpreted as two percent inflation. Yes, full retard. They'll soon be sending money directly to corporations negatively affected by not just COVID-19, but just about anything.
The Fed's message is crystal clear and applies to everything from food to consumer goods to houses to stocks:
BUY NOW BEFORE PRICES GO UP!
As far as full retard mode being in effect, the Fed and Wall Street may have to take a back seat to professional sports. Not only has the NBA pretty much destroyed any remaining shred of credibility by cancelling playoff games Wednesday night, they topped that off by cancelling (postponing) three more playoff games on Thursday. Not to be outdone, players from 14 MLB teams caused the postponement of seven games, including the scheduled Thursday night national telecast on Fox of the Phillies-Nationals game.
Not that anybody cared much. The Phillies are sub-.500, while the Nationals - last season's World Series winners - are in last place in the NL East. No fans were affected since MLB is still not allowing any fan presence at any games. Plenty of other games - like the WNBA, which nobody watches anyway - were also cancelled.
All of these protests are over the shooting of a black man who was in violation of an order of protection, threatening an ex-girlfriend and upon whom restraint and tasers had already failed, was trying to get inside his car to retrieve a knife for some reason, after police had told him not to enter the car and had guns drawn. Some guy named Jacob or something. We are supposed to honor criminal behavior now?
Well, that's why sports players play sports. Most of them are too stupid to do anything meaningful. If they protest and "boycott" their own games, for which they are paid ridiculous sums of money, maybe the owners will just lay them all off, cancel the whole season, dissolve the leagues and go into some other business where the workers don't stage revolutions every two weeks.
Thankfully, the weekend is upon us and we can all relax(?) for a few days, unless there's a pandemic, hurricane, cop shooting or something else to set people off on looting and rioting. It's kind of like that old hockey joke: "I went to a boxing match and a hockey game broke out," except this time, it's "I went to a basketball game and a protest broke out."
Yikes. We're screwed.
At the Close, Thursday, August 27, 2020:
Dow: 28,492.27, +160.37 (+0.57%)
NASDAQ: 11,625.34, -39.76 (-0.34%)
S&P 500: 3,484.55, +5.82 (+0.17%)
NYSE: 13,068.81, +26.31 (+0.20%)
Thursday, August 27, 2020
NASDAQ Up 75% Since March 23; 30 Million Unemployed; 2Q GDP Down 31.7%
Stocks had another nice day on Wednesday. For the NASDAQ a nearly two percent gain on virtually no news, so it's become rather obvious that the tech space has become quite the crowded trade.
The rise of the NASDAQ has been impressive to say the least. Since bottoming out at 6,631.42 on March 23, Wednesday's close at 11,665.06 is a 75.9% gain in just five months' time, so, if there's a better way to make money, Wall Street investors aren't interested. They have found the pot of gold at the end of the COVID-19 rainbow.
What makes the rally off the March lows all the more cynical and confounding is that the index - the Dow and S&P have performed well, but not quite at the level of the NASDAQ - has risen meteorically while at least 30 million people are out of work, whole cities and states had been shut down at some time, GDP shrunk in the second quarter by 31.7% (just reported), and protests have turned into major crimes scenes replete with looting, rioting, and arson in some cities.
So, what is the American public missing that Wall Street apparently has a grasp upon? The answer is tacit backing of every bank, financial and non-financial corporation listed on the various exchanges, to the tune of three trillion dollars and more to come.
When Wall Street gets a bailout these days, they do it with gusto. The American people, not so much. Congress remains on vacation, purportedly until Labor Day. With any luck, some of the more senior members of the august bodies we call the House of Representatives and the Senate will forget to come back to DC or get hopelessly lost on their way back.
Another million people filed first time unemployment claims last week.
That's all for today. Enjoy.
At the Close, Wednesday, August 26, 2020:
Dow: 28,331.92, +83.48 (+0.30%)
NASDAQ: 11,665.06, +198.59 (+1.73%)
S&P 500: 3,478.73, +35.11 (+1.02%)
NYSE: 13,042.54, +40.55 (+0.31%)
The rise of the NASDAQ has been impressive to say the least. Since bottoming out at 6,631.42 on March 23, Wednesday's close at 11,665.06 is a 75.9% gain in just five months' time, so, if there's a better way to make money, Wall Street investors aren't interested. They have found the pot of gold at the end of the COVID-19 rainbow.
What makes the rally off the March lows all the more cynical and confounding is that the index - the Dow and S&P have performed well, but not quite at the level of the NASDAQ - has risen meteorically while at least 30 million people are out of work, whole cities and states had been shut down at some time, GDP shrunk in the second quarter by 31.7% (just reported), and protests have turned into major crimes scenes replete with looting, rioting, and arson in some cities.
So, what is the American public missing that Wall Street apparently has a grasp upon? The answer is tacit backing of every bank, financial and non-financial corporation listed on the various exchanges, to the tune of three trillion dollars and more to come.
When Wall Street gets a bailout these days, they do it with gusto. The American people, not so much. Congress remains on vacation, purportedly until Labor Day. With any luck, some of the more senior members of the august bodies we call the House of Representatives and the Senate will forget to come back to DC or get hopelessly lost on their way back.
Another million people filed first time unemployment claims last week.
That's all for today. Enjoy.
At the Close, Wednesday, August 26, 2020:
Dow: 28,331.92, +83.48 (+0.30%)
NASDAQ: 11,665.06, +198.59 (+1.73%)
S&P 500: 3,478.73, +35.11 (+1.02%)
NYSE: 13,042.54, +40.55 (+0.31%)
Wednesday, August 26, 2020
Dow Jones Industrial Average About To Undergo Huge Changes Adding Amgen, Honeywell and Salesforce.com
With the S&P 500 recently reaching new all-time highs and the NASDAQ having done so more than two months ago (June 5), the granddaddy of equity indices, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, has some catching up to do. Even though it has been on a roll recently, it's still 1300 points off its all-time high, or about five percent from the promised land.
So, what to do?
Need to have the Dow Jones Industrial Average make new all-time highs? No problemo, señor.
It was announced on Monday that Exxon Mobil (XOM), Raytheon (RTX), and Pfizer (PFE) would be removed from the index on August 31, replacing them with Salesforce (CRM), Amgen (AMGN), and Honeywell (HON).
This CNBC article suggests that the changes have much to do about Apple's announced 4-for-1 split, which will take the technology group within the Dow from 27.6% down to 20.3%, but there are some serious doubts as to the veracity of that argument. There's more to it than meets the usually-jaundiced investor eye, so, how do these companies stack up, by comparison?
Let's take a look.
ExxonMobil closed Tuesday at 40.82. It's 52 Week Range is 30.11 - 75.18, with those gaudy numbers in the 70s all occurring in late 2019, prior to the coronavirus scare. The stock hit a closing low of 31.45 on March 23, the culmination of a two-month long price slide. It has recovered only slightly since.
The removal of this oil and gas giant from the Dow is a serious matter, leaving Chevron (CVX) as the sole big energy producer in the index. This speaks volumes about the Dow re-arrangers' understanding of the economy. They obviously don't expect oil and gas to be doing much. With WTI crude in the $40-$45-a-barrel range in the middle of summer, one can guess they think the prospects for higher oil prices are low, since ExxonMobil's performance is tied quite tightly to the price of crude.
Another company hit hard and hardly recovered from the March crash is Raytheon (RTX), which closed Tuesday at 60.95, better than its March 23 low of 47.17, but well off its high of 98.70 on February 7. With 195,000 employees worldwide, Raytheon is a big time government contractor focused on aerospace and missile technology. Any conclusions drawn from the removal of this industrial/tech giant will likely be wrong. The managers of the S&P Dow Jones Indices - who are in charge of making these changes and keeping the Dow somewhat representative of American business - basically just swapped out Raytheon for Honeywell, which is also in the aerospace business but is much more diversified and up-to-date. It doesn't hurt that Honeywell, which closed Tuesday at 164.53, hit a high of 183.23 on January 17 and bottomed out at 103.63. It's recovery has been much swifter and stronger than that of Raytheon.
Pfizer has been a dog of the Dow for a long time and it's hardly surprising that it was finally dumped. Even though its close Tuesday at 38.41 is close to its record close at 40.71 on January 23, the low of 28.49 doesn't offer much in the way of range for this big pharma constituent. The highest price Pfizer traded at was 46.23, back in November of 2018. The company simply isn't the big performer that the Dow needs.
Now, Amgen (AMGN), that's a company with two things the Dow desperately needs: a high stock price and upward momentum. It got hit in the March selloff, but not so badly. It hit a high of 243.06 in December, 2019, dropped down to 182.24 on March 12, and has since made new highs, reaching the pinnacle at 260.95 on July 20. It closed Tuesday at 248.22, on a one-day gain of more than five percent. Amgen does basically the same things Pfizer does, but it doesn't carry legacy baggage like its rival. Amgen has 23,400 employees compared to Pfizer's 88,300. It's a mean, green, pharma machine. Taking this switcheroo into account, guess which company is not going to get government approval for a COVID-19 vaccine. Hint: it's not Amgen.
Salesforce (CRM) is the oddball of the bunch, basically replacing an energy company (XOM) with a pure tech play. The ticker symbol (CRM) is an acronym for Customer Relations Management, otherwise known in the business as data mining, or targeting. Headquartered in San Francisco, the company has 49,000 employees into everything from applications development to blockchain, the technology that powers cyrptocurrencies like BitCoin.
Salesforce closed at 216.05 Tuesday, but, get this, as of this writing, in pre-market trading, it's up nearly 15%, at 247.94, a gain of 31.94, should the advance hold through the open. The company's stock made a new all-time high on July 6, bouncing off its March low of 124.30, and has gone higher from there.
Could the swap out of ExxonMobile for Salesforce have anything to do with massive cultural changes in America and worldwide? You bet your life it does. This one huge change is telling us that society is going to be less mobile and more tech oriented, with distances of hundreds or thousands of miles which used to be traversed by planes, trains, and automobiles are largely going to be the province of video software, the internet, and broadband, a change which has been evolving for decades but is finally coming to fruition.
While Salesforce.com's surge after hours and into the pre-market had much to do with its earnings report and outlook, could the company be poised to be a big part of a digital currency offering by the Federal Reserve? It's obvious that the Fed would go looking to the private sector for a partner in the technology end of such a development and the nation's central bankers have already indicated that cyrpto is in their future, and thus, of all Americans and most of the world's population.
Even discounting that proposition, the changes to the Dow Industrials set to kick off in less than a week (Monday, August 31) are going to provide significant upside to the 124-year-old stock gauge.
At the Close, Tuesday, August 25, 2020:
Dow: 28,248.44, -60.02 (-0.21%)
NASDAQ: 11,466.47, +86.75 (+0.76%)
S&P 500: 3,443.62, +12.34 (+0.36%)
NYSE: 13,001.99, +29.11 (+0.22%)
So, what to do?
Need to have the Dow Jones Industrial Average make new all-time highs? No problemo, señor.
It was announced on Monday that Exxon Mobil (XOM), Raytheon (RTX), and Pfizer (PFE) would be removed from the index on August 31, replacing them with Salesforce (CRM), Amgen (AMGN), and Honeywell (HON).
This CNBC article suggests that the changes have much to do about Apple's announced 4-for-1 split, which will take the technology group within the Dow from 27.6% down to 20.3%, but there are some serious doubts as to the veracity of that argument. There's more to it than meets the usually-jaundiced investor eye, so, how do these companies stack up, by comparison?
Let's take a look.
ExxonMobil closed Tuesday at 40.82. It's 52 Week Range is 30.11 - 75.18, with those gaudy numbers in the 70s all occurring in late 2019, prior to the coronavirus scare. The stock hit a closing low of 31.45 on March 23, the culmination of a two-month long price slide. It has recovered only slightly since.
The removal of this oil and gas giant from the Dow is a serious matter, leaving Chevron (CVX) as the sole big energy producer in the index. This speaks volumes about the Dow re-arrangers' understanding of the economy. They obviously don't expect oil and gas to be doing much. With WTI crude in the $40-$45-a-barrel range in the middle of summer, one can guess they think the prospects for higher oil prices are low, since ExxonMobil's performance is tied quite tightly to the price of crude.
Another company hit hard and hardly recovered from the March crash is Raytheon (RTX), which closed Tuesday at 60.95, better than its March 23 low of 47.17, but well off its high of 98.70 on February 7. With 195,000 employees worldwide, Raytheon is a big time government contractor focused on aerospace and missile technology. Any conclusions drawn from the removal of this industrial/tech giant will likely be wrong. The managers of the S&P Dow Jones Indices - who are in charge of making these changes and keeping the Dow somewhat representative of American business - basically just swapped out Raytheon for Honeywell, which is also in the aerospace business but is much more diversified and up-to-date. It doesn't hurt that Honeywell, which closed Tuesday at 164.53, hit a high of 183.23 on January 17 and bottomed out at 103.63. It's recovery has been much swifter and stronger than that of Raytheon.
Pfizer has been a dog of the Dow for a long time and it's hardly surprising that it was finally dumped. Even though its close Tuesday at 38.41 is close to its record close at 40.71 on January 23, the low of 28.49 doesn't offer much in the way of range for this big pharma constituent. The highest price Pfizer traded at was 46.23, back in November of 2018. The company simply isn't the big performer that the Dow needs.
Now, Amgen (AMGN), that's a company with two things the Dow desperately needs: a high stock price and upward momentum. It got hit in the March selloff, but not so badly. It hit a high of 243.06 in December, 2019, dropped down to 182.24 on March 12, and has since made new highs, reaching the pinnacle at 260.95 on July 20. It closed Tuesday at 248.22, on a one-day gain of more than five percent. Amgen does basically the same things Pfizer does, but it doesn't carry legacy baggage like its rival. Amgen has 23,400 employees compared to Pfizer's 88,300. It's a mean, green, pharma machine. Taking this switcheroo into account, guess which company is not going to get government approval for a COVID-19 vaccine. Hint: it's not Amgen.
Salesforce (CRM) is the oddball of the bunch, basically replacing an energy company (XOM) with a pure tech play. The ticker symbol (CRM) is an acronym for Customer Relations Management, otherwise known in the business as data mining, or targeting. Headquartered in San Francisco, the company has 49,000 employees into everything from applications development to blockchain, the technology that powers cyrptocurrencies like BitCoin.
Salesforce closed at 216.05 Tuesday, but, get this, as of this writing, in pre-market trading, it's up nearly 15%, at 247.94, a gain of 31.94, should the advance hold through the open. The company's stock made a new all-time high on July 6, bouncing off its March low of 124.30, and has gone higher from there.
Could the swap out of ExxonMobile for Salesforce have anything to do with massive cultural changes in America and worldwide? You bet your life it does. This one huge change is telling us that society is going to be less mobile and more tech oriented, with distances of hundreds or thousands of miles which used to be traversed by planes, trains, and automobiles are largely going to be the province of video software, the internet, and broadband, a change which has been evolving for decades but is finally coming to fruition.
While Salesforce.com's surge after hours and into the pre-market had much to do with its earnings report and outlook, could the company be poised to be a big part of a digital currency offering by the Federal Reserve? It's obvious that the Fed would go looking to the private sector for a partner in the technology end of such a development and the nation's central bankers have already indicated that cyrpto is in their future, and thus, of all Americans and most of the world's population.
Even discounting that proposition, the changes to the Dow Industrials set to kick off in less than a week (Monday, August 31) are going to provide significant upside to the 124-year-old stock gauge.
At the Close, Tuesday, August 25, 2020:
Dow: 28,248.44, -60.02 (-0.21%)
NASDAQ: 11,466.47, +86.75 (+0.76%)
S&P 500: 3,443.62, +12.34 (+0.36%)
NYSE: 13,001.99, +29.11 (+0.22%)
Tuesday, August 25, 2020
How Much Is An Ounce Of Gold Really Worth? First Attempt At Valuation
While the prices of gold and silver take a beating in the futures market, two weeks out from the wanton slaughter (8/11) and a week since the infamous Money Daily post declaring their historic comeback (8/18), the past week has seen a nearly continuous dilution in the price of both metals, for no apparent good reason.
Gold and silver continue to be in high demand and short supply. Perhaps the supply issues are not as pronounced as they were at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic scare, but they are still pre-eminent, demonstrated by continued high dealer premiums, quantity limits, and shipping delays. It's been a harrowing time for dealers trying to keep up with demand while at the same time attempting to stay profitable. Wild price swings render their operations unwieldy and difficult. Stability might serve them - and the buying pubic - better.
As the prices of both metals soared and then soured, the question of value has to come to mind, if only to allay fears that recent buying might not be found to be in vain. Buyers from dealers and open markets such as eBay are still paying premiums, and those open market buyers are getting delivery at a faster pace. Price is always and everywhere a prime consideration, so seriously, how much is an ounce of gold really worth?
For the purposes of this exercise - the first of its kind (with hopefully many more to come) - let's put aside the arguments over the inflated value of fiat currencies and other considerations centered on floating values as are the major currencies in use today. They are a measurement tool for now. Nothing more, nothing less, and are handy for the purpose of determining a price point for gold, and by extension, everything.
The world's know gold supply is roughly 200,000 tons. That's a rough estimate, but useful, even if somewhat inaccurate, in this arguably simplistic quest for valuation. 200,000 tons is equivalent to 6,400,000,000 (six billion, four hundred thousand) ounces. One ton equates to 32,000 ounces, and that's standard, not troy, but the numbers are good enough for this exercise. That's roughly how much gold has been mined and is in somebody's hands, or in vaults, central bank reserves, etc.
Now, there are nearly eight billion people living on planet Earth. That's a number that can change, and with it, so too should the price of gold. If the natural path of civilization - or, what's left of it - continues, the gorwth of the world's population is calculable and that should be a contributing factor to pricing gold because in the end, it's people who should own gold, especially if it's going to be regarded as currency, and, yes, it should be global.
So, we have 6.4 billion ounces of gold and 7.8 billion people, which is not enough gold for even every person to own one ounce. If that should become a standard (1 ounce per person), that would necessitate using a divisor to determine price and that same divisor could be and should be adjusted at some set schedule, be it continuously (a dangerous prospect, prone to manipulation and gaming) or monthly, quarterly, or annually.
It should be kept in mind that gold production will also increase the amount of proven gold above ground, so it is possible that the divisor would be somewhat constant, as gold production - as we can clearly see from the numbers - roughly keeps pace with population growth.
In an entirely egalitarian environment, everybody would have one ounce of gold. When a person died, that ounce would be handed down to the next newborn, and that process would be repeated constantly, globally. While that's an impractical scenario, it serves the purpose of this experiment.
So, the divisor for one ounce of gold per person on the planet would be a single, simple equation, the number of ounces of gold, divided by the global population, or, presently, 6.4(B)/7.8(B) = 0.82.
The next step would be to determine at what level - in some currency, be it yen, euro, dollar, pound, etc. - an ounce of gold would be reasonably worth.
Let's arbitrarily determine that human life is worth something, anything, remembering that fiat currencies are wildly inflated in value as opposed to purchasing power. Let's say an ounce of gold would be equivalent to a down payment on a modest, 1000 square foot house and let's assume the price of such a house in the US would be $100,000, requiring a 20% down payment, or $20,000.
Then, we take our completely arbitrary figure of $20,000 and apply the divisor, thus ($20,000 X 0.82) to arrive at a price for one ounce of gold. Our result is $16,400, and that price would then be the global standard which could be used as a determinant for everything else, such as silver, which, using one of the time-honored ratios of either 16:1 or 12:1 or even 10:1, depending on how one calculates the overground global supply of silver, would be either $1025, $1367, or $1640, respectively.
Bear in mind that this is just a mind exercise. It does not mean that gold should be $16,400 an ounce or that silver should be $1000 an ounce or anything else. It does point up that gold at $2000 and silver at $26 per ounce seems a bit on the short side. Using our derived method, at that price, one would be putting down $2000 on a house with a value of a mere $10,000, which might be enough for a shanty hut in the outer regions of Indonesia, but hardly suitable for living quarters in New York city, Marseille, France, or even rural Iowa.
Of course, there can be more variables, or other determinants. One could calculate the price of gold as compared to the price of a live chicken, for example, or use any other widely-used commodity as a relation. What's a hammer priced in gold? A watch, an iPhone, a window, a fattened cow... The possibilities are endless, but what's essential is some form of standard beyond faith in a floating currency which has no intrinsic value. We could have a gold-iPhone standard, a chicken-gold standard, even a acreage-silver standard.
A straight gold standard with silver as a useful currency is reasonable and actually practical.
Hope you enjoyed this little experiment. Arguably, this exercise was done hastily and with many arbitrary and changeable numbers. There could be errors, but the point is that a better means must be devised for valuation of all things. The era of fiat money, created out of thin air, at interest, is coming to an end. It is imperative that some other form of measurement be established to bring global order. Gold serves this purpose as an ultimate arbiter of value, given that a reasonable and reliable value can be put upon it itself.
Come back soon. This was hopefully illustrative and promise to do more.
At the Close, Monday, August 24, 2020:
Dow: 28,308.46, +378.13 (+1.35%)
NASDAQ: 11,379.72, +67.92 (+0.60%)
S&P 500: 3,431.28, +34.12 (+1.00%)
NYSE: 12,972.88, +163.81 (+1.28%)
Gold and silver continue to be in high demand and short supply. Perhaps the supply issues are not as pronounced as they were at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic scare, but they are still pre-eminent, demonstrated by continued high dealer premiums, quantity limits, and shipping delays. It's been a harrowing time for dealers trying to keep up with demand while at the same time attempting to stay profitable. Wild price swings render their operations unwieldy and difficult. Stability might serve them - and the buying pubic - better.
As the prices of both metals soared and then soured, the question of value has to come to mind, if only to allay fears that recent buying might not be found to be in vain. Buyers from dealers and open markets such as eBay are still paying premiums, and those open market buyers are getting delivery at a faster pace. Price is always and everywhere a prime consideration, so seriously, how much is an ounce of gold really worth?
For the purposes of this exercise - the first of its kind (with hopefully many more to come) - let's put aside the arguments over the inflated value of fiat currencies and other considerations centered on floating values as are the major currencies in use today. They are a measurement tool for now. Nothing more, nothing less, and are handy for the purpose of determining a price point for gold, and by extension, everything.
The world's know gold supply is roughly 200,000 tons. That's a rough estimate, but useful, even if somewhat inaccurate, in this arguably simplistic quest for valuation. 200,000 tons is equivalent to 6,400,000,000 (six billion, four hundred thousand) ounces. One ton equates to 32,000 ounces, and that's standard, not troy, but the numbers are good enough for this exercise. That's roughly how much gold has been mined and is in somebody's hands, or in vaults, central bank reserves, etc.
Now, there are nearly eight billion people living on planet Earth. That's a number that can change, and with it, so too should the price of gold. If the natural path of civilization - or, what's left of it - continues, the gorwth of the world's population is calculable and that should be a contributing factor to pricing gold because in the end, it's people who should own gold, especially if it's going to be regarded as currency, and, yes, it should be global.
So, we have 6.4 billion ounces of gold and 7.8 billion people, which is not enough gold for even every person to own one ounce. If that should become a standard (1 ounce per person), that would necessitate using a divisor to determine price and that same divisor could be and should be adjusted at some set schedule, be it continuously (a dangerous prospect, prone to manipulation and gaming) or monthly, quarterly, or annually.
It should be kept in mind that gold production will also increase the amount of proven gold above ground, so it is possible that the divisor would be somewhat constant, as gold production - as we can clearly see from the numbers - roughly keeps pace with population growth.
In an entirely egalitarian environment, everybody would have one ounce of gold. When a person died, that ounce would be handed down to the next newborn, and that process would be repeated constantly, globally. While that's an impractical scenario, it serves the purpose of this experiment.
So, the divisor for one ounce of gold per person on the planet would be a single, simple equation, the number of ounces of gold, divided by the global population, or, presently, 6.4(B)/7.8(B) = 0.82.
The next step would be to determine at what level - in some currency, be it yen, euro, dollar, pound, etc. - an ounce of gold would be reasonably worth.
Let's arbitrarily determine that human life is worth something, anything, remembering that fiat currencies are wildly inflated in value as opposed to purchasing power. Let's say an ounce of gold would be equivalent to a down payment on a modest, 1000 square foot house and let's assume the price of such a house in the US would be $100,000, requiring a 20% down payment, or $20,000.
Then, we take our completely arbitrary figure of $20,000 and apply the divisor, thus ($20,000 X 0.82) to arrive at a price for one ounce of gold. Our result is $16,400, and that price would then be the global standard which could be used as a determinant for everything else, such as silver, which, using one of the time-honored ratios of either 16:1 or 12:1 or even 10:1, depending on how one calculates the overground global supply of silver, would be either $1025, $1367, or $1640, respectively.
Bear in mind that this is just a mind exercise. It does not mean that gold should be $16,400 an ounce or that silver should be $1000 an ounce or anything else. It does point up that gold at $2000 and silver at $26 per ounce seems a bit on the short side. Using our derived method, at that price, one would be putting down $2000 on a house with a value of a mere $10,000, which might be enough for a shanty hut in the outer regions of Indonesia, but hardly suitable for living quarters in New York city, Marseille, France, or even rural Iowa.
Of course, there can be more variables, or other determinants. One could calculate the price of gold as compared to the price of a live chicken, for example, or use any other widely-used commodity as a relation. What's a hammer priced in gold? A watch, an iPhone, a window, a fattened cow... The possibilities are endless, but what's essential is some form of standard beyond faith in a floating currency which has no intrinsic value. We could have a gold-iPhone standard, a chicken-gold standard, even a acreage-silver standard.
A straight gold standard with silver as a useful currency is reasonable and actually practical.
Hope you enjoyed this little experiment. Arguably, this exercise was done hastily and with many arbitrary and changeable numbers. There could be errors, but the point is that a better means must be devised for valuation of all things. The era of fiat money, created out of thin air, at interest, is coming to an end. It is imperative that some other form of measurement be established to bring global order. Gold serves this purpose as an ultimate arbiter of value, given that a reasonable and reliable value can be put upon it itself.
Come back soon. This was hopefully illustrative and promise to do more.
At the Close, Monday, August 24, 2020:
Dow: 28,308.46, +378.13 (+1.35%)
NASDAQ: 11,379.72, +67.92 (+0.60%)
S&P 500: 3,431.28, +34.12 (+1.00%)
NYSE: 12,972.88, +163.81 (+1.28%)
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