WEEKEND WRAP: Dull, Short Week Ends with S&P 500 At Record High; Gold, Silver Rebound; Gas Prices Remain Elevated

Other than the NASDAQ, all of the gains for the week were made on Thursday's trade in the Easter Friday-shortened week. Benefitting the most was the S&P 500, which closed at a record high Thursday (4,019.87) mainly in anticipation of March Non-farm Payroll data, which was out Friday morning.

Whispers of a million jobs created in the month of March were nearly matched when the official BLS figures were announced Friday morning. Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 916,000 in March, with the unemployment rate edging down from 6.2 to 6.0 percent. The gains were led by leisure and entertainment (+280,000), education (+190,000), and construction (110,000), fueled by the rapid decline of coronavirus cases, hospitalizations, and deaths over the past two months as states and municipalities rolled back lockdowns and other restrictive measures.

While the March results were somewhat a foregone conclusion, the gains (January and February were revised higher, by 67,000 and 89,000, respectively) left the labor force participation rate at 61.5 percent, 1.8 percentage points lower than February, 2020, prior to pandemic-related forced shutdowns, furloughs, and layoffs, still historically below trend and not showing any signs of returning to more productive and expansive levels above 65%. The last time the participation rate exceeded 65% was in April, 2010 (65.2%). The economy may well be on the mend, but it is nowhere near full recovery.

Still, the good news should keep stocks at or near all-time highs. Stimulus checks and extended unemployment benefits are helping fuel stock market gains. With the narrative firmly in the "recovery" camp, any positive news on employment should keep the punch bowl full and the party swinging.

On the long end of the treasury complex, prices continued their slump as rates remained elevated. Higher interest rates on 10-year and 30-year securities have been in a bear market since the beginning of 2021, accelerating in February and March. At the end of January, the 10-year note yielded 1.11% and the 30-year, 1.87. Compare to Friday's closing figures of 1.72% on the 10-year and 2.35% on the 30, the 10-year note up five basis points from a week before and the 30-year down two.

Investors seem to be not particularly keen on anything but stocks as bonds, oil, precious metals, and cryptocurrencies are either in extended slumps or just marking time recently.

Oil spent another week trying to figure out a correct pricing model, weighing OPEC+ production cuts against a return to lockdown conditions in parts of Europe. In North America, business is reopening and Asian countries have largely beaten back the scourge outside of India and Indonesia, two high-population nations. Cases and conditions in those two countries appear to be moving in opposite directions, however. Indonesia's cases are elevated over the past 10 days but still down from the highs of the summer and fall of 2020. Cases in India, however, are still rising.

The price of a barrel of WTI crude oil fell from $61.56 on Monday to a low of $59.16 on Wednesday, only to rally back to $61.24 as of the New York close on Thursday. Oil futures remain in backwardation, with spot higher than future prices.

Prices for gas at the pump remain high across the United States, with far Western states all reporting average prices above $3.00 a gallon in Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Alaska, Hawaii, and California, which leads the way at a whopping $3.92 per gallon, according to Triple A. Also joining the $3.00+ brigade is Illinois, at an average price of $3.08. The lowest price is found in Mississippi, at $2.59.

Cryptos crept along during the week, though Etherium continued to lead Bitcoin. Ether ramped to an all-time high of $2145 on Saturday, since then falling back about five percent, to around $2050. Remarkably, Etherium is up more than 30% in the past 30 days. For its part, Bitcoin continues backing off from all-time highs, currently trading around $57,500 after rocketing as high as $61.788 earlier in March. Despite its recent vacillation, it's still up nearly 15% over the past 30 days, a figure the no-coiners fail to appreciate.

During the week, gold was beaten down as low as $1685 per ounce on Tuesday, but strong rallies on Wednesday and Thursday left it at $1729.80. Silver showed a similar pattern, knocked down below $24.00 per ounce on Tuesday, but rallying back to $24.97 as of Thursday. It was still down overall for the week, having closed the prior Friday (3/26) at $25.39.

Futures markets were closed Friday and through the weekend. They will reopen at 6:00 pm ET Sunday.

Here are the most recent prices paid for common one ounce gold and silver items on eBay (numismatics excluded, shipping - often free - included):

Item: Low / High / Average / Median
1 oz silver coin: 34.00 / 49.00 / 42.54 / 42.85
1 oz silver bar: 38.10 / 48.88 / 42.17 / 41.00
1 oz gold coin: 1,840.00 / 1,956.00 / 1,893.83 / 1,877.49
1 oz gold bar: 1,819.15 / 1,847.29 / 1,833.42 / 1,831.95

There was little change over the past week to prices, though overall, our survey found slightly lower prices across the gold spectrum with silver a little on the upside. Rumors of shortages remain rampant, with dealers still commanding significant premiums over spot. Shipping delays of a few days to a few weeks and minimum purchases of $199 or higher to qualify for shipping discounts are commonplace with all online retailers.

Money Daily's proprietary Single Ounce Silver Market Price Benchmark (SOSMPB) calculates out to $42.14, which is up from the prior two weeks ($41.77, 3/28, and $41.85, 3/21).

This being Easter Sunday, kindness is extended to readers and critics alike, ending commentary here.

Spend some time with friends and family. You've earned it.

Happy Easter.

At the Close, Thursday, April 1, 2021:
Dow: 33,153.21, +171.66 (+0.52%)
NASDAQ: 13,480.11, +233.23 (+1.76%)
S&P 500: 4,019.87, +46.98 (+1.18%)
NYSE: 15,752.24, +150.50 (+0.96%)

For the Week:
Dow: +80.33 (+0.24%)
NASDAQ: +341.38 (+2.60%)
S&P 500: +45.33 (+1.14%)
NYSE: +69.70 (+0.44%)

Big Guy Biden's American Jobs Plan to Finance Congressional Graft, Pork, and Slush Fund over Eight Years

On Wednesday, Joe Biden, as acting president of the United States corporation, a foreign corporation, spoke about the proposed American Jobs Plan (White House Fact Sheet) in Pittsburgh, PA, home to multiple criminal election fraud activities.

Essentially, the "plan" was supposed to be about repairing and upgrading infrastructure on the North American continent, particularly among the 48 states (plus Hawaii and Alaska) which sit upon the land between the nation of Canada to the North, the Atlantic Ocean to the East, the Gulf of Mexico and the nation of Mexico to the South, and the Pacific Ocean to the West.

Conflating infrastructure with jobs (as in American "Jobs" Plan), is the corporation's way of disguising a massive counterfeiting operation via the Federal Reserve, and a farcical debate in Congress (part of the corporation, somewhat like a massive board of directors) over the details of the spending of some $1.844 Trillion, all part of a money-laundering program designed to enrich members of congress and their friends, with 10% earmarked for the "Big Guy."

Money Daily has taken the proposed spending plan and broken it down into four categories. Some of the money will actually go towards fixing things, like roads, bridges, or roads and bridges, or just roads, which is always at the top of the list. The other categories are SLUSH FUND, which is where money is put aside for future laundering, GRAFT, for paying off people, and PORK, which covers direct enrichment of Senators and House Members. They're all crooks, so they all get some. Some just get more than others (bigger crooks).

Breaking down some of the figures leaked to the New York Times prior to Joe Biden's announcement:

In Billions of US$

$180 for research and development - handouts to corporations and universities, ostensibly nothing to do with infrastructure or jobs. Mark this down as SLUSH FUND.

$115 for roads and bridges - There was mention of repairing the 10 most economically important bridges, repair the worst 10,000 smaller bridges, and fix 20,000 miles of roads. The White House fact sheet doesn't mention what these 10 most economically important bridges are, but it's a safe bet most of them are in and around New York City, Detroit, Chicago, and San Francisco. A good guess is that $40 billion will go to those pork projects, leaving $75 billion for the 10,000 smaller bridges and 20,000 miles of roads, or, $2.5 million for each mile of road and each bridge. Who knows? It might work.

$85 for public transit - There's always money thrown at regional or local "transportation authorities" which provide public transportation via busses, trains, subways, and the like. Allocate $40 billion as PORK and $45 billion as GRAFT.

$80 for Amtrak and freight rail - Amtrak is an absolute joke, a money pit. The agency loses money every day it's in operation. The trains are slow, the tracks ancient, but the jobs - especially for top management - pay very well. Upgrading freight rail will help out Warren Buffet and shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway. All of this is allocated to GRAFT.

$174 to encourage EVs via tax credits and other incentives to companies that make EV batteries in the US instead of China - All GRAFT, primarily to Elon Musk and his company, Tesla.

$42 for ports and airports - A surprisingly small number for airports, which usually get big money. Let's leave this one alone for now.

$100 for broadband - Well, now, the "fact sheet" says this will bring high-speed broadband internet to the "more than 35 percent of rural Americans who lack access to broadband at minimally acceptable speeds." We're talking fiber here, cable, which can be strung above or below ground. The average cost of running fiber is around $3 a foot. A mile is 5,280 feet, so running fiber for a country mile would cost about $15,840. If all that $100 billion was spent to run fiber out in flyover country, you could run 6,313,131 miles of it, a distance that would stretch from New York to Los Angeles (2,789 miles) 2,263 times. That's an excessive amount of fiber, so this goes down as pure PORK.

$111 for water infrastructure - Since there's already been money allocated to ports, this must be for public water and sewers, which actually are in desperate need of repair. Could actually be money well spent, but, considering the fiefdoms these local water districts have become over the years, $20 billion has to go to GRAFT.

$300 to promote advanced manufacturing - $100 each to GRAFT, PORK, and SLUSH FUND. Whenever the word "promote" is used, it's always 100% corrupt.

$400 spending on in-home care - How having nurses and health care aides visiting the homes of elderly people falls into infrastructure is unknown, so this has to go down as pure SLUSH FUND.

$100 in programs to update and modernize the electric grid - The grid has been a topic of discussion since the first major blackout in the Northeast in 1965, some 56 years ago. If it hasn't been upgraded and modernized by now, $100 billion isn't likely enough to get the job done. At least half of this is PORK, however.

$46 in fed procurement programs for government agencies to buy fleets of EVs - Naked GRAFT.

$35 in R&D programs for cutting-edge, new technologies - Wait, wait, wasn't there already $180 billion for R&D? Yes, why there it is right at the top of the list! More SLUSH FUND here.

$50 in dedicated investments to improve infrastructure resilience - "resilience" is widely recognized in Washington, DC as code for GRAFT.

$16 program intended to help fossil fuel workers transition to new work - Let's teach oil riggers to code, OK? More SLUSH FUND.

$10 for a new "Civilian Climate Corps" - They've saved the best for last. Today's CCC is a throwback to the New Deal era's Civilian Conservation Corps (also CCC), which, along with the WPA, and PWA, and CWA, created jobs for millions of the most destitute during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Throwing a mere $10 billion bone to the climate change freaks must have some of them fuming (watch out, those fumes could trigger global warming). This is GRAFT with a twisted smile.

So, out of the $1.844 trillion, there's:

$731 billion for the SLUSH FUND.

$525 billion allocated for GRAFT.

$295 billion in PORK.

These figures may not be entirely accurate, and it's a near certainty that much of the SLSUH FUND dough will end up as GRAFT or maybe even PORK, but the reality is that of the $1.844 trillion, these three pools account for $1.551 trillion, leaving a mere $293 billion for actual infrastructure repair and rebuilding, which was ostensibly the argument for this plan. The "Big Guy" will get his 10% cut, or $184.4 billion, mostly from the SLUSH FUND and some from GRAFT.

Now wonder Wall Street didn't get very excited about this. The Fed conjures up more than $360 billion every quarter without even a nod from congress. Being that this plan is supposed to spend out over eight years, the $293 that might find its way into the economy is little more than a rounding error in the larger scheme. Eight years is 32 quarters. That's less than $10 billion a quarter. Pikers. Pfft.

What really had the folks in lower Manhattan laughing and back-slapping each other were the proposed ways to "pay" for all of this.

The highlights, again, courtesy the New York Times with Money Daily comments following in italics:

Eliminate tax preferences for fossil fuel companies - Yeah, sure.

Raise the corporate tax rate to 28% from 21% - OK, fine.

Overall taxation of profits earned oversees by US megacorps (including raising minimum tax on global profits and eliminating several provisions that allow companies to reduce US tax liability) - Accountants already all over this.

Ramp up enforcement of large companies avoiding taxes - Enforcement. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Prevent American companies from "inversions" to tax havens - How about reversions, subversions, aversions?

Eliminate loopholes that encourage offshoring - Surely, congress will create new ones to replace the old ones.

Deny expense deductions for companies that are offshoring jobs - Catch them if you can.

There's really nothing specific in these proposals, but the Congressional Budget Office is sure to find these tax proposals more than cover the expense of the grand theft giveaway. Big corporations have big budgets to hire big accounting firms and big law firms to lower their tax burdens. If they can't lower them enough, they pass costs along to consumers or just plain cheat. That's how it goes.

As the signs say: Your Tax Dollars (not) At Work

Markets are closed Friday in observance of Good Friday. And, no, this was not an April Fool's joke.

The beatings will continue until morale improves.

Happy Easter!

At the Close, Wednesday, March 31, 2021:
Dow: 32,981.55, -85.41 (-0.26%)
NASDAQ: 13,246.87, +201.48 (+1.54%)
S&P 500: 3,972.89, +14.34 (+0.36%)
NYSE: 15,601.74, -24.37 (-0.16%)

Lies, Lies, More Lies, Statistics; Grace Slick, Alan Parsons, and Jesus

This is going to be brief. Well, maybe.

When the truth is found to be lies,
and all the joy within you dies...

-- "Somebody to Love" Jefferson Airplane, Grace Slick, lead vocalist.

Government lies have grown out of proportion, to the point that the President of the United States of America is a complete fraud. He wasn't duly elected. The voting, which lasted for weeks before and after the actual election "day" was mostly done by mail or on ballots that were never validated and consequently destroyed. Machines which did the counting were hackable and altered vote counts. All of the evidence of fraud has been destroyed.

THAT IS THE TRUTH.

The virus, which is non-lethal to 99.98% of the adult population, is a complete fraud. The vaccines are a control mechanism, just as are the masking, social-distancing, lockdowns and all the other needless restrictions on lives and businesses, designed to degrade and dehumanize.

Please, take off the stupid masks and stop listening to the hacks posing as journalists on network and cable TV. They're all liars of the lowest order and not to be believed. In fact, one would be better served believing the exact opposite of whatever they report.

The people occupying top positions in federal government are not there for your well-being. They are there for their own well-being. They could care less about you. To them, you are chattel, mules, sheep, slaves, tax donkeys. Ignore them and their laws. They are illegitimate.

START HERE: Joe Biden won the election.

PROCEED TO: Trump incited the Capitol insurrection.

STOP AT: Cases are rising.

It's time to take the lid off and turn the tables on the cheaters, the liars, the occupiers, and deceivers.

Do not comply. Or, would you rather have to show a vaccination passport to eat at a restaurant, attend a baseball game or a concert, or even to shop at your local supermarket?

That's where this is all headed. It was planned and plotted out well in advance. Only truth-seeking Americans and people in other countries can stop it.

So find another fool like before
'Cause I ain't gonna live anymore
Believing
Some of the lies
When all of the signs are deceiving

-- "Eye in the Sky" Alan Parsons Project, 1982, Songwriters: Eric Woolfson, Alan Parsons

Then Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those selling doves.

-- Matthew: 21:12

Pfizer Says COVID Jab "100% Effective" On Children Aged 12 To 15

Private employers added back 517,000 jobs in March, missing expectations: ADP

At the Close, Wednesday, March 31, 2021:
Dow: 33,066.96, -104.41 (-0.31%)
NASDAQ: 13,045.39, -14.25 (-0.11%)
S&P 500: 3,958.55, -12.54 (-0.32%)
NYSE: 15,626.11, +14.22 (+0.09%)

Alan Parsons Project: Sirius/Eye In the Sky Live in Columbia (please note all the maskless young people enjoying the music the way it should be)

What To Do With $1400 Stimulus; Stocks, Gold, Silver, Bitcoin, Guns, Golf Clubs, Robot Lawn Mowers?

Many Americans have already received their $1400 government stimulus checks and it appears the vast majority of people are saving at least a portion of it, which is a pretty wise move, considering 40% of Americans can't come up with $500 in an emergency.

There's been lots of talk about what to do with that newfound cash, so Money Daily set about to find the neat things one could buy with the $1400.

Getting the obvious out of the way, $1400 will not purchase a single ounce of gold (around $1700, currently), though, from the looks of things, the central bankers want to make $1400 possible through their endless price bashing on the COMEX.

It will not buy much Bitcoin (around $59,000), though even having 0.02372881 of a bitcoin would put you close to the worldwide average.

Silver, the most undervalued asset on the planet, is currently selling for around $24.30 on the COMEX, but that's a 1000-ounce bar price. If one could acquire silver at that price, $1400 would net just over 57 ounces, a pretty good haul. The reality is that one would more than likely be buying from an online dealer. One of the best around is Scottsdale Mint, and their 10-ounce "Stacker" at roughly $310-320 per piece (depending on payment method) would be a solid choice if one wishes to wait 3-4 weeks for delivery. It's the same at most other online precious metal retailers.

Your $1400 would net you four of those beauties, with some money to spare. Those not wihing to wait could go to eBay, where prices are higher, but delivery is quicker. 10-ounce bars are going for around $330-350, so one might be able to pick up four and have them right away. Bidding is fierce, however. The silver shortage is for real. Money Daily's proprietary Single Ounce Silver Market Price Benchmark came in Sunday at $41.77, so buying single ounce pieces is likely to cost more per ounce.

How about stocks?

$1400 can get you less than three shares of Netflix (NFLX, $513.95), just two shares of Tesla (TSLA, $611.29), or 11 shares of Apple (AAPL, $121.39). If you dream of owning some of Alphabet, parent of Google, you're out of luck (GOOG, $2,055.95). You'll have to settle for five or six shares of Microsoft (MSFT, $235.24).

Getting beyond the investment mode, there are thousands of everyday items for around $1000. Here are a few lists, especially if you're in the gift-giving mode:

Gifts for around $1000
More gifts for around $1000
Even more gifts for around $1000

These run the gamut. Among the ideas are robot vacuum cleaners, headphones, TVs, computers, drones, security systems, full body massage chairs, coffee machines, chronograph watches, vintage sneakers, bikes, necklaces, boots, golf clubs, electric fireplaces, telescopes, digital picture frames, robotic lawn mowers, and much more. Some are more practical than others, but unless one really doesn't need $1000 extra cash, these seem more like splurge items than anything else.

For the money, fixing up the house could be a solid way to go. Adding some nicer features to a kitchen or bathroom goes a long way toward self-satisfaction while improving the resale value of a home.

Others will opt for hunting gear, guns, ammo, and the like. If binge-watching is your thing, a nice TV and a decent couch can easily be found for under $1400.

That amount of money can certainly buy lots of canned goods and other "prepper" items. A water purifier might be handy in a SHTF situation.

While no answer is correct, what to do with $1400 conjures up all kinds of ideas, some more practical, skeptical, or ethical than others.

With more than enough money being printed routinely by the Federal Reserve and Joe Biden talking about the "next" stimulus, this question is more than likely to pop up again soon.

At the Close, Monday, March 29, 2021:
Dow: 33,171.37, +98.49 (+0.30%)
NASDAQ: 13,059.65, -79.08 (-0.60%)
S&P 500: 3,971.09, -3.45 (-0.09%)
NYSE: 15,611.88, -70.66 (-0.45%)

WEEKEND WRAP: Wild Week-Long Ride For All Asset Classes As Stocks, Bonds, Cryptos, Metals Fall And (Some) Rise

Trifurcated is the word for the week just past in equity investing. The week fell into three distinct regimens. Monday saw across the board gains in all the major indices. From Tuesday's opening bell to just after 11:00 am ET on Thursday, those same measures were all going in the opposite direction.

Thursday afternoon through Friday's close was all buying, all the time. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained nearly 1000 points during that last period. After falling to a low of 32,076.11, the Dow just kept on rising, finally closing out the week at an all-time closing high of 33,072.88.

The same pattern repeated across the other averages. The S&P 500 dropped to 3,854.57 on Thursday morning and set off on a 120-point romp to complete the week. It too finished at an all-time high (3,974.54). The NASDAQ wasn't quite so lucky. Though it followed the same pattern, it still ended up with a loss for the week - its fifth in the last six. The NYSE Composite ended the week on the positive side, though it was still short of a record close (15,775.50, 3/15/21).

Attempting to find catalysts for the fall and rise of US stock markets is a fool's errand. One could point to any number of events - financial, political, societal - to explain why stocks went down, then up, and still not have a convincing argument. Anything from the continuing immigrant explosion at the US southern border to the stuck cargo ship, Ever Given, in the Suez Canal blocking all traffic through the busiest shipping lane in the world to the collapse of yields on long-dated treasuries could have contributed to the movements in stocks, and all surely did to some degree, but none can be positively, individually tied to the week's trading.

If anything, the news flow was decidedly negative over the course of the week. Computer algos apparently only scan positive headlines or interpret them as such, especially when indices dip down to their 50-day moving averages, which was the exact case for the S&P 500 and late Thursday morning the exact time it began to rise. Not to put too cynical a spin on it, but the reason stocks went up at the end of the week was because they were down.

Analysis of markets in a controlled environment as exists today is not a worthwhile endeavor. It's more apparent than ever that stocks move on purely technical terms, bouncing off ceertain data points with nothing at all to do with overlaying economic conditions, fundamentals, or significant events.

With stocks invariably, existentially tied to debt markets, the week's gyrating yields on long-dated treasuries had more to do with stocks and money flows than anything else. The 10-year note fell from 1.74% at the end of last week (3/19) to as low as 1.62% by Wednesday, finally bumping ahead to 1.67% at Friday's close. The 30-year took the same route, falling from 2.45% to 2.31%, eventually closing at 2.37%. Both continue untamed, relevant, extended, and close to the high end of the recent range.

The Fed's efforts to tamper and tamp down the long bonds, either through direct intervention or superfluous "jawboning" about the absence of inflation is seeing limited success. Their distortions of fundamental market forces are the likely cause of other, mostly negative, effects elsewhere. Whatever they might like to do or say, there's little doubt about rising price inflation in goods and services throughout the US economy. It's simply economics 101. When you pump money into an environment almost endlessly, ceaselessly, prices are almost certain to rise. The question - seen on the sour faces of people shopping in grocery stores and supermarkets - is how high they will go, given the Fed and the government are dialed into the same line: 1-800-SPEND-MORE.

On the short end of the treasury curve, one-month, two-month, and three-month notes all dipped as low as .01% at varying times since March 16 and have been unable to rise past 0.03% during that period. Given that true inflation is running upwards of 10% annually, those rates, in real terms, are negative, as is everything that follows, all the way out to the 30-year.

None other than Ray Dalio, founder of the world's largest hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates, aligns with the Money Daily suggestion that nobody should be holding bonds when we made the case on February 10th, in the post, Bonds. No Bonds. Dalio recently stated that owning bonds was "stupid." It's a wonder it took him so long to figure that out.

As an explanatory note, consider buying a $30,000 vehicle versus buying a 10-year bond. You plunk down your $30,000 (or, if you're really game, you take advantage of 0% financing for seven years and keep much of your cash) to buy your vehicle. For the next 10 years, you have complete use and control of the vehicle, whether it be driving to and from work, hauling the kids or groceries around, or in use for a business. It's yours. You maintain it, pay for repairs, gas, insurance, tires and so forth, but it's a useful asset, and, if you use it for business purposes, you can claim depreciation on your taxes.

With the ten-year note, and, being generous, let's say you got a deal at 3.00% in 2011, you hand over your $30,000 to the US Treasury, and they give you back $900 every year for 10 years, at which time they give you back your original investment. Over that time, you've taken in $9,000. If you saved it all - which would be unlikely since you'd be paying taxes on it - you'd have $39,000. However, if you then thought about buying that very same car that cost $30,000 in 2011, it might run upwards of $45,000 today, at just four percent inflation. Although you've made an investment, it paid less than the rate of inflation. Yo u may have gained some currency, but you've lost purchasing power. There are better ways.

Naturally, nobody's getting three percent on their money today on the 10-year note, so the comparison is even worse using present values. Instead of taking in $900 a year on your investment, today's rates would net you a locked in $495 at 1.65%.

Like stocks and bonds, oil prices had an up-and-down week. To illustrate, here are the closing New York prices for WTI crude oil on the NYMEX:

3/19: 61.42
3/22: 61.55
3/23: 57.76
3/24: 61.18
3/25: 58.56
3/26: 60.97

Obviously, crude was in play, but the tug-of-war between the extended European CV-19 lockdowns, re-openings in the US, Suez Canal blockage, China slowdown, OPEC+ production cuts, and the usual price manipulation by producers contributed to some wild swings. Seems nobody has an accurate picture of the global condition, except that for now, that double top at $66 a barrel appears as considerable upside resistance and the entire complex is in backwardation as far as the eye can see. Futures prices are quoted lower over time, instead of higher, which is the usual condition.

Nor were cryptocurrencies excluded from the roller coaster ride. Over the past week, Bitcoin fell from a range from $56,000 - $58,000 to a low of $50,305 (Thursday, 8:30 am ET), which was apparently seen as a buying opportunity, as the price has raced higher since, currently quoted right around $56,000. For the "no-coiners" once again declaring the death of Bitcoin and all cryptos, the failure to hold new highs ($61,788, 3/15) is their latest deflection. What they fail to realize is that Bitcoin closed out February around $46,390, so it's up about 20% in March and the month isn't over... yet.

Gold and silver were probably the most stable of all the asset classes. They went down and stayed down as all compliant non-fiat money should. Gold started the week at $1749.60, fell as far as $1727.50, and ended the week at $1731.90. Silver was the most-hated asset on the planet, at least according to the COMEX. Starting from last weekend's closing price of $26.39, an ounce of the shiny stuff fell out of favor, bottoming Wednesday at $25.05 before recovering to $25.39.

Elsewhere, in the real world, prices were again sporting high premiums and shortages of both metals were notable.

Here are the most recent prices paid for common gold and silver items for immediate delivery on eBay (numismatics excluded, shipping - often free - included):

Item: Low / High / Average / Median
1 oz silver coin: 37.75 / 50.90 / 43.42 / 42.00
1 oz silver bar: 36.12 / 50.00 / 41.14 / 40.50
1 oz gold coin: 1,875.75 / 2,100.00 / 1,938.52 / 1,919.50
1 oz gold bar: 1,808.00 / 1,976.00 / 1,848.03 / 1,833.98

As has been the case for many months, small quantity buyers are either simply ignoring COMEX wholesale price and LBMA spot guidelines or they've reached a point of speculative insanity from which there may not be any escape. Non-numismatic gold coins are now in extremely short supply. Everything is either fractional or collectible, with expected premiums, while gold bars are still plentiful and somewhat more uniformly priced with premiums much lower than those for coins. Silver continues to be red hot in small quantities with the new Single Ounce Silver Market Price Benchmark down a slice from last week ($41.85) to $41.77.

Finally, an anonymous cryptic note of the week from somewhere in cyberspace:

To those in power, "citizens" are mules to do their work and sheep to be sheared.

They have the population under total control. They make you work, take their share up front, then tax you again everywhere, at all times, as often as possible.

Typical day in the life of a mule/sheep with the applied taxes/expenses in parentheses:

Get up, take a shower (water bill)

Make coffee, maybe breakfast (sales tax)

Get in car to go to work (car payment, insurance, excise taxes, fuel taxes, sales taxes)

Arrive at and spend 7-9 hours at work (federal, state, local income tax, SS tax (FICA), Medicare tax)

Pick up kids from school (School/education tax, police, fire district taxes)

Drive home (see above, plus, let's not forget property tax)

Have dinner (sales taxes again)

Watch TV (cable bill taxes, electricity bill tax, sales tax on TV purchase)

Go to sleep (sales tax on bed, pillows, blankets)

Everything you do is taxed, and, to make matters worse, the money they collect is ultimately wasted, so they have to borrow more, which is on your tax bill.

They are taxing interest on debt, which is all the fiat really is.

Some call it apathy, or fear of opposing the system. It's more like normalcy bias than anything else. Why do you think 80% of people are getting vaccinated?

Everybody's doing it, so it must be OK.

We should have listened to our parents when they said, "if everybody is jumping off a cliff, are you going to jump, too?"

We, as a people, have failed. We've allowed ourselves to be ruled and overseen by a select few who have their best interests - not ours - in mind.

Stop playing, stop paying. It's the only solution.

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At the Close, Friday, March 26, 2021:
Dow: 33,072.88, +453.40 (+1.39%)
NASDAQ: 13,138.72, +161.04 (+1.24%)
S&P 500: 3,974.54, +65.02 (+1.66%)
NYSE: 15,682.54, +272.17 (+1.77%)

For the Week:
Dow: +444.91 (+1.36%)
NASDAQ: -76.51 (-0.58%)
S&P 500: +61.44 (+1.57%)
NYSE: +120.28 (+0.77%)