WEEKEND WRAP: Reddit's #Silver Squeeze Silver Rush Strikes at the Heart of Gold and Central Banking

Before venturing into the main thrust of this edition of the WEEKEND WRAP, a rief recap of other financial developments over the course of the past week:

Equities, following the worst-performing week since October, staged a massive comeback, with the NASDAQ and S&P 500 closing on Friday at record highs and the Dow and NYSE Composite finishing within one percent of all-time levels.

Lagging the insatiable desire for paper holdings was the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which added a stunning 1,165 points on the week, but was up a mere 3.89%, a pittance compared to the six percent gain on the NASDAQ, which was rocketed higher by 785 points.

It was the best week of the new year, by far, suggesting that stock markets are either overheating or preparing to blast off into unknown territory once again. Considering that the US congress is knee-deep in negotiations over a $1.9 trillion stimulus package that includes payments of $1400 to millions of individuals, Wall Street's rampage to higher ground seems to be etched in stone, for now.

Despite the general slowdown from COVID-19 restrictions in a handful of states, companies - particularly those in the tech arena - posted solid, if not outstanding, fourth quarter and year-end reports. With the coronavirus crisis abating - cases are down more than 40% in some states - stocks are likely to maintain strong momentum while the market fosters more madcap episodes like those seen in GameStop (GME), AMC Entertainment (AMC), and others.

Speculation largely drives stock prices higher, and speculation with free money from the Fed (banks, brokerages) and the federal government (individuals) should keep the rally alive and well through Winter and into Spring, which is a mere six weeks hence.

Fixed income markets were less enthusiastic. The Treasury complex saw a steepening fo the yield curve, as yield on short-dated maturities collapsed and the long end sold off, producing yields on the 10-year note, 20-year, and 30-year bonds at 12-month highs.

Yields on 1-month, 2-month, and 3-month bills fell to 0.02%, 0.03%, and 0.03%, respectively, while the benchmark 10-year note yielded 1.19% at week's end. The 20-year yield was 1.79%, while the 30-year yielded 1.97%, both the highest since 2/20/2020. The 10-year was at it's highest yield since February 27, 2020, an indication that the wholesale global debt binge is well underway.

From an investor's perspective, oil had another banner week, with WTI crude rising to $57.07 in the current futures contract. However, oil futures are in backwardation, with subsequent futures contracts bid at lower prices than the up front contract. For instance, the July '21 contract is priced at $55.69 and so forth. This is almost certainly a condition caused by the recent spate of chilling and stormy weather cascading across large swaths of the continental United States, spiking demand for heating fuel.

While cold weather brings out the highest prices for fuel oil, it is essentially a short-term dynamic as expressed by the futures trading. Gas at the pump barely budged over the course of the week, particularly in the southern states, where demand is still sluggish and supply is steady.

Here's an excellent short video explaining the conditions of contango and backwardation.

Cryptocurrencies were solid, with Bitcoin getting a major boost on Friday into Saturday morning, with price topping out at $41,000 at around 11:00 am ET before taking a dip down to $38,000. As of this writing, it's recovered to the mid-$39,000 level.

Etherium made a new all-time high at $1,720 on Saturday and has since leveled off in the $1,600 range.

At last, the crux of last week's trading highlights, with the focus on the Reddit group r/wallstreetbets and its foray into the silver market.

When the redditers at r/wallstreetbets launched their assault on the silver market (remember, this is a group seven million strong, with untold number of followers), the price of silver on the COMEX was $25.26 per troy ounce. That was at the close on Wednesday, January 27. The following day, the rush was on, sending silver to $26.52 and following through with another huge gain to $27.71 on Friday. Over the two days, silver had advanced $2.45 (+9.7%).

On Monday, February 1, the COMEX price was bid as high as $29.38, with the ask at $30.38, the spread widened due to liquidity issues and also to discourage buyers. Though the efforts of the redditers was focused on ETFs, SLV and PSLV, and in the physical market, COMEX and the LBMA could hardly ignore the flows of physical metal leaving shelves of online dealers and local coin shops, but, by the end of Monday's trading in New York, they had managed to keep the price at a somwhat unreasonable (to them) $28.99.

Overnight, in the thinly traded Asian markets, the riggers went to work in earnest, pushing the price below $28 by the time trading opened Tuesday in Europe and then, the Americas. Their payback was vicious and unmistakable, crushing the price to $26.73 at the close in New York. A small bounce to $26.91, with the spread down to $0.50 from $1.00, ended trading Wednesday, but again on Thursday, they took a knife to silver, sending it to the low of the week, $26.53. Friday's bounce back to $26.90 by the close left COMEX silver down 81 cents for the week.

Gold was likewise shunted, though the affect was less profound initially. As of Monday morning, gold was priced at $1874.00. On Monday, it was struck down to $1860.00, even as silver was higher, but the riggers at the COMEX were just getting started. By Tuesday, gold was down to $1837.90, then $1833.85 Wednesday, and finally, the crushing blow to $1794.00 on Thursday. A bit of a reprive was granted on Friday, leaving gold priced at $1810.80 for the weekend.

Through the entire episode - resembling a skirmish in a larger war - both parties may have been satisfied with the immediate results but left with lingering longer term doubts. For the Reddit Rebels, the price of physical silver had gone out of control from the COMEX. Dealers were left with empty shelves and severe shipping delays on the few products they could source. Unsure about future supply, online dealers had shed the cloak of the COMEX and left prices at levels not seen since 2011, when silver and gold had reached record highs and nearly broken the COMEX/LBMA cabal.

For the bullion banks, the COMEX, LBMA, and central bankers from the Federal Reserve to the ECB, BOJ, and the Bank of England they should have realized that the horde of commoners had nearly overwhelmed their long-standing position on the high ground of institutionalized fiat currency. Talk of hearings into the operations of the Reddit Rebels (not the COMEX, hedge funds, or brokerages) were bandied about the halls of congress.

Newwly confirmed Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen, convened a meeting with the heads of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Federal Reserve, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) on Thursday, coming to a conclusion that the stock market hasd shown resilience through the GameStop frenzy and calling on the CFTC and SEC to examine the events more closely and establish a timeline for how the market mayhem unfolded.

Yellen sought and received permission from ethics lawyers before calling the meeting, along with clearance to engage on wide-ranging issues in the financial services industry.

Yellen's decision to seek the waiver followed a report by Reuters that because of speaking fees she was paid by a key player in the GameStop saga, hedge fund Citadel LLC, she would need permission to deal with matters involving the firm. That's how badly shaken was the financial services industry. Even their top regulators and overseers have been involved in deals with market participants. Yellen received hundreds of thousands of dollars in speaking fees from various firms and groups in the industry after her stint as head of the Federal Reserve (February 3, 2014 – February 3, 2018) and prior to her appointment as Treasury Secretary by illegitimate president Joe Biden.

Yellen was nominated to chair the Federal Reserve by former president Barack Hussein Obama and confirmed by the Senate in 2014 and confirmed again for Treasury Secretary just weeks ago. President Donald J. Trump removed Yellen in 2018, replacing her with Jerome Powell, the current Chairman.

Thus, Washington's elites have been shaken to their core by the commoners. The COMEX and LBMA will continue to conspire against the hopes for honest money. By keeping prices at elevated levels, precious metals dealers have registered their resistance to the onerous control that has plagued the market for decades. The redditers have neither conceded nor surrendered. The war will rage on from here, pitting hedge funds, the financial services industry, and regulators against the commons.

A full discussion on the workings and intermingling of central banks, industrial banks, commercial banks, miners, smelters, brokers, and dealers in the metals markets would take more time and space than afforded here. Interested readers can familiarize themselves with such intricate relationships by perusing this explanatory article at Bullion Star, "Bullion Banking Mechanics"

According to Blanchard and Company, a large retailer in rare coins, the six "clearing banks" that handle gold bullion transactions are: "Barclays Bank PLC, ScotiaMocatta, Deutsche Bank AG, HSBC Bank, JPMorgan Chase Bank and UBS AG."

In this extensive analysis on bullion banking mechanics by Bullion Star, many more - as many as 35 - banks are cited as "bullion banks" that handle gold, and likely, silver. Almost all of thse banking interests are members of the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA).

In a notable development, Canadian Bank of Nova Scotia (Scotiabank) decided last year to exit the metals market. Their announced departure was to be completed sometime in early 2021.

Back in 2017, Scotiabank tried to sell ScotiaMocatta, the world’s oldest gold trader owned by Scotiabank.

Unable to finalize the sale, however, Scotiabank ended up keeping its precious metals trading business but downsized it at the beginning of 2018. ScotiaMocatta’s history goes all the way back to 1600s when Moses Mocatta partnered with the East India Co. to ship gold to India. The operations were set up in London in 1684. In 1997, Scotiabank acquired Mocatta Bullion by purchasing it from Standard Chartered.

At the end of all the mayhem lies gold, central banks, and debt-based fiat currencies which dominate life in the 21st century. What the redditers have accomplished, first, through their dealings in the stock market, and, secondly, via their assault on the price of silver, is open wounds into the central banking facade of infallability.

The physical (market) price of silver has now decoupled from the spot price established by the LBMA and traded upon the COMEX. Gold is also moving towards a similar disconnect or decoupling. What have commonly been referred to as "premiums" over spot, have, thanks to r/wallstreetbets, are now so far apart as to engender the need for dual prices, one for the 5,000-ounce contracts traded on the COMEX (spot) and one for physical, finished products (market).

The war, and the story of the century, will continue.

As has become customary every Sunday, here are the most recent prices for common gold and silver one-ounce coins and bars sold on eBay (numismatics excluded, shipping - often free - included):

Item: Low / High / Average / Median
1 oz silver coin: 33.00 / 53.49 / 41.76 / 40.48
1 oz silver bar: 30.00 / 54.95 / 42.15 / 40.50
1 oz gold coin: 1,906.00 / 2,033.34 / 1,990.27 / 2,000.44
1 oz gold bar: 1,897.00 / 1,992.98 / 1,956.07 / 1,955.63

Last week, Money Daily unveiled a benchmark market pricing mechanism for physical silver, based on our weekly surveys and strict methodology. See the current Single Ounce Silver Market Price Benchmark (SOSMPB), set this Sunday morning at $41.22.

There was no shortage of market commentary from the usual (and unusual) sources; so many of them in fact, that only links can be provided in this space.

Here's two by Jake Ducey, from I Love Prosperity, the first with noted analyst, Alidair Macleod of goldmoney.com:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQwQoMnCq8c

The second with David Morgan from themorganreport.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qT1QIsULi6U

Here's Max Keiser and Stacey Herbert explaining how Fed policies contribute to the racial wealth gap:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9iSeJa996I

Best-selling author of the Big Reset Willem Middelkoop tells Daniela Cambone how the silver squeeze may affect the gold market and central banking:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeY1n67LUOg&feature=push-fr&attr_tag=5DPdjODOrXZa21UD%3A6

At last, we defer to the genius of Ted Butler in a deep dive into the silver market, via an interview with Pallisades Radio (47 minutes):

There are many more opinion pieces and videos out there. Readers are advised to do their own due diligence.

At the Close, Friday, February 5, 2021:
Dow: 31,148.24, +92.38 (+0.30%)
NASDAQ: 13,856.30, +78.55 (+0.57%)
S&P 500: 3,886.83, +15.09 (+0.39%)
NYSE: 15,069.60, +94.17 (+0.63%)

For the Week:
Dow: +1165.62 (+3.89%)
NASDAQ: +785.60 (+6.01%)
S&P 500: +172.59 (+4.65%)
NYSE: +672.40 (+4.67%)

Big Fail: US Non-Farm Payroll Adds 49,000 Jobs in January; December Revised To -227,000

The US economy is in really (fill in blank with appropriate reality) shape.

According to the stock market, things could not be better. The S&P 500 and NASDAQ each closed at new all-time highs, while the Dow Industrials and the NYSE Composite are each within one percent of breaking out to record heights, surpassing those made just a couple of weeks ago.

Meanwhile, back in the alternate universe some people call the "real world," the Labor Department released the jobs data from February, which had non-farm payrolls up just 49,000 versus +105,000 expected and a revised -227,000 for December, from the reported -140,000 in the original report. Somehow, it seems the irrational exuberance in the stock market has slipped over to the "real world" side as the unemployment rate fell to 6.3% versus 6.7% expected and 6.7% in December.

Astonishing developments!

While this blog and most of the world was focused on the antics of the Reddit crew from r/wallstreetbets, the price of GameStop (GME) stock and the divergence in the price of physical silver from the COMEX and LBMA spot price, there were other developments elsewhere in the world of finance.

We've heard that Google and Amazon and most of the Big Tech giants posted knockout fourth quarter 2020 results. There's also been significant, perhaps troubling developments in the bond market.

The 10-year note is quoted this morning with a yield of 1.17%. The 30-year note closed Thursday at 1.93%. That's a 12-month high yield for the 30, (1.97%, 2/20/20) and an 11-month high for the 10-year (1.18%, 3/18/20).

All of that leads into what looks to be a boffo opening for the stock market, with futures modestly higher. There's a big football game this weekend also, featuring the main participants being some old guy (Tom Brady) against a flashy kid (Patrick Mahomes). Maybe that's what's keeping the world spinning.

Being Friday, the staff left early (8:00 am ET?), so check back here Sunday morning for the WEEKEND WRAP and the SOSMPB (Single Ounce Silver Market Price Benchmark), which looks to be higher than the initial reading last Sunday of $37.60.

See you then...

At the Close, Thursday, February 4, 2021:
Dow: 31,055.86, +332.26 (+1.08%)
NASDAQ: 13,777.74, +167.20 (+1.23%)
S&P 500: 3,871.74, +41.57 (+1.09%)
NYSE: 14,975.43, +136.38 (+0.92%)

Silver Spot, Market Price Decoupled Thanks to Reddters r/wallstreetbets, Overwhelming Demand, Supply Delays

Silver is mispriced.

It doesn't matter whether you are buying or selling in the futures market on the COMEX, through an online retailer or on eBay. The price you are buying or selling for is wrong. And it is wrong because of decades of intervention and suppression by the financial industry, international banks, central banks, bullion banks, their agents, and sympathizers in the media.

The recent foray into the silver complex by the Reddit group r/wallstreetbets accomplished one great thing. Forget about exposing the short sellers in the COMEX, the incestuous nature of the LBMA daily price fix, the inflows to ETFs like SLV and PSLV, the wild gyrations in the futures market. None of these matter in comparison to the successful decoupling of the two prices for silver, spot and market.

Since the so-called "Reddit Raiders" call to action, supply of physical silver in the form of finished products - coins, bars, jewelry - has vanished from the shelves of internet retailers and local coin shops. Most are now either out of stock or down to bare bones in denominations of 1, 2, 5, and 10 troy ounce items withe shipping delays ranging from eight days to a month or more, reminiscent of prevailing conditions in March, April and May of last year as the pandemic spread worldwide.

The difference is that in 2020, the price for physical silver items at retail plummeted. In 2021, they skyrocketed. The dealers apparently have awakened to the cruel, corrupt scam being played at the wholesale end by the COMEX players and members of the LBMA. In 2020, they played along. In 2021, they decided to revolt. what began as a plot to disrupt the COMEX market and do damage to big money participants - as wallstreetbanks group did in the stock market with GME - resulted in a demand imperative for precious metals retailers.

It seemed to be their only choice.

Silver on the COMEX rose close to $30 an ounce on Monday. By Tuesday's New York close, the price was $26.48. Wednesday's close was $26.65. Meanwhile, if any could be found, silver eagles, maple leafs and other one ounce coins and bars were selling for $37, $40, $45, and higher with delivery delays of up to 30 days. One reliable place to find silver items for immediate delivery is on eBay, where independent sellers are quick to ship, demonstrating the marvel of efficient modern markets. Current supply is slim. Competition in auctions is fierce.

The prices have decoupled. Spot or Futures price: $26.65. Market or Retail price: $37.60 (as of the Sunday Money Daily SOS Market Price BENCHMARK) to $45 or higher.

Neither price is correct and they will remain uncorrected until position limits are imposed and enforced on futures contracts and are settled in physical metal rather than paper currency, which is the routine practice on the exchanges. It's known as "force majeure" (unforeseeable circumstances that prevent someone from fulfilling a contract) and is employed not in extraordinary circumstances as intended, but as standard practice.

Until there are honest markets populated by honest players rather than the criminal cartel currently - and for many years prior to this - in control, price discovery will be difficult, if not impossible. The price of silver will be whatever one is willing to pay at whatever price sellers are willing to sell. With the spot and market prices interoperable, criss-crossing each other at various nexus points, expect to experience wild price volatility, which can be localized or widespread, dependent on conditions, participants, volume, availability, market forces and other variables.

It's the Wild West all over again. Enjoy the show.

Silver futures were flat on Wednesday, along with stocks.

Etherium, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, posted a new high at $1,699. Bitcoin continues to trend higher, topping out at $38,769 overnight, chasing the all-time high of $41,986.37 from January 8 of this year.

Stock futures are modestly higher with less than an hour to the opening bell. The Labor Departed reported 779,000 initial unemployment claims for the prior week, less than the 830,000 expected by mainstream media's paid shills.

As an added off-topic-on-target bonus, here's the Robin Hood of Wall Street, Gregory Mannarino, with the Mouth that Roared, Alex Jones, discussing the global financial system, exposing the establishment's assault on the people of the world and offering some solutions.

At the Close, Thursday, February 4, 2021:
Dow: 30,723.60, +36.12 (+0.12%)
NASDAQ: 13,610.54, -2.24 (-0.02%)
S&P 500: 3,830.17, +3.86 (+0.10%)
NYSE: 14,839.06, +70.48 (+0.48%)

Reddit's r/wallstreetbets, LBMA, COMEX Can All Claim Victory; Initial Single Ounce Silver Market Benchmark Released

For the past week or so, and especially over the last two days, there's been significant activity and interest in the silver market, spurred on in large part by the crowd over at the Reddit forum r/wallstreetbets, which famously, for better or worse, parlayed their experience with heavily-shorted stocks (GME, AMC, the most glaring examples) into a foray upon the price of silver in the spot, futures, ETF, and physical markets.

The primary idea was to rattle the short sellers in the futures markets by buying up shares of ETFs like SLV and PSLV, buying physical silver from online dealers, local coin shops, and exchanges like eBay to spike demand and elicit a response in the spot price - set by the LBMA - and in futures trading.

With the dust settling, we can ascertain that there is a winner, actually two, as both sides can claim victory. The redditers managed to drain inventory from dealers and bump up the price for finished goods, while the LBMA and futures pit traders managed, after some initial shock treatment, to keep a lid on the price of their 5,000-ounce contracts. Rising from about $25.50 per troy ounce to as high an ask price of $30.50 or thereabout, futures participants smashed it back down into a range between $26.20 to $27.80, with the market makers initially increasing the bid-ask spread to a highly unusual $1.00, now back down to a 0.50 spread.

It will remain to be seen which side will eventually claim victory if it's assumed the LBMA and establishment players in futures want to keep the price of silver low and the reddit public wants it higher. That will work out over time, but for now, the dealers and the public don't have to rely on spot and futures prices when buying small amounts (1, 10, 100 ounce bars and coins), because a market price is available and actually has been in place for years. It's called eBay, where silver and gold coins, bars, bullion, jewelry, and other objects have been selling for years in a very robust marketplace.

Money Daily has been tracking prices since April 2020 consistently with the same methodology and the results are now providing a solid market pricing mechanism. Forget about "spot" and "premium." Think rather, spot price and market price, which are two distinct, separate pegs which may or may not correlate.

The LBMA sets the spot price, or "fix" as they call it, which is then further refined via futures trading on a continuous basis, with the exception of the weekly period beginning each Friday at 5:00 pm ET and ending Sunday at 6:00 pm ET. Their standard unit is a contract for future delivery of 5,000 troy ounces of silver, which is normally settled in cash, which actually eliminates physical silver from the equation and sheds doubt on the veracity of the process. In essence, they are trading paper (silver contract) for paper (FRNs, euros, yen, etc.)

The market price is determined via a weekly survey of completed sales on eBay of 1 oz. silver and gold coins and bars, performed every Sunday morning between 7:00 am and 9:00 am ET, numismatics excluded, shipping - often free - included, to derive a price for delivered silver product paid in paper currency.

Thus, the two pricing mechanisms are distinct and either or both can be ignored or followed at the buyer or seller's peril. There is obviously a price differential, being that the spot price is first set by the fix and then traded upon in the bulk amount of 5,000 ounces, whereas the market price is determined using finished goods (bars, coins), using a blended, transparent average (the sum of average and median prices for coins and bars for silver and gold separately, divided by four), universally settled in an exchange of US$ (FRN) for specific goods. The price, or "peg" is set only once per week. The market determines adherence, rejection, or any divergence from that price until the next survey.

There's no need to update pricing by the minute, as is the case in the futures trading. The market price is self-determinant.

For the present time, this weekly survey is sufficient to gauge the price of finished gold and silver (we're experimenting with silver first and will get around to gold as time and developments in the market persist), until a better system is devised, possibly incorporating prices from participating dealers and/or coin shops.

With a reasonably-calculated market price, there's little need for the spot price in the general operation of the open market, unless one is trading in larger amounts, though it makes perfect sense that items weighing 10 ounces, 100 ounces, and beyond would warrant a discount to the single ounce market price, while fractional amounts (1/2, 1/4, 1/10 ounce) would be priced accordingly higher on a per ounce basis.

The premia or discount is entirely a function of market participants. Some dealers may offer discounts to repeat buyers or pay a bit more from steady customers. Each market participant will have his or her own methodology, likes, dislikes, plans, and schemes, all of which makes for a vibrant, open market with a transparent benchmark.

Going forward, every Sunday morning around 9:00 am ET, Money Daily will release its Single Ounce Silver Market Benchmark, using the proven methodology and timing. Bear in mind that any price discovery carries a significant caveat emptor. Preliminary results from prior surveys can be found HERE.

The initial, current Single Ounce Silver Market Benchmark is now available.

Money Daily and Downtown Magazine (dtmagazine.com) bear no responsibility for sales or purchases based upon its posted prices and has no relationship with eBay other than as a casual seller. As developments proceed, the methodology and process may change.

One final thought: Through all the ups and downs, the real winners may have been the silver miners, some of which experienced significant gains in the price of their stock on the NYSE and NASDAQ, and they're always amenable to higher prices for their product, be it spot or market.

Let the games continue!

At the close, Tuesday, February 2, 2021:
Dow: 30,687.48, +475.57 (+1.57%)
NASDAQ: 13,612.78, +209.38 (1.56%)
S&P 500: 3,826.31, +52.45 (+1.39%)
NYSE: 14,768.58, +172.39 (+1.18%)

Don't Be Fooled By The Silver Short; Success It's Time For A New Standard Benchmark Pricing Mechanism

It's 4:00 am. Most people are still asleep at that hour, and while they slumber, thieves are stealing their gold and silver.

Well, they're not exactly stealing physical gold and silver, and they're not exactly thieves, either. What's happening is that on global futures exchanges, the value of gold and silver is being diminished by a consortium, or a cartel of bankers, traders, assayers and bullion dealers whose objective is to get the best price on gold and silver for themselves and the worst price for you.

As the r/wallstreetbets crowd trundled into the precious metals space last week and with more effort on Monday, they managed to crack open a Pandora's box of trickery and deviousness that still remains largely outside the public's view. Like Las Vegas, what happens on futures markets largely stays in futures markets, because, as comedian George Carlin suggested years ago, "it's a big club, and you ain't in it."

The redditers, fresh off the smashing success in routing short sellers in GameStop (GME) and other names like AMC Entertainment (AMC) and American Airlines (AAL), issued a challenge to the silver futures market controllers, rallying their troops to buy up shares of silver EFTs, SLV and PSLV, buy shares of miners like First Majestic (AG), Endeavour Silver (EXK), Hecla Mining (HL) Fortuna Silver Mines (FSM) and to purchase and hold physical silver.

At the start, wallstreetbets appeared to be winning. The futures market in Asia opened with a bang, sending silver up about eight percent, from $27 to $29. As day dawned in the US, the bid was wavering between $29.00 and $29.50, before the traders in the futures pits executed one of their classic smackdowns, sending the price reeling below $28 by mid-morning. By the close of trading in New York, silver stood at $28.55, an apparent, but eventually, phyric victory for the redditers.

However, since the reddit horde is mainly US-based, their influence waned in the overnight Asian market, as the controllers send the price of silver crashing as low as $26.30 the ounce. As markets prepare to open again in the US, the silver price hovers again around $27.00. It's apparent that the redditers have bitten off more than they can chew, for now.

It's understandable. They're up against a consortium of central banks, bullion banks, commercial dealers, commercial banks, institutional traders, and establishment operatives who've been at this game for decades. These people are not about to be upended by some upstart social network of millennial punks.

However, the battle has been engaged and it's doubtful that the reddit crowd is going away any time soon. What's more likely is for their roster of players and supporters to expand now that they've demonstrated the power of an organized crowd with a unified purpose.

Perhaps the attempt to smash the silver market was premature and a little bit of chest-thumping bravado. What appears certain now is that weaker hands will sell their silver at a loss to the "diamond-handed" reddit crowd that will remain engaged to some degree. At the very least, what wallstreetbets did for silver was empty the shelves of bullion dealers around the world. Shortages of metal and shipping delays are now common among online dealers like Provident, Scottsdale, Apmex, JM Billion and others. Coin shops in various locales report being sold out of common silver items like Eagles, Maples, and one to ten ounce bars. Many dealers are expressing concern over sourcing future supplies. Some suspended buying on their sites altogether while most list the bulk of their inventory as "out of stock."

A passing glance at the roster of members in the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) evidences just how tilted the playing field in the precious metals space is towards those who produce and procure gold and silver at the fountainhead as opposed to those who buy them at retail, and this is what wallstreetbets, gold bugs, and silver stackers are up against.

The LBMA, which conducts auctions, "fixes" prices, holds symposiums, and helps to regulate the global trade in gold, silver, platinum, and palladium, are in the business of price control to their benefit and also to serve their ultimate masters, the central banks of the world, particularly the US Federal Reserve, ECB, Bank of England (BOE), Bank of Canada (BOC), Bank of Japan (BOJ), People's Bank of China (PBOC), and the Swiss National Bank (SNB).

The LBMA and the COMEX futures markets seek to ensure that precious metals, especially gold and silver, which are real money, don't become too competitive with the fiat currency of the central banks, which is why gold and silver have been suppressed for many decades and why, as long as the LBMA issues dialy "benchmarks" or "fixes" and futures prices are used as valuation standards, true price discovery in precious metals will never be achieved.

According to LBMA's chief executive, Ruth Crowell, "The LBMA is the world’s authority for precious metals. We’re the standard-setting organisation that defines how precious metals are refined, as well as traded around the world. It’s our job to ensure the quality and the integrity of the metal itself, as well as the market participants."

In other words, the LBMA's job is to control the flow of precious metals, largely to the benefits of their members, of which the general public is not one of them. They are the successors of the London Gold Pool, which collapsed in 1961.

From Wikipedia's entry on the London Gold Pool (emphasis ours):

The London Gold Pool was the pooling of gold reserves by a group of eight central banks in the United States and seven European countries that agreed on 1 November 1961 to cooperate in maintaining the Bretton Woods System of fixed-rate convertible currencies and defending a gold price of US$35 per troy ounce by interventions in the London gold market.

The central banks coordinated concerted methods of gold sales to balance spikes in the market price of gold as determined by the London morning gold fixing while buying gold on price weaknesses. The United States provided 50% of the required gold supply for sale. The price controls were successful for six years until the system became no longer workable. The pegged price of gold was too low, and after runs on gold, the British pound, and the US dollar occurred, France decided to withdraw from the pool. The London Gold Pool collapsed in March 1968.

The London Gold Pool controls were followed with an effort to suppress the gold price with a two-tier system of official exchange and open market transactions, but this gold window collapsed in 1971 with the Nixon Shock, and resulted in the onset of the gold bull market which saw the price of gold appreciate rapidly to US$850 in 1980.

Even Wikipedia is using words like cooperate, interventions, price controls, and even "suppress" in regards to the activity of the defunct London Gold Pool, so can you say, COLLUSION, CONSPIRACY, CARTEL?

After 1980, the gold price was suppressed well enough to get it below $300, but there was a bit of a void, insufficiently filled by the Bank of England. A new, official benchmark organ was needed. Thus, in 1987, the LBMA was formed by the Bank of England (big surprise!). From the LBMA website:

LBMA was established in 1987 by the Bank of England, which at this time was the bullion market's regulator. LBMA took over the roles previously carried out by two separate organisations, the London Gold Market and Silver Market, whose origins date back to the mid-nineteenth century.

The world’s trade in bullion is London-based with a global reach of activity and participants. The roots of the London Bullion Market can be traced to the partnership between Moses Mocatta and the East India Company, who started shipping gold together towards the end of the 17th century. Shortly afterwards, while Sir Isaac Newton was master of the Royal Mint, gold in England was overvalued so it became more freely circulated than silver. This increased circulation quickly led to England having a gold based coinage, whereas the rest of Europe remained silver based until the 1850s.

This is what the redditers ran into as they attempted to force the price of silver higher and damage the short-sellers. While they succeeded to some small degree on Monday, overnight Tuesday, the suppression commenced full throttle, sending silver down as low as $26.30 an ounce.

It's worth noting that the price of entry into the silver futures market is a single contract representing 5,000 ounces of metal, or, on a cash basis, about $135,000 if silver is $27 an ounce. The reddit people don't have that kind of money (some may), but the bullion banks, who hold the bulk of short interest, have billions. While this imbalance is daunting, it's going to take more than a few days for the commoners to even put a dent into the institutional money. Any attempt to break this market is going to last months, if not years.

Other methods should be employed, the most evident to be the establishment of another standard, representing the price of gold and silver on the open, public market, like on eBay or through a network of online dealers and local coin shops. Such a standard or benchmark need not be updated in real time. While the price of 1, 10, and 100-ounce silver and gold coins and bars may vary by location, it should be a little more stable, as are the London "fixes", if only to afford some degree of comfort to retail buyers and dealers alike.

A standard valuation metric needs to be established for the common investor, as opposed to the mega-banks and central banks which deal in tonnage rather than ounces. Money Daily has been tracking prices on eBay as a kind of counter-balance to the LBMA and futures markets. The prices tracked every Sunday morning here are taken as a survey of most recent sales and are indicative of prices paid, including "premiums" and shipping, which is often free. when adding the premium over the LBMA's spot price, one can readily see that the prices actual people and dealers are paying and receiving are well-separated from the institutional spot prices. It's actually even more complicated, accounting for the 10% or higher fees taken out by eBay, but that's the game, and plenty are playing.

Circling back to the charges of collusion and conspiracy surrounding the LBMA and futures trading, history suggests that the interests of central banks and their agents are not well aligned with those of the working class or even the investor class.

If the price of an ounce of gold increased from $35 to $850 from 1971 to 1980, what should the price of gold (and silver) really be today. Let's give the gold and silver riggers some credit and "benchmark" the prices of gold and silver to where they were at the end of the Great Financial Crisis of 2007-2009.

Gold advanced from $800 at the start of 2009 to $1400 by the end of 2010. For convenience sake, let's take the middle of that range $1100, as our starting point. Silver took a similar path. On January 8, 2009, silver was $11.12 per troy ounce. On December 28, 2010, silver was pricing at $30.30. The midpoint of those extremes is $20.71. That's our reference point.

So, now we're talking about 11 years of price suppression, longer than the nine years (1971-1980) from Nixon's closing of the gold window to the peak price of $850, a period in which the price of gold increased by more than 24 times.

Applying that 24X increase to prices from 2009-2011, gold should be priced at $26,400 and silver should be $497.04. Adjustments can - and should - be made to have silver recalibrated to aratio of 16:1, 12:1 or even 8:1 to the price of gold, which would render the following silver prices:

Gold/Silver Ratio: Silver Price @ $26,400 gold
16:1 ..... $1650
12:1 ..... $2200
8:1 ...... $3300

Suggesting a GSR (Gold-Silver Ratio) of 16:1 or 12:1 dates back to Byzantine times and even recently. Those are established norms which have been tossed aside by the suppression of the central banks and LBMA. The 8:1 ratio is suggested by the authority of First Majestic CEO, Keith Neumeyer, and others, who attest that to be the current ratio of gold to silver being pulled out of the ground. For every new ounce of gold, eight ounces of silver are found.

It should be clear to everybody that gold - and even more so, silver - is massively undervalued and that the intention of the central banks and their agents of suppression in the LBMA and futures markets is to keep silver priced extremely low because it is money, it is plentiful, divisible, easily recognizable, and has been used as a store of value for thousands of years, just as has gold.

This story is far from over. In fact, this chapter has only just begun.

At the Close, Monday, February 1, 2021:
Dow: 30,211.91, +229.29 (+0.76%)
NASDAQ: 13,403.40, +332.71 (2.55%)
S&P 500: 3,773.86, +59.62 (+1.61%)
NYSE: 14,596.18, +198.98 (+1.38%)

WEEKEND WRAP: r/wallstreetbets Reddit Group Escalates To Full Scale War On Hedge Funds, Short-Sellers, Buying Silver

Stocks suffered through their worst week since October, 2020, with the Dow losing more than 1000 points and all of the major averages dropping by 3.25% or more. The tech-laden NASDAQ and small caps on the NYSE Composite led the way lower. The NAZ fell 3.49%; the NYSE lopped off 3.71%.

Macro losses on the exchanges took a back seat to the internecine skirmishes between billionaire hedge fund managers and the rag-tag recruits from reddit.com group n/wallstreetbets as the mostly-millennial stock traders from the reddit group took the short-sellers to task over shares of GameStop, the beleaguered game retailer targeted by the hedge funds.

Essentially, what the wallstreetbets crowd did was target the most-shorted stocks by buying up shares of down-beaten GameStop (GME), and others, such as Nokia (NOK), Blackberry (BB), Bed Bath & Beyond (BBYB), AMC Entertainment Holdings (AMC), and Koss Corp. (KOSS), sending shares soaring, squeezing the hedge fund shorts, costing them billions of dollars.

Hedge funds, which have extensive short positions in many equities, hoped to capitalize on the misfortunes of companies but failed to take into account retail market forces and the power of social media as the reddit group n/wallstreetbets devised a strategy of buying the losing stocks and holding, forcing the hedgies to cover their downside bets.

In effect, the hedge funds borrowed shares (at fees ranging from 30% to 50% of the share price) of the beaten-down stocks and sold them into the market at prices under the asking price, Their plan was to buy those shares back on the open market as the stock collapsed, return the borrowed shares, pocketing the difference. They also short stocks through put options, bets that a stock will trade lower over time with specific time limits (strike dates).

The reddit crowd, glibly calling themselves "retards" or just "tards," seized upon the opportunity to make massive profits and punish the billionaires at the same time just by buying shares of the targeted stocks. As members of the seven million strong group n/wallstreetbets executed their strategy, shares began to rise, fueled by increased volume from the retards, then accelerating as the hedge funds began to panic and cover their shorts at increasing losses.

Through Friday, the hedge funds have accumulated losses approaching $20 billion on Gamestop alone. For their part, the retail crowd is holding onto their gains, causing the shorts even more pain in the options market. The opposing forces created such a firestorm of volatility that both the puts and calls on some issues were both gaining at the same time, a logical impossibility, exposing the options market to failure.

Launching attacks on multiple fronts in different stocks, the reddit retail crew was not just beating the hedge funds, they were slaughtering them. If this was a football game, the score would be something along the lines of retards 144, hedge funds 0, and it's only the first quarter.

On Thursday, the redditeers got into the commodities game, sending silver futures up nearly 10% in a matter of minutes, taking gold, platinum, oil and many mining stocks, like First Majestic (AG) along for the ride. Using their buy and hold strategy and extending it to the most manipulated market on the planet - silver futures - the reddit gang began openly discussing taking down the COMEX futures market, short sellers and bullion banks, which are particularly at risk in silver, being heavily on the short side to suppress the price of what's known as "the money of gentlemen."

So far, plans include buying up shares of EFTs such as the iShares Silver Trust (SLV) and the Sprott Physical Silver Trust (PSIL), individual miner stocks and lately, purchasing physical silver from local coin shops, online retailers and eBay sellers. The latest move would more than likely be the most successful over time, as excessive physical demand would certainly cause supply shortages, prompting price gains. Longer term, if millions of people begin buying up small amounts of silver coins, bars, and jewelry, the demand spike would naturally result in a supply squeeze and either expose the COMEX as a fraud for failing to deliver physical metal on contract executions or boosting the futures price as spot prices sprint forward. Continued pressure from millions of silver buyers could break the futures market and the bullion banks and cause further chaos.

An article outlining the effects of what r/wallstreetbets is doing appeared on Thursday with a dire warning: Goldman Warns If the Short Squeeze Continues, The Entire Market Could Crash.

Analysts at Goldman Sachs are rightfully scared of the implications of what amounts to a peasant revolt in financial markets, traditionally the province of the rich and not-so-famous. With stocks bubbling out of control and the underclass betting on losers while the hedge funds are trying to savage them, the resulting carnage would cause liquidations earmarked for margin calls, fees, short-covering, and loss mitigation in the billionaire class. With money having to come from somewhere, the billions invested profitably in the Apples, Googles, and Facebooks of the world would depart, setting up a vicious liquidity trap complete with cascading losses throughout the markets.

So, in case you're thinking these millennial kids (mostly aged 20-45) are a passing fancy, you just failed economics 101, 201 and 401. This is a complete and fully-engaged revolt against money and those who control it and it's unlikely to end well for the people who've been manipulating every market on the planet for the past 35 years. It should not go without mention that Robinhood, the trading platform preferred by the redditeers, had to tap into its credit line through Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan and has placed order limits of five shares down to one share of selected stocks, primarily the ones most targeted by the "retards." Many of the stocks on the restricted holdings list can be referenced here, though as yet unconfirmed, Robinhood has since trimmed the list and boosted the number of shares one can purchase and hold. Seems the online brokerage, Robinhood, has had scheduled meeting with the Sheriff of Nottingham, aka, the SEC.

Elsewhere, the mainstream (if we can call them that) cryptocurrencies became passé even as the world's richest person (today, anyhow), Elon Musk, admitted to buying some Bitcoin with a tweet saying, "It was inevitable." The news shook Bitcoin about 15% higher, but then fomented some selling. Bitcoin jumped to $38,570 on Friday morning, but has since slumped back into its near-term range between $30,000 and $35,000. Etherium caught a sympathetic bid on Friday, though it remains largely in a high range between $1200 and $1500.

Treasuries remained moribund with the short end of the yield curve flat at the zero bound from 1-month (0.07%) bills to 3-year notes (0.19%). Yield on the 10-year note gained one basis point, from 1.10% to 1.11%, while the 30-year gained two, rising from 1.85% to 1.87%. Interest rates in fixed income have remained so low for so long (generally since 2000) that the speculative bubbles in stocks, art, and real estate are approaching breaking points with the Fed powerless to do anything to settle markets.

Since January 6, the unofficial start of the Joe Biden administration, the 10-year has held in a tight range between 1.04 and 1.15%, while the 30-year has maintained even more intransigence, holding between 1.79 and 1.88%.

The Federal Reserve is stuck. Rising rates would murder stocks and they simply cannot lower them any more than what they are unless going into negative territory is seriously considered. Essentially, negative interest rates, a capstone for many European nations has been lauded as a failed experiment though there remains a record amount of more than $17 trillion with negative yields and those have typically terms of seven years or longer. Overall, 75% of the global bond market pays a yield of less than 1%, while only 10% pays a yield of more than 3%. Effectively, global real (inflation-adjusted) yields are almost all negative, upwards of 93% not keeping pace with inflation.

Already a failure on multiple fronts (the economy, education, race relations, civil rights, social justice, Covid, foreign affairs, trade policy, government corruption, and accountability) the Biden administration and Democrat party control of both chambers of congress is likely to oversee a global bond rout with their inflationist policies of spend and pretend, pushing yields higher by boosting the federal deficit and making it more expensive to service, the end result a ballooning federal debt which is rapidly approaching $28 trillion. At $27.86 trillion presently, $30 trillion is likely to be exceeded within months. By the end of the government's fiscal year (September 30), the federal debt could easily be upwards of $32 trillion, the run-rate of profligate spending and dollar dilution approaching half a trillion dollars a month.

These rank amateurs and posers, many from the destructive Obama administrations of 2008-2016, espouse ideas that press hard against beneficial public policy. Their insistence on greening, climate change, and identity politics stoke hatred and anger on both sides of the aisle, while their economic plans rival those of second-graders (with apologies to second-graders everywhere). Within months, Biden and his horde of deviant Democrats are likely to cause a massive stock market collapse, raging unemployment, and general strife. If Biden isn't impeached within the next six to eight months, the US - and with it the global - economy will become completely unglued.

Oil maintained above $50/barrel for WTI crude, checking out Friday at $52.20, just below the prior week's close ($52.27), though close to the recent high of $53.57. Since October 30, 2020, the price of oil has risen 45.9% form a low of $35.79. Any number of crosswinds are contributing to the price makeup. With holiday travel on the wane, prices at the pump would normally be falling, but colder weather and the re-opening of businesses in many states shuttered by the pandemic are mitigating that factor.

As the main street economy returns to some semblance of normalcy, expect gasoline prices to spike by Spring. The national average is currently at $2.43 a gallon, roughly the same as the pre-pandemic price from this date in 2020. With the Fed's printers working overtime counterfeiting fresh currency and the federal government hell-bent on doling out another $1400 to just about anyone making less than $75,000 a year (about 85% of the population), price inflation in food and energy are about as certain as water turning to ice below 32 degrees.

No state is selling unleaded regular for less than $2.00 a gallon, with Mississippi and Louisiana on the low end at $2.09 and $2.10, respectively, Hawaii ($3.26) and California ($3.41) the only states with average prices above $3.00. Nationwide, drivers could be looking at gas above $3.00 a gallon in pretty short order, especially if states continue lifting COVID-related restrictions. Consumers may be screaming for relief by Memorial Day.

WTI crude's last peak was October of 2018, when it topped off at $76.18 a barrel. While unlikely to hit that number anytime soon, a range of $60-68 a barrel is a very real short term possibility. While that number isn't exactly appealing to end-users, it would likely rally US frackers and shale unaffected by Joe Biden's executive order banning new leases on federal land. The main beneficiaries of Biden's boneheaded approach to energy are Russia and OPEC, as the United States will have to import more oil at higher prices.

Americans have to face up to the reality that the person sitting (or mostly sleeping) in the White House is illegitimate, as the Democrats conspired to steal the election from Donald Trump. Simply put, Biden should be thrown out of office, tried for his crimes and jailed as soon as possible. Just days into his term he's already tried - through executive orders - to reverse much of the good done by Trump. He's an ass, a thief, a liar, a crook, a seller of influence, and his policies are mostly opposed to the public good. Most people don't like him, don't accept him as their president, and will remain angry about the stolen 2020 election until he is removed.

Fittingly, in the face of last week's ramping of beaten down stocks and the fast foray into the silver space, silver far outpaced gold, rising swiftly as its more pricey counterpart suffered a slight decline.

Gold ended the week at $1847.76, down from the prior Friday's price of $1855.90 per ounce while silver, courtesy of the reddit crowd from r/wallstreetbets, caught a long-overdue bid Thursday and Friday, slingshotting from a low of $25.26 on Wednesday to close out the week at $27.71, a sharp, 9.7% move, a five-month high, with more upside straight ahead.

As the assault on silver shorts commenced over the weekend, premiums rose notably at delaers and online markets. Local coin shops and online merchants reported record volumes, many selling out of popular products, imposing shipping delays and quantity restrictions as demand soared.

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

Item: Low / High / Average / Median
1 oz silver coin: 33.00 / 46.45 / 37.55 / 36.47
1 oz silver bar: 34.50 / 44.98 / 38.79 / 37.60
1 oz gold coin: 1,936.30 / 2,050.00 / 1,980.73 / 1,979.89
1 oz gold bar: 1,925.00 / 1,995.42 / 1,959.40 / 1,956.83

Weekly survey results from April 2020 to present can be found here.

At the Close, Friday, January 29, 2021:
Dow: 29,982.62, -620.74 (-2.03%)
NASDAQ: 13,070.69, -266.46 (-2.00%)
S&P 500: 3,714.24, -73.14 (-1.93%)
NYSE: 14,397.20, -272.32 (-1.86%)

For the Week:
Dow: -1014.36 (-3.27%)
NASDAQ: -472.37 (-3.49%)
S&P 500: -127.23 (-3.31%)
NYSE: -554.65 (-3.71%)

Wall Street Trench Warfare Pits Millennials Against Hedge Funds, Brokerages, the "System"

Publisher's Note: A few words about our friend, Mother Nature, whose angry side we witnessed firsthand Tuesday morning around 2:00 am when our mountain abode was shuddered by a massive lightning strike. Barely avoiding the main house, the multi-pronged assault did the most damage by rupturing a propane gas line which erupted into flame with a loud boom that awakened most of our neighbors, one of whom is a fireman who responded with miraculous speed.

The fire was quelled by quick-thinking responders who shut the gas off at the tank, limiting the damage to an eight-foot wooden gate on the fence line. Upon daybreak, we began to assess the electrical damage, which amounted to quite a bit, including the frying of the AT&T internet modem, Dish TV modem along with the wiring to the dish itself which took one of the strikes directly, the entirely of an expensive audio center, two ceiling fan motors, a refrigerator, a furnace circuit board, an internet extender unit, and a small number of lights.

Indeed, we were fortunate that the damage was so limited, the sudden clap of electrical force serving as a not-so-gentle reminder of how fragile and conductive is our modern way of living. After two days of various repair trucks and service people in and out, life returned mostly to normal late Thursday. The insurance company is soon to be writing a fairly large check.

File this post under "better late than never," homage to resilience and Yankee ingenuity.

Over the past few days, the investing community has been treated to the tragi-comedy of millennial RobinHooders and other miscreant day-trading types versus the mighty force of hedge fund short-sellers (Citadel, part owner of Melvin Capital, among others) over shares of GameStop (GME), the failing gaming retailer. With wealthy billionaire hedge fund operators looking to cash in on the woes of the firm, thousands of small retail investors, purportedly organizing on Reddit, took them to task, buying up shares of the ill-fated company and boosting the price, causing the short-side hedgies to cover, suffering billions of dollars in forced buying.

From mid-morning Tuesday to the close on Thursday, shares of GameStop were whipsawed every which way, starting in the high 80s to close Tuesday at 145, then opening Wednesday at 327, eventually reaching a peak of 468 early Thursday morning.

That's when - with losses into the $$ billions - the unthinkable happened. Apparently at the behest of the doomed hedge fund managers, Robinhood and other brokerages - including TD Ameritrade, Webull, Merrill Edge, and others - began limiting trading and options on GameStop and other companies (AMC, BB, BBBY, EXPR, GME, KOSS, NAKD, and NOK) targeted by the millennial horde to sell only or raising margin requirements as high as 300%, in some cases closing out positions without notice to clients. In a little over an hour, the share price on GME fell from 468 to 112, eventually bouncing back over 300, but finally closing out Thursday at 193.60.

The story does not end there, however. While the hedge funds were being bailed out by the brokerages, retail investors were claiming "foul," obviously annoyed over the ham-fisted approach to the perception of fairness in "open" markets. It appears that Wall Street trading houses will allow unlimited losses to small investors, but when it comes to whales like hedge funds, they'll willingly step in to staunch declines.

Such action obviously is not sitting well with the general public nor the damaged retail millennial crowd. At least one lawsuit has been filed and congressional dog-and-pony shows are upcoming. It's safely assumed that no Wall Street persona will suffer anything more than having to be publicly berated and forced to contribute to a number of election campaigns. Such is the technocratic justice that prevails.

In the meantime, the wealthy hedgies are now forewarned that their activities in the market are not going to be tolerated by the retail crowd which has served notice that they can and will organize in monetary assault. The hallowed canyons of Wall Street have become the site of open economic class warfare, a drama which is likely to end well for nobody. In so far as the recent action have amounted to minor initial skirmishes, escalation of this unique economic trench warfare is to be expected.

In pre-market trading, GME is up 154 points, to 348. This battle is far from over.

Robinhood and other brokerages have freed up trading in the affected companies, according to reports. Robinhood has tapped into its liquidity, borrowing from JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs.

From the looks of things, there's likely to be more losers than winners in this battle.

---

Two days of an internet outage afforded the distinct displeasure of reading the stupid little book. COVID-19 The Great Reset by Klaus Schwab and Thierry Malleret. If only to spare readers any wasted moments on what amounts to child-like writing (maybe fifth grade level) by supposed intellectuals who espouse to instruct world leaders and commoners alike how to prosper from the pandemic, this review will be sparingly brief.

The authors (shuddering at dignifying them thusly) take vague suppositions on various issues such as "climate change" (which is a foremost topic for them), governance, mental health, environmentalism and other worldly subjects and expand them into a tapestry of pandemic behaviors seen through a prism of time between January and June of 2020. Their focus on digitization, lockdowns (which they frighteningly refer to as confinement), control, and taking advantage of the situation is perversely anti-human and gravely mistaken.

Schwab and Malleret suggest, ad nauseum, that the advent of COVID-19 brought with it hopeful possibilities for governments, businesses, and individuals to rethink, retool, and reset their environment and practices. Nearly completely disregarding the medical missteps and personal devastation, the evidence and advice springs from the Rahm Emanuel principle of "...never let a crisis go to waste," which is in itself a sick, cynical world view. There's no concrete evidence or proposals offered. The whole 190 pages of boring, run-on text and 20 pages of footnotes includes a dizzying array of if (found on 73 pages), and, but (143 pages), could (85), might (44), may (89) propositions and no concrete solutions to anything.

While it's refreshing to realize through the reading that Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum (WEF), is not some crazed Nazi holdout bent on world domination, but rather a fuzzy teddy bear without much purpose or brain power, the other side of the coin says this book should not be on anybody's reading list. In fact, it should never have been written. That's why there's no link HERE to the free PDF, as it might encourage some to engage. Forget it. Dustbin of history stuff, it is.

While at the literary latrine, it would be a shame not to leak just how painful it was to see and hear youth poet laureate, Amanda Gorman, recite her trite, mixed metaphorical nonsense, "The Hill We Climb" at the fake inaugural last week. While the poem itself offered a garbled message of hope and desperation, it was decidedly non-inclusive and unwelcome to large swaths of people, particularly white ones.

It's not OK to elevate black girls to high positions when they reference their color, slavery, and inflammatory lines such as:

We've seen a force that would shatter our nation
rather than share it
Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy
And this effort very nearly succeeded
But while democracy can be periodically delayed
it can never be permanently defeated

... as Americanism without punctuation. It's gaslighting.

Basically, give it a break. Americans are truly tired of being reminded of how evil, insensitive, and racist we are.

Just for good measure, a reminder that "double-masking" is doubly stupid.

At the Close, Wednesday, January 27, 2021:
Dow: 30,303.17, -633.87 (-2.05%)
NASDAQ: 13,270.60, -355.47 (-2.61%)
S&P 500: 3,750.77, -98.85 (-2.57%)
NYSE: 14,487.73, -379.64 (-2.55%)

At the Close, Thursday, January 28, 2021:
Dow: 30,603.36, +300.19 (+0.99%)
NASDAQ: 13,337.16, +66.56 (+0.50%)
S&P 500: 3,787.38, +36.61 (+0.98%)
NYSE: 14,669.52, +181.79 (+1.25%)

World Economic Forum Opens on Virtual Platform

Publisher's Note: A lightning strike overnight has our electrical on emergency use only, so this is going to be brief. Apologies.

On Monday, the World Economic Forum opened "Virtual Davos" with a series of speeches and affirmations.

The World Economic Forum will convene the Special Annual Meeting 2021 in Singapore from 25-28 May. It will return to Davos-Klosters, Switzerland, for the Annual Meeting 2022. The Special Annual Meeting 2021 in Singapore will be the first global leadership event to address worldwide recovery from the pandemic.

If you want to follow the events - all online - at Virtual Davos this week, start with the Davos Agenda 2021.

At the Close, Monday, January 25, 2021:
Dow: 30,960.00, -36.98 (-0.12%)
NASDAQ: 13,635.99, +92.13 (+0.69%)
S&P 500: 3,855.36, +13.89 (+0.36%)
NYSE: 14,935.29, -16.55 (-0.11%)

WEEKEND WRAP: Biden Takes Oath; Stocks Pause, Bonds Flat; Earnings Season in Full Swing

On Wednesday, Joe Biden took the presidential oath of office, making him the 46th president of the United States. The inauguration went off without a hitch, which was to be expected, considering there were more than 25,000 National Guards on duty across the District of Columbia, protecting the president and assembled dignitaries from some supposed threat, which, since the whole narrative was complete fiction, never materialized.

Neither white supremacists, ANTIFA or BLM radicals or even Daughters of the Republic showed up for the event, which more resembled a bad "made for TV movie" than the usual pomp and circumstance associated with the peaceful transition of power. It was so bad, there were more people awaiting President Trump's arrival in Florida than there were at Joe Biden's inauguration.

Trump didn't attend the inauguration. He left hours beforehand, aboard Air Force One. According to verifiable sources, he took the nuclear codes with him. Biden doesn't have the nuclear codes, probably never will, and his members of his administration are barred from the Pentagon, also verified.

There are still, at this writing, some 7,000 National Guardsmen on duty in the nation's capitol, which is quizzical, since there was no threat of violence at the big event, and no intelligence to expect any. The fences encompassing the National Mall, White House, Capitol, and Supreme Court are still up. The desolate city looks more like a third world prison camp than the seat of national power.

What the new president did right away was sign away some executive orders, mostly designed to reverse EOs issued by President Trump. EOs don't carry the weight of law. Biden's signings are designed to set the country back four years, and, despite what he says about uniting the country, don't exactly exude that Kumbaya feeling.

In response, stocks, in the first two full trading days since the inauguration, took a left turn. See closing prices below:

Index: 1/20/2021 / 1/22/2021
Dow: 31,188.38 / 30,996.98
NASDAQ: 13,457.25 / 13,543.06
S&P 500: 3,851.85 / 3,841.47
NYSE: 15,097.28 / 14,951.84

Just guessing, but, other than the NASDAQ (which always goes up because of the Tech monopoly giants (the AMFAG stocks: AAPL, MSFT, FB, AMZN, GOOG), traders seem to be less than enthralled with the direction taken by the new administration. While presidents aren't usually responsible for Wall Street antics, there is something of a correlation between policy and prices. The Biden administration is off to a rocky start.

While change has come to the federal government, some things are out of their reach, and unlikely to change. Treasuries were flat, with the 10-year yielding 1.10%, just a single basis point below the close of the prior week. The 30-year ended the week unchanged, at 1.85%.

Likewise, the surpression of precious metal prices continued, though at a somewhat subdued pace. Gold gained, from $1,829.80 to $1,855.50 (+$25.70), though it was down slightly the two days following Biden's inauguration. Silver rose from $24.87 to $25.57, a gain of 70 cents per ounce.

Oil, which hit a nine-month high of $53.57 per barrel on January 14, closed out at $51.98 on Friday, the 22nd. Could relief at the pump be at hand? Unlikely. Democrat governors, from New York's Andrew Cuomo, to Illinois' J.B. Pritzker, are reopening their economies and weather will begin to warm in another month or so, though heating costs have been mild this winter. Oil's price could moderate for a time, but by summer, it's almost certain to be above current levels.

In the crypto space, Bitcoin continues to vacillate at a level about 20% below its recent high above $42,000. Bitcoin's price fell as low as $28,732 and is holding around $32,000 currently. Etherium, the second largest coin by market cap, dipped as low as $1,039.62, but has recovered above $1,300.

Below is the Money Daily exclusive weekly survey of commonly-sold items on eBay (numismatics excluded, shipping - often free - included):

Itam: Low / High / Average / Median
1 oz silver coin: 35.00 / 50.50 / 42.17 / 42.47
1 oz silver bar: 32.25 / 47.15 / 38.57 / 38.48
1 oz gold coin: 1,952.00 / 2,046.24 / 1,999.27 / 2,007.80
1 oz gold bar: 1,950.00 / 1,986.49 / 1,966.96 / 1,965.94

For historical price data go HERE.

Of interest looking ahead, the coming week is the heart of earnings season, as companies release 4th quarter 2020 and full year results. Among the companies reporting this week are some heavyweights, as shown below.

Monday: (before open) Kimberly-Clark (KMB); (after close) Xilinx (XLNX), Yamana Gold (AUY)

Tuesday: (before open) UBS AG (UBS), 3M (MMM), D.R. Horton (DHI), General Electric (GE), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), American Express (AXP), Lockheed Martin (LMT), Verizon (VZ); (after close) Texas Instruments (TXN), Capital One (COF), Starbucks (SBUX), Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Microsoft (MSFT)

Wednesday: (before open) Blackstone (BX), AT&T (T), Teledyne (TDY), General Dynamics (GD), Boeing (BA); (after close) Facebook (FB), Las Vegas Sands (LVS), Tesla (TSLA), Apple (AAPL), Teradyne (TER), Raymond James (RJF)

Thursday: (before open) Dow Chemical (DOW), Stanley Black & Decker (SWK), Tractor Supply Company (TSCO), PulteGroup (PHM), Southwest Airlines (LUV), McDonald's (MCD), Altria (MO), American Airlines (AAL), Sherwin-Williams (SHW), Alliance Data Systems (ADS), Nucor (NUE), Mastercard (MA); (after close) Celanese (CE), Visa (V), Beazer Homes (BZH), US Steel (X)

Friday: (before open) Weyerhaeuser (WY), Caterpillar (CAT), Eli Lilly (ELI), Honeywell (HON), Synchrony Financial (SYF), Chevron (CVX), Colgate-Palmolive (CL)

At the Close, Friday, January 22, 2021:
Dow: 30,996.98, -179.03 (-0.57%)
NASDAQ: 13,543.06, +12.15 (+0.09%)
S&P 500: 3,841.47, -11.60 (-0.30%)
NYSE: 14,951.84, -67.21 (-0.45%)

For the Week:
Dow: +182.72 (+0.59%)
NASDAQ: +544.56 (+4.19%)
S&P 500: +73.22 (+1.94%)
NYSE: +57.68 (+0.39%)

Radio Silence; Stocks Looking for Lower Open

Appearances can be misleading.

While the military occupation of the District of Columbia (DC) is now winding down, about 7,000 members of the National Guard will remain until the end of January, according to Air Force Maj. Matthew Murphy, a spokesman for the National Guard.

Fences around the Capitol, White House and National Mall are still up, even though the inauguration of Joe Biden is over with, having occurred on Wednesday, without incident.

Biden is busy signing executive orders, though a few constitutional experts express doubt that they will have any binding effect.

In any case, life goes on. Stocks continued to be soft on Thursday and are poised to open sharply to the downside Friday. Dow futures are off more than 200 points with just minutes to go before the opening bell.

Gotta run.

Enjoy the Show.

At the Close, Thursday, January 21, 2021:
Dow: 31,176.01, -12.37 (-0.04%)
NASDAQ: 13,530.92, +73.67 (+0.55%)
S&P 500: 3,853.07, +1.22 (+0.03%)
NYSE: 15,019.05, -78.23 (-0.52%)

Economic Policies to Expect from Joe Biden's Administration and How to Deal with Them

This article is opinion. The views expressed within are not necessarily the views of the author, Money Daily, Downtown Magazine or any of its reporters, editors or publishers or their associates or partners.

It's official, though it is illegitimate. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were sworn in by Chief Justice John Roberts as president and vice president of the United States.

Being that Justice Roberts is a compromised individual incapable of rendering sound judgements and the Biden/Harris ticket won the 2016 presidential election only by using underhanded, illegal, fraudulent means, this presidency is wholly illegitimate. In other words, about half the people who voted in the election - and plenty more who didn't bother to vote - believe it was a fraud, the votes cast for the various candidates were never audited or verified, and the legislatures which sent the electors to the electoral college were blindsided with phony voting records. The US Senate, which is full of scoundrels, thieves, liars, grifters, and common crooks verified the bogus slates of electors not because they believed them to be true but because doing so was expedient towards covering up a boatload of crimes against humanity and the American people who they are sworn to represent, but don't.

All of this has been well established in the alternative media, since the mainstream media issues only propaganda and chooses to cover only stories which are palatable to their chosen narrative. The courts - full of judges who can easily be bought off, threatened, or otherwise compelled to render rulings favorable to a chosen side - failed to do their duty to render justice without prejudice, so they're likewise disqualified on any and all moral arguments in terms of fairness, knowledge of facts, equity, or law.

Now that it's understood that within the federal government exists a dazzling amount of deceit and corruption, making sense of the new administration's policies and how to deal with them in a fashion beneficial not to them, but to individuals, corporations, trusts, and estates which will be affected can be fleshed out in a logical manner.

The overall thrust of the Biden administration's economic policies will be more favorable to the government than to the people. Those policies which are not favorable to individuals may, to a large extent, be favorable to huge, uncontrolled, publicly-held corporations, many of which are listed on the major US stock exchanges.

It should be noted that the term "publicly-held corporation" is somewhat of a misnomer, as shares of these corporations are not widely held by the at-large public, but by financial firms, banks, insurance companies, mutual funds, ETFs, and other investment vehicles which are the playthings of extremely wealthy (billionaires) individuals who are mostly shielded by shell corporations designed to evade or inhibit taxation.

There is overwhelming evidence that legacy legislation - that which has been on the "books" for years, decades, or longer - has been, as suits its needs, altered, molded, revised, and otherwise distorted to benefit mainly the government or its friendly conspirators. This is easily recognizable by the volumes of legislation, laws, rules, regulations, codes, and citations routinely churned out by congress and agencies operating under it or the executive branch.

The US income tax code (Title 26) under which the IRS operates is nearly 17,000 pages long and contains an estimated 5.5 million words. It would take an average reader, reading non-stop, 24 hours a day, more than 16 days to read the entire monstrosity. Understanding it would take orders of magnitude longer, so it would take an individual somewhere around a year to have a comprehensive understanding. Since doing anything 24 hours a day for a year is impossible, even reading the document, taking notes and understanding it all, working on it a mere eight hours a day, would comprise the better part of three years and during that time, congress and various agencies would have added, changed or annotated much of it. The complete US tax code is more than 90,000 pages long. Comprehending all of it would take 20 years or longer.

Basically, it's hopeless, but one still cannot argue ignorance of the law as a defense for not paying your taxes properly.

Biden's team, with plenty of help from congress, is sure to raise taxes on individuals in a manner which the ordinary working man or woman cannot escape. This is well known and yet another rationale that the general public did not vote for them as doing so would constitute illogical acts in opposition to self-interest. The people who will be hurt the most by Biden's tax hikes will be the middle class, those earning between $20,000 and $150,000 a year, with most of the damage occurring at the upper end of that range. Currently, there are seven tax brackets. Biden's people may want to decrease that down to five, because of science or fairness or some other lame excuse. What they're likely to do is jack up the lower end (currently 12% for people earning between roughly $10,000 and $40,000) to 15 or 18% and then combine the next two brackets ($40,000 to $185,000) into one, at 27 to 30 percent, and after that, everybody pays 34 to 40%.

Yes, it's going to be wonderful for the government until they realize the level of straight-up, honest compliance will slip considerably. More people will cheat, hide income, or just refuse. There's likely to be so many people refusing to pay taxes that the IRS won't be able to keep up with the non-filers, late filers or tax protesters.

Never mind that no matter how much revenue the government receives in taxes it will never be enough to satisfy their voracious appetite for other people's money. The Biden administration, along with congress, will likely manage to make the fiscal 2020 budget deficit of $3.1 trillion look like child's play.

The 2021 deficit is already approaching $600 billion in just the first three months of the fiscal year and that figure does not include the $900 billion recently approved by congress in December's COVID relief bill. President Quid Pro Joe has proposed another $1.9 trillion stimulus package, so once congress gets back to work - ostensibly around or after the Super Bowl (Feb. 7) or the State of the Union (SOTU) speech (Feb 2 or 9) - expect the budget deficit to at least double just on one piece of legislation.

Some good news here is that the SOTU speech is expected to be one of the shortest ever, given that aging Joe Biden can't stand upright for more than maybe 30 minutes. There's also a good chance that he might just skip it, being that he's so new to the job.

Small businesses, those that remain following the repeated lockdowns and other enterprise-killing restrictions imposed as remedies to the hated (but still non-lethal) coronavirus, will be taxed and regulated to death. Hardest hit will be LLCs, only because they are the most popular form of business entity, but upcoming tax legislation will also negatively affect sole proprietors, partnerships, and small corporations, whether they be C or S or professional corporations. Non-profits are likely to be hoovered up into the corporate tax nightmare because they traditionally have been afforded many loopholes and the Biden administration purportedly can't have that. You may give $100 to a charity, but at least $20 to $40 of it will go to he government by the time Biden's team is done.

Any other federal tax that can be raised, will be. That means gasoline tax, FCC tax on cell phones and all those other taxes hidden in your utility bills, insurance policies, cable bills, and so forth will all go up anywhere from 10 to 30 percent.

Expect all the various federal, state (let's not forget them), and local taxes to eat up a good 45 to 65% of an individual's income, depending on state and city of residence. After the income taxes, hidden taxes and fees, state sales taxes and property taxes will take another huge chunk.

At the top of the heap are the big corporations, to which Biden has raised a middle finger, promising to raise corporate tax rates to 28%. Naturally, there will be various loopholes and exemptions for favored entities. Any company claiming to be "green" or "LGBTQ" will get breaks. The rest will get bricks.

And let's not forget that it was Joe Biden who originally helped create legislation to tax seniors via Social Security, and then later to increase that tax. Even though he's a senior citizen himself, Joe doesn't actually like old people, other than as tax slaves. Joe's only interest is in fattening his own wallet, and that's best accomplished by taking it from you.

On the bright side, Biden's nominee for Treasury Secretary is former Federal Reserve Chair, Janet Yellen. In addition to loose bowels, Yellen offered loose monetary policy during her stint at the Fed and promises to fulfill her role as chief destroyer of the value of the US dollar with the most dovish fiscal policy in the history of government. She's already advised the president and congress to "go big" on the stimulus package and she recently spooked the markets with talk of 50-year treasury bonds. If Yellen lasts more than a year on the job, she'll be lobbying for UBI (Universal Basic Income) and digital currency (FedCoin) along with negative interest rates.

Janet Yellen will be an absolute disaster for the US in terms of fiscal policy. Nobody will want to buy US bonds. The Fed will own them all, which, actually, could be the plan anyway.

So, overall, the federal government is going to take a wrecking ball to the US economy while at the same time skimming as much as possible from income producers and wage earners.

Advice? Good luck.

Anybody who gets a regular paycheck is completely screwed. The money comes right out of your paycheck before you even see it.

Own a business? Close it. Thinking of starting a business? Either go all cash or get a frontal lobotomy because you're insane. Investors should also be on the lookout for falling stock prices. They're at record levels already and the Biden administration is out to destroy every aspect of financial prosperity in America, though, admittedly, the stock market may offer some vestige of relief because that’s where the oligarchs play.

Anybody with the welfare of themselves and/or their family would do well to move to a "red" state with low taxes, out of cities and away from population centers greater than 50,000. Escaping to another country may be a preferred route should one have the ability.

Times up here. Gotta go.

At the Close, Wednesday, January 20, 2021:
Dow: 31,188.38, +257.86 (+0.83%)
NASDAQ: 13,457.25, +260.07 (+1.97%)
S&P 500: 3,851.85, +52.94 (+1.39%)
NYSE: 15,097.28, +109.94 (+0.73%)

Yellen Confirmation Hearings Portend Further Devaluation of the Dollar

With the inauguration of Joe Biden as president less then a day off, investors appeared confident that the United States would fare well enough with an influence-peddling grifter in the highest US office.

Putting aside all the stolen election rhetoric, the false flag "storming" of the Capitol building on January 6, and the resultant second impeachment of President Trump, investors sent stocks to reasonable gains, holding out hope for more stimulus and easy money policies from Janet Yellen, who sat for confirmation hearings as incoming Treasury Secretary.

Yellen's prepared remarks included a snapshot of her thinking, as she opined, "...with interest rates at historic lows, the smartest thing we can do is act big." In other words, the lower the interest rate, the more the government should borrow, since paying back any debt is less than a primary concern. Yellen, a former Federal Reserve chairperson, is signaling that Biden's idea to spend nearly another $2 trillion on a stimulus plan is rooted in some Keynesian logic that forgives spendthrifts and rewards the few wealthy open mouths at the spigot of the government fiscal firehose.

Transitioning her easy money policies at the Fed over to her new role at Treasury should be child's play for the grandmotherly, ancient economist, who will turn 75 on August 13. Born in 1946, she will celebrate her birthday just two days before the 50th anniversary of President Nixon closing the gold window on August 15, 1971, a fittingly ironic reminder of the profligate ways of the Baby Boomer generation. Yellen might as well be hoisting pom poms as she cheers on the accelerating demise of the world's reserve currency.

With intimate ties to many former colleagues over at the Federal Reserve, her loose fiscal policies should dovetail neatly into the Fed's plans to devalue the dollar completely.

She's the perfect fit.

At the Close, Tuesday, January 19, 2021:
Dow: 30,930.52, +116.26 (+0.38%)
NASDAQ: 13,197.18, +198.68 (+1.53%)
S&P 500: 3,798.91, +30.66 (+0.81%)
NYSE: 14,987.34, +93.17 (+0.63%)

WEEKEND WRAP: DC Armed Up; Bank Stocks, Gold, Silver Pounded; Chaos Before The Storm

Let's get right into it.

Washington, DC has been turned into a military outpost under the command of the Commander-in-Chief, President Donald J. Trump.

In addition to the supposed 25,000 National Guardsmen securing the grounds of the White House, Capitol, Supreme Court and other government buildings, members from other services - Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Special Ops, etc. - are on the ground, in the air, on the water around the capitol of the United States of America.

There is no doubt that President Trump is in charge though his whereabouts may change by the hour as his security and well-being are of paramount importance. He may be anywhere - Mar a Lago, Camp David, Philadelphia, elsewhere - but more than likely he'll be aboard Air Force One at many junctures over the coming days.

Now, the scene in Washington, DC may appear to many to be a military coup, a junta, but it is not. Troops are on the ground as a security measure as the President and the armed forces under his command take back the country from the forces which have occupied it for a very long time.

The fences erected around the Capitol, White House, and the National Mall serve a dual function. One is to keep criminals in, the other is to keep imposters out, the main culprit being Joe Biden, the presumed incoming president. Joe Biden will not be inaugurated on January 20, 2021, or at any time after that. The election of November 3, 2020, was won, overwhelmngly, by President Donald J. Trump and there is ample proof of that victory.

Democrats and some Republicans in congress conspired to steal the election, to impeach the rightfully-elected President of the United States, and plan on appointing Joe Biden as president. It's not going to happen. More than likely, many of these politicians and criminals will be arrested and tried for various crimes and likely convicted.

Major changes are coming to the United States and to the world, so it is best for everybody to stay informed (mainstream media is full of lies and propaganda; it's best to seek out the truth from alternative sources if available) and safe as this process proceeds. With that in mind, markets around the world are certain to be impacted in ways that nobody can accurately predict.

Here's what we know:

Stocks spent the past week foundering until Friday, when all of the indices took one for the team. Leading the charge downhill were banking stocks, which is surprising, because Citi, Wells Fargo, and JP Morgan Chase all reported fourth quarter and full year results Friday before the opening bell. Something big in terms of money and currency is about to come down. Price action in the banking sector is telling.

BAC Bank of America Corporation: 33.01, -0.98 (-2.88%)
C Citigroup, Inc.: 64.23, -4.78 (-6.93%)
JPM JP Morgan Chase & Co.: 138.64, -2.53 (-1.79%)
WFC Wells Fargo & Company: 32.04, -2.71 (-7.80%)
GS Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.: 301.01, -6.86 (-2.23%)

Tech stocks took a small hit, led by Apple, (AAPL) (127.14, -1.77 (-1.37%)). Facebook (FB) (251.36, +5.72 (+2.33%)) was up sharply on Friday. Twitter is down about six points, or a little more than 10% since banning President Trump's account and laying waste to over 75,000 accounts. Censorship and declining user base pays, maybe, one assumes. Go figure.

Treasury yields were tame. Outflows were modest. Yield on the 10-year note and 30-year bond were each down two basis points over the week, from 1.13% to 1.11% and 1.87% to 1.85%, respectively. Nothing to see there or on the short end, maintaining at the zero-bound.

Oil prices are encountering little resistance at $53.83 a barrel for WTI crude. Further price gains are expected for the time being, though geo-political events could swing prices wildly in either direction. Everybody is paying more for fuel at the gas pumps.

Bitcoin and Etherium, the two main cryptocurrencies are bouncing around. There's too much uncertainty in global politics and markets currently for institutions and individuals to make meaningful investment commitments. Bitcoin ranged, over the week, between $30,000 and $40,000, currently holding the middle ground around $35-37,000.

Etherium (ETH) fared better, dipping down near $900 after ripping as high at $1300. On Sunday morning it is found closer to the highs than the lows, around $1200.

Precious metal continue to underperform thanks in no small part to the futures market controllers. Gold, which was as high as $1949.48 (January 5), slumped to $1828.45. It used to be that moeny flowed to gold in times of crisis, though that seems not to be the case, at least in the manipulated, paper markets. Instead, it is being shunned, though dealers will speak otherwise, citing high demand for physical with appropriate premiums attached.

Silver was also beaten down. On January 10, it topped out at $27.55 per ounce. It closed Friday at $24.78.

Presented below are the most recent prices for commonly-purchased items on eBay (numismatics excluded, shipping - often free - included:

Item: Low / High / Average / Median
1 oz silver coin: 33.75 / 44.95 / 38.42 / 37.80
1 oz silver bar: 30.50 / 41.00 / 36.68 / 37.45
1 oz gold coin: 1,925.00 / 2,051.31 / 1,970.14 / 1,963.36
1 oz gold bar: 1,850.00 / 2,295.00 / 1,974.85 / 1,947.09

Finally, there's no shortage of opinion on what's next for America and the world. While the mainstream media (MSM) continues to spew the false prophecies of a Joe Biden presidency, millions of Americans are watching in eager anticipation the days leading up to the scheduled inauguration on January 20. With troops spread out across the District of Columbia, fencing with barbed wire enclosing many locations, there's ample indications that something out of the ordinary is imminent.

The second impeachment of President Donald J. Trump is a complete hoax, a sham, nonsense. By the time a trial is commenced in the Senate, the president would be out of office in that case, the conviction or acquittal not binding by any law.

The most optimistic outcome, and increasingly likely, is that the troops on the ground will defend the actual, real constitution. They have taken an oath, as has the president. President Trump will restore the Republic, stolen after the Civil War, at various stages between 1870 and 1878.

It's best for people to make up their own minds about the direction they wish the country to take and think freely. The mainstream media is not to be trusted. There is an abundance of mis- and disinformation disseminated by the TV networks, the New York Times and Washington Post. Notice how Democrats in congress continually use the word "democracy" as opposed to republic, as in "saving our..." Democrats want to save a democracy, whereas the roots of the American experience and governance are as a constitutional representative republic.

Social media has crossed the line on censorship and bearing false witness to millions of users. Their executives should be behind bars rather than lounging in the luxury of their billions.

Seek information and do research. Do not accept anything on the airwaves, in newspapers, or on the internet at face value. Verify sources. Think. Keep a close eye on President Trump and his remaining cabinet. Investors and economists might do themselves a favor by watching and listening to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who remains loyal to the president. Ditto for Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Until we meet again...

At the Close, Friday, January 15, 2021:
Dow: 30,814.26, -177.26 (-0.57%)
NASDAQ: 12,998.50, -114.14 (-0.87%)
S&P 500: 3,768.25, -27.29 (-0.72%)
NYSE: 14,894.17, -150.21 (-1.00%)

For the Week:
Dow: -283.71 (=0.91%)
NASDAQ: -203.47 (-1.54%)
S&P 500: -56.43 (-1.48%)
NYSE: -72.66 (-0.49%)