Gold Standard News Daily

4.25.24 - Chinese Have "Grabbed Gold By The Throat"

Gold last traded at $2,332 an ounce. Silver at $27.40 an ounce.

EDITOR'S NOTE: When financially concerned over market volatility, currency vulnerabilities or geopolitical turmoil, historically the sound strategy has been to move assets into gold. This is exactly what is taking place in China today. Why does this matter to Americans? The type of problems they're heading straight toward sound eerily identical to what we're facing here in the US.

Chinese Have "Grabbed Gold By The Throat" As Capital Flight Accelerates -ZeroHedge

“Chinese speculators have really grabbed gold by the throat...”

That is how John Reade, chief market strategist at the World Gold Council, describes the scramble in the communist nation among investors looking to move money anywhere but in the yuan or Chinese assets.

As evidenced by soaring Chinese FX outflows, the recent surges in 'alternate currencies' such as bitcoin and gold strongly suggest where the Chinese are seeking safety.

Of course, worsening geopolitical tensions, unprecedented fiscal profligacy by the Biden administration that shows no signs of slowing, and a Fed that seemed willing to support that spending with rate-cuts that were wholly un-necessary based on the 'data' they are so 'dependent' on (prompting fears of a policy error) are all factors driving precious metals higher, but, as Bloomberg reports, juicing the rally is unrelenting Chinese demand, as retail shoppers, fund investors, futures traders and even the central bank look to bullion as a store of value in uncertain times.

China and India have typically vied over the title of world’s biggest buyer. But that shifted last year as Chinese consumption of jewelry, bars and coins swelled to record levels. China’s gold jewelry demand rose 10% while India’s fell 6%. Chinese bar and coin investments, meanwhile, surged 28%.

And there’s still room for demand to grow, said Philip Klapwijk, managing director of Hong Kong-based consultant Precious Metals Insights Ltd. Amid limited investment options in China, the protracted crisis in its property sector, volatile stock markets and a weakening yuan are all driving money to assets that are perceived to be safer. READ MORE

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4.24.24 - Wave Goodbye To Another Set Of Freedoms

Gold last traded at $2,319 an ounce. Silver at $27.23 an ounce.

What The Rising Gold Price Signals (Spoiler Alert: Nothing Good) -Zero Hedge

As I'm sure you realize by now, we believe the gold market is primed for what could potentially be explosive future gains, and that's after the increases we have already seen. What's of no less significance as the gains is the 'why' behind them ... it's not because of how great things look in the economy.

Authored by Antonius Aquinas

The recent run-up in the gold price has not garnered the attention among the mainstream financial media outlets as it should.

Gold has, in part, been overshadowed by the rise in the price of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

Naturally, the financial press, which is really an arm of the government and its central bank, wants to ignore, as much as possible, references to gold as protection against the continuing increase in the price level which itself has been deliberately understated by monetary officials. The media and government understand that precious metals are the ultimate security against runaway inflation and economic collapse.

While the increase in the gold price has reached nominal highs, it and the price of silver have not passed their all-time 1980 highs in real terms.

Adjusted for inflation, gold would have to rise to about $3590 an ounce while silver would have to surpass $50 an ounce.

Both are poised to exceed these watermarks in the not-too-distant future. READ MORE

Wave Goodbye To Another Set Of Freedoms With The New Digital ID -Zero Hedge

There's little to no question that technology has created a lot of conveniences for us all, but at what cost? When these digital conveniences are coming from the government, there may be more to the story than what we're being told.

Authored by Graham Young via The Epoch Times

“Papers please” used to be the ostinato of totalitarian systems, at least in the movies.

With the passing of the government’s Digital ID bills, Australians will have to become used to the digital equivalent - so what does that say about present-day Australia?

A few things have surprised me over the last few years, not the least the way the famous Aussie spirit of insubordination has been subsumed into a goody-two-shoes compliance with whatever capricious orders the authorities made.

I can’t imagine our forebears accepting lockdowns and forced vaccinations, and I certainly couldn’t see them accepting an identity card linking not just government accounts but private sector ones as well.

While the first proposition is an assertion based on a gut feeling, the second is very much based on fact. READ MORE

This “Emperor” Has No Clothes -Daily Reckoning

This childhood story is one I remember reading countless times. Who would've known there would be more current day applications to the nude emperor. Probably not good when describing the actions and abilities of the Fed.

by James Rickards

Does the Fed even matter that much to the real economy and investor portfolios?

That’s an important question that doesn’t get nearly enough scrutiny. It’s possible that neither the Fed nor the reporters who cover the Fed want to ask hard questions about what the Fed really does.

Could it be the case that the emperor has no clothes?

Financial journalists often refer to a Goldilocks economy (“not too hot, not too cold, just right!”) as a tribute to the Fed’s finesse in handling rates. It’s also called the “soft landing” scenario because the Fed supposedly tamed inflation without causing a recession.

These narratives have no factual foundations; they’re just stories designed to get you to buy stocks and pump up stock prices.

The truth is the Fed is always behind the curve and doesn’t finesse the economy. And there’s no such thing as a soft landing; the economy does not gradually shift gears. It’s either growing fast or going into recession.

So where does the Fed stand today? Will it start cutting rates as Wall Street keeps (wrongly) predicting? READ MORE

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4.23.24 - Ray Dalio: Gold a "good diversifier"

Gold last traded at $2,322 an ounce. Silver at $27.28 an ounce.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Swiss America has always advised our clients to diversify a portion of their portfolio into precious metals to hedge against geopolitical and economic turmoil. Many billionaires follow this same advice but they never talk about it until we are in these types of market conditions. Yes, today is a great time to enter the market if you have yet to follow this advice but it's advice that stands the test of time in all market conditions.

Billionaire investor Ray Dalio says he's owning gold to hedge the risk of debt and inflation crises -Business Insider

by Jennifer Sor

Ray Dalio is holding onto gold as a buffer against risks stemming from higher inflation and a potential debt crisis hitting the economy.

The billionaire investor and former Bridgewater Associates CEO has pointed to mounting debt balances around the world, with the US debt notching $34 trillion for the first time ever this year. Debt problems have also plagued China, Japan, and European nations — which poses a big risk for the currencies in those nations, he wrote in a post on LinkedIn this week.

"History and logic show that when there are big risks that the debts will either 1) not be paid back or 2) be paid back with money of depreciated value, the debt and the money become unattractive," Dalio wrote on Thursday.

When nations are deeply indebted, central banks are likely to print out more cash to pay off the debt, he noted, which is itself a problem.

"This prevents a big debt squeeze from happening by devaluing the money (i.e., inflation)," Dalio warned. "Gold, on the other hand, is a non-debt-backed form of money. It's like cash, except unlike cash and bonds, which are devalued by risks of default or inflation, gold is supported by risks of debt defaults and inflation."

That's the main reason Dalio says he has gold in his own investment portfolio, he added, calling it a "good diversifier" against the backdrop of high debt levels.

Gold has been on a record-setting run in recent weeks. Investors have been keen to buy the precious metal amid the looming risk of recession and inflation remaining stuck at elevated levels, as well as fears of wider geopolitical turmoil out of the Middle East. READ MORE

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4.22.24 - Fed: 1,804 banks tapped emergency lending facility

Gold last traded at $2,390 an ounce. Silver at $28.67 an ounce.

EDITOR'S NOTE: If you were wondering how the banks have fared after the wave of failures we faced last year, wonder no more. Many of them continue to struggle. What will happen now that their safety net is no longer in place?

Fed says 1,804 banks and other institutions tapped emergency lending facility -Yahoo! Finance

(Reuters) - Some 1,804 depository institutions tapped the emergency lending facility set up last March in the wake of Silicon Valley Bank's collapse, amounting to about 20% of all eligible firms, the Federal Reserve said on Friday.

About 95% of the borrowers, which included banks, credit unions, savings associations, and branches and agencies of foreign banks, had less than $10 billion in assets, the U.S. central bank said in its semi-annual Financial Stability Report.

The Bank Term Funding Program, as it was called, was aimed at addressing a liquidity crunch after a run on deposits led to the failures of SVB and Signature Bank and forced financial authorities to stage a rescue of the sector.

The facility lent on collateral without applying the usual haircuts and the loans were made on cheap terms.

The program stopped making new loans on March 11, a year after its creation. At its peak it extended a total of $165 billion in loans, with terms of up to a year. It is expected to close down completely by next March. READ MORE

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4.19.24 - Is America's Economic Standing at Risk?

Gold last traded at $2,390 an ounce. Silver at $28.67 an ounce.

EDITOR'S NOTE: The IMF is sounding the alarm that America's profligate spending and ever-growing debt is highly problematic. The financial institutions expects we will reach a new record deficit in 2025 that will be "more than triple the level in other advanced economies." That's a frightening prediction. What can you do to protect yourself? Diversify into inflation-proof assets now.

IMF sounds alarm on ballooning US national debt: 'Something will have to give' -Fox Business

by Megan Henney

The astronomical rise in the U.S. national debt poses "significant risks" to the global economy and threatens to continue fueling high inflation, according to a new warning from the International Monetary Fund.

In its latest Fiscal Monitor, the Washington-based institution said that it expects the U.S. to record a fiscal deficit of 7.1% in 2025 – more than triple the level in other advanced economies.

"Loose fiscal policy in the United States exerts upward pressure on global interest rates and the dollar," Vitor Gaspar, director of the IMF’s fiscal affairs department, told reporters. "It pushes up funding costs in the rest of the world, thereby exacerbating existing fragilities and risks."

Under current policies, public debt in the U.S. is projected to nearly double by 2053. The IMF identified "large fiscal slippages" in the U.S. in 2023, with government spending surpassing revenue by 8.8% of GDP – a 4.1% increase from the previous year, despite strong economic growth.

If this trend continues, the Congressional Budget Office anticipates the national debt will grow to an astonishing $54 trillion in the next decade. Higher interest rates are also compounding the pain of higher debt.

Should that debt materialize, it could risk America's economic standing in the world. READ MORE

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4.18.24 - Is the stock market headed for hard 'reset'?

Gold last traded at $2,380 an ounce. Silver at $28.23 an ounce.

EDITOR'S NOTE: The bulls of the stock market have been running for quite some time now, full steam ahead. Lately though, bearish signals have started to sound. Are investors listening to those signals after more than a decade of no-end-in-sight returns? Complacency may mean some hard times ahead for those not heeding the warnings.

The stock market is headed for a hard 'reset' that could take years to recover from, CIO says -Business Insider

by Jennifer Sor

Stocks have been in the midst of a long bull market, but there are signs that it's finally going to run out of steam and will inevitably be followed by a bear market and a difficult "reset," according to Chris Vermeulen,CIO of Technical Traders.

In an interview with Bloomberg, the investment chief pointed to the recent run-up in defensive assets, like precious metals, energy stocks, and industrial stocks. Those areas all typically do well in the late stage of a bull market, which is inevitably followed by a bear market or a "financial reset," Vermeulen said.

Investors are likely heading into another bear market, similar to the ones that followed the dot-com bubble and the 2008 financial crisis, he predicted. That could end up sparking painful stock losses for investors, with people seeing their wealth decline as much as 30%-50% over the next year, he warned.

"I think we're coming into a major market top, more or less a financial reset," Vermeulen said Tuesday. "It's short-term, temporarily painful. But we need markets to reset. We need regular pullbacks and corrections in order for the market to keep going up."

That reset could also come with a recession, Vermeulen said, with industrial stocks in particular signaling a slowdown for the economy. While the sector has done well in recent months, buyers of industrial goods typically upgrade their equipment at the end of an economic growth cycle, due to "huge delays" between slowing business and orders for new machinery.

"They don't realize we're coming to the end of a growth cycle, and the music is about to stop," Vermeulen said of US firms. "Industrial stocks have just continued to muscle their way higher. They're hitting all-time highs, and that is a sign that we're going to see these companies eventually start to slow down." READ MORE

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4.17.24 - Goldman Sachs Makes Gold Price Prediction

Gold last traded at $2,372 an ounce. Silver at $28.28 an ounce.

Brace for the S&P 500 to crash 30% before an even bigger collapse after the election, markets guru David Brady warns - Business Insider

For months now, domestic markets have been awash in volatility. Many of the great financial minds have been warning of an impending crash. CEOs are cashing out their positions of their own stocks en masse. Is this all just coincidence or do they see the writing on the wall?

by Theron Mohamed

Prepare for stocks to plunge 30%, rebound before the presidential election, then crash to their lowest level in 14 years, a markets analyst warned.

The S&P 500 is poised to plummet from over 5,000 points to an 18-month low of 3,500 points, David Brady said on the latest "Thoughtful Money" podcast episode .

Brady is a money manager, former foreign exchange trader, and the author of "The FIPEST Report" which analyzes metals and miners. He argued that stocks are massively overvalued , investors face much greater downside risk than potential upside, and a sell-off looks assured.

However, he predicted the Federal Reserve would step in to reverse the coming decline by cutting interest rates and growing its balance sheet — especially as the Biden administration will want a strong stock market and economy going into the November election.

However, he cautioned the rebound wouldn't last given mounting domestic and international pressure on the economy.

"My two cents is short term, 20-30% drop, but then the Fed responds as it always does and the market goes up," Brady said. "After the election, stocks are going to get hammered."

"I expect the stock market to drop because of what's going on in the economy and elsewhere in the world," he said about his anticipated post-election decline. READ MORE

BRICS: Goldman Sachs Makes Major Gold Price Prediction -Watcher.Guru

The price of gold has a lot going for it these days. With geopolitical tensions rising, the BRICS nations acquiring their own reserves and US economic policy continuing to degrade the dollar; all signs point to a banner year for the yellow metal. Goldman Sachs has joined the growing chorus of financial powerhouses calling for a major uptick this year.

by Joshua Ramos

Amid the ongoing BRICS acquisition strategy that has driven global interest, Goldman Sachs has made a major gold price prediction. Indeed, the investment bank forecasted the metal to reach a price of $2,700 in 2024 after its tremendous value increase throughout the year thus far.

The financial institution released an investment note that reevaluated Gold’s position amid its strong performance. The metal had been thriving, recently hitting another all-time high this year, surpassing $2,400 this weekend. One of the most important catalysts for the increased value of the metal has been the BRICS alliance. Indeed, the collective has influenced diversification strategies for Central Banks throughout the world.

Throughout the year, the price of gold has seen its value steadily increase. However, this extends to December of 2023, when the asset surpassed the $2,135 mark for the first time. That would set a trend for the metal, which has continued to set all-time marks throughout the year.

Now, that development has caught the attention of one of the world’s most prominent financial institutions. Specifically, amid BRICS and global interest, Goldman Sachs has made major gold price predictions. Indeed, the bank has forecasted the metal to reach a price of $2,700 by the end of the year.

In the investor note, the bank said that “none of those traditional factors adequately explain the velocity and scale of the gold price move so far this year.” Subseuqnlety, one of the biggest reasons for its increase is tied to macroeconomic concerns and the metal’s status as a haven asset. READ MORE

Silver’s Record Industrial Demand and Deficit to Underpin Prices -Yahoo! Finance

While gold has received most of the attention lately, silver is still shining brightly as a safe haven metal amid a world in turmoil. With demand up and supplies running low, silver is poised to break records of its own this year.

by Yvonne Yue Li

(Bloomberg) -- After a strong start to the year, silver should remain supported by record industrial usage and a supply deficit, according to the Silver Institute.

Industrial consumption hit an all-time high in 2023 and is expected to expand another 9% this year, driven by green-related applications such as solar panels, the institute said in its World Silver Survey report on Wednesday. That will help the metal record a fourth straight annual supply shortage.

Silver, known as the devil’s metal because of its often wild swings, is trading near a three-year high as it tracks a rally in gold that has partly been fueled by demand for a haven amid geopolitical tensions. Silver prices will be underpinned by the persistent deficit, said Philip Newman, managing director at consultancy Metals Focus, which was commissioned to produce the report.

Silver has rallied 20% already this year to trade at about $28.55 an ounce in London. Prices could hit $30 in the near term, Newman said in an interview. READ MORE

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