Tag Archives: trade deficit

Trump’s Dilemma And Refuting The Gold/Yuan Peg Theory

Financial Markets, Gold, Market Manipulation, Precious Metals, U.S. Economy, ,

The following is an excerpt from my December 6th issue of the Mining Stock Journal:

Trumps Dilemma – The dollar index has been rising since Trump began his war on trade. But right now it’s at the same 97 index level as when Trump was elected. Recall that Trump’s administration pushed down starting in 2017 to stimulate exports and attempt to cut the trade deficit.  The dollar  fell from 97 to 88.  Gold ran from  $1125 to as high as $1360 – a key technical breakout level – by late April 2018.  Something had to be done to keep gold from moving higher…Trump started his Trade War in March, which  pushed the dollar higher.  Gold began tank.   Ironically, the trade deficit one again began to balloon.

If Trump wants to “win” the trade war, he needs to push the dollar a lot lower. This in turn will send the price of gold soaring. This means that the western Central Banks/BIS will have to live with a rising price gold, something I’m not sure they’re prepared to do. This could set up an interesting behind-the-scenes clash between Trump and the western banking elitists.

I’ve labeled this, “Trump’s Dilemma.” As anyone who has ever taken a basic college level economics course knows, the Law of Economics imposes trade-offs on the decision-making process (remember the “guns and butter” example?). The dilemma here is either a rising trade deficit for the foreseeable future or a much higher price of gold.

The other problem with pushing the dollar lower to stimulate exports – or at least attempt to stimulate exports – is the funding of Treasury debt. If foreign investors, who fund a large percentage of Treasury issuance, expect the dollar to decline it will significantly reduce the foreign funds that finance Trump’s spending deficit. That deficit – on-budget + off-budget – will likely end up somewhere between $1.5 – $2 trillion this year…

Refuting the yuan/gold peg theory – When the theory about the Chinese pegging gold to the yuan based on the chart correlation was floated, how come nobody bothered to check the other major currencies vs. the dollar and vs. gold? The dollar has traded higher as if on steroids since late-April. Gold was trading at $1360 in late April. Between now and then it has traded as low as $1170. The yuan began falling vs. dollar in late April. But so did the Swiss franc and yen. The euro began falling vs. the dollar in February.

The charts of the Swissy, euro and yen vs the yuan over the last 12 months are all largely flat over that time period. More to the point, the chart of gold vs all four of those currencies (yuan, Swissy, euro and yen) over the last 12 months looks very similar:

As the chart above shows, the price of gold in all four currencies – yen, yuan, euro, Swissy – has been correlated. The argument could be made that gold is “pegged” to any four of those currencies. The yen, euro, Swissy make up a large portion of the dollar index. Gold is thus not pegged to the yuan so much as it is trading inversely to the dollar,  which is expected.

WTF Just Happened: President Trump, BLS & MSM Still Lying About The US Economy

Financial Markets, Gold, Market Manipulation, Precious Metals, U.S. Economy, , , , ,

The BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics) released its “hey man, lots of jobs open” report last week.  The problem is that the credibility of the report is only as good as the credibility of the organization that prepares the report.  In this case, the BLS and Census Bureau, both of which are notorious for highly suspect data collection and data “adjustment” techniques (true story:  sometimes Census Bureau agents just make it up if they don’t have time to keep canvassing after lunch).  Our take is that most of the job listings spit out by the BLS sausage grinder are fictitious.

In addition to this, and interpreted by the media spin-meisters and Government propagandists as evidence that “Trump’s trade war is working” and “the economy is running full bore,” the trade deficit report for April showed a large percentage drop in the trade deficit.   Indeed, the trade deficit fell month to month the most since 2008. If you buy into the narrative that the economy is strong, you don’t want the trade deficit to decline in correlation with a similar decline in 2008. In truth, the trade deficit declined because imports fell more than exports rose. Imports are falling because personal consumption spending is now contracting per the latest GDP revision. It used to be, a long time ago, that the trade report was called the “U.S. International Trade in Goods and Services” report. Now it’s simply referenced as “the trade deficit report.”

Final, we believe that the best time to accumulate a winning investment is when no one else wants to hear about it. The U.S. investor sentiment toward the precious metals and mining stock sector is almost as bad as it was in late November 2015, which is when the 5-year bear cycle – which followed an 11-year bull cycle – came to an end. We explain why the next leg in the secular precious metals bull market is about to take off this week episode of, “WTF Just Happened?“:

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Visit these links to learn more about the Investment Research Dynamic’s Mining Stock Journal and Short Seller’s Journal.  The mining stocks are historically cheap and percolating for a big move higher.  I recommended shorting Hovnanian at $2.88 in January  – it closed at $1.95 on Friday and has been as low as $1.70.