Gold, silver see price pressure amid little risk aversion Kitco NEWS
Month: July 2021
Silver Price Daily Forecast – Silver Retreats As Dollar Moves Higher FX Empire
Bloomberg/John Authers/7-13-2021
“Inflation in the U.S. is now an undeniable reality. June’s ‘headline’ consumer price index, including everything the government puts in its representative basket of products and services we buy, stands at 5.4%, the highest in 30 years barring one month in the summer of 2008 when oil reached nearly $150 per barrel.”
USAGOLD note: After running through a dashboard of indicators – eight sets of them – Authers makes an interesting assertion: “Whatever markets say, the experts are still more worried about deflation.” One wonders if Fed economists might be included in that group of “experts” and deflation concerns the reason for Powell sticking to his guns in Congressional testimony this week. In addition, and we have expressed this view all along, the Fed and the Treasury Department alike have funding the huge fiscal deficits as a primary incentive for keeping current policies in place.
The post Today’s top gold news & opinion first appeared on Today’s top gold news and opinion.
Categories
Do not dismiss the matter of inflation
Forbes/Milton Ezrati/7-15-2021
Sources: St. Louis Federal Reserve [FRED], Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
“So far, the authorities in Washington insist that there is no reason for concern, claiming that the phenomenon is “transitory.” They may be right, but coming on the heels of an endless flood of Federal Reserve (Fed)-provided liquidity and rapidly rising money supply measures, as well as clear evidence that the inflationary acceleration has surprised Washington’s experts, many quite reasonably are unwilling to ignore the figures. Should inflation take hold, it could destroy financial values and the wealth of literally millions of Americans.”
USAGOLD note: A very good article on why inflation matters…fundamentally – from a Wall Street consultant with many years experience in financial markets. One of his insights, in particular, caught our attention: “[A] surge in money growth has accompanied the surge in prices, neither of which were present when earlier concerns were voiced.” That surge in money growth is nearly off the charts, and after a recent pause, looks to be accelerating again, as shown in our lead-in chart.
The post Today’s top gold news & opinion first appeared on Today’s top gold news and opinion.
Brazil prosecutors seek ban on all gold mining in hard-hit Amazonian region Mongabay.com
State grants 12 water rights permits for proposed Donlin gold mine KTOO
A lot of buzz has generated around a potential worldwide silver shortage, as the U.S. Mint indicated in a recent statement. However, early this month, a new statement was issued clarifying that the only real shortage was of “blanks” required for the Mint to manufacture the silver eagles in sufficient quantity.
Nonetheless, the misunderstanding has resurfaced concerns around a depleting silver supply, but the truth lies in the fact that the silver market is not in a shortage yet, but is much tighter than the current price indicates.
Moreover, as the crypto market cooled off recently, we have witnessed a move by some back into the precious metals. It’s interesting to emphasize again here, that most of the market for crypto lies in investors seeking alternative currencies that can help them hedge against inflation, provide them with stability, and enable them to preserve their wealth.
In essence, the same market dynamics as that of precious metals. The difference is that while cryptocurrencies are unpredictably volatile, precious metals like gold and silver have proved their safe-haven status for millenia, and more people are purchasing precious metals, cryptos, or both. .
We go into these topics and more in our monthly e-newsletter. If you’d like to access these insights, subscribe to the newsletter here. Now, let’s dive deep into some data that has been recently published about the state of the silver market.
The 2021 World Silver Survey Speaks for Itself
The Silver Institute has published the World Silver Survey every year for the past three decades, covering supply and demand statistics for various sectors of the silver market and price and trade data. This year’s survey reveals a comprehensive view of the global silver market.
Global supply in the past ten years — from 2011 until current day — has seen a relatively flat trajectory. There are many reasons for that; however, it’s important to state that I do not believe we are at peak silver, but we could be very close.
According to the United States Geological Survey, silver will be the first element to go off the periodic table, an allusion to the threat of silver supply depletion, but there are a lot of variables around that.
For instance, at $28/ounce silver, supply depletion may be possible, but at $158/ounce silver, mining opportunities that seemed economically impossible will be perceived as viable. Today, we are mining silver at a lower grade historically than we did 50 years ago.
Moreover, the World Silver Survey’s data on longer-term industrial demand indicators covers the demand in photovoltaic applications from 2019 to its projected state in the future in 2025, whereby it is expected to flatten out.
However, the amount of solar energy that is being used throughout the world continues to increase, and it’s important to consider this because the efficiency in solar panels has increased. We are now getting nearly as much electricity conversion per panel for about one quarter of the amount of silver that was in the original panels.
In the longer-term industrial demand indicators, it is also demonstrated that light duty vehicle production also moves up in the next 5 years. There’s a lot to unpack here, but I will leave it for my upcoming guest on my Mastermind Series — the author of this study — to dive deep into silver’s industrial usage over the next decade, as he projects that 80% of the silver market in ten years will be used for industrial purposes.
On the effects of the global COVID-19 pandemic for silver demand, the survey reveals that there has been a greater move into the investment side of silver, with the largest increase ever into exchange traded products (ETPs), about 350 million ounces by exchange traded funds. On top of that, an extremely robust retail market of about 200 million ounces.
We’re looking at approximately 550 million ounces in 2020 that went into silver as an investment vehicle; a greater value than the amount used in industrial applications. A huge spike, and one that I believe will continue based on what the data continues to show.
People are waking up — institutions are waking up, and while pension funds haven’t kept up pace, there is a lot of money sitting on the sidelines in the stock and bond markets that could potentially come into the silver market. And, what that would do to the mining shares is almost beyond description.
These are just some of the findings of the 2021 World Silver Survey that I discussed in my recent presentation for the virtual Silver Investor Forum. If you missed the live event, you can watch the recording here.
Categories
Fed Floats More “Digital Dollar” Plans
Welcome to this week’s Market Wrap Podcast, I’m Mike Gleason.
This week, the Federal Reserve launched another barb in the brewing currency war. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said a central bank digital currency could render cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin useless.
Those comments came on the heels of an announcement last month by the U.S. Treasury that it could soon force businesses receiving more than $10,000 in crypto payments from a customer to file an IRS report on the transaction.
Meanwhile, as crypto markets continue to trade down from their highs of this spring, investors may increasingly look to tangible, non-digitized means of holding wealth. Hard money is the ultimate alternative to both paper and digital currencies. And concerns over inflation and political risk could eventually bode well for precious metals markets.
Gold and silver prices edged modestly higher through Thursday’s close. As of this Friday recording, the gold market is giving back a good portion of this week’s gains here today and is now up just a slight 0.2% to trade at $1,818.
Gold has quietly rallied over the past four weeks. But overhead resistance levels loom, and bulls likely won’t start getting excited again until they see prices break above the $1,900 level.
Turning to silver, the white metal currently comes in at $25.80 per ounce, down 1.5% since last Friday’s close thanks to a selloff here today. Platinum is outperforming, higher by 0.4% this week to trade at $1,125. And finally, palladium shows a weekly loss of $165 or 5.8% to come in at $2,678 per ounce.
Precious metals prices may have a lot of catching up to do given the recent inflation data. The government’s own Consumer Price Index is rising at a 7.3% annual rate. And producer prices are surging at a 10% clip so far this year.
Fed chairman Jerome Powell addressed inflation concerns during testimony before the United States Senate on Thursday. He admitted that inflation has been running “well above target” but insisted no immediate action is necessary to tame it. Powell offered only his personal opinion that high inflation is transitory along with a vague timeline for eventual tapering of asset purchases.
He also told lawmakers that he wants their input on potentially developing a central bank digital currency. Such an instrument would enable officials to control cashflows and track individual economic transactions like never before. If “FedCoin” became mandatory for things like paying taxes, then using it would be inescapable.
Powell also thinks a digital dollar would completely supplant free-market stablecoins and cryptocurrencies. That’s something many politicians are eager to see happen.
The run-up in crypto markets earlier this year sent off alarms within legislatures and central banks around the world. It gave central planners a convenient pretext for accelerating their move toward a Great Reset of the monetary system.
But the Fed remains cagey about the specifics of a digital dollar and how far along into the research and development process it has gotten so far.
The notoriously secretive body resists public accountability in the name of “independence.” The Fed even has its own team of lobbyists to thwart attempts by Congress to mandate an audit of its books.
Constitutional attorney Robert Barnes is suing to obtain records Fed officials are hiding from the public, including documentation of its plans for a digital dollar. Barnes recently spoke with the WallStreetSilver community and outlined some of the disturbing implications of the Fed’s agenda.
Robert Barnes: Well, what’s our ultimate objective? In the court of public opinion, it’s to awaken a lot more people that we have this secretive organization of a private clique of bankers, that are determining and dictating and running economic policy for everybody in the world. And that their agenda and their objectives get a lot worse and a lot darker than even where they’ve been.
I think there’s internal documentation about their intention to do not only a digital currency, but for it to be a chip. And what else will be on that chip is medical records information, vaccine delivery information, the ability to remotely access it. They’ve been designing chips that have that capacity.
It sounds like something out of a dystopian science fiction novel. Just a couple years ago, it may have been easy to dismiss warnings of central bank microchips that store financial and medical data on everybody as baseless fear mongering by conspiracy theorists.
But since the COVID outbreak, authorities have become emboldened to pursue measures that track and control public behavior like never before. As a result, personal freedoms are under threat like never before.
Unfortunately, there is no silver bullet for defeating tyranny. But silver and gold bullion do provide some measure of financial freedom. Physical metal exists completely outside the controlled banking system. Hard money offers true independence from the U.S. dollar and other fiat currency regimes.
Even amid a Brave New World of central bank digital currency, tangible wealth cannot be extinguished by decree. Precious metals will continue to be sought after as they provide protection from inflation and digital privacy incursions.
A bullion coin can always be held outside of the banking system, off the blockchain, and beyond the reach of electronic tracking systems.
Even if you value the convenience of e-commerce and electronic transactions, setting aside a portion of your wealth to be physically impervious to digital threats provides peace of mind. And that, at the end of the day, is priceless.
Well, that will do it for this week. Be sure to check back next Friday for our next Weekly Market Wrap Podcast. Until then this has been Mike Gleason with Money Metals Exchange, thanks for listening and have a weekend everybody.
Categories
Comex Delivery Countdown: Mid July Update
This analysis focuses on gold and silver data provided by the Comex/CME Group. See the article What is the Comex for more detail. Silver: Recent Delivery Month First Position Day is when contracts must post 100% margin to stand for delivery. Once delivery begins, contracts can settle in cash or more contracts can be opened […]
The post Blog first appeared on SchiffGold.
Falling lake levels due to drought in California have revealed the ruins of an old gold mining town. The story behind Mormon Island is pretty interesting. Early in March 1848, W. Sidney, S. Willis, and Wilford Hudson set off from their fort to hunt deer. When they stopped along the south fork of the American […]
The post Blog first appeared on SchiffGold.