Gold rises 2% to break triple top

from Trading View

Precious metal turned up as investors reacted to Trump’s tariff plans, which are likely to flare up inflation, leading to interest rates that may stay higher for longer. Let’s break it down.

Donald Trump Kicks Off Presidency

— Gold prices pumped nearly 2% on Tuesday and extended the swing early Wednesday to $2,750 per ounce as markets were reacting to Donald Trump’s first moves in office. The 47th President of the US signed more than 200 executive orders on his first day at the job, sending investors scrambling, gold bugs included.

Continue Reading at TradingView.com…

from Peak Prosperity

by Kelsey Williams
GoldSeek

LIQUIDITY PROBLEMS – 1929

In 1928 and 1929, the Fed raised interest rates for the purpose of curbing rampant speculation in stocks. At that time, investors could borrow as much as 90% of the stock price for their proposed investment. The banks were just as aggressive as investors and were happy to oblige.

Raising rates did not slow stock speculation by investors or banks, however.

What it did do was cause a slowdown in economic activity. Thus, as economic activity declined, the stock market continued its rise, unabated.

Continue Reading at GoldSeek.com…

from CityNews

by Martin Armstrong
Armstrong Economics

Russia’s CPI reached 9.5% this December as government spending has pulled the reigns away from the central bank. Inflation elevated from 8.9% YoY in November to 9.5%, slightly below expectations of 9.7%. Prices are up 1.3% on a monthly basis overall, but Russians are feeling the impact of war.

Services from 11.4% to 11.5% on the yearly while non-food goods are up from 5.7% YoY to 6.1% Prices at the grocery store have soared from 9.9% YoY to 11.1% as Russia struggles to find reasonably priced imports. Core inflation is up 1% monthly, but up 10% over the past four quarters. The central bank is lightyears away from its 4% inflation target. The spread between rates and inflation is a concerning 11.5%.

Russia’s Central Bank maintained its policy rate of 21% in December. This is not a money supply issue and government cannot curtail spending amid a rapidly escalating war effort.

Continue Reading at ArmstrongEconomics.com…

from Schwab Network

He’ll have a hard time keeping his promises on this front, as anyone would, because of the dynamics involved.

by Paul Anton
Star Tribune

“If everyone in town just pulls together, can we keep inflation out of our town?”

That is the question I was asked on a phone call to my office at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis one morning in 1979. I was a young economist in the bank’s research department. The caller was a representative of a special civic committee from a medium-sized city in the Ninth Federal Reserve District. The committee’s goal was to keep inflation out of their town, if possible.

The caller was so sincere that I felt he deserved more than a glib answer. So, I explained step by step. The committee would have to convince the Ford dealership not to raise its prices when the wholesale prices it paid Ford for cars rose and, eventually, to sell cars at a loss. The same held true for the local appliance store and other local merchants.

Continue Reading at StarTribune.com…

from Fox Business

by Frank E. Holmes
Kitco

Strengths

– The best performing precious metal for the week was gold, up 0.86%. Bullion traded at over $2,700 an ounce, after the consumer price index — which excludes food and energy costs — rose 0.2% following four months of gains of 0.3%. Gold climbed to the highest in a month after a surprise slowdown in U.S. inflation revived expectations for Federal Reserve rate cuts this year, reports Bloomberg. […]

– According to BMO, Mandalay Resources reported fourth quarter 2024 gold equivalent production of 25,000 ounces. On an annual basis, the company produced 97,000 ounces of gold, which approached the high end of its annual production guidance of 90,000-100,000 ounces. Mandalay has coproduct grades of 5% antimony that significantly enhances its importance to Western interest with China cutting of antinomy exports.

Continue Reading at Kitco.com…

from CNBC Television

by Brad Smith
Yahoo! Finance

In his inauguration speech, President Trump vowed his Cabinet will defeat inflation by using “the vast powers at their disposal.” How should Americans expect the administration’s economic policies to affect their personal finances as they work to bring down their own debt?

“At the end of the day, there’s just these personal finance pillars that are important for everybody, no matter who’s in office, no matter what inflation rates are doing, no matter what wages are doing,” Ramsey Solutions master financial coach and debt elimination expert Jade Warshaw discusses with Brad Smith.

“It’s important to be a good steward of the money that you have and your… personal purview. And that really just looks like being a person who’s always on a budget. That’s part of how you handle money.”

Continue Reading at Finance.Yahoo.com…

from Adam Taggart | Thoughtful Money®

by Billy Duberstein
NASDAQ

According to a recent ABC/Ipsos poll, voters currently see the economy and inflation as the most important issues. The economy is usually top-of-mind in most elections, but having been through the roller coaster of the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath, it’s especially prominent this election cycle.

The United States’ recovery from the pandemic has actually been far better than all other G7 countries, with U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) growth the best of the bunch while having the third-lowest unemployment rate and a stock market that just hit an all-time high. And yet, despite this good growth and jobs picture, only 23% of Americans rate the economy as “excellent” or “good,” with 36% believing it’s “poor” and 41% saying it’s only “fair,” according to the Pew Research Center.

Continue Reading at Nasdaq.com…

from Gregory Mannarino

The 47th president skipped out on ‘carnage’ but still painted a dark image of the America he’s inheriting and swearing he’ll save.

by Olivier Knox
USNews.com

After an election in which anger over inflation helped sweep him back to the White House, President Donald Trump devoted relatively little time to the cost of living in his inaugural address on Monday, while promising a whole-of-government war on illegal immigration.

– “From this moment on, America’s decline is over,” Trump declared in the Capitol Rotunda, surrounded by a sea of VIPs, lawmakers and Cabinet picks. “We will begin the complete restoration of America and the revolution of common sense.”

He made no mention of the Jan. 6, 2021, rioters to whom he repeatedly promised clemency on the campaign trail. Or of his plans to repudiate birthright citizenship, setting up a legal battle that almost certainly will reach the Supreme Court. Ukraine? He did not utter the name.

Continue Reading at USNews.com…

from Hindustan Times

Chris discusses the fraudulent nature of the monetary system, focusing on inflation as a hidden tax, its impact on society, and the role of government and financial institutions.

by Dr. Chris Martenson
Chris Martenson’s Peak Prosperity

We have a money problem, because our system of money is fraudulent.

Fraud

The act of intentionally deceiving someone to obtain a benefit, such as money, property, or services.

In our elected system of government, the way it’s supposed to work is that if or when your elected officials deem it necessary and in the national interest to take some of your money so they can spend it on something, they have to tax it.

A law has to be written, debated and then passed. Over time, the US tax laws have morphed into a colossal pile of impossibly complex code, usually penned not by actual Congressmen, but by special interest lobbyists.

Continue Reading at PeakProsperity.com…

from Bloomberg Television

by Ian Hanchett
Breitbart.com

During an interview with Bloomberg aired on Thursday’s “Balance of Power,” White House Council of Economic Advisers Chair Jared Bernstein stated that “strong demand” did help cause inflation and he accepts that the upward pressure on prices from COVID stimulus was worth it, but inflation was about the same in every G7 country, “and they all had different fiscal and monetary policies. So, I think it’s a mistake to assign too much of that increase to fiscal policy. And I think the Republican argument is fundamentally undermined by that international comparison.”

Bernstein said, “The president realized, quickly, that it was snarled supply chains that helped cause that inflationary spike, in part, along with strong demand. And unsnarling those chains was going to be really important. But the thing that the president recognized was that we also have to worry about costs, the price level, not just inflation. And that’s why, starting shortly after that peak, we started talking about what we were doing to lower costs.”

Continue Reading at Breitbart.com…

from CNN-News18