When it comes to assessing the actions of central banks, it’s important to pay more attention to what they’re doing rather than what they’re saying. When the Fed says that it’s going to stop running down its balance sheet, look at the H.4.1 release each week to see if that’s actually the case. And when central banks say that...
There’s a crisis lurking in markets that many investors remain completely unaware of. While attention is focused on stock market levels, job hiring, and oil prices, one major market remains, as it often has been, overlooked by the majority of investors. And weakness in that market could set off a series of forced sales that could have a domino...
After two years of keeping its gold reserves static, the Chinese government has begun ramping up its gold purchases in recent months. Its gold-buying binge has entered a third straight month, with another 10 tons of metal added in February to its official reserves. It’s worth noting, however, that it’s widely assumed that China under-reports its official reserves in...
After a January jobs report that saw over 300,000 jobs added to the economy, most economists expected a milder February, with consensus estimates expecting about 180,000 new jobs. It came as a huge shock, then, that only 20,000 new jobs were added in February. That was one of the worst numbers in years, and feeds into fears that the...
The financial press seems to be full of stories of those who have retired early. It’s easy to get jealous when we hear stories of those who have retired in their 30s and who plan on never holding a full-time job again. In many cases when you dig deeper you find that these are people who held nice six-figure...
When women decide on the jewelry they wear for an evening out, they’re going to pick between gold or silver. But investors don’t have to choose one or the other, they can choose both. Each precious metal has its own advantages vis-a-vis the other, so here are a few of them that are most important to investors. Silver Is Cheaper For...
For those who continue to hope for a return to economic normalcy, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s testimony last week was bitterly disappointing. Anyone hoping for an end to accommodative monetary policy and a return to market-determined prices for assets has much longer to wait. The Fed has barely run off a little more than ten percent of its over-bloated balance...
Most investors know that Warren Buffett isn’t a fan of gold. He has long derided the yellow metal as a bunch of rocks that sit in a vault and don’t do anything. Of course, when stocks are plummeting and losing half of their value there’s nothing investors want more than something that does nothing but sit in a vault...
One of the common complaints we hear about American society today is that nobody wants to work hard for anything. Everyone wants to be able to get a six-figure job without having to have any talent or ability, and wants to be able to make lots of money without having to put in any work. People play the lottery...
By now it’s no secret that Social Security is in dire straits. According to the latest Social Security Trustees Report, Social Security taxes have long been unable to pay for Social Security benefits. Only because of interest gained on Social Security’s trust fund has the system been able to keep paying benefits without dipping into the trust fund. Now...