We are on the Verge of Economic Catastrophe

[RVonse]

Silver sold for $30/oz as recently as June and briefly sold below $50 in late November. The price is WELL above $50 now. Can you spell "Short Squeeze"?

I wrote this ten days ago. Yesterday:

• On 26 Dec, Gold reached a price of $4548/oz ($146+ per gram). This is the highest price ever recorded.
• On 26 Dec, Platinum reached a price of $2490/oz. This is the highest price ever recorded, and almost triple its lowest price in April.
• On 26 Dec, Palladium reached a price of $2028/oz. This is the highest price ever recorded. Despite a steep dive during the day before Christmas, it recovered and bested the record set 2½ days earlier.
• On 26 Dec, Silver reached a price of $79.50/oz. This is the highest price ever recorded.

Silver got as high as $83.50 yesterday, then plummeted and is now $75.
Platinum is down almost 8% from its Friday high. Palladium is down 16½%. Gold is down 2%.
(The Thai baht is down 1½% -- I don't know what's going on there.)

Will squeezed short sellers need to raise money by selling stocks on Monday? Or will printing presses keep the whole house of cards propped up?

COMEX raised the margin requirement for accounts long silver. This surely contributed to the sell-off.
Big US banks (led by JPMorganChase) write many of the call options on silver etc. Conspiracy theorists will argue that big financial firms, and their friends in government, act in the interest of financial stability even at the expense of retail speculators. This was seen in the RobinHood/GameStop fiasco.

If gold, platinum, palladium, and silver are all at record high prices would that not indicate the US dollar is more the problem than these metals? Call it inflation or depreciation it looks very problematic seeing the same direction and increase for every metal. Not to mention housing asset prices also being driven by the dollar's lack of buying power.

And running the printing press might keep the house of cards propped up short term but running the presses is what caused the problem in the first place IMO.

 

[Swammerdami]

If gold, platinum, palladium, and silver are all at record high prices would that not indicate the US dollar is more the problem than these metals? Call it inflation or depreciation it looks very problematic seeing the same direction and increase for every metal. Not to mention housing asset prices also being driven by the dollar's lack of buying power.

And running the printing press might keep the house of cards propped up short term but running the presses is what caused the problem in the first place IMO.

No argument from me, but what is your conclusion? Are you heeding the demand from Trump (recently quoted by me in another thread) that you donate IMMEDIATELY before Democrats steal your $2000 tariff dividend and give it to illegals?

FWIW, the pace of inflation tapered off a bit during Biden's final year but rose in 2025. The Fed was tightening under Biden (QT), but printing money (QE) profusely now. There is ample evidence that tariffs are failing to achieve their alleged goal; and the large majority of Americans are getting poorer while the share for billionaires grows rapidly.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

December had 50k jobs created.

 

[SLD]

December had 50k jobs created.

Surprised any news has penetrated the headlines

 

[TV and credit cards]

December had 50k jobs created.

Surprised any news has penetrated the headlines

Numbnuts posting up some of the jobs data on Truth Social prior to release briefly made the front page.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Should have been news that Idiot President thinks econony only creating 650k jobs in a year is boastable.

 

[Colonel Sanders]

Should have been news that Idiot President thinks econony only creating 650k jobs in a year is boastable.

Oh hell, if the economy lost ten million jobs he'd deny it and say he'd created 20 million jobs. Fox News would broadcast it as undeniable truth and his supporters, many of whom would be living in their cars, would take it as gospel. Cue up the demonrats, Hillary, Biden, Obama, and Antifa. Maybe throw in some baby eating pedophiles for extra seasoning.

 

[Swammerdami]

Just minutes ago, silver reached a record-breaking $86/oz. Also a few minutes ago Gold reached a record breaking $148.90/gram or $4630/oz. The S&P-500 just set a new record. The Nasdaq-100 is closing in on its all-time record set shortly before Halloween.

 

[bilby]

Just minutes ago, silver reached a record-breaking $86/oz. Also a few minutes ago Gold reached a record breaking $148.90/gram or $4630/oz. The S&P-500 just set a new record. The Nasdaq-100 is closing in on its all-time record set shortly before Halloween.

Or, looked at from the opposite perspective, just minutes ago the US$ reached another record breaking low, both against metals and against stocks and shares.

Which is what you might expect when a gangster credibly threatens the Fed Reserve to extort unwarranted and unwise interest rate cuts out of them.

 

[Swammerdami]

Just minutes ago, silver reached a record-breaking $86/oz. Also a few minutes ago Gold reached a record breaking $148.90/gram or $4630/oz. The S&P-500 just set a new record. The Nasdaq-100 is closing in on its all-time record set shortly before Halloween.

Or, looked at from the opposite perspective, just minutes ago the US$ reached another record breaking low, both against metals and against stocks and shares.

Which is what you might expect when a gangster credibly threatens the Fed Reserve to extort unwarranted and unwise interest rate cuts out of them.

On Inauguration Day one year ago, a Swiss Franc cost about $1.10. Now it costs $1.27, the priciest it's ever been. Or rather, the cheapest the dollar has ever been. The Chinese Yuan Renminbi Offshore has been soaring since April, and has recently gone above its May 2023 level.

The Euro has been near $1.18 recently, the highest it's been since 2021. But paper money in Europe and around the world is hardly a safe haven. With the Dollar still The Reserve, if/when the Dollar plummets, global finance will all be in severe crisis.

 

[Swammerdami]

I am NOT one of those guys who clicks to a stock-price webpage and keeps clicking Refresh! Just the opposite: Living as a hermit in rural Thailand with my life savings in a stock account on the other side of the world I went for YEARS paying almost no attention to the markets. (An advantage of stocks like JNJ -- current Beta=0.33 -- is that its price doesn't gyrate as ferociously as tech stocks.) But finance has become a big news story. I now check a few prices about once a day and yesterday happened to check literally almost when new records were being set. I "had" to post!

(My stock market predictions are worth no more than I charge for them. I did notice a graph showing that retail investor are buying while institutions sell.)

Just minutes ago, silver reached a record-breaking $86/oz. Also a few minutes ago Gold reached a record breaking $148.90/gram or $4630/oz. The S&P-500 just set a new record. The Nasdaq-100 is closing in on its all-time record set shortly before Halloween.

Silver is very close to its new high of $89. Gold is close to its $149/gram high.

As bilby points out, the message isn't that precious metals are suddenly much more precious. It's that people are losing faith in paper money. The U.S. Dollar may lead the way, but many currencies are in trouble. Six of the G7 -- all but Germany -- have government debt-to-GDP above 100%.

Federal funds are down 0.75% over the last year, while the long bond remains near 4.9%. The difference in yields of the 30- and 10-year Treasuries was only 0.16% a year ago, but the latest difference is 0.68%.

The REAL mystery is: Why is the long-bond yield still as low as it is? it's a safe bet that sooner or later -- MUCH sooner than 30 years -- U.S. paper money will lose much of its value. Foreigners and smart players are NOT buying these long bonds. The prices are being kept high deliberately: A yield above 5% will be an alarm bell, and top leaders in the U.S. and all around the wold are desperate to avoid that. The FedRes has quietly resumed QE. Bessent's Treasury is buying long bonds, issuing short-term bills to pay for them. And banks are effectively forced to buy government securities no one else wants to retain their friendly ties to FedRes. These banks aren't stupid: In addition to the Treasuries they are forced to buy, JPMorgan has been accumulating gold and silver, though the amounts are secret.

 

[Swammerdami]

investinglive.com reports that a "typo" may have caused a surge in copper prices. Nvidia wrote about a datacenter requiring a half million TONS of copper. POUNDS was correct.

Did AI contribute hallucinatory help?

 

[TV and credit cards]

investinglive.com reports that a "typo" may have caused a surge in copper prices. Nvidia wrote about a datacenter requiring a half million TONS of copper. POUNDS was correct.

Did AI contribute hallucinatory help?

How? In what manner that a good old fashion google search, news feed, or social media wouldn't have caused?
Contribute? Perhaps to some small degree but by and large I would, do, did, and always will blame the toilet that is social media for the magnification, amplification, and intensification for all things bad on planet earth.

 

[Swammerdami]

The stock market is still very expensive, but may need another shot of Viagra. Nasdaq-100 still hasn't bested its numbers of Halloween.

Bitcoin -- the "Gold" for New Age thinkers, has fallen below $90k again. It was Trump and his insistence on removing all regulations from cryptos in exchange for a few billions of disguised bribes that pumped Bitcoin to new highs, but Orange Make-up is losing its allure with 58% of Americans calling Trump's past year "a failure." (Of course there's a HUGE party split there: 93% of Ds apply the F word, but only 11% of Rs. 66% of Inds click the F box.)

While the Dreamy "Gold" made up of zeros and ones is in the doldrums, precious metals made out of actual metals continue to soar. Gold was recently just pennies away from $4990 ($160½ per gram). Silver ... WTF??? Wasn't it just days ago that traders were Oohing and Aahing at the possibility of $70 silver? $103½ per Troy ounce. $103½ per Troy ounce. Any bets on next week's price? Six years ago, silver could be had for $12 or $13.

I sound like a broken record, but appetite for the Treasury long bond continues to weaken. The Dollar is still the mainstay of global finance: worldwide chaos would ensue if misgivings were widely voiced. So the price of Treasuries is kept propped up; I expect a stampede when the yield tops Five (The 30-year is about 4.9% now.) Treasury (as well as the Fed) has been buying long bonds by the billions, trading them for short-term bills. The Fed quietly switched from QT to hardcore QE. The big banks, required to buy Treasuries, are using them to collateralize "Repo loans" from the Fed whenever they need more cash. And that need is coming more frequently now, with Wall Street players leveraging their investments like there is no tomorrow. (Perhaps there isn't.)

(Recent FedRes data seems harder to get than it used to be. I think FRB is still operating at a LOSS! Unprecedented. The money is not disappearing; it's going into the pockets of the big private banks. We gotta help them out; they're too big to fail!)

ETA: The $103½ per Troy ounce silver quotation is for "paper" silver in New York. Add a $12 premium for Physical silver in Shanghai. And even Shanghai's vaults are being depleted. SGE vaults had a 1000 tonnes of silver in October; now only half that.

 

[robnisch]

The stock market is still very expensive, but may need another shot of Viagra. Nasdaq-100 still hasn't bested its numbers of Halloween.

Bitcoin -- the "Gold" for New Age thinkers, has fallen below $90k again. It was Trump and his insistence on removing all regulations from cryptos in exchange for a few billions of disguised bribes that pumped Bitcoin to new highs, but Orange Make-up is losing its allure with 58% of Americans calling Trump's past year "a failure." (Of course there's a HUGE party split there: 93% of Ds apply the F word, but only 11% of Rs. 66% of Inds click the F box.)

While the Dreamy "Gold" made up of zeros and ones is in the doldrums, precious metals made out of actual metals continue to soar. Gold was recently just pennies away from $4990 ($160½ per gram). Silver ... WTF??? Wasn't it just days ago that traders were Oohing and Aahing at the possibility of $70 silver? $103½ per Troy ounce. $103½ per Troy ounce. Any bets on next week's price? Six years ago, silver could be had for $12 or $13.

I sound like a broken record, but appetite for the Treasury long bond continues to weaken. The Dollar is still the mainstay of global finance: worldwide chaos would ensue if misgivings were widely voiced. So the price of Treasuries is kept propped up; I expect a stampede when the yield tops Five (The 30-year is about 4.9% now.) Treasury (as well as the Fed) has been buying long bonds by the billions, trading them for short-term bills. The Fed quietly switched from QT to hardcore QE. The big banks, required to buy Treasuries, are using them to collateralize "Repo loans" from the Fed whenever they need more cash. And that need is coming more frequently now, with Wall Street players leveraging their investments like there is no tomorrow. (Perhaps there isn't.)

(Recent FedRes data seems harder to get than it used to be. I think FRB is still operating at a LOSS! Unprecedented. The money is not disappearing; it's going into the pockets of the big private banks. We gotta help them out; they're too big to fail!)

ETA: The $103½ per Troy ounce silver quotation is for "paper" silver in New York. Add a $12 premium for Physical silver in Shanghai. And even Shanghai's vaults are being depleted. SGE vaults had a 1000 tonnes of silver in October; now only half that.

Want to buy my silver?
Well below spot!

 

[SLD]

Gold is up because of concerns about the wrecking ball Trump is taking to world trade. It’s now more than doubled in the last year.



Silver is up over 250%. Oil is down overall, but creeping back up.

Meanwhile the dollar is collapsing,



And wealth inequality is soaring to unprecedented levels:



An interesting analysis is right here:

Talking With Gabriel Zucman

On Europe, oligarchy and more

paulkrugman.substack.com

 

[SLD]

Oil prices are surging today - WTI up almost $10 over the past month because of Trump's bullshit threat to Iran. I suspect he won't follow through so it might be a good buy to short oil. But it will likely go up for a bit longer.

Meanwhile Trump continues to lie about his economic performance simply pulling numbers out of his ass, and with his purge of government statisticians, he is trying to ensure that he cannot be fact checked.

The World Files for Economic Divorce from America

What you do when your (trading) partner is abusive

paulkrugman.substack.com

Trump claims that other nations have committed to invest $18 trillion in the U.S., repeating that claim in the economy speech he gave in Iowa Wednesday. Nobody knows where he got that figure. A new brief from economists at the Peterson Institute for International Economics concludes that the announced promises sum up to about $5.7 trillion, less than a third of Trump’s number.

Furthermore, when you dig into these promises, there’s a definite whiff of smoke and mirrors. Roughly two-thirds of the total pledged comes from Gulf oil states, countries that are perennial Trump enablers. As the Peterson economists note, it’s hard to see how these governments can make good on their promises, since “the [Gulf] countries are not currently major investors in the United States, and they do not trade extensively with it.”

I'm sure his supporters are cheering this bullshit and democrats aren't even bothering to call him out, bowing again to his demands to fund the government. Coward turds in my opinion.

In the meantime, the EU signs an historic trade deal with India while the US is floundering.

My only fear is that the chickens will come home to roost right as the democrats take power again and they get the blame.

 

[SLD]

https://doubleline.com/wp-content/uploads/DoubleLine_US-Treasury-Market_Jan-2026.pdf

Another interesting article. Denmark's recent divestiture of US treasuries - because of Trump's idiotic statements - may be tiny, but it presages other divestments. China has for years been paring down its treasuries. So far other buyers have been found, but note that the dollar has significantly weakened. This makes it harder to find buyers and now Trump is trying to find a new fed governor who will lower interest rates, which will put still more pressure on the treasury markets. In the meantime, something like $10 trillion in t bill debt matures this year, like 1/3 of over our debt. This has to be rolled over. If not, we are in default. But if interest rates are lower and the dollar loses value, this will be very difficult.

Of course higher interest rates will affect the markets. A default will likely destroy them. We may be facing a perfect storm in 2026.

Don't get me wrong, a significant amount of blame can be placed on both parties which for the last 17 years have been spending waay too much.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

https://doubleline.com/wp-content/uploads/DoubleLine_US-Treasury-Market_Jan-2026.pdf

Another interesting article. Denmark's recent divestiture of US treasuries - because of Trump's idiotic statements - may be tiny, but it presages other divestments. China has for years been paring down its treasuries. So far other buyers have been found, but note that the dollar has significantly weakened. This makes it harder to find buyers and now Trump is trying to find a new fed governor who will lower interest rates, which will put still more pressure on the treasury markets. In the meantime, something like $10 trillion in t bill debt matures this year, like 1/3 of over our debt. This has to be rolled over. If not, we are in default. But if interest rates are lower and the dollar loses value, this will be very difficult.

Of course higher interest rates will affect the markets. A default will likely destroy them. We may be facing a perfect storm in 2026.

Don't get me wrong, a significant amount of blame can be placed on both parties which for the last 17 years have been spending waay too much.

Spending hasn't been the problem, the tax revenue has.

 

[Elixir]

Spending hasn't been the problem, the tax revenue has.

Spending hasn't been the problem. Spending to support the lavish lifestyles of the rich rather than to support the pillars of a stable democratic society, has been the problem. Gilded ballrooms replacing the cramped office quarters of those doing the actual hard work of governance, is the problem.