Ideas and analysis on money, markets and the world around us.
This was the week when the world awoke to soaring energy prices, followed by metals. Copper briefly hit $10,000 per tonne in strong backwardation. It is hardly a surprise then that the suppression of gold and silver…
Read the articleDescribing evolving inflationary conditions as stagflation misses the point about today’s inflationary conditions. Stagflation was originally used only in the context of excessive wage increases not matched by improved…
Read the articleIn a week of consolidation gold and silver ended up little changed from last Friday’s close. In European morning trade today, gold was $4 lower at $1757, and silver down 18 cents at $22.50. Trading on Comex was…
Read the articleThis article looks at the Fed’s funding challenges in the US’s new fiscal year, which commenced on 1 October. There are three categories of buyer for US Federal debt: the financial and non-financial private sector,…
Read the articleThis week saw a high degree of price capitulation as bullion banks used the dollar’s strength and a rally in bond yields to mount a bear raid on gold and silver. On Wednesday, silver traded as low as $21.45, down over…
Read the articleInvestors and others are confused by the early stages of accelerating price inflation. One misleading belief is in cycles of industrial production, such as Kondratieff’s waves. The Kondratieff cycle began to emerge in…
Read the articleAfter last week’s sell-off which took gold as low as $1745 and a brief $40 rally gold dipped as low as $1738 yesterday before rallying this morning to $1755 in European trading this morning. Net on the week gold is up…
Read the articleFollowing America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, her focus has switched to the Pacific with the establishment of a joint Australian and UK naval partnership. The founder of modern geopolitical theory, Halford Mackinder,…
Read the articleGold and silver suffered a sharp sell-off on Thursday, with gold falling $21 on the week from Friday’s close to trade at $1766 in morning European trade. Silver lost 65 cents over the same timescale, falling to $23.10.…
Read the articleThe sense of general unease that I detect among those I meet and discuss economics and financial matters with is increasing —with good reason. Clearly, what everyone calls inflation, rising prices or more accurately…
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