In my August 25 WTR."If cash Gold rallies above 3403 it will likely signal that the expected rally to a new all-time high above 3496 has begun". Blake and I discussed this on 8-28 after Gold rallied above 3403.

Powell: With policy in restrictive territory, the baseline outlook and the shifting balance of risks may warrant adjusting our policy stance. Wall Street analogy.Guy & Girl on a date.Girl: I like you.Guy: I'm getting laid tonight!.

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Chair Powell Jackson Hole."Labor Markets in Transition: Demographics, Productivity, and Macroeconomic Policy”. As you can tell the title isn’t .“Will the FOMC Lower the Funds Rate at the September 17 FOMC meeting”. Powell won't provide any hints

Jim Puplava - Financial Sense 8-14.Listen to our conversation or trasnscript."I think we're nearing another 3 to 5% correction". FOMC "I'd scrap the forward guidance. We're adults—they should treat markets as adults".

NATO and Trump. Media often portrays President Trump as wanting to pull out of NATO. Assessment of Trump by the Secreatary General of NATO. Is Trump is a puppet of Putin?. Many hate Trump so much they are incapable of critical thinking.

How restrictive is monetary policy?. Current Funds rate minus Headline CPI.Divided by the Funds rate = Percent of tightness. July FR is 33.0% above FR.FOMC cut FR 1.0% when the percent was 38.7% in Aug 2024. There's room to lower the FR and policy would be modestly restrictive

The bifurcation between the top 10% of wages earners who represent 50% of Consumer spending and the bottom 50% of wage earners is causing stress. Delinquency rates for auto loans and student loans are historically high. Student loan repayments restart Aug 1. More stress coming

In July Tariffs were $29.6 billion.Will likely climb a bit further based on additional tariffs .Tariffs have increased the cost of goods targeted and companies and consumers will share the burden .The only unknown is how much each will pay

ISM Prices Paid Index was 69.9 just below the October 2022 high of 70.7.Been above 60 eight consecutive months.Since 1997 changes in the ISM Prices Paid Index (light blue) have led changes in the CPI (black).Recent surge suggests the CPI will continue to climb in coming months.

Cities whose DA's routinely choose not to prosecute felonies (NY) so the crime stats show a reduction .In DC the Declination Rate was 67% in 2023 Media proclaims 'Crime is down' .And I don't even like trump but BS is still BS .Critical thinking requires learning more.

Gold. On August 6 the spread between cash Gold and the December futures was $64.50. At the high on August 8 the spread was $131.10.

The larger problem is the Fed's Forward Guidance.1- Fed estimates are often wrong >50%.'Inflation transitory'.2- FG locks them into a bias so flexiblitity is lost.Waiting for data ad naseum. Treat markets like adults - Drop FG.Markets fade the Fed constantly anyway.

8-4 WTR.The Birth – Death model’s contribution to annual job growth has increased since 2015 . The artificial creation of jobs by the Birth – Death model explains in part why after collecting more data, negative revisions have become so large and occurring so frequently

7-28 WTR. Move up from 4.205% to 4.493% is clearly 3 waves (a-b-c), which suggests it was Wave B. Suggests the 10-year yield will drop below 4.205% for Wave C from the high of 4.629%. Wave C will lift TLT above 88.43 and maybe near 90.50 in coming weeks

WTR 7-28.Market breadth has been weakening since July 10 even as the S&P pushed higher . My expectation was that a -3% to -5% pullback was coming. Listen to Blake and my conversation.

Trump would like to remove Powell but also realizes that his criticizing him for not lowering rates creates the perfect whipping post if / when the economy slows. Like dessert with no calories!.

Mohamed El-Erian and Jeremy Siegal think Jay Powell should resign from the Fed. The Fed and Powell deserve citicism. However if Powell did resign it would be a big mistake as the Fed's indepenence and credibility would suffer. I don't think Powell will resign.

Gerrymandering. When the leaders in both parties agree that cheating is OK we have a problem much larger than Epstein. Let a computer draw the districts that allocates an equal number of voters to each district. The process should be blind and NOT based on race or nationality.

7-21 WTR.Federal Reserve adopted 2.0% as its official inflation target in 2012 .Having 2.0% as the inflation target is laughable. Prices double every 36 years quadruple in 72 years. The Federal Reserve thinks they achieved their mandate for stable prices. Bad policy goal

7-21 WTR.Cleveland Fed believes Median CPI and 16% Trimmed-Mean CPI provides clear signal of the underlying inflation trend than Headline CPI or Core CPI. In June Median inflation was 3.59% and the Trimmed Mean was 3.17%.Inflation could prove more sticky than expected