* I'm on vacation this week but I did take a little time out to little time out to listen to Janet Yellen's semi-annual "Humphrey-Hawkins" testimony - she testified first before the Senate, that was yesterday and today she was before the house * It used to be a lot more interesting with Ron Paul was on the house banking committee and you could see Ron Paul asking questions to Ben Bernanke * I really would like to hear Rand Paul questioning Janet Yellen but unfortunately, we don't have that oppor...
Jun 23, 2016•23 min
* Gold closed the week at the highest weekly close since January of 2015 * Not quite above the $1300 benchmark - I think we closed about $1298 - up about $20 on the day * Intra-day yesterday, gold was well above $1300 * Until there was news that a British Member of Parliament was shot and that somehow revised hope for the "stay" vote in the Brexit referendum * As if the price of gold is going up based on the outcome of that vote * As far as I'm concerned next week's vote is a non-event for the g...
Jun 17, 2016•32 min
* This is the week of the June FOMC meeting, although it's really going to be a dud * For a while there was speculation that the Fed was going to pull the trigger and increase interest rates for the second in almost 10 years - for the first time this year * I don't know if anybody expects the Fed to raise rates on Wednesday - it's a 2 day meeting, it gets started tomorrow and we get the announcement on Wednesday afternoon * Brexit was one of the things they were concerned about * Now the polls a...
Jun 14, 2016•36 min
* Janet Yellen spoke yesterday and this was the first time she spoke following the release of the much weaker than expected Non-Farm Payroll report that we got on Friday * Not only was the month of May much weaker than expected but they revised down the prior month which was already weaker than expected and now it is even more weak * This is the first time the Fed had a chance to react, remember Janet Yellen and all her cohorts at the Fed had been talking about how the economy is getting better ...
Jun 08, 2016•39 min
* It was a few weeks ago, following the release of the FOMC meetings, in which the various governors appeared quite hawkish in their tone * They were talking about the resurgent U.S. economy, the strengthening labor market and that they thought it would be appropriate to raise interest rates in June * As a result of that, the markets reacted, the dollar had a big rise, gold dropped * Gold had risen to almost $1300 when everybody thought the Fed wasn't going to raise rates * Now as soon as the Fe...
Jun 04, 2016•28 min
* Well the tone and tenor of the discourse of the various market pundits and Wall Street economists seems to be that this recovery is on track * I guess there were some doubts about the recovery until the Federal Reserve laid all those doubts to rest based on the confidence with which they discussed the likelihood that the Fed would raise interest rates in June or July * The confidence persists despite the drumbeat of consistently weaker than expected numbers * Once in a while, we're getting bet...
Jun 01, 2016•25 min
* It really is amazing how short memories are on Wall Street * This seems exactly like December when everybody was convinced that a rate hike wouldn't matter because the economy was improving and the market can handle higher rates * And the stock market rallied right up until the Fed actually raised rates, and then it rallied a little bit, and then it rolled over and we had the worst decline to begin a year in the history of the stock market * Well flash forward to the Fed now saying that they a...
May 25, 2016•28 min
* I wanted to record a short podcast today just to discuss the FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) minutes that were released at 2:00pm this afternoon ET, which reflect the views of the Fed when they had their April meeting, some 6 weeks ago, when the Fed decided not to raise rates * As a result of the release of these minutes, everybody has now jumped to the conclusion that a June rate hike is not only on the table, but basically a done deal * I heard people talking about it on CNBC, "The Fed ...
May 18, 2016•21 min
* Another volatile day in the stock market sees the major averages deep in the red * The Dow was down just over 1%; down 180 points, 17,529 * The NASDAQ actually got walloped a little more; down just shy of 60 points, 1.25% * I think the catalyst for today's declines was a couple of Fed officials talking about how June is a live meeting - live from the perspective of, "We might raise interest rates" * I don't think it's live at all, I think it's dead, and if it were alive, the stock market decli...
May 17, 2016•30 min
* The markets continue, really, to ignore all of the overwhelming bad news * Bad news on the economy, bad news on the corporate earnings front, retail sales - you name it, the news is bad * But the markets seem to shrug it off * All the markets - the equity markets, the foreign exchange markets, bond markets, the gold and silver markets * Sure, there is usually a knee-jerk reaction - you get some bad news, the gold spikes up, the dollar dumps, but then it recovers what it lost and gold surrender...
May 13, 2016•27 min
* Today I really want to talk more about Donald Trump, in particular, the firestorm that I think I lit with respect to Trump comments with respect to defaulting on the National Debt * Now I really believe that I am the first guy to have picked up on that because, when he originally talked about that on CNBC, and Becky Quick said, "Wait a minute, are you talking about compromising our credit rating?" * That's when Donald Trump said, "No, no, no, I'm not talking about defaulting I'm talking about ...
May 10, 2016•26 min
* Today we got the government's Non-Farm Payroll report, otherwise known as the Jobs Report, for the month of April and pretty much all the mainstream Wall Street guys were looking for another strong report * In fact, earlier in the week Goldman Sachs was out saying that the 200,000 consensus estimate was too low! * The optimism was unfazed by the much weaker than expected ADP report I spoke about on my last podcast on Wednesday, which came in much lighter than expected * So, people didn't care,...
May 07, 2016•32 min
* And then there was one; Donald Trump is now the presumptive Republican Presidential nominee for 2016 * I remember when this Republican Primary started and the field was very wide * They had to split the debates up between the main event and the under card because there were so many candidates * Nobody in the mainstream really gave Donald Trump a shot * Even though I wasn't supporting, Trump - I was supporting Rand Paul and more recently Ted Cruz as the candidates who were ideologically closest...
May 05, 2016•33 min
* Gold finally traded about $1300 this morning; it was the first time since January of 2015 that the price of gold traded above $1300 * But by the time the U.S. Stock market opened, the price of gold started to sell off, and it couldn't hold $1300, in fact, it ended negative on the day - we closed about $1291 * When gold failed to hold $1300, there was a lot of selling in gold stocks; in fact gold stocks were way up in the pre-market, up from 2-7% * Some of them opened with new 52-week highs, bu...
May 03, 2016•31 min
* Friday April 29, 2016 was the final trading day for the month of April and I think this will turn out to be a pivotal month for the month of April and I will talk more about that later in this report * I wanted start by talking about the Federal Reserve's decision on Wednesday not to raise interest rates * Few people really believed they would, but earlier in the year it was widely believed that by April the Fed would have raised interest rates at least one more time, given the fact that they ...
Apr 30, 2016•31 min
* Earlier today the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee, (FOMC) began their 2-day meeting * It concludes tomorrow and at 2:00 they will announce their decision on interest rates * Nobody is anxiously awaiting that announcement * Although there were plenty of fools a few months ago who actually believed the Federal Reserve would be raising interest rates, in fact they thought they were going to raise them in March and then, when they didn't there were a lot of people who still thought they migh...
Apr 26, 2016•31 min
* I recorded my last podcast on the afternoon of April 19, and I wanted to announce that later that evening, my first daughter was born - we named her Lilyan Ruth after both of our maternal grandmothers - so we now have Lilyan Ruth Schiff, she was 7 lbs 2 oz. of pure cuteness! * If you just looked at the close of the gold and silver market, you wouldn't know that much went on, gold closed up under $5 - silver was up about .04, but you wouldn't know that earlier in the morning gold was up better ...
Apr 21, 2016•28 min
* Hi-Ho Silver! Seems to be the rallying cry for the day * The last podcast I recorded I talked about the breakout in silver and I actually regretted the fact that I didn't get a chance to talk about silver during my CNBC interview * On my last podcast I mentioned how strong silver had been looking and it held up extremely well in the gold selloff during the prior few days * Sure enough, we had a big breakout again today * Silver was above $17 earlier today, the first time it has been that high ...
Apr 19, 2016•21 min
* This is another week of bad economic data that most people have ignored * The stock market was up this week; the Dow closed up 1.8% on the year * I don't know if the Dow was rising in spite the bad news or because of it * The bad news means the economy is weak and corporate earnings are not there, and there are high multiples * But of course, if the economy is weak, that takes the Fed out of the rate hiking game and I think puts it into the rate cutting - QE4 game * So the market is caught bet...
Apr 15, 2016•28 min
* The dollar index traded below 94 for a good part of the day, but it did manage to close up at 94 even, down just .20 * Gold was up another $19 * Silver really shined brightly today, up .54, just below $16/oz. * Mining stocks, of course, were on fire; GDX was up just under 6% on the day, GDXJ up just under 7% * This followed a spectacular day for the mining stocks on Friday * In fact, even though gold itself was down a couple of bucks, we had a huge up day in the gold stocks * Between Friday an...
Apr 11, 2016•24 min
* Today is the Wisconsin Primary but Donald Trump has been getting a lot of flack in the media over the last couple of days about his comments about the U.S. economy, particularly in the financial media because Donald Trump has now predicted a "very massive recession" in the U.S. * He didn't just say a recession, he's predicting a massive recession * Most of the pundits on television don't see any recession at all - not even a mild one * So here you have Donald Trump saying, not only is the rece...
Apr 05, 2016•33 min
* Well, it's April Fool's Day today and there certainly were a lot of fools out on Wall Street buying all the nonsense about the better than expected Non-Farm Payroll numbers * Many of those fools were also fooled into thinking that these supposedly good jobs numbers puts a June rate hike back on the table * In fact, these April Fools were out in force in March when several Fed officials were talking about the possibility of April being a live meeting, and they bought it; Janet Yellen potentiall...
Apr 01, 2016•24 min
* All the talk last week in the financial media was the fact that several Federal Reserve officials had given speeches somehow putting April back on the table as a live FOMC meeting, where the Fed might raise rates * In fact, even earlier this week, even yesterday, an official from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco commented that the Fed should continue with rate hikes because the economy is strong and the data is on target * I did not buy those comments for one second - my last podcast ...
Mar 29, 2016•42 min
* The markets are closed on Good Friday, the markets are closed, but I did want to take time to record this podcast * Some people were wondering why I didn't do a podcast on Wednesday, the day we had a big drop in the price of gold * Believe me, I love doing podcasts, when the price of gold goes down, because I know a lot of people who are interested in gold want to know what my thoughts are on a day that it happens to go down * As it turns out, I did have an interview on CNBC Fast Money , and m...
Mar 25, 2016•28 min
* Before I get into the economic news of the past couple of days, the big event today was the terrorist attacks in Belgium and I want to offer my condolences to the people of Belgium and also on behalf of my listeners from the U.S. and all over the world * This will probably work to the benefit of Donald Trump, who didn't waste much time in capitalizing on the event * We do have a couple of primaries today, Arizona and Utah * In Arizona, Trump is well in the lead - it's a winner take all state a...
Mar 23, 2016•29 min
* Happy St. Patrick's Day everybody and to those of you who have been waiting since yesterday for this podcast, you won't be disappointed * Yesterday I did an interview with Liz Claman at Fox Business News and I did respond to the Fed's decision. That video is up on my YouTube Channel . * The Fed did not raise interest rates, which didn't surprise a lot of people, but what did surprise a lot of people was the the Fed indicated, based on their Dot Plot, the consensus is that the Fed now sees two ...
Mar 17, 2016•30 min
* We have some key primary elections coming up tomorrow and I want to take an opportunity to do a podcast on Donald Trump and the Trump phenomenon * A lot of people are under the impression that I am endorsing Donald Trump because I have said some positive things about him and his campaign * But I want to make it clear that I am not doing that * I am not convinced that he is going to be a good President, although it's possible that he could * I think there's no chance that Hillary Clinton would ...
Mar 14, 2016•37 min
* Mario Draghi at the ECB fired his big bazooka today; people had anticipated that that would be the case * In fact, it seems like he fired a bigger blast than people were expecting, he announced that he would reduce negative interest rates further * They moved from -.3 to -.4 and he announced an expansion of their quantitative easing program from €60 billion per month to €80 billion, which means that their program is not larger than the Fed's; remember we were doing $85 billion a month before w...
Mar 11, 2016•25 min
* So far it's been a pretty light week but what little economic data that has been released is bad, and all of it evidences the recession that nobody wants to acknowledge * Let's start with the Consumer Credit numbers that came out on Monday. Not only was the number extremely weak, but the revisions to the prior month were even weaker * The initial report for the growth in consumer credit in December was $21.3 billion * Now I don't think growth in consumer credit is good; I think it undermines l...
Mar 10, 2016•37 min
* The media, the Federal Reserve and President Obama continue to ignore the overwhelming evidence out this week, in fact every week for the past couple of months that the U.S. economy has already slipped back into recession * The last revision to Q4 GDP showed the economy grew by 1% for the quarter, but remember, the government never acknowledges a recession until it's practically over * The Great Recession started in December of 2007 but it wasn't until the fall of 2008 that the government fina...
Mar 06, 2016•24 min
