In my conversations with you, you’re telling me the skiing out west is great. The liftlines, not so much. Turns out Covid’s a ski buddy. It’s not unusual to see chair, after chair, after chair, with one skier per chair, each from the same group, to social distance. Insane. At least the skiing’s good. You’re telling me from Park City/Deer Valley up to Big Sky and Whitefish, MT, it’s good to be outside. I hear you. We ventured out to the slopes here on the east coast between Christmas and New Year’s and had to contend with Covid liftlines too. The skiing? A little dicey. One run from the top … [Read more...]
Gold, Silver, and Currencies
Young Research & Publishing has been providing research and insights on precious metals and currency markets to institutional investors, corporate financial officers, business owners, and individual investors for over four decades. Richard C. Young started Young Research & Publishing in the 70s to publish the authoritative Young's World Money Forecast, a 50-page monthly investment report on the precious metals and currency markets. Today, our research on gold, silver, and currencies is geared toward investors in or nearing retirement who are looking to preserve and protect wealth.
The Government Should Ban Bitcoin Now Not Later
Bitcoin is enjoying another wave of investor interest this time with institutional backing. We know some of the smartest investors own Bitcoin. The technology backing bitcoin has some interesting applications in our view, but as far as bitcoin becoming legal tender, at best it looks like a long-odds gamble. No central bank in the world is going to allow a currency with a fixed supply to supplant a fiat currency. The U.S. would be bankrupt in a minute if it couldn’t print its own currency to pay its debts. So would Japan and many other countries. Rather than permitting speculation in … [Read more...]
Stealing Your Dollars in the Dead of Night
Will you even know it when they come for your cash? When they the steal it in the dead of night? When the digitalization of the dollar makes paper obsolete? Think they can’t inflate your money away? Look at interest rates—flat as a gingerbread cookie and stoking the inflationary real estate fire. First-time buyers can barely afford a manger, never mind a three-bedroom, two and a half bath. Remember when you bought your first home when interest rates were closer to the Twelfth Day of Christmas than the first? Back then, at least you could make the numbers work based on your salary. Today, … [Read more...]
Doubting the Dollar?
At the Financial Times, Michael Mackenzie explains the long term forces stacking up against the dollar. He writes: With alarm bells ringing across financial markets in recent days, the US dollar has found its footing, reflecting its haven status whenever equities and investor sentiment take a knock. But that may prove fleeting given the longer term forces stacking up against the world’s reserve currency. Since climbing to its best level since 2002 in the wake of the pandemic earlier this year, the Federal Reserve’s trade-weighted dollar index has been pressured by a combination of rising … [Read more...]
Why the Turkish Lira Just Keeps on Falling
The Turkish lira hit a new record low against the dollar this week as the country's central bank held rates steady. The Wall Street Journal's Caitlin Ostroff and David Gauthier-Villars report: The lira fell 2.1% on Thursday, with $1 buying 7.9792 lira, after the central bank left its key, one-week repo rate at 10.25%, surprising the majority of investors and analysts who anticipated an increase. For several months, the central bank’s main policy rate has been negative when adjusted for inflation, making holding the Turkish lira an unattractive proposition for foreign investors and … [Read more...]
Digital Currencies Would Stifle Economic Freedom
There is a movement afoot in central banking circles to shift from paper currency to digital currency. Sounds convenient and probably like a good idea to many, but the goal from the central banking crowd has almost nothing to do with convenience. Digital dollars would make the job of intervening in markets and manipulating spending and interest rates much easier. Think about an economic stimulus credited to your government issued debit card that has an expiration date. How better to force consumers to spend than to give their money an expiration date? Or what about negative … [Read more...]
Your Best Asset is What You Bring to the Table
Literally. You are the best asset you've got. Are you a farmer who can grow a crop of corn or tomatoes? Are you a skilled mechanic who could help neighbors repair their machines? The skills and production you bring to your community are what pay for your meals, home, and everything else. The money you use to make the transactions is just a means of transferring those skills to others. You've probably read about the current coin shortage in America. While that's inconvenient, businesses have been finding ways around it by using electronic payments or simply rounding to the nearest … [Read more...]
Gold Prices are Soaring: Here’s Why
Owning gold is like owning some insurance in your investment portfolio. When times are uncertain, its price may go up while others are going down. It has always made a great deal of sense to own gold, but now more than ever its price is rising. Joe Wallace explains why gold's price is soaring in The Wall Street Journal: The main reason is this year’s precipitous drop in yields on U.S. Treasurys to levels below the expected pace of inflation. Unlike bonds or bank deposits, gold doesn’t pay any income. As a result, owning gold means missing out on yields from other assets when interest … [Read more...]
Gold’s 50-Year Price Explosion
Part I I was there from the start. In early August 1971, I had just joined internationally focused research and trading firm Model Roland & Co. On 15 August 1971, President Nixon shocked the world by announcing that the U. S. would no longer officially trade dollars for gold. At that time, gold’s fixed price was $35/oz. By 1980, gold would hit an astronomical $800/oz. OK then, back to Model and the firm’s wonderful head partner Leo Model. From my first day onboard at Model, I started covering a bevy of major Boston institutional accounts. I was 30 years old, and I would become … [Read more...]
A Zero-Rate World Might Imply more Currency Volatility
In The Economist, Buttonwood explains why "a zero-rate world might plausibly imply more currency volatility," writing: It is natural to think that if interest rates are glued to their effective lower bound, exchange rates will be similarly stuck. An axiom of foreign-exchange analysis is that shifts in policy rates, or in expectations of policy rates, drive currencies up and down. Yet a zero-rate world might plausibly imply more currency volatility. There is little scope for interest rates to adjust to economic trouble. So something else must. The exchange rate is the likeliest … [Read more...]
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