Gold, Silver, and Currencies

The British pound soared yesterday on news that the Conservative Party won a large majority, thereby ensuring the U.K. leaves the European Union. When the U.K. initially voted to leave the European Union in a 2016 referendum, the pound cratered 11% on the news. So is Brexit good or is Brexit bad? It would seem traders may have changed their minds. Warren Buffet is fond of saying that investing is simple, but not easy. When it comes to currency investing, maybe it isn’t so simple either. … [Read more...]

In Denmark, the central bank began setting negative rates in 2012, and for wealthy Danes, it's been a chore to avoid giving money to the banks ever since. There are 178,000 Danes with more than 750,000 crowns in the bank, and they have been moving money to separate accounts, or simply taking it out of the bank altogether ever since negative rates were instituted. Who wants to pay the bank to hold their money? No one, of course. Last week I detailed for you the growing trend of wealthy individuals using safety deposit boxes. A safety deposit box has many benefits besides moving your money … [Read more...]

Economic growth has slowed down in China, with the country record only a 6% increase in GDP last quarter. That would be magnificent growth in a developed nation, but for China, that's the slowest growth in 30 years. The FT reports: China’s economy grew at 6 per cent in the third quarter of 2019 compared with a year earlier, its slowest pace in about 30 years, delivering another blow to global growth and underlining many of the challenges facing President Xi Jinping. The country’s trade war with the US, slowing income growth and cooling manufacturing investment took a toll on the world’s … [Read more...]

With the announcement of a Brexit deal agreed to between Boris Johnson and the EU, the only question left is, can the deal make it through the House of Commons? Johnson's coalition partner, the Democratic Unionist Party, has said it will not back the deal, which means it will have a very hard time passing the House. James Blitz reports in the FT: James Forsyth in The Spectator has a good assessment of where the problem lies. He says Mark Spencer, the Conservative chief whip, calculated last night that if the DUP backs Mr Johnson, the government will win on Saturday with a majority of just … [Read more...]

For decades the gold standard reserve currency of the world has been the American dollar, but now as Eva Szalay and Colby Smith report for the Financial Times, that preeminent role may be at risk. They write: The US dollar has long towered over global markets and finance. But cracks are starting to appear in the edifice. The greenback’s pre-eminent role in official funds and international trade is formidable and unlikely to fade quickly. But the latest data from the IMF on central banks’ reserves show a subtle shift away from the dollar that analysts say could signal a rethink on the … [Read more...]

Over the last year, silver investors who had the patience to hold have found themselves better off than those investing in a S&P 500 index. … [Read more...]