While paper gold traders can't seem to dump the precious metal fast enough, physical gold demand is soaring around the world. India retail premiums are spiking (amid demonetization), local China premiums soar to a 3-year-high (as capital controls loom), and coin sales from the US Mint have risen for the 4th straight month, accelerating post-election to the highest since July 2015 since Trump's victory at the election.
The Fed has a very serious problem on its hands.
That problem concerns the fact that for seven years the Fed has spread the myth of a “recovery.”
I say “myth” because the reality is that when you remove accounting gimmicks, the US has been a “hair’s breadth” away from a recession since 2010.
The most obvious gimmick being employed is the phony “deflator” used to understate inflation and overstate growth.
A new ‘anti-Russian propaganda’ bill is to be signed into law which will make it illegal to run an alternative media website in the United States. Under the guise of combatting “Russian propaganda,” the House of Representatives passed the H.R.6393 bill, also known as ‘Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017‘. The bill is an attempt to counteract “measures by Russia to exert covert influence” in America. Worryingly, the definition of what constitutes “Russian influence” includes references to so-called ‘fake news’ websites and any site deemed anti-establishment.
Submitted by Nick Cunningham via OilPrice.com,
If anyone is cheering the news of an OPEC deal it is U.S. shale producers. The OPEC agreement sent oil prices shooting up this week, with WTI and Brent quickly surging above $50 per barrel.
In years to come markets may well look back at the month just passed as one of the most pivotal in recent memory, at least that's the assessment of DB's Jim Reid. The US election result just over 3 weeks ago sparked a huge divergence across asset classes and also between developed and emerging markets. In fact you could probably start this performance review from November 8th as assets were generally little changed in the first week and a bit leading into the election.