저자: MarcFaber · 외국인
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금리와 유동성 여건을 볼 때 돈은 아직 긴축되지 않았다고 주장. 인플레이션 재가속과 연준 금리인하 기대 과잉을 경계하며, 선거 연도 연준의 완화 가능성을 언급. 금광주는 극도로 저평가되어 일부 매수 중이며, 홍콩·싱가포르 부동산주와 남미 주식도 자산가치 대비 싸다고 평가.
다듬은 글
but the question is, is money tight or not? Because if money were tight, you wouldn't have stocks making new highs. You wouldn't have cryptos making new highs. You wouldn't have the dollar and the gold price making new highs, and you wouldn't have a relatively strong dollar. So in my view, the cost of money has gone up, but money is not tight.
Today's market news: silver price analysis. Silver plunged to $24 after a stubborn US inflation report. Silver fell sharply to $24 as sticky US inflation allowed the Fed to maintain a hawkish narrative. US monthly headline and core inflation both rose 0.4% in February. On the other side, 10-year US bond yields rallied to 4.50% as hopes for Fed rate cuts eased, and silver plummeted to $24.10 as the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the Consumer Price Index remained hot in February. Annual core CPI, which strips out volatile food and energy prices, grew at 3.8%, above the consensus of 3.7% but below January's 3.9%. Headline inflation rose to 3.2%, above expectations and the previous reading of 3.1%. The monthly headline and core inflation grew 0.4%.
Quick recap of the silver technical analysis: silver faces selling pressure after testing the horizontal resistance drawn from the December 22nd high at 24.60. The overall trend is still bullish, but a price correction is expected before a fresh upside move. Is this dip a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity? If you find this useful, please leave a comment, subscribe, and check the links in the description for some massive bonuses. Let's get back to the video.
The economic literature, and you can see it yourself if you go to Turkey, shows inflation around 100% with interest rates in that range too, but money is not tight. The absolute level of interest rates alone won't tell you whether money is tight. There are other symptoms. Money is tight when markets go down, when the VIX index soars, and when the spread between junk bonds, or high-yield bonds, and Treasuries widens significantly. By that definition, money is not tight now.
I don't dispute that for some industries money is tight. Say you own a commercial building in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, or San Francisco. It may be difficult at the moment to get a loan, or you may get one but at a lower building value. But if you want to speculate in stocks on margin, there's no problem whatsoever.
Gold was at $35 in 1970 and is now around $2,000. Everybody complains that gold hasn't done well, but no, it has actually done quite well. It has kept its purchasing power, and that's why I hold a large physical gold reserve. I don't hold gold to make money; I hold it to preserve my purchasing power. Also, I'm at an age where life expectancy has diminished.
So you don't own mining stocks? I prefer physical gold, but gold miners are extremely depressed, not only against the S&P, but relative to the price of gold, silver, and platinum. For a long time I never added to gold shares, though I always held some, because I was on the boards of several mining companies until they kicked me out. For the first time now I'm buying again, especially South African gold mines, which are incredibly cheap. South Africa is in the dumps, and the mining sector is in the dumps. Even worse than the entire mining sector in the world.
There are lots of other cheap places. Hong Kong properties are very cheap. Property stocks will probably continue to fall, but property stocks in Singapore too: many companies trade at a 70% or 80% discount to asset value. Even if asset values fall another 30%, which is possible, stocks at a 70-80% discount to asset value are relatively inexpensive. Latin American markets are inexpensive too. You can buy stocks in Colombia, Brazil, Chile, and Argentina that are not expensive, and even in Europe there are some stocks and real estate that are cheap.
Gold made new all-time highs today, and silver continues its positive momentum, headed toward the key $26 level. In today's market news, Costco has started selling silver coins after $100 million worth of gold bars flew off the shelves. The silver coins are the latest precious metals offered exclusively to Costco members. Costco began selling gold bars in September 2023, just months after it started selling $2,000 gold bars, and the company is expanding its precious metals stock. Now it sells $679 packs of silver coins minted by the Royal Canadian Mint, with a face value of 5 Canadian dollars each, in packs of 25. They are currently sold in Costco Canada stores and online. Is this a good move by Costco? Please leave a comment, subscribe, and check the links in the description for some massive bonuses. Let's get back to the video.
In other words, today's high valuations are based on expectations that rate cuts are coming. We can debate whether rate cuts come in March, which is most unlikely, but more likely in June, September, or December. The market expects rates to be cut, but I'm not sure they should be, given the accelerating inflation trend. I'm not ruling out that inflation could fall, as it did in Germany, from 9% to maybe 3-4%. But the fact remains that in Germany prices are still about 25-30% higher than in 2018-2019, before the price explosion of the last few years. Central banks only look at the current rate of inflation, and they don't care about what happened in the past. If inflation has been at 2-3% for a year, they may cut in the US too.
At the moment, US inflation is maybe around 5%, perhaps higher. Each family has a different rate of inflation, but for the typical family it's between 5 and 15%, depending on where they live, how many children they have, and how much they pay in insurance premiums. Service inflation is rising strongly right now. Government interventions, especially when carried out by ignorant and incompetent people, like in Germany, raise the cost of living for the whole population and impoverish it. That's the problem: governments use Putin as an excuse to push through legislation and all kinds of regulations that increase the cost of living for ordinary people.
I don't think there was really a catalyst to push the gold price higher. But as I said, money is not tight. When Nvidia goes into the sky and cryptocurrencies go up ballistically, some money sells these strongly rising assets and looks for something relatively safe. Gradually, people also conclude that governments will keep printing money. It's an election year in the US, and the Fed is not a friend of Mr. Trump, I can assure you. They will do everything to get the Democrats reelected. So in my view it's likely that the Fed, whatever the conditions, will keep money easy. It could be that interest rates don't go down, but they can supply liquidity to the market to keep markets up, or even supply more liquidity to push markets higher so people feel good and vote for Biden.
A "high" level is difficult to determine. I grew up in the 1950s, so I can tell you what things cost. When I went to school in 1950, a cross, a pen, cost 15 cents, and now it's maybe 250 or 300, or whatever. And how much a coffee was: I remember on Sunday nights, because my mother was working, my brother and I sometimes were alone at home, and we went to a local restaurant where for five francs fifty we had a full menu: starter, main dish, and dessert. Now the same meal would cost, I don't know, 50 francs. So prices are up about ten times in Switzerland. In America it's maybe more.
What do you think of today's show? Will gold and silver have a huge year in 2024? Post in the comments your price prediction for gold and silver at the end of 2024. Subscribe if you haven't yet, and watch this video right here, because you'll love it. I'll see you on the other side.
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