Peter's Blog

The Technicals: Gold Correction Is at or Near Completion

With a hawkish Fed and dollar strength, gold has dropped below $1,950 an ounce, but the technicals appear to indicate that we are at or near the end of a correction. The technical analysis last month was published when gold was around $1975 and concluded: The indicators are now mostly neutral with a bearish lean. There are […]

Comex Countdown: The Pressure Grows in Silver and Platinum

June is wrapping up strong for gold at the COMEX with 20,101 contracts being delivered. There are still 583 contracts open that have not been delivered, but the majority of the contracts have been completed. Meanwhile, were seeing more and more stress on silver and platinum.

Comex Now Has 28 Paper Claims for Each Physical Ounce of Registered Silver

The bleed of metal from COMEX vaults has resumed and silver inventories have hit record lows with 28 paper claims for each ounce of physical silver. This analysis focuses on gold and silver within the Comex/CME futures exchange. See the article What is the Comex? for more detail. The charts and tables below specifically analyze the physical […]

Federal Budget: TTM Deficit Surges by an Incredible $980B YoY

The Federal Government ran a deficit last month of $240B. Revenue continues to be at or below levels last year while expenses continue to grow.

Energy Disguises a Pretty Bad Inflation Number

The CPI rose in May by 0.12%. Energy accounted for -0.25% of the move. This means without the move in Energy, the CPI would have risen by 0.37% which annualizes to a rate of 4.5%. This shows that inflation is still quite problematic.

Will the Next Debt Ceiling Debate Conclude in Abolishment?

The Treasury has an open data platform where they publish all of the data related to the US Treasury. This includes debt, spending, revenue, etc. Different data sets are updated at different frequencies. The official US Debt is updated monthly (typically by the fourth business day). This data can be seen in the chart below.

Trade Deficit Spikes to Highest Level in Six Months

The April trade deficit came in at -$74.5B which was the largest trade deficit since October 2022.

CFTC CoTs Report: Managed Money Drives Price Drop

Please note: the CoTs report was published 06/02/2023 for the period ending 05/30/2023. “Managed Money” and “Hedge Funds” are used interchangeably. Managed money has once again bailed on gold, which drove the price back below $2000 an ounce despite the “Other” group stepping in to absorb some of the selling.

Jobs: The Household Survey Tells a Different Story

The BLS reported that a whopping 339,000 jobs were added in May. This crushed median estimates of 190,000 jobs added. The Household Survey tells a very different story though, reporting a loss of 310,000 jobs.

Fed Reduces Treasury Bill Balance By Over $100B in May

The Fed reduced its balance sheet by $177 million last month. The majority of this was actually in Treasuries with less than 1-year maturity, totaling $102B. The next biggest reduction was in loans, totaling $40B.