Peter's Blog

Workforce Shrinks by 720,000 While Gold Surges to $4,096

June’s Employment Situation report offered little comfort to households or policymakers. Headline non-farm payrolls grew by a scant 57,000, a figure that arrived alongside a combined 74,000 downward revision to April and May. The official unemployment rate edged down to 4.2 percent, yet that improvement came only because 720,000 Americans exited the labor force. As […]

Job Openings Hold Steady at 7.6 Million, Uncertainty Continues

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released its latest Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) on Tuesday, and the report offered little new for markets to digest. Total openings in May held at 7.6 million, hires came in at 5.2 million, and separations totaled 5.1 million. The underlying rates (openings at 4.6%, hiring at 3.3%, […]

Household Survey Shows 500k Jobs Lost in June while Labor Force Participation Crashes to Multi-year lows

The analysis below covers the Employment picture released on the first Friday of every month. While most of the attention goes to the Headline Report, it can be helpful to look at the details, revisions, and other reports to get a better gauge of what is really going on. Current Trends The jobs report showed […]

Fed’s Williams Talks Tough on Inflation as Gold Tops $4,000

New York Federal Reserve President John Williams didn’t show up to Tuesday’s Crane’s Money Fund Symposium in person, but his prepared remarks got out anyway. Gold didn’t care either way. Williams described the U.S. economy as “resilient amid the uncertainty” from the Middle East conflict, pointing to steady consumer spending and “robust” artificial-intelligence investment. In […]

CFTC CoTs: Managed Money Gets Bullish on Gold

Please note: the CoTs report was published 06/26/2026 for the period ending 06/23/2026. “Managed Money” and “Hedge Funds” are used interchangeably. The Commitment of Traders report is a weekly publication that shows the breakdown of ownership in the Futures market. For every contract, there is a long and a short, so the net positioning will […]

The Fed Balance Sheet Increases by $31B in June

The following analysis breaks down the Fed balance sheet in detail. It shows different parts of the balance sheet and how those amounts have changed. It also shows historical interest rate trends. Breaking Down the Balance Sheet As soon as the Fed ended Quantitative Tightening they launched a new round of Quantitative Easing. As shown […]

Americans Are Spending More, but Their Savings Are Quietly Disappearing

May’s economic data tells a story that sounds good on the surface but gets more complicated the closer you look. The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) released its report Friday showing personal income climbed 0.7 percent last month, adding $181.6 billion, with disposable income rising by that same margin. Americans didn’t sit on that extra […]

Fed Talks Tough But Money Supply Explodes Higher

Money Supply is a very important indicator. It helps show how tight or loose current monetary conditions are regardless of what the Fed is doing with interest rates. Even if the Fed is tight, if Money Supply is increasing, it has an inflationary effect. One key metric shown below is the “Wenzel” 13-week annualized money […]

Central Banks Double Down on Bullion as Dollar Doubts Grow

Central banks are not easing off the gold pedal. According to the World Gold Council’s newly released 2026 Central Bank Gold Reserves Survey, monetary authorities have been snapping up an average of 1,000 tonnes of bullion annually over the past four years– double the pace seen in the prior decade. Nearly nine in ten survey […]

The Return of Easy Money Is Fueling Higher Prices

The latest figures show the money supply growing at its fastest pace in over four years, with consumer prices climbing right alongside it. Yet the Federal Reserve continues to insist its policy stance is at least moderately restrictive, even as real wages fall further behind inflation. The following article was originally published by the Mises […]