Peter's Blog

Fed’s Taper Struggle: Central Bank Adds Another $100 Billion to Balance Sheet

The Fed is talking taper. But it seems to be having a hard time actually tapering. The central bank added another $100 billion to its balance sheet in January.

Money Supply Grew 13.1% in 2021 – Is It Enough to Keep the Bubble Going?

M2 increased by $201 billion in December. This represents a 0.94% MoM increase which annualizes to 11.9%. For the entire year of 2021, M2 grew by an incredible $2.5 trillion or 13.1%! This is extremely rapid money supply growth! The Fed can taper their asset purchases, but shrinking the Money Supply is the only way […]

The Technicals: Will $1800 Gold Hold?

For the past year, gold has been battling around the $1,800 an ounce psychological mark. Silver has faced a similar up and down battle near $25, albeit with more volatility. Gold finished 2021 strong at $1830 but then a pullback happened followed by a quick rebound back above $1800 and now $1830. Will $1800 hold […]

Comex Countdown: BofA House Strikes Back

An article earlier this month reviewed the massive volume of physical metal leaving the bank House accounts over the last two years. December 2021 finished the year off with a massive drawdown in House account inventories. While the drawdown continues across most accounts, Bank of America has tried to recoup some of the physical metal that […]

Last Month Proves to Be an Outlier – Metal is Leaving Comex Vaults Again

Last month, we saw a small increase in metal stored in COMEX vaults, but that turned out to be a blip in the trend. Metal is leaving the COMEX vaults again. 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 […]

Can the Deficit Fall Below $1 Trillion in 2022?

In the calendar year 2021, federal tax revenues surged by an incredible 25% compared to 2020 and were up 22.8% over 2019 (pre-COVID). But the surge in tax revenues was not enough to overcome a record $6.8 trillion in spending, breaking the spending record set in 2020 by 1.6%.

Is Omicron Hiding Much Higher Inflation?

The CPI for December was 0.5% month over month, with a non-seasonally adjusted annual rate of 7.0%. As the chart below shows, the December data reinforced a downward trend we’ve seen since a .95% reading in October. But is the recent omicron COVID spike hiding much higher inflation?

December Jobs: All but One Category are Way Behind 12-Month Trend

November had been the weakest jobs report of the year until a meager 199k were announced for December. As shown below, over the last 18 months, only December 2020 was weaker. This was right when the Covid second wave was wreaking havoc and before vaccines became available to the public.

Treasury Adds $709B to the Debt in a Single Month

The debt ceiling was raised in December and the Treasury responded immediately, adding $709 billion in debt over the month. To be fair, $470 billion of this was non-marketable, as shown below. Note: Non-Marketable consists almost entirely of debt the government owes to itself (e.g., debt owed to Social Security or public retirement)

Goods Deficit Approaches $100 Billion

November 2021 charted a total trade deficit of -$80.2B just shy of the record -$81.4B in September. However, the data this month is far more concerning when digging into the details. After a massive surge in the trade deficit occurred in September, October saw a big pullback to -$67.1B. The details showed that the volatility was […]