2025 Lunatic Fringe - Market and Trade Chat

I am down to bitcoin, gold, silver, platinum and the miners. I have no tech or healthcare stocks.

If I was going to buy stocks they would be PLTR, PLTU, BMNR & MAGY

How Did We End Up With 363 Paper Claims For Every Real Ounce?​

more:

FWIW

You can watch the China holdings of Treasuries (on a monthly basis) yourself as they are published by the US Treasury here:

https://ticdata.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/tic/Documents/slt_table5.html

That data doesn't show weekly flow though. Not sure where "Russian Market" is getting their data, but I suppose it is possible.

~~~

pmbug said:

Both gold and silver hold the line - down ever so slightly from yesterday's close in overnight trading in China. The SFE silver vault reports a tiny outflow and the SGE silver vault reports a large inflow over the previous week. The SGE silver vault report suggests that silver may have indeed been flowing from west to east last week as the SGE premium over LBMA spot would imply.

Click to expand...

What happened??

Mr honorable speaks today and they have the FOMC rate decision. Prices are nearly completely controlled. Just keep that in mind.

Goldhedge said:

What happened??

View attachment 16829

Click to expand...

Dollar strengthening. If it makes a run to the 101 range look for lower metal and stock prices.

Cigarlover said:

Dollar strengthening. If it makes a run to the 101 range look for lower metal and stock prices.

Click to expand...

Armstrong says the dollar is king when war happens.

War drums are happening in the EU.

They (NATO) want to hit Russia before Russia doesn't hit them.

"For what?" would be the question...

There's nothing but debt and migrant fatigue in the EU which is why Putin wouldn't.

NATO has tried many times and will try even more to get Putin to react so they can use Article 5 to foment WWIII.

So far he's smart like a fox.

That would be dumb for him to get involved now, more than just Ukraine. He's got China on his side (likely). And they don't have any of the economic or immigration problems that the West has. Just let them implode from debt and broken promises.

He knows they badly need a war to cover up all the shit they've caused.

Looks like current short term bottoms are:
Au $3275
Ag $36.50
Pt $1300

Here's something we haven't heard yet...

The Long Game: Trump Quietly Revived Kennedy's Yield Curve Genius Without the Fed's Help​

What happened on July 31, 2025, may not have dominated the evening news, but historians and markets will remember it. The US Treasury, under President Trump and his handpicked Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessent, executed a bond buyback so strategically elegant, so quietly effective, and so steeped in economic history that it demands both attention and praise. In repurchasing $2 billion worth of long-dated debt, at a steep discount, the Trump administration engaged in an act of economic statecraft that rivals Kennedy's famed Operation Twist, and arguably improves upon it.


First, what did they do? The Treasury ran a reverse auction to buy back long-term bonds maturing in 2042. These were not your average IOUs. Issued during the zero-interest rate era, they carried meager coupons of 2.375% and 2.75%. With interest rates now significantly higher, these bonds trade far below face value. Wall Street offered nearly $20 billion in such bonds. Treasury, in turn, cherry-picked the most deeply discounted options, buying $2 billion in face value for just $1.63 billion. In a single stroke, Treasury saved $370 million in future obligations, reduced market duration risk, and calmed a segment of the yield curve that has recently seen severe stress.

Critics may ask: if the government paid more in short-term interest to finance this buyback, why call it a victory? The answer lies in understanding that this was not a cash-saving exercise, but a market-stabilizing one. Long bonds, particularly illiquid ones, are prone to destabilizing price swings. As foreign holders like China and Japan continue to shed US Treasuries and the Fed remains absent under quantitative tightening, the market's long end is exposed. Bessent's maneuver functioned like a relief valve, draining pressure before the pipe burst. It was the financial equivalent of bleeding a radiator.

Now, where did this idea originate? The most direct antecedent is Operation Twist, first deployed in 1961 by the Kennedy administration. Then, the Federal Reserve bought long-term securities while selling short-term ones, in coordination with Treasury's issuance strategy. The goal was to lower long-term rates without compromising the dollar's strength. A modern version reappeared in 2011 under the Federal Reserve, which swapped $667 billion of short-term for long-term Treasuries. Both episodes were explicit yield curve interventions. The July 2025 buyback, however, is subtler and arguably smarter. It stabilizes without signaling panic. It communicates confidence, not desperation.

This is where Secretary Bessent deserves singular credit. Appointed by Trump not for political loyalty but for intellectual acumen, Bessent is no ordinary appointee. A former hedge fund executive and, more crucially, a professor of economic history at Yale, he understands what too many technocrats forget: history does not repeat, but it rhymes. Bessent recalled not only Operation Twist but the US buyback era of 2000–2002, when budget surpluses allowed the Treasury to retire $25 billion in long-term debt. More obscure, but no less instructive, are episodes like the World War II-era peg, when the Fed capped long-term yields at 2.5% to facilitate war financing. That intervention laid bare the power, and limits, of coordinated yield control.

more:

The savings below par value outweighs higher short rates. Once rates finally drop they will refi as much as possible.

nickndfl said:

The savings below par value outweighs higher short rates. Once rates finally drop they will refi as much as possible.

Click to expand...

What I've heard is the DS doesn't want lower rates to keep debt interest payments high. Hamstringing Trump in the process.

Tariffs are bringing in trillions and interest rates are sucking that right out.

It looks like China is raising the price for metals and the West is reluctantly tagging along.

This could have a huge impact on the gold (and silver?) trade...

Potential headwind coming for NVIDIA (which is overweight in many ETFs and indices, so the whole market really):

Nvidia's H20 chips pose security concerns for China, a social media account affiliated with China's state media said on Sunday (Aug 10), after Beijing raised concerns over backdoor access in those chips.

The H20 chips are also not technologically advanced or environmentally friendly, the account, Yuyuan Tantian, which is affiliated with state broadcaster CCTV, said in an article published on WeChat.

"When a type of chip is neither environmentally friendly, nor advanced, nor safe, as consumers, we certainly have the option not to buy it," the article concluded.
...
H20 artificial intelligence chips were developed by Nvidia for the Chinese market after the US imposed export restrictions on advanced AI chips in late 2023.

The administration of US President Donald Trump banned their sales in April amid escalating trade tensions with China but reversed the ban in July.

China's cyberspace watchdog said on Jul 31 that it had summoned Nvidia to a meeting, asking the US chipmaker to explain whether its H20 chips had any backdoor security risks - a hidden method of bypassing normal authentication or security controls.

Nvidia later said its products had no "backdoors" that would allow remote access or control.

In its article, Yuyuan Tantian said Nvidia chips could achieve functions including "remote shutdown" through a hardware "backdoor".
...

Click to expand...

pmbug said:

Gold and silver both down slightly from Friday's close to start the week in overnight trading in China. The SFE silver vault reports a modest outflow and the SGE silver vault reports a massive outflow for last week. These vault flows are net totals, so it's not clear just how much metal is actually flowing both in and out of these vaults, but The SFE/SGE has had a consistent premium to London/LBMA of around 4.6% that should encourage metal to flow east AFAIK. But we aren't seeing it with these net vault stock reports.

Click to expand...

Most likely the next push for higher spot prices in PMs will occur when interest rates come down. Some are saying we will only get a 0.25 point cut in September. A 0.50 makes plus two more equivalent cuts more sense to save what's left of the 2025 real estate market.

Take a look at SILJ around $15.50 and GDXU around $78. You might get lucky bottom fishing this week. Looks like extra PM profits are going into cryptos beginning today in the pre-market.

I missed PLTR and PLTU because of valuations. I just could not pull the trigger as it was moving like a SpaceX rocket. It's up 69% in 30 days and today PLTR is the most expensive stock in the S&P500.

Did the sun come out today?

pmbug said:

Did the sun come out today?

Click to expand...

I like to be prepared.

Plan B is waiting in the wings.

Armstrong's been talking about Capital inflows always precede war because 'someone' ALWAYS knows ahead of time.

His computer says Capital is leaving the EU and coming here. The EU is failing on many fronts. Censorship, taxation, immigration etc. A perfect recipe for war. Draft all the immigrates to fight (and lose) in a war with Russia.

Jim Rogers: This Economic Detox Will ‘Hurt Like Hell’​

“Look out the window. The debts are the highest in the history of the world… and it gets worse every day,” warns legendary investor Jim Rogers in this explosive sit-down with Daniela Cambone. “Yes, we need [detox]. But when the pain starts, people say, ‘Wait a minute. I didn’t know it was going to be this much pain. I want the easy way.’”

Rogers, co-founder of the Quantum Fund, reflects on his former intern Scott Bessent—now U.S. Treasury Secretary—who’s reportedly advocating to revalue America’s gold reserves: “He knew nothing about money… he had planned to be a journalist… and look at him now.” He slams current monetary policy: “Debasing the currency… it’s great for a while, but in the end we all suffer.” And on tariffs: “They are taxes. I prefer not to pay more for things.”

Chapters:
00:00 – Scott Bessent is Jim’s intern
02:11 – Is the gold standard returning?
04:00 – U.S. debt is soaring
06:43 – The future of the Federal Reserve Chair
08:10 – How to prepare for what’s ahead
09:46 – Currency debasement explained
11:00 – Are tariffs actually beneficial?
12:59 – Where is gold headed next?

16

Gee looks like we've (PMBug) hit the big time...

He's given me a shout out in 3 different videos/podcasts now. I posted the others here:

Shit, must be time to sell.

pmbug said:

Silver is up slightly and gold is down slightly from Friday's close in overnight trading in China. Silver hanging around $40/toz. SFE silver vault reports another moderate outflow and the SGE silver vault reports another weekly outflow for last week. China has maintained a consistent premium to LBMA for weeks on silver, so the drain of their vault stock is curious to me. Would be nice to see both inflow and outflow to see the volume. It looks like the price of silver will need to rise even more to encourage more inflow to the vaults from arbitrage trade with the West.

Click to expand...

If there's no war does that mean PM's will decline??

Goldhedge said:

If there's no war does that mean PM's will decline??

Click to expand...

Possibly.