What effect has Ukraine, inflation, and the Fed had on gold prices?
Gold prices have been affected by three primary factors, inflation, the war in Ukraine, and lastly, statements and actions by the Federal Reserve. Overwhelmingly, market participants are focused on the effects of spiraling inflation levels and the war on Ukraine providing bullish market sentiment for the precious yellow metal. While statements and actions by the Federal Reserve have curtailed any sustained upside movement gold continues to gain value this year.
As of 4:15 PM EDT gold futures basis, the most active June contract is trading at $1957.80, after factoring in today's gain of $12.20 or +0.63%. Most noteworthy today is the high gold achieved in trading overseas, reaching an apex of $1974.60.
However, following the intraday high were statements by the president of the Chicago Federal Reserve Bank, Charles Evans said, that he would not oppose interest rates moving higher to more of a neutral stance between 2.25% and 2.5% by the end of the year. This could only be accomplished by the Federal Reserve raising interest rates by ½% at two of the remaining FOMC meetings this year.
Speaking to the Detroit economic club Charles Evans said, "Fifty is obviously worthy of consideration; perhaps it's highly likely even if you want to get to neutral by December." The net result of his statements today took gold from its intraday high roughly $18 above current pricing, to its current price just below $1960 per ounce.
The primary reason that gold continues to trade higher in light of a much more aggressive Federal Reserve is the current level of inflation as well as the war in Ukraine.
Tomorrow the government will release the Consumer Price Index (CPI) report, which will give the investment community the latest information on the current level of inflation in the United States. The current consensus by economic analysts is that the March report will show another uptick in inflation. Adding to the former pressure, which took inflation to its current 40-year high is the war in Ukraine which resulted in higher food and oil pricing. The CPI inflation index came in at 7.9% for February and it is anticipated that tomorrow's report will show that inflation has moved substantially past 8%.
The current military action by Russia as it attacks its neighbor in south Ukraine is expected to accelerate with no end in sight. Ukraine today said that it expects Russia to initiate a major offensive imminently with military action shifting its focus from the capital city of Kyiv to the Eastern portion of Ukraine, where pro-Russian separatists currently occupy the territory of Donbas. Karl Nehammer, the Austrian Chancellor, met with Vladimir Putin, the first EU leader to hold face-to-face talks with the Russian president concluding his viewpoint, "I generally have no optimistic impression that I can report to you from this conversation with President Putin… The offensive (in eastern Ukraine) is evidently being prepared on a massive scale."
Combined, the continued acceleration of inflationary pressures in the United States and the war in Ukraine are overwhelmingly balancing any negative pressure by statements and actions of the Federal Reserve. Collectively these three forces, Ukraine, inflation, and the Federal Reserve, have been the primary sources affecting gold pricing. However, it seems that the war in Ukraine and upticks in inflation are moving gold prices higher than the negative or bearish market sentiment created by the Federal Reserve as it continues its action to normalize interest rates in an attempt to stave off the drastically higher level of inflation.
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Several months ago I stumbled across a marketing system that has forever changed the way I operate on a daily basis. That marketing system is called iWebatool. It is unlike any other marketing system I have ever seen. iWebatool is jamb packed with all the capture pages, landing pages, videos, autoresponders, tutorials, etc. . . all the tools a marketer could ever need. The entire platform is designed to provide all those marketing tools to anyone who wants to use them but they have already been pre-built with several preselected opportunities. At this point in time, there are approximately 25 different opportunities that have been chosen by the CEO and his team of experts have built a complete marketing package for each one of those 25 businesses.
That's how the system operates. They don't go to all the trouble of building out those powerful marketing funnels, complete with professionally written followup emails, for just any opportunity. These 25 or so opportunities have been hand picked by the CEO himself. One thing I absolutely love about this system is that it is only $25.00 per month. And believe me, that is super cheap when you consider all the time and effort you save in building out the funnels themselves.
One such funnel was built (and is continually being updated and enhanced) for the iHub.Global business. As a matter this is his favorite of the entire group. This particular funnel is being used by marketers around the world and it is estimated that this funnel has been and still is instrumental in over 160,000 enrollees into the iHub.Global business.
iWebatool and Markethive have many similarities yet they are different in many ways. I love Markethive and iWebatool both. I feel they compliment each other nicely.
The CEO gives multiple ZOOM meetings on a weekly basis. Some are specifially for iHub.Global business owners and the Zoom meeting on Monday is how to use the iWebatool Marketing System itself.
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Oregon congressional candidate Matt West (L) and former Wyoming Rep. Tyler Lindholm on a panel about crypto and politics at Camp Ethereal 2022 in Wyoming. (Photo: Chie Endo)
Crypto is a bigger topic in the halls of U.S. government than it's ever been.
President Joe Biden issued an executive order on crypto, mobilizing multiple agencies to get on the same page about regulating the industry. Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-Wy.) is a vocal crypto proponent, and recently defended her right to own Bitcoin as a policymaker. Former South Carolina Representative Mick Mulvaney, nicknamed the "Bitcoin Congressman," was a top aide to President Donald Trump. Senator Ted Cruz (R-Tx.) is a crypto advocate who argued for changing the restrictive "broker" definition in the Senate infrastructure bill. Miami Mayor Francis Suarez and New York City Mayor Eric Adams are among multiple "crypto mayors" who are gaga for crypto and plan to take paychecks in Bitcoin.
And yet, if you're an elected official or currently running for office, it seems you still can't lead with crypto. It can't be your primary talking point, or you get branded as a crypto crazy.
"That is a concern," said Matt West, a Democrat and former Yearn Finance developer running for congress in Oregon, when I asked him at the end of a panel at Camp Ethereal in Wyoming last month. "When I'm going around my district, which does lean fairly to the left … it does come across as fairly negative. Full stop. And that's a real issue. That's an issue with our messaging and our branding inside of this community, more than anything else."
West said that to avoid getting "pigeonholed," he leads with climate change, homelessness, income inequality ("all those traditional Democratic talking points"), and then, eventually, people "learn about crypto and my background in it," and that's when he lets his crypto out, so to speak.
Politicians are embracing crypto on both sides of the aisle. Matt West, running for congress in Oregon, Matthew Diemer, running for congress in Ohio, and former Wyoming Rep. Tyler Lindholm discussed crypto and politics on a panel with Decrypt's Jeff Roberts at Camp Ethereal in Wyoming. As Diemer pointed out, "We have a conservative Republican, a progressive Democrat, and a moderate Democrat on the same stage, unified by crypto and the idea of making sensible regulation."
Andrew Yang learned the hard way. The Bitcoin-touting 2020 presidential candidate was an early frontrunner in the 2021 New York mayoral race until he fell behind former police officer Eric Adams, ironically a fellow crypto-advocate, who made crime his leading issue and waited until 20 days into his tenure to truly let his crypto out.
Yang said on our gm podcast last month that, "The days of [crypto] being off of D.C.'s menu or radar screen are very, very quickly coming to an end." But even as he promotes a lobbying DAO that aims to spur change in D.C. using crypto, he also says the DAO's work will still involve "doing things the old-fashioned way."
That right there is the lingering problem: The old-fashioned way still reigns in Washington. And the biggest power-players in the old guard aren't ready for something they see as new (even though Bitcoin's been around 13 years) and "shadowy."
Caitlin Long, a 22-year Wall Street veteran who left the big banks to launch a Bitcoin bank, said on our gm podcast that the crypto reactionaries in D.C. break down into two groups: big government or big business. "Those who are true big government believers are going to be anti-crypto, because crypto is not about centralization, it's about decentralization—and oftentimes, you see those same folks being very anti big tech," Long said. "And then there's the big business crowd. Most folks will never admit that they're either big government or big business types, but look at what they actually do. The big business types protect the big banks, and take an awful lot of donations from them."
Many of the prominent pols who have criticized crypto fit clearly into one of the two groups Long described. Perhaps that won't change until the makeup of Washington changes—and that's up to the voters.
Silver prices are stuck, but future shines bright as industrial demand grows – Bank of America
Silver prices are stuck in a wide range finding little momentum from subdued investor interest; however, commodity analysts at Bank of America expect the precious metals industrial demand to keep the market well supported.
In a report published Friday, the analysts said that demand from the solar power sector and growing importance in the auto sector will be two critical factors driving silver prices for the next three years.
The bank sees silver prices ending the year at around $32.50 an ounce as the market sees falling supply and growing industrial demand. The long-term bullish outlook comes as silver prices consolidate between $24 and $25 an ounce. May silver futures last traded at $25.81 an ounce, up 0.30% on the day.
"Demand headwinds have been gradually tailing off, and silver usage in solar panels is set to increase further as more photovoltaic (PV) is installed," the analysts said in the report. "Importantly, out to 2025, new PV installations in GW will likely outpace any savings from learning effects that might reduce silver loadings in panels. We assume 19t of silver per GW of capacity installed at the moment."
Looking beyond the solar sector, Bank of America expects electric vehicles to be an essential source of industrial demand for silver. They said that each electric car uses about 38 grams of silver, up 72% compared to conventional internal combustion engines.
"Overlaying these figures with expected EV production volumes, we believe silver usage could rise to 3,522t by 2025, from around 2,000t in the past decade," the analysts said.
Palladium price up 8%; lifts precious metals as London bans Russia PGM refineries
Along with growing demand, the report also noted that the silver market is seeing falling mine production.
"Silver production should remain subdued and is unlikely to return to the levels seen a decade ago. Of course, lack of output growth has been influenced by the low silver quotations in the past decade, which pushed miners to cut capex," the analysts said.
How To Increase Your Sphere Of Influence In Markethive
We have a lot to be grateful for within Markethive. It’s like stepping out of the rat race into an oasis of humanity at its best. As an inbound marketing, business-based platform with an inherent entrepreneurial spirit, we have all the tools to get our message out to the whole world. We have a social media interface with a collaborative ethos rarely experienced on legacy social media.
We are starting to see new integrations in the blogging section in preparation for the customized, more intuitive interface anddashboard of Markethive and, of course, the Markethive Walletthat will facilitate the Merchant accounts for members as well as personal transactions, the Vault, etc.
Image: Updated feature above all Blogs
As shown above, the new-look Blogcasting Hub is located at the top of all blogs in the system. Blogcasting is a term introduced by Markethive and is an enhanced broadcasting system. In the traditional broadcasting sense, only the people who physically subscribe to your blog or newsletter are usually notified of your updates via email.
With this blogcasting system, your social networks are informed of your blog as and when you publish them. What this means is the potential reach is into the millions.
For example, If I subscribe to your blog and have 20,000 followers across all my social media accounts, and you have 15,000 subscribers each with a similar following, your blogs have now been potentially seen by around 300,000,000 people. These are people who are not directly subscribed to you. It is known as a “reach” and is extremely powerful.
WP Plugin Article Import
When you use the Markethive blogging system, your content can easily be distributed to your and others’ WordPress sites who subscribe to you. WordPress has been around for years and is a renowned world leader in Blogging platforms.
It will be integrated into the new Page Making system where all member accounts will receive a WordPress site and be assigned an email for both POP email and default website with an option to assign it to your WordPress or Markethive capture page.
Markethive’s “Blogcasting” is an excellent solution to the long-term problem of getting the word out legitimately to people who want to hear what you have to say. Blogging is the purest essence of inbound marketing and the core of what Markethive does.
Image: Inbound Content Marketing Wheel
Blog System In Your Storefront Niche
Markethive has successfully combined all the technical and tactical aspects and requirements into one system and overcame the obstacles to make blogging a group process. You can mentor your new associates or offer your customers ongoing support through your Storefront Group.
Connecting with them through writing blogs and articles consistently with exciting and relevant information will create an authoritative presence, perhaps meet a customer’s need and provide a solution that maybe can’t be recognized in a short advertising message. It can start conversations and is an excellent way to be invited into the consumers’ hearts and minds.
It helps us be more human in everything we do and in every engagement. It’s about building relationships and connecting at an authentic and genuine level. The most human company wins, and the technology should be used to help your company be more compassionate, receptive, fascinating, and valuable.
Markethive’s Inbound Marketing platform delivers a blogging system built for the beginner, sophisticated for the intermediate, and a compelling platform that advanced professional bloggers will appreciate. The system is designed to develop a complete blog system effortlessly, and easily set up to be the engine that powers your WordPress blogs.
Image: Drop-down menus on Blogging Platform
Blog Subscribe
The Blog Subscribe feature is where other Markethive members can subscribe to your blog by checking the status of any medium displayed in the drop-down menu. Other sites are to be added, subject to alignment and collaboration of the parties in question going forward.
When they subscribe (and the potential is 1000s of them), your blog posts are automatically posted to their newsfeeds, email, and any social media accounts they’ve checked. This provides a downstream of subscribers, fellow entrepreneurs at Markethive, who expose their connections to your message; they lift you, increase your popularity, and build more outstanding branding.
When your blogs are shared and consequently clicked on, they move up in the search rankings. Your readers will want others to know if you're providing quality content. Of course, the only way to make sure your blogs contribute to your website’s popularity is to create unique content, provide answers for visitors, and then share your blogs wherever you can.
Through the News Feed and Blogcasting Hub, you can promote any products and services globally with a reach into the billions. That is because when people do searches, if the content on your blog is what they are after, they will find you. A very high percentage of the traffic is non-member-related, so many of the people you address on your blog do not even belong to the site.
Blog Swipe
The Markethive blog system allows you to make your content available to all members when set on Public upon publishing your blog. The other options are privacy, comments, and swiping are to your friends only, or just to members of all the Groups you belong to, or a selection of them or just one (your choice). You can also set it to Private so no one can swipe your blog.
Why? There are many sound reasons for this.
Curating:
Content curation is the process of sorting through the vast amounts of content on the web and presenting it in a meaningful and organized way around a specific theme. The work involves sifting, sorting, arranging, and publishing information. Markethive offers features to the groups you create and is the perfect blogging platform.
The option allows others to reproduce your work with your permission and automatically take an exact copy of your blog to their Markethive Blog System. WordPress plugin enables your blog articles massive syndication to other Markethive members' WordPress blogs.
Simply set up a Curating Group for yourself and Swipe the blogs in Markethive as a collection of content you may want to use in your publications. The new Markethive interface will house a newsfeed specifically for curation to intuitively organize and further our reach.
Proofing:
You may have a group of members who want to edit, add, or rewrite your content. It is an active phenomenon in Markethive, offering mentorship to people keen to learn the art of writing and blogging, advancing their presence.
You may get critiques when you produce a blog, so I just offer them to swipe it, edit and change it as they see fit, and then let me know. If I like it, I swipe it back. It’s all about perpetual learning and the ability to express yourself within a collaborative culture.
The ability to swipe a Blog makes it so much easier to get started, and new bloggers go from poorly and rarely produced blog posts to 1 or 2 dynamic and excellent on-topic blog posts daily. In other words, thanks to the collaborative culture and mentorship, Markethive is now churning out a new breed of wonderful and dynamic bloggers.
Cocktails:
A Markethive feature allows you to create unlimited groups, each with a different cocktail of content curated, aggregated, or from multiple group memberships. So the options to produce unique content for unlimited WordPress blogs controlled from within Markethive are unlimited.
Image: Blogcasting Infographic
Ecosystem For Entrepreneurs With Respect
Markethive is blockchain-driven, being integrated on the Solana Blockchain. The Markethive coin is mined when members utilizing the platform as the system rewards you with the Hivecoin Token for using the platform as intended.
It’s important to note that excessive non-productive actions and engagement for the sole purpose of accumulating the token are not rewarded. Measures have been put in place for fraudulent behavior, which is considered toxic for the professionalism of the platform.
With all members' creative content in mind, distributed, peer-to-peer data, communications, broadcasting, and marketing foundation are advantages. With distributed decentralized cloud servers, the likelihood of a data crash, central server failure, hacking, and political unrest is heavily mitigated, delivering an extremely stable platform for each subscriber on their merit.
Another Advantage Coming
Blogcasting is a Blogging Broadcasting System introduced and enhanced by Markethive. When you use the Markethive blogging system, your content can easily be distributed to your and other WordPress sites.
Markethive has also built into the system the ability to register your other social network accounts, with more being added as we move forward with the new interface. You can subscribe to your blogs and others, therefore literally distributing content to a vast reach into the billions.
The added advantage is the Bounty Program that is currently in the works. This means you will be rewarded for registering all your separate accounts through the Markethive platform. Subscribing and following the many Markethive social media accounts will qualify you for the Infinity Bounty Program.
CEO of Markethive Thomas Prendergast explains the workings and benefits of the upcoming Infinity Bounty Program.
Regardless of your motivation and drive, Markethive will add to your objectives, broaden your reach, and build your sphere of influence further and more significant than anything before has even attempted to do.
The moment you join Markethive, you have an instant setup of your own “Viral Blog” ready for you to begin posting content and marketing your business, product, service, or even personal content. You’ll be up and running the moment you set up your account! Markethive nurtures the Rise of the Entrepreneur with the Divine Vision to put a great future in your hands.
Gold price to focus on new decades-high inflation numbers next week – analysts
The gold market will pay close attention to the U.S. inflation numbers in what will be a very data-heavy week. Analysts are looking for prices pressures to reach new four-decade highs of well above 8% in March.
The big macro news still being digested by the gold market is the FOMC March minutes revealing the Fed's plan to reduce its balance sheet by $95 billion a month, which will likely be kicked off in May.
The Fed also discussed 50-basis-point rate hikes at upcoming meetings, which the market is already pricing in for May. "Many participants noted that one or more 50 basis point increases in the target range could be appropriate at future meetings, particularly if inflation pressures remained elevated or intensified," the minutes said.
This is why the March inflation data, which is scheduled to be released on Tuesday, will be one of the key releases to monitor. Market consensus calls expect to see annual inflation at 8.4% — the new four-decade high.
"The March consumer price inflation release … is expected to jump again due to the surge in gasoline prices. The national average was $3.50/gallon in February versus $4.19/gallon in March. Food prices have been rising sharply too while supply chain strains, rising commodity prices, and higher labor cost inputs in an environment where companies have decent pricing power mean broad-based contributions," said ING chief international economist James Knightley.
High inflation data will keep pressure on the Fed to hike by 50 basis points in May. However, the gold market remains unconvinced the Fed can maintain its aggressive tightening throughout 2022. This is why the precious metal held up so well, with June Comex gold futures last trading at $1,945.90, up more than 1% on the week.
"The market is now focused on whether the Fed's accelerated tightening path will eventually force the central bank to choose between continuing to fight inflation aggressively or slowing down because of growth concerns. That is providing long-term optimism for gold investors," OANDA senior market analyst Edward Moya told Kitco News.
Growth risks will only rise from here, Moya said, pointing to a slate of economic data releases coming up in April.
"As this war in Ukraine drags on, it will continue to feed into this inflationary focus the markets have. There are a lot of reasons to flee into safe havens right now. And even though it is typically bad for gold when Treasury yields go up so high, the precious metal is hanging in there quite well," Moya said. "We should anticipate there could be further shocks to a wide range of commodities."
Deutsche Bank's recession call: U.S. economy to take 'major hit' as Fed tightens
In light of this environment, it is also hard to make a bull case for U.S. equities, he added. "The take on Wall Street is that we are going to move sideways for quite some time. Gold is likely to remain steady if not become more constructive and eventually grow as risks intensify."
Some gold investors will continue to have a wait-and-see approach in terms of the Fed, said TD Securities head of global strategy Bart Melek.
"The Fed is ready to tighten conditions up here. That is largely priced in. What does it mean for gold? It implies that we are going to be guarded here. Will the Fed really tighten monetary policy? Will it contract? So the market is neutral — it thinks rates will go up but won't necessarily be overly restrictive," Melek told Kitco News.
There is a good chance the Fed will introduce some of the bigger rate hikes this spring and at the beginning of the summer to try and convince the market they are not behind the curve.
"Gold is performing well even though we are talking about a tightening cycle. It is up 7% year-to-date. Some gold people may be thinking that after the initial action, the Fed may not be as committed. Could very well be that inflation doesn't come off as quickly as Fed is protecting," Melek noted.
According to Melek, gold's support and resistance levels for next week are $1,920 and $1,967 an ounce. Moya is watching the $1,970 an ounce as the high and $1,900 as the low for next week.
Next week's data
Tuesday: U.S. CPI
Wednesday: U.S. PPI, BoC rate announcement
Thursday: ECB rate announcement, U.S. retail sales, jobless claims
Mexican billionaire Ricardo Salinas said today that 60% of his liquid investment portfolio is in Bitcoin.
Salinas is Mexico’s third-richest man, and the world’s 154th richest, with a net worth of $12.8 billion, according to Bloomberg. At the Miami Bitcoin 2022 conference today, Salinas said he doesn’t own any bonds—instead preferring to invest mostly in Bitcoin.
This is up from 2020, when the business magnate admitted 10% of his portfolio was in Bitcoin—saying at the time that the asset “protects the citizen from government expropriation."
“I definitely don’t have any bonds,” he said today. “I have a liquid portfolio—I have 60% in Bitcoin and Bitcoin equities, and then 40% in hard asset stocks like oil and gas and gold miners, and that’s where I am.”
Salinas, who is chairman of Grupo Elektra, a home appliance and electronics retailer, has long been a Bitcoin fan. In October 2020, he posted on Twitter a list of book recommendations, including ‘The Bitcoin Standard’ by economist Saifedean Ammous.
Not long after, he admitted he held Bitcoin in his portfolio. And then the billionaire went full Bitcoin bro and changed his Twitter bio to include the biggest cryptocurrency by market cap—joining the likes of MicroStrategy’s Michael Saylor and Skybridge’s Anthony Scaramucci.
Salinas, who controls more than half of the Mexican motorcycle market, has since talked about Bitcoin frequently on social media.
And he isn’t the only Mexican excited about Bitcoin in Miami right now. Earlier today, Senator Indira Kempis, a pro-Bitcoin politician who represents the State of Nuevo León, said she was going to propose making Bitcoin legal tender in Latin America’s second biggest economy.
Though it wasn’t clear how realistic the announcement was—and how much of it was just hyperbolic Bitcoiner bluster.
Gold rises as investors brace for Tuesday’s CPI inflation report
As of 4:44 PM EDT gold futures basis, the most active June 2022 contract is trading up $11.70, a gain of 0.60% at $1949.50. There were some alarming forecasts for the upcoming release of the latest inflationary data vis-à-vis the CPI (Consumer Price Index) on Tuesday, March 12. Just last week estimates were released by the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland which revealed a detailed estimate of the upcoming CPI report indicating that the level of inflation in March could run as high as 8.41%. Furthermore, estimates for the first quarter of 2022 predict inflationary pressures quarter over quarter could swell as high as 9.1%.
The chart above is a 240-minute candlestick chart of gold futures. We have included are trendlines highlighting a series of lower highs, as well as a series of higher lows. This has created a compression triangle and breakout above the current resistance level. This indicates that gold has concluded its consolidation period and moved back into a solid rally mode. This puts our next target for potential resistance at $1967.60. Above that price point, there is resistance at $2000 and major resistance at $2016.
While the Federal Reserve maintains that inflationary levels are peaking and should begin to decline throughout the rest of the year, this assumption is not written in stone as many variables could continue the rise of inflationary pressures throughout the year. One of the primary unknowns is the current crisis in Ukraine which resulted in global inflationary pressures due to supply chain issues regarding their agricultural exports to countries in the European Union, as well as the continuing boycott of Russian goods, oil of course but also much more, in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This has had a dramatic impact on the cost of crude oil worldwide. It also led to the release of over 200 million barrels from the strategic oil reserves of the United States and the European Union.
Russia’s escalated military action following its invasion of Ukraine continues to create geopolitical uncertainty and could prolong the rise of inflationary pressures which began as countries around the world allocated massive amounts of capital to stave off the recession which was a result of the global pandemic.
There is now concern that future actions of the Federal Reserve in its attempt to lessen the rise of inflation will lead to an end to the economic recovery, resulting in a return to a recession in the United States.
James Knightley, chief international economist at ING, said, “With the Fed seemingly feeling the need to ‘catch up’ to regain control of inflation and inflation expectations, a rapid-fire pace of aggressive interest rate increases heightens the chances of a policy miss-step that could be enough to topple the economy into a recession.”
Bloomberg News recently reported that economists polled have raised their U.S. inflation forecast again and downgraded their expectations for economic growth through most of 2023. This forecast is based upon the potential risks that result from the Federal Reserve’s attempt to reduce the current level of inflation.
Many uncertainties will continue to increase inflationary pressures globally. The confidence that the Federal Reserve can effectively execute a soft landing is waning among many economists. The assumption that the Federal Reserve will not have the ability to pull it off without causing damage leads to one of two things. The return of global economic recession, or the continuation of rising inflation. Either of these outcomes will have an enormous impact on economies worldwide and will continue to be highly supportive of safe-haven assets such as gold, moving them to higher prices.
And while many dream of the progressive life, for us it is quite ordinary. We live, think, learn, work, consume, eat, get sick and die the way we learned to live, think, learn, work, consume, eat, get sick and die, and in the course of time we get used to the strangest things.
But if I erase everything I have learned and look at the present as a stranger from the outside, I no longer understand the world:
Surreal reality is normality We hang people on tubes, insert artificial joints and make their hearts beat artificially. We keep bodily functions alive while the soul may be on a completely different path.
We screen our bodies, but not the meaning of life.
We are not allowed to let people die, but we are allowed to keep them alive – are we not then allowed to judge their death by judging their life?
We don't have time, although everything goes faster.
We look at displays all day, but less at faces.
We have the best conversation, but have conversations less often.
We speed up, but go backwards.
We have it easier, but are getting heavier.
We are overfed, but underfed.
We are more comfortable, but get sick.
We have prosperity, but suffer from prosperity diseases.
We have become the tools of our own inventiveness – the world is becoming more and more complex, although life is supposed to become simpler.
Prisoners of freedom Because we want cheap meat, we produce animals like matter and grow fodder crops, although people are starving. We are closest to ourselves and yet often miles away. We can be in any place at any time, but are rarely in the present. The world is getting smaller – we can even bring it home. Everything is possible – WE ARE FREE! But freedom makes us its prisoners. When everything is possible, we have a thousand possibilities and always too little time. We are the slaves of our time: separated from our families and married to work because modern life demands flexible people.
The dependence of freedom We dissect the world under the microscope, but forget to marvel.
We feel omnipotent – yet we lose control.
We want to possess, but become obsessed with everything.
We root ourselves in the earth, but destroy it.
We are outnumbered, but consume the most resources.
We always want more, but overlook what we have.
We look for happiness around us and don't feel that we have it inside us.
We no longer have to be cold – we have even turned on the heating in the world.
We have the most modern machines, but we forget our own hands.
We consume products from other continents but cannot order our own garden – not even online.
We are free, but more dependent than ever before.
And although we are allowed to choose, we lament not having a choice.
Responsibility in globalisation We – is the western lifestyle.
We – is the high standard of living.
We – is the model for many people around the world who have been at home in their unique cultures. Gradually they are disappearing into a shallow monotony.
Are these lamentations on a high level
or justified doubts about our form of society?
It is far from all bad, but much could be better if we were less complex and more simple again. In the constant striving for faster, further, higher, I long for a reversal: back to the roots and touching the earth with your hands again!
Gold moves higher as investors refocus on inflation and Ukraine
Unquestionably market sentiment oscillates amongst the investment community focusing upon inflationary pressures and Ukraine or on the Federal Reserve’s tightening of their monetary policy. Inflationary pressures and the war in Ukraine create bullish market sentiment for the safe-haven asset class, specifically gold. In contrast, reactions to the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy, which includes a series of rate hikes and runoff of their balance sheet assets, lead to bearish market sentiment in gold.
It seems that from day to day, market participants will move back and forth between these factors. As for today, market participants are once again putting their primary focus on the inflation continuing to move higher and the war in Ukraine. In regards to the war, it seems highly unlikely that a peaceful resolution will be forthcoming any time soon. Rather concerns have emerged over the excessive military action and targeting of civilians in Ukraine. The war in Ukraine has also affected levels of global inflation, taking them higher. Currently, Ukraine and Russia collectively export a large percentage of wheat and other agricultural products to countries in the European Union, and the war has pressured agricultural products such as wheat higher.
As of 4:10 PM EDT, gold futures basis most active June 2022 contract is up to $11.50 or 0.60% and is currently fixed at $1934.80. Gold traded to a high today of $1941.70 and a low of $1923.30. Concurrently the dollar has been extremely strong this weekend, providing moderate headwinds for gold prices. The entire precious metals complex on the futures markets has shown gains on the day.
Silver futures are up almost a full percent (+0.97%) or $0.23 and are currently fixed at $25.695. Palladium futures are trading 2.62% higher on the day at $2242 per ounce. However, it must be noted that there has been exceedingly high volatility and downside selling pressure over the last five weeks. During the week of March 7, palladium traded to a record high just above $3400 an ounce and, compared to current pricing, has given up roughly 30% in value. Russia is one of the primary producers of platinum and palladium and provides roughly 30% of the palladium used in the automotive industry’s production of catalytic converters.
Additional sanctions by the United States and the European Union further isolate Russia. Still, it also increases the probability of dramatic military action as a response or rationale for escalating their military campaign.
Lastly, market participants continue to focus on the minutes from the March FOMC meeting, which were released yesterday, and statements made by Federal Reserve members, which indicate a much more hawkish tone and pace at which they will tighten their monetary policy to decelerate the pace at which inflation is rising.
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Palladium price up 8%; lifts precious metals as London bans Russia PGM refineries
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