Go out at night. From Paris to Manhattan, from Podunk to Hick Town, cities big and small, the streets are empty. Buildings boarded up, curfews and restrictions.
By government decree: Close down at 10 PM. No dining, no dancing, no singing, no hugging. Get back in your house. No partying no playing permitted.
Check out the front page of today’s New York Times.
Read their article: Without Crowds, Is It Times Square really Times Square?
Businesses are going bust, the homelessness and helpless are outnumbering the tourists. There are no neon lights shining bright on Broadway. The theater district is dead.
No entertainment, no trade shows and conventions, empty hotels and no business and out of business restaurants.
The list of businesses, lives, and livelihoods destroyed by the politicians and bureaucrats and enforced by their COVID Cop Calvary is economically and emotionally devastating.
In the year of the Great Reset, the disconnect between Wall Street and Main Street grows wider.
Déjà vu?
The headline economic news today was the Dow racking up its best November since 1928, and its best month since 1987.
Yes, bravo! As government lockdown mandates sink Main Street deeper into the “Greatest Depression,” Wall Street money junkies ramped up their best month in November since 1987, the year of the great market crash.
And the market had its best November since 1928, which preceded the 1929 Stock Market Crash that ushered in the devastating Great Depression.
Today, the Dow closed up 185 points, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq hit record highs.
According to CNBC, the reason they were boosted was because “Sentiment got a lift after NBC News reported that Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will speak with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi about ‘keeping the government running,’ adding that ‘I’m sure we’ll also be mentioning COVID Relief.’ Meanwhile, a group of lawmakers unveiled a $908 billion stimulus plan, which includes $208 billion in Paycheck Protection Program small business loans.”
Got it? More monetary methadone pumped into the system by the Banksters to keep the Wall Street money junkies high and peanuts are thrown to the plantation workers of Slavelandia to keep the restless from rioting.
GOLD. After hitting a five-month low yesterday, gold jumped 2 percent today, and silver soared over 6 percent on the money pumping stimulus news. Thus, the more cheap money that is printed on nothing and backed by nothing, the lower the dollar falls and the higher safe-haven precious metals rise.
With the U.S. dollar index hitting its lowest level in more than two years, gold also glows brighter to investors holding other currencies. Gold is dollar based. The lower the dollar falls, the cheaper it is to buy for investors holding currencies that are rising.
Today the euro – the currency of much of Europe where nations are sinking deeper into the “Greatest Depression” and where the IMF warned yesterday of a second wave threat to single currency block – hit a 2 1/2-year high vs. dollar.
The dollar also fell on expectations of more U.S. stimulus following remarks released on Monday, highlighting Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell fears of worsening economic climate.
TREND FORECAST: We maintain our precious metals forecast for gold to solidly break above $2,000 per ounce and silver to spike well above $50 per ounce in 2021.
BITCOIN. It was another volatile Bitcoin day today, with the cryptocurrency falling 2.6 percent, backing off to $19,151 as we go to press. Yesterday, it spiked 9 percent hitting $19,860, a new all-time high.
On 30 November, Bitcoin’s price touched that all-time high of $19,860 in a run that saw its value rise more than 50 percent in 30 days and climb 380 percent since its March low for the year below $4,000.
The run has reminded investors that when the cryptocurrency’s value shot to a previous record of $19,783 in December 2017, the buying frenzy gave way to a spectacular crash that left investors wary for more than two years.
The value of Bitcoin now in circulation is more than $365 billion, according to CNN Business.
The currency’s new record “…will leave the price screaming for a major correction,” warned Joel Kruger, currency analyst at IMAX Exchange, in a Financial Times interview. “We would caution against buying at current [price] levels.”
The digital currency’s price has been driven up, in part, by a surge of interest from hedge-fund icons such as Paul Tudor Jones and Stanley Druckenmiller, who have poured money into cryptocurrencies.
Hedge funds that bet heavily on cryptocurrencies have reaped about an 89-percent return this year, compared to hedge funds focused on more conventional investments. Those funds have grown only about 3 percent so far in 2020, data firm Eureka-hedge has reported.
Druckenmiller, founder of hedge fund Duquesne Capital, sees Bitcoin as similar to gold but more limited in quantity, which heightens its volatility and makes it likely to outperform the precious metal. He called cryptocurrency a “great speculation” that could become a new asset class, he said in a November CNBC interview.
Hedge funds’ confidence in digital currencies has drawn more sedate investors into the market as well. Fidelity is establishing a Bitcoin fund for its wealthy clients, and more individual investors are being drawn into the market as well.
In addition to institutional investors seeking higher returns that bonds can offer, the digital coin’s value has also been pushed up by so-called “momentum investors” who spot a trend and jump on it without regard to underlying fundamentals.
The irrationally rising price lures even more speculators, driving prices even higher.
Even Gregg Giannotti, a New York radio sports personality, began devoting airtime to Bitcoin after investing $10,000 of his own money.
Bitcoin was created in 2009 during the Great Recession as an alternative to money controlled by governments and central banks. It exists only online in a series of linked but independent computers that cannot be controlled by any central power.
Bitcoin was designed to have a limit on its supply, making it resistant to inflation.
Now, with central banks announcing they plan to allow inflation to rise, many investors seem to be storing value in Bitcoin.
“Paper money is being debased and Bitcoin is not,” Dan Morehead, CEO of Pantera Capital and a long-time Bitcoin investor, told the Wall Street Journal.
Also, Bitcoin is coin of the digital realm in a range of online venues.
Square’s CashApp has enabled users to trade Bitcoin since 2018. In this year’s third quarter, the app saw users buy $1.6 billion worth of Bitcoin, compared to $555 million a year earlier.
In November, PayPal allowed U.S. users to begin trading Bitcoin inside their accounts. PayPal’s Venmo mobile payment app will open itself to the digital money next year when PayPal will take the service international.
However, Bitcoin’s market is still miniscule compared to other investment vehicles, a fact that sharpens the unpredictability of its price because a few investors buying or selling can have a sudden, drastic impact on the price.
Still, mainstream investors’ eagerness to go crypto “is at its very highest and shows no signs of abating,” Jan Stromme, managing partner at the Alphaplate cryptocurrency trading firm, told the Times.
However, last Thursday, there was eagerness to get out of crypto. Bitcoin suffered a price crash falling some $3,000… down from over $19,300, according to CoinDesk 20 data.
TREND FORECAST: We maintain our 27 June 2020 forecast, when Bitcoin was trading at $8,974, that for younger and more speculative investors, Bitcoin will remain their alternative to precious metals, thus pushing that price higher as well when it solidly breaks above the $10,000 mark.
Also, as forecast, Bitcoin prices will continue to rise as governments, particularly China, go digital. And, unlike older generations who view gold and silver as safe-haven assets, the going-digital trend will prove bullish for cryptocurrencies, particularly for younger generations who live in a digital world and are fearful of an economic future of worthless money.
We also maintain our 27 October forecast:
Bitcoin will continue to rise, surpassing its all-time high. As the “Greatest Depression” worsens, more cheap money will be pumped into failing economies, thus pushing the value of currencies down… and inflation higher.
The lower currencies fall and the higher inflation rises, the greater the demand for safer-haven assets such as precious metals and Bitcoin.
OIL. On 23 November, benchmark Brent crude oil’s price shot to $48.03 a barrel on hopes that the arrival of COVID vaccines will reopen the global economy, spurring resumption of normal airline schedules, shipping, leisure travel, and manufacturing.
Traders see the advent of a vaccine as a “game changer,” according to a statement from analysts at PVM, a London oil trading firm.
Largely due to reports of successful vaccine trials, Brent’s price rose more than 25 percent during November.
Prices also have been buoyed by expectations that OPEC and its allies, including Russia, will extend existing production curbs when they meet this week.
Share prices of BP and Royal Dutch Shell sank about 60 percent from January through October, but have strengthened in November, due in large measure to vaccine news.
Brent’s price remains far below the $70 range in which it traded before the economic shutdown.
The price has averaged $42 this year, compared to $64 in 2019 and $71 in 2018.
Global oil demand has decreased about 10 percent this year because the shutdown grounded air travel, ended commutes for millions of office workers, and idled factories around the world for weeks, some for months.
TRENDPOST: Today, West Texas Intermediate and Brent Crude fell 1.76 and 1.15 percent respectively on the news that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its other allies, known as OPEC+, postponed talks on next year’s output policy to Thursday from Tuesday, as three of the most influential members have failed to agree on how best to proceed with production to cut in 2021.
TREND FORECAST: OPEC and its allies will haggle their way to continued production cuts that are soft enough to appease producers desperate for cash who might otherwise go rogue and pump more than their assigned quotas.
Renewed demand, however, will not be strong enough to raise the average price much beyond its current range, especially with new restrictions and shutdowns crimping the global economic recovery.
Barring a Middle East shooting war or other unexpected disruption, we see oil holding in the $40 to $50 range at least through April 2021.
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