News Bullet Points that Matter Right Now
Next week on KFYI in Phoenix, I am beginning a series of radio commercials to alert listeners to some of the major economic events taking place around the world. These events
These special messages are addressed to our existing friends and clients, as well as people who have never before bought gold and silver. For that reason, I invite you to share them each week with your own colleagues, friends, and family members, those you think who can profit from the information and use it to protect their own wealth and families. You might even want to share this blog with them. For those of you beyond the reaches of KFYI’s airwaves, we will include the audio each week right here in the GMD.
In the meantime, here’s a sampling of recent news items, things we think our clients and readers should know, a few bullet points about insiders rushing to sell stocks, and China adding still more gold to its reserves in February.
But let’s start with evidence that the current state of the US economy is much weaker than generally acknowledged. President Reagan’s former budget director observes that the US economy since 2007 is a case study in underperformance, even though the Great Recession was officially declared over ten years ago. In fact, the expansion even underperforms the pathetically weak expansion for the same period of the Great Depression following the 1929 market collapse:
“On a peak-to-peak basis, in fact, the 11-year gain (2007-2018) in real GDP came in at 18.85% and that, by your way, is less than the 19.89% gain posted during the Great Depression spanning the 11-year period between 1929 and 1940.” “From a cumulative growth viewpoint, the last 11 years have posted the weakest gain ever recorded since modern GDP statistics were invented.”
David Stockman, 3/1/19
Stockman goes on to points out that during the 11-year period from 1969 to 1980, which encompassed the “Stagflation Decade of the 70s,” the US experienced a peak-to-peak gain of 38 percent, more than double that of the past 11 years.
Next, a quick note on the stock market’s weakness:
“Stocks fell for a fifth straight day on Friday after the U.S. government released employment data that badly missed expectations, adding to growing concerns that the global economy may be slowing down.”
CNBC, 3/8/19
And, here’s something investors should know. Corporate insiders are rushing to sell stocks:
A category of investors who correctly picked the market’s bottom in December is retreating from U.S. stocks.
“The number of corporate executives and officers selling shares of their own companies has doubled since December while buying dwindled. Last month, insider sellers outpaced buyers by a ratio of 5-to-1, the most in two years, data compiled by the Washington Service showed.”
Bloomberg, 3/8/19
And a couple of briefs on Asia’s hunger for gold:
Physical gold demand picked up
“In India, the world’s second biggest consumer of the metal after China, dealers were charging a premium of up to $1 an ounce over official domestic prices this week, up from last week’s discount of up to $2.”
– Reuters, 3/8/19
China increased its gold reserves for a third straight month in February, data from the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) showed this morning….
“John Reade of the World Gold Council notes on Twitter that the last time the PBoC reported regular monthly increases in gold holdings, it continued for 24 months.”
– Mark O’Byrne, 3/8/19
Next week we’ll focus on who is buying billions of dollars’ worth of gold!
