Wow! Gold just had its best quarterly performance since the 1980s!

Meanwhile, the volatility of gold ETFs remains subdued.

Confounded Interest – Anthony B. Sanders
Financial Markets And Real Estate
Wow! Gold just had its best quarterly performance since the 1980s!

Meanwhile, the volatility of gold ETFs remains subdued.

Apparently, we DID get fooled again. In February, there were 500,000 new homes for sale.

While new home inventory hit 500k, existing home inventory rose to 1.24 million homes.

Cause? Home prices are too damn high. Thanks to Powell and The Fed.

Mortgage originations have dwindled under Biden/Harris.

Jerome Powell and the Blackhearts.

Former Federal Reserve Chair and Biden’s Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen was so in on Biden’s failed economic spending spree that she caused a fiscal disaster by refinancing Federal debt at the short end of the Treasury curve. Leaving Trump’s Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent a real mess. As in $9.2 TRILLION.

With interest rates rising, this is a planned disaster by Biden/Pelosi/Schumer.
The Fiscal 3 Stooges!

In appreciation of German conservatives winning in their recent election,
Citi’s economic surprise index fell to -7.80 in February. This is the remnant of Biden/Democrats horrible economic policies and fear of Trump’s tariff policies.

Gold, Bitcoin and the S&P 500 are doing quite well on the prospects for growth in the US under Trump.

The US economy like an aircraft carrier, doesn’t turn on a dime. Think of the Japanese carriers at Midway in WWII. Thanks Admiral Biden! And Rear Admiral Harris!

When the (fiscal) music’s over. For corrupt politicians, that is!
Mike Shedlock (aka, Mish) had a great article on the fiscal dumpster fire facing the Trump Administration. After you get a load of the long-run deficits and debt load, you can understand why Trump wants to cut Federal waste (Doge).
The US deficit for the first four months of fiscal Year 2025 is $838 billion, up $306 billion. Adjusted, the increase is more like $157 billion to $225 billion.

The federal budget deficit totaled $838 billion in the first four months of fiscal year 2025, the Congressional Budget Office estimates. That amount is $306 billion more than the deficit recorded during the same period last fiscal year. Revenues were $11 billion (or 1 percent) higher, and outlays were $317 billion (or 15 percent) higher.
The change in the deficit was influenced by the timing of outlays and revenues, which decreased the deficit during the first four months of fiscal year 2024 but increased it during the same period this fiscal year. Outlays in October 2023 were reduced by shifts in the timing of payments that were due on October 1, 2023, a Sunday. (The payments were made that September.) Outlays in the first four months of 2025 rose, on net, because payments due on February 1, 2025, a Saturday, were made in January. If not for those shifts, the deficit so far this fiscal year would have been $750 billion, or $146 billion more than the shortfall at this point last year. Part of the deficit increase in 2025 also arises from the postponement of some tax deadlines from 2023 to 2024 (described below), which boosted receipts in 2024.
The long-run deficits are grim, according to the CBO.

Outlays in the first four months of fiscal year 2025 were $2.4 trillion, CBO estimates, $317 billion more than during the same period last year. If not for the timing shifts discussed above, outlays so far in fiscal year 2025 would have been $157 billion (or 7 percent) greater than outlays during the same four months in fiscal year 2024. The discussion below reflects adjustments to exclude the effects of those timing shifts.
Maxine Waters is an unhappy girl along with most Democrats about Trump and Musk looking into USAID.

Welcome to a new world under Trump.
Oh we’ve got trouble in (Potomac) river city … with a capital P and that rhymes with D and that stands for DOGE. But can DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency
In 2025, $9.2 TRILLION of US debt will either mature or need to be refinanced. The US now holds $36.2 trillion worth of government debt, meaning 25.4% of the total is set to mature.

The total debt owed by the free-spending Federal government stands at $36+ trillion and growing. The DOGE clock stands at $64 billion and hopefully keeps growing.

Here is Elon Musk warning the members of Congress and the bloated Federal bureaucracy of the wasteful spending by the Feral government.

As expected, the Trump Administration levied tariffs against Canada, Mexico, China, etc. The short-term result? Gold is stable, Bitcoin fell. Or as Gene Autry sang, “South of the Border (Down Mexico Way)”.

The stock market? Down -1.53%.

And then we have the doom porn about Mexico’s “impending” collapse. The Peso is declining, and Senator Chuck Schumer is getting hysterical about Mexican exports to the USA for Super Bowl Sunday. He incorrectly claimed that most beer is imported from Mexico and avacados for guacamole. Avacados are also grown in the USA, Peru, etc.

Bear in mind that Mexico is like California where the Left holds a supermajority. Hence, Mexico employs destructive economic policies (it could only be worse if California Governor Gavin Newsom was President of Mexico. But Mexico’s impending collapse is years in the making and Trump’s tariffs were only the last nudge over the cliff. Mexico COULD try to get control over the drug and human trafficking cartels, stop illegal immigration and stop the flow of fentanyl.

Will The Fed keep on printing?
Under Joe Biden, The Federal Reserve has jacked-up M2 Money by 12.2%. And with the fear of economic destruction under Biden, Bitcoin is up 265%.

With Trump being sworn in, That’s all, folks!


Well, its that time of year again. Mortgage applications drop to their lowest levels after Christmas until New Years Eve. Then mortgage applications pick up in the new year.
Mortgage applications decreased 21.9 percent from two weeks earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending December 27, 2024. The results include an adjustment to account for the Christmas holiday.
The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, decreased 21.9 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from two weeks earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index decreased 55 percent compared with two weeks ago. The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index decreased 13 percent compared with two weeks ago. The unadjusted Purchase Index decreased 48 percent compared with two weeks ago and was 17 percent lower than the same week one year ago.

The holiday adjusted Refinance Index decreased 36 percent from two weeks ago and was 10 percent higher than the same week one year ago. The unadjusted Refinance Index decreased 62 percent from two weeks ago and was 6 percent lower than the same week one year ago.

US home prices surged to the 17th consecutive all-time high.
US home prices in the 20 largest cities rose 0.32% MoM in October (the latest data from S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller), considerably hotter than the 0.22% rise expected. However, despite the MoM beat, the pace of annual acceleration has declined to its slowest since Sept 2023. At 3.62% YoY.


Which metro area had the highest gain? New York City at 7.27%. The lowest gain? Tampa at 0.39%.

You must be logged in to post a comment.