Here are the latest news items and commentary on current economics news, market trends, stocks, investing opportunities, and the precious metals markets. We also cover hedges, derivatives, and obscura. Most of these items are from the “tangibles heavy” contrarian perspective of SurvivalBlog’s Founder and Senior Editor, JWR. Today, we look at island real estate. (See the Tangibles Investing section.)
Precious Metals:
Price pressure on gold, silver as USDX gains.
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At $1,900 gold is still cheap – former Bear Stearns analyst
Economy & Finance:
At Zero Hedge: The Gamma Unwind And Amazon’s Post Prime-Day Fizzle
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Kiplinger: Recovery Has Begun, but Progress May Slow
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At Wolf Street: Astounding Distortions & Historic Price Spikes in Used-Vehicle Wholesale Market Begin to Unwind
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And another: Disney Struck. Cinemas, Landlords Live Nightmare in Brick-and-Mortar-Meltdown Series as Movie Debuts Shift to Streaming
Commodities:
OilPrice News reports: The U.S. Is Backing Hydrogen Trucks With A New $100 Million Initiative
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FarmWeek: Can commodity markets maintain momentum this fall?
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The Great American Oil & Gas Massacre: Bankruptcies Hit New Milestone as Bigger Companies Let Go
Equities:
At IBD: Stock Market Forecast: Expect Turbulence Amid Election 2020, Coronavirus Vaccine Hopes
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Seeking Alpha reports: Most Heavily Shorted Stocks: October 2020
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And at Zero Hedge: Here Are The 4 Election Scenarios For Markets, And How To Trade Them
Forex & Cryptos:
Sterling falls as EU leaders press for elusive Brexit trade deal.
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Israeli Shekel Forecast. “The Israeli Shekel is expected to trade at 3.40 by the end of this quarter, according to Trading Economics global macro models and analysts expectations. Looking forward, we estimate it to trade at 3.44 in 12 months time.” JWR’s Comments: After an aberrant spike of 3.66 NIS per USD back in March — when U.S. COVID cases were spiking, while at the same time cases in Israel were very low — and then a subsequent fall to 3.35, the NIS may very well rise again versus the dollar in 2021.
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USD/CHF Forecast Dollar Franc October 15, 2020
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At Seeking Alpha: Global effort to map out rules for stablecoins
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Coinbase Holds More Than $11 Billion Of Bitcoin In Cold Storage
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JPMorgan says Bitcoin slightly overvalued as a commodity
Tangibles Investing:
H.L. sent us this: The Island Brokers Are Overwhelmed
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Real trends: People stay, prices skyrocket
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Coronavirus flight: As the affluent head to Washington vacation homes, some year-rounders worry. JWR’s Comments: Since this article ran back in April, the trend has been for urban western Washingtonians to move semi-permanently to their vacation homes. In towns like Priest River and Sandpoint, Idaho, it is now quite noticeable that “the tourist season” didn’t end as usual, after Labor Day weekend. When snow season arrives, there will doubtless be unusually strong demand for snow shovels and snowblowers–even if it is mild winter. The newcomers’ place on the learning curve will be obvious.
Provisos:
SurvivalBlog and its Editors are not paid investment counselors or advisers. Please see our Provisos page for our detailed disclaimers.
News Tips:
Please send your economics and investing news tips to JWR. (Either via e-mail of via our Contact form.) These are often especially relevant because they come from folks who closely watch specific markets. If you spot any news that would be of interest to SurvivalBlog readers, then please send it in. News items from local news outlets that are missed by the news wire services are especially appreciated. And it need not be only about commodities and precious metals. Thanks!
Ever smaller slices of the same old pie. I wonder if there’s something similar to Planck’s constant in economics. I suppose once a currency is inflated far enough, like say Zimbabwe’s is, it has reached it’s practical limit as such. Eventually all fiat currencies end up the same way. USD will be no different, but that is nothing new to us here.
Gold is still cheap at $1,900 because everyone knows that inflation of the USD is going to continue to ramp up.
And as an aside all the silver proofs and uncirculated coins on the US Mint website had huge price increases on Oct 13. The 5 oz silver quarters went from $178 to $229. And Quarter silver proof from $42 to $60. And full set of Silver proofs from around 62 to 105! Big price increases. Highest in yrs for the 5 oz coin (and spot was higher then). But the proofs truly went up to the most costly I’ve ever seen.
I do not see anything good for our economy that can come from the declared Democrat policies they will implement if they win. Under ordinary circumstances the result of higher taxes, more regulations and open borders would be a prolonged recession where the president would declare that “those jobs are gone forever”. But given our extraordinary national debt and the many negative effects of covid-19 and the likelyhood of prolonged shutdowns the probability of another great depression seems very high.
After speaking with some real estate agents, it looks like the demand in Idaho has spread to Montana. Prices are soaring and there’s precious little inventory unless you’re a millionaire, OR can fix a complete wreck of a home up for the acreage.
In regards to the Tourists, it finally got quiet in the past week or so, thankfully, and it’s huntin’ season so lots of locals are out in the woods. I’m so enjoying this! Quiet keeps me sane.
In reference to the story on Washington vacation homes:
‘Shouldn’t we have the sheriff down (at the ferry terminal) making sure nobody from the mainland is coming on the island?”
Wow just wow.
Yes you, The People, should absolutely have the law enforcement stop Americans from traveling in Amerika (sarc).
This is how we got here.
No, that’s where we ARE. The way we got to this point was by coddling toddlers until we could send them to college for the final destruction of whatever morals they learned from TV. You should listen to Matt Bracken’s recent podcast. It deals with the reasons why you must stop the mob before they’re in front of your house.
For a viewpoint about this Christmas Shopping Season (The Last Refuge 10/16/2020 says,)
“Former Toys ‘R’ Us Chairman and CEO and Storch Advisors CEO Gerald Storch, appears on Fox Business to discuss today’s remarkable retail sales data. Storch rightly notes the September year-over-year spending was a whopping 8 percent on durable goods.”
“This outcome foretells good news for the holiday shopping season… except, as I noted, there is a slight issue. None of the current on-hand inventories are enough to fulfill demand for a big holiday shopping season. Hence, my advice – buy early, buy now.”
Video also at Fox Business with Gerald Storch, ~September retail sales ‘were the best in recent memory’: Former Toys ‘R’ Us CEO~ 10/16/2020.
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This is about ‘retail Christmas Season sales’ and NOT tangibles investing, which is a long term investing strategy.
[Old Guns can be a good investment strategy. Long ago just maybe, a Great Grandfather could have bought Trunk Loads of old Colt Peacemakers, for just a little more than the price of fishing weights.]
Here in Eugene Oregon, the Toys ‘R’ Us closed a couple-three years ago.
The yuge building stands vacant.
That yuge parking lot is always filled — every space — with used vehicles from the rows of automotive dealers down the way.
And at least a couple of the dealerships are lagging in massive remodeling of their buildings, remodeling started prior to this phase of this Economic Lock-Down.
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A meme demonstrated the impact of 2020:
A tiny boat bobs at the base of a towering wave… probably a hundred times higher than the boat.
That wave is named ‘2020’.
Behind it, a wave twice that size towers over the first wave.
That second wave is named ‘2021’!