Posts by James G. Rickards

The stock market was up big today, but it was nothing compared to last Thursday’s huge rally. In fact, last Thursday was one of the wildest days of trading in the history of Wall Street. But don’t mistake that for the return of good times. It simply serves as a good example of just how…

Many analysts say gold is volatile. But they should say that the gold market is volatile. That’s because most of it is paper gold, with only a small amount of physical gold to support it. Think of the gold market as an inverted pyramid, with a small amount of gold at the bottom, holding up a huge…

Gold was down again today, but overall it’s had a good run lately (for a change). Gold rallied from $1,624 per ounce on Sept. 28 to $1,701 at the close on Oct. 3 for a 4.74% gain after two months of steady losses. It’s too soon to applaud or even put the Champagne on ice.…

The stock market was down again today, the exchanges beginning where they left off last week. But it’s the larger trend that’s really disconcerting. Investors don’t need to be told about the stock market collapse in recent months. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is down over 20% since January. The S&P 500 is down 23%…

The Fed kicked off its two-day meeting today in Washington. The most likely outcome is a 0.75% rate hike, which would bring the Fed’s target rate to between 3–⁠3.25%. The stock market was down significantly today ahead of tomorrow’s announcement. Importantly, the 10-year Treasury yield rose to 3.57% today, the highest level in over a…

If you’re a longtime Daily Reckoning reader, you’ve heard of numerous plans to end the role of the U.S. dollar as the leading reserve currency. These plans go by many names including the Great Reset, Bretton Woods II and other names suggesting some kind of deep dark conspiracy. The reality is less sinister but no less important.…

Government officials say all the right things about inflation, and how they’re trying to combat it. But secretly, they’re not that upset about inflation. Why? Because inflation makes debt much easier to bear. For a government with over $31 trillion of debt, it can use all the help it can get. Let’s see how we…

There are 435 seats in the House of Representatives (not counting nonvoting seats for D.C. and some U.S. possessions) and all of them are up for election in November. Right now, the Democrats control the House with 219 Democrats versus 211 Republicans (there are five vacancies). It takes 218 votes to control the House. This…

Just when you think the anti-Russian sanctions policy can’t get any dumber, it does. Here’s the latest: The EU and U.S. have announced a new plan to cap the price of Russian oil by applying pressure through the insurance industry. The plan says that Lloyd’s of London and other insurance channels will not insure Russian…

Central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) are coming fast, and you need to be prepared for them because they’ll mark a major victory in the war against cash — and against your personal privacy. You’ll see why today. As the name implies, central bank digital currencies are digital, existing exclusively in electronic form. They’re not physical…