The Peter Schiff Show Podcast

Recorded July 2, 2019 See Peter at the Las Vegas Freedom Fest – July 17-20 https://www.freedomfest.com/ Save $50 using code SCHIFF Markets Worried About Slowing Domestic Economy If you just looked at the U.S. stock market averages, you would conclude that not much happened today, but you would be wrong. Even though the S&P and the Dow and the NASDAQ were only up about a quarter of a percent, or maybe .3% - pretty small days.  Although, as has been typical recently the Russell 2000 was down .6% and the Dow Transports down .8%.  So the market, contrary to all the hoopla that  you hear about how great the U.S. economy is, the markets are more worried about the slowing domestic economy than they are the global economy. Strongest Economy in U.S. History? In fact, the Cheerleader-In-Chief, for how strong the U.S. economy is, of course, is Donald Trump. He is constantly up there tweeting about how strong the U.S economy is.  In fact, today, he proclaims that we currently have the strongest U.S. economy in history.  Now, I remember, when he used to tweet about h0w strong the economy was, that we had the strongest economy in history, he would say, "Oh it's probably the strongest economy in history…" I mean he would qualify it a little bit.  But now, no more qualifiers.  He is emphatic. Without a doubt, this is the strongest economy is U.S. history. Fake News Of course, I don't like hypocrites.  One of the things that Trump does, is he calls out the media for spreading fake news. The problem, is, he spreads fake news, too. When he is talking about how we have the strongest economy ever, that's fake news! So you can't live in a glass house and then throw stones and that's what the President does. More Weak Numbers In fact, if you look at the economic data that came out this week, the data was weak!  The ISM manufacturing number and the PMI number were weak . In fact they weren't as weak as they were expecting, but they were expecting weak numbers and we got weak numbers. Just not quite as weak. Although, the construction spending number that came out yesterday was considerably weaker than had been expected. Now, the Atlanta Fed is still at 1.54% .    Our Sponsors:* Check out Avocado Green Mattress: https://avocadogreenmattress.com* Check out Boll & Branch: https://boilandbranch.com/SCHIFF* Check out Fast Growing Trees and use my code GOLD for a great deal: https://www.fast-growing-trees.comPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

See Peter at the Las Vegas Freedom Fest – July 17-20 https://www.freedomfest.com/ Save $50 using code SCHIFF Recorded June 28, 2019 Dow Jones Had Best June Since 1938 U.S. stocks finished a down week on an up note, but the gains were not that large today. But of course, they were very big for the month of June. In fact, the Dow Jones just had its best June since 1938. That was during the Great Depression. S&P, not as big a record; you only have to go back to 1955 to find a June where the S&P did better than June 2019.  So these are big moves up. Percentage-wise, though, I think it's about 7%, approximately, maybe a little bit less. Stock Market Actually Lost Value In Terms of Gold Now the price of gold was up 8% during the month of June. In other words, while the price of stocks went up in terms of paper money - dollars - in terms of real money - gold - stocks actually lost value during the month.  Now, the first half of the year also comes to an end today, as does the second quarter, and this is the best first half of the year in 22 years. the S&P was up about 17.5% or so, the Dow about 14%. I think I'm counting dividends -  I'm just talking about the appreciation, so the total return would be a little better when you throw in the meager dividends that you can collect on U.S. stocks. NASDAQ was up about 20% - not much in the way of dividends there. Russell 2000 was up about 9%.  This is on the first half of the year. Stocks Recovering From Worst December Since Great Depression I'm sure you're going to read a lot of tweets from Donald Trump about how great the stock market is in 2019; how great the month of June is and why we should thank him for this spectacular performance in the stock market.  But the only reason that the market has done so well this year is because it got destroyed in the 4th quarter of last year. Remember, we had the worst December since the Great Depression, as well.Our Sponsors:* Check out Avocado Green Mattress: https://avocadogreenmattress.com* Check out Boll & Branch: https://boilandbranch.com/SCHIFF* Check out Fast Growing Trees and use my code GOLD for a great deal: https://www.fast-growing-trees.comPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

See Peter at the Las Vegas Freedom Fest – July 17-20 https://www.freedomfest.com/ Save $50 using code SCHIFF Gold: Six-Year High Overnight Overnight the price of gold rose to a six-year high.  We almost got to $1440.  I think the high I saw was maybe $1438 - 39… we were up about $19 at the high point. Then it became a very volatile session overnight into the wee hours of the morning.  But I think by the time we got into the New York time zone, gold was still up about $10-$12-$13 dollars on the day and it was up about that amount when the U.S. stock market opened for trading. Before Today, Gold Stocks Up 20% Gold stocks initially had a small rally, but nothing big. Then they spent most of the day on the downside.  Obviously the gold traders are still very cautious.  As I have been saying, this gold breakout, even though we did see pretty big moves in gold stocks, I think the GDX, not counting today's losses, (the GDX was down about 2% today) but not counting today, we were up 20% in the month of June. So, still, a very big rise.   But really not nearly as big a rise as it should be, considering, I think, the significance of this gold breakout.  Except, of course, if people don't believe it.  If they're cautious about it, so they're reluctant to bid up the price of gold stocks. Investors Still Reluctant on Gold and Silver - Why? The same thing with silver. In fact, silver never had much of a rally today, and it actually settled down, I think 8 cents on the day, even though gold ended up finishing up $4 - well off the highs. But it didn't close negative. At one point during New York trading, the price of gold was negative on the day, but it managed to bounce back for the close. Silver, I think, ended at 15.33.  The gold/silver ratio that I spoke about on the last podcast now, I think is close to 93:1.  Again, I think investors are reluctant to buy up silver because they are expecting the price of gold to roll over.  Our Sponsors:* Check out Avocado Green Mattress: https://avocadogreenmattress.com* Check out Boll & Branch: https://boilandbranch.com/SCHIFF* Check out Fast Growing Trees and use my code GOLD for a great deal: https://www.fast-growing-trees.comPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Recorded June 21, 2019 See Peter at the Las Vegas Freedom Fest - July 17-20 https://www.freedomfest.com/ Save $50 using code SCHIFF S&P Record High: Why? U.S. stock market averages finished an up week on a down note. In fact, the S&P 500, before closing negative on the day made a new all-time record high. The S&P is the only major index that did make a new record high this week, in fact Donald Trump tweeted about the record high in the S&P twice yesterday.  As soon as the market gapped open at a record high, Donald Trump tweeted out a reminder that the S&P opened at a record high, and then when it closed at a record high, he sent out a second tweet to remind everybody that the stock market closed at a record high. Fed's Lower Rates Behind Stock Market Highs The idea is that he's taking credit for it.  The stock market is doing so well because Donald Trump is President, and if anybody else were President, the market would be collapsing. That's the impression that Donald Trump is trying to convey. But, of course, the reality is the opposite. The reason the market made a new high is because investors are relieved that the Fed is going to cut interest rates. So, it's lower interest rates that is behind the record high in the S&P - not anything Donald Trump has done. Low Interest Rates Needed to Bail out Economy Now, Donald Trump is saying, "Hey I've been telling the Fed to cut rates!".  So maybe he can claim credit for the fact that the Fed is cutting rates because he beat them up so much, but that's really not what he is trying to claim. He's trying to claim that the rising stock market is indicative of how great the economy is under his presidency. But, it's not because the economy is great that the Fed is cutting rates, it's because it's lousy! Heading for Recession The Fed is cutting rates because the economy is headed for recession.  So if that's the only reason the stock market is going up, that the economy is so bad that the Federal Reserve has to abort their rate-tightening campaign, and they have to come to an emergency rescue mission, they have to try to bail out the economy with rate cuts, is that really something that Donald Trump should be bragging about?Our Sponsors:* Check out Avocado Green Mattress: https://avocadogreenmattress.com* Check out Boll & Branch: https://boilandbranch.com/SCHIFF* Check out Fast Growing Trees and use my code GOLD for a great deal: https://www.fast-growing-trees.comPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Visit me at the Benzinga Trading Conference, NYC tomorrow Fed Tweaking Language to Officially Adopt Easing Bias Keeping with its tradition of having a tendency to act incrementally, the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee today announced that it was leaving interest rates unchanged - which was the consensus. There was an 80% probability that the Fed would leave interest rates unchanged.  The other 20% was that they would cut rates. So there was a zero percent probability that the Fed would increase rates.  But before delivering an official rate cut, what the Fed wanted to do was to prepare the markets in advance and take one step in that direction, which was to tweak its language to officially adopt a bias toward easing, which is exactly what the Fed did. Fed to Sustain "Expansion" The Fed basically acknowledged that the economic data had been weakening and that they wanted to do what was appropriate, or that they were willing to do what was appropriate to sustain the expansion. Now, they didn't come right out and say that the economy is headed for a recession; even though that is exactly what is happening. They said they wanted to see more data before they moved. But after they failed to cut rates, the probability for a rate cut in July, which is the very next time the Fed meets, rose to 100%.  So they took the 20% probability for the cut in June, since we didn't get it, the markets added that to the 80% probability of a cut in July. Looking Toward Negative Data Which means the markets are convinced that whatever data the Fed sees between now and the July meeting in going to be bad. It's not going to be good (positive) data. Of course, it IS going to be bad data. The data has been bad.  The economy has been weakening. We've been seeing a series of weakening economic data.  The economy is not just slowing down, it is headed to a recession. That is something that the Fed will never admit.Our Sponsors:* Check out Avocado Green Mattress: https://avocadogreenmattress.com* Check out Boll & Branch: https://boilandbranch.com/SCHIFF* Check out Fast Growing Trees and use my code GOLD for a great deal: https://www.fast-growing-trees.comPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Recorded June 14, 2019 Gold: Up Today When I recorded my podcast last Friday, I speculated that the price of gold might gap up the following Monday above $1350/oz., but that didn't happen because over the weekend Donald Trump managed to tweet out a face-saving way in which to not impose the tariffs on Mexican products that may have gone into effect on Monday.  The markets breathed a sigh of relief. So, instead of gapping up. the price of gold went the opposite direction and gapped down. Fourteen Month High This morning, we got the gap. It was on the last day of the week, not the first day of the week, but gold gapped higher on the day.  It was actually trading as high as $1356 or $1357 earlier this morning. That was a 52-week high in the price of gold.  In fact, it was a 14-month high.  We were actually up even before we got any economic data.  I think the high of the day might have been before the U.S stock market opened, when we were up about $15 or so. The Key is Above $1350 What happened was, at 8:30, prior to the opening of the U.S. market, we got some economic data that was a bit stronger than expected.  And that stronger than expected data rained on the gold rally parade, sending the price of gold down on the day. It only closed down about a buck or so, but we did not hold above $1350.  Now the key level is not really $1350 - it's a little bit higher up, because the price of gold has been above $1350 twice before, I think, in the last six years, not counting today. But it wasn't able to hold. That's the key. We need to see the price of gold get higher.  Maybe close above $1375. Gold the Favorite Trade for the Next 12-24 Months There's a lot of noise.  That's where all the resistance has been coming in - between $1350 and $1375. But nonetheless, I think, as I said in the last podcast, the more times we knock on this resistance door the more likely it is that the door is going to open. In fact, the buyers continue to come in to the price of gold. I was listening to an interview with Paul Tudor Jones.  He was asked what his favorite trade was for the next 12-24 months, and his answer was gold. And a lot of smart people are now coming out and saying that, "Yeah, gold's going higher.  Gold's got everything going for it, and they want to be involved.  And of course I think if the price of gold does what I think it is going to do, and what some other smart people think it's going to do, well then the price of gold stocks are going to do even better.Our Sponsors:* Check out Avocado Green Mattress: https://avocadogreenmattress.com* Check out Boll & Branch: https://boilandbranch.com/SCHIFF* Check out Fast Growing Trees and use my code GOLD for a great deal: https://www.fast-growing-trees.comPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Recorded June 10, 2019 Tariffs Off, Gold Gapped Down On Friday's podcast, I speculated that potentially we could see a gap up in the price of gold, gapping above the $1350 resistance level that has capped every gold rally for the past 6 years.  But gold actually gapped in the other direction.  It gapped down about $13 and it was down all day - never filled that gap. Catalyst for Sell-off The catalyst for the gold sell-off was Donald Trump calling off the tariffs that were supposed to go into effect today.  The five percent across the board tariffs on Mexico.  That announcement came out on Friday, pretty much right after I finished recording my podcast, we got the news.  So I immediately knew that that forecast probably was not going to come to fruition, or that speculation, potentially. Because I knew the markets would react positively to this news. After all, everybody was rightly worried about the negative impacts that those tariffs would have on the U.S. economy, in particular.  They weren't as worried about Mexico, at least when it comes to the gold market, but they were worried about how it would impact the U.S. economy. One Less Thing for the Fed to Worry About And of course, one of the reasons (of course there are many) that the Fed is talking about cutting rates is because of all the uncertainty that is being created because of tariffs. If there aren't going to be as many tariffs, if the Mexico tariffs aren't going to actually happen, well then that's one less thing to worry about, and maybe that's one less reason for the Fed to cut rates. Mexican Tariffs are a Sideshow Of course, cutting rates is part of the reason that people have been buying gold; the reason we had that big 8-day rally, which came to an end today. What's been powering the gold rally is the talk of Fed rate cuts. Now I don't think today's sell-off is going to be significant.  It's just one more time we knocked on that resistance door and it didn't open, but it is ultimately going to open. Because at the end of the day, the Mexican tariffs are a sideshow. The main event is that the U.S economy is going into recession anyway, and the rate cuts are coming.Our Sponsors:* Check out Avocado Green Mattress: https://avocadogreenmattress.com* Check out Boll & Branch: https://boilandbranch.com/SCHIFF* Check out Fast Growing Trees and use my code GOLD for a great deal: https://www.fast-growing-trees.comPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Recorded June 7, 2019 Dow Finished the Week with a 4.7% Gain The Dow Jones soared 263 points today, although at one point the index was up better than 350 points. But it managed to finish the week with a 4.7% gain. That is the best showing for the Dow Jones Industrials in 6 months and in fact we snapped a six-week losing streak this week.  All of the major averages had positive weeks.  The NASDAQ -  the best gainer on the day; up 1.7% - not quite as strong on the week because it took a shellacking on Monday with the FANG stocks leading the way down - but up about 3.7% on the week.  Similar gains for the Russell 2000, the Dow Transports, the S&P 500 not quite as strong as the Dow - I think up about 4.2% on the week. What was the Catalyst? But why? What was the catalyst for this big move up in the U.S. stock market? Was it better than expected earnings? Not really.  Some companies beat estimates. Take a look at some of these recent IPO's like Zoom Video. Zoom Video was up 18% today because it earned 3 cents a share instead of the one cent that Wall Street was expecting. Now, 3 cents per share is not a lot of earnings when you're a $94 stock, but that's where the stock is. Beyond Meat to Infinity and Beyond Even more ridiculous is Beyond Meat, which is beyond sanity as it's going to infinity and beyond. Now, Beyond Meat was up almost 40% today, $138.65.  The high was $149.46.  This stock is already more than tripled its IPO price - or quadrupled, I can't really tell.  Now they're still not making money at Beyond Meat, so they still haven't moved beyond losses.  The company lost $6.6 million on the quarter; that's 95 cents per share. But it is an improvement, because a year ago, in the same period, they lost 98 cents a share. If you adjust it, if you back out a lot of other stuff, like stock-based compensation and things that nobody likes to count, then they only lost 14 cents per share, which was better than the 15 cents a share loss that Wall Street was expecting.  So clearly that's worth an extra 40% on the price of the stock.  I forget what this thing is trading; 100+ times revenue.  It is a crazy multiple, but at least the stock has a viable product.Our Sponsors:* Check out Avocado Green Mattress: https://avocadogreenmattress.com* Check out Boll & Branch: https://boilandbranch.com/SCHIFF* Check out Fast Growing Trees and use my code GOLD for a great deal: https://www.fast-growing-trees.comPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Recorded June 5, 2019 Volatility Led by NASDAQ There's been a lot of volatility in the stock market since I recorded my last podcast on Friday.  In fact, on Monday, the tech stocks in particular got beaten up.  The NASDAQ dropped by better than 150 points, led lower by the so-called FANG stocks (Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Google).  Google and Facebook, the biggest drop - I think it was something like 6-8%.  Part of that had to do with the Justice Department investigating Google. Enlisting the Power of Government in the Marketplace Of course, I don't think that we should be involved at all in anti-trust.  Almost all of the companies that have been broken up or that had been put through the ringer by the U.S. government achieved whatever type of market dominance they had based on just being good competitors, delivering the best quality at the lowest price. And government just came in and really what they were doing was advocating for competitors that were having a problem competing.  It wasn't because the consumer was getting ripped off; in general the consumer was being rewarded with low prices and high quality.  But companies that couldn't compete, since they couldn't win in the marketplace, enlisted the power of government to work for them.  So government, really is not about preventing monopolies - they create monopolies. The government comes into a market and legally gives a company a monopoly and uses the power of government to make sure that nobody competes. This is all a bunch of nonsense that we need government to "keep the markets free". Moving Away from Risk But, in general, if you look at what was happening to the markets on Monday, there was a huge movement from growth stocks, momentum stocks, speculative stocks, riskier stocks, to defensive stocks - value oriented stocks. The Dow Jones was actually positive on the day - it wasn't up a lot, but it was up, even though you had a 150 point drop in the NASDAQ. I think that is an important key, because this is something that needs to happen and it is long overdue, that investors start to get more defensive in anticipation of a weakening economy. Dividend-Paying Stocks More Attractive You have all of these high-multiple stocks, their P/E's are going to have to come down to earth.  And, of course, people are looking at a slowing economy, they are looking at lower interest rates - they believe they are going to get lower interest rates, so it makes sense that dividend-paying stocks would be more attractive in a falling-rate environment.Our Sponsors:* Check out Avocado Green Mattress: https://avocadogreenmattress.com* Check out Boll & Branch: https://boilandbranch.com/SCHIFF* Check out Fast Growing Trees and use my code GOLD for a great deal: https://www.fast-growing-trees.comPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Sell in May and Go Away U.S. stocks closed out the week and the month of May with heavy losses; the DJIA down 354.84 points.  Pretty much going out near the low of the day. That's a drop of 1.4%. NASDAQ also getting killed - 114.57 down - that was a 1.5% decline on the day.  The Russell 2000 continues to melt down.  That index falling 20 points - down 1.35% on the day.  But the biggest losses continue to be in the Dow Jones Transports. That index was down almost 2% - 1.9% - 188.4 points.  This is the worst May for U.S stocks since 2010. The Dow is down about 7% just in the month of May. Remember, "Sell in May and go away"?   Well it hasn't worked in a while, but this was a great time to sell May first! Russell 2000 and Dow Transports Weakest Indexes Again, I told everybody that I thought the bear market rally was over based on the Fed not being as dovish as the markets expected, and it's been down hill from there.  If you look at the Russell 2000 and the Transports, these two indexes did not make new highs. Remember the Dow and the S&P, the NASDAQ made new highs. Now, they're all down considerably - the Dow is 8% off those highs now. But the Russell 2000 and the Dow Transports did not make new highs, and now they are the weakest index and now the Russell 2000 is down just under 16% from its peak, and the Transports - over 16%.  So both of those indexes are about 4% points away from being officially back in bear market territory, which means 20% from the highs.  We could easily be there next week,  on these stocks. Debacle du Jour: Gap Now the other indexes have further to go, I mean the NASDAQ is only down about 9% from its peak.  So 1% away from what Wall Street would officially call a "correction".  The retailers continue to also be hammered.  The Debacle du Jour was Gap, which gapped down by about 15% on the day on weaker than expected sales. The stock managed to rally most of the day, so it only closed down a little over 9%.  But still, it closed better than 47% below its 52-week high. Domestically Focused Stocks Weakest But, when you have the Russell 2000 and the Transports the weakest part of the market, those are the most domestically focused stocks. Those are the stocks that are the weakest.  So everybody who keeps talking about how great the U.S. economy is, if they look at the market, the market is telling you a different story.Our Sponsors:* Check out Avocado Green Mattress: https://avocadogreenmattress.com* Check out Boll & Branch: https://boilandbranch.com/SCHIFF* Check out Fast Growing Trees and use my code GOLD for a great deal: https://www.fast-growing-trees.comPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy