The Peter Schiff Show Podcast

Recorded May 29, 2019 The End of the Bear Market Rally Back on May 1, when I did my podcast, I officially called for the end of the bear market rally that so many people had confused for a new bull market, and the impetus for that call was the Fed coming out and not living up to Wall Street's expectations for just how dovish the Fed was. Remember, the market was starting to factor in rate cuts, not just an end to the tightening cycle, but the beginning of the next easing cycle. And Jerome Powell basically threw cold water on that by talking about how low inflation was transitory, and how he expected it to go back up, and all of a sudden the markets were starting to think that the Fed wasn't going to cut rates and the market went down a bit. The Fed Giveth and the Fed Taketh Away I thought that given that the rally was built based on the Fed, that what the Fed giveth by being more dovish than the markets expected the Fed had finally taken away by being more hawkish. Even though I didn't believe that the Fed was as hawkish as the markets believed, I believe the Fed is far more dovish than the markets believe.  But once Powell dashed those hopes, that was enough, I thought, to take the wind out of the sail of the rally. Throwing Down the Gauntlet on Trade And then, of course, Donald Trump, himself, pulled the rug out from under the market when, the following weekend, he basically threw down the gauntlet on the trade war; tweeted out that he was going to be imposing 25% tariffs across the board on Americans who want to buy any Chinese products.  And then the markets really started to fall. Although, I said at the time, that if the markets really perceived how great the threat was, they would have been down quite a bit more. But we now have two back-to-back better than 200-point declines in the Dow.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 May 22, 2019 Low Inflation is Transitory Today we got the release of the most recent minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee, and I guess it was a bit of a mixed bag for people who were looking for whether the Fed was going to be more hawkish or more dovish with respect to its next move on interest rates.  One thing that was revealed in the minutes that the governors still maintain, they are still saying that they feel that this "low inflation" that we've been experiencing is transitory.  What that means is that it's temporary and the low inflation is going to go back up toward their 2% target.  This is supposedly a hawkish statement, because if the Fed were worried that low inflation was going to persist, then they would do something about it to save us from the horrors of not having the cost of living rise at a fast enough clip. When It Comes to Inflation Fighting the Fed Is All Bark and No Bite But, as far as I'm concerned, none of this even matters, because a) they are right, inflation is transitory, and b) it's not even as low as they think because the CPI is not accurate. So inflation is already higher than what the official numbers reveal. But even if it is transitory, which it is, and even if the numbers go north of 2%, which they will, the Fed is going to do nothing.  People still don't get it, that when it comes to inflation fighting the Fed is all bark and no bite. "For Some Time" Means Forever But then if you look at what the Fed said in the same minutes with regard to their "patience" with respect to the next rate hike, remember, the Fed went from pretty much auto pilot - they were raising rates, they were tightening - to being "patient", and being "appropriate", and now, if you read what they said, they said that it is going to be appropriate to remain patient "for some time".  Now what does that mean - "for some time"? Basically, it means forever. What the Fed is basically saying by saying that it is appropriate to be patient for some time, meaning, "you don't have to worry about any rate hikes".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

Don't miss the movie, "The Housing Bubble" premiering June 26, 2019 Back in Puerto Rico I am finally back in Puerto Rico, after having spent 8 long days in Las Vegas for both the SALT conference and The Las Vegas Money Show.  I really do enjoy coming back to Puerto Rico, I miss it quite a bit while I'm away.  A lot of people who are thinking about making the move to Puerto Rico to take advantage of the tax benefits that exist here… One of the reasons that people are reluctant to come down here is that they don't want to uproot their family and move to a place where they really don't know anybody, they leave their friends, they leave their family members… I'll tell you, for me, personally, probably the best thing about being here, other than the tax breaks and the beautiful weather are the people that you meet when you come down here.  It is an incredible group of people that have moved here.  I think we're building a great community of quasi-ex-pats here in Puerto Rico.  So, if you're worried about not having enough friends and not having enough to do, that's the least of your worries. So I certainly would recommend that more people would consider making the move to Puerto Rico. Visit Me at the Freedom Fest in Las Vegas July 17-20 But I am also looking forward to going back up to Connecticut, I'm going to be spending most of the summer there.  We'll be leaving the weekend of Memorial Day. By the way, if you didn't have an opportunity to come to any of the events in Vegas, I will be back in Vegas again in mid-July for the Freedom Fest. Appearing at the Premiere of "The Housing Bubble" I will also be in New York City on June 26 to attend the premier of the movie, "The Housing Bubble" on June 26.  You can buy tickets at the website letusdisagree.com. The movie is a documentary about the 2008 housing bubble, but it features a lot of people who were predicting or warning about the bubble before it popped, and warning about the financial crisis.  Of course, I am one of those people who was issuing those warnings, but I'm not the only one.  It's a very good documentary; I'll be there.  I think there's going to be a Q&A period with me and some of the other people who were featured in the movie at the event. So it would be great, if you're in the New York area this summer, June 26, go on letusdisagree.com and buy yourself some tickets.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 PETER AT THE LAS VEGAS MONEY SHOW May 13 – 15, 2019 https://conferences.moneyshow.com/…/4532d84bf…/peter-schiff/ As Noted on My Last Podcast… As I suspected on Friday's podcast, the 400-point reversal that saw the Dow move from down 300 points + to up 100 points on the close was in fact, reversed today, and the Dow Jones actually closed below the Friday low, which is a huge negative, technically for the index.  The Dow was down 617 points; that's about 2.4 %.  But the real carnage was in the NASDAQ.  That was down 3.4%.  The Russell 2000 also down better than 3% - 3.2%, showing that domestically focused stocks are actually getting hit harder than the multi-nationals. Lyft and Uber Still Sinking More trouble again for the recent IPO's, in particular, the ride-hailing companies Lyft  - down again, another 5.8% off the lows of the day - the lowest $47.17, closed at $48.15.  The Uber disaster continues.  Uber was down almost 11% today.  At one point, it was down 12% - the low was $36.08.  We closed at 37.10. Remember we came public Friday. This is only the second trading day.  Uber came public at $45, and now it is at $37.10, and as I said again on last week's podcast, these types of stocks are going to get particularly hit hard if the market carnage continues, which I think it will. China: No Deal I think the bear market rally is over - I've been saying that, "Long live the bear market". The Bear market rally is dead.  We are going a lot lower.  The catalyst today was also something that I was pointing out on my podcast last week, and that was the fact that we are not going to get a deal with China. I've been saying for a long time, that even if we got a deal, it would be, "buy the rumor, sell the fact". But I also said that it was becoming obvious that Trump had so over-promised the "great deal" that it was almost impossible to have a deal without disappointing the markets. So, I think Trump made a calculated decision that no deal is better than a deal that disappoints, especially since he had already goosed the market up to new highs.  So even if we sold off, Trump could say, "Well, this is some short-term pain; it's necessary for the long-term gain." and it may, in fact be the catalyst that causes the Fed to cut interest rates and launch QE, which is what Trump wants.  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 PETER AT THE LAS VEGAS MONEY SHOW May 13 – 15, 2019 https://conferences.moneyshow.com/moneyshow-las-vegas/speakers/4532d84bf93311d3a5dd00104b96e7b5/peter-schiff/ Recorded May 10, 2018 Why Escalate Trade War If Negotiations Are Going so Great? The U.S. stock markets finished off the worst week of the year with a gain despite the fact that, as expected, the trade talks between the United States and China broke down today, and no deal.  The new tariffs went into effect at 12:01am this morning.  Despite the fact that Trump is now retaliating by escalating the trade war, he still claims that the discussions are going well, that they are making a lot of progress.  None of that makes any sense. If things are going well, and you're making progress, you don't escalate the war. That makes no sense. All that is going to do is piss off the Chinese. So, if everything is going so well, you would not want to do that. Maybe Trump Would Rather Have the Tariffs This shows that things are breaking down, that there is some desperation and Trump feels he has to turn up the pressure in order to try to force the Chinese into a deal.  Although, I am not even sure Trump believes a deal is actually better than the tariffs.  First of all, I don't believe that Trump is going to be able to deliver the type of substantive, game-changing great deal that he has been promising. So, from that perspective, if Trump actually believes that tariffs are good for the U.S. economy because it means we're going to get some kind of windfall, that the Chinese are going to be sending us all this money, well then maybe he prefers the tariffs to a deal that does not live up to the hype. Tariffs Are Simply Another Tax on the American People But, of course, Trump is wrong if that's what he believes. The tariffs simply represent taxes on the American consumer.  They are just one type of tax.  You can have a sales tax, you can have an income tax, you can have a tariff.  All the taxes are paid by American people.  It doesn't matter what you call them or how you want to levy them, that's where the money is coming from. So, if you think lower taxes are good, then you can't think tariffs are good. Unless you're going to offset the tariffs by cutting taxes someplace else and say, "We're going to fund government through tariffs as opposed to funding government through another source. But the tariffs in and of themselves do not deliver a benefit to Americans.  They simply make products that are subject to the tariffs more expensive to buy.  So Americans have a choice: pay the higher price or don't buy the 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

See Peter at the SALT Conference at the Bellagio, Las Vegas May 7-10, 2019 https://www.salt.org/bio-schiff-peter Market Volatility I just arrived in Las Vegas, where I will be spending the next 8 days - I actually have 2 conferences heres; I have the SALT Conference (SkyBridge Alternative Asset Conference) that really kicks off tomorrow, though there is a welcome reception tonight, and then I do the Las Vegas Money Show, which kicks off on Monday.  So I'm here for quite some time.  I haven't even unpacked my bags, though.  I wanted to record a short podcast to comment mainly on the market volatility. Buyers Bought Dip on Monday The stock market was way down on Monday morning.  Of course,  the selloff started in the futures market on Sunday night, where the Dow futures was down over 500 points at one time. But by the time we opened, the Dow was only off about 450 and the dip buyers came in, and they bought the market all day, and we closed near the highs.  It couldn't close positive - I think the Dow was only off about 70 points.  So the buyers came in as they are trained to do.  They bought the dip. Trump's Tariff Tweets What caused the initial selloff was a pair of tweets; the two tweets were related. A lot of times, when Donald Trump sends out a tweet, he has a lot of stuff in there. or he will send out 2 tweets to make the same message. And, what happened is he basically said that he was going to impose more tariffs on China. He tweeted that, by this Friday, he is going to "up" the 10% tariffs to 25%.  So Americans who are now being taxed 10% for buying some Chinese goods, if they buy those Chinese goods starting on Friday, they will have to pay a 25% tariff on those goods. New Additional 25% Tariffs He also tweeted that he was going to apply the 25% tariff to goods that right now aren't paying any tariffs. So there are still a lot of Chinese goods that Americans could buy without being subject to tariffs, but now Trump is saying that now that is going to go away. At the end of this week, he's going to hit those goods.  So Americans buying pretty much any Chinese products are going to have to pay a 25% tariff. Additional Tax on American Consumers Now, of course, Donald Trump thinks these tariffs are great, because he believes the Chinese pay them, which, of course, is not true.  The tariffs are added on here in the United States, so it is the American consumers who pay those tariffs. Now, it can hurt China because if the higher prices cause fewer Americans to buy Chinese goods because they don't want to pay the higher price, then China doesn't sell its goods in America.  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 May 3, 2019 See Peter at the SALT Conference at the Bellagio, Las Vegas May 7-10, 2019 https://www.salt.org/bio-schiff-peter Jobs Surge in April, Unemployment Rate Falls Today is Jobs Friday; the first Friday of the month, that we get the nonfarm payroll number.  I don't know if the markets anticipated more or Donald Trump, because of course he's ready to send out a tweet when we get a better than expected number.  That's what happened today; we got another number that was better than expected.  Certainly the headline number - they were looking for an increase of 180,00 jobs, which would have been a bit of a reduction over last month's 196,000 jobs - which was revised down slightly to 189,000. We ended up getting 263,000 jobs, so another number with a 2-handle - a much bigger number than had been anticipated, and the unemployment number, also surprisingly dropped. Two tenths, from 3.8% to 3.6%.  Hispanic unemployment actually hit an all-time record low. I expected Donald Trump to tweet about that, because obviously he's being accused of being a racist.  Clearly, if he can show that, "Well, look, Hispanic unemployment is at an all-time record low, how are my policies racist, if we have a record low in unemployment among Hispanics?" He did tweet about the jobs numbers and the low unemployment numbers. Which Numbers are Fraudulent Now? But again, I reminded Trump (not that he actually ever reads my tweets, he gets so many) that when he brags about how low the unemployment rate is, the official rate, I always remind him, "Wait a minute, you are the person who accused these numbers of being fraudulent, fakes, phonies, a scam - Donald Trump as a candidate was very critical of Barack Obama's phony recovery mainly because Obama was hiding behind (what Trump said were) fraudulent statistics. Well, these are the same statistics that Donald Trump is embracing - the same statistics that he criticized.  So, I guess the President no longer about all of the discouraged workers who are no longer looking for work, he doesn't care about all the people who are working part time, but would prefer to work full time, but they can't find a full time job, so they settle for a part time jobs.  These are the people who are not included in that 3.6% unemployment rate.  The President cared about those people when he was a candidate.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 May 1, 2019 VISIT PETER AT THE LAS VEGAS MONEY SHOW May 13 - 15, 2019 https://conferences.moneyshow.com/moneyshow-las-vegas/speakers/4532d84bf93311d3a5dd00104b96e7b5/peter-schiff/ Market Looking for Validation of Expectations Today was the conclusion of the FOMC meeting in which the Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged, and that is exactly what the market was expecting.  Nobody expected the Fed to hike, and nobody expected the Fed to cut. But apparently, a lot of people expected the Fed to be more dovish with respect to its outlook for a potential future rate cut. Remember, the Fed Fund futures are showing that the next move is likely to be a cut and that maybe the Fed will cut by 50 basis points by the end of the year, so the markets are probably looking for some reassurance from the Fed that the market's expectations of lower interest rates are valid, and that's not what they got today from Chairman Powell. Inflation Below 2%.  Who Cares? 'In fact, he was actually asked, point blank, by CNBC's Steve Liesman - it was one of the first questions asked, maybe it was the first - whether or not the Federal Reserve was going to do something about persistently low inflation, because, after all, the official inflation rate is slightly below their target. I mean, if the target is 2%, we're at 1.7%, 1.8%… Who cares?  But somehow this is an emergency, this is a disaster - we're not hitting our 2% target, even though we're pretty damn close.  But, is the Fed going to do something about it? And instead of saying, "Oh, yes, we're going to do something about it, we're going to cut rates to make sure that we have 2% inflation", what Powell said was, "Well, yes, we acknowledge that inflation is lower than we would like and its lower than our goal, but we're not worried, because we expect it to be transitory." In other words, we're not worried about inflation being too low, because we believe the inflation rate is going to rise, and so there's nothing to worry about. In fact, what Powell said was that the Fed will be patient, but as of right now, they can't see a reason why they should hike or they don't see a reason why they should cut. 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 April 26, 2019 VISIT PETER AT THE LAS VEGAS MONEY SHOW May 13 - 15, 2019 https://conferences.moneyshow.com/moneyshow-las-vegas/speakers/4532d84bf93311d3a5dd00104b96e7b5/peter-schiff/ Q1 GDP Expected at 2.3% Today we finally got the first estimate for the U.S. GDP in the first quarter of 2019, and typically the first quarter of the year has been rather weak.  That has been the experience pretty much going back through the Barack Obama administration.  And the consensus was for a 2.3% rise in Q1 GDP, that would have been just a slight improvement over the 2.2% number that we got for the 4th quarter of 2018. Expectations Were Low If you remember, way back, a couple of months ago, everybody was really low. You had a lot of people who were looking for Q1 GDP to come out with a zero handle. But they had been ratcheting up those expectations now to a consensus of 2.3%.  A lot of it had to do with the fact that the trade deficits had come in a lot smaller than people thought. I think the reason for that is because the trade deficit really ramped up in the last couple of quarters, probably because businesses were trying to front-run the tariffs that were supposed to come in at the end of last year. That might have caused extra imports to try to get things in under the gun before they were subjected to the tariffs.  So because we pulled all that forward, imports weren't as much in the first quarter, so they did not subtract as much from the GDP. Inventories Continued to Build Also, the inventories continue to build, but most importantly, because they weren't selling. Goods weren't selling as much - inventories were building.  That ended up helping. We ended up getting a number that was much bigger than consensus.  We actually got 3.2% GDP growth for Q1. Delaying the Day of Reckoning Now, before you get all excited, "Aha, Peter, you were totally wrong on this, you were looking for a weak number…" - first of all, a lot of people were looking for a weak number.  It wasn't just me. But I do believe that we simply delayed the day of reckoning by a quarter.  I think this time, it's going to be the second quarter that will be a big disaster.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 PETER AT THE LAS VEGAS MONEY SHOW May 13 - 15, 2019 https://conferences.moneyshow.com/moneyshow-las-vegas/speakers/4532d84bf93311d3a5dd00104b96e7b5/peter-schiff/ Easter and Passover I hope everybody enjoyed their Easter holiday, in fact, today is Easter Monday, so many parts of the world are still celebrating, including here in Puerto Rico.  We are still in the holiday of Passover, so hopefully everybody who celebrates Passover, myself included, is still enjoying that holiday. In fact, this year, the first night of Passover coincided with Good Friday; a rare occasion that unites the two religions.  We generally end up celebrating both. Removal of Sanction Exemptions Drives Oil Prices Up The markets have been quiet around the holidays.  The big story today in the markets was the price of crude oil - up about $1.60/barrel.  We're now at $65.71 per barrel.  This is a new high for the year. Today, the catalyst was the Trump administration announcing that they would be withdrawing the exemptions that allow certain countries such as Japan, India, China - a number of countries currently buying oil from Ira. Now we're saying no more exemptions.  They're saying, if you buy oil from Iran, then you're going to get sanctioned.  Generally, what that means is the U.S. is going to shut you out of access to the dollar-based financial system - wiring and using the resources of the Fed.  Considering that most of the world still transacts internationally in U.S. dollars is a very very serious punishment that the U.S. is able to dole out to any nation that does not do its bidding. Effect on our Trading Partners? Now, of course, this angers our trading partners who do not like being dictated to by the United States, they do not like the United States being able to tell them who they can and cannot do business with, and to punish them if they do not do what the United States says. Of course, this is all a function of the U.S. dollar being the reserve currency, which certainly gives nations like China, or like Russia or any other nation an incentive to try to move away from the U.S. dollar as a reserve currency.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