The Peter Schiff Show Podcast

* The month of January came to an end, and it didn't play out the way most people believed it would * Remember when the year began, everybody was optimistic on the U.S. dollar * Remember I said that it was the most crowded trade * It was just like gold the year before * Everybody was convinced that now that Trump was President we were going to have all this fiscal stimulus * The Fed was going to be tightening rates more aggressively * The dollar had no place else to go but up; * Everybody started the year long the dollar * I just read that this was the worst January for the dollar in almost 30 years! * For all the fanfare and the hype about Dow 20,000 * The Dow was only up about .5% in the month of January * You would think that it was much higher than that * And of course, measured in any other currency, the Dow was down quite a bit * In fact, if you just look at our mutual funds * To just give you an example of what's going on overseas * First of all, our Gold Fund up 12% in the month of January * But my International Value Fund was up 6.5% in the month of January * That fund is the #1 fund on Morningstar so far in 2017 * It was also the #1 fund in its category of 400 or so for all of 2016 * And it's already the #1 fund for 2017 * But if you look at the returns that are being achieved internationally * Investing outside the dollar * Investing in gold stocks * That's where all the money is being made * It's not being made in the U.S. Stock Market * In other currencies, it's actually, it's only up in dollars * But it's down in terms of just about every other currency * So you wouldn't know that from listening to the pundits * Everybody is so excited about what's going on * Again this is probably how it all started when George Bush came in * People were still initially enthusiastic about what was going to happen * But the honeymoon didn't last longOur 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

* Earlier this morning we got the first look at Q4 GDP * As I suggested on the last podcast, in fact as I have been saying all along * We did see a sharp decline from the Q3 3.5% GDP * The consensus was for a 2.2% estimate for growth in Q4 * And we came in at 1.9% * Quite a way below estimates and psychologically below the 2% number * Part of the reason was a big drop in exports * I talked about this last quarter * One of the reasons we got that 3.5% jump in Q3 GDP * Was the big surge in soybean exports, because of a drought overseas * Which created a temporary increase for U.S. beans * The rest of it was an inventory build, which I still think needs to be worked off * In fact, I think we're going to work off a lot of it in the first quarter of this year * That's the first estimate, and, who knows, they may downward revise it the next time they give us the numbers * If you now take the first 3 quarters of GDP growth, and use the first estimate for Q4 * For the entire year of 2016 GDP grew at just 1.6% * That is the lowest number since 2009, tied with 2011, at 1.6% also * If you remember 2011 GDP growth was so weak that they launched QE3 for 2012 * So they ended QE2, the economy started rolling over * And when they got that 1.6% GDP for the entire year * The Fed very quickly came out and launched QE3 the following year to goose the GDP back up *  What are they doing now?  Not only is the Fed not preparing to launch another round of QE * They are tightening monetary policy * They're saying, "We're going to raise interest rates 3 times, even though GDP is as low as it has been for the entire "recovery' * Even though the economy is decelerating, we are going to sedate it with rate hikesOur 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

* Short and not-so-sweet.  Maybe that's how you would describe President Trump's inaugural speech * Which, I think was the briefest since Jimmy Carter * But now, Donald J. Trump is the 45th President of these United States * I did in general like his speech; I agree with much of what Donald Trump had to say * Talking about how bad things are in the U.S. economy * Yes, there were some people who benefited * People in Washington certainly benefited, certainly Washington has been booming, right? * Because they've been sucking all the wealth out of the rest of the country * So the bureaucrats and certain segments of the population have benefited * From central planning and central banking and the cheap money and the bubbles * But Donald Trump hit the nail on the head * When he talked about all the factories like tombstones littering the landscape * How our wealth has been sucked out * The Middle Class has been hollowed out and the country is hurting * All this is true, and I like the fact that he says we're going to take back the government for the people * Take it away from the elites, take it away from the bureaucrats and bring the power back to the people * All that is great. * The question is, What exactly does Donald Trump mean by that? * Does he mean, get the government off the people's backs? * Does he mean unshackle us from government * Get rid of all the regulations, get rid of all the taxes and government spending * Get rid of all the bubble blowing * Let's have sound money and higher interest rates * Let's have a real economy so that individual Americans can pull themselves up out of the ditch on their own? * That we can roll up our sleeves and work our way out of this gigantic hole that the government placed us in * And if it's going to be free enterprise, limited government and freedom? * Of that's what he means by "Taking back the government for the people" * Then, that's great * But what if he doesn't mean that? * What if he means a Trumpian "New Deal"? * What if he's talking about government proactively doing things to "help" the middle class * Like big spending on infrastructure, where the government employs the people directly * And creates jobs, like they did during the Great Depression?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

* As I said on a prior podcast, this could be the first Presidential Honeymoon to end before the marriage officially begins * Donald Trump will not be sworn in until Friday * Yet the Honeymoon already appears to be over for the Trump Trade * The dollar continues to decline again today; gold continues to rise * Confounding the experts who, at the beginning of the year, predicted the opposite * Gold up again today about $14 it was up $4-5 yesterday, on the Martin Luther King holiday *  We're now at about $1217 for the price of gold * We're still below where we were the day Trump won * But this is the highest we've been in about 6 weeks, maybe more * It's certainly the highest for the year * Dollar down across the board; dollar index at the low for the year * Still up from Trump's victory but down quite a bit from the highs * Of course, other currencies, even though the dollar index is down 2% * You've got currencies like the Australian dollar up 4.5% * So that currency has pretty much recovered everything that it lost based on the Trump victory * Gold, although it hasn't recovered everything, it's still up almost 6% so far year to date * Silver's up better than 7% year to date * Gold stocks, look at the GDX, up 12% so far this year * That means that gold stocks by far is the top performing sector in 2017 * They were by far the top performing sector in 2016 * I actually think the out-performance in 2017 will be even greater than 2016 * The Dow, down again, at one point it was down close to 100 * Dow transports ended down over 100 * I think the Dow is basically flat on the year - slightly positive * The NASDAQ was down 35 points; S&P down as well * So U.S. stocks are barely moving * Foreign stocks - some of these emerging markets are up huge, especially priced in U.S. dollars * All the foreign markets, thus far in 2017 are beating the U.S. market * Again, that is not what all the experts were expecting from the Trump RallyOur 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

* It's Friday the 13th and it is a Friday before a 3-day holiday weekend * Monday, of course is Martin Luther King Day * The stock market will be closed in observance of the holiday * Once again, I guess Friday the 13th was bad luck for those hoping for Dow 20,000 * In fact, the Dow finished the day Down, it was a slight decline for the Dow * But not so for gold; gold was up again * The Dollar was actually down again * In fact, this year is already shaping up to be a mirror image of what everybody expected when the year began * The Dow is up slightly, about a half a percent; the S&P is maybe up about 1-1/2 percent * But look at the dollar; the dollar index is down 1% * In terms of foreign currencies, the Dow is actually down * The dollar index is mostly the euro * If you take a look at some of the other currencies, the Canadian Dollar, for example, is up 2.5% so far in 2017 * The Australian dollar is up 4% * These are some pretty big moves early in the year * Remember, everybody was bullish on the dollar * That was the trade, it was so crowded, everybody was in it * Every strategist that I saw on financial news at the end of last year and early this year * Was long the dollar, short the Aussie, short Canada, short the euro, short the yen * Meanwhile, all these currencies are going up * I think they're going a lot higher and I think the shorts are going to lose a lot of money * Take a look at gold stocks * Gold stocks are up about 10% so far in 2017 only 2 weeks into the year * This is already a much stronger start for gold stocks than we had last year * And of course, last year was a great year for gold stocks despite the fact that they sold off toward the end of the year * Based on all the hype surrounding Donald Trump and all the great economic growth that we are going to get * And how the Fed is going to be raising rates even faster and the dollar was going to be even stronger * I knew all that was a bunch of nonsense * People still believe it, but the markets are already showing it to be a false paradigm * And most of the Wall Street strategists are going to once again miss out on these opportunities 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

* The NFIB Index of Small Business Optimism in the month of December, so this is post the election of Donald Trump * Shot up from 98.4 in November to 105.8 * This is the highest level in 12 years - since before Obama was President * And it's the biggest monthly jump in 37 years * You have to go all the way back to 1980, the election of Ronald Regan to find a moment in time where you saw this big an increase in optimism, in confidence among small business owners * Remember, it was Michelle Obama not too long ago * Saying, "This is horrible, there's no hope anymore in America!" * Well, small business owners haven't been this hopeful since I was in high school * Why are they so optimistic? * Well, first of all, it's more a testimony to how horrible things have been over the last 8 years * People are just hopeful that now there's going to be some relief, that Barack Obama is gone * Because the lat 8 years have been very, very difficult for small businesses * First of all, if you're running a small business, you can't take advantage of zero percent interest rates * You can't just show up at the discount window and borrow from the Fed * Also, you can't sell bonds into the bond market, like big corporations can * If you're a small business, and you need credit, you've got to go to a bank and get a loan * But the banks don't have any money - there's no savings - nobody's putting money into the bank * And no banker wants to carry a risky loan on his books * When he can just own U.S. Treasuries * The regulators are all over you, if you actually make a loan to a business * So businesses haven't gotten capital * Meanwhile the cost of doing business has gone up because there's been all sorts of regulations that have been added to the burden of business * Over the lat 8 yearsOur 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

* Yesterday we got the final jobs report of the Obama era, * We got the December Non-Farm Payroll. * Now technically, when we get the January number, the first Friday of February, * Half of that would have been during the Obama presidency, * But because we won't get the official news until the Trump presidency, * I'm sure that Donald Trump is going to take the credit, or maybe have to deal with the blame, * Depending on how that number ends up being received, whether it beats the consensus or misses, * But this is really the final jobs number for Obama. * The number came out O.K. * It missed the consensus estimate, which was 175,000 jobs, * And the actual number, at least until they revise it next month was 156,000 * So that was below what was expected. * Now they did revise upward the prior month from 178,000 to 204,000 * And the month before that was revised down a bit * So I guess, when you take all the revisions, it was probably about a push on the number. * This report should have been seen as not so good, * Most of what I was reading was about how strong, not only this report was, * But the entire job-creation legacy of Barack Obama * This is what you get from the mainstream media * That peddles all the fake news * About what a great economy President Obama is handing off to Donald Trump; * That we have really low unemployment - * The official unemployment rate kicked up from 4.6, but still 4.7, * So, low unemployment, all these jobs being created, * Forgetting about the fact that once again, you're talking about low-paying, part-time jobs that have been created * In fact, the number of Americans not in the work force grows again; * It wasn't a big jump, but it was still a jump * To a new all-time record high. * So labor force participation has been eviscerated during the Obama years.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

* This is another big week for economic data; it is a holiday-shortened week * On Friday we get the big Non-Farm Payroll report * If it's a good number, somehow Donald Trump will try to take credit for it, as he has for the rise in the stock market * But I think that the job numbers, while maybe not bad just yet, but I think we will have a lot of problems with the non-farm payroll numbers in 2017 as the air starts coming 0ut of the part-time job bubble while Trump is in office *  But we did get some economic news today, most importantly, the minutes from the last Federal Open Market Committee Meeting and * What do you know? The members of the FOMC are concerned that maybe, they're not optimistic enough when it comes to growth * Because of the stimulus packages that may be passed by Donald Trump, that they may be wrong, and that the economy could grow faster than they think * They also were worried that they might overshoot on the downside on unemployment * Unemployment could actually get even lower than what they thought * And therefore that ultra-low unemployment may put some upward pressure on inflation * Of course, this is all the Keynesian/Phillips Curve myth * That low levels of unemployment are what cause inflation * Ironically, it is the Federal Reserve that causes inflation and there is going to be * Consumer price increases that are the consequences of the inflation that the Fed has already created and that the Fed is going to create * In fact, if we do have a stimulus package that gets through Congress early in 2017 * That includes tax cuts and government spending increases which results in a larger deficit * The inflationary forces are not going to be the debt itself, but the Fed's willingness to accommodate those deficits with more aggressive monetary easing * In fact, the complexion of the FOMC is actually going to get more dovish next year as some of the so-called hawks, and of course, none of them are actually hawks, it's all degrees of dovishness * Some of the less dovish members will be leaving and will probably be replaced by members that are just as dovish as everybody else * So I think the Fed will be willing and able to accommodate these deficits * That is what is going to cause inflationOur 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

* The Dow 20,000 party is going to have to wait until 2017 * Although I wouldn't necessarily buy a ticket for January * The selloff that started this week may resume in the first week of the new year * The dow rang out the old year with a 57-point loss to cap a losing week * Probably the first down week since the Trump victory * The Dow now at 19,762 - the close on the Dow for the year *  Most people think it's just a matter of time; we can easily rally early on in the new year * But again, there should be a lot more selling pressure in the new year * I mentioned this on the last podcast * A lot of people who had gains didn't want to take them in December because hopefully the taxes will be lower next year, so why pay higher taxes sooner, when you can pay lower taxes later? * We'll see what happens in early January * If we ring in the new year like we rang out the old,  it could be a long time before we get to celebrate Dow 20,000 * I'm sure eventually we will, even if we don't do it right away * Everything goes up when you're measuring in terms of U.S. dollars, so it is inevitable that the Dow will get to 20,000 * The question is, what will Dow 20,000 be worth in purchasing power - that's a whole different story * It's easy to go up in nominal terms, it's a whole different thing to go up in real terms * The Dow actually had a pretty good gain this year; it was up about 13-13 1/2 percent * Almost all those gains happening post-Trump * Although the problem for Donald Trump, is that he is claiming credit for this rally * What he should be doing is saying * "This is a bubble, I said it was a bubble when I was a candidate, it's still a bubble, now it's even bigger" * But he owns this bubble now; he has embraced it * Donald Trump has come out and said, "The market is going up because of me."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

* The Dow 20,000 party is going to have to wait - at least for another day * The Dow was down a little bit today - 23 to 19,918 * The broader market was a bit weaker than the Dow * The markets continue to shrug off very weak economic news that came out throughout the day * We got bombarded with all sorts of negative pieces of news that ordinarily, maybe before the election of Donald Trump, would have weighed down the market * Certainly it would have weighed on the currency markets * The dollar would have been very weak and gold would have had a big rally * Instead, gold was down a little bit, and the dollar rose a little bit despite very weak economic data that I will get to * I want to start off by focusing on the stock market and the optimism which is really quite ridiculous and unfounded * Part of the reason for the rally, though, is a lack of selling * We have a lot of people mindlessly buying the markets, but you don't have a lot of selling * One of the reasons is that people would rather sell in January than in December * People are enthusiastic about Trump's presidency because he will cut taxes * If you have a gain in the stock market, why realize that gain now in the waning trading days of 2016 * If you sell now, not only do you have to get your check into the IRS by April of next year * But also, you've got to pay the current tax rate * If you wait until the firs week of January, you don't have to pay taxes until a year from this coming April * You have all that time to use the money and the tax rates may be a lot lower * So why sell now? A lot of people are being given that advice; don't sell now - wait until January * Who knows - this market could ring in the new year with a major sell-offOur 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