Gold

Gold has been storing momentum and energy for the past six weeks and as expected breached the $3,400.00 resistance level last week. The Personal Consumption Expenditures report assisted the charge forward indicating that core inflation is 2.9% year-over-year requiring institutional investors to consider whether this statistic would reverse Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s dovish comments of the prior week. Stocks dumped overnight before the report, continued to retreat throughout the morning leading to a afternoon rally to recover most of the losses. All eyes now turn to the FOMC meeting mid-month. Expect more volatility in equities as there will be rumors and speculation ahead of the meeting as Wall Street recognizes this debt-based Global Economy is addicted to easy money. Technically speaking, there is little resistance between Gold’s current level and the previous historical high accomplished earlier this year.

Silver

Silver opened the week at $38.89 and closed at $39.75 for a respectable 2.2% weekly gain. Bears are more firmly entrenched as they attempt to lose their short positions before allowing the shiny metal to eclipse $40.00. Silver’s stubborn strength is expected to win the battle in the near future with same absence of resistance in its path. Premiums are showing signs of ticking upward as the annual Autumn run we are witnessing continues.

Platinum & Palladium

Platinum and Palladium were mixed last week as Platinum gained $11.35 to close at $1,371.70 while Palladium fell nearly $22.00 for a weekly loss of 1.94% ending at $1,107.49. The Platinum Family of metals desperately needs good news from the manufacturing segment to gain any ground.

Summary

Most Americans that I visit with on a daily basis, discussing precious metals, the economy, the morality of our nation, and the probabilities of what the future holds, are decidedly unsettled. It is difficult to look back to see how we got here. A consensus is that our government is broken and there is no easy way out of the hole that our financial irresponsibility’s have placed us in. There is an eerie feeling that most people feel that something terrible comes our way.

There is a theory titled “The Fourth Turning” developed by William Strauss and Neil Howe in the late 1990’s. The theory studies historical events and has discovered that the United States moves in cyclical, generational-driven eras called “saecula” lasting about 80 – 100 years, which are divided into four distinct periods called “turnings”. These turnings are the High, the Awakening, the Unraveling, and finally the Crisis. The Fourth Turning or Crisis is a time of significant societal upheaval and institutional reconstruction, where the nation reinvents itself and new Republic is forged. Many subscribers believe that a Crisis period began seventeen years ago with the collapse of Lehman Brothers which nearly brought the world to its knees. According to the students of this theory, we are in the Crisis period as identified in previous “Turnings”. The theory describes approximate timelines for each period to exist. This Crisis period is projected to last until about 2035. The pain, and chaos will accelerate until the “new way” is forged. This could certainly explain the eerie feelings that Americans have about impending doom. This theory is worth a couple of web searches to understand better how it was developed and the examples in history. If the theory is proven to be correct, we may finally know what Gold and Silver have been trying to tell us for some time now. There is never a bad time to invest in Gold and Silver. But some times are better than others.