“The Trap Has Been Sprung” on the Fed - Monthly Wrap Up

Announcer: You're listening to Sprott Money's "Monthly Wrap Up," with Craig Hemke.

Craig: Well, welcome back to Sprott Money news and sprottmoney.com. It's time for your monthly wrap-up here at the end of March 2022. I'm your host, Craig Hemke. And joining me is my old friend and fellow Sprott Money contributor David Brady. David, of course, regular contributor to the Sprott Money Insights blog. Usually has an article that's posted late every single week. You should look for it by visiting Sprott Money. In fact, if you want to be notified whenever it's posted, just sign up for the Sprott Money newsletter. Anyway, thank you for everybody who wrote in, gave questions for David today. We'll try to get to as many as we can. And of course, always remember, you like this podcast or any other information that Sprott Money cranks out over the course of month, please be sure to give us a like, or maybe a subscribe to wherever channel you're listening to. It'll help us broaden the distribution of this information. And like I said, a guy that distributes a lot of good information is David Brady. David, thank you so much for spending some time with me.

David: Oh, it's always great to talk to you again, Craig.

Craig: Well, and I very much value your friendship and your insights. I follow you on Twitter, which is something that if anyone that's listening to us is on Twitter, they should be sure to do. Hit everybody with that Twitter handle, would you, David?

David: Yes. It's @GlobalProTrader. And it's all one word. You can also reach me at Sprott Money, as you mentioned, and you can reach me at silverchartistpro.com also.

Craig: That's right. So, @GlobalProTrader. Again, you're a great follow. Anybody that's in there watching the markets, trying to see how it all connects, but even on just the price changes, you know, you're keeping track of the technicals, all that kind of stuff. I really encourage everybody to check out David's Twitter account, and give him a follow. Dave, we've got a lot to talk about. It's been such a crazy month here in March. As the month got underway, hostilities in Ukraine had reached a boiling point. We had the war underway. Commodities in general, with gold and silver, spiked into about the seventh or the eighth of the month, and then went through quite a big down pullback. And now, as we end the month, we're trying to figure out where we go from here. What are some of your observations from how the month of March played out?

David: How do I put this delicately? It's been a cluster...

Craig: Cluster.

David: The two primary drivers of the markets over the past month have been pretty clear, in my opinion. It's been Ukraine's situation, and the implications that's had for markets, and the Fed and other central banks, most notably the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, tightening monetary policy to stave off inflation. Those are the two primary issues I see driving markets. With regard to the Ukraine situation, I think it's the U.S. sanctions on Russia that have prompted a response from Russia, Putin's, in particular, that have garnered the most interest. And what do I mean by that? I don't know if many people noticed it, but I certainly did. Five days ago, Putin said that all payments in natural gas, or for natural gas, must be in rubles. And that's a game-changer. Because what that means, basically, is that the ruble is commodity-backed. So, what do I mean by that? Well, there's this thing called the petrodollar.

And when the dollar disconnected from gold in 1971, courtesy of Nixon, Kissinger, et al. went over to the Saudis and asked them to back, or to take a payment for their oil only in dollars, effectively creating the petrodollar. Well, what did Putin just say? The same thing for natural gas, but in rubles. That is the first shot across the bow, or the major shot across the bow, there's been plenty before this, to challenge the dollar's status as a global reserve currency. And it's not taken in isolation, either. You've got the Saudis knocking on China's door, potentially selling to them in yuan. Saudis are the principal counterparty to that petrodollar agreement. And they may be selling their oil to China in yuan? And the reason why I mention this is I'm stepping away from the day-to-day markets and looking at the bigger picture. But if the dollar...dollar's status as the global reserve currency, it's not gonna end tomorrow. But if it's being blatantly challenged on the world stage, people are going to recognize or foresee that the days of the dollar being the global reserve currency are numbered. And that's huge. Could you imagine what that would do to gold and silver?

Craig: Right. Right.

David: And what if China attacks Taiwan next, and the U.S. imposes further sanctions? They've already sanctioned China to some extent because they haven't agreed to put pressure on Russia to back off in Ukraine. But what if China attacks Taiwan, and U.S. ups sanctions against China next? Well, the problem that the U.S. is running into is it's essentially a paper champion. The U.S., we don't produce anything anymore. It's all been outsourced to China. In terms of energy, yeah, we're exporters of oil, and we've got fracking and so forth. But Russia has natural gas, it's got tin, it's got nickel, it's got gold, it's got oil. The issue that you're running into is the U.S. is taking on two major powers, rising powers, and deploying sanctions against them. But the issue is that this could boomerang back against the U.S., because, in one sense, you could have two commodity-backed currencies on the world stage. Natural gas-backed ruble, effectively, oil-backed yuan, effectively, or gold-backed yuan. There's so many things China could do in response. They could say, "Okay. Any exports that we make to the U.S. have to be all paid for in yuan. We're not taking dollars anymore."

Second, they stop exports. They've already threatened stop exports of rare earth materials in the past. What if that becomes more broad-based? "We're not gonna sell you X, Y, and Z." And the answer, for many people, many jingoists in the U.S. was "Oh, well, then who are they gonna sell it to?" Oh, they've got plenty of customers outside of the U.S. But the one that really, really excites me, and I'd like to get your two cents on this, Craig, is that I believe strongly that China is massively understating their gold holdings. Massively. Whether it's in the hands of the people, in the central bank safe, the foreign exchange institution. Wherever it's located, I believe, given the production, given their purchases of mines over the year, given their purchases from London through Switzerland, etc., etc., etc., the fact that they won't allow a single ounce out of the country, they could be, if you do the math, around 20,000 tons. What if they, in retaliation to U.S. sanctions, decide to announce their official holdings of gold, and it's 20,000 tons? What do you think that would do to the dollar?

Craig: Exactly.

David: What do you think it would do to gold and silver? My point is we can talk the day-to-day and the week-to-week on what's going on. But I've kind of lost interest, because the bigger picture is starting to take hold here. And the ramifications for the financial system and various markets are enormous. Now, I wanna be on that train early. Other people are trying to pick the right date. But I think we're coming to the endgame here, soon. Now, as I said, I don't think the dollar is gonna lose its reserve status tomorrow. But the pathway is certainly being laid out for it right now, in full headlines in the newspapers.

Craig: The long-term monetary damage has been done. I've cited often this month, and even last, David, you know, the old line from Lenin about how decades can unfold over the course of a couple of weeks. And don't you get that sense that that's what's taking place here in March? I don't know what will happen in April in terms of the active hostilities in Ukraine. Hopefully, it does not get worse, and maybe it gets a little bit better. But the U.S. and the EU have now proven that dollar hegemony is their ultimate weapon. And regardless of whether the military action gets worse in Ukraine, or China ultimately makes moves to expand its empire toward Taiwan or whatever, boy, the lesson has certainly been learned, wouldn't you say?

David: Absolutely. And as someone famous once said, I can't recall who exactly it was, but all hegemonic empires die on a whimper. And what I mean by that, and my take on that, is that the Russians and the Chinese don't have to fire a bullet, never mind a nuclear weapon. They can take down the U.S. financially and economically by destroying the dollar. And how do they do that? They make their currencies commodity-backed, whether it's gold, oil, natural gas. And they have the wherewithal to do this. When I tweet about some of this stuff and people come back and saying "Oh, the U.S. is the greatest military power in the world" and so forth, I don't disagree. But if the dollar becomes worthless tomorrow, how long is that gonna last?

Craig: Right. Right. Or trends toward less valuable, less needed.

David: Yeah. Yeah. I use exaggerations to make a point, but yes, you're absolutely correct. But the writing's on the wall. The Chinese and the Russians are no longer afraid of the U.S. In fact, given their situation, Russia's breadth of minerals and resources, and China being the manufacturing powerhouse of the world, they've got good reason to feel fairly strong in their position. Whereas in the U.S., I think the empire is on a downward slope, and China and Russia are throwing down the gauntlet to the U.S. And as I said, they don't have to fire a bullet or a nuclear weapon. They just have to make a couple of major headlines, and, you know, game over.

Craig: Yeah. Well, and I'm with you. We've been talking about that a lot on my site. You know, the day-for-day, the tick-for-tick. If you're in there trading, or trying to build positions as economically as possible, okay. That's still important. But the bigger-picture stuff, I don't think there's any doubt in the direction where this is all headed. I think we all need to keep our eye on the ball. Before we get to some of the questions here, let me just ask you about this. In that bigger picture, as the month of March draws to a close, here, as we record this on the 29th, we just had our first inversion of the yield curve here in the U.S., where the two-year note yields higher than the 10-year note. And that's just at present. Already, you know, the one-year forward inversion is already about 40 or 50 basis points. This would seem to be signaling recession, a policy error, the Fed having to move back toward cutting, not hiking, but doesn't seem to you like the stock market is focusing on the potential cutting part, while the gold market is focusing on the potential hiking part? How do you put all this together? And what do you expect in the months ahead?

David: So, you stole all my thunder there. I didn't... I have nothing to add.

Craig: No, sorry. [crosstalk 00:12:55] Let's just go on to the questions then, David. Anyway...

David: No. No, no, no. It was well said. No. You're exactly right. Along with the inversion of the yield curve, the Atlanta Fed has stated that their GDP forecast is for zero growth, potentially negative, and we're hiking rates? I said at the outset, the two primary drivers. We talked about Ukraine and the impact with respect to Russia and China's potential response to U.S. sanctions. The second one was the central bank tightening, led by the Fed and the Bank of Canada, the Bank of England, amongst others. And you mentioned the inversion of the yield curve, the policy error on steroids, as I call it.

Effectively, the trap has been sprung. We've been talking about the Fed being trapped. Now the trap has been sprung. And I call it stagflation. It's the... Bernanke said it's the Fed's worst fear, is deflation. Well, stagflation is a close second. Because it's very hard, very difficult to do anything about it. Now, they can't use Volcker's methods, because the debt is many times what it was back in the 1970s. So they can't raise rates to 12% or 15%, because the U.S. would be clearly bankrupt, given all the debt that they have, and they can't pay the interest. So, what is the Fed trying to do? They're trying to engineer a recession to bring down inflation. That's exactly what they're doing. But the problem that you run with that is you can go too far. How far can you go before you lose control? Apparently, a year ago, inflation was transitory. From the very outset, I'm sure you, too, I thought that was complete BS.

Craig: Right.

David: And it turns out it was. And now they're trying to engineer a recession. You run the risk that you could push us too far that there's no coming back. I don't think that's gonna happen. I think when they see the writing on the wall with regard to the economy, but more specifically, as always with the Fed, when the S&P takes another dump, I believe that's going to be... With regard to timing, I stand on the shoulder of giants. And some of them are, like, the likes of Michael Hartnett of B of A. And I agree with him. September, October is typically a bad month for equities. He believes that the recession will become apparent...we won't hit the depths of it until probably December, January, but it'll become apparent in the September, October timeframe. And at the same time, stocks will begin their next leg down. And that's when the Fed throws in the towel on whatever rate hikes it's managed to achieve. And it's also going to reverse to QE on steroids. What do I mean by that? Take post-March 2020 and multiply it by three. Ten trillion. Some ridiculous number. Because what's the alternative? Total collapse.

Craig: Right.

David: Stocks, since...we could argue when, but certainly since 2008, stocks have risen due to excess liquidity provided by the Fed and other central banks around the world. You take away that liquidity, and stocks head south. Now, it doesn't turn on a dime, but that's typically how it works. And you can go back through history to see that. Lance Roberts did a great article on this recently, about two weeks ago, where he showed the chart of money supply versus the S&P, and it's self-evident. The R-squared correlation is 85% between the two, over a long period of time. So, I fully expect the Fed to ride to the rescue one final time. And it'll be around the end of the year. The Fed will pull another 180, stocks are gonna go...6,000s, give or take. But that's it. After that, we're heading into the Great Depression.

Craig: Yeah. What's left?

David: Yeah. Well, let's switch to what we should be talking about, gold and silver.

Craig: Yeah. Let's go from there. I mean, that was a couple of the questions that were sent in, were mainly about recession and the general stock market. I've compared this a lot to the last time we went through this, which was 2018, where we got to a Powell Put, where the S&P was down 20%, and suddenly everything changed, and everybody was forecasting 5% 10-year, and eight rate hikes, and that sort of thing, just like they are now. Do you see those similarities, and do you think the precious metals play out in a similar manner like we saw in '19 and '20?

David: December 24th was the bottom. I posted a tweet that day saying I expected it to be. I also said to Zero Hedge that their numbers that you mentioned, like 5% on the 10-year and all this, that were complete and utter nonsense. We're going so what in percent. They blocked me for it. And then they quoted me. But anyway, yes. I think it's going to be similar to 2018, but I draw a comparison to, given the size of the stimulus that's gonna follow this policy error, that gold and silver are just gonna go ballistic, and especially silver. We can come up with numbers, but I said $2,300 plus. But I'm being conservative. But rather do that than say $4,000 and it turns out to be $2,500. So, I say $2,300 plus. New record highs. Silver could set a new record high above $50. And the miners, GDX, maybe hits $70 before we get a pullback, a significant pullback on the ensuing depression.

But here's the beautiful... I want to point this out before I forget. Here's the beautiful thing about gold and silver, and you can weigh in on this, Craig. Precious metals...I'll leave miners aside for now. But precious metals outperform almost everything else, and I have a hard time thinking of anything else that does outperform them, in extremes of inflation and deflation. So, when the greatest depression hits, yeah, they'll take a dump, but then they'll start going up again. And what's great about that is what you gotta consider...we haven't talked about housing, as mortgage rates are going up here. I fully expect that this is a warning. And then, next year, when we hit a wall, we're gonna get the biggest crash in housing and the stock market you've ever seen, or at least the start of it. And yet, gold either stays the same, maybe falls a little, or goes up. Imagine what happens to the purchasing power of gold and silver.

Craig: Good point.

David: Forget about the dollar, forget about, well, oh, the gold, it's at $4,000, whatever. Yeah, but if the average and the median home price in the U.S. was $250,000, or say $350,000, and now it's $50,000? Think about how many properties you can buy which are ounces of gold. You gotta think in those terms. Think in terms of tangible assets. Forget the funny money, you know, the toilet paper. Forget that stuff. Focus on what these things will be worth in real tangible assets in the future. The only concern is, for me, I don't know what the state of the world is gonna be if we're gonna be in a stateism, communism, autocracy, technocracy. But in the normal scheme of things, you could be rich beyond your wildest dreams. From my perspective, I've been saying a long time, gold and silver are the new TINA, There Is No Alternative. And people will say Bitcoin and so forth. But my issue with Bitcoin, even with these new independent wallets that can't be hacked, still, they're digital. Whereas gold and silver... I mean, we could debate that. But gold and silver are physical, and you have it in your possession, and people will always want it, and they can use it anywhere. And then, in terms of transport, I don't plan to travel to South America when the world's ending. So that's not an issue. So, the point being that gold and silver perform extremely well in both periods of high inflation and deflation. That's where you wanna be.

Craig: Yeah. Especially for the months ahead.

David: Yes. And especially if next year we see the beginning of the greatest depression in history, the everything bubble collapses. And when people say, "How do you come up with this?" Well, I say I connect the dots, but I'll cite one factoid. You go on to the WEF's website and you look up the risks...they have this risk forecast, based on financial risks, economic risks, environmental risks, and so forth. What's the number one financial risk listed on there? Asset bubble burst 2023 to '25. These are the [inaudible 00:22:28]. Yeah, exactly. I got that information afterwards when I was seeing everything else. This is all lining up for a major crash. And then, they're telling us that that's what they expected as well. That's just gravy on top as far as I'm concerned.

Craig: Well, and David, let's have one last question that was sent in. We've talked about the economy, we've talked about the shares and the metals. What about just the markets in general and their integrity? In that, a couple of people wrote in wanting you to address what we saw in nickel at the LME earlier this month, where prices were skyrocketing, there was a major short who was trapped, a Chinese gentleman who owns a big nickel company. Of course, the LME now owned by a Chinese company. This guy, whenever you can't make a margin call, your firm is on the hook. Apparently, the firm that would have been on the hook was JP Morgan. And so what happened? LME just canceled trades worth about $4 billion, and shut the thing down for over a week. And then as it reopened, price just went limit down until it was back to the point where there were no more margin calls. What do you make of that, David? Again, just in terms of integrity, and what that tells you about the world markets in general?

David: It's a big club, and you ain't in it.

Craig: That's for sure. I know I'm not. You might be.

David: No, no, I'm not. No, I'm not. I'm quoting George Carlin, obviously.

Craig: I know.

David: Look, the counterpart is Chinese, and they look after their own. Let me take a big step back. These markets have been centrally managed for years. These aren't free markets. Anybody who says, "Oh, capitalism has failed." Well, show me capitalism. Capitalism, the definition of capitalism in simple terms is free markets. Prices are determined by supply and demand. Can we say that in gold and silver? No. Nickel, this guy gets into trouble, he gets bailed out. You and I could talk about the bullion banks all day. But in terms of what drove it, I'd use a similar example. Look at palladium. You were all over that a few years back, when it went ballistic. And the market was caught short, egregiously so. And I'm talking about the people we love so much, the banks, and they got creamed, because they were all caught short, and it just kept going up and up and up. And how do we know this? Because open interest didn't budge. They weren't touching it. They just let it go.

And so, the free market took hold for a brief moment, and what happened? Prices soared. And that's the same thing that happened with nickel. It's been suppressed. Much agricultural commodities have been suppressed for years. Farmers have been trying to make a living off of what the prices they could get, but those weren't the real prices. They were capped. So, I'd have to write a thesis on all of the reasons why this is rigged, this is rigged, this is rigged, this is rigged, why the stock market is rigged, etc. The only reason the stock market's going up right now, given rate hikes and so forth, is a short squeeze. Well, who's squeezing the shorts? Think about it.

Craig: Yeah.

David: So, yeah. Unfortunately, that's the nature of the market that we live in. The way you navigate it, from my perspective, because a lot of people say, "Oh, it's rigged, so why bother?" Well, if you figure out how and when they rig it, maybe you could climb on board, because we little people can do little to change it. So we might as well jump aboard when they do it. But it'll all come falling apart in a year from now, anyway.

Craig: And you can use that to your advantage, understanding that the pricing system deliberately underprices, undervalues all these commodities, and that underlies the problem. And you can use that to your advantage once you understand that, and, boy, it is going to be interesting. You know, as we enter April, not another Fed meeting until the first week of May. So we'll have that bubbling around. The stuff with the bond market and interest rates in general... But David, how about the Japanese yen? We didn't even talk about that. Do you have any thoughts on that?

David: Oh, it just got creamed. Yeah. Well, that's because, again, you've got the Feds, the Bank of Canada, the Bank of England, a whole bunch of central banks, tightening on one hand, and the Bank of Japan is continuing to pursue QE. So that gives a justification for the yen getting crushed. But when I looked at the weekly chart today, forget the daily chart or hourly chart, look at the weekly chart, looks like a blow-off top to me. You might get one more negatively divergent higher high, but I think the dollar is going to get into trouble here shortly. I've been very positive on the dollar over the past several months, saying, oh, I don't think the top's in yet. I don't think that you can say the top's in. Even after pullbacks, I still don't think the top's in. But it's close now. And my call for the Dixie is that it's going sub-90 on this next leg down, and it could be brutal. It could be 70. But it's in for a big drawback. And I can't see that hurting gold and silver either. But the dollar-yen will certainly fall as a result. I think the dollar is about to run into some serious trouble.

Craig: Well, and that goes in line with your point too that we're toward that Powell pivot point again, you know, when the curtain gets pulled back, where they're just playing these rhetorical games, once more, about hiking rates, and how responsible they are, and how all these different... But once the curtain gets pulled back, and everybody realizes that "Wait a second. They're just pulling our leg," that would probably be a negative for the dollar. And now you say all of these things eventually add up toward...they paint a picture of what you and I have been discussing now for a decade or more. And that just makes the time that people need to be focused on that big picture, constantly accumulating some physical precious metal as your lifeboat in the storm.

Again, these great bits of information are brought to you by Sprott Money, sprottmoney.com, a great online bullion dealer, great online bullion storage dealer as well. So, if you enjoy this content, please be sure to thank them by visiting their site. In fact, in the last week's "Ask the Expert" segment, we discussed how Sprott Money currently has some First Majestic five-ounce silver ingots. And these things are pretty cool, but they're also about 95% sold out. So if you want one of those babies, you better go on to sprottmoney.com, check it out. If you want to talk to somebody directly about buying metal or storing your metal, you can give them a call at 888-861-0775. You should subscribe to the newsletter, so that when David posts his weekly article, you'll be sure to not miss a single one. David, do you know what you're gonna write about this week? You got any ideas?

David: Well, I'm thinking about talking about some of this, but there's one thing I wanted to mention before I go on the nearer term, this year. Conor O'Brien mentioned what happened in Canada and the freezing of accounts because you donated $20 to the truckers.

Craig: Yeah.

David: And I can say personally that I know a lot of well-heeled people who moved money out of the banks and bought precious metals. I did some myself. And I didn't make any donations, but I just didn't like what was happening, that the government can literally freeze your account for whatever reason they feel like. And then, you tag that along with what Klaus Schwab has been saying about the risk of cyberattacks. Now, everybody's talking about cyberattacks affecting utilities and so forth. You don't think they're gonna affect the financial industry? Good luck getting into your online account if the internet's down. So, my point is that there's been more demand for physical gold and silver for that reason, too. And another comment with regard to your earlier remark, one of the beauties with regard to gold and silver, and focusing on the big picture and holding it for the long term, sticking it in a drawer, letting it collect dust, is you have no counterparty risk, you've no mark to market risk, and nobody is gonna call you for a margin call. You can literally buy it, put it aside, forget about it, until that big picture plays out. And one thing for your listeners, a lot of people get tied up in the day-to-day nonsense, or they ask, "When's this gonna happen?" or when's that gonna happen and so forth.

Does it really matter, if you focus on the bigger picture and what the ultimate outcome is gonna be? And I'm not talking about 5, 10 years from now. Maybe six months, a year, two years from now. It'll pay off far greater in the longer run than trying to pick when to buy and when to sell, which most people are typically wrong, and especially in the gold and silver space. When everybody gets bullish, typically, it's time to sell. When everybody is throwing in the towel, that's typically when it's time to buy. I can go through December 2015, December 2016, August 2018, March 2020, and $1675 recently.

Those were the times to buy, when everybody was throwing in the towel. And then you can say the same at the peaks, $2089, and so forth. So, my point is set it and forget it. Develop a view on where things are going. And personally, I think it's pretty obvious. And stick with that and think big picture. So, what I mean by that is you got stocks, you got your real estate, things [inaudible 00:33:14] lots of people, your grocery bills, your cash in bank. How do you feel about all of those things in the future? Do you really want to be holding real estate into a great depression? Do you think a great depression's gonna come around? Do you want to hold stocks? Do you want gold and silver? Do you want to leave your cash in the bank as inflation's going through the roof? Have you got enough food in case there are food shortages, and we could run into starvation issues? Do you have a greenhouse?

Those are the things people need to be thinking about instead of, "Should I buy on Tuesday?" And, you know, "If it gets to this level, I'll sell next Wednesday." Take a step back and think about what your views are, or what you're reading with respect to the big items in your portfolio. And I mean your wealth portfolio, your total wealth. Your house, the whole nine yards. And think about what you wanna do with those. And I'll tell you this. Either gold or silver or both have to be in there. It's your insurance policy against what's coming. Because they're going to print again. I know a lot of people say they won't, they just let it crash. And maybe they will. I don't believe so. I think we got one more round of insanity, pure insanity, coming from the central banks. And then that will be that. But at that point, good luck trying to find a gold coin or silver coin.

Craig: Right. Well, those are words of wisdom right there. I might just have to crop that last couple of minutes. We'll put it on at the end of every monthly wrap-up call going forward. Seriously, that puts it all back into a nutshell, and I appreciate it. Again, we've been speaking with David Brady. Old friend of mine, but also a technical analyst, market analyst, and fellow writer here at Sprott Money. David, great to visit with you. I'm sure we'll do this again relatively soon. But in the meantime, all the best, and thanks for all you do.

David: Thanks for having me on, Craig. It's always a pleasure talking to a like-minded individual. The only issue is groupthink. But I don't think we suffer from that.

Craig: I don't think so. I don't think so. Anyway, thank you, David. And thank you, everybody, for listening. We'll wrap up March now, and we'll head on into April. We'll have more content for you from Sprott Money as a new month begins. But anyway, thank you for listening, everybody. We'll talk to you again very soon.