May 4, 2026 | B, Daily JAM, GDX, GDXJ, GLD, Jubak Picks, Long Term |
Watch what they do and not what the say is always good advice for investors trying to figure out what’s going on in the financial markets.
Sure, the Federal Reserve has said that it has a target of no more than 2% inflation. And Jerome Powell & Co. has professed their disappointment that inflation remains so stubbornly elevated above that target,
Since the start of the year, the Fed has expanded its balance sheet by $170 billion. That translates to a staggering $510 billion annualized run-rate. The Fed is currently expanding its balance sheet at almost 8% a year during a period when the U.S. economy is supposedly not in a recession.At the same time, U.S. money supply M2 grew by $1.65 trillion in 2025, which is roughly 6.3% over the year.
May 1, 2026 | Daily JAM, Long Term, SCCO, Top 50 Stocks, VALE |
There’s an old business joke–its origin may stretch back to 1833–that has a company claim that it loses money on every sale but makes it up on volume. I swear I remember it as a kid as part of a radio ad campaign for a clothing store in New Jersey. And now, it seems to be literally true for copper miners Southern Copper (SCCO) and Vale (VALE). For these companies surging prices of byproducts of mining copper–like gold and silver–have turned the cost of producing copper negative.
April 20, 2026 | Daily JAM, GLD, Jubak Picks |
I don’t know how long the weakness in gold might last–gold is down 8.4% from the start of the Iran war on February 28 through the close on April 20. Or how big any further decline from here might be-—my crystal ball is not doing a bang-up job of predicting the twists, turns, ultimatums, and reversals in this crisis. But I would once again use the short-term selling as an opportunity to build long-term gold positions. On the assumption that you’ve got a basic gold position in place, I’m going to look beyond ETFs that hold physical gold and silver to suggest two gold mining stocks that have significant leverage to the price of gold.
April 5, 2026 | Daily JAM |
The share of gold in foreign central bank reserves has surpassed the share of U.S. Treasuries for the first time since 1996.
April 4, 2026 | Daily JAM |
Maybe? After dropping 8.09% in the last month, gold climbed 4.07% for the past week. Could we have seen the worst of the central bank selling of gold?
March 29, 2026 | Daily JAM |
Watch buying and selling by global central banks if you want to know where the price of gold is headed.
And if you want to know why this safe haven asset has been anything but safe since the start of the Iran war on February 28.
March 23, 2026 | Daily JAM |
So who to believe? For half of Monday, financial markets believed President Donald Trump’s statements to reporters told that the United States and Iran were engaging in “very strong talks” toward ending the war. The talks he said had produced “many, like 15 points,” of agreement. He said he was postponing until Friday his threat to attack Iranian power plants while talks take place. The Standard & Poor’s 500 gained 2.2% on the reports. trades who had placed their TACO bets were happy. (TACO stands for Trump Always Chickens Out.) Those gains even survived a denial from the speaker of Iran’s Parliament that any such negotiations were underway. He accused President Trump of issuing false statements to calm rattled energy markets. Iranian officials said their country would continue to fight. But as the day’s trading wore on, the gains diminished.
March 15, 2026 | Daily JAM |
No secret. The big financial event of the week is the Wednesday, March 18, meeting of the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee. But the big news out of that meeting will likely NOT be a decision on interest rates themselves. As of Friday, the CME FedWatch Tool was putting the odds of the Fed keeping benchmark short term rates at the current 3.50% to 3.75% range near 100% at 99.2%. Now granted that the FedWatch tool only tells us what the FedFunds futures market thinks the Fed will do, but it would be extraordinary if the Fed let the financial markets get this call so wrong. that would produce exactly the kind of market volatility that the Fed tries to prevent. Recent weeks would have seen Fed officials trying to talk the markets out of that belief. That talk has been notably absent. The news out of that meeting WILL BE the quarterly revisions to the Fed’s dot Plot projections of future interest rates, inflation, unemployment, and GDP growth.
February 19, 2026 | B, Daily JAM, GDX, GDXJ, GLD, Jubak Picks |
February The argument for owning gold for the long term comes down to simple supply and demand. Unlike the world’s supply of fiat currencies where supply will soar as the wold’s indebted countries–just about everyone–print more money to pay their bills, the global supply of gold is increasing by just 1% a year or less. Unlike demand for the U.S. dollar, world’s fiat money flagship currency–where every day more investors want to hedge their risks by diversifying out of the dollar, demand for gold from global central banks is climbing and Wall Street strategist have modestly but noticeably increased their recommended allocation to gold for individual portfolios.
February 17, 2026 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
If the indirect talks between the United States and Iran succeed in reaching some kind of agreement that walks the United States back from a new, and quite possibly more extensive, attack on Iran, then financial markets will breathe a sigh of relief. Gold and oil prices will stabilize or retreat. If, however, the talks end in disagreement with new promises from President Donald Trump of an immediate attack on Iran, then “safe haven” assets will move up strongly. Frankly, I don’t know how to handicap the odds on this one. Bets one way or the other seem pure speculation. The news will create big winners and losers. I just don’t know enough to be able to project which way this will break.
February 14, 2026 | Daily JAM, Short Term |
Last week saw deleveraging everywhere you looked. will next week see another week of deleveraging–which translates into selling–or not?
January 1, 2026 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing, PAAS, Short Term |
It’s not surprising to me that the Chicago Mercantile Exchange’s decision to hike margin requirements for gold and silver trading not once but twice in a week took a bite out of gold and silver prices. What is surprising to me is how small the drop in prices for gold and silver have been relative to the historic gains the two metals recorded in 2025. I’d buy, especially silver, on the dip.
