The Peter Schiff Show Podcast

* Today the Federal Reserve raised interest rates for the third time in 10 years * Of course, the tightening cycle began with the first rate hike in December of 2015 * Followed by the second rate hike in December of last year * And now, breaking from tradition, rather than waiting an entire year for the third hike * We got the hike in March * Of course the Fed had allowed market expectations to ri...

* I guess you could say a good jobs report is all in the eye of the beholder * And when it comes to President Trump's eyes, he is now beholding an excellent jobs report * Whereas a candidate, similar reports were described by Trump as phony, a hoax * I have a lot more sympathy for Candidate Trump than I do for President Trump * Now President Trump is trying to pretend that the jobs numbers that he...

* It looks like the Republicans on Capitol Hill, with the blessing of Donald Trump, are trying to repeal one big healthcare program and replace it with another big government entitlement * They're calling it TrumpCare * First they were calling it ObamaCare Lght, but now they're embracing the term, "TrumpCare" * Whatever it is, it is not going to work * It's just going to be another disaster wrappe...

* According to Goldman Sachs, the odds of a Fed rate hike coming up at the March meeting, which is less than 2 weeks away is now 95% * It was 90% before Yellen spoke , that was looking at the Fed Fund futures, in fact the probability of a rate hike had been rising all week based on speeches of a number of Fed officials * Everyone indicating that a rate hike was coming soon * Nobody actually said h...

* Last night, following tradition, President Trump delivered his first State of the Union Address * Although people are saying that it's not technically a true State of the Union Address * We'll have to wait another year for that; that he has been President for too short a period * So it's just an address before the Joint Session of Congress * But whatever you call it, apparently the president's a...

* Yesterday it looked like the Dow's winning streak may have come to an end * We were up 10 days in a row, which was the biggest winning streak since 1987 * The Dow was down 50-60 points for the entire day * It opened down and it stayed down until the very last hour, it started to rally * In the last 15 minutes it managed to eke out a positive close * To extend the winning streak to 11 consecutive...

* The Dow finished with yet another gain today * We closed at 20,775.60 * I've been told that this is the longest consecutive winning streak for the Dow Jones since 1987 * Of course, we all remember how that streak came to a crashing end in October with the 1987 stock market crash * We'll see if the market has better luck this time around * We got the FOMC minutes released earlier today * I think...

* We had a very significant day in the currency and gold markets yesterday * We had some good follow through today that really buttresses the point that I want to make * We got some economic news that was released yesterday that would have been considered bullish for the dollar and bearish for gold * By most people, other than me, who trade currencies and who trade gold * But the fact that gold di...

* Today Janet Yellen was up on Capitol Hill, it was the first of her 2-day testimony * She was before the U.S. Senate today; tomorrow she will be testifying before the House of Representatives * She talks about monetary policy; we have a bunch of Senators and Congressmen who engage in political grandstanding * To me, a lot of the people asking Janet Yellen questions are really just trying to speak...

* I will be in Orlando tomorrow for the Money Show * I will be there Wednesday and Thursday returning Friday * I have several speaking events, a couple of workshops * If you're in the Orlando area, come by, it's free to register online * You can pick up your badge on site * We'll have a booth in the exhibit all, you can come by and meet some EuroPac employees * We look forward to seeing clients an...

* Yesterday we got the first jobs report of the year and the way Wall Street and the media seem to be spinning it: * "It was a good report!" * It was good news because the headline number beat expectations: * We created 227,000 jobs in January vs the 175,000 that had been expected * Of course it was an improvement on the 157,000 jobs which was a disappointing report in December * But once again, i...

* 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 b...

* 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 t...

* 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 be...

* 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...

* 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...

* 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 a...

* 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 th...

* 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...

* 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 peo...

* 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 h...

* On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve did exactly what they did last year * They waited until the last possible meeting to nudge the Federal Funds rate by 1/4 of 1% * So now, after 2 years of tightening, the lower bound of the Fed's range has gone from zero to 1/2 of 1% * Now Janet Yellen said the Fed made this decision to lift rates because of its confidence in the U.S economy *  That is complete n...

* It's been a while since my last podcast and I've gotten quite a few emails from people wondering what happened to me * I was out of the country for about a week, and I did manage to get one podcast off from my hotel room * But when I got back, I was backed up with work, and by the time I caught up, I came down with a case of laryngitis, which has still not completely gone away * I want to start...

* The Trump fantasy rally continued today, of course the big irony here is that all of the stock traders who were so worried about a Donald Trump presidency * Now, he's Ronald Regan re-incarnated * They're partying like it's 1983 - when Regan first stepped in the market had a very difficult couple of years * We went through a recession before we got that Regan Rally - we're going to skip all that...

  * The Dow Jones is in record territory, closing above 19,000; they're already starting to talk Dow 20,000 now * The markets are euphoric * All the traders who were so convinced that President Trump would be a disaster for the stock market, now think it's a boom for the stock market * It shows you how fickle investors are, but also how quickly the narrative can flip * Personally, I don't thi...