Inflation, Dollar, and Gold
Marty Mitchell
Illuminating Others to Reach Their True God-given Potential | Catholic Christian Professional Speaker & Coach | Author - The Capillaries of Christ: Understanding the Part You Play in His Body
Welcome to Indicators and Insights. Every Friday, I write about what I find to be the key financial market topics, charts, or stories of the week, often challenging the conventional wisdom.
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This week I highlight how the recent downshift in U.S. inflation expectations goes hand-in-hand with the bounce in the dollar and the drop in gold.
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The U.S. dollar has strengthened nicely this week with DXY trading up +2.00% to the highest level since July. The index is up +3.05% from the 9/1 low. Some reasons for the move include the uncertainty heading into the U.S. election with less than 40 days to go, concerns that this could be the beginning of the second wave of the virus in Europe and the U.S., and diminished inflation expectations owing to the Fed rhetoric around the new AIT policy.
As it relates to inflation expectations, the 10yr TIP break-even rate has declined by -22bps in the month of September from 1.805% on 8/31 to 1.583% today (9/25). This move has lifted the 10yr real rate (inflation adjusted) +20.5bps from -1.124% to -.922%.
It's no coincidence, then, that the precious metals prices have taken another leg lower with spot gold closing at $1967/oz on 8/31 and trading to $1848/oz at Thursday's low (-$119/oz, -6.05%). Silver (spot) has sold off even harder. It closed at $28.14/oz on 8/31 and fell to $21.67/oz at yesterday's low (-$6.47, -23%).
The entire commodity complex, as measured by the CRB index, is down -4.2% this month.
These trends look to have more in them as market participants re-calibrate their inflation expectations to be better aligned with the thinking on the FOMC. There is a wide disparity of inflation expectations on the Committee, though, with Rosengren saying the Fed would be lucky if inflation gets to 2% in four years and Bullard saying it could get there next year if fiscal deficits grow. Bullard is the outlier; the consensus doesn't see 2% inflation until 2023, at the earliest.
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