Issue 52 – The week of February 13th, 2023

Key Resistance and Supports: Upcoming Week

Reports of Note due out this week:

It is looking like it is going to be a pretty quiet week on the report front. There are, however, several Fed officials scheduled to give speeches throughout the week. It is hard to speculate on what tone these speeches will take so best to be aware of them and listen to what they say.

Wednesday and Thursday will see the release in the US of first CPI and then PPI. The FED will be paying close attention to both numbers due to their sensitive relationship to inflationary pressures. With the FED now actively scaling back its aggressive policy of hiking rates market watchers will be trying to discern future FED policy paths be they hawkish or dovish.

Geopolitics

Quite possibly this past week has been one of the more bizarre moments in history where it is more than fitting to use the saying “the sky is falling”.  As of this writing the US and NORAD have shot down four separate high-altitude objects over North American airspace. Everything about this is very strange. We know the balloon was from China. As for the others, little information is being shared. One reason for this is that the recovery efforts of objects two and three are in very remote locations, off the coast of Alaska and deep in the Yukon. It also is February making work conditions extreme, to say the least. Object four was shot down over Lake Huron and fell into the lake close to Manitoulin Island.

The Call

Precious metals remain under pressure this week, yet they do appear to be exhausting their move to the downside. If gold does not break below 1827 and if silver can hold above 21.57 it will be time to pick up some bargains. Markets are at a precarious moment now so if you are risk-averse move to the sidelines and keep your powder dry. If you are more adventurous wait for the Wednesday CPI report before scaling into new purchases.

Last Week in Review

• Precious metals tried hard to have a positive close but just could not muster what was needed. Gold managed to close almost unchanged, but silver continued to slide lower.
• Russia announced it sold 3.6 tonnes of gold in January to cover the budget deficit.
• Peru announced gold production fell by 4% in December 2022