I have often said that after a meeting of the ECB’s board or the Fed's interest rate committee (FOMC), one sentence that is barely noticed, turns out to be extremely important. Jerome Powell, Chairman of the Fed, among other things, disagrees with the idea that "we have reached the Fed's inflation target of 2 percent in any convincing way."... »

Even though despite disappointing economic growth in the U.S., increasing worries about Brexit and the effects of recent public policies gold prices have fallen, insiders are seeing positive signs for precious metals in 2019 and, therefore, for gold. At the PDAC Convention in Toronto last week, the importance of diversifying a portfolio by including precious metals was, among other things, widely stressed.

While the press euphorically announced that economic growth in the fourth quarter of last year was better than expected (because: 2.9% growth in 2018), post-crisis economic growth has been among the most disappointing in history. Now that we have an estimate for the fourth quarter, the sad but true conclusion must be that the U.S. is setting an extremely upsetting record: 13 years in a row with annual GDP growth below 3%. All this despite Trump’s election promise to grow the U.S. economy at a faster rate than 3%.