Prins: Dark Money Will Push Gold Higher
by Nomi Prins via The Daily Reckoning,
ZeroHedge.com
Sun, 12/08/2019
Even though it’s on rate-cutting hold, the Fed nonetheless keeps engaging in aggressive oversubscribed repo ops, or as we like to call the process, “QE4R.”
QE4R involves offering money to banks in return for short-term U.S. Treasury and mortgage bonds, in shades of 2009.
The fact that the Fed is expanding its balance sheet through these repo operations allows it to pretend it is merely auctioning “adjustment-based” policy moves, rather than problem-based ones, to keep rates from rising and money becoming too expensive for banks.
This provides the Fed a kind of cover during which it can hold off on rate cuts until it deems that data clearly suggest they do otherwise.
Regardless of the reasons for QE4R, this new flow of dark money has the ability to stimulate the stock and bond markets — along with gold.
Although gold prices have rallied on the back of the Fed’s recent balance sheet growing exercise, gold has been rising less quickly than it did during the initial phases of QE in the post-financial crisis period from 2009 through 2011.
However, the stock market has been rising steadily (with some bumps along the way) since the start of the Fed’s QE4R operations. There are several reasons for this phenomenon.
Computer algorithms, ETF-related trading and asset managers for pensions and other forms of retirement funds seeking yields above those of bonds have pushed the market up. So have corporate stock buybacks. There is also the steadfast (and proven true) belief that the Fed will step in whenever it “has to,” as would other central banks around the world.
There’s a reality behind the dark money-infused market euphoria, though. It’s that U.S. economic growth, as well as that of the global economy, has been slowing down and will likely continue to slow.
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