Trump Defuses His Own Bomb – Ep. 474

Recorded June 10, 2019
Tariffs Off, Gold Gapped Down
On Friday's podcast, I speculated that potentially we could see a gap up in the price of gold, gapping above the $1350 resistance level that has capped every gold rally for the past 6 years.  But gold actually gapped in the other direction.  It gapped down about $13 and it was down all day - never filled that gap.
Catalyst for Sell-off
The catalyst for the gold sell-off was Donald Trump calling off the tariffs that were supposed to go into effect today.  The five percent across the board tariffs on Mexico.  That announcement came out on Friday, pretty much right after I finished recording my podcast, we got the news.  So I immediately knew that that forecast probably was not going to come to fruition, or that speculation, potentially. Because I knew the markets would react positively to this news. After all, everybody was rightly worried about the negative impacts that those tariffs would have on the U.S. economy, in particular.  They weren't as worried about Mexico, at least when it comes to the gold market, but they were worried about how it would impact the U.S. economy.
One Less Thing for the Fed to Worry About
And of course, one of the reasons (of course there are many) that the Fed is talking about cutting rates is because of all the uncertainty that is being created because of tariffs. If there aren't going to be as many tariffs, if the Mexico tariffs aren't going to actually happen, well then that's one less thing to worry about, and maybe that's one less reason for the Fed to cut rates.
Mexican Tariffs are a Sideshow
Of course, cutting rates is part of the reason that people have been buying gold; the reason we had that big 8-day rally, which came to an end today. What's been powering the gold rally is the talk of Fed rate cuts. Now I don't think today's sell-off is going to be significant.  It's just one more time we knocked on that resistance door and it didn't open, but it is ultimately going to open. Because at the end of the day, the Mexican tariffs are a sideshow. The main event is that the U.S economy is going into recession anyway, and the rate cuts are coming.