Hi-Ho Silver! Seems to be the rallying cry for the day

The last podcast I recorded I talked about the breakout in silver and I actually regretted the fact that I didn't get a chance to talk about silver during my CNBC interview

On my last podcast I mentioned how strong silver had been looking and it held up extremely well in the gold selloff during the prior few days

Sure enough, we had a big breakout again today

Silver was above $17 earlier today, the first time it has been that high all year

Gold is still well below the highs, it needs to rally about $30 to get back to its high for this move

I mentioned on the last podcast that I though the strength in silver was a good leading indicator for both gold and silver

And I talked about all the traders who have been shorting silver, that had been a popular trade when the gold and silver ratio was breaking down, I thought that it made no sense to short silver

To me it was a much better trade to buy silver when it's as cheap as it's ever been relative to gold

This is good constructive action, in fact, the gold stocks are at new highs for the year

The GDX, as I speak, is up 4% on the day; it's above $23 - this is the high for the year

The juniors, GDXJ, that index is up over 6% -  today! This is a new 52-week high

* This is another week of bad economic data that most people have ignored

* The stock market was up this week; the Dow closed up 1.8% on the year

* I don't know if the Dow was rising in spite the bad news or because of it

* The bad news means the economy is weak and corporate earnings are not there, and there are high multiples

* But of course, if the economy is weak, that takes the Fed out of the rate hiking game and I think puts it into the rate cutting - QE4 game

* So the market is caught between the opposing forces of cheap money and falling earnings on the back of a weak economy

* Gold was actually down on the week; it started off the week strong, then Thursday it got hit pretty good and today it recouped some of its losses

* But the standout was silver

*  Silver was up almost 6% on the week; this is a new high

* Silver closed at the highest close of the year

* In fact, silver was strong with gold on Monday and Tuesday and when gold sold off on Wednesday and Thursday, silver really held up

* That's a good sign for both gold and silver

* I was on CNBC.com this week and I meant to say something about silver

* They're not even talking about silver in the mainstream media so they're missing an even bigger move

* They're acknowledging that gold's going up but they're not even looking at silver

* I mentioned on an earlier podcast that a number of people are shorting silver and buying gold because they saw the breakout to new highs on the gold/silver ratio and they wanted to jump on that trad

* I thought that was the wrong thing to do

* To me, seeing new highs in that ratio in favor of silver made me want to buy silver, since it's as cheap as it's been relative to gold

* If you like gold, just buy it; don't short silver because you could turn a winning trade into a losing trade

 

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This is another week of bad economic data that most people have ignored

The stock market was up this week; the Dow closed up 1.8% on the year

I don't know if the Dow was rising in spite the bad news or because of it

The bad news means the economy is weak and corporate earnings are not there, and there are high multiples

But of course, if the economy is weak, that takes the Fed out of the rate hiking game and I think puts it into the rate cutting - QE4 game

So the market is caught between the opposing forces of cheap money and falling earnings on the back of a weak economy

Gold was actually down on the week; it started off the week strong, then Thursday it got hit pretty good and today it recouped some of its losses

But the standout was silver

 Silver was up almost 6% on the week; this is a new high

Silver closed at the highest close of the year

In fact, silver was strong with gold on Monday and Tuesday and when gold sold off on Wednesday and Thursday, silver really held up

That's a good sign for both gold and silver

I was on CNBC.com this week and I meant to say something about silver

They're not even talking about silver in the mainstream media so they're missing an even bigger move

They're acknowledging that gold's going up but they're not even looking at silver

I mentioned on an earlier podcast that a number of people are shorting silver and buying gold because they saw the breakout to new highs on the gold/silver ratio and they wanted to jump on that trad

I thought that was the wrong thing to do

To me, seeing new highs in that ratio in favor of silver made me want to buy silver, since it's as cheap as it's been relative to gold

If you like gold, just buy it; don't short silver because you could turn a winning trade into a losing trade

* The dollar index traded below 94 for a good part of the day, but it did manage to close up at 94 even, down just .20

* Gold was up another $19

* Silver really shined brightly today, up .54, just below $16/oz.

* Mining stocks, of course, were on fire; GDX was up just under 6% on the day, GDXJ up just under 7%

* This followed a spectacular day for the mining stocks on Friday

* In fact, even though gold itself was down a couple of bucks, we had a huge up day in the gold stocks

* Between  Friday and today, I think this is the biggest two back-to-back gains for gold stocks all year

* The catalyst was the Atlanta Fed Q1 GDP estimate downgrade all the way down to .1

* If you remember, from listening to my podcasts, the very first time the Atlanta Fed came out with its upward revision, with a lot of fanfare, to 2.7%, I said that that was all political and that they would have to walk that back all quarter long, and now they have eliminated the entire estimated gain

* A fair estimate might have been -.1, but President Obama is still saying we have the strongest advanced economy in the world

* I don't know what his definition of "strong" or "advanced" is, but we might have one of the weakest of the advanced economies

* It's just that nobody wants to accept that fact yet

* Here's where it really gets interesting: CNBC was very dismissive of the weak economic numbers

* They are characterizing the weak Q1 as similar to previous years' weak Q1, where the weather pushed back some economic activity to Q2, causing rebounds

* They said the same thing is going to happen this year.  No it's not.

* This year is different from last year

* First, let's talk about inventories: February and January Wholesale Trade Inventories have been revised down from +.3 to -.2

* Last year, companies were still building up inventories, believing in the recovery narrative, boosting GDP

* The inventory unwind that I have been talking about for the last year is just beginning

* It started in Q1 of this year, and this inventory sell-down is going to subtract from GDP

* Here's another factor: the weather

* The weather for the last two first quarters was very cold, pushing economic activity to Q2, helping Q2 to rebound

* That's not what happened this year.  The first quarter of this year was the warmest in over 120 years

* So obviously there was no economic activity pushed forward due to weather, if anything, the weather might have pulled some activity from Q2 to Q1

* As weak as Q1 was, it might have been weaker if cold weather had suspended some economic activity

* The third difference is the trade deficit, which is rapidly growing this year

* I think the growing trade deficit will continue to put a drag on Q2 GDP

* The inventory liquidation will continue to be a drag on Q2 GDP

* What that means is had the government properly seasonally adjusted Q1 for the unusually warm weather, I think Q1 GDP would be a lot lower

* Q1 will be a contraction, and we are going to fall from there

* If that is true, then we are in a recession

* I think this recession will be longer in duration that the preceding one

* The question is: What is the government going to do about it?

* There was a meeting today between President Obama, Joe Biden and Janet Yellen

* They have to figure out how to throw the economy a lifeline without admitting that it is drowning

* The first thing the Fed can do is signal that they are not going to raise rates - change their forward guidance

* By just not raising the rates, the specter of a hike remains

* The question is what story will they use in order to not damage Obama's recovery narrative and Hillary Clinton's campaign?

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The dollar index traded below 94 for a good part of the day, but it did manage to close up at 94 even, down just .20

Gold was up another $19

Silver really shined brightly today, up .54, just below $16/oz.

Mining stocks, of course, were on fire; GDX was up just under 6% on the day, GDXJ up just under 7%

This followed a spectacular day for the mining stocks on Friday

In fact, even though gold itself was down a couple of bucks, we had a huge up day in the gold stocks

Between  Friday and today, I think this is the biggest two back-to-back gains for gold stocks all year

The catalyst was the Atlanta Fed Q1 GDP estimate downgrade all the way down to .1

If you remember, from listening to my podcasts, the very first time the Atlanta Fed came out with its upward revision, with a lot of fanfare, to 2.7%, I said that that was all political and that they would have to walk that back all quarter long, and now they have eliminated the entire estimated gain

A fair estimate might have been -.1, but President Obama is still saying we have the strongest advanced economy in the world

I don't know what his definition of "strong" or "advanced" is, but we might have one of the weakest of the advanced economies

It's just that nobody wants to accept that fact yet

Here's where it really gets interesting: CNBC was very dismissive of the weak economic numbers

They are characterizing the weak Q1 as similar to previous years' weak Q1, where the weather pushed back some economic activity to Q2, causing rebounds

They said the same thing is going to happen this year.  No it's not.

This year is different from last year

First, let's talk about inventories: February and January Wholesale Trade Inventories have been revised down from +.3 to -.2

Last year, companies were still building up inventories, believing in the recovery narrative, boosting GDP

The inventory unwind that I have been talking about for the last year is just beginning

It started in Q1 of this year, and this inventory sell-down is going to subtract from GDP

Here's another factor: the weather

The weather for the last two first quarters was very cold, pushing economic activity to Q2, helping Q2 to rebound

That's not what happened this year.  The first quarter of this year was the warmest in over 120 years

So obviously there was no economic activity pushed forward due to weather, if anything, the weather might have pulled some activity from Q2 to Q1

As weak as Q1 was, it might have been weaker if cold weather had suspended some economic activity

The third difference is the trade deficit, which is rapidly growing this year

I think the growing trade deficit will continue to put a drag on Q2 GDP

The inventory liquidation will continue to be a drag on Q2 GDP

What that means is had the government properly seasonally adjusted Q1 for the unusually warm weather, I think Q1 GDP would be a lot lower

Q1 will be a contraction, and we are going to fall from there

If that is true, then we are in a recession

I think this recession will be longer in duration that the preceding one

The question is: What is the government going to do about it?

There was a meeting today between President Obama, Joe Biden and Janet Yellen

They have to figure out how to throw the economy a lifeline without admitting that it is drowning

The first thing the Fed can do is signal that they are not going to raise rates - change their forward guidance

By just not raising the rates, the specter of a hike remains

The question is what story will they use in order to not damage Obama's recovery narrative and Hillary Clinton's campaign?

Maybe they will blame it on the global economy, even though the U.S. is much weaker than many other economies

The Fed can't cut much - one cut and they're done, unless they want to venture into negative territory, which would be a disaster

They could re-launch QE, which I think there is a very good chance they're going to do

* Today is the Wisconsin Primary but Donald Trump has been getting a lot of flack in the media over the last couple of days about his comments about the U.S. economy, particularly in the financial media because Donald Trump has now predicted a "very massive recession" in the U.S.

* He didn't just say a recession, he's predicting a massive recession

* Most of the pundits on television don't see any recession at all - not even a mild one

* So here you have Donald Trump saying, not only is the recession going to be massive, it's going to be very massive

* The media is all over Trump: "What is he talking about? The economy is in great shape! He's peddling all kinds of fiction! We have this massive economic growth!"

* the President television today taking credit for this great economy with all these years of jobs

* Of course what the President doesn't admit to, is, it's not job creation - it's job destruction

* We're destroying full time jobs, the by-product of that destruction is that we create a bunch of part-time jobs that people don't really want but that's all they can get

* Yet the President is taking credit for that

* It's like setting a fire and taking credit for putting it out

* That's what the Federal Reserve did with the 2008 Financial Crisis

* Let's look at some of the economic news that came out over the past couple of days that resulted in the Atlanta Fed reducing its Q1 GDP estimate - yet again - to .4

* In last Friday's podcast I said that I thought they would be revising it down, and based on the numbers that just came out, they did

* One if the reasons the Atlanta Fed cited for the revision was yesterday's release of February Factory Orders

* They were expected to be down 1.6; instead it came out as -1.7, which was not that big a miss unless you consider the previous downward revision, which means it dropped from a lower level

* That took something out of the GDP numbers as did the very bad auto sales that I did mention in Friday's podcast

* Apparently the worse-than-expected trade deficit that came out today didn't even factor into their thinking, and I don't know why, because we were expecting $46.2 billion and instead we got $47.1 billion

* That's a pretty big miss, and they took January's estimate which was originally $45.7 billion and raised that to $46.2 billion

* We are still expecting the March number which will be factored into Q1 GDP, so I think the Atlanta Fed is still not low enough

* Remember, too, one of the things that's helping the Q1 GDP is that most of the country had an unseasonably warm winter, because bad weather is factored into the estimate

*


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Today is the Wisconsin Primary but Donald Trump has been getting a lot of flack in the media over the last couple of days about his comments about the U.S. economy, particularly in the financial media because Donald Trump has now predicted a "very massive recession" in the U.S.

He didn't just say a recession, he's predicting a massive recession

Most of the pundits on television don't see any recession at all - not even a mild one

So here you have Donald Trump saying, not only is the recession going to be massive, it's going to be very massive

The media is all over Trump: "What is he talking about? The economy is in great shape! He's peddling all kinds of fiction! We have this massive economic growth!"

the President television today taking credit for this great economy with all these years of jobs

Of course what the President doesn't admit to, is, it's not job creation - it's job destruction

We're destroying full time jobs, the by-product of that destruction is that we create a bunch of part-time jobs that people don't really want but that's all they can get

Yet the President is taking credit for that

It's like setting a fire and taking credit for putting it out

That's what the Federal Reserve did with the 2008 Financial Crisis

Let's look at some of the economic news that came out over the past couple of days that resulted in the Atlanta Fed reducing its Q1 GDP estimate - yet again - to .4

In last Friday's podcast I said that I thought they would be revising it down, and based on the numbers that just came out, they did

One if the reasons the Atlanta Fed cited for the revision was yesterday's release of February Factory Orders

They were expected to be down 1.6; instead it came out as -1.7, which was not that big a miss unless you consider the previous downward revision, which means it dropped from a lower level

That took something out of the GDP numbers as did the very bad auto sales that I did mention in Friday's podcast

Apparently the worse-than-expected trade deficit that came out today didn't even factor into their thinking, and I don't know why, because we were expecting $46.2 billion and instead we got $47.1 billion

That's a pretty big miss, and they took January's estimate which was originally $45.7 billion and raised that to $46.2 billion

We are still expecting the March number which will be factored into Q1 GDP, so I think the Atlanta Fed is still not low enough

Remember, too, one of the things that's helping the Q1 GDP is that most of the country had an unseasonably warm winter, because bad weather is factored into the estimate

* Well, it's April Fool's Day today and there certainly were a lot of fools out on Wall Street buying all the nonsense about the better than expected Non-Farm Payroll numbers

* Many of those fools were also fooled into thinking that these supposedly good jobs numbers puts a June rate hike back on the table

* In fact, these April Fools were out in force in March when several Fed officials were talking about the possibility of April being a live meeting, and they bought it; Janet Yellen potentially set them straight a few days ago, but then again they hear some numbers that they think are better than expected, and they think, "Aha! The Fed is about to raise rates."

* When are they going to wake up and realize that none of these numbers matter - it doesn't matter what they are, better than expected, worse than expected, the Fed can't raise rates

* If the Fed could raise rates, they would have already done it.

* Yes, they did raise rates in December, they didn't want to raise rates, they did it anyway, and look what happened

* Maybe you can think of that rate hike as a trial balloon, but it was the Hindenburg of trial balloons, it blew up, and there's no way the Fed wants to launch another one

* The first quarter came to an end yesterday and the U.S. stock market actually managed to gain

* It was up about 1%, but the year started off as the worse year in the history of the stock market

* Back in February, U.S. stocks had the weakest beginning of the year in the history of the stock market - going all the way through the great depression

* That happened because the Fed raised rates

* Do you think they want to take that chance again?

* Why did the market recover?  Because people then believed that the Fed was not going to be raising rates, in fact, the weakness in the market is one of the reasons they believe that

* So the market going down helped the Fed to change its tune, enabling the market to go back up

* Now they're not going to take another chance to have to save it again

* Next time it goes down, it keeps on falling

* Beneath the surface, there was a lot of carnage in the market - there were a lot of stocks that got taken out and shot

* Some big hedge funds had horrible results in the first quarter

* Hedge funds were on the wrong side of so many macro trades this quarter

* For example, the U.S. dollar had its worse quarter in over 5 years

* You remember, that was one of the most crowded trades out there at the end of last year

* Everybody with a hedge fund was long the dollar and short the euro, short the yen, short the aussie, short the Canadian, you name it they were short

* Some of these guys were short the Chinese yuan - the yuan had a pretty good quarter - the strongest quarter in 2 years

* Everybody who was long the dollar and short another currency got killed in the first quarter

* The only people who lost more money than the ones shorting were the people shorting gold


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Well, it's April Fool's Day today and there certainly were a lot of fools out on Wall Street buying all the nonsense about the better than expected Non-Farm Payroll numbers

Many of those fools were also fooled into thinking that these supposedly good jobs numbers puts a June rate hike back on the table

In fact, these April Fools were out in force in March when several Fed officials were talking about the possibility of April being a live meeting, and they bought it; Janet Yellen potentially set them straight a few days ago, but then again they hear some numbers that they think are better than expected, and they think, "Aha! The Fed is about to raise rates."

When are they going to wake up and realize that none of these numbers matter - it doesn't matter what they are, better than expected, worse than expected, the Fed can't raise rates

If the Fed could raise rates, they would have already done it.

Yes, they did raise rates in December, they didn't want to raise rates, they did it anyway, and look what happened

Maybe you can think of that rate hike as a trial balloon, but it was the Hindenburg of trial balloons, it blew up, and there's no way the Fed wants to launch another one

The first quarter came to an end yesterday and the U.S. stock market actually managed to gain

It was up about 1%, but the year started off as the worse year in the history of the stock market

Back in February, U.S. stocks had the weakest beginning of the year in the history of the stock market - going all the way through the great depression

That happened because the Fed raised rates

Do you think they want to take that chance again?

Why did the market recover?  Because people then believed that the Fed was not going to be raising rates, in fact, the weakness in the market is one of the reasons they believe that

So the market going down helped the Fed to change its tune, enabling the market to go back up

Now they're not going to take another chance to have to save it again

Next time it goes down, it keeps on falling

Beneath the surface, there was a lot of carnage in the market - there were a lot of stocks that got taken out and shot

Some big hedge funds had horrible results in the first quarter

Hedge funds were on the wrong side of so many macro trades this quarter

For example, the U.S. dollar had its worse quarter in over 5 years

You remember, that was one of the most crowded trades out there at the end of last year

Everybody with a hedge fund was long the dollar and short the euro, short the yen, short the aussie, short the Canadian, you name it they were short

Some of these guys were short the Chinese yuan - the yuan had a pretty good quarter - the strongest quarter in 2 years

Everybody who was long the dollar and short another currency got killed in the first quarter

The only people who lost more money than the ones shorting were the people shorting gold

* All the talk last week in the financial media was the fact that several Federal Reserve officials had given speeches somehow putting April back on the table as a live FOMC meeting, where the Fed might raise rates

* In fact, even earlier this week, even yesterday, an official from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco commented that the Fed should continue with rate hikes because the economy is strong and the data is on target

* I did not buy those comments for one second - my last podcast was titled, "Fed Bankers Bark But Won't Bite", and my commentary was titled, "Two Down and Two to Go" meaning that the Fed had already dispensed with two of the 4 rate hikes telegraphed for 2016 and they would take the other 2 rate hikes away

* So, as everybody else was anticipating rate hikes, I was saying, not only are they not going to raise them in April, they are not going to raise them at all in 2016

* What happened today? Janet Yellen gave a speech to the Economic Club of New York, one of the most dovish speeches, if not the most dovish she has ever given

* As a result of the speech, the price of gold was up about $20 on the day; we closed above $1240

* In fact a couple of days ago, we had gotten nearly down to $1200

* That shows you the strength of this bull market in gold, despite the talk of a rate hike in April, and despite the rally in the dollar, gold held its position above $1200

* To me, that's very bullish, the question when will all the bears throw in the towel?

* Goldman Sachs is still looking for gold to hit $1000 - $900

* They're still looking for a strong dollar and a bunch of rate hikes

* Although Goldman Sachs is not as bearish on gold as Harry Dent

* Harry Dent called for $700 gold when I debated him on Friday's Alex Jones show

* That was a good debate, and you can check it out on my YouTube channel

* The dollar was down across the board today

* The dollar index barely held on to the 95 handle, it closed at 95.15, off not quite a full percentage point on the day

* Aussie dollar very strong on the day, up 1.4%

* New Zealand dollar was the big winner on the day; that currency was up a full 2 percentage points on the day against the U.S. dollar

* The Dow Jones liked the dovish news coming from the Fed; up just under 100 points

* One of the reasons it wasn't up more is because of the financials in the Dow weighing it down

* The NASDAQ was up 79.8 - that's a 1.7% increase

* The NASDAQ was standing still compared to the gold stocks - the GDX up 5.77%

* The GDXJ, the juniors, were up even more - about 6.3% today

* That's where the action was and I think it will continue to be, based on Janet Yellen's Dovish remarks

* I still don't think the conventional wisdom appreciates the extent of these dovish remarks

* Let me go over her remarks; she started with a pretty upbeat assessment on the economy

* She said the labor market is looking good, consumer spending is looking good, the housing recovery continues - she went over all these positives

* She did list some minor negatives: Manufacturing and Net Exports, but she blamed all that on the strong dollar

* She did also mention that capital spending and business investment was lackluster, noting in particular weakness in layoffs in the energy sector

* But overall she was still upbeat on the economy

* In fact, she admitted that the Fed's assessment of economic growth, inflation, and unemployment were exactly the same on December 2015, when they raised rates, and in the March meeting,

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