2020 Begins With A Bang (Literally)
A heck of a lot happened this week
It sure didn’t take long for 2020 to get interesting.
Iran
The biggest development of the new year happened Thursday when the US military assassinated Qassem Soleimani, Iran’s most powerful figure after its Supreme Leader, in a surgical drone strike.
This is an extremely serious action; one that Iran is highly likely to respond forcefully against. As the world anxiously awaits what will happen next, #wwwiii suddenly is a top twitter trend.[Update: since this original publication of this article, the US has conducted further airstrikes on Iranian targets located in Iraq, Bagdad’s ‘Green Zone’ which contains the US Embassy has come under attack, and there are unconfirmed reports that US aircraft have hit Iranian targest in Syria.]
Chris has been furiously processing the news flow on this on an hour-by-hour basis in his latest post on the topic here.
If you want to better understand the context behind the current US-Iran tension as well as breaking developments from last night’s bombing and the likely repercussions, read the post and follow Chris’ updatesin its Comments section.
Gold
On Sunday, Chris released this prediction that gold was poised for a big price move. Sure enough, gold closed the week up $40/ounce, certainly helped today by the geopolitical worries escalating between the US and Iran.
The yellow metal is now up nearly $100/oz from a month ago, and over $200/oz from a year ago.
It seems to be finally emerging from its 7-year slumber. Even the long-beaten mining shares are up nicely over the past year.
The start of a new bull market in the precious metals may indeed be upon us.
WTF?! (What The Fed?!)
The first trading day of the year saw the S&P 500 close at an all-time high, suggesting that Fed liquidity was still driving the show as it did for the entirety of 2019.
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