Will just be using this thread for the purposes of posting general news:
>The Dollar's Funeral Keeps Getting Rescheduled
https://archive.ph/39x2s
<The “dollar is dying” narrative does what every bear narrative does at cyclical inflection points: it trades a kernel of truth for a wholesale conclusion. Yes, the dollar has weakened, and the reserve share has drifted lower. Yes, central banks are buying gold, and China has rearranged its custody footprint. None of those observations is wrong. However, the leap from observation to apocalypse is exactly the leap investors need to consider very carefully before piling into.
<The data simply does not cooperate with the “Dollar’s funeral” narrative. With net foreign inflows into U.S. stocks and bonds running near post-COVID highs, and total foreign holdings of U.S. Treasuries just setting a record of $9.4 trillion. The collapse narrative simply has no real support.
<There are four things that matter more than headline-dollar print.
<First, central bank gold buying is not “leaving the dollar.” Gold is priced in U.S. dollars, benchmarked to the LBMA and COMEX benchmarks, and converted back to U.S. dollars whenever it is mobilized for intervention, collateral, or settlement. Like Treasuries, agencies, or equities, gold on a central bank balance sheet is a dollar-linked reserve asset. Buying gold reduces exposure to U.S. Treasuries as a security type, but it does not reduce exposure to the dollar as the world’s unit of account. It is a portfolio rebalancing decision, not a currency defection.
<Second, reserve share and transactional usage are not the same thing. Central banks can diversify into gold, euros, and yuan without meaningfully changing day-to-day dollar demand. One drifts slowly over decades; the other is set by trade invoicing and capital markets plumbing, and the dollar dominates both by wide margins.
<Third, there is no viable alternative. The yuan is hamstrung by capital controls and limited convertibility. The euro lacks a unified fiscal backstop. Gold has no yield and no settlement rails. And BRICS itself is not politically unified: India signed a trade deal with the U.S. in February and halted Russian oil purchases weeks later.
<Fourth, cyclical decline and structural decline are not the same thing. The dollar is in a cyclical downtrend that fits comfortably inside its roughly 7-to-10-year regimes. That is a trading pattern, not a funeral.
<So what should investors actually focus on? Not whether the dollar survives, the flows have already answered that question. Instead, focus on the variables that genuinely move portfolios:
<1. The earnings differential between U.S. and international equities,
<2. Notably, the AI capital cycle, which will pull global savings back toward U.S. assets,
<3. The Fed’s policy path, and
<4. The cost of hedging dollar exposure relative to its realized volatility.
<Those are the inputs that change returns. Whether the dollar prints 96 or 102 next quarter will not meaningfully alter the investment case for a diversified, dollar-denominated portfolio. However, the dollar is not collapsing or being replaced; it is simply being repriced. There is a very large difference between the two, and that difference is where investor attention belongs.
>Gold outlook stalls amid war inflation
https://archive.ph/SnxQt
<Gold prices are projected to fall short of the previous forecast of US$6,000 an ounce for this year as war-induced inflation has lowered the possibility that global central banks will slash their interest rates as Middle East peace talks stalled, say gold and currency traders.
<Bullion fell to a three-week low on Tuesday, quoted at $4,628.88 per ounce in early trade, down 1.1% from the previous session. The price slipped below $4,700 on Monday as elevated oil prices kept inflation concerns high, according to Hua Seng Heng Futures Co.
<The market now widely expects the US Federal Reserve to maintain the fed funds rate at 3.50-3.75% at its meeting on Wednesday, given how the Iran crisis has altered the interest rate outlook.
<The Bank of Thailand's Monetary Policy Committee is likely to follow suit as elevated energy prices pressure the net oil importer to curb its inflation.
<"We now see gold as possibly falling to $4,600 in the near term as the US and Iran are unlikely to reach an agreement that could end the Middle East conflicts, while the Strait of Hormuz remains blocked," said Siriluck Pakotiprapha, vice-president of Hua Seng Heng's research department.
>OPEC Just Signaled A Historic Gold Tailwind
https://archive.ph/h0SfP
<The UAE, one of America’s biggest allies, just ended its OPEC membership while simultaneously announcing to the U.S. Treasury Department that it may begin to sell its oil in other currencies.
<...
<In short, the combined forces of 1) a debased and weaponized dollar, 2) a negative real-yielding UST, 3) undeniable de-dollarization trends, 4) unsustainable U.S. public debt levels, 5) a disastrous war in Iran, and 6) a now openly failing Petrodollar make it obvious (rather than debatable) that demand for, and trust in, the USD is tanking.
<This slow, but oh-so predictable devolution from U.S. superpower and super-currency to a debt-desperate, debased fall is as old and familiar as history itself, a cycle I explained years ago.
<Without a powerful Petrodollar to absorb its inflated and over-expanded Greenback, America’s economic and currency fall will only accelerate going forward.
<As the world (and that includes a crumbling OPEC) increasingly turns its back on USDs and USTs, American bond yields and U.S. debt levels will rise as USD purchasing power falls, creating the perfect setup for more mouse-clicked trillions and a stagflation backdrop of historic proportions.
<The inevitable monetary and fiscal “accommodation” (i.e., money printing) to “support” a tanking Main Street economy and entirely Fed-centralized S&P will only accelerate the debasement of an already openly debased USD.
<This dollar expansion/debasement will act as a massive tailwind to gold in the years to come.