Morning News: February 4, 2026
Posted by Eddy Elfenbein on February 4th, 2026 at 7:09 am

Bulgarians Adopt the Euro With a Whisper of Melancholy but Few Tears

Why India Will Struggle to Reduce Its Reliance on Russian Oil

America’s Critical-Minerals Strategy Looks Increasingly Chinese

‘Neoroyalism’ and What It Says About Trump

Wall Street’s Rotation Into Value Has a Dot-Com Warning to It

Once the Hottest Bet on Wall St., Private Credit Has Started to Crack

Hedge Funds Use Leverage to Reap 28% Return From Safest Debt

UBS Profit Beat Overshadowed by Worries Over US Wealth Outflows

Stephen Miran, Temporary Fed Governor, Resigns From White House Role

Warsh Will Need His Vaunted People Skills to Smooth Return to Fed He’s Scorned

Warsh’s White House Honeymoon Will Be Brief

With Jobs Data Delayed, Analysts Flock to Unofficial Data

Trump’s Payments Industry Squeeze Will Tighten Consumer Credit

Kalshi Claims ‘Extortion,’ Then Recants in Feud Over User Losses

Jason Furman Has a Plan To Make All of Us Very Tall

Home Builders Turn to White House for Help on Inventory Glut

Voters Say Housing Prices Are Too High. Trump Wants Them Higher

Congress Targets Housing Crisis as Solutions Elude Trump

Congress Reins In Drug Middlemen in Effort to Lower Prescription Prices

Trump’s Attempt to Make Drugs Cheaper Is Pushing Up Prices in Other Countries

Lilly Sees Surging Sales in Break From Obesity Rival Novo

The Telecom Act of 1996 Needs a Deregulatory Overhaul

Henkel to Buy Coatings Company Stahl in $2.5 Billion Deal

Texas Instruments Strikes $7.5 Billion Deal to Buy Silicon Labs

Nasdaq Mulls New ‘Fast Entry’ Rule Ahead of Big IPOs Like SpaceX

Musk’s AI Startup Is a Payload SpaceX Can’t Afford

Prologis Might Fund Data Centers With New Pool of Investor Capital

Anthropic Takes Aim at OpenAI’s ChatGPT in Super Bowl Ad Debut

Some Brands Aren’t Spending Like YouTube Is the New TV

N.F.L. Eyes New TV Deals Before the Old Ones Even Expire

Disney’s CEO Pick Shows It’s a Tourism Company Now

What Happens When the Winter Olympics Can’t Rely on Winter

Meat Processors Take a Hit as Cattle Prices Remain High

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CWS Market Review – February 3, 2026
Posted by Eddy Elfenbein on February 3rd, 2026 at 5:40 pm

(This is the free version of CWS Market Review. If you like what you see, then please sign up for the premium newsletter for $20 per month or $200 for the whole year. If you sign up today, you can see our two reports, “Your Handy Guide to Stock Orders” and “How Not to Get Screwed on Your Mortgage.”)

Trump Selects Kevin Warsh to Lead the Fed

One week ago, the S&P 500 closed at a new all-time high. Since then, the index broke above 7,000, but it hasn’t been able to close above that level.

In last week’s issue, I mentioned the big bull market in silver. Well, that came to an abrupt end on Friday as the price of silver plunged on world markets.

By the end of Friday’s trading, silver had lost 27%. That was the white metal’s biggest one-day loss in 45 years. Silver dropped again on Monday. Last week, silver got as high as $120 an ounce, then as low as $71 an ounce. Gold dropped sharply as well.

So what caused gold and silver to fall off a cliff? On Friday, President Trump nominated Kevin Warsh to be the next chairman of the Federal Reserve. He’s seen as a more “hawkish” candidate than what had been expected. Gold and silver love lower interest rates, but higher rates are their kryptonite.

In many ways, the selection of Warsh is both a conventional choice and a very unconventional choice. Warsh is largely within the mainstream of economic thought. Plus, he’s already served on the Federal Reserve board. In fact, he was the youngest member in the Fed’s history, and he helped shape the Fed’s response to the financial crisis. Warsh is currently a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford.

Warsh still needs to be confirmed by the Senate but that shouldn’t be a major obstacle, and the betting markets appear to agree. If confirmed, Warsh would be leading a Fed that’s at an important juncture. Jerome Powell has been harshly criticized by President Trump who wants to see much lower interest rates. While inflation has subsided in recent months, it’s still above the Fed’s target of 2%. Jerome Powell’s term ends in May.

Warsh will likely face some doubts from members of Congress as to his independence from political pressure. Historically, the Fed has tried to distance itself from political pressures, but these efforts have not always been successful.

Of course, the Fed is also facing an investigation by the Justice Department for actions surrounding the Fed’s new building. I suspect this won’t get far. Thom Tillis, a Republican senator of North Carolina, said he wouldn’t support any nominee until the DOJ’s investigation has concluded.

For much of his career, Warsh was been seen as an inflation hawk, meaning someone who has favored higher interest rates. That probably helped cause the big drop in gold and silver. Only recently has Warsh been critical of higher rates. He has also said that tariffs will not lead to higher inflation.

On Truth Social, President Trump said of Warsh, “He will go down as one of the GREAT Fed Chairmen, maybe the best.” Bear in mind that we don’t get new Fed Chairs very often. In the last 75 years, there have only been eight Fed chairs.

President Trump has often said that he wanted to fire Jerome Powell, but that’s a tricky area legally. The president probably can’t fire a Fed chair over a simple policy dispute. In fact, the Supreme Court is currently looking at the case of Lisa Cook, a Fed governor, whom Trump wanted to fire from the Fed. The Supreme Court appears to be leaning against Trump’s decision.

We should also remember that the Federal Reserve isn’t just one person. The Federal Open Market Committee, which sets interest rate policy, is a 19-member committee. Even with that, only 12 members are voting members. The 12 are composed of the seven Federal Reserve board members plus five regional bank presidents. The head of the New York Fed is a permanent member, and the four other seats rotate.

The Fed recently voted to keep interest rates between 3.5% and 3.75%. Two members dissented. They wanted lower rates immediately. Futures traders currently expect the Fed to cut rates two more times this year.

Mr. Warsh has been very critical of the Fed in recent years. In particular, he blames the Fed for missing the surge in inflation during Covid. He was also against the Fed’s quantitative easing policies.

Now here’s where things get interesting. Warsh’s father-in-law is Ronald Lauder who is an heir to the Estee Lauder fortune. Lauder is estimated to be worth $5 billion. He’s been a big supporter of President Trump and a major financial backer of Republican candidates. In 1989, he ran for mayor of New York City but lost in the primary to Rudy Giuliani. It’s been reported that he encouraged Donald Trump to buy Greenland. Obviously, Warsh can’t be assumed to share his father-in-law’s views, but I’m sure Congress will ask him.

I expect Warsh to be confirmed by the Senate and he will generally try to steer the Fed toward lowering interest rates, but Warsh may not always get his way. Historically, reality has an odd way of interfering with the bold plans of money politics.

Speaking of which, my friend Gary Alexander notes that this time of year has been notable for several important events in the history of gold, silver and money. Here’s a sample:

At 9:30 on February 5, 1894, J.P. Morgan stormed into President Cleveland’s White House office and demanded an audience. After cooling his heels while Cleveland called the Treasury for details on what this invasion might mean, Morgan was ushered in. By now, the U.S. only had $9-million in gold to meet claims, and there were $12-million in current drafts against a shrinking supply, so President Cleveland sheepishly asked Morgan, “Well, sir, what would you suggest?” This comment passed the power of the purse from the White House to Morgan and Wall Street. In short order, Morgan saved the Treasury with an infusion of gold from London. From 1895 to his death in 1913, Morgan served as America’s central banker – and he did a better job than the Federal Reserve did in its first 20-years, from 1913 to 1933.

This Friday, the government will release the January jobs report. The last few job reports haven’t been that good. In its last policy statement, the Fed noted that “job gains have remained low, and the unemployment rate has shown some signs of stabilization.”

The ADP payroll report is due out tomorrow. For that report, Wall Street expects to see a gain of 45,000 jobs. For Friday, economists estimate that the economy created 60,000 net new jobs in January. They’re also pegging the unemployment rate at 4.4%.

For hourly average earnings, economists expect to see a gain of 0.3% for last month, and a 3.7% gain for the last 12 months. This is an important stat. Wage growth has a way of quickly becoming business revenue and that becomes a profit. If employment continues to be weak, that may help the interest rate doves on the FOMC.

This continues to be a good earnings season for Wall Street. The S&P 500 is on pace to post earnings growth of 11.9% for Q4. If this holds up, it will be the fifth quarter in a row that the index has delivered a double-digit increase in profits. The last time it reported five straight quarters of 10% or more earnings growth was in 2017 and 2018. Analysts currently expect the S&P 500 to have double-digit earnings growth for all four quarters of 2026.

Analysts have been busy raising their Q4 earnings estimates. At the end of Q3, Wall Street had been expecting earnings growth for Q4 of just 7.2%. By the end of Q4, that forecast was raised to 8.34%. Now it’s at 11.9%. For the tech sector, Q4 earnings growth is tracking at 29.8%.

The overall net profit margin is currently running at 13.2%. That’s very high. If it holds, it will stand as the highest profit margin since FactSet started tracking this data in 2009. The current record is 13.1% which happened last quarter.

Technology has increased its profit margin from 26.8% last year to 29.0% this year. Industrials are up to 12.5% from 10.7% last year. Wall Street expects to see profit margins get even higher. By Q3, analysts expect profits to be over 14%.

That’s all for now. Expect more earnings news this week. We also have the big jobs report on Friday. I’ll have more for you in the next issue of CWS Market Review.

– Eddy

P.S. From S&P Global Intelligence: Over the past 59 years, the median combined final score of the Super Bowl has been 47 points. When the two teams score 47 or more points, the S&P 500 posts an average return of +17.8%. When the combined score is less than 47 points, the average return is only +6.6%.

Go offense!

Morning News: February 3, 2026
Posted by Eddy Elfenbein on February 3rd, 2026 at 7:05 am

The Global Economy’s Warning Signals Are Broken

ECB Survey Records ‘Unexpected’ Tightening in Bank Lending

Top Consulting Firms Test Boundaries with China Workarounds

Abu Dhabi Builds a New Deal Machine Around Its Crown Prince

Trump and India Call Off Their Trade War, but the Terms of Peace Are Murky

Modi Got a Nice US Deal. But What Did He Give Away?

US Foreign Policy Is Now Medieval

In Trump’s Fraud Crackdown, Political Foes Face Harshest Scrutiny

Trump’s Base Is Tiring of Him at a Bad Time

Here’s The Real Reason Gold Prices Plunged — And Why The Selloff Likely Isn’t Over Yet

On the National Debt, Left and Right Have Become One

This Tax-Refund Bonanza Won’t Do What Bessent Says It Will

The US Economy Needs the Hudson River Tunnel Project

What Kevin Warsh Learned Working for Stanley Druckenmiller

The Arguments Made by Coinbase and Others Don’t Add Up

Let Coinbase and Others Truly Compete With Banks for Deposits

The High Cost of Good Intentions, Credit Card Edition

PayPal Replaces CEO Chriss After Profit Falls Short of Estimates

U.S. Manufacturing Is in Retreat and Trump’s Tariffs Aren’t Helping

Trump Unveils $12 Billion Critical Minerals Stockpile

Why China’s Grip on Critical Minerals Is So Hard to Break

Siemens Energy to Spend $1 Billion to Boost Manufacturing of Electrical-Grid Equipment

Orsted Sells Onshore Business for $1.7 Billion After Judge Rules U.S. Wind Project Can Resume

Chinese Tech Stocks Near Bear Market as Tax Concerns Mount

Data Services Stocks Sink After Anthropic Launches Legal Tool

What Oracle Has to Lose From OpenAI and Nvidia’s Rocky Relationship

Apple’s iPhone 17 Upgrades Hit the Spot for Chinese Consumers

China Bans Retractable Door Handles on Cars as Safety Concerns Grow

The Accounting Behind Music Royalties In the Streaming Era

Disney Warns of Hit From Flagging Foreign Visits

PepsiCo to Cut Prices for Doritos and Other Snacks

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Morning News: February 2, 2026
Posted by Eddy Elfenbein on February 2nd, 2026 at 6:11 am

South Korea Exports Off to Strong Start in 2026

Squeezed Between Trump and China, India Looks for Faraway Friendships

Britain’s China Engagement Is a Message to America

China Has Withstood the Export Restrictions That Hold the U.S. Back

How China Uses a ‘National Team’ to Influence Trading

Luxury Brands Need a Comeback in China. They Shouldn’t Count on It.

Japan PM Takaichi Must Face Bond Investors Before Winning Over Voters

The Effects of Tariffs, One Year Into Trump’s Trade Experiment

The Key to Managing Tariffs: Be Big and Have the President’s Ear

There’s a Perception Gap With the U.S. Economy

Gold Plunge Deepens as Traders Unwind ‘Crowded’ Bets on Rally

Rookie Trader’s Rapid 84% Wipeout Shows Depth of China Gold Bust

Meet the Young Men Rushing Into Betting Markets

Private Credit Is Headed for a Software Shock

Warsh’s Return Revives Tensions Over the Fed’s $6.6 Trillion QE Hangover

Saying You Want to Shrink the Fed Is One Thing. Doing It Is Another.

Kevin Warsh’s Three Tasks: Shrink the Fed, Tame Inflation, Manage the President

A Hawk or a Dove? Understanding Kevin Warsh

U.A.E. Firm Quietly Took Stake in the Trump Family’s Crypto Company

Will the Spirit of 1976 Come to 2026?

Move Fast, but Obey the Rules: China’s Vision for Dominating A.I.

Trump’s UAE Chip Deal Is a National Security Risk

AI Could Vastly Improve Healthcare While Bringing Down Its Costs

Oracle to Raise Up to $50 Billion in 2026 for Cloud Buildup

Target’s New C.E.O. Faces Hometown Crisis as He Begins Turnaround Effort

French Firm to Sell Division That Helps ICE Track Immigrants

Metals Traders Lose at Least $144 Million as ‘Hat’ Flees China

The Hottest Commodity in the Mining Business: American Generals

Carvana’s Red-Hot Growth Runs on a Cycle of Borrowed Money

Building Suppliers’ Earnings Hurt by US Shutdown, Storm Reprieve

Snow Drought in the West Reaches Record Levels

Western Ski Resorts and Their Terrible, Horrible, No Snow, Very Bad Year

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Morning News: January 30, 2026
Posted by Eddy Elfenbein on January 30th, 2026 at 7:03 am

U.S. Trade Deficit Widens Despite Trump’s Tariffs

Trump Picks Kevin Warsh as Fed Chair

Wall Street Reacts as Warsh Selected by Trump as Next Fed Chair

Will Warsh Do What Trump Wants?

Dollar Fears Are Flaring as Trump Rekindles Debasement Trade

Private Assets Will Benefit From Fed’s Openness to Rate Cuts

Gold and Silver Plunge as Wild Swings Rock Metals Markets

Trump’s Crackdown on Defense Dividends Should Worry Retirees and Investors

Judge Rules Bank of America Must Face Lawsuit Over Jeffrey Epstein Ties

New Jersey Governor’s Electricity Obsession Is a Warning

A Tax Cut for ‘Working Families’ Does Nothing For Economic Growth

Panic in Miami: Haitians Confront Suddenly Losing Legal Status

Trump Deal to Avert Major Shutdown Set to Miss Funding Deadline

Senate, White House Look for a Way Out of ICE Funding Fight

Kristi Noem Is Also Failing at Running FEMA

Goodbye Arms Control, Hello Nuclear Anarchy

Panama High Court Gives Trump a Win Over Canal by Ousting Hong Kong Port Operator

Sanctioned Vessels, Pursuits at Sea: Tanker Trackers Keep Tabs

Exxon, Chevron Post Slimmest Annual Profits Since 2021

Chevron Sees Self-Funding Model in Venezuela to Safeguard Cash

A Fight Against Russian Oil Hits Lukoil Station Owners in the U.S.

Chinalco, Rio Tinto to Buy Control of Brazilian Aluminum Maker

The End of the Model S Is the Start of a New Tesla

Apple Gives Itself the Toughest Act to Follow

LG Electronics Reports First Net Loss in a Year

Verizon Posts Strong Subscriber Gains in Its First Quarter Under New CEO

Walmart’s New CEO Takes Over With $1 Trillion Valuation in Reach

End of Amazon Go Marks Retreat From Effort to Reinvent Physical Stores

Uniqlo’s Billionaire Founder Wants Tenfold US Growth. Early Signs Are Good

Colgate-Palmolive Swings to a Loss on Charges

Church & Dwight Logs Sales Growth

Twix Is OK but Granola Isn’t as States Deploy New Food Stamp Rules

Can This Man Break Disney’s Succession Curse?

The GameStop CEO Has an Audacious Plan to Clinch His $35 Billion Payday

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Morning News: January 29, 2026
Posted by Eddy Elfenbein on January 29th, 2026 at 7:09 am

At World’s Busiest Port, China’s Unbalanced Economy Comes Into View

In Beijing, British Prime Minister Sees ‘Huge Opportunities’

Brent Crude Hits $70 a Barrel as Trump Ramps Up Iran Threats

Silver Prices Are Surging Even Faster Than Gold

Trump, Democrats Make Some Progress in Talks to Avert Shutdown

US Dollar Falls Again as Debasement Fears Outweigh Bessent’s Boost

Fed Holds Rates Steady for First Time Since July

A Surprise Waller Dissent at the Fed Is Seen as a Hail-Mary Move

Why Powell Won’t Say if He Is Staying on the Fed Board

Deutsche Bank, Facing Probe, Posts Biggest Annual Profit in Nearly Two Decades

Blackstone Posts Surprise Profit Jump as Deals Gain ‘Velocity’

Wall Street’s Stamp of Legitimacy Fuels Suspected Pump-and-Dump Schemes

What Does ‘Responsible Investing’ Even Mean Anymore?

Capping Credit Card Rates Will Do More Harm Than Good

Capping Credit Card Rates Is a Cure Worse Than the Disease

Trump’s Trade Policies Sort Manufacturers Into Winners and Losers

A Rug Maker Withstood One Year of Trump’s Tariffs. New Challenges Loom.

International Paper to Split Into Two Listed Companies

Why Some Cold States Are Making It Cheaper to Run a Heat Pump

How Remaking the Neighborhood Could Boost Poor Kids’ Futures

U.S. Companies Are Still Slashing Jobs to Reverse Pandemic Hiring Boom

Americans Are More Worried About Health Care Costs Than Gas or Groceries

How to Bring Back the American Dream

We’ll Never Retire For All the Reasons Elon Musk Thinks We May

Tesla Profit Slumps, but Investors May Not Care

Musk Is Fueling Tesla by Torching Piles of Cash

Tesla to Invest $2 Billion in Elon Musk’s xAI, Cancel Two EV Models

Sergey Brin Backs New California Political Effort as Threat of Wealth Tax Looms

Meta Reports Record Sales, Massive Spending Hike on AI Buildout

Caterpillar Earnings Beat Boosted by AI Data Center Power Demand

Boeing Should Ignore the Siren Call of Maximizing Cash

The Netflix Combination With WBD Is Good for Customers

Amazon’s Promotion of ‘Melania’ Has Critics Questioning Its Motives

Lululemon’s See-Through Leggings Fiasco Is Just Its Latest Unforced Error

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Morning News: January 28, 2026
Posted by Eddy Elfenbein on January 28th, 2026 at 7:05 am

Record Debt in the World’s Richest Nations Threatens Global Growth

Europe Got Tough With Trump, but It Needs the U.S. as Much as Ever

Gold Hits Record Above $5,300 as Trump Dollar Comments Aid Rally

A New Force to Be Reckoned With in the Gold Market

Tether Is Shaking Up the Gold Market With Massive Metal Hoard

Trump’s Embrace of Weaker Dollar Fuels Bets on New Downtrend

Kalshi Needed a Bigger Win from the Mamdani Race

Family Offices Defy ‘Sell America’ Trade With Deal Spree in US

Pam Bondi’s Offer to Minnesota Is Really a ‘Shakedown’

Trump Has Four Finalists to Run the Fed. None of Them Are Exactly What He Wants.

These Are the 12 Fed Officials Who Will Vote on Interest Rates This Year

Rick Rieder’s Donations to MAGA Rivals Tests Trump’s Fed Chair Demands

Fed Meeting Comes at Pivotal Moment for Central Bank’s Independence

How the Fed’s Interest-Rate Outlook May Be All About the Job Market

The Points Guy Says Trump’s Rate Cap Idea Ends Credit Card Heyday

A Cap on Credit Card Fees Will Cause Many To Lose Their Cards

A Municipal Debt Boom Is Driving Public Projects and Tax Breaks for Investors

Jamie Dimon Helpfully Explains How All Legislation Should Be Crafted

Bari Weiss Urges CBS News to Think Like a ‘Start-Up’

AI’s HAL 9000 Problem, and What It Portends For the Future

The AI Bubble Is Getting Closer to Popping

Health Care Is Just as Dangerous for the Economy as AI

Microsoft, Amazon Give Bubble-Wary Investors Another Metric to Worry About

Microsoft Pledged to Save Water. In the A.I. Era, It Expects Water Use to Soar.

Amazon to Cut 16,000 Corporate Positions to Trim Bureaucracy

Lilly Signs Seamless Gene-Editing Deal for Over $1.1 Billion

Is a Cookie a Type of Candy? Supermarkets Have a New Food-Stamp Conundrum

Babies Are Getting Sick From Formula That Mimics Mother’s Milk

The Future of Male Birth Control Could Be Pills, Gels and Implants

Scotts Miracle-Gro Strikes Deal to Sell Cannabis-Supply Unit

Starbucks Sales Accelerate as Turnaround Gains Steam

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CWS Market Review – January 27, 2026
Posted by Eddy Elfenbein on January 27th, 2026 at 6:09 pm

(This is the free version of CWS Market Review. If you like what you see, then please sign up for the premium newsletter for $20 per month or $200 for the whole year. If you sign up today, you can see our two reports, “Your Handy Guide to Stock Orders” and “How Not to Get Screwed on Your Mortgage.”)

Q4 Earnings Are Looking Good

On Tuesday, the stock market closed at another all-time high. The S&P 500 has climbed higher on the last five days in a row. The index finished Tuesday’s trading at 6,978.60. Ever since the Greenland ructions passed, Wall Street has been in a very good mood. The stock market is already up nearly 2% this year, and we’re still in January.

I always find it interesting how the stock market completely ignores news that we think is incredibly important. Yet at the same time, the market can easily be tripped up by a throwaway comment from some government official.

Wall Street is moving close to the heart of Q4 earnings season and we have some early numbers. So far, 13% of the companies in the S&P 500 have reported earnings. Of those, 75% have beaten expectations, and 69% have beaten on revenue. For Q4, the S&P 500 is on track to report earnings of 8.2%. If that’s right, then Q4 will be the 10th quarter in a row of earnings growth.

So far, six companies have issued positive guidance, and four have issued negative guidance. The index is currently going for 22.1 times forward earnings which is relatively high compared with the last 10 years.

The Magnificent 7 is expected to have Q4 earnings growth of 20.4%. If you exclude that from the S&P 500, then the other 493 companies are expected to show earnings growth of 4%.

For 2026, the Mag 7 are expected to have earnings growth of 22.8% while for the other 493 companies, it’s 12.1%. I should add that analysts have cut their estimates over the past few weeks. That’s a typical Wall Street tactic. Firms convince analysts to drop estimates far enough to where they can beat them, and then they claim victory while ignoring the previous estimate cuts.

On Tuesday, shares of United Health (UNH) plunged 20%. This is also important because UnitedHealth is a component in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Since the Dow is price weighted, UNH’s fortunes have an outsized impact. Today’s drop dinged the Dow for more than 400 points.

The health insurer posted a modest earnings beat for Q4 ($2.11 vs. $2.10). Revenues were below expectations ($113.2 billion to $113.82 billion). Wall Street had been expecting $454.6 billion.

The problem was that UNH offered weak guidance for 2026. For this year, UNH expects revenues to fall by 2% to $430 billion. This is the first time in 10 years that United Health has had declining sales.

The WSJ reported on Tuesday that the Trump administration plans to keep the rates that it pays medical insurers steady. In 2027, payments would increase by an average of 0.09%. Wall Street had been expecting an increase of 4% to 6%. The increase for last year was 5%.

That news was enough to bring down several related stocks. For example, CVS (CVS) was down 14% on Tuesday.

Silver: The Poor Man’s Gold

In last week’s issue, I told you that the real action lately hasn’t been in the stock market. Instead, it’s been in the gold trading pits. In 18 months, the price for gold has doubled.

I actually understated that because even more intense action can be found in the silver trading pits. In two months, the price of solid silver has doubled.

Two years ago, you could have picked up an ounce of silver for just $22. Lately, silver has been going for $116 per ounce. Yesterday, Ag jumped by more than 14% before pulling back.

Gold broke $5,000 per ounce. This is all part of the “debasement trade.” The idea is that investors are shifting away from dollar-based assets. Other metals have also done well like copper, platinum and palladium.

Silver, which is often called “the poor man’s gold,” has a tendency to do whatever gold’s doing, just a lot more. If gold rallied by 10%, then silver is up by 20%. If gold drops by 10%, then silver is down by 20%.

Gold now trades at less than 50 times silver. That’s the lowest gold/silver ratio in 15 years. During the early part of Covid, gold got to more than 130 times silver.

The Gold/Silver ratio has been an important ratio through history. In ancient Greece, the ratio fluctuated around 10:1 to 13:1. In King David’s time, it was 12:1. Julius Caesar had the ratio at 11.5:1.

In 1792, the U.S. Congress, at the advice of Alexander Hamilton, passed the Coinage Act of 1792. This was the government’s first attempt at price-fixing (and not the last). The act defined a U.S. dollar as 371.25 grams of silver or 24.75 grams of gold. In other words, Hamilton pegged the Gold/Silver ratio at 15. In 1834, Congress had to bump it up to 16.

In 1979-80, there was an absolutely crazy rally in silver when two Texas brothers tried to buy all the silver in the world. What’s even crazier is that if it hadn’t been for those meddling exchanges, they would have gotten away with it.

When Nelson Bunker Hunt and Herbert Hunt started their plan, silver was around $6 per ounce. By early 1980, it got to $50 per ounce. Time Magazine estimated they made between $2 billion and $4 billion in just nine months.

To pull this off, they had to borrow zillions of dollars. At one point, it was estimated that they held one-third of the world’s silver. Tiffany took out a full-page article to denounce them.

The Hunt brothers were the sons of the legendary oilman, Haroldson Lafayette “H.L” Hunt, Jr. Hunt the senior wrote a totally crazy novel based on his idea of a fascist utopia called “Alpaca.” I remember one person calling it “1984, but Big Brother is the good guy.”

Another brother was Lamar Hunt who was one of the most influential people in the development of modern football. He was the one who came up with the name “Super Bowl.” The winner of the AFC Championship Games gets the Lamar Hunt Trophy.

Anyway, back to silver. The Hunts were convinced that the Establishment was out to crush them and they were pretty much right. The exchange changed the margin requirement which forced the brothers to put up much more collateral.

(By the way, one of my first jobs in the industry was making margin calls. That’s not a metaphor. I had to actually call people to tell them they had to sell or put up more money.)

On March 27, 1980, the bottom fell out of the silver market. This is now known as “Silver Thursday.” The Hunts had to put up more money, but they couldn’t reach their margin requirement.

The government was worried (tell me if you’ve heard this one before) that Wall Street banks were so much in debt to the Hunts that if the Hunts went under, so would the banks. In fact, a silver panic could start a banking panic.

The Hunts had finally been broken. Silver didn’t make a new high for 45 years. The Hunts eventually become the models for brothers Randolph and Mortimer Duke in the movie Trading Places.

The Federal Reserve meets again this week. Don’t expect any change on interest rates. The futures market currently thinks there’s a 97% chance that the Fed will leave rates alone. The policy statement will come out tomorrow afternoon. I’ll be curious to see if Jerome Powell discusses the investigation by the DOJ.

Powell’s term ends in May, so he’ll be out in any event. The new frontrunner to be named Fed chair is Rick Rieder from BlackRock. He’s up to 47% at PolyMarket. Rieder has argued that productivity gains from AI have caused inflation to fall lower than we realize. This aligns with President Trump’s view. He appears to be a candidate who would both reassure Wall Street and be close to the president’s views.

Here’s an interesting exchange between Rieder and Barry Ritholtz in 2023:

RIEDER: It was. So Lehman paid a billion dollars for EF Hutton. And I was very lucky, there were 35 of us in the training program ad it looked like we all were going to get fired. And they took two of us, and I’m not sure how I made it through the strainer. But I found somebody who I really liked in the mortgage department and the mortgage agency, mortgage business, and took a liking to me and I went into the training program. You know, then by the way, it wasn’t like the crises ended between 1990 and the recession on the S&L dynamics.

And then in ‘94 and ‘98, you know, all had a different stream to 2002. By the way, it seemed like every four years —

RITHOLTZ: Right.

RIEDER: — there was — and then, you know, punctuating with obviously 2008. But boy, I mean, I went through — and I think I still have a scar tissue to this day of, you know, all of these — by the way, I think it’s an interesting cyclicality to markets, that every four years you need to recalibrate. You know, people are comfortable, leverage builds. And then all of a sudden, sometimes violently, it recalibrates. But I tell you, you know, going through it again in ’22, you know, you just know that the next couple of years are going to be pretty good because you just reprice things again. But I tell you going through those years, I’d love to skip those in my career.

RITHOLTZ: Mark your calendars for 2026.

That’s all for now. Earnings news to dominate the market this week along with the Fed meeting. I’ll have more for you in the next issue of CWS Market Review.

– Eddy

Morning News: January 27, 2026
Posted by Eddy Elfenbein on January 27th, 2026 at 7:09 am

Gold Soars Beyond $5,000 as Global Tensions Grow

How Gold’s Safe-Haven Appeal Is Fueling Record Prices

The Gold Boom Has Miners Scrambling to Find the Next Mother Lode

The Possible Faces of a Rio Tinto-Glencore Deal

EU Warns of Over-Reliance on US Gas After Greenland Spat

US Oil Capital Houston Buzzes As Industry Limbers Up For Venezuela Oil Rush

The Trump Administration Now Thinks Clean Air Is Worthless

Record Debt in the World’s Richest Nations Threatens Global Growth

EU and India Reach Free-Trade Deal as World Responds to Trump Tariffs

Trump Says He Will Raise Tariffs on South Korea to 25%

Tariffs Reward Inefficiency. Here’s a Better Way

As Trump Heads to Iowa to Trumpet Economy, Many Residents Feel Pain

Dollar Traders Are Paying a Record to Bet on Deeper Selloff

Fed Set to Pause Rate Cuts, With No Clear Path to Resuming

Blackstone Makes Over $400 Million Gain on Marathon Sale to CVC

No-Leverage, One-Man Hedge Fund Beats Bay Street With 65% Return

Goldman’s Solomon Sees ‘Slower’ Trajectory for Talent Growth

Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare Protect Us From Much Worse

Musk Is Wrong About AI and Retirement: You Still Need to Save

American Housing Needs More Institutional Investors

Yale’s Famed Investing Model Falters at a Fraught Time for Colleges

As Tech Chiefs Woo Trump, Silicon Valley Seethes Over Minneapolis Shootings

CEOs’ ICE Letter (That Doesn’t Mention ICE) Isn’t Good Enough

Silicon Valley’s Social License Is In Jeopardy

An A.I. Pioneer Warns the Tech ‘Herd’ Is Marching Into a Dead End

Nvidia Lacks Clear Successor for Superstar CEO Who Built Company

GM Beats Earnings Expectations, Boosts Dividend by 20%

UnitedHealth Books Hefty Charges, Issues Soft Full-Year Revenue Outlook

American Airlines Profit Misses Estimates, Sees Hit From Storm

Senate Antitrust Panel Chair Raises Concerns Over Netflix-Warner Deal

Shareholders, Not Bureaucrats, Should Decide the WBD Merger

Ian Schrager Forges New Partnership to Revamp His Stalled Hotel Brand

Sports Leagues Struggle To Lure Fans Away From Illegal Streams

Puma Brings in Chinese Sportswear Maker as Top Shareholder

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Morning News: January 26, 2026
Posted by Eddy Elfenbein on January 26th, 2026 at 7:06 am

Trump Extends Trade Turmoil Threatening Major Tariffs on Allies

The World Economy Is Hooked on Government Debt

Japan Bond Crash Unleashes a $7 Trillion Risk for Global Markets

Allied Gold Agreed to $4 Billion Buyout By Hong Kong’s Zijin Gold

Dollar Pressure Mounts as Traders Reopen Debasement Debate

Stablecoins Are the Future But Banks Will Survive

Fed to Hold Rates as Political Storm Intensifies Around Powell

How Trump’s Ally at the Fed Is Remaking Bank Oversight

Trump Hobbled the I.R.S. This C.E.O. Now Has to Make It Work.

JPMorgan’s Debanking Fight Is a Problem Washington Created

Credit Card Rate Caps Will Make Housing Less Achievable

Boomers at 80: Why The ‘Great Wealth Transfer’ May Never Come

Build Power at the Pace of Innovation – Let the Markets Lead

Seed Funding no Longer, Startups Are Raising Coconut Rounds

The Man Who Almost Replaced Warren Buffett

Voters See a Middle-Class Lifestyle as Drifting Out of Reach

These Developers Stand to Win in Trump’s Housing-Investor Crackdown

Hard Times in the Delta as Farmers Consider Letting Crops Rot

Oil Tanker Rates Are Surging on Geopolitical Risks

As Europe’s Reliance on U.S. Natural Gas Grows, So Does Trump’s Leverage

Leidos to Buy Kohlberg’s Entrust for $2.4 Billion

Nvidia Invests $2 Billion More in CoreWeave, Offers New Chip

Trump Pushes A.I. Data Centers, but the G.O.P. Is Cool to One in Alabama

Governments’ New Must-Have: Their Own Satellites

Quantum-Computing Company IonQ to Buy Chip Maker SkyWater for $1.8 Billion

Is CVS Daring Trump To Defend Biological Reality?

The Secret Society of People Who Know the Formula for WD-40

The TikTok US Saga Isn’t Over — It’s Just Beginning

Disney’s Surprise Box-Office Champion is ‘Zootopia 2,’ Thanks to China

The Wait List for a Birkin or Rolex Is Getting Shorter

High January Is the New Dry January

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