Frank Talk

click to enlarge As you might expect, energy was the greatest contributor to higher prices in May, with fuel oil jumping more than 25 percent from the same month a year ago. The current average price for a gallon of regular gas nationwide was just under $3.00, compared to only $2.33 in June 2017, according […]

click to enlarge As seen in the chart below, China takes the number one spot of global gold producers by a wide margin, extracting 131 tonnes more than second place Australia. The top 10 rankings remained unchanged from 2016 to 2017, with the exception of Canada and Indonesia switching between fifth and seventh place, respectively.

click to enlarge Many analysts are already making the dubious comparison between Deutsche and Lehman Brothers, the storied American financial services firm whose bankruptcy nearly 10 years ago set off the global financial crisis. At the time of its filing, Lehman had approximately $639 billion in assets. As of the end of last year, Deutsche

I recently had the opportunity to see the excellent 2017 film Darkest Hour, about British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s struggle to keep the United Kingdom in the fight against the Nazis, even as members of his own government pressured him to capitulate. Gary Oldman’s portrayal of the tough-as-nails leader is at turns tender and rousing—and

click to enlarge Next up, the U.S. government could slap steep tariffs on imported automobiles—and possibly even ban German luxury vehicles outright, according to a report by German business news magazine WirtschaftsWoche. These decisions, if fully implemented, will have a multitude of implications on the U.S. and world economies. What I can say with full

click to enlarge Italian government bond yields surged dramatically following President Sergio Mattarella’s decision to block the opposition parties’ pick for economic minister, a euroskeptic who supports Italy’s exit from the eurozone. The two-year bond in particular plunged the most since the creation of the bloc’s common currency in 1999. click to enlarge With no

click to enlarge The polling data, provided by the Pew Research Center, was shared by Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Jon Meacham, who spoke last week at an Investment Company Institute (ICI) meeting in Washington, D.C. Although no fan of the president, Meacham believes, as I do, that fed up, disillusioned voters turned to Donald Trump to

click to enlarge Muni Bonds Outperformed in Previous Rate Hike Cycles Fixed-income investors The 10-year Treasury yield has been the topic of conversation lately among fixed-income investors. Earlier this month, the T-note closed above 3 percent for the first time since July 2011, prompting some market watchers to call time on the three-decade Treasury bull

click to enlarge Before I get off this topic, I want to mention that blockchain is also bringing change to gold investment. Consider Last week I had the pleasure to attend Consensus 2018 in New York, the premiere gathering for the who’s who in blockchain, bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. Attendance doubled from last year to an

click to enlarge Those returns could grow even more, if Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s latest forecast proves accurate. Analysts there believe the price of oil could climb back up to the $100 range as early as next year, which would add another $1 to the cost of a gallon of gas. Speaking to CNBC