Financial markets

August began with a financial earthquake in Japan. The Nikkei experienced a "Black Friday" with a drop of almost -15%. It all began when the Bank of Japan (BoJ) decided to raise rates at its last meeting, ending the negative rate policy with a rise to 0.25%.

This week, we'll look at several interesting ratio charts that plot gold against some of the world's best known consumer brands (McDonald's, Nike, Verizon, Target).

Do Microsoft's results mark the end of a cycle for growth stocks? Will the prospect of lower rates be enough to reverse the current trend in investor sentiment towards technology stocks?

The US real estate market is paralyzed as it awaits a Fed rate cut, while the reduction of import duties on gold in India stimulates demand for precious metals.

The collapse of the correlation between the gold price and real interest rates raises many questions. In the old paradigm, it was unthinkable that the gold price would trend firmer during a phase of sharply rising real interest rates. Gold and gold investors are now entering terra incognita.

France's image in the world is plummeting at a time when its budget deficit appears to be totally out of control, reaching the same level as at the time of the Covid crisis. Remember that half of France's public debt is held by foreign investors. Any significant lack of confidence would result in...

Gold will probably continue to rise until ETF outstandings reach their highest levels, which is still a long way off. Especially as demand for physical gold remains very strong. Despite the high price of an ounce of gold, central banks continue to buy precious metals on a massive scale.

The global economic slowdown is having a direct impact on the accelerating depreciation of the Japanese currency. Under these conditions, the price of gold in yen continues its parabolic rise.

There continues to be a heavy amount of pessimism toward silver on social media these days, but if you've noticed, most of these analysts are speculators trading on very short term charts. We're coming up on both the quarterly and 6-month close, so this week we'll look at those charts.

The slowdown in the US economy is amplified by structural problems in the labor market and inflation, masked by a rise in part-time employment and temporary support measures, with an increased risk of recession due to the prolonged inversion of the yield curve.