BTW, I'm not doing a deepdive every time I see a chart. That'd be crazy! I just store a sliver of them in my long-term memory in case I ever need it. [and now I'm sounding like a robot. Completely circumstantial I tell ya!]
No good on you a sliver of this and sliver of that is often good info and a good chart is one sometimes makes is so much easier to assess the value of a sliver of silver - slightly in anomalies I reckon!
Keep on keeping on I subscribe to one of your places - can't remember which one - but I'm a paying subscriber - so you know....I got calling to comment and I don't think you are a robot.......yet!
I have a degree in Economics froma major US university and I am completely in awe of all those awesome graphs. Wheeew! That would have taken at least whole term in school....
The Weimar chart placed next to the gold parabolic is doing structural work that most weekend roundups never attempt. German stocks in marks looked like they were rising. In dollars they were collapsing. The portfolio screen showed green while purchasing power evaporated. Every nominal equity gain during currency debasement is a measurement error, and that chart is the visual proof that denominator matters more than numerator.
the PBOC reserve data tells you who has already internalised that lesson. Central banks accumulating physical gold at a pace the futures curve consistently underprices means the paper market is subsidising the strategic accumulation. The futures curve keeps projecting lower. The physical keeps moving East. That divergence between paper pricing and physical flow is the market structure equivalent of the Weimar chart, nominal prices telling one story while the underlying transfer of real assets tells the opposite.
The German stocks priced in USD held up pretty good all considered. The reason was that most German companies earned abroad and paid domestically with devaluated marks. So they had great gains.
The marks-denominated line is the point of the chart . You posted both lines for a reason. The foreign-earnings arbitrage explains why German multinationals survived in USD terms, but it tells you nothing about the investor who was denominated in marks, which was most of the population and is the relevant comparison for today. The US equity investor right now IS the marks investor. Denominated in the currency doing the debasing, watching the portfolio screen show green while the grocery bill tells a different story. The USD arbitrage that saved German industrialists in 1922 doesnt exist for someone whose income and equity exposure are both denominated in the same debasing currency.
The US saver is the opposite case. More than half of households have equity exposure through pensions and 401ks before you even count direct holdings. They're sitting in the multinationals earning abroad - the same arbitrage that carried German industry in USD terms.
So the Weimar saver got wiped precisely because he wasn't in stocks. The US saver is heavily in them, and a chunk of what he owns earns in currencies the dollar is debasing against. Same currency on his paycheck and his portfolio, sure, but the portfolio isn't purely domestic the way his grocery bill is.
Where the rhyme actually holds is gold and groceries. Against those, nobody's denominator saves them.
Your closer does the heavy lifting for the gold thesis. The 401K data is right, more than half of US households have equity exposure to multinationals earning abroad. That gives them partial protection through the same foreign-earnings arbitrage that carried German industrialists. Partial, because the equity portfolio earns across currencies while the grocery bill is 100% domestic.
Gold hedges the part that equities cant reach. Your 401K earns in yen and euros through its multinational holdings. Your rent, your groceries, your healthcare, and your utilities are priced entirely in the debasing dollar. The foreign-earnings arbitrage protects the portfolio. It does nothing for the cost of living. "Gold and groceries" is the right pairing precisely because gold is the only asset that denominates against the one exposure no equity portfolio can diversify away from, the domestic price level.
Holy Crap - I got a new name for you - "number 1" -
"charthead"
~~
gracious me - is this your life - living in charts and such - I mean I like em - but jeepers that was a lot of em
I live to read my news 😉. I just checked in my database: I have seen around 1948 (no kidding) graphs this week, of which 147 duplicates.
Which isn't that much actually if you understand that most of us scroll through a tenfold of that per day.
I probably will miss a lot, but the interesting ones jump out. And I copy/paste them into a substack draft and rework it a bit on Sunday.
What are you - a robot!
🦬😈🦬😊🦬
~
Still - thanks for the charts!
BK
BTW, I'm not doing a deepdive every time I see a chart. That'd be crazy! I just store a sliver of them in my long-term memory in case I ever need it. [and now I'm sounding like a robot. Completely circumstantial I tell ya!]
No good on you a sliver of this and sliver of that is often good info and a good chart is one sometimes makes is so much easier to assess the value of a sliver of silver - slightly in anomalies I reckon!
Keep on keeping on I subscribe to one of your places - can't remember which one - but I'm a paying subscriber - so you know....I got calling to comment and I don't think you are a robot.......yet!
🦬😊🦬
Thanks No1. For anyone interested, here are my Apr PCE Inflation estimates for the data that will drop on Thu: https://arkominaresearch.substack.com/p/april-2026-pce-forecast-my-1-bp-accurate
I have a degree in Economics froma major US university and I am completely in awe of all those awesome graphs. Wheeew! That would have taken at least whole term in school....
And here you’re getting it weekly 😉. Better level up to keep apace 🤣
In further news from last week. Number of nuclear weapons used on Iran: 0
THAT is good news!
Can you extend the FED governor table back to 1929?
I don't make the charts, I just copy/paste them 😉
That said: https://substack.com/profile/73723447-no1/note/c-264586634
The Weimar chart placed next to the gold parabolic is doing structural work that most weekend roundups never attempt. German stocks in marks looked like they were rising. In dollars they were collapsing. The portfolio screen showed green while purchasing power evaporated. Every nominal equity gain during currency debasement is a measurement error, and that chart is the visual proof that denominator matters more than numerator.
the PBOC reserve data tells you who has already internalised that lesson. Central banks accumulating physical gold at a pace the futures curve consistently underprices means the paper market is subsidising the strategic accumulation. The futures curve keeps projecting lower. The physical keeps moving East. That divergence between paper pricing and physical flow is the market structure equivalent of the Weimar chart, nominal prices telling one story while the underlying transfer of real assets tells the opposite.
Actually no.
The German stocks priced in USD held up pretty good all considered. The reason was that most German companies earned abroad and paid domestically with devaluated marks. So they had great gains.
The marks-denominated line is the point of the chart . You posted both lines for a reason. The foreign-earnings arbitrage explains why German multinationals survived in USD terms, but it tells you nothing about the investor who was denominated in marks, which was most of the population and is the relevant comparison for today. The US equity investor right now IS the marks investor. Denominated in the currency doing the debasing, watching the portfolio screen show green while the grocery bill tells a different story. The USD arbitrage that saved German industrialists in 1922 doesnt exist for someone whose income and equity exposure are both denominated in the same debasing currency.
Two problems with the marks investor standing in for today's US saver, and the second one I missed first time round.
Stock ownership in Weimar was tiny. One study of German joint-stock firms puts the working class at around 0.06% of shares, lower middle class at 3%, upper middle at 7% (https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/financial-history-review/article/limits-of-control-corporate-ownership-and-control-of-german-jointstock-firms-18691945/5BA7C09E41F4990FDFA417629A7D64D1). So "most of the population" you're pointing at wasn't holding equities. They held cash, savings, war bonds, wages. That's what got inflated away.
The US saver is the opposite case. More than half of households have equity exposure through pensions and 401ks before you even count direct holdings. They're sitting in the multinationals earning abroad - the same arbitrage that carried German industry in USD terms.
So the Weimar saver got wiped precisely because he wasn't in stocks. The US saver is heavily in them, and a chunk of what he owns earns in currencies the dollar is debasing against. Same currency on his paycheck and his portfolio, sure, but the portfolio isn't purely domestic the way his grocery bill is.
Where the rhyme actually holds is gold and groceries. Against those, nobody's denominator saves them.
Your closer does the heavy lifting for the gold thesis. The 401K data is right, more than half of US households have equity exposure to multinationals earning abroad. That gives them partial protection through the same foreign-earnings arbitrage that carried German industrialists. Partial, because the equity portfolio earns across currencies while the grocery bill is 100% domestic.
Gold hedges the part that equities cant reach. Your 401K earns in yen and euros through its multinational holdings. Your rent, your groceries, your healthcare, and your utilities are priced entirely in the debasing dollar. The foreign-earnings arbitrage protects the portfolio. It does nothing for the cost of living. "Gold and groceries" is the right pairing precisely because gold is the only asset that denominates against the one exposure no equity portfolio can diversify away from, the domestic price level.
🎯
And now I want to change my blog's name to "Gold and Groceries" 🤣🤣
😂The trademark is all yours. Better title than anything a marketing consultant would charge you for.
Retirees living on SS only are going to be hit hard. And how many Americans actually have a big 401k invested in stocks? I wager very few.
On top of that, price the US stockmarket in gold. The ratio has been in a downtrend since 2000. With minor ups and downs of course.
Exactly... But we're talking here about relative performance 😉... Which might be as worthy as discussing which shit is shinier 🤣. Pardon my french.
good jog.