Markets Weekly February 22, 2025

Hello, my friends. Today is February 22nd, and this is Markets Weekly. So this past week, we saw the S&P 500 making you all-time highs. But the markets did take a notable tumble on Friday. Some of the common stories for that were weaker than expected US data, February options X-3, and my personal favorite, A-strengthening yen. But today, let's talk about two things. First, we have to talk a little bit about gold, which has been on an absolute tear. There are two new stories trying to explain that. They're pretty interesting, so let's listen to them. Secondly, we have to talk a little bit about the Japanese yen, which I think will hold the key to the US equity markets for the next few months.

你好，我的朋友们。今天是2月22日，这里是《市场周报》。在过去的一周里，我们看到标普500指数创下了历史新高。然而，市场在周五出现了明显下跌。造成这种情况的一些常见原因包括美国数据不如预期、2月期权的X-3问题，还有我个人认为最有趣的原因——日元走强。但今天，我们来谈谈两件事。首先，我们要聊一聊近期表现非常强势的黄金，有两个新的故事试图解释这个现象，非常有趣，所以让我们来听听看。其次，我们要讨论一下日元，我认为它将成为未来几个月内影响美国股市的关键因素。

Okay, starting with gold. Now, if you look at this chart of gold prices, you know this at gold, it looks like it's going to the moon. We seem to be making new all-time highs every single week. Now, December, I gave a, you know, I was pretty bullish on gold, gave a price target for 2025 of $3,000, and now it looks like we'll hit that maybe next week or any moment. So what's behind this relentless ascent? Now, we've talked about this before, when it comes to gold, people have many different perspectives. People buy gold for different reasons. One, of course, we can talk about it through a more of a traditional lens, looking at the strength of the dollar.

好的，我们来谈谈黄金。现在，如果你看这张关于黄金价格的图表，你会发现黄金的走势看起来就像火箭升空。我们似乎每周都在创下历史新高。在去年十二月的时候，我非常看好黄金，并给出2025年3,000美元的价格目标，而现在看来，可能在下周或随时就能达到这个目标。那么，这种持续不断的上涨背后是什么原因呢？我们以前谈到过，关于黄金，人们有很多不同的看法。人们出于不同的原因购买黄金。当然，我们可以从一个较为传统的视角来探讨，比如查看美元的强势表现。

Now, if you look at the dollar index, you can see that the dollar index seems to have hit a high a few weeks ago and has been gradually declining since. Week or dollar, higher gold prices makes total sense. Another common lens to get gold prices is through geopolitical risk, and here it's a bit more puzzling. Now, we all know that President Trump has been very determined to end the war in Ukraine and has also opened diplomatic overtures to Iran, Venezuela, and other nations that are usually, I think, in more higher risk regions. And so that would argue for less geopolitical risk, but at the same time, it does seem like the Trump is taking the US foreign policy in a very different direction where they don't want to guarantee the security of Europe anymore.

现在，如果你查看美元指数，你会发现美元指数似乎在几周前达到了一个高点，并且从那时起逐渐下降。美元疲软时，金价上涨就完全合乎情理。另一个常用来判断金价的视角是地缘政治风险，在这里情况有点复杂。我们都知道，特朗普总统一直非常决心结束乌克兰战争，并且也开始对伊朗、委内瑞拉及其他地区较高风险的国家展开外交接触。这似乎表明地缘政治风险在减少，但与此同时，特朗普似乎正让美国的外交政策走上一条截然不同的方向，不再想要对欧洲的安全进行担保。

So in that sense, there is some increase on certainty, but overall, though, I would expect lower war tensions to put down pressure on gold, but that hasn't happened. Now, two new stories, though, are also pretty interesting, and I think have some truth to them. One new story is tariffs. Now, as we all know, President Trump really likes tariffs and have talked about putting tariffs on a lot of things. Now, a lot of people who are worried that, well, what if you put tariffs on gold, then a $3,000 gold bar, you know, if you put a 10% tariff, that becomes a $3,300 gold bar, and we want to get ahead of that, right? And so maybe people are trying to get ahead of potential tariffs and buying gold and importing that into the United States as much as possible.

从某种意义上说，这确实增加了一些确定性，但总的来说，我本以为较低的战争紧张局势会降低黄金的价格，但这并没有发生。不过，现在有两个新的话题非常有趣，我认为它们是有道理的。其中一个新话题是关税。众所周知，特朗普总统非常热衷于关税，并谈论过对很多东西加征关税。现在很多人担心，如果对黄金征收关税的话，那么一根价值3000美元的金条，征收10%的关税后，就变成3300美元的金条了，所以我们希望能提前应对这种情况。也许人们正在尽可能多地购买黄金并将其进口到美国，以应对潜在的关税。

And that does seem to be part of what's happening here. So if you are someone who was trying to move gold into the United States, one way to do that is through the futures market. A gold futures is basically a commitment to purchase 100 ounces of gold per contract. Now, usually this is done by speculators and producers. So if you are an investor and you were thinking that the gold price would go higher, what you can do is you can buy gold through gold futures, you get lots of leverage in a liquid market and can easily have a lot of exposure very quickly. If you are someone who owns a gold contract, you can also stand for delivery.

这确实似乎就是目前正在发生的情况的一部分。因此，如果你正在尝试将黄金转移到美国，一种方法是通过期货市场。黄金期货基本上就是每份合约承诺购买100盎司黄金。通常，这是由投机者和生产商进行的。所以，如果你是一个投资者，并且认为黄金价格会上涨，你可以通过购买黄金期货来投资，这样你可以在一个流动性强的市场上获得大量杠杆，并能迅速获得大量投资。如果你持有黄金合约，你还可以选择要求实物交割。

And when that happens, you will at the delivery date, the COMEX, so this is the warehouse for the company that runs, the operates the gold futures market, will send you 100 ounces of gold per futures contract and you will wire to them the amount of money for that purchase. Now, usually though, when people specifically in the gold market, they don't want physical, they just want to speculate in paper gold, basically. So they will close out their futures contract and simply roll it to the next quarterly expiration date. But if you do want to move gold physically into the US, you would just hold for delivery.

当这种情况发生时，到交割日时，纽约商品交易所（COMEX）——也就是负责运营黄金期货市场的公司的仓库——将根据每一份期货合约给你发送100盎司的黄金，而你需要通过电汇支付购买这批黄金的款项。不过，通常情况下，人们尤其是在黄金市场中，他们并不想要实物黄金，而只是想通过纸黄金进行投机。因此，他们会平仓期货合约，然后简单地将其延展到下一季度的到期日。但如果你确实想将黄金实物运到美国，你只需持有合约等待交割即可。

And that seems to be what people are doing. So if you look at this chart of gold in the COMEX gold vault, you'll notice that they are absolutely surging. So that tells you that there are a lot of people buying futures and just standing for delivery and having that gold delivered into the COMEX vault. Now, you can have it delivered to your home, of course, but usually what happens is that the gold is, of course, you have title to it, but its physical location continues to rest in the COMEX gold vault or another vault of your choice.

这似乎就是人们正在做的事情。如果你查看这张关于纽约商品交易所(COMEX)黄金库的图表，你会注意到它们的数量正在大幅增加。这表示有许多人在购买期货，然后选择实物交割，并让黄金存放在COMEX的金库里。当然，你也可以选择把黄金送到自己家里，但通常情况下，虽然你拥有黄金的所有权，其实物还是继续存放在COMEX金库或你选择的其他金库。

Now, where's all this physical gold coming from? It seems like it's coming from London. Now, the futures market is based in the US, but the physical market is largely based in London. So what's happening is that people are buying futures and the people who are short the futures are delivering gold to the New York vault and New York COMEX vault. And a lot of that gold that's being sent to New York seems to be coming out of London. And you can see this where people put lots of gold in the Bank of England, Gold Vault, and now are taking that gold out and shaping it to the US. And this whole disallocation where gold, physical gold is moving from out of the country into the US, in part through futures market, seems to be driving some disallocations in the gold market and pushing gold prices higher.

现在，这些实物黄金都是从哪里来的呢？看起来主要是来自伦敦。目前期货市场设在美国，但实物市场主要在伦敦。那么发生的情况是，人们购买期货，而做空期货的人将黄金交付到纽约的金库和纽约的COMEX金库。大量被运往纽约的黄金似乎是从伦敦转移过来的。你可以看到，有人从英格兰银行的黄金金库提取大量黄金，并将其运往美国。这种实物黄金从国外流入美国的现象，部分是通过期货市场进行的，似乎正在导致黄金市场的某些失衡，并推高金价。

Another way you can see this is gold lease rates where people, now, let's say you're so short, a gold contract, you want to deliver a physical gold, you don't have physical gold at the moment, you can go out and borrow it to deliver, these lease rates are surging, and that tells you that there is really a shortage, at least in some parts of the physical market. So that is a story that, to me, makes sense and may not continue. Of course, we don't actually know if Trump really will put tariffs on gold. And ultimately, of course, I mean, not all of the gold in the world will flow into the US. There has to be some exhaustion point for this. And one way to measure that is the spread between the spot in futures gold markets and that spread. There was a very large premium a few weeks ago that does seem to be closing a bit.

可以这样理解：你可以通过黄金租赁利率来看这种情况。比如说，如果你做空了一份黄金合约，并且想要交付实物黄金，但手头没有实物黄金，你可以借用黄金来交付。现在，这些租赁利率正在飙升，这说明至少在某些实物市场中确实存在短缺的现象。对我来说，这个现象是合理的，但可能不会一直持续下去。当然，我们也不确定特朗普是否真的会对黄金加征关税。而最终，世界上的所有黄金也不可能全部流入美国，这之中一定会有一个耗尽的点。一个衡量标准是现货和期货黄金市场之间的价差。几周前，这个价差非常大，现在似乎有所缩小。

Okay, another story that is a little bit more on the fringes is gold revaluation. So the United States has tons and tons of gold. And this is a legacy from the Brent Woods era where we were on a gold standard where a dollar was picked to gold and everyone else was basically using dollars. Now, we moved off the Brent Woods system in the 1970s, but on the books in the United States, gold is still valued at $4,7 and else. Again, market price for gold today is about $2,900 per ounce. Now, if we took all the gold that the United States had and revalued to market prices, that means the United States would be much wealthier but the $2,200 per year would have to say $7,800 billion. Now, over the past few weeks, there have been comments from Trump officials that we want to use the entire balance sheet of the United States. We want to exploit the asset side for balance sheet.

好的，另一个比较边缘的故事是关于黄金的重新估价。美国拥有大量的黄金，这是从布雷顿森林体系时代遗留下来的，那时我们使用金本位制，美元与黄金挂钩，其他国家基本上都在使用美元。我们在上世纪70年代退出了布雷顿森林体系，但在美国的账面上，黄金的价值仍然是每盎司42.22美元。然而，今天市场上的黄金价格大约是每盎司2900美元。如果我们把美国拥有的所有黄金按照市场价格重新估值，这意味着美国会变得更加富有，而每年2200亿美元的账面价值会达到7800亿美元。 最近几周，有特朗普政府的官员表示，他们希望利用美国的整个资产负债表，并且想要充分利用资产负债表的资产方。

And that has led some to speculate that maybe that means that we're gonna take all our gold and use it in some way. After all, that gold is worth $29,000 an ounce. And on the books, it's only $40 an ounce. Seems like that's a lot of free money. And that seems to gain momentum when Elon Musk is talking about auditing Fort Knox. So Fort Knox is a place where a lot of US gold is held. And this is one of the things I love about modern politics. So Zero Hedge had a tweet asking Elon to audit the golden Fort Knox. Elon actually replied and Elon being good friends with the president seemed to have spoken about this with the president and you hear President Trump talking about auditing Fort Knox as well.

这导致一些人猜测我们可能会用某种方式来使用我们所有的黄金。毕竟，这些黄金的市场价值是每盎司29,000美元，但在账面上只算每盎司40美元。这看起来好像是有大笔的“免费”资金。当埃隆·马斯克谈论审计福特诺克斯时，这个想法似乎更受关注。福特诺克斯是美国储存大量黄金的地方之一。这也是我对现代政治感兴趣的原因之一。Zero Hedge发了一条推特，请求埃隆对福特诺克斯的黄金进行审计。埃隆实际上回应了，因为他和总统关系很好，似乎和总统讨论了这件事，你甚至可以听到特朗普总统也谈到审计福特诺克斯。

So it looks like it's going to happen. So all this chatter led to some speculation that, hey, maybe the US will be using this side, this asset on their balance sheet. Now, how would this actually work mechanically? No, that's kind of a puzzle. Now, on the one hand, if the US suddenly revalued its gold, it has, say, extra $800 billion. Maybe it could get cash for that from the Federal Reserve. Maybe that increases the cash balance in the TGA and then the US can get and spend that. We won't have to worry about the debt selling as much, but then expand that enormous amount of monetary expansion. You could think of it as having an upward pressure on inflation and so forth.

所以，看来这件事情可能真的会发生。这些讨论引发了一些猜测，也许美国会利用这个资产在其资产负债表上。那这个事情在操作上要如何实现呢？这确实是一个难题。一方面，如果美国突然重新估值其黄金资产，比如增加了8000亿美元，那么或许可以从美联储获得相应的现金。这样一来，国库总账户（TGA）中的现金余额可能会上升，美国就可以用这些钱进行开支，我们就不必过多担心债务上限的问题。然而，这种大规模的货币扩张可能会对通货膨胀产生上行压力等。

Alternatively, maybe you have, take all this gold and you actually go and sell it in the market to raise cash, do some spending. You know, that seems to me like it would tank gold prices, but you know, that is something else that could happen as well. Now, what is the conclusion of all this speculation? Well, Secretary Bessin basically poured cold water on that in a recent interview. Let's listen to what he said. One thing potentially that could happen and people are questioning it is maybe remarking gold. Elon Musk, who's leading Doge was talking about maybe going to Fort Knox to make sure those gold reserves are there. That comes under your purview.

或者，也许你会把所有这些黄金拿去市场上卖掉，以筹集现金进行一些消费。在我看来，这可能会导致金价暴跌，但这也是可能发生的事情。那么，所有这些猜测的结论是什么呢？贝西恩部长在最近一次采访中对此泼了冷水。让我们听听他说了些什么。可能会发生的一件事，人们正在质疑的是，也许重新估价黄金。带领狗狗币的埃隆·马斯克谈到，也许去诺克斯堡确保那些黄金储备确实在那里。这是你的职责范围之内的事情。

Do you have any plans to visit Kentucky? I don't have any plans. I can tell you that we do an audit every year. I can tell the American people on camera right now that there was a report September 30th, 2024. All the gold is there. Any US senator who wants to come and visit it can arrange a visit through our office. Gold was your biggest holding your hedge fund manager before you divested to become the treasury secretary. So you know the value of our gold is right now versus where it's marked on its balance sheet, just north of $40 an ounce. It's close to 3,000. Is it under consideration for this administration to revalue gold? I think that somehow when we were talking about the sovereign wealth fund and I said monetize the balance sheet, I can promise you that's not what I had in mind. So it's not under consideration, not on the table. That's not what I had in mind.

你有计划去肯塔基州吗？我没有任何计划。不过，我可以告诉你，我们每年都会进行一次审计。我现在可以在镜头前告诉美国人民，2024年9月30日有一份报告，所有的黄金都在那儿。任何想要参观的美国参议员都可以通过我们的办公室安排参观。你之前是黄金的最大持有者，在成为财政部长之前你已经将其转让。所以你知道我们现在黄金的价值与在资产负债表上被标记的价值相比，就在每盎司40美元以上，而实际价值接近3000美元。这个政府是否在考虑重新评估黄金的价值？我认为当我们在讨论主权财富基金时，我提到“资产负债表货币化”，我可以向你保证这不是我想的。因此这不在考虑之列，也不在讨论之中，这不是我的想法。

Basically, he's like, what are you guys talking about? That's really not what I meant. And I agree with him. So I watched all the Trump Prince conferences and I remember visibly when that comment about you using the asset side of the balance sheet came in. And that was clearly in the context of trying to use the abundant natural resources of the United States. Now, again, these people are businessmen, right? So when they're talking about the US debt, they see that as a large liability. $27 trillion worth of debt. So the United States owes a lot of money, but that's only one part of the balance sheet. The United States also owns tremendous amounts of assets, it owns nuclear weapons, tanks, and also millions and millions of acres of land, as well as the mineral riches underneath it.

基本上，他的意思就是，“你们在说什么？那真的不是我想表达的意思。”我同意他的看法。我观看了所有与特朗普有关的新闻发布会，清楚地记得提到利用资产负债表的那一刻。这显然是在讨论如何利用美国丰富的自然资源。这些人都是商人，所以当他们谈论美国的债务时，他们把这看作一个巨大的负担，也就是27万亿美元的债务。美国确实欠了很多钱，但这只是资产负债表的一部分。美国还拥有大量资产，比如核武器、坦克，还有数百万英亩的土地及其地下的矿产资源。

So that could be gold, silver, it could also be natural gas, oil, and so forth. So that discussion was very clearly in line with the Trump administration's effort to get energy prices down, saying that we own a lot of natural resources, we should be using that, both to try to get inflation down, but also to try to pay down our debt. So it was in that context, this was said, but it seems like it was confusing to the market. So no, the US will not be revaluating its gold, but in any case, the gold prices continue to go higher. And we'll see what happens again. Seems like it's a very interesting story, but again, nothing goes up in a straight line.

所以，这可能是指黄金、白银，也可能是天然气、石油等等。这个讨论非常明显是在特朗普政府努力降低能源价格的背景下进行的，他们表示我们拥有大量的自然资源，应该利用这些资源来降低通货膨胀，同时还要尝试偿还我们的债务。在这个背景下，这些话被说出，但似乎市场对其感到困惑。因此，美国不会重新评估其黄金价值，但无论如何，黄金价格却持续上涨。我们将继续观察会发生什么。这看起来是一个非常有趣的故事，但也要记得，没有什么东西是直线上涨的。

Okay, the second thing that I wanna talk about is the Japanese yen. Now, if you look at this chart of the Japanese yen that you'll notice that it's been strengthening notably over the past few weeks, what is the driver for this? In large part, it's the expectation of monetary policy. Now, something very interesting is happening in Japan. Now, whereas inflation, for most of the other developed markets has been trending lower, in Japan inflation has been trending higher. In fact, inflation is about 4% in Japan. It's actually higher than it is in the United States. Now, that of course is a problem for the Bank of Japan, because, well, they have a 2% target and you are notably, notably, overshooting your target.

好的，我想谈的第二件事是日元。现在，如果你看这张日元的走势图，你会注意到在过去几周里它显著增强。从某种程度上说，这是由货币政策的预期推动的。在日本，发生了一些非常有趣的事情。虽然大多数其他发达市场的通胀率在下降，但日本的通胀率却在上升。实际上，日本的通胀率已经达到了约4%，这实际上比美国还要高。当然，这对日本央行来说是一个问题，因为他们的目标是2%，但现在明显超出了这个目标。

So that has let the market de-price in more interest rate hikes. Interest rates in Japan are still very, very low. But as the market continues to price in more hikes, that is, and the United States is, you know, either rates are gonna stay where there are or lower, below or in the future, that interest rate differential between Japan and US is gonna narrow and that argues for a stronger currency. And you can see the market pricing in more B.O.J. hikes by looking at the, I'd say, the 10-year JGB. You can see the 10-year JGB. It looks like a rocket ship, it's going straight up.

因此，市场已经减少了对更多加息的预期。日本的利率仍然非常非常低。但是，随着市场继续预计会有更多加息，而美国的利率要么保持不变，要么在未来变得更低，日美之间的利差将缩小，这将促使日元走强。您可以通过观察10年期日本国债（JGB）的走势看到市场对日本央行加息预期的变化。10年期日本国债的走势看起来就像火箭一样直线上升。

Now, to be clear, it's still very low, let's say 1.4%, but during that period of time, 10-year yields in the US have been range bound. So if Japan continues to hike, if inflation stays high in Japan, you can expect the Japanese yen to continue to appreciate. Now, the Japanese yen is a wild animal. If you look at a history of yen price movements, you can see that sometimes it can appreciate very, very suddenly. Now, I'm talking about a few percent in a single day. Doesn't happen often, but it's happened before. And it has, over periods of time, also moved a lot over the past few years.

需要说明的是，现在的比例仍然非常低，比如说1.4%。但在这段时间内，美国的10年期国债收益率一直在一个范围内波动。因此，如果日本继续加息，并且日本的通胀率保持高位，你可以预期日元会继续升值。需要注意的是，日元是一种波动性很大的货币。如果你查看日元价格的历史变动，你会发现有时它可能会突然大幅升值。我说的是单日内上涨几个百分点。虽然这种情况并不常见，但确实发生过。而且在过去几年中，日元的汇率也经历了较大幅度的变动。

So if you have the Japanese yen strengthening, that usually has a direct knock-on effect on US assets, because a lot of people finance the positions in US assets in the yen. And I'm not talking about big funds who are globally active, and maybe they borrow in yen and buy dollar-nominated assets. I'm talking about just Japanese investors, be it retail or be it at their own investment funds, just having a lot of yen and needing to invest it somewhere. Now, US yields have been higher than Japan, so that's attractive. US stock market have again been outperforming the Japanese stock market, especially when it comes to tech, right?

所以，如果日元升值，它通常会对美国资产产生直接的连锁反应，因为很多人用日元来融资他们在美国资产上的投资。我并不是在说那些在全球活动的大型基金，它们可能会借入日元然后购买以美元计价的资产。我说的是日本的投资者，无论是个人投资者还是他们自己的投资基金，无非是因为手中有大量日元，需要找地方投资。现在，美国的收益率一直高于日本，所以这是具吸引力的。美国股市表现再一次优于日本股市，尤其是在科技领域，对吧？

We have all this NVIDIA and stuff like that. So it seems like there's a lot of, you know, retail investors, again, our dee gens are global. And if we know one thing about dee gens is they like US tech stocks. And what could happen is that as a lot of investors from Japan who have invested in US stocks, as they see the US stock market may be going nowhere, maybe trending lower, as they see the yen appreciate, so they're losing money on the currency side.

我们有很多像NVIDIA这样的公司。看起来有很多散户投资者，尤其是全球范围内的“极限投资者”（dee gens）。我们对这些“极限投资者”有一个了解，就是他们喜欢投资美国科技股。可能发生的情况是，很多来自日本的投资者已经投入美国股票市场，但当他们看到美国股市可能没有太大变化，甚至可能下跌，同时看到日元升值时，他们在汇率方面就会亏损。

They're taking losses, maybe they just, you know, close their positions and go home. And that could easily lead to some kind of avalanche where you say stock prices decline in the US and the yen strengthening, leading off to a, basically another deleveraging cycle. Again, we had somewhat of a preview of this last August, but, you know, this is something that I think is, it will be recurring going forward.

他们正在蒙受损失，可能他们就会选择平仓，然后离场回家。这可能轻易引发一场类似雪崩的状况，比如说，美国股市下跌，同时日元走强，最终导致新一轮的去杠杆循环。这种情况我们在去年八月已经有一些预兆，但我认为，这种情况在未来可能会反复出现。

So I think we should watch the Japanese yen very closely. The more it strengthens, I think the more cautious we should be when it comes to the stock market. All right, so that's all I prepared for today. Thanks so much for tuning.

所以我认为我们应该密切关注日元。日元越强，我们在股市方面就要越谨慎。好了，这就是我今天准备的全部内容。非常感谢您的收听。