Rambus Article – Some Thoughts
If you haven’t read the Rambus post, that Fully highlighted earlier, you really should. It gives a superb, and in my view, vital, alternative scenario. He’s clearly hugely experienced, and this gives great balance to a lot of the gold bull/dollar bear possibilities. I use that term ‘possibilities’ deliberately, because the future is rarely clear-cut. I have a strong bias, expecting a gold bull into 2026 as you may know, but closing your eyes to all other possibilities would be foolish.
So, getting to the point. The ONLY thing I can think of that I would question, is why use a log chart for the dollar index. I do it often enough, but surely, from a mathematical (and therefore, charting) point of view, the only reason to use a log chart is if the thing you’re charting is behaving in an exponential fashion. Gold for example, or the stock market. If it’s numerical value is changing by orders of magnitude (you keep needing to add another zero to the numbers), then a log chart is valid. That’s not the case with an index like the US Dollar. Quite the opposite in fact – the DXY has been peaking at 100 to 160 for the last 3 cycles/50 years.
If that’s the case, perhaps the reason the dollar has bounced here lies elsewhere. In fact, I showed it on two separate charts yesterday. If you use the more appropriate, non log, linear chart scale, we are nowhere near hitting that resistance/support line yet (extension of the black line on my chart below). But, and this is the interesting bit, we are bouncing at a confluence of the long term horizontal support and rising, bull market uptrend. Here’s the chart (note the meeting of the red lines and then the blue lines)…
So, there are three things I’d conclude,
1). This is exactly what happened last time, and it didn’t stop the dollar bear cycle unfolding
2). Either way, it amounts to the same thing – the dollar needs to drop here for the gold bull to really get started
3). If it doesn’t, we’re screwed
2). Either way, it amounts to the same thing – the dollar needs to drop here for the gold bull to really get started
3). If it doesn’t, we’re screwed
Probably screwed either way.
Dollar down means more debt, more financialization, more inequality, more political turmoil. Gold can only insulate you so far, even though its best to have some.
Dollar up means a reversal of the post Bretton Woods trends, probably toward a crisis that leads to a systemic realignment. Its coming, one way or another. Its just a question of sooner or later, and the degree of calamity involved. The further we kick the can …. Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.
It’s possible that we get a move now like we did in ’04-’05 where we had a bear trap then a bull trap and then down she went.
it’s an exhaustive analysis basically reiterating my latest post…log or linear, there is no denying that the $USD has bounced at well defined support, at a time where one would expect it to complete its annual cycle low, and has now broken above resistance.
The next 4 to 6 weeks will be very telling.
FYI – log charts are commonly used on everything (stocks, commodities, etc) because they are based on an equal percentage change. In other words, a move from $10.00 to $11.00 (10% change) would look the same as a change from $1.00 to $1.10 (also 10%). Since you get the same profit from both transactions it only makes sense to show lines of the same length.
Yes, of course, that’s right Ken, and if the data is increasing or decreasing exponentially, the log chart is the correct one to use. My point was that the dollar isn’t moving exponentially, it’s just been fluctuating between 70 and 160 for the last 50 years, which means the data isn’t exponential, and therefore the scale on the chart shouldn’t be either.
Guess we will just have to agree to disagree on this one sir. My explanation was meant to show that an equal percent price change (over any period, regardless of the function of the slope) shows an equal distance movement on the chart. Guess that’s just how engineers think.
To show you there are no hard feelings though, I will tell you my favorite engineer joke.
How do you tell an extroverted engineer from an introverted one? The extroverted engineer looks at the OTHER guy’s shoes when he talks.
Have a good one. 🙂
Lol. Never any hard feelings on my side 😉