Sunday, April 12, 2026
Tanker transits in both the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea crawled to a virtual halt on April 10-11
Just two out of the Strait of Hormuz April 10-11, just nine through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait in either direction after Iran attacked the Saudi pipeline to Yanbu on April 8-9.
Gold is up 9.9323% YTD, silver 5.9767%
Silver and gold had a good week:
Silver: $76.60 USD +$4.04 USD +5.57% 1W
Gold: $4,764.80 USD +$112.50 USD +2.42% 1W.
Silver was $72.28 on Jan 1, gold was $4,334.30.
Prices are per APMEX, where the 3M and YTD results just happen to be nearly identical as of April 12th, indicating more stability actually Mar 31 to Apr 12.
The war in Iran has been net negative for both gold and silver in the last 30 days, however, as oil prices rose in a volatile manner, which is where all the betting action went. Gold was down over 7% and silver over 10% in the last 30 days.
The blockade of Iran is likely to cause oil prices to spike much more this week, and precious metals to fade, but you never know from day to day with you know who in charge.
Stackers of precious metals will view future price drops as buying opportunities.
Trump cuts off the flow of Iranian oil with blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, about 1.5 million barrels per day, China most hurt
Trump says U.S. will blockade Strait of Hormuz after Iran peace talks fail
Iran sends millions of oil barrels to China through Strait of Hormuz even as war chokes the waterway
Saturday, April 11, 2026
Friday, April 10, 2026
Post-Reagan GDP underperformed the immediate post-war by over 26%, Trump-era GDP underperforms it by almost 32%
Ronald Reagan didn't make America great again, and neither has Trump.
The watershed tax changes throwing away the threat of high ordinary income taxation under Reagan in 1986 and Trump in 2018 have got to go.
The country needs genuinely domestic, long-term investment to bring back economic growth. Reward that with low tax incentives and penalize everything else.
Rich people OBVIOUSLY haven't demonstrated that they know best what to do with their own money, otherwise they would have done it already.
We watched helplessly year after year, especially after 2000, as one business after another moved its production abroad seeking lower labor and regulatory costs to make themselves rich, not us.
We have to make them reverse it, because they aren't going to do it otherwise. Tax the shit out of them until they do the right thing, and keep the threat of taxes hanging over their heads to keep them doing the right thing.
Real GDP Compound Annual Growth Rates
GDPCA 9 April 2026
1947-1984: 3.638%
1984-2017: 2.679%
2017-2025: 2.476%
Thursday, April 9, 2026
Real GDP for 4Q2025 was revised lower to 0.5% from 0.7% last month in today's final estimate, and CNBC buried the story of a stalling economy
The 0.5% estimate is the annual rate of real GDP growth in 4Q, and the figure doesn't sound like much of a revision until you remember that the estimated annual rate in 3Q was 4.4%.
That's one hell of a drop, whether it's to 0.7% or to 0.5%.
In other words, the economy nearly stalled in 4Q.
Meanwhile real GDP for full year 2025 increased at a measly 2.1% rate.
CNBC buried the bad news in a different story, seven paragraphs down:
Inflation held sticky at 3% as U.S. headed into war with Iran, key Fed gauge shows
... Separately, the Commerce Department reported that economic growth was even slower than previously reported for the fourth quarter of 2025.
Gross domestic product, a measure of all goods and services produced, rose just 0.5% on a seasonally adjusted annualized rate, down from the prior reading of 0.7% and the initial estimate of 1.4%. The full-year growth rate held at 2.1%.
The department said the downward revision came primarily to lower investment than previously indicated. ...
Gee, I thought Trump said $18 trillion in investment was flowing into the economy?
Golden Age, my foot.
Meanwhile the initial estimate was cut in half by the second estimate, and the final estimate cut that by nearly 29% more. They were off by only 64% in the end.
Remember, this is all pre-Iran-War-induced oil crisis, too.
It's going to be ugly.
Kevin Asshat says even one tanker is big
Hormuz strait oil traffic way down after ceasefire; Hassett says even one tanker is big
"... being mindful of the fact that if you get one of those big tankers through, that’s 2 million barrels. So that’s a huge chunk of what’s missing," he said.
Before the war, about 20 million barrels of oil were transiting the strait per day. ...
Estimates of supply lost which I have seen today say 9 million barrels per day of supply have been lost, worse than the COVID shutdown.
Some 230 tankers are loaded with oil and waiting to sail out of the Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz, but they can't
The Strait of Hormuz is not open as Iran controls access after ceasefire, UAE oil CEO says
... “This moment requires clarity,” said Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber in a social media post. “So let’s be clear: the Strait of Hormuz is not open. Access is being restricted, conditioned and controlled.”
Iran has made clear that ships must obtain its permission to pass through the strait, Al Jaber said. “That is not freedom of navigation. That is coercion,” the ADNOC chief said. ...
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