On Monday I told you about the ominous signs of coming inflation revealed in the latest Producer Price Index numbers.

Yesterday we got the Consumer Price Index report — and it confirmed everything we’ve been warning you about.

PLUS: Are silver ETFs running out of silver?

April 14, 2021

Dear Fellow Investor,

A couple of days ago we talked about the early warning signs that much higher inflation rates were in the pipeline.

Those signs came from the March Producer Price Index report. As I noted on Monday, “The PPI came in at 1.0%, which was double the consensus expectation, while the core rate at 0.7% was over triple expectations.”

Now, everyone had expected some big year-over-year comps, thanks to the base effect of comparing today’s prices with the depths of the pandemic lows.

But those numbers above — double and triple the expectations — were the month-over-month comps!

The year-over-year PPI comps were indeed impressive, with the headline PPI up 4.2% over last March and the core rate (ex: food and energy) up 3.1%.

In short, the PPI numbers showed that inflationary pressures were already in the supply chain.

Then we got the Consumer Price Index report yesterday…and it confirmed the price inflation that’s already here.

The March headline CPI came in with a 0.6% rise month-over-month, while the core rate (excluding luxuries like food and energy) was reported at 0.3%. Both the headline and core numbers were a tenth higher than the consensus predictions.

Again, the base effect comparisons to last year were expected to be dramatic, and they were, with the headline number coming in at 2.6% year-over-year. That’s already far exceeding the Fed’s 2.0% inflation target, at least measured by the CPI (which they don’t use).

But again, it was the month-over-month comp that was the most shocking, as the 0.6% gain was the greatest rate of increase since 2009!

As I also reported on Monday, these inflationary pressures will run full-force into the Fed’s commitment to keep interest rates pegged near zero.

In fact, given the monumental (and rapidly growing) size of the federal debt, the Fed simply cannot allow rates to rise without simultaneously cratering the federal budget and the assets bubble it has created.

The question then becomes, what happens if/when the Fed loses control of rates?

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An Answer That May Not Be Available

I’m not smart enough to lay out the precise path ahead. And frankly, no one is.

But I do know this: You’ll want to own a hefty allocation of gold and silver as we head into the tumultuous reckoning that lies ahead.

The concerning news we’re getting right now is that you may not be able to avail yourself of this protection when you need it.

You see, we’re all aware that retail bullion products of all types have been scarce, and expensive, in recent months. But now we’re getting information that supplies of large-scale bullion, particularly silver bars, are getting tight.

I had a private Zoom call with Rick Rule last week (recorded exclusively for our New Orleans Conference Club members), in which he shared that the Sprott Physical Silver Trust (PSLV) was finding it increasingly difficult to source its large silver bars.

In short, the institutional-level bullion market was also getting tight.

Then, just yesterday, Ronan Manly of BullionStar.com reported that none other than the London Bullion Market Association itself had admitted that London-based silver ETFs had been in danger of running out of silver during the early-year “silver squeeze.”

As Manly noted:

Manly’s article is deeply detailed and credible, and typical of his reporting analysis on the gold and silver markets. I strongly recommend that you give it a read.

The bottom line is that rising inflation will make it more important than ever for you to own gold and silver…but you may not be able to purchase this protection for long, in either physical or paper form.

The key is to get positioned now, while you can.

All the best,

Brien Lundin
Editor, Gold Newsletter
CEO, the New Orleans Investment Conference