Sluggish trading persisted on Tuesday, perhaps slowing in anticipation the White House visit by Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu, or the delayed release of January Non-Farm Payrolls, which are expected to show an annual revision of close to one million fewer jobs than reported.
While Netanyahu was expected to land in D.C. at some undisclosed time, the jobs report was released an hour before the opening bell, revealing that employment rose by 130,000 in January. This is almost certainly a lie. Traditionally, businesses lay off people after the holidays. To believe that the U.S. added 130,000 jobs in a month that was impacted by two major snowstorms and government employment down 34,000 for the month is ludicrous at face value.
The BLS reports that total nonfarm payroll employment for November was revised down by 15,000, from +56,000 to +41,000, and the change for December was revised down by 2,000, from +50,000 to +48,000. Expect another revision - to January - next month.
Making themselves look even more politically-contrived, the BLS added their annual adjustment, to wit:
The seasonally adjusted total nonfarm employment level for March 2025 was revised downward by 898,000. On a not seasonally adjusted basis, the total nonfarm employment level for March 2025 was revised downward by 862,000, or -0.5 percent.
So, the January jobs fiasco issued, stock futures shot straight up, gold and silver sent straight down, anticipating something, surely not rate cuts with the job market so strong, unless the captains of collusion commerce don't believe the government either.
With everybody wondering about the future of interest rates (the cost of borrowing, upon which Wall Street thrives), the problem according to the Associated Press (AP) is this:
One of the reasons the U.S. stock market has remained close to records is the expectation that the Fed will continue cutting interest rates later this year. Lower rates can give the economy a boost, though they can also worsen inflation.
The Fed seems to have created its own mousetrap. It can lower rates to boost the economy, but there goes the currency, down the rabbit hole of hyper-inflation, and that has been exactly the plan all along. The Federal Reserve could care less about the lives of the miserable "little people." Their dual mandate is just one of the lies that allows them to continue the counterfeiting operation that creates money out of thin air.
Ask yourself, if you had the power to create as much money to spend on whatever you like, what would you do? Naturally, you'd create as much money as needed to buy up all the things you desire, give some to your friends and/or relatives, and enjoy the sweet life. If you are not a monster, you might even give some to the people who you see not doing as well. Make their lives a little better. It's just human nature, and that's exactly what the Fed has been doing, slowly, almost imperceptibly, for decades. After 113 years, they and their friends are all very well off, and they've completely dismissed the fates of the rest, allowing them to best fend for themselves.
When the currency collapses under its own weight, they will still own the finest properties, homes, yachts, businesses, and physical goods they need to live well and pass along to their heirs. Everybody else will have whatever they've managed to scrape together, but many won't have any income because there are fewer good jobs, and those who were dependent on government handouts - including those on food stamps, pensions and Social Security - won't have much and they will spend whatever government stipends survive just to stay alive. Some will lose their homes; others will starve to death or die from medical conditions they cannot afford to have treated. This is a process already in motion. First, hyper-inflation, then, depression. There may be a World War thrown in there for good measure.
If that sounds like the economy extant today, it is because the United States is in the late stage of collapsing the currency. The $US is worth less than two percent of what it was originally, back in 2013. Where a buck could buy a haircut, a dinner for two
In 1913, the average inflation rate was approximately 2.06% per year, leading to a cumulative price increase of about 3,173.96% over the years. For example, $100 in 1913 is equivalent to about $3,273.96 today in terms of purchasing power. Put another way that makes more sense, today's dollar would have been worth about $32 in 2013.
In 1913, one dollar ($1) could have purchased a bottle of Bordeau wine (39¢), a pound of fresh camembert cheese (30¢) and a tin box of Bent's Water Crackers (28¢) and gotten three cents back.
Try that today.
For good measure, here's a BLS report from June 28, 1913 [PDF]. Scroll down to page 25 to see the prices for various groceries in different cities, beginning with Atlanta, GA, where a pound of sirloin steak had risen from 20 cents in 1912 to 27.5 cents in 2013. People were upset...
What should be impacting the market, other than the prospect for war and phony statistics by government agencies are earnings reports. After the bell on Tuesday, these companies reported fourth quarter results:
Ford (F) - reported worst quarterly miss in four years, shares flat on positive guidance (OK, sure)
Lyft (LYFT) - big miss, operating loss, ridership down, shares off 15% pre-market
Possibly suffering from fatigue, stocks and commodities limped along on Monday, dragging te Dow Jones Industrial Average to a second straight record close.
Recently volatile commodity markets in gold and silver were subdued for a change, along with bitcoin, all of which traded inside relatively tight ranges.
Tuesday morning saw December Retail Sales flat compared to November, and up 2.4% year-over-year, not even keeping pace with inflation, yet another sign that the U.S. economy isn't actually the "hottest" in the world, but that consumers are having an increasingly-hard time making ends meet.
Also on Tuesday, more companies reported full year and 4th quarter 2025 results. Among them:
Coca-Cola (KO) was short on revenue estimates; the stock is trading 2% lower pre-market
CVS Health (CVS) met estimates but is flat in pre-market trading due to concerns over Medicare fraud
Fiserve (FISV) disappointed with flattish earnings, down 3.5% before the bell
S&P Global (SPGI) beat on revenue, missed on EPS, poor guidance sends stock 15% lower
AstraZeneca (AZN) attributes strong Q4 to cancer drugs, stock up 1-2%
Marriott (MAR) in line with estimates, up 3.5%
Stock futures are flat-lining, gold and silver are down modestly. Gold, $5,058; silver, $81.87
Looks like another slow session ahead of tomorrow’s delayed January Non-farm Payrolls.
At the Close, Monday, February 9, 2026:
Dow: 50,135.87, +20.20 (+0.04%)
NASDAQ: 23,238.67, +207.46 (+0.90%)
S&P 500: 6,964.82, +32.52 (+0.47%)
NYSE Composite: 23,340.74, +87.92 (+0.38%)
Even with the limited, heavily-redacted release of the Epstein Files, it's now become crystal clear that the world is dealing with the deepest institutional corruption the world has ever known, encompassing high levels of government, banking and commerce, the primary focal points the United States, European Union, and nations of the British Commonwealth.
Adherence to post-World War II economic, political, and military policies has encumbered most of the Western nations with excessive debt, spreading poverty, lowered standards of living, extreme wealth inequality, elevated levels of censorship, perpetual military conflicts, corporate oligarchies, a tiered legal system, lawfare, and a complete repudiation of the rule of law by an elite control bureaucracy, compromised elected and high-ranking officials, business leaders and media complex.
Guided by an Orwellian propaganda narrative, the general populations of Western countries are blind to the truth, shielded from the sheer scope of power and rapacious public policies that have brought the West to the brink of self-destruction. Control mechanisms deeply embedded in finance, law, and societal norms present a reality based on half-truths, conjecture, and outright lies.
No ordinary citizen of these countries is free in any sense of the word. Governments at all levels, in collusion with banking, financial, and media institutions control currency, commerce, regulations, education, health, culture, speech, and rights, closing in on what people are allowed to do, or think.
The social contract in democratic society was never supposed to be a one-way street in which elites do whatever they like without consequences, dictating to the masses the limitations of their freedoms, how they run their lives, what they can keep for themselves and what constitutes tribute. Citizens have inalienable rights, not protections granted by government. This is the great divide. In order to be free and experience liberty in all its expansive expressions, individuals need rely on government for nothing beyond national defense and the rule of law. Instead, Western nations have reversed roles. Governments demand to rule over the people, rather than the people giving consent to the government.
These convulsions of everything that in the past made for great nations and free people, has engendered a neo-fascism that can no longer be hidden and threatens the survival of the nations and states and the people themselves. These are dangerous times.
A couple of salient, anecdotal points are prescient. Freedom of information is essential and it is being denied in various manners. Stories hidden behind subscription services and paywalls that contain the core kernels of truth should be available to all, for free, not for a fee.
Opaque or absence of regulations, especially in commerce and finance, should be plain, simple, and easily understood. Complexity and censorship encourages collusion, cheating, obfuscation, and outright lying. Untruth or lack of honesty has become endemic in the leading institutions, which helps explain why trust in government, media, finance, and medical authorities have dropped to unsustainably low levels.
Understanding the ramifications of this article, The Hijacking of Bitcoin and the accompanying video...
gives credence to just how far down the rabbit hole go the Epstein Files and how deeply intertwined are current government operatives in everything that matters: your money, your property rights, your lives.
Regrettably, Money Daily does not possess the resources available to present the whole story. It can, however, serve as a guide, pointing to the most important facets of the current condition. That's the purpose of links and embedded videos.
There are few people who understand just how dangerous conditions are currently. Sourcing information about Roger Ver - known in some circles as "Bitcoin Jesus" - and viewing his interview with Tucker Carlson provides a step toward self-education and revelation.
Rather than being a bystander to extreme, six-sigma motions in financial markets, the time has come to question why the price of silver rises to $121 and then falls to $76 in one day's trading, or why stocks dropped like rocks three days this week, but were saved by a glorious, out-of-the-blue, massive Friday rally (a repeating theme) that sent the Dow Jones Industrial Average to a record close.
It's time to understand what's happening and take action.
Stocks
Stocks rocked up and down over the course of the week with varying results among the big three indices.
A major selloff in the tech space, driven by doubts over excessive CapEx on AI buildout and an implosion in software issues, sent the NASDAQ reeling.
Friday's massive rally lifted the Dow to a record close, but failed to deliver the NASDAQ from its fourth straight weekly decline and the S&P from falling for the third time in the past four weeks.
Outperforming everything was the Dow Jones Transportation Average, up a whopping eight percent on the week. Airlines and shippers comprise most of the 20 stocks on the average, now having exceeded all expectations after a rapid advance from the end of November, lifting the index by more than 4,000 points. The major reversal began off the Liberation Day lows in April when the index stood at 12,470.80, closing this week at 19,892.36, a gain of 59.5% in 10 months.
The advance in the Transportation Average seems a bit out of kilter, given that many of the companies involved (AA, UAL, FDX, UPS, etc.) haven't been exactly blowing the tops off earnings, though most have been cutting jobs and operating expenses, which makes enough sense from a "do more with less" perspective.
Other than the Dow, the NYSE Composite showed the strength in small caps. Emerging markets are also faring well. The S&P ended flat for the week.
December retail sales will be the first important data drop of the week on Tuesday, followed Wednesday by the delayed January jobs report. Also delayed from its original date because of the brief government shutdown is January CPI on Friday.
The week ahead will feature more earnings reports with a couple of Dow components mixed in (McDonald's, Coca-Cola, Cisco):
Friday: (before open) Wendy's (WEN), Advance Auto Parts (AAP), Enbridge (ENB), Moderna (MRNA)
Treasury Yield Curve Rates
Date
1 Mo
1.5 mo
2 Mo
3 Mo
4 Mo
6 Mo
1 Yr
01/02/2026
3.72
3.71
3.66
3.65
3.62
3.58
3.47
01/09/2026
3.70
3.68
3.63
3.62
3.62
3.57
3.52
01/16/2026
3.75
3.72
3.68
3.67
3.66
3.60
3.55
01/23/2026
3.78
3.71
3.72
3.70
3.67
3.61
3.53
01/30/2026
3.72
3.73
3.75
3.67
3.69
3.61
3.48
02/06/2026
3.72
3.72
3.74
3.68
3.70
3.59
3.45
Date
2 Yr
3 Yr
5 Yr
7 Yr
10 Yr
20 Yr
30 Yr
01/02/2026
3.47
3.55
3.74
3.95
4.19
4.81
4.86
01/09/2026
3.54
3.59
3.75
3.95
4.18
4.76
4.82
01/16/2026
3.59
3.67
3.82
4.02
4.24
4.79
4.83
01/23/2026
3.60
3.67
3.84
4.03
4.24
4.78
4.82
01/30/2026
3.52
3.60
3.79
4.01
4.26
4.82
4.87
02/06/2026
3.50
3.57
3.76
3.98
4.22
4.80
4.85
Interest rates were significant;y higher mid-week than they were on Friday, so the table above may be a little bit misleading. On Wednesday, yields on 2s were 3.57%: 3s, 3.64%; fives, 3.83%; sevens, 4.05%; 10s, 4.29%; 20s, 4.86%, and 30s, 4.91%.
The big drops into the Friday close reveal the extent of the Feds YCC (Yield Curve Control), making everything seem cool when the fact is that markets are overheating. Jumping out of the stock market frying pan and into the fixed income fire - and then back again - indicates just how frayed markets have become, everybody seeking a relief valve or escape hatch at the same time, and, almost miraculously, finding one.
Losers are retail plungers who zig when everybody else is zagging and don't fully comprehend the mechanics of herd behavior. In the end, the treasury complex is as much the snake eating its tail as any other metaphor. The scheme of having stablecoins replace actual sovereigns as net purchasers of U.S. debt is an incestuous torture chamber that will keep the American Dream alive a little longer, provided nobody awakens to the debt disaster unfolding. When will government debt become too burdensome? If $38 trillion isn't enough, how about $50 trillion? At current levels, that's a mere six years away.
What escaped notice this week because of the "inside baseball" nature of heavy institutional money playing alongside monetary policy games at the Fed is that stocks and bonds were heading south at the same time. Let's see, Stocks going down, money more expensive to borrow? How's that going to work out? Fast footwork by the New York Fed's buying desk andf the PPT are roughly the only things keeping Armageddon from busting down the front door.
It's a shame the smart guys have miscalculated. Trump's pass-through on the midterms originally required a short recession last year and a strong recovery in 2026 (create a problem, solve it rationale). That all blew up when he TACO'd a few days after "Liberation Day" back in April. Somewhere, sometime, somebody is going to let all the juice out and allow a proper flush of non-performing assets, companies, logic, but the can kicking remains in place because there is nobody willing to bear the pain of being right, especially Trump, who will continue to kick the can down the wrong road until it goes right over a cliff, the economy and his loss of majorities in congress with it. He'll be impeached next year, if not earlier, and then real fireworks! Can't wait!
Spreads remain elevated. It would appear that once spreads and the yield curve begin to flatten out the truth will begin to see the light of day. No jobs, no industry, no expansion. GDP and CPI are lies that cannot fully cover up the actual carnage. If the Fed and Wall Street ever stop relying on those ancient, deeply-flawed metrics to make policy and investment decisions, the world will become unrecognizable, ugly at first, sturdy afterwards. The adjustment period will be trying, but that's a dream for another day...
WTI crude closed out the week at $63.50, down significantly from last week's close of $65.74. While there remains an oil glut, geopolitical tensions stemming from the stalled out military action against Iran are keeping the price elevated for now. The U.S. position continues to be one of threatening Iran with complete destruction should its leaders not comply to extreme U.S. terms, one of which is lowering the range of its missiles so that they could not reach Israel, an absurd demand that verifies exactly what the U.S. is being led to do.
The U.S. national average for gas at the pump rose two cents, to $2.89.
California ramped up another 12 cents this week, to $4.43 per gallon, the highest in the nation. Washington ($3.99) moved to within a whisker of rejoining Cali in the $4+ club. Oregon ($3.49), was up 11 cents. After three weeks under $3.00, Arizona popped to $3.09. The lowest prices remain in the Southeast, with Oklahoma far below any other state, at $2.27, followed by Arkansas ($2.40), Louisiana and Mississippi ($2.42). The remaining Southeast states, from North Carolina ($2.69) west to New Mexico, are all wellbelow $2.69, except Florida ($2.89).
In the Northeast, prices were steady and consistently low. Only Pennsylvania ($3.13) was above $3.00. New York held steady at $2.97, along with Vermont ($2.98).
In the midwest region, where the price relief has been significant, Illinois remained the highest, at $3.00, up ten cents from last week, with Michigan and Indiana far behind at $2.80. Kansas was the lowest ($2.42), followed by North Dakota and Missouri ($2.52) and Wisconsin ($2.55).
Sub-$3.00 gas was reported in 41 of the lower 48 states, two fewer than last week, leaving only California, Washington, Nevada, Oregon, Illinois, Arizona, and Pennsylvania, at $3.00 or above.
Bitcoin
This week: $71,145.72
Last week: $77,242.74
2 weeks ago: $88,556.82
6 months ago: $113,941.10
One year ago: $99,655.54
Five years ago: $39,255.36
See the opening statement in this week's post for information on bitcoin. People with deep roots in bitcoin and other crypto developments are have been sounding alarm bells since 2017, but the effectiveness of the censorship cartel has shrouded the truth from the general public. The truth about bitcoin's hijacking by financial thugs needs to be exposed to the light.
Moving forward, anybody interested in private transactions devoid of the snooping evil-eyed deep state might want to investigate Monero, Zeno, Zcash, Zcoin.
Bitcoin hit a low of $61,395 in the early morning hours of Friday, February 6. The same people who provided the money to bail out the stock markets also bailed out bitcoin because the two asset classes - along with the Treasury market - are completely intertwined. The deep state cannot allow any of their favored asset classes to fail or - for political purposes - even suffer deep corrections, though bitcoin advocates would likely offer a different opinion, the crypto market in general having been reduced by half or more over the past four months.
Bitcoin, being tied to stablecoins and CBDC development, requires deeper scrutiny. No matter what the condition is, it's certainly not looking like the ultimate panacea of the old-line advocates.
According to the best expert voices - Alasdair Macleod, Craig Hemke, Andrew Maguire and others - nobody sold a single ouce of gold or silver over the past week. Why would they? Most individual stackers have been sitting on their hands and acquiring precious metals for years, even decades. A short term correction didn't change their convictions, especially when the price of gold dropped back to where it was just two weeks prior and silver is about where it was four to five weeks ago and the volatility doesn't appear to be waning.
Whatever causes one assigns to the pullback in precious metals over the past week or so, the overriding narrative hasn't changed one iota. Western governments continue to inflate by debasing their sovereign currencies, the COMEX and LBMA are criminal enterprises engaged in suppression tactics to further the illusion of mighty dollars, euros, pounds, and yen. For silver in particular, the ongoing supply shortagehasn't been fixed overnight and won't be any time soon.
In the aftermath of the phenomenal recent price dislocation, China has responded with a few new regulations, cracking down on stablecoins and asset tokenization and the Shanghai Futures Exchange imposed restrictions on opening new positions for six groups of accounts, saying the account groups breached intraday opening transaction thresholds in related contracts, violating Article 16 of the Shanghai Futures Exchange Measures for the Administration of Abnormal Trading Behavior. The exchange imposed regulatory measures restricting the opening of new positions in the affected contracts.
The truth matters. While the SHFE didn't name names, it's notable that JP Morgan moved its precious metals trading division to Singapore in late November. A slap on the wrist from Shanghai regulators isn't likely to deter the gang that already paid a nearly $1 billion fine for manipulating metals markets in the U.S., especially with China's markets closed for Chinese New Year. For the Shanghai Stock Exchange and Shenzhen Stock Exchange, the trading suspension schedule for the 2026 Lunar New Year holiday is from February 13 to February 20, with trading resuming on February 23, 2026. Similar closures are in place for the physical Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE) and SHFE.
Active traders should keep those dates in mind while the underworld of stackers and goldbugs can sit back and enjoy the show.
Silver is in backwardation once again, thanks to a second round of paper games Wednesday and Thursday, leading to a strong rebound Friday.
Here are the most recent prices for common one ounce gold and silver items sold on eBay (free shipping included, numismatics excluded):
Item/Price
Low
High
Average
Median
1 oz silver coin:
79.95
108.00
95.64
96.00
1 oz silver bar:
90.30
110.00
99.15
99.25
1 oz gold coin:
5,235.12
5,436.00
5,322.92
5,317.53
1 oz gold bar:
4,900.00
5,359.99
5,222.44
5,233.67
The Single Ounce Silver Market Price Benchmark (SOSMPB) took another big drop this week, falling to $97.51, a decline of $9.11 from the February 1 price of $106.62 per troy ounce. The weekly movement reflects wider volatility in world markets and between physical and paper prices.
The weekly eBay price survey revealed that retail dealers and casual buyers and sellers are either ignoring spot prices altogether or are adding severe premiums, likely the latter in terms of dealers, most of which don't have the cash resources to hedge against the recent wild swings, so they protect themselves by keeping prices exorbitantly ahead of spot and buying well below. Coin shops have been inundated with gold and silver sellers who are angry at prices offered. Most anybody who is selling their bullion or coinage does not appreciate the dynamics of the market and the positions of the small dealers. They only have stars in their eyes over the massive gains in precious metals and have no rationale about the future. Tight economic conditions for the middle and lower classes (90% of Americans) are also exacerbating the selling while across the oceans Indians and Chinese citizens are buying metals hand over fist, evidencing the difference in culture. Asians are savers, Americans and Europeans (bound by fiat money) are taught to spend.
WEEKEND WRAP
It's OK to watch the Super Bowl later today. It might even be OK to miss work tomorrow. The Monday following the Super Bowl is the most missed day of work of the entire year. Take a break. If you read any of this week’s prose or followed any of the links, you certainly deserve one.
Disclaimer: Information disseminated on this site should not be construed as investment advice. Downtown Magazine Inc., Money Daily and it's owners, affiliates and/or employees are not investment advisors and do not offer specific investment advice. All investments have risk. You should consult a professional investment advisor or stock broker or use your individual judgement when making investment decisions. By viewing this site, you hold harmless Downtown Magazine Inc., Money Daily, its owners, affiliates and employees against any and all liability. Copyright 2026, Downtown Magazine Inc., all rights reserved.
It's been a trying week for just abot anybody invested in anything. From bitcoin, to stocks, to precious metals, financial markets spent the week gyrating, with most o fthe movement to the downside.
The major average, through Thursday’s close, have been rattled. Of the big three, only the Dow is positive, up a mere 16 points. Any minor drop would send the industrials to its fourth straight weekly loss. The NASDAQ is the biggest loser on the week, down three straight sessions and three consecutive weeks. With Thursday's close, it is down 921 points on the week, a loss of nearly four percent. A fourth straight weekly decline seems almost certain for the once-loved, tech-heavy index.
The S&P 500 has also logged losses the past three sessions. Down just more than two percent, its 140-point loss on the week is troubling. These are America's largest companies and many of them have already reported earnings for the fourth quarter of 2025, with spotty results. A large contingent of S&P companies have beaten estimates but issued sobering guidance, which triggered selling in many issues.
Of particular focus are the companies involved with the AI buildout. Alphabet, Microsoft, and Thursday night, Amazon reported earnings and issued guidance with expanded CapEx spending. They've all been snet lower. Investors got ahead of the trend with Amazon, sending the stock to a four percent loss on Thursday, and another eight percent lower after the close and into the pre-market based on their lavishly-planned AI spending.
Additionally, the crypto space continues to be ravaged and has become a liquidity event. With bitcoin bottoming at $61,395 Thursday night, former "hodlers" and speculators hoping for continued advances have become disenchanted with the entire space. Bitcoin has been more than halved since its all-time highs above $124,00 in early October, 2025, and other popular "coins" have been slashed.
In just the last six months, Ethereum (ether) has shed 46%, Cardano is down 63%, and XRP has dropped 53%. The entire blockchain bonanza has suddenly gone tilt because investors, whales, true believers and suckers alike have found no actual use case in scale for any of it. Originally promoted as peer-to-peer anonymous currency outside the purview of governments and regulations, the entire crypto universe has been turned into nothing short of privacy-invasive tokens, with all transactions recorded, tracked, and taxed, as Wall Street and the D.C. horde descended on the fledgling sector with its usual glaringly-obvious intrusions.
Cyrpto has become a melting pot of criminality, slush funds, and liquidity taps. There's literally no mass adoption of bitcoin and its thousands of imitators and the next shoe to drop will be bitcoin miners giving up, with blockchain rewards dwindling and costs either remaining high or soaring higher, mostly CPU prices and electricity expenses. The dismantling of the entire crypto structure of developers, financiers, and users is likely to happen with more alacrity than most people could have imagined. In the case of a recessionary deflation, many of the "coins" and projects will be left to founders or abandoned and bankrupted. It's a very serious problem, for which neither the market nor the crypto evangelists have any solutions.
After the close Thursday, a few important earnings announcements:
Reddit (RDDT) - beat top and bottom, issued strong guidance, $1 billion share repurchase, stock up 6-7% pre-market
Amazon (AMZN) - down 8% pre-market after guiding towards excessive CapEx
Strategy (MSTR) - hammered lower during cash session on bitcoin losses, down 72% over past six months, up 9% pre-market on bitcoin bounce
Friday, before the opening bell, a few more earnings releases by:
Biogen (BIIB) - minor beat, shares up 1% pre-market
AutoNation (AN) - 4Q sales below estimates, stock gyrating, down 5% Thursday, up 4% pre-market
Under Armour (UAA) - reports beat, shares up 2%
Beyond stocks and crypto, the usual bastions of safety, gold and silver, have witnessed volatility rarely experienced in the commodities sector, though dislocations and rapid gains and losses are beginning to define what is becoming a 24-hour, global market, especially for precious metals, including platinum and palladium. Silver especially has been whipsawed this week, trading in a range from a low of $65 per ounce to above $91, currently up overnight to $75.35. Gold has been somewhat less volatile, bounding between $4.660 and $5,080 this week. Thursday morning has spot gold at $4,925.50.
Stock futures are ripping higher a half hour before the U.S. opening bell.
Dead cat bounce incoming.
At the Close, Thursday, February 6, 2026:
Dow: 48,908.72, -592.58 (-1.20%)
NASDAQ: 22,540.59, -363.99 (-1.59%)
S&P 500: 6,798.40, -84.32 (-1.23%)
NYSE Composite: 22,733.32, -242.28 (-1.05%)
Bitcoin is crashing, tech stocks are dropping, and investors are scrambling to find the next best thing.
Prudent investors, a significant minority which would likely include anyone with more then five percent of their assets in precious metals (about 5% of all U.S. investors) are rotating into industrials, basic materials, miners, and cash.
As bitcoin dipped into territory not seen since November, 2024, this headline catches the eye:
The story, by Ines Ferré and Grace O'Donnell, was updated Thursday, February 5, 2026 at 7:02 am ET. It has generated more 1,800 comments and counting, most of them not friendly toward bitcoin and crypto in general. Most articles on Yahoo! Finance are lucky to receive a couple hundred comments, making this one a standout.
The headline itself relays an important signal: In what universe does the Secretary of the Treasury even consider "bailing out" any risk asset. Further, in what parallel bizarro-universe does a sitting representative - Rep. Brad Sherman, D, CA-32) - even ask such a question. As a financial powerhouse, the U.S. is in uncharted waters. Refreshingly, Bessent balked at the notion repeatedly, informing the House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday that he doesn't have the authority to instruct banks to buy bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency.
He also dismissed the notion that the U.S. Treasury would prop up bitcoin.
That was the good news. The bad news came from far outside congressional chambers, on trading desks around the world, as bitcoin, the granddaddy of the crypto universe. continued its deep decline from a high of $124,310.60 on October 7, 2025, to it's current low, as of this writing, at 8:35 am ET, of $69,345.04, a four-month drop of 44.22%, with no end in sight.
The chart below paints an unpleasant picture of bitcoin's demise, comparing it to two other alternatives to the U.S. dollar, which actually are stores of value, mediums of exchange and have been money for thousands of years. It speaks for itself.
With bitcoin "whales" discovering that their hands are bleeding from repeated attempts to catch the falling crypto knife, the rout is likely to accelerate from here. In terms of fundamental analysis, there was pocket of support from $75,000 to $85,000, but that's already gone. The next stop is in a range around $64,000. After that, it's free-fall down to $30,000 or lower.
At some point, as with all speculative assets, sone people will become interested in buying bitcoin, but at what price? $50,000, $35,000, $20,000? Because bitcoin is divisible out to eigt decimal points, it's possible for the price of one bitcoin (of the 20 million already out there) to fall under one dollar. It's conceivable that one wallet could hold all the bitcoin in the world, at $0.001 per unit. where it eventually resides depends on liquidity and levels risk management by miners, who won't be so eager to spend fortunes on computers and energy to mine the blockchain, and the OG whales who own 90% of the available stock.
As bitcoin proceeds down the path to insolvency, which would likely be defined by criminals refusing to accept it, all the other crypto plans will be washed down the drain with it. Blockchain technology is a useful function. Truing to turn it into value seems now to have been a fool's errand.
The money that brought bitcoin to its previous glorified heights is the same money that is exiting, bringing down to what appears to be some very undignified lows. A lot of money is changing hands and it will be looking for places to go. Some will sit in cash. Some will go into stocks, some to precious metals, some to other speculative assets. Hardly any of it will go into fixed income, like corporate bonds or treasuries.
At the same time, it appears the promise of the other great speculation, AI, has lost its mojo. It's not so much that AI is useless - it has great potential and is already employed in a good number of business activities - it's that the money being spent pursuing profits from selling subscription services by the big tech names doesn't add up. Google, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft and others are pouring hundreds of billions into data centers without a clear pathway to profitability and Wall Street has sniffed it out.
Just last night, Alphabet (GOOG), parent of Google, released blowout fourth quarter numbers, sending the stock soaring after hours, but overnight, the mood changed, as investors worried about the massive CapEx the company is planning. Google said it would significantly increase its 2026 capital expenditure to between $175 billion and $185 billion, more than double its 2025 spending.
Shares of Alphabet are down five percent pre-market.
Elsewhere, Microsoft Corp. reported solid earnings last week, but investors zeroed in on stagnating growth in its Azure cloud-computing business and the more than $100 billion it’s expected to dole out in capital spending this year. Consequently, the stock tumbled 10%, and the selling has carried over into this week. Microsoft is down more than 15% since January 28.
Thursday, before the open, a few more names of companies reporting fourth quarter results and their pre-market moves:
Shell (SHEL) - big miss, worst in five years, shares down 2.5%
ConocoPhillips (COP) - earnings miss, stock down 3-4%
Bristol Myers Squibb (BMY) - earnings beat, shares up 2%
Cummings (CMI) - revenue beat, EPS miss, shares down 4%
Not looking very happy Thursday morning, gold and silver are also being wrecked again. Gold is down $138 at $4,832; silver is down $13 at $75. Stock futures are crashing across the board: Dow: -161; NASDAQ: -174; S&P: -41.
If you liked crypto, there are some bridges for sale...
At the Close, Wednesday, February 4, 2026:
Dow: 49,501.30, +260.31 (+0.53%)
NASDAQ: 22,904.58, -350.61 (-1.51%)
S&P 500: 6,882.72, -35.09 (-0.51%)
NYSE Composite: 22,975.59, +94.38 (+0.41%)
When the currency collapses under its own weight, they will still own the finest properties, homes, yachts, businesses, and physical goods they need to live well and pass along to their heirs. Everybody else will have whatever they've managed to scrape together, but many won't have any income because there are fewer good jobs, and those who were dependent on government handouts - including those on food stamps, pensions and Social Security - won't have much and they will spend whatever government stipends survive just to stay alive. Some will lose their homes; others will starve to death or die from medical conditions they cannot afford to have treated. This is a process already in motion. First, hyper-inflation, then, depression. There may be a World War thrown in there for good measure.
In 1913, the average inflation rate was approximately 2.06% per year, leading to a cumulative price increase of about 3,173.96% over the years. For example, $100 in 1913 is equivalent to about $3,273.96 today in terms of purchasing power. Put another way that makes more sense, today's dollar would have been worth about $32 in 2013.
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