US Debt Crosses $40 Trillion Threshold After Doubling Under Trump and Biden
Total U.S. debt has topped $40 trillion for the first time, the Treasury Department said on Wednesday, drawing fresh warnings that a fiscal crisis is brewing as ballooning costs for social safety-net programs and interest payments far outstrip revenues held back by tax cuts.
The Treasury’s latest daily cash and debt balances statement showed total public debt outstanding at $40.047 trillion on Tuesday, a total that includes Treasury securities held by the public of $32.266 trillion and intra-governmental debt holdings of $7.782 trillion.
The federal government’s IOU has now more than doubled in less than a decade, from $19.95 trillion when President Donald Trump was sworn in for the first time in January 2017. Roughly one-third of that increase occurred during two years of frantic government borrowing to fund the COVID-19 pandemic responses undertaken by Trump and former President Joe Biden, while the fiscal policy choices of both presidents combined with long-running tax-and-spending imbalances to account for the rest… (Continue to full article)
Dollar Tumbles and Gold Prices Jump as US Treasury Boosts Liquidity
The dollar index (DXY00) tumbled to a 2.5-month low on Wednesday and finished down by -0.80%. The dollar retreated on Wednesday after the US Treasury boosted liquidity and announced plans to increase buybacks of long-dated bonds. Lower T-note yields on Wednesday also weakened the dollar‘s interest rate differentials.
The US Treasury announced on Wednesday that it will at least double the maximum size of its liquidity support buyback operations for longer-dated nominal coupon sizes to at least $4 billion per operation, effective September 9.
Precious metals prices rallied sharply on Wednesday, with gold soaring to a 2.5-month high. Wednesday’s slump in the dollar index to a 2.5-month low was bullish for precious metals. Also, Wednesday’s action by the US Treasury to boost its buybacks of longer-dated US government bonds increased demand for precious metals as a store of value. In addition, lower global bond yields on Wednesday supported precious metals… (Continue to full article)
A Fourth U.S. Bank Has Failed in 2026, and Any Balance Above the $250,000 FDIC Limit Can Be Left Unprotected
Bank failures are rare, but they have arrived at an unusually steady pace this year. Four federally insured banks have now closed and been placed under Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation receivership in 2026, already double the number recorded in all of 2025. For anyone who keeps a large balance parked in a single institution, each closure is a reminder that federal insurance protects deposits only up to a fixed ceiling.
The most recent closure came on July 17, 2026, when the Kansas Office of the State Bank Commissioner shut Small Business Bank in Lenexa and named the FDIC as receiver. The Farmers State Bank of Oakley, Kansas, agreed to assume substantially all of the failed bank’s deposits and purchase certain assets, so the lone branch reopened under new ownership. Small Business Bank held roughly $73 million in total assets as of March 31, 2026, after years of operating losses that left it critically undercapitalized.
It was the fourth insured-bank failure of the year and the second inside a single week in July, a sequence the agency laid out in its account of the Small Business Bank resolution and tracks on its official failed-bank list. The three earlier collapses were Metropolitan Capital Bank & Trust of Chicago, closed January 30; Community Bank and Trust – West Georgia in LaGrange, closed May 1; and Kentland Federal Savings and Loan Association in Indiana, closed July 10… (Continue to full article)
Gold Price Hits Two-Month High After Mostly Stagnant Summer Workers Find $10 Million Gold Stash in Renovations
The price of gold hit its highest level since early June on Wednesday, breaking out of what has been a largely stagnant summer for the precious metal, with analysts crediting the price increase to the Treasury Department’s liquidity support announcement and a weakening dollar.
Gold prices are on an upswing lately after the price remained largely stagnant for most of the summer. Earlier this month, gold posted its best week in seven months, rising about 7% in price, largely thanks to a weaker dollar, declining Treasury yields and an unexpected slump in employment data. But before the August surge, gold was mostly bound between $4,000 and $4,200 for much of the summer as it came off its worst quarter in more than a decade.
For the three months ending June 30, gold shed about 16% of its value, its worst percent decline since 2013. By that time, gold and silver had both fallen to about seven-month lows, with gold falling below $4,000. At the time, analysts blamed a stronger dollar, which was then at its highest level in more than a year, and expectations that the Federal Reserve may raise rates at some point this year… (Continue to full article)
Wells Fargo Revamps Gold Price Target for the Rest of 2026
Earlier this year, one of Wall Street’s most closely watched research arms made a bold commodity price call, the boldest any large institution had made in years.
The forecast turned heads. It implied the kind of return that usually only shows up in speculative assets. And for a few months, the trade was working.
Then the market changed. The call got walked back. Then walked back again. This is the third revision in 2026 alone, and the gap between where Wells Fargo started the year and where its forecast sits today is large enough to matter for anyone who has been tracking it.
Wells Fargo Investment Institute lowered its 2026 gold price target to $4,900 to $5,100 an ounce from the previous range of $5,300 to $5,500. Its 2027 target also dropped, to $5,400 to $5,600 from $5,800 to $6,000. Both ranges came down by $400 at each end.
Spot gold was trading around $4,397 an ounce on Aug. 18, according to CNBC. Higher Treasury yields and rising oil prices were the culprits. Higher yields matter for gold specifically because the metal pays nothing. No interest. No dividend.
When bonds yield more, investors face a real cost to hold gold instead. That cost has been rising all year… (Continue to full article)
Gold Standard Is Reborn Amid Central Bank Surge
For the first 40 years after President Nixon closed the gold window in 1971, central banks mostly unloaded their gold to exercise their faith in fiat money. In 2011, however, Congress passed the Budget Control Act of 2011, which raised the debt ceiling by $2.4 trillion through 2012. As a direct result of that move, Standard & Poor’s downgraded Treasury credit debt from AAA to AA+, the first time since the 1980s U.S. debt was rated below the top (AAA) rating.
That’s when the “new gold standard” began with central banks. From 2011 to 2021, net central bank buying averaged around 500 metric tons (16 million Troy ounces) per year. That pace doubled in the last five years, with over 1,000 tons of gold purchases added each year from 2022 to 2024, followed by 850 tons last year. Central banks bought more gold in four years than in the previous eight.
The main impetus for this big gold-buying binge since 2022 was the war in Ukraine, plus a strong spurt of new inflation after President Biden’s massive stimulus programs during a strong economy… (Continue to full article)
Gold Just Hit $4,400 and the Miners Are Finally Catching Up
Gold cracked $4,400 an ounce on August 11, and the VanEck Gold Miners ETF (NYSEARCA:GDX) has finally moved with it. GDX is up almost 18% over the last month and 53% over the last year, though still only around 3% year to date, a reminder of how long producers lagged bullion before the July breakout. At roughly $88, GDX is trading at levels the fund has not held in over a decade.
The single variable driving GDX over the next 12 months is the gold price itself, specifically the real yield backdrop underneath it. The 10-year Treasury yield sits at 4.68%, in the 96th percentile of its trailing 12-month range and up from a February low of 3.97%. Gold pushing through $4,400 in the face of that headwind tells you central bank buying and dollar debasement themes are overriding the traditional rate model. That decoupling can snap back quickly.
If the 10-year TIPS yield stays subdued and gold holds above $4,300, GDX has room to run as buybacks (Newmont has $4.3 billion remaining, Agnico $400 million deployed against its $2 billion authorization) shrink share counts…. (Continue to full article)
Construction Workers Find $10 Million Gold Stash in Renovations
Construction workers in Belgium stumbled upon a stash of gold believed to be worth more than $10 million during renovation work on a building.
Police said they were “immediately” contacted by the workers after they discovered “a large quantity of gold” while working on a building in the east Flemish town of Dendermonde. The local police department posted a picture on its Facebook page of around 50 gold bars and piles of gold coins.
Belgian news outlets reported that bars and coins worth an estimated nine million euros ($10.4 million) were found bricked into the cellar walls during the renovation of a house belonging to a local charity, CAW East-Flanders.
One worker interviewed by Belgian news outlet VRT said the crew’s “first reaction was actually disbelief, amazement.”
“We stumbled across it while carrying out groundwork to lay a pipe for the sewerage system,” said the man identified only as Kobe. “We certainly hadn’t expected to find gold.”… (Continue to full article)
Gold’s Wild 2026 Ride Might Not Be Over Yet
Gold traders have had a hard time getting this year right. The metal has swung from record highs to steep drops and back again. Most of the people who trade it are still trying to figure out which move to trust.
A shift in Federal Reserve expectations, paired with a fresh round of buying, is now pushing the rally question back to the front of the room. Whether it holds depends on a handful of signals that are worth walking through one by one.
“Gold, Mr. Bond!”
Gold hit an all-time high of approximately $5,589 an ounce on January 28, then fell more than 18% from that record. Despite the pullback, the metal is still well above its 52-week low.
Gold posted its best week since January, gaining more than 7% as weaker-than-expected jobs data and tamer inflation readings reduced expectations for September’s Federal Reserve rate hike.
What draws people into gold hasn’t changed much in her view: worry over U.S. fiscal spending running loose, and weak growth almost everywhere else, which she thinks points toward more inflation… (Continue to full article)
