Authored by Bryan Lutz, Editor at Dollarcollapse.com,
It takes about 13 ounces of gold to buy the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The Dow-to-gold ratio prices the entire American stock market. And it does it in the one currency no central bank can print. Over the past century, it tells the same story.
It measures when the US stock market is overvalued… when it’s promising too much.
And there are a lot of promises that don’t look as good as they should these days.
A bond pays only if the issuer stays solvent.
A dollar holds its value only if the people who print it show restraint.
Yet, tangible wealth answers to no one. An ounce of gold is worth an ounce of gold whether a single counterparty keeps their word, which is what makes gold an honest denominator in the Dow-to-Gold ratio.
The ratio goes up, and it comes down. During the great manias of the twentieth century, paper looked invincible: 18 ounces to buy the Dow in 1929, 28 in 1966, 41 at the top of the dot-com boom in 2000. Then the tide went out, bubbles popped and the markets turned to commodities over equities.
As the ratio goes down, eventually it hits a bottom.
The same Dow cost almost nothing in metal, barely 2 ounces in 1932 and close to a single ounce in 1980. So, greed priced the top. Fear, and sound money, priced the bottom.
A century in one line:
Every peak in paper has been repriced in gold.
Each top marked a moment the market trusted claims more than the things behind them, and each was followed by a long migration back toward metal that ran for years, not months.
Here is where we correct the record. The move off the 2000 top has been anything but tidy. The ratio fell to roughly 6 by 2011, then the long everything-rally, cheap money layered on cheap money, hauled it back above 19 by 2021. The 2026 equity melt-up has lifted it again, to about 13, even with gold sitting near record highs.
The same story, up close:
However, the long-term trend since 2000 points down. The path has been a bit of a switchback. Anyone waiting for a clean glide toward gold got a decade of reversals instead, which is why we distrust anyone selling a date for gold.
Gold’s historic floor sits between 1 and 2 ounces. From 13, most of that move is still ahead, whenever the switchback resolves. In my opinion, this is not the time to wager a standard 60/40 portfolio as a wager that the denominator stays at or around 13. Stocks, and bonds are unlikely promise-keepers, and believing the dollar behind them holds is just as risky. The denominator is not sitting still. Every deficit the Treasury runs and every dollar the Fed prints wears down the promises the old 60/40 portfolio depends on. For most of the past forty years, it paid anyway. This time it will not.
“All roads, in other words, lead to trouble of some sort, which makes year-ahead asset allocation pretty easy: you just own everything that protects you regardless of which road gets traveled.”
~ John Rubino, The Money Bubble
After twenty-five years, the score still reads the same. Paper is expensive, and gold is patient.
Tyler Durden Wed, 07/08/2026 - 13:25Following yesterday's stellar 3Y auction, moments ago - with yields surging to the highest level since mid-May - the Treasury completed the sale of $39BN in a 9 Year 10 Month reopening of 10Y cusip QQ7, in what was another spectacular auction.
The note sale, which priced just after 1pm ET, stopped at a high yield of 4.580%, up from last month's 4.538%, and stopped through the When Issued 4.586% by 0.6bps, the biggest stop through since Sept '25.
The bid to cover rose to 2.593 from 2.565, which was the highest BtC also since last September, and obviously well above the six-auction average of 2.46.
The internals were also some of the best on record: foreign buyers (i.e., indirects) were awarded 81.5% of the auction, up from 78.21% in June and the 3rd highest on record.
And with Directs sliding to 10.73%, the lowest since April 25, Dealers were left holding just 7.8%, down from 9.5% in June and the lowest since January.
Overall, this was an extremely strong auction, perhaps the best 10Y of 2026, and with yields surging today, it shows that not only retail traders, but bond investors are also willing to buy the dips.
Tyler Durden Wed, 07/08/2026 - 13:24As was widely speculated in recent days, Russia banned exports of diesel in order to avoid domestic shortages after a flurry of attacks by Ukrainian drones on the nation’s refineries.
“Today we introduced ban on exports of diesel,” Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said at the government’s meeting with President Vladimir Putin.
The decision will further squeeze global fuel markets, which are already under pressure due to the supply disruption caused by the Iran war. Russia's decision means that the recent surge in the diesel margins to record highs, which have completely disconnected with oil prices, are set to rise even more.
Last year, Russia accounted for about 11% of global supplies of diesel, according to data compiled by Bloomberg from analytics firm Vortexa.
The logical corollary is what the DOE reported earlier today, namely that US product exports - which include diesel and other refined products - surged to a record high.
Exports of the fuel were previously banned only for traders and other sellers in Russia that don’t make their own fuel.
The diesel ban comes on top of existing restrictions on most shipments of gasoline and jet fuel. Russia has been struggling to ensure domestic oil-product supplies and to contain prices at the pump after drone attacks damaged several refineries.
Ukraine’s intensified strikes pushed Russia’s crude-processing rates to multi-year lows. Many regions have been forced to impose some degree of fuel rationing because of the disruptions.
Even before the ban, Russia’s diesel and gasoil exports were dropping significantly. During the first three weeks of June, its exports of diesel and gasoil averaged about 490,000 barrels a day, only slightly more than half of what the nation shipped to foreign markets in 2025, according to data compiled by Bloomberg from Vortexa.
Tyler Durden Wed, 07/08/2026 - 13:10Authored by Luis Cornelio via Headline USA,
George Soros has long used his billions to influence politics, but now his family appears to be using that wealth to reshape its own backyard through a massive land grab in the Hamptons.
The Soros family has purchased 18 plots of land on Shelter Island, a Hamptons community, angering residents who are concerned that the billionaire’s presence in the area will trigger rising costs.
Soros’s shopping spree, reported by the New York Post on July 2, makes him and his sons, Alex and Gregory Soros, the largest private landowners on the approximately 8,000-acre island.
According to the Post, the massive purchases are not the first time the Soros family has angered residents. In 2020, Gregory snatched a 22-acre property on a quiet street.
However, the quiet atmosphere turned into chaos when construction trucks began arriving to build one of the island’s largest swimming pools.
Local plumbers and maids are required to sign non-disclosure agreements before being allowed to work on the Soroses’ properties, residents alleged.
Surveillance cameras have reportedly been installed on local streets, raising privacy concerns among residents of the island, which is only accessible by boat.
At one point, the Soros family reportedly purchased multiple homes along a single road and sought approval from local officials to install a fence to block access from other residents.
However, Shelter Island resident Steve Lenox is concerned that Soros will soon get his way.
“We can’t keep up with the lawyers that these millionaires have and they seem to build whatever they want,” Lenox told the Shelter Island Town Board during a meeting on June 29, according to the Post.
“That’s what’s ruining the island.”
Another resident, Mike Gaynor, echoed those concerns during the meeting, pointing to other communities that became unaffordable at the arrival of millionaires.
According to the Post, residents first noticed the Soros family’s presence on the island when the family installed a deer fence around one of its properties, allegedly in violation of local zoning rules.
Tyler Durden Wed, 07/08/2026 - 12:55