Wealthion Macro Bites 2-6-26
Following Wednesday’s Critical Minerals Ministerial in Washington, Brazilian rare earths miner Serra Verde announced a $565M financing deal with the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation to refinance loan facilities at more favorable terms and expand production.
Effective today, the CME again hiked margin requirements for gold and silver futures. Looking back, CME switched from fixed amounts to percentages on 1/12. Since then, gold margins have increased from 5% (1/12), to 6% (1/29), to 8% (1/30) to 9% (2/5). Silver margins have increased from 9% (1/12), to 11% (1/27), to 15% (1/30), to 18% (2/5)
The Wyoming State Treasurer’s Office has selected the Wyoming Reserve Opportunity Zone Fund (a high-security precious metals-focused vaulting company in Casper) to vault its physical precious metals holdings. Wyoming is removing its metal holdings from JP Morgan, “To keep state owned physical assets within state borders…and underscores Wyoming’s continued leadership in policies supporting physical precious metals ownership and storage.”
AI Watch: Amazon became the latest Mag 7 company to raise investor concerns over skyrocketing AI expenditures in forecasting a more than 50% jump in ’26 capex to $200B. The combined ’26 capex projections for Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft now total a stunning $650B. After trading down as much as 13% after hours, Amazon is trading down 8% in premarket. Following yesterday’s 4.6% decline, the S&P software and services sector has now fallen 17% in the past week.
Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem said restructuring the economy to cope with US tariffs, slower population growth and the rise of AI will take years and could be very painful. “As the Canadian economy works through this transition, growth will be modest. In time, the economy restructures and productivity and potential output pick up, but this will be measured in years, not quarters.”
Bitcoin touched a $60,033 low in overnight trading, down 52.4% from its 10/6/25 peak ($125,251). At the current price ($66,300), Bitcoin’s market cap has declined $1.16T (from $2.48T to $1.32T) during the past 4 months. Over the same span, total crypto market cap has declined $1.93T (from $4.2T to $2.27T).
Today’s U.S. Employment Report has been delayed to next Wednesday (2/11) due to partial government shutdown.
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