US dollar breaking down/Stealth price increases/Container prices/"I've never seen anything remotely like this"

The US dollar is breaking down today as measured by DXY to the weakest level since March 2022. I'll argue again, the world is rethinking their allocations to US assets from the extreme levels they held as we entered 2025 and they want less exposure. In kind, gold is up by $60 above $3,400 and hovering around its record high. We remain bullish and long, along with silver and platinum and many international stocks and bonds (local currency) that are too benefiting from the dollar weakness.

DXY

I mentioned on Monday some of the ways car dealers are passing on tariff induced higher vehicle prices to the rest of us without having to change the sticker price. Moves like cutting rebates, limiting cheap financing deals and raising delivery charges are some of what is being done. In case you didn't see, in yesterday's WSJ, they had an article titled "The Latest Casualty of the Tariff War: Free Shipping." The first sentence of the piece, "Retailers are cutting back on free shipping to offset the steep costs of tariffs. Some online merchants are eliminating free shipping, while others are raising the amount customers must spend to qualify for the perk of broader efforts to pass along higher costs to consumers."

Here's an example they gave, "Modern Picnic, which sells lunchboxes designed to look like handbags, recently raised the threshold for shoppers to qualify for free shipping to $300 from $150...The company now charges $15 for shipping on orders under $300. The fee doesn't cover all of Modern Picnic's delivery charges, but it helps to mitigate the increased expenses from tariffs and rising shipping costs."