{"id":21345,"date":"2023-11-07T17:00:17","date_gmt":"2023-11-07T22:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jeffclarktrader.com\/?p=21345"},"modified":"2023-11-07T17:00:17","modified_gmt":"2023-11-07T22:00:17","slug":"you-wont-believe-what-costcos-best-selling-item-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/you-wont-believe-what-costcos-best-selling-item-is\/","title":{"rendered":"You Won\u2019t Believe What Costco\u2019s Best-Selling Item Is"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If I asked you what the best-selling product at Costco is, what would your answer be?<\/p>\n<p>I&rsquo;ll tell you the answer in a moment. (It&rsquo;ll blow you away.)<\/p>\n<p>For the few of you who may not know, Costco is a members-only big-box retail store. It&rsquo;s a popular place to buy bulk items at discount prices.<\/p>\n<p>That model has made Costco the third-largest retailer in the world&hellip; with a market cap of $240 billion.<\/p>\n<p>Some of the most popular products it sells are toilet paper, rotisserie chicken, bacon, hot dogs, and gas.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Costco couldn&rsquo;t keep toilet paper on the shelves. Things got so bad, it had to actually put purchase limits on toilet paper.<\/p>\n<p>So I wouldn&rsquo;t be surprised if your answer to my question above is &ldquo;toilet paper.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>But the correct answer is gold.<\/p>\n<p>In September, Costco started offering 1-ounce gold bars for about $2,000. According to the company&rsquo;s chief financial officer, Richard Galanti, they&rsquo;re selling like hotcakes.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve gotten a couple of calls that people have seen online that we&rsquo;ve been selling 1-ounce gold bars. But when we load them on the site, they&rsquo;re typically gone within a few hours, and we limit two per member,&rdquo; Galanti said on the company&rsquo;s quarterly call.<\/p>\n<p>Friends, this is insane. The demand for gold bars is so strong, Costco can&rsquo;t keep them in stock.<\/p>\n<p>Today, I&rsquo;ll tell you why I believe the company is running out of gold bars, and what it means for you&hellip;<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align:center\"><strong>Why Costco Is Running Out of Gold Bars<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Inflation is crushing the American consumer. Since the pandemic in March 2020, we&rsquo;ve seen the inflation rate peak as high as 9.1%.<\/p>\n<p>It&rsquo;s decelerated since then. But that just means prices continue to rise at a slower rate.<\/p>\n<p>That&rsquo;s why I believe people are buying gold bars like hotcakes&hellip; They&rsquo;re trying to protect their purchasing power.<\/p>\n<p>And who can blame them? Especially since I believe things about to get worse.<\/p>\n<p>Just take a look at the chart below. It shows the amount of U.S. debt.<\/p>\n<p><!--IMG SNIP--><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"img-fluid\" alt=\"Image\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.jeffclarktrader.com\/JMU\/images\/202311\/20231107-JMU-pm-01.png\"><\/p>\n<p>For the first time ever, our government is $33 trillion in the hole.<\/p>\n<p>Friends, this is a truly unfathomable number.<\/p>\n<p>Just to give you some context, 1 trillion one-dollar bills stacked on top of each other gets you about a third of the way to the moon.<\/p>\n<p>Thirty-three trillion dollars is not &ldquo;just a number.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>It&rsquo;s the financial burden that you, your kids, your grandkids, and your kids&rsquo; grandkids will have to shoulder.<\/p>\n<p>Now, from 2008&ndash;2021, this out-of-control debt wasn&rsquo;t a big problem because interest rates were close to zero.<\/p>\n<p>So the interest we paid on that massive debt pile wasn&#8217;t a big deal.<\/p>\n<p>But interest rates are zero no more.<\/p>\n<p>To combat inflation, the Federal Reserve has jacked up rates to 5%. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon believes they can go as high as 7%.<\/p>\n<p>At 7%, the interest payments on $33 trillion would be in the vicinity of $2.1 trillion per year. That&rsquo;s nearly three times bigger than the U.S. defense budget.<\/p>\n<p>To cover these debts, the Fed will be forced to print money so it can go out and buy the government&rsquo;s bonds. It will have to do this because there won&rsquo;t be enough buyers in the market to cover the amount of new government bond issuance.<\/p>\n<p>When the Fed cranks up the money printer, it&rsquo;s diluting the value of all the other dollars in the system. Just like when a company issues too many shares, it dilutes the value of the shares you own.<\/p>\n<p>The result? The value of the dollars you own will shrink &ndash; <em>a lot.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>This level of debt is the endgame I&rsquo;ve been warning you about&hellip; a &ldquo;doom loop&rdquo; that tips America over the edge from dollar superpower into dollar collapse.<\/p>\n<p>That&rsquo;s why I believe so many people are stocking up on gold.<\/p>\n<p>And Costco isn&rsquo;t the only major player in the gold market. Not even close.<\/p>\n<p>In the first quarter of 2023, central banks added 228 tons to global reserves. That&rsquo;s the highest rate of purchases seen in a first quarter since the data series began in 2000.<\/p>\n<p>It&rsquo;s also a continuation of a surge in gold purchases over the past 12 months.<\/p>\n<p>You can see that in the next chart&hellip;<\/p>\n<p><!--IMG SNIP--><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"img-fluid\" alt=\"Image\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.jeffclarktrader.com\/JMU\/images\/202311\/20231107-JMU-pm-02.png\"><\/p>\n<p>Since January 2020, gold is up 32%.<\/p>\n<p>That may not seem like a lot &ndash; especially when stocks like Nvidia are up 193% in one year &ndash; but that&rsquo;s a huge move for the $12 trillion gold market.<\/p>\n<p>Now, I recommended gold as early as 2015 as disaster insurance because I believe everyone should have some gold. And my readers are up 56% on that trade.<\/p>\n<p>But the reality is most of the time, gold is an atrocious investment.<\/p>\n<p>It pays no dividend. It has limited industrial uses. And it can go through long stretches of time where its price goes nowhere.<\/p>\n<p>So that&rsquo;s why I&rsquo;m not recommending gold today.<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align:center\"><strong>There&rsquo;s a Better Way Than Gold<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Friends, everything about the economy right now comes back to one thing: inflation.<\/p>\n<p>It&rsquo;s on everyone&rsquo;s mind. It enters every conversation.<\/p>\n<p>It&rsquo;s an economic problem. It&rsquo;s a political problem. And it&rsquo;s also a huge problem for your personal wealth.<\/p>\n<p>It&rsquo;s not a temporary rise due to supply chain issues (although that&rsquo;s certainly keeping goods scarce)&hellip; or the demand for popular items like a PlayStation video game console.<\/p>\n<p>We&rsquo;re seeing the inflationary impact of trillions of dollars in fiscal stimulus created during the pandemic.<\/p>\n<p>But things are about to get worse&hellip;<\/p>\n<p>There&rsquo;s an unprecedented government event scheduled for the month of November. And I believe it will trigger the final collapse of the dollar and its purchasing power for everyday Americans<\/p>\n<p>That&rsquo;s why on Wednesday, November 8, at 8 p.m. ET I&rsquo;m holding <a href=\"https:\/\/signup.palmbeachgroup.com\/?cid=MKT771658&#038;eid=MKT775834&#038;oneClick=true\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">an event called The Final Collapse<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>During this special event, I&rsquo;ll reveal the one asset I believe will skyrocket even as the value of the dollars in your wallet, bank account, and brokerage accounts collapses.<\/p>\n<p>The last time the dollar had a similar crisis, my readers had a chance to make 27 times&hellip;. 56 times&hellip; and even 850 times their money &ndash; in less than two years off this asset.<\/p>\n<p>I&rsquo;ll also give you a free recommendation, no strings attached.<\/p>\n<p>You need to know, my past free picks have an average peak gain of over 1,100%. That would be 12 times your money.<\/p>\n<p>Friends, it bears repeating: The last time the dollar had a similar crisis, my readers had a chance to make 27 times&hellip;. 56 times&hellip; and even 850 times their money &ndash;in less than two years.<\/p>\n<p>Inflation is already destroying the retirement plans of millions of Americans.<\/p>\n<p>You cannot afford to ignore this. The stakes are too high. So please <a href=\"https:\/\/signup.palmbeachgroup.com\/?cid=MKT771658&#038;eid=MKT775834&#038;oneClick=true\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">be sure to join me on Wednesday, November 8, at 8 p.m. ET<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Let the Game Come to You!<\/p>\n<p>Big T<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The demand for these items is so strong, Costco can\u2019t keep them in stock. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"service":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"publication":[10],"person":[16],"newsletter-type":[],"ticker":[],"class_list":["post-21345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-market-minute","publication-market-minute","person-teeka-tiwari"],"acf":[],"ai_tts_audio_outdated":false,"ai_tts_legacy_post":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21345\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21345"},{"taxonomy":"publication","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publication?post=21345"},{"taxonomy":"person","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/person?post=21345"},{"taxonomy":"newsletter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newsletter-type?post=21345"},{"taxonomy":"ticker","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ticker?post=21345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}