Your IMPORTANT Weekly Briefing: (21st August 2026)

The Neil McCoy-Ward Newsletter

August 21, 2026

Welcome back to this weeks newsletter!

1. Weekly Spotlight

US Debt Hits $40 Trillion… (With A Buy Back)

On Wednesday morning, US public debt crossed $40 trillion for the first time. Then a few hours later, the Treasury announced it was buying its own bonds back.

Here's what led into it… On Monday, the 30-year Treasury yield hit 5.29%, the highest since 2007. Tuesday it touched 5.34%, a 19-year high. And last week the Treasury had to sell $25B of new 30-year bonds at 5.216%, the worst level for that kind of auction since 2001.

Nobody wants to lend to America for thirty years right now, and that's been building since late June as I forecast.

So Bessent stepped in and doubled the Treasury's buyback operations, from $2 billion to at least $4 billion each, running September 9th to November 4th. Yields dropped straight away, the 30-year fell back to 5.20%, and stocks jumped.

Most of the Mainstream coverage filed this as the Treasury calming an unstable market. But I think everyone's looking at the wrong thing…

Because almost nobody explained what a buyback actually is or does!

The Treasury buys back its own long-dated bonds, and it pays for that largely by issuing short-term bills instead. So it's swapping 30-year debt for 3-month debt.

It's a bit like clearing a fixed-rate loan by running up the credit card. The payment looks better this month, but you've handed your future to whatever the rate does next.

And there’s no certainty in that.

Now do that on top of $40 trillion and you can see why it concerns me.

Then there's the size of the debt: $4B against $40T is nothing in comparison.

And yet, it knocked 0.14% off the 30-year in a single afternoon. That sounds tiny, but on a market this size - it's a huge move for one announcement.

Which is arguably the important part. If such a small change can move the market, the market is thin. And everyone has now been shown roughly where the pain threshold sits, somewhere around 5.35%. Once traders know there's a floor under them, they tend to go and test it.

Do you remember when Tokyo tried this exact trick a few weeks back? The announcement worked, rates came down, and then the yen went to a 40-year low - because the market saw straight through it.

There's nowhere obvious to run to either; normally when one government's bonds turn ugly you rotate into a safer one's. Except this week, French borrowing costs hit 2008 levels, Germany hit 2011 levels, long gilts approached 6%, and Japanese 30-years sat near an all-time high. All at once.

So if you're a central bank sitting on a mountain of reserves, where do you actually put it?

Well, you've heard me talk about them vacuuming up gold for years, so the answer won't surprise you.

In the second quarter they bought a record 289 tonnes, up 62% on last year, and they did it during gold's worst quarter in a decade. China took 33 tonnes, its 21st straight month of buying. So the price was falling hard so they bought more.

The institutions that used to park their reserves in long-dated government paper are parking it in GOLD instead.

So this is probably a good point to put a little sale in for you here, since it’s been a long time since I last offered the Gold & Silver programs at a discount.

Just click on the image for the program you want, Foundations or Advanced.

Or click this link to get a bundle deal here for both programs: LINK

2. Quick Takes

Here are the other top stories shaping the week:

  • Bessent Says The Plan Is To Collapse Iran's Government

    The Treasury Secretary said maximum economic pressure makes a return to fighting unlikely for now (while stating outright that Washington intends to collapse the regime). Allies will be told they're either with the US or against it. Tehran called it a distraction from America's own debt

  • China Just Told Washington “No” (On Iran Sanctions) 
    Beijing has rejected the US demand to join what Bessent calls the toughest sanctions in history, saying it opposes unilateral sanctions with no UN backing. His pitch was that China takes half its energy from the Gulf so it should get with the programme. Xi lands in Washington next month, his first visit in a decade

  • Ukraine Is Shipping A Fifth Of Its Grain

    Russian strikes on Odesa have nearly stopped exports at peak harvest, with 500,000 tons out since 1 August, roughly 20% of capacity. Odesa handles 90% of Ukraine's grain. Egypt takes 82% of its wheat from the pair, so this ends up being Cairo's problem

  • Zinc Just Hit A Four-Year High And Almost Nobody Noticed 
    HSBC expects global zinc mine supply to fall 2.1% this year to 12.5 million tons, mainly on weaker Latin American output, with smelters breaking down as well. Metal for immediate delivery now trades $132 a ton above three-month futures, the widest gap this year, and prices are heading for a fifth straight weekly gain

  • American Prices Are Up 27% Since 2021

    53% of US adults name the cost of living as their biggest problem, double the 26% who said their health. Prices are up 26.7% since January 2021, food 27.2%, rents over 30%, transport 35%. Wages grew 25.7%, These are of course official figures, so I’d take them very loosely as I think we all know prices have risen more than this…

  • Britons Consumer Confidence highest In Two Years

    GfK's confidence index climbed to -14, a two-year high, when economists had it falling to -18. Households say they're readier to make big purchases. Retail sales then fell 0.5% in July, the first drop since April, with clothing down 2.7%. Feeling better and buying less are contradictions of course

  • The Bond Sell-Off Has Gone Global

    Australian and New Zealand bonds opened lower on Friday and the dollar took another hit, after the 30-year US Treasury yield went straight back to 5.25%. Washington's buyback rescue lasted about a day

  • Britain's Debt Is About To Touch £3 Trillion

    July borrowing hit £1.8bn, £2.3bn above the OBR's forecast and two thirds up on last July, despite a record £17.1bn from self-assessment. Debt is now 94.1% of GDP. Analysts reckon market rates have already cut Chancellor John Healey's headroom from £24bn to £17bn

  • Texas Has 5x power Demand Of Data Centre Requests

    Texas regulators have until mid-December to audit every data centre and crypto mining project queuing for grid access after Governor Abbott ordered the review. The queue is 474 gigawatts, about 90% of it data centres. This is one of the more hidden bottlenecks of the AI trade

  • Trump Wants 1,000 Rocket Launches A Year By 2030
    Trump signed a memo on Thursday targeting at least 1,000 US commercial launches and re-entries a year by 2030, up from 178 last year. Agencies have 90 days to find a new federal re-entry site and must stop competing with private firms. SpaceX ran 170 of last year's 178, so it's clear who this was written for

NEIL’S TAKEAWAYS:

In the United States

The Fed's July minutes have landed. 9-3 to hold rates at 3.50% to 3.75%, and all three dissenters wanted rates to go up.

Buried in the same minutes: Warsh asked the committee to consider going from eight meetings a year down to six. Fewer meetings means fewer chances to react.

A central bank that wants to meet less often while inflation sits above target is not a central bank that's worried about being caught out. I think that tells you more about where he's heading than anything he's said publicly so far. He speaks at Jackson Hole next week, and that's where we’ll find out.

Prepare: Listen for three things. Does he repeat the tightening language, does the six-meeting idea get aired publicly, and does he say anything about the long end of the bond market, that's the 20 and 30-year debt, where mortgage rates and corporate borrowing costs are really set. Any of those three can move mortgages, credit, and anyone carrying floating-rate debt.

Across Europe:
Markets now expect the ECB to raise rates by another 0.45% this year, up from 0.40% a few days earlier, and September looks close to settled. The ECB already moved in June, its first increase since September 2023.

Meanwhile, look at what households are actually paying in the UK. Inflation rose to 2.9% in July from 2.6%, the highest in four months.

The 13% jump in the Ofgem price cap did most of it. Gas prices rose 14.7% in a single month, the biggest increase since October 2022. You'll see that one on your own bill.

So bills went up in July, borrowing costs go up in September, and wages aren't covering either. That leaves less at the end of the month, and it shows up in company earnings a quarter or two later.

Prepare: Be careful with anything relying on people having spare cash after the bills are paid. Discretionary retail, hospitality and leisure feel it first. Remember what I said about NIKE a few years back? (Consumer Cyclical) OUCH. The stock is now down almost 75%.

Energy-intensive manufacturers get the same input costs without the pricing power to pass them on. Low debt and real pricing power are what you want here.

On the Global Stage:
Remember the joint US-Japan intervention to prop up the yen? Goldman thinks Japan spent around $85 billion in the first two days alone. The yen went from 164 per dollar to about 155. It's now back to 159.

Japanese investors bought over 5 trillion yen of foreign shares and long-term bonds in the two weeks to 15 August.

In the fortnight before that, they were sellers of about 300 billion yen. The rescue effort funded the very outflow it was meant to stop.

Then there's oil. Brent traded above $94.50 on Thursday, the highest since late July. Trump warned countries maintaining ties with Tehran to expect consequences, and Bessent promised the toughest measures yet. On Wednesday, Trump confirmed there are no talks underway with Iran and none scheduled, almost six months into this war.

That should tell you something!!!

Prepare: Watch the yen around 160. If it breaks through and Tokyo intervenes again with the same result, confidence in currency intervention goes with it. On oil, higher energy costs feed into inflation everywhere with a lag of a few months, which is exactly what makes central banks reluctant to cut.

P.S. If you like this kind of commentary, and want detailed investment posts - then you’ll love the private finance and investing community over on Patreon (where you’ll also get as many as 3 Significantly Undervalued stock picks each month). You can also speak with me privately via personal messaging. Check it out here: LINK

3. Chart Of The Week

Economists Say The Biggest Risk To The US Economy This Year Is AI

A survey of chief economists at US financial institutions has put an AI investment correction top of the list of threats to the economy in 2026, with 59% naming it, ahead of geopolitical escalation on 47% and higher energy prices on 35%.

The same survey also has AI as the single biggest reason things could go well, at 29%.

Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft and Oracle spent $412 billion on capital projects last year, worth 1.3% of US GDP, and tech has accounted for a quarter of all growth since 2023.

The spending holding the economy up is the same spending most likely to knock it over.

4. Market Overview

S&P 500 (U.S.) 
Went down this week. Bonds caused most of it, the 30-year Treasury yield reached its highest in nearly two decades, and that hit the big AI and tech names like Nvidia hardest. Walmart's results knocked retail around too, and Trump's talk of economic warfare on Iran kept everyone on edge. Friday was better, but not enough to save the week.

FTSE 100 (UK)
Rose. Miners did most of the work: Antofagasta, Fresnillo, Endeavour, Anglo American and Glencore all climbed as gold and copper rallied, helped by a weaker dollar after the US Treasury's bond buyback. Weak July retail sales and high gilt yields kept it a narrow, commodity-led week rather than a proper broad rally.

S&P/TSX Composite (Canada)
Flat. Gold's rally took materials to a five-month high, with Lithium Americas, Ivanhoe and Lundin leading the way, and energy held up on firmer oil. Financials, staples and consumer names pulled the other way though, and Monday's hotter than expected inflation set the tone. Finished about where it started.

ASX 200 (Australia)
Flat. Earnings season moved things in both directions, Zip and Guzman y Gomez took off on their results, while WiseTech and DigiCo went the other way. Gold miners had a strong mid-week run after the Treasury buyback news, and energy kept climbing with oil, but tech fell again, and BHP weighed on Friday. Lots of movement, nowhere new by the end.

🇺🇸 United States – S&P 500

  • High: 7,780

  • Low: 7,642

🇬🇧 UK - FTSE 100

  • High: 10,829

  • Low: 10,687

🇨🇦 Canada – TSX Composite

  • High: 36,818

  • Low: 35,226

🇦🇺 Australia – ASX 200

  • High: 9,103

  • Low: 9,028

Cryptocurrency:

  • Bitcoin (BTC): 23.4%

  • Ethereum (ETH): 28.3%

  • Tether (USDT): 0.0%

  • BNB (BNB): 12.5%

  • XRP (XRP): 39.9%

  • USDC (USDC): 0.0%

  • Solana (SOL): 21.4%

  • TRON (TRX): 2.2%

  • Figure Heloc (FIGR_HELOC): 2.0%

  • Hyperliquid (HYPE): 37.6%

Metals Market:

Gold–Silver Ratio: ~66:1, Fell. Both metals had a strong week after the US Treasury said it would double its long-term debt buybacks, which knocked yields and the dollar lower, with oil and the US-Iran standoff adding to the safe-haven buying. Silver just went up faster than gold, which is what usually happens.

Gold & Silver:

  • Gold:  5.16% with a Week High: $4,617 & Week Low: $4,326

  • Silver: 7.45% with a Week High: $70.03 & Week Low: $62.59

5. Faith & Success

❝

"The end of a matter is better than its beginning, and patience is better than pride."

- Ecclesiastes 7:8

Isn't that first bit interesting? The END is better than the beginning.

Because most people LOVE beginning things… The new venture, the new investment, the new business, exercise or diet plan… day one is always exciting. Everyone's energised. The spreadsheet looks beautiful… (or is that just my geeky spreadsheets?)

But one thing I’ve noticed is that beginnings are cheap, and almost anyone can start something.

It’s the middle where things gets messy because progress slows down, doubts creep in, and that self doubt begins to kick in and nag. Believe me, I’ve seen the worst of it. Not many people would take on a 5 year castle renovation project with no guarantee that the money would be there after year 2 to continue the work.

OR that after year 1, that the true extent of the structural issues would come out resulting in an additional £1 Million bill to repair those structural issues…

Even the structural engineer who conducted the survey was shocked at what had been hidden under concrete back in the 1980’s… 46 years later and it was time to do the integral thing and fix those issues properly.

But overall, I simply acted in faith and took the leap. Never knowing what would happen.

A while back, someone asked me why I was ‘CRAZY ENOUGH’ to risk everything on a venture like this? And my response was that life is all about taking risks, and having an adventure…

Besides, because we live in a western country, so the worst case scenario that could possibly happen is that I would have had to start all over again… that's it.

That's the worst case. Which I thought was a pretty good risk reward pay off!

And the good news is - that we’re into year 4 now, and the heavy work is complete. Now we’re mainly doing decorative finishes.

So yes, I've been there more times than I can count - and there's always a stretch where I wonder what on earth I was thinking! ha

But every time we finish a stage - actually FINISH it - I'm reminded why this verse rings so true. The satisfaction of seeing something through beats the buzz of starting it, every single time.

And that second half - "patience is better than pride"? That's the how. Pride wants results NOW, wants to look successful NOW.

But ‘Patience’ is happy to look ordinary for a while, because it knows where things are heading.

So if you're in a messy middle right now, feeling stuck partway through doesn't mean it's going wrong. It's just what the middle feels like. Don’t worry about it.

Honestly, it will either work out or it won’t. Then just start again with something else.

Question for the weekend: “What's one thing you’ve started that deserves to be finished?”

Have a great week my friend!

Take care, and God Bless.

Neil,

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DISCLAIMER
This newsletter is 100% FREE & is designed to help your thinking, not direct it. These newsletters shall NOT be construed as tax, legal, or financial advice and may be outdated or inaccurate; all decisions made as a result of this information are yours alone.

Trading/Liability: Neil McCoy-Ward operates/trades under a private Ltd company within the Isle of Man.

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