Just as “higher for longer” was becoming the new normal, things changed. The Fed, at its November 1 meeting, refrained from raising short-term rates, and the markets concluded that the pause might be permanent. The 10-year Treasury yield, which had been flirting with a 15-year high of 5%, dropped to 4.5%:
Stock investors embraced the thought of Fed capitulation, sending the broad market indexes up by around 5% for the week. And — much more interesting for us — the gold/silver mining stocks in our portfolio caught a nice bid on Friday: