26 April 2011

Net Asset Value of Certain Precious Metal Trusts and Funds - Predictable Expiration Action


I had reminded you repeatedly for the past few weeks that today would be an option expiration on the Comex.

While it is hard to know specifically beforehand which way it would go, I urged caution, and gave the example of going flat myself in my own trading account.  I will never tell anyone what to do, as I am no advisor, and each person's situation is unique. 

But the direction for most option expirations is down, and the momentum traders are playing it. If enough of them jump in short ahead of time, it could go up because manipulation has no friends, but normally it is a period of retracement.

That big run up on Sunday night seemed odd, like a setup. It is easier to run something up on thin volumes, and then smack it down hard, gaining momentum as it were as fellows lift their trailing stops. This is a very calucated bear raid. As I recall, Andrew Maguire purported to give the CFTC the details on how certain actors in the market were coordinating their moves. But this is nothing new, is it?

Jim Cramer on how hedge funds manipulate the market.

Some of the panicked messages and talk of a crash in the metals is a bit ironic. Did you expect silver to go up endlessly without a pullback? Some of the pieces coming out seem like shameless propaganda, but one must never ascribe to bad intentions what can be attributed to stupidity. But still the funds have many allies in the media, and one needs to take note of them and remember.

I have to admit the miners have been getting hit rather hard, but this is just another characteristic of the way in which the trading desks and hedge funds have a relatively free hand in the US to manipulate the market for their own benefit, naked shorting, whatever they wish to do with no uptick rule. If you wish to reform the markets, look to the regulators and their backgrounds, and the actions they have taken with investigations. If Obama replaced Gary Gensler with Eliot Spitzer then we might see something done, but the banks would not like that, and Obama is in the process of collecting a billion dollars in campaign funds.

I have come back into the market buying selectively and with hedges. They were throwing away some decent holdings in the first half hour for example. That is a bit hard to resist, and so I didn't. Could it go lower? Yes, it could. If enough calls are converted to futures positions then we might as well expect another hit on the metals to test those new hands tomorrow and later this week.

The Fed is also meeting, which is another negative to the metals. As even Paul Volcker is reported to have said, "Gold is the enemy." Yes it is, and the statists and financial engineers and one-worlders hate it. It restrains their will to power, because they cannot create anything real, substantial, only lies and illusions.

And the dollar continues to decline, following its trend lower.

 "Therefore have I have set my face like flint..."   Is 50:7