As a reminder, today was the silver option expiration on the Comex.
The EU Summit meeting is on Thursday and Friday of this week, 28-29 June.
Next Wednesday is the US 4th of July holiday. I would expect many punters would like to be leaving early this week if they can.
This is also the last week of the second quarter.
The US Supreme Court is expected to rule on Obamacare on Thursday, overturning at least a portion of it. This may provide a sellable rally.
Quite often the markets search for some level, and then try and let the junior traders hold it in light volumes, unless something happens.
With algos running we sometimes get some interesting intraday action but little in the way of progress.
This is a week that also brings some important metals events.
June 26 Comex July silver options expiryI made an effort to describe a relatively simple model of the US banking system briefly and in relatively common terms in an intraday commentary today. Back Again To Money: Money Creation and the Banking System - A Forecast of Sorts
June 26 Comex July copper options expiry
June 26 Comex July silver futures last trading day
June 27 Comex June gold futures last trading day
June 27 Comex June copper futures last trading day
June 27 Comex July miNY silver futures last trading day
June 29 Comex July silver futures first notice day
June 29 Comex July copper futures first notice day
It is a 'barebones' version of the domestic money model I keep in my head, to help incorporate new events and interpret them within some greater context. It really is not so hard to do, if you put a little effort into it. I think you might find it helps to understand some of the things that are happening today.
The international money system adds a significant layer of complexity, but one thing at a time. I plan to write something on that in the future.
Basically gold and to a somewhat lesser extent silver, are annoying rivals to fiat money. In times of distress they are a haven for individuals in protecting their wealth, and a threat to the status quo banking system because they are fundamentally difficult to manage and to control since they do not rely on a promise.
Bullion banks and trading desks, with the likely cooperation of the government and the banking system itself, have created a leveraged paper market that surrounds gold and silver bullion like a large, opaque cocoon, many times the size of what is apparently owned itself.
At some point that reality will be revealed, and all hell will break loose as various groups seek to grab bullion ownership as fast as they can. It will make what happened at MF Global look like recess on the schoolyard.
This in a nutshell is the premise that GATA has put forward for some time, and it makes sense based on everything that I have seen.
The world financial system has been slowly and surely changing since the 1990's. In keeping with that change, central banks have turned from net sellers to net buyers of gold, particularly in the faster developing economies, a fact that should not be ignored since it is very likely a sign of things to come.
The international sovereign and banking debt crisis is hardly resolved, and while it is interesting beyond the norm to someone like myself, it also carries a tinge of concern, fear if you like, with it, because the safekeeping of productive wealth is essential to modern life with its predominant division of labor and production.
So we all strive to understand what is happening, and look for the important events and sort them from the trivial, to formulate our own responses to change as best we can. And it is not an easy task because of the fog of confusion and misdirection that surrounds even such a novelty as a currency war.
I told my son the other day that in my experience managing the disposition of water and energy are the principal tasks in maintaining a home, in addition to normal wear and tear, particularly of the childhood variety. It's always something.
Similarly, the principal problem today in managing personal wealth, besides obtaining it in the first place, is identifying and managing risk and return. Thanks to the central banks, returns are hard to come by. So risk looms larger, and mispriced counterparty risk in particular, because it can come like a thief in the night.
"O quam cito transit gloria mundi."Gold held closely is, in the recent words of the regulators, a 'riskless asset.' I might add silver is as well, although to a slightly lesser extent.
"How quickly pass the glories of the world."
Thomas à Kempis
Proposed Bank Regulation Would Drive Gold Prices Higher - WashingtonBlog
Draw your own conclusions from all that. Diversity of portfolio is an insurance against improbable events.
