Basically the pros saw the broader population of small specs leaning into protection, and took them for a ride today. As Bart Chilton said, there are no regulators watching these markets because of the government shutdown, so you are on your own. At least that is what he implied.
I laid out the basic market strategy at work today in the stock market commentary. I am sure the Wall Street financiers think that this shutdown will be temporary, a few fleeting days that will harm no one or nothing about which they care.
The masters of the universe who are a bit closer to the inner circle of Moloch will almost certainly have a word with their servants and retainers in the Congress, and bring them to heel after a few days. It is all a game after all, isn't it?
The G20 is having a meeting of their central bankers and finance ministers in Washington DC on October 10-11.
A man hears of things that might be said at such a gathering. It certainly caught some people by surprise when the Italian Central Bank came out and endorsed gold as a key reserve asset, at Monday's LBMA meeting. France and Germany chimed in, even though they are disingenuously at odds with what they say about never selling compared to what they do with leasing the metal.
An economist disciple of Greenspan unreservedly endorsed the idea of the trillion dollar platinum coin today, or more precisely 1,000 billion dollar coins so everyone important can have one for their very own. Non-specialists may not understand all that this implies in their political zeal, but surely he must know better. Well, it is a disgraced profession after all.
Hey why fight it? Let's go all in for it. The US should announce that striking piece of "monetary innovation" at the G20 meeting, so all the US' major creditors can see what a cynical act of brazen seigniorage looks like up close. Why hide it? After all, the whole of the law for the exceptional is to do what thou wilt.
There was some minor movement of gold out of HSBC today, and a recategorisation of some bullion in the JPM warehouse as well, following their impressive move to bolster confidence in the threadbare COMEX registered inventory yesterday. I might post something about that later on.
We are now in October delivery. October is not a big month for the futures, but it is an active delivery month so we will be interested to see what happens.
