A short squeeze, also known as speculator flambé.
They probably caught a lot of the other peoples' money crowd as well, momentum players and the managed mayhem merchants.
But don't blame the poor beleagured goldbugs for this one. They are just glad for a break from the pounding they have been taking.
It requires some 'juice' to get the minions in the media and the pros on the exchanges to all dance to the same tune, and lure the specs in for 'Pee Wee's Big Adventure' with their Big Bad Short, not only on the metals, but the miners, the ETFs, yada yada.
Finger lickin' good.
A lot of cool money, and a lot of powerful connections. The grifters giveth to themselves, and the grifters taketh away, from everyone else.
Official reports will no doubt cite an excess of animal spirits in the bearish outlook that took them to an excess, and the markets, in their glorious efficiency, were merely reverting to the mean.
That might be plausible except that it took a lot of energy to drive the futures prices as low as they had gone, starting with that $50 overnight mugging in the quiet early hours of the gold markes few weeks ago. No one sees Mackie Messer, and no one knows.
Especially with China dragging gold in by the tonne. About 302 of them in July according to the second chart below. Nothing to see there, move along.
No one wants a pet rock, until you have to provide the one you sold but didn't have.
And lets not forget about silver. That's in chart three. Plenty of tinder for a short squeeze there.
Or a bonfire of the inanities.
Let's see how far it goes. Is it just a flash in the pan, or the first act in something different.
Must be nearly time to tighten up those margin requirements.
