Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Swiss National Bank Fights To Block Public Gold Vote

"Switzerland’s central bank is flexing its muscles to defend its cap on the Swiss franc. Its battle to fend off deflation – in which it sees the exchange rate as its chief weapon – is already complicated by the slide in the euro that followed European Central Bank easing.

Now the SNB is fighting on a new front: to block a populist motion that would force it to almost treble the proportion of reserves held in gold."

Financial Times - Swiss National Bank Fights To Block the Public Gold Vote

Crushing populist notions seems to be quite fashionable amongst the better classes of the West. Unless of course those notions are taking place somewhere else that has fallen out of their favor. Then they are all for democracy don't you know.

Sometimes I just don't have the words.   To watch the proud Scots go down to fear-mongering by the financial establishment and their pampered princes is bad enough.  But to hear that this may also happen to the Swiss people whether or not they believe in the Banksters makes me sick at heart.

Gold and to a lesser extent silver caught a flight to safety bid today as US equities were in full meltdown mode this morning on bad economic news that accentuates that, despite all the facades and window dressing, there is no sustainable recovery.

I have to chuckle at the Fed choosing to end QE3 in October.   As I recall, that last two times the Fed ended QE the equity markets dropped about ten to fifteen percent.

And so we have the US equity markets, which had been pushed to an obvious artificial high for the year to date by the usual Banks trying to get the largest IPO ever out the door in September. 

And the Fed sticks to their plan to end QE 3 in October, an infamously volatile month for stocks.  Why didn't they just choose October 29 for the official end date, and call it the Black Wednesday Stock Declines Initiative?

Well there is still some short term hope for the stock markets because this is a stock option expiration and the algos are able to shove this pig around the plate when the panic subsides, as we have seen.  One thing you have to give Wall Street:  they are not too lazy to steal. 

Fundamental analysis is passé, and we are operating in a fiat culture:  whatever power decrees must be true. And it is not likely that you will hear otherwise, except in conversations in the coffee houses and cafes.

Have a pleasant evening.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Ebolanomics

The US economic numbers this morning sucked out loud.

After the bell Netflix missed its numbers and its stock was being monkey hammered.

Amex and eBay and Las Vegas Sands missed the top lines but hit earnings.

As I noted last week, it is easier to gin up profits with accounting, but topline revenue is a bit more problematic, unless you are a revenue recognizing sandbagger like a few tech companies that we might know.

As the markets melted down this morning, with a reported 179 flash crashes in the first 15 minutes according to Nanex, the talking heads were in fire drill mode, trying to figure out some way to restore confidence on Main Street, short of saying,  "buy our stocks.  Please!"

One of the themes the spokesmodels struck, believe it or not, was that a fear of ebola is dampening economic activity because they are afraid to go out and spend money.

Blame it on Ebolanomics. 

Ebolanomics. Yes I would imagine that is the reason that Netflix missed its numbers from last quarter. People are afraid they can catch a disease by watching crappy movies on television.

Most people are not spending more because they do not have any money, and they are reluctant to borrow and slip more deeply into debt.

They are afraid because they believe, based on what they are seeing, that the financial system is dominated by quasi-criminal cartels, and their political leaders are lying, craven, hand-waving nincompoops.

For the most, their real wages are lower since The Recovery™, and the one percent's wealth hoarding zillionaires do not buy the kinds of things that stimulate the economy through increased aggregate demand.  

Yeesh.  What is it going to take?

No matter how much money the Fed prints and hands over to Wall Street, the money has to reach the public to do any good.  You can see an existence proof of this phenomenon in every Third World oligarchy that is an American ally in the fight for the corporate brand of democracy around the world.

Have a pleasant evening.

Modern Crisis Leadership

Gold's Potential Triple Bottom and the 1.618 Golden Ratio In Timing

The timing is not exact but it is darn close.  Depending on when you measure the actual first two bottoms it looks like about 1.65ish.

Dave from Cincinnati sent me a picture of the gold potential triple bottom with his Golden Ratio calipers and brought my attention to it.

This ratio is probably more familiar to those technical analysts who follow Fibonacci retracements which are related to the Golden Ratio.

This last bottom may have come about five or six days late at 1.618 perhaps.  A valiant but failed effort perhaps to extend and pretend.

Close enough for government work.

I cannot account a trend change until we break the trend firmly of lower highs and lower lows.  But there is no reason not to have a bit of fun while waiting to find out.

Fat Lady Singing: The Alibaba IPO Top-Ticked the Market, Precisely

"As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods. They kill us for their sport."

William Shakespeare, King Lear

Wall Street puffed up the stock market indices to get the 'largest ever' IPO of Alibaba out the door.

Just in case you still had any illusions about these being 'free markets,' as if such a thing can even exist without the hard work of honest and objective referees.

After they took that piggy to market, the underwriters and the market manager (GS) let the markets go their own way.

Home again, home again, jiggety jog.

NAV Premiums of Certain Precious Metal Trusts and Funds

Flight to safety.

The prices have not yet begun to reflect the supply situation which is being extended and papered over by leverage.

When that leverage starts unwinding, the prices may go higher with somewhat impressive velocity.

It would be better for the price managers to allow the precious metals markets to go higher now, with a more controllable slope. But their fears and hubris may betray their wiser counsels.

I have this wonderful image of some Captain Bligh (as played by Larry Summers) of an economist shouting that they must 'hold the line' on the precious metals.

And the harried bureaucrats of Treasury and the Fed continue to lease out vast amounts of other people's gold, while privately shitting their pants with the thought of what will happen if their miscarried intervention is disclosed to the markets.  My career!

 

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - The Almighty Dollar

Gold and silver tried to rally on the overnight but the US market sat on the precious metals throughout the day.

Stocks managed a dead cat bounce.

The action in the Comex, both in the delivery report and the warehouses was inconsequential. That might be a good label for the Comex going forward: the Inconsequential Index.

Oil is continuing to take it on the chin, with various theories about why it is plunging. Some say it is OPEC 'putting the screws' to the US producers who need the higher marginal prices, especially for shale production.

Others say it is the US and its allies hurting Putin's Russia with de facto sanctions on Russia's oil wealth.

Personally I think it is more of a slack in aggregate demand overall that is becoming a concerning trend to anyone who cares about the real economy, mixed with a squeezing out of speculative money due to the Banks being prohibited from engaging in wholesale speculation.

The precious metals story is now in EurAsia, and those who fails to recognize this really do not know what is going on.

Have a pleasant evening.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Alibaba Rang the Bell

There was a dead cat bounce off key support that took the major stock indices back up to prior support.

But that rally faded into the afternoon. The bulls were able to slow the descent and avoid a late day plunge as we had seen yesterday.

Stocks managed to finish slightly higher, holding their key support levels.

So what next. CSX and INTC reported beats on earnings and revenues after the bell. Earning *might* help if they are overwhelmingly good.

We will be getting some macroeconomic news for the week starting tomorrow. The bulls need to bounce them here and hold on to the gains.

Have a pleasant evening.

Comparing One Dimension of the Policy Responses of the ECB and the Federal Reserve

Here is a chart comparing the Balance Sheet Assets of the Fed and the European Central Bank.

It is important to recall that the Fed has been providing extensive funding to non-US, largely European, multinational Banks through their US subsidiaries.

This also does not compare the sovereign debt of the two regions, but rather just one measure of their Central Banks policy responses.  It does not indicate how those assets are being used, by whom, and to what effect.

Nevertheless there seems to be a clear divergence between the two policy responses.