Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Something Wicked This Way Comes

Today was a very early April options expiration for US equities, and we saw quite a few antics in the stocks. Of special interest to many were the games being played with the mining stocks.

There is intraday commentary on gold and silver and the closing of the retail gold window at the Belarus central bank here.

April is supposed to be one of the better months for stocks, but so far it has been correcting fairly steadily from the early April highs.

Gold and silver are starting to get a second wind in this breakout, and the increasing inflationary environment in the global fiat currencies, particularly the dollar, are driving them higher.

This is the latest on US inflation from John Williams at Shadowstats. John tracks the underlying inflationary trends better than anyone else that I know.

"The pace of consumer inflation is accelerating rapidly, with annual CPI-U at 2.7% and CPI-W at 3.0%, while the annualized quarterly, seasonally-adjusted inflation rates have hit 5.2% for the CPI-U and 6.0% for the CPI-W.

These higher inflation numbers are tied directly to the Federal Reserve's successful and ongoing efforts to debase the U.S. dollar, which in turn have boosted dollar-denominated commodity prices such as oil. The inflation pace here normally would be of concern to the Fed, except the U.S. central bank officially ignores inflation tied to food and energy prices, even though, again, those debilitating price increases for consumers are a direct result of Fed policy.

Of particular discomfort to consumers, this inflation has not resulted from booming economic activity and wages, but rather from Fed monetary policy in the context of stagnant/declining broad economic activity.

Inflation has gained the upper hand in retail sales, with sales gains now more than accounted for by rising prices. A pending benchmark revision (April 29th) should show a much weaker recent history for retail sales activity, as the just-published benchmark revision to industrial production did for that series...

Inflation Above 3% Tends to Rattle Consumers. Where consumers look at inflation in terms of out-of-pocket expenses, the threshold of pain has been crossed, with popularly used consumer price indices at or within one month of topping 3% annual inflation. Further, for those who do not get paid in seasonally-adjusted dollars, the 0.5% adjusted CPI-U monthly gain felt more like the 1.0% unadjusted gain."

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts

I forgot to remind you all that today was the April options expiration for US equities.

Given the thin trade, it was shenanigans abounding.

So far the April equity action is nothing but disappointing, and earnings reports seem lackluster.

Next week should help us to sort things out. Despite today's up day the short term downtrend remains intact.

A Run On the Central Bank of Belarus as Devaluation Fear Forces Halt to All Gold Sales

"Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values. Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it bounces, marked, ‘Account overdrawn.’

Ayn Rand

I was a little surprised the people fled to gold and tried to drain the central bank, desperately trying to get out of their fiat currency ahead of a suspected devaluation.

This is how it happens, on a smaller scale.

I was in Moscow in the 1990's when they were starting to flee the Russian rouble for gold, diamonds, US dollars, and vodka. It is hard to imagine what it feels like to watch your life savings simply and relentlessly evaporate away. It was a 'quiet panic' that left a very deep impression on me.

Apparently the US dollar is no longer so much a safe haven in that part of the world. At least that is what I hear.

Belarus is small. When a bigger ship starts to founder, the lifeboats may be very crowded.

It cannot happen.  The authorities will not allow it.  This is what they always say.

In some ways it is already happening.

The Feds are already rationing and throttling gold and silver sales by throwing paper and propaganda at the demand.

I wonder how much of it has been secretly siphoned away by insiders already. The time to buy income producing fixed assets is when there is 'blood flowing in the streets,' but the time to get safe and independently liquid is before that blood starts to flow.

Big things are happening, little brother.

Reuters
Belarus Central Bank Halts Sales of Gold for Roubles

MINSK, April 15 (Reuters) - Belarus' central bank has stopped selling gold to local retail customers for Belarussian roubles it said on Friday, after demand for precious metals soared due to expectations of a currency devaluation.

The bank did not explain its decision.

Belarus is in talks with Russia on a $3 billion bailout package that Minsk hopes will help it avoid a painful devaluation of the rouble and offset the large current account deficit.

Belarussians bought 470 kilograms of gold from the central bank last month, up from 209 kilograms in January and February together, as they sought to protect their savings.

Analysts say that Belarus will have to eventually devalue the rouble by about 20-30 percent even if it receives aid from Moscow. However, the central bank has said it would not make any such moves until late April.