17 March 2016

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Stock Option Expiry - US Douleur du Monde


"But there is a sort of 'Ok guys, you're mad, but how are you going to stop me' mentality at the top."

Robert Johnson


“A man who procrastinates in his choosing will inevitably have his choice made for him by circumstance.”

Hunter S. Thompson

Why are our election choices at the end of the day so often a choice between repugnant and despicable, so often a choice between corrupt narcissists with little difference except for their marketing brand and particular sponsors?

I think most of us already know the answer.

Tomorrow is a stock option expiration for March, which as I recall is not inconsequential.

A surprising number of people contacted me via email to ask if something had happened, as gold rallied but was noticeably lagged by PHYS and some of the mining stocks.

And then later on gold was hit, giving up its gains for the day and the miners et al. knocked down a bit further.

Silver held up fairly well, but was more surprising was that the dollar had quite a poor day of it as you can see below.

Other than normal profit-taking and short selling, I would consider the possibility that the biggest options players, who tend to be the Banks and the others who play virtually every market and market cross, saw a nice opportunity to clean the clocks of the call buyers in the miners and related trades who were enthused by the big run higher sparked by the Fed.

However that is a surmise for now and there are somewhat less complicated explanations.  But after all we have seen, I am much more willing to entertain the crookedness of the markets than I might have been some years ago.   The options markets have become almost as bad a rat's nest as the forex markets for the retail traders.

There was negligible precious metal activity at The Bucket Shop yesterday, and just a little leakage of bullion out of the warehouses.

Let's see what happens.











SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Stock Option Expiry for March Tomorrow


Stocks were getting jammed higher in fairly light trading today, led by the SP futures more than anything else.

Some might consider this some preliminary action to the March stock option expiration tomorrow.

Then again, perhaps it is just more animal spirits, brewed by those moonshiners at the Fed.

Have a pleasant evening.






16 March 2016

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - March Madness


"The main thing is that the debt is in dollars. So we can't run out of cash--we print the stuff. Suppose that foreigners decide we're not reliable.   How does that drive up interest rates?   The Fed controls short-term interest rates, and long-term interest rates reflect expected short rates. How's that supposed to happen?"

Paul Krugman, Interview on CNNMoney

Well, at least now we know why gold was knocked down lower in the paper trading earlier this week.

It was to prepare us for The Big Retraction from the Fed, who begged a mulligan on their most recent rosy forecasts from three months ago about The Recovery™.   And as suspected, it's those foreigners who are at fault.  And that's why we can't have nice things.

There was intraday commentary about that here.

And so after 'fessing up and saying that things are not quite as good as they had thought, the dollar tanked and gold took off higher with some serious vigor.

There was little delivery activity yesterday in gold at The Bucket Shop.

But some customers coughed up over a million ounces of silver, most of which were taken on the cheap by the house account at JPM.    What prescient trading.

You may see that in the delivery report box scores below.  Quod erat demonstrandum.

Let's see how the rest of the week goes.

Get right, and sit tight.

Have a pleasant evening.