SP 500 and NDX December Futures Daily Charts

This is important support and if the market will find a bottom this is about where it will be.

At the least I think the stock decline may take a pause for the GM IPO. The Street and the government have a vested interest in its success.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts

Net Asset Value of Certain Precious Metal Trusts and Funds

I have reopened a 'long bullion - short stocks' paired trade as of yesterday weighted to rather net short stocks but have added to the bullion side here to make it more 'balanced.' I like to capture profits on one side of the trade by adding slowly to the other side if I am running imbalanced but one has to be careful with this approach. The less experienced are better off in cash here, waiting to see where things settle down.

It will be interesting to see if support on the SP futures holds above 1174. I could be adding to the short US stocks position depending on how things progress.

There will be no sustained recovery or financial stability while the market is dominated by TBTF institutions supported by cheap money from the Fed. It really is all about the reform, or lack thereof, and a system that is based on political corruption, insider dealings, and control frauds by con men, what Charles Hugh Smith has called the banality of evil.

The financial jackals will need to look for fresh prey and new hunting grounds.

"The biggest opportunity for us is not necessarily to do more things, but to be Goldman Sachs in more places." Lloyd Blankfein

And the developed nations and their people in their suffering might keep this more famous aphorism in mind:

"Le secret des grandes fortunes sans cause apparente est un crime oublié, parce qu' il a été proprement fait." (Behind every inexplicably great fortune there is a crime that remains undisclosed because it was well executed.) Honore de Balzac, Le Père Goriot

IMF Reveals New SDR Weighting Tied to the "Big Four" In Rebuff to BRICs

The 'Washington-based' IMF chose the status quo, merely tinkering slightly with the dollar-euro-pound-yen balance in its SDR. The Anglo-American financiers threw a bone to the Europeans with a slight increase. Japan retained its place in the colonial powers club. I find it almost incredible that the UK remains a financial power to the exclusion of the BRICs.

I cannot imagine that Russia and China will be pleased with this rebuff to their concerns, although they were granted more of the trappings of power at the G20.

Now that the SDR is off the table as a broadly acceptable replacement for the dollar reserve currency regime, at least for the next five years, we might expect more regionalization of trade and the formation of new trading blocs. This implies less financial stability as the developing and commodity nations begin to rebel against the current foundations of global finance that continue to subject them to the monetary policies of the Big Four: US, Europe, UK and Japan.

As US analysts are so fond of saying, But what choice do they have? Time to open the door and let us in so we can set up a banking system for you such as that which has destroyed the economies of the developed nations.

Such are the burdens of financial leadership that 'bind your sons to exile to serve your captives needs.' And so it begins all over again.

Bloomberg
IMF Lowers Dollar, Yen Weights in Its SDR Valuation Basket, Increases Euro
By Candice Zachariahs
Nov 15, 2010 6:12 PM ET

The International Monetary Fund reduced the weighting of the U.S. dollar and the yen and increased that of the euro in its Special Drawing Rights valuation basket after its regular five-year review.

The value of the SDR, which the IMF created in 1969 to supplement its member countries official reserves, will continue to be based on a basket of currencies comprised of the dollar, euro, yen and pound, the fund said in an e-mailed statement. UBS AG, the world’s second-largest foreign-exchange trader, said in June that the fund may include the Australian and Canadian dollars in the SDR basket this year, boosting demand for the commodity-backed currencies.

“There’s a long-term trend towards less U.S. dollars and more euro in terms of where central banks are putting their reserves, and this is consistent with that,” said Joseph Capurso, a currency strategist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia in Sydney. “There was some talk of the IMF putting in other currencies like the Aussie, but they’ve kept to the big four.”

The greenback’s weighting declined to 41.9 percent compared with 44 percent after a 2005 review, the fund said in its statement dated Nov. 15. The euro’s share rose to 37.4 percent from 34 percent. The yen’s fell to 9.4 percent from 11 percent, while the pound was little changed at 11.3 percent. SDRs are the Washington-based lender’s unit of account.

The new valuations will be effective Jan. 1, the fund said.