Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Gold Chart Shows About 10,000 Contracts Dumped in Quiet Market

I felt this bear raid coming on the tape, from the action I was seeing. I cannot express it better than that.

So I had sold my silver bullion trading position and trimmed back gold, adding a hedge in the first hour of trade.

The hit came around mid-day after the European close as you can see on the 5 minute June futures chart.

One does not drop 11,000 contracts in a ten minute period in what might be called a reasonable trade.

The Dr. Evil Strategy and Some Targets

Will the CFTC investigate, asking the seller why perchance they did this? No, and that in itself speaks volumes.

But the solution is not to try and trade these scandalously under-regulated markets, but instead to hold long term investment positions, preferably as far away from Wall Street as is possible.

I had suggested last week that calls that the 'bottom was in' might be premature. It is in the established playbook to hit the futures hard at least once after an options expiration which we had last week.

The shorts are trapped, especially in silver, and they have powerful friends in the government and the media. There are some very worried people out there. Big things may be coming.

Swiss National Bank Considers Capital Controls

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - The Well Tempered Clavier

Geithner and Bernanke are playing a tune for us on the US equity futures markets, with the lead vocals coming from the SP 500 June contract.

Can you name that tune?

I do not think they can hit the high note without a serious bump of QE to sustain them. And Benny may provide it, if somewhat stealthily, mid month around the time of the Greek elections.

 

Barry Ritholtz Interview On the Financial Crisis from Capitalism Without Failure

Excellent interview as always by Barry, and an interesting list of suggested readings. His blog, The Big Picture, is among the best.

I would respectfully include ECONned by Yves Smith on the reading list. It adds a dimension of scholarship and detailed analysis found nowhere else.

Barry Ritholtz on the Crisis: Causes, Cures, Corptocracy, and Suggested Reading

When you get bit by a dog, you don’t just look at the dog, you have to look at the owner who is holding the leash.To me, a lot of the regulatory changes, and a lot of what the Federal Reserve did, stand on their own as a major factor. But if you’ve read David Hume, if you’ve studied the philosophy of causation, you have to look at what motivated those changes.

I have these debates with friends. One group blames everything on big government; the other group blames everything on big corporations. The sad news is that there’s really no difference between the two: Big government and big corporations work hand-in-hand. If you want to know who is the puppet and who is the puppet master, it sure looks like Wall Street has been pulling the strings of Congress for many, many, many years.

I remember the Dick Durbin quote, right in the middle of the crisis. He was astonished at all the bankers and bank lobbyists running around the halls of Congress, and said, “I can’t believe these guys – they act as if they own the place.” The fact is, it’s not an act – they do own the place...

Read the rest here.

Highly Resolve That These Dead Shall Not Have Died In Vain

"Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can't ride you unless your back is bent."

Martin Luther King, Jr.


Judge of Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget.

Rudyard Kipling

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.

The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.

It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.