Gold Intraday

Hard to miss the deliberate price smackdown.

As I said yesterday, "I will not be surprised to see a final big move to run the stops to the downside in the precious metals, and take additional shares and units of paper claims before the markets break free."

So is this 'the final big move?' Of course I do not know, no one does. But gold is now deeply oversold, and we are nearing the rinse phase of the wash-rinse cycle, at least according to the technical indicators.

Things like this are a pity, because they make a sham of the markets. But what else is new.

Three day weekend ahead. And the currency war is on.

Meteorite Explodes Over Russia, 1000+ Injured

Bus-Sized Meteorite Strikes Central Russia

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - The Art of Currency War

“Each central bank...sought to dominate its government by its ability to control Treasury loans, to manipulate foreign exchanges, to influence the level of economic activity in the country, and to influence cooperative politicians by subsequent economic rewards in the business world.”

Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope, p. 278


"Of course, convergence of finance and monopoly capitalism with monopoly communism was always the long-range goal of the Money Power, as William Gladstone called them...

The conflict between the East and West was designed to scare the people of the world into accepting a convergence of these two monopoly systems of authoritarian power. The end result was to be a new Imperial Order and a New World Empire run by an elite self-perpetuating oligarchies from the leading nations of the earth."

Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope, p. 860

Crazy, huh? Quigley was a professor of history at Georgetown University, and was a mentor to Bill Clinton, having recommended him for his Rhodes scholarship.

It seems a bit less crazy today than it did when I first read this in the 1990's.

Speaking of quotes, this particular quote came to mind today as I thought about the metals markets.

“Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak.”

Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Why the big show of control over the markets? It is fairly obvious if you watch the daily action on the tape.

I *think* that the financial system is quietly unraveling behind the scenes again, and that at some point this great complacency is going to break, and hard. But the gaming will continue until something provokes a change in the short term equilibrium, which I believe is false.

I will not be surprised to see a final big move to run the stops to the downside in the precious metals, and take additional shares and units of paper claims before the markets break free.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Option Expiration

"Another cause of today’s instability is that we now have a society in America, Europe and much of the world which is totally dominated by the two elements of sovereignty that are not included in the state structure: control of credit and banking, and the corporation.

These are free of political controls and social responsibility and have largely monopolized power in Western Civilization and in American society. They are ruthlessly going forward to eliminate land, labor, entrepreneurial-managerial skills, and everything else the economists once told us were the chief elements of production.

The only element of production they are concerned with is the one they can control: capital."

Carroll Quigley, Oscar Iden Lecture Series 3, 1976

The equity markets are awash in liquidity, but it remains somewhat narrow, its success due to the 'lack of selling' moreso than a breadth of participation. In other words, well-heeled banks and hedge funds are gaming the system higher, using levered instruments like the SP 500 futures for example.

Conversely, the metals markets are being used like their personal ATM.

Let's see how long they can keep this up, before we see another 'wash and rinse' cycle.

As a reminder, Monday 18 February is a national holiday in the US.