Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Antics Will Continue Until Confidence Returns

"Exploitation and manipulation produce boredom and triviality; they cripple man, and all factors that make a man into a psychic cripple turn him also into a sadist and a destroyer."

Erich Fromm

The bear raid started last night, and pushed the metals down to support today.

I am not overly concerned since we seem to be setting a right shoulder.

I would be more concerned if I were at the head of one of the exchanges where these jokers are driving drunk with power. I doubt this will end well.

Welcome to The Hunger Games.  And may the odds be ever in your favor.

I will look at the statistics on bullion and see if there is anything interesting to report.

There is intraday commentary here.

I wish to remind you that there are Google blogger problems that are causing my site's header, title area with the logo name and daily quotation, to be format oddly, through no changes I have made. It keeps wishing to stack every word on top of one another for some reason. I have looked at the specific html code and it seems as though the problem is in some macros that Google alone maintains.

So please bear with my stitched together logo for now. I will look for some alternative method of providing daily quotations which seem to be a favorite feature for may of our patrons. Google is a joy to work with compared to Yahoo, I'll give them that.

Have a pleasant evening.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Are Expectations of a September Taper Fading

Another glorious rally as the Pax Americana proves to be irresistible.

Stocks are getting a bit stretched, and the volumes are almost a joke. So this has the appearance of puffery.

But even puffery has its day, as the illuminaries and solons of Washington can attest.

Someone asked if I am hedging precious metals by shorting stocks and the answer is 'absolutely not.'

There is no need to hedge at this point, and stocks are in an almost pure technical trade.

And as Jesse Livermore once said, 'Never short a dull market.' The volume here is very conducive to batting the prices around.

I wanted to go to a room and quietly weep for the pitiable demise of the Dow Theory today. With the inclusion of Goldman and Visa in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, it can be considered officially gone, death by cynicism. Even Nike, which makes things, makes little of them anywhere in the US, preferring the heat of foreign sweat to mold their products.

But I do suppose that this confirms that the major growth of the US is in the rentier sector, including the production of financial instruments of dubious quality, usury, and various forms of white collar managerial abuses of ordinary people. If they could add the Congress to the DJIA it would be a coup de grâce for the real economy.

Have a pleasant evening.

A Closer Look At the Gold Daily Chart - This Town

"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."

Abraham Lincoln

I think that the formation of the inverse head and shoulder is apparent.

Let's see if it breaks down, or activates by breaking up through the neckline.

As an aside, Google Blogger seems to be having some issues, and the quote on the header is problematic for now. These are not changes I have made.  I suspect someone messed with the header macro in Java, and I cannot fix that without a major rewrite of the template which I am loathe to start.

By the time I achieved something they would have fixed it, and I would have something non-standard and awkward to maintain.  Been there, done that, too many times.  Best to wait for whatever was broken to either be fixed or replaced by its pristine backup. 

They are making some changes, and have apparently broken something in the process. I thought that it was Yahoo which specialized in that sort of project management.

I am encountering some other problems with the site behind the scenes as well.

Let's give it a few days.  And the same patience is required for this gold chart formation to work itself through its current consolidation.

Life can be disappointing at times. And I think quite a few people have come to the conclusion that among those disappointment's is President Obama, the reformer, and the Congress.

I am about half way through This Town by Mark Leibovich. I do not know that I would recommend it for everyone, but I am enjoying it because quite a long time ago I swam in those waters, and had friends in the political business with whom I kept in touch.  I know the types, and some of the players, so the gossipy elements of the book are enjoyable.  I can easily see where they could become very tedious to someone who was not familiar or interested in that sort of thing.

Other than the personal details of famous and nearly famous people and their idiosyncrasies and antics,  the book is useful because it highlights the bipartisan dedication to personal advancement and greed that has possessed the heirs of the 'Me Generation.'   Politics is always a dirty business, and it therefore always attracts vile creatures.  But when their venality becomes not only accepted but the fashion, then their hypocrisy and toleration of soft bribery knows no bounds.

The book shows how bad things can get when virtue is no longer held in high esteem, and the shame of dishonour, dishonesty, and deceit no longer carries any social sanctions or financial repercussions.  It is the story of moral hazard written in capital letters.  And we are not done with it yet.

Reform in such environments is a risky business, because reform involves a shift of power.  And power brings out the worst in people. The cure is often as bad or even worse than the disease.  But change will come, one way or another.

Deliverable Gold Bullion on the COMEX Continues Its Decline - Claims Per Ounce Top 56

About 17,000 ounces of gold were taking out of the COMEX registered bullion stocks on Friday. 6,319 ounces were changed from registered to eligible at JPM, and 10,705 ounces were taken out of Brinks altogether.

Total registered (designated deliverable) ounces of gold bullion at all COMEX warehouses dropped to a new low of 669,610 ounces of real gold bullion.

Total gold bullion of all types in storage at COMEX designated warehouses remains at a little over 7 million ounces.

As it says on their own spreadsheet, the COMEX believes these bullion reports are from reliable parties, but assume no liability for their accuracy or for any counterparty risk.

More charts such as claims per ounce will be added to this post as they become available.

Higher prices will most likely be required to motivate title holders of eligible bullion to move it into the deliverable category, so that it can be sold by the bullion dealers.

And those 100 oz. bars of fine gold that are delivered and removed will probably end up being refined and recast into 400 oz. bars in Switzerland, and shipped to the East, not to return to the COMEX and LBMA paper claims bullion game of musical chairs for a long, long time. And that is going to become a problem in the not too distant future.

Weighed, and found wanting.

Stand and deliver.