SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Wax On, Wax Off

Stocks dropped and VIX spiked as the screw-the-specs trade from yesterday reversed, and then reversed again a bit to trim its losses into the close.

Ok, you were warned.

I think the market keeps oscillating in a highly technical gaming trade until we get closer to a deal or to the debt ceiling deadline of October 17, which as a reminder is a 'soft' deadline given as an estimate by Treasury Secretary Jack Lew.

We will probably not get the Non-Farm Payrolls report on Friday if the government shutdown continues.

Have a pleasant evening.

Seder and Taibbi Discuss JPM and the SpokesModels of the Financial Press

"There's no such thing as good money or bad money. There's just money."

Charles 'Lucky' Luciano

"Why is JP Morgan getting so much heat? Maybe because it is a massive international crime syndicate."

Matt Taibbi

It may be unfair to take the measure of these news channels as journalists.  For the most part they are not journalists, and these are not news channels, although they do sometimes display facts in small boxes on their screens.

In defense of CNBC, Fox and Bloomberg are no better.    I have heard the same meme about money and Wall Street there many, many times. 

There is a mind set that puts the Wall Street and their embedded entourage of enablers apart from the shared reality of the public.  And the same thing is occurring with the press and politicians in Washington.

The financial press are too often spokesmodels acting in extended infomercials, talking about current events with financial graduates of the Charles Luciano School of Economics,  produced and put forward by the corporate interests and billionaires that own them and their careers. 

And this same problem of corporate cronyism is infesting the mainstream news departments as well.

Enjoy.

Here is a link to Taibbi's column on this video in which he makes a few additional comments.

COMEX Warehouse Gold Bullion: Price Moves Smell of Desperation As Inventory Remains Thin

'O sir, to willful men,
The injuries that they themselves procure
Must be their schoolmasters.”

William Shakespeare, King Lear

There were 3,215 ounces of gold bullion taken out of the HSBC warehouse.

The JPM warehouse had 7,143 ounces changed from deliverable to eligible. 

Perhaps the price action freed up some bullion from the GLD ETF.  They need it badly. The levels of gold bullion backing up the leveraged COMEX paper claims on gold exchange remain remarkably thin and oversubscribed.

The international monetary regime is changing.  Nothing could be more clear if one listens to what is being said, and sees what is being done. 

The European Central Banks have made their intentions quite clear, and the Asian monetary powers are in full preparation for their plans, whatever they may finally be.

The forces driving this change are powerful and founded in time and nature. We are watching history unfolding.

Today we saw the familiar methods of the past in a blatant pricing exercise that smelled of desperation. They can set the price by force in the markets in the short term, but they cannot produce that which they have taken, or fulfill that which is owed.  

Weighed, and found wanting.

Stand and deliver.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Pigmen Rampant on a Field of Greed

There was a very obvious hit on the precious metals today. I commented on it with pictures here.

Basically the pros saw the broader population of small specs leaning into protection, and took them for a ride today. As Bart Chilton said, there are no regulators watching these markets because of the government shutdown, so you are on your own.  At least that is what he implied.

I laid out the basic market strategy at work today in the stock market commentary. I am sure the Wall Street financiers think that this shutdown will be temporary, a few fleeting days that will harm no one or nothing about which they care.

The masters of the universe who are a bit closer to the inner circle of Moloch will almost certainly have a word with their servants and retainers in the Congress, and bring them to heel after a few days.  It is all a game after all, isn't it? 

The G20 is having a meeting  of their central bankers and finance ministers in Washington DC on October 10-11.

A man hears of things that might be said at such a gathering.  It certainly caught some people by surprise when the Italian Central Bank came out and endorsed gold as a key reserve asset,  at Monday's LBMA meeting.   France and Germany chimed in, even though they are disingenuously at odds with what they say about never selling compared to what they do with leasing the metal.

An economist disciple of Greenspan unreservedly endorsed the idea of the trillion dollar platinum coin today, or more precisely 1,000 billion dollar coins so everyone important can have one for their very own.   Non-specialists may not understand all that this implies in their political zeal, but surely he must know better.  Well, it is a disgraced profession after all.

Hey why fight it?  Let's go all in for it.  The US should announce that striking piece of "monetary innovation" at the G20 meeting, so all the US' major creditors can see what a cynical act of brazen seigniorage looks like up close.  Why hide it?   After all, the whole of the law for the exceptional is to do what thou wilt.

There was some minor movement of gold out of HSBC today, and a recategorisation of some bullion in the JPM warehouse as well, following their impressive move to bolster confidence in the threadbare COMEX registered inventory yesterday.   I might post something about that later on.

We are now in October delivery.  October is not a big month for the futures, but it is an active delivery month so we will be interested to see what happens.