SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Pullback

The housing data this morning was weaker than expected.

The Fed minutes unnerved the markets which were already wobbly.

If you look at the charts, the indices have had an amazing run up off the bottom of the trend channel without a pullback, much less a serious one.

I took off an opportunistic short position at the close which I had put on the other day.

Let's see what happens. That will help to determine if this is a real correction or just a pause in an overly strong run higher.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts

"A shudder in the loins engenders there
The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
And Agamemnon dead."

W. B. Yeats, Leda and the Swan


"When clouds appear, wise men put on their cloaks;
When great leaves fall, the winter is at hand;
When the sun sets, who doth not look for night?...

Bloody thou art; bloody will be thy end."

William Shakespeare, Richard III


"As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man,
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began:
That the Dog returns to his Vomit, and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing, and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!"

Rudyard Kipling, The Gods of the Copybook Headings

They are still not showing the ounces being delivered out of the Comex warehouses to standing February contracts.

It is thin on deliverables, not as thin as it had been, but it will be getting thinner.

Let's see what happens.

Have a pleasant evening.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Want To Take you Higher

This will end badly.

Notice how equities hit the bottom of the trend channel, and then took off like a horse with a red hot poker applied to its posterior.

The real economy is not keeping pace with the financialisation of reality.  And that is a recipe for disaster, but in the future. 

In the meantime, try not to get in front of these drunk-with-power drivers.

Hong Kong Gold and Silver Exchange To Launch 1,500 Tonne Depository in China

Just a fad. Nothing to see here, move along.

Reuters
Hong Kong gold exchange eyes 1,500-tonne warehouse in mainland China
February 16, 2014

The Chinese Gold & Silver Exchange Society (CGSE), based in Hong Kong, aims to launch a physical bullion trading exchange and a 1,500-tonne depository in mainland China within the next year, its president said on Thursday. The century-old firm, which runs Hong Kong's only physical bullion trading exchange, is looking to tap the burgeoning demand for gold in China, which last year toppled India from its ranking as the world's top gold consumer.

Its 171 members include dealers, banks and jewellers, among them Chow Tai Fook Jewellery Group Ltd, the world's most valuable jewellery retailer. It has been in talks to open a warehouse in China's free trade zone in the Qianhai district of Shenzhen that has struggled to take off some three years after it was first touted as a new "mini-Hong Kong".

But talks are finally getting serious after last year's launch of the Shanghai free trade zone, CGSE President Haywood Cheung told Reuters. "Three years ago we started negotiating with them to build a vault for gold and silver. It is now finally down to an ad hoc committee," said Cheung, adding that Qianhai officials had asked for CGSE's plans and proposals...

Read the entire story here.