Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Take Your Stinking Paws Off Our Monetary Metals

It was capping time again, as gold and silver continued to chop sideways within a narrow trading range.  Ordinarily I would think they were coiling for a move higher, but these days gold and silver seem correlated to nothing but some fairly heavy handed price manipulation in New York and London.

Stocks drifted higher on bad economic news, moving without thought like a stumbling herd of zombies in The Walking Dead.

Bear in mind that tomorrow is a stock market option expiration, and the games were being played in selected stocks, including the miners, this week.

The big show is in September with the Alibaba IPO.  Road show starts 3 September and the IPO date is tentatively 16 September.   Biggest IPO ever.  Maybe a bell ringer.

The Central Banks have made a right mess of things in the US and Europe, haven't they? They can play the plausible deniability card all day long, like the politicians and CEOs who are fabulously overpaid and over privileged.  When things go bad they haven't been involved, it wasn't in their job description, and can barely remember their business address.

But as a powerful regulator and monetary authority, and a major influencer of the prevailing economic opinions,  they really have no excuses for the serial disasters that they have spawned, in the service of the crony kleptocracy centered around the Banks.  They have been taking the people's money, directly and indirectly, and handing it right over to the wealthiest few who caused most of the problems in the first place.  And remember, it was the Greenspan Fed that led the charge with the Banks to relax regulations and repeal Glass-Steagall.

The Anglo-American financial system reminds me of the original Planet of the Apes. The central banks are like the gorillas. They have all the horses and the weapons, and ride around and shoot and enslave the human beings.

Have a pleasant evening.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Ancien Régime - Here Comes the Sun King

Stocks managed to build on their rally, despite some particularly ugly macroeconomic news this morning.

I seem to recall saying that it is hard to be too cynical about this market. It is running on low volume and algorithms that are largely focused on the short term technicals.

It is going to take something of significance to shake Wall Street out of its narcissistic love affair with itself.

Today President Obama announced that he is relaxing the restrictions against lobbyists directly occupying positions of power on Federal advisory boards for government policies. 

Perhaps he just wants to cut out the middlemen.  Or line up a few more post-electoral $100K speaking engagements.

How fitting that the Sun King announced this from Martha's Vineyard. 

Is there any promise or progressive policy that he has not carelessly thrown under the carriage of his imperial convenience for the pleasure of the moneyed interests?

As a reminder, tomorrow is an option expiration for stocks.

Have a pleasant evening.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Cap, Cap, Cappity Cap

It was silver's turn in the barrel, as gold held its ground a little better.

 Silver was under modest pressure throughout the NY trading day. 

As you know this is an 'active month' for gold and an off month for silver in New York.

Nothing meaningful happened on the Comex delivery front or in the warehouses yesterday.  Active month-wise.

Why waste words?   Just another day with the Flim Flam man.   

We have the illusion of calm and efficient markets.

Have a pleasant evening.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Alibaba and the 40 Underwriters

Stocks managed to rally despite economic numbers this morning for retail sales that sucked out loud, no ifs, ands, or buts.  This does not bode well for Q3 GDP.

I think my skepticism of the week before last about the stock market action being the rinse cycle in a wash and rinse has a little more street credibility, given the U-turn that equities made right on key support levels.

I grow old, I grow old, I will ladder Treasuries and have them rolled.

I hear Alibaba's IPO, which will be the largest IPO ever and a real bell ringer, will be coming out on September 16th, with the road show starting in Asia on September 3rd. Unless something really happens, it will surprise me very much if stocks are going to take a dive during that time period.

As a reminder this Friday is a stock option expiry. The next stock option expiry will be on September 20th.

Stocks are jammed up into short term overhead resistance right now from a down sloping trend channel also known as a bull flag. IF they can move higher from here they have a good chance to run higher to the top of the intermediate trend before Friday expiry and take out the bear option players.

Then we might get another test downwards, but the cynical me says that the Street will try to smooth the way for the mother of all IPOs in September, at least until the 20th or so.  Unless Alibaba snubs one of the big Wall Street machers in the underwrite and ability to dole out the spoils and take their vig. Then all bets are off.

Have a pleasant evening.