Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Bread and Circuses - Get Ready

"When a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental — men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand.

So confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack or be lost. All the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum.

The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."

H. L. Mencken

I thought we had already been there and done that, several times perhaps, but I suppose it could always get worse.

The US GDP number for the third quarter was pretty bad coming in at only 1.5%. And that number is likely to be revised lower.

The Atlanta Fed is forecasting about the same or lower for Q4.

What is even worse, if you peel back the headline number, the big growth driver in that GDP number was healthcare costs. Talk about an unproductive was of capital in paying too much for healthcare.

Gold and silver were hit by a rather orderly bear raid today with the price declining throughout the day on a steady program of selling. It was most likely a follow up to the FOMC trying to knock down the open interest a bit more ahead of the key month of December.  The Dollar was drifting lower today, so that provided no support for the metals bears.

There was the usual slow bleed of silver out of The Bucket Shop warehouses, and a little more gold passed from the house account of HSBC to JPM. I notice that a little more gold was marked deliverable in the Nova warehouse, and one might speculate that this is some of the recently acquired gold by JPM still held in Nova's warehouse.

Can't prove it without a warrant and a couple hairy-knuckled Federal lawmen to back it up, but I think it fits the model of JPM taking on the role of the bullion provider of last resort for physical bullion demands on the Comex.

The amounts of physical gold moving around in Asia dwarf the action in NY, and accounting for the musical chairs paper flows, provide a stark comparison to London as well.

I hope to put something more out about London and the leverage being used there, in addition to the leverage in New York.

Last night's GOP political debate was embarrassing.  And not all of it was the fault of CNBC but they get an A++ for pandering.  And since that is what they do on their financial broadcasts and commentary every day, it is not surprising.

Is this what we have come to at long last, this clown show?

Have a pleasant evening.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Disorder of the Day

The third quarter GDP number this morning was a rather light 1.5%, and likely to be revised lower.

Stocks ignored the real economy, and were trying to hold their gains and push higher, most likely with an eye on the easy money flows from the central banks, and not on real world economic results.

This provides us some information about the broken and disordered relationship between Wall Street and Main Street.

Have some pleasant evening.

NAV Premiums of Certain Precious Metal Trusts and Funds

Premiums are definitely falling on the Central Gold Trust, no doubt due to the acquisition offer from Sprott.

The Sprott Silver Trust has a negative cash balance, although I have just marked it to 'zero.' They will likely sell some bullion to raise money.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - US Dollar - Le Douleur Douce du Monde

I saw pale kings and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried—'La Belle Dame sans Merci
Hath thee in thrall!'

John Keats, La Belle Dame Sans Merci

Today was a classic.  It was like tuning in to an old Milton Berle show and hearing all the familiar jokes, pratfalls, and goofy faces.

Gold came in steady, near to unchanged from yesterday's close.  It was roughly the same for silver.

Both precious metals were jammed higher for no particular reason in the early morning trade in NY, late London.

And both were smacked lower on the 'hawkish' FOMC statement, although stocks were having none of it, not one bit.

The reason for the metals smack can be attributed to their pricing in the dollar cross, as the dollar caught a bid.  Not surprising since most of the developed world is busy cutting rates and trying to devalue for the sake of their economies, and the Fed is talking recovery, even though there really isn't any sustainable recovery evident just about anywhere.  I discuss the stronger dollar a bit today here.

Looking at the end of day we see that silver is slightly higher by about $.10, and gold is down about ten dollars from the close at yesterday afternoon.

I hope you were not caught up in today's exercise in perception management, unless you were a daytrader, in which case you are in God's hands.  Or something to that effect.

I have switched to my second scenario for the gold retracement, taking the intraday low around 1152 as a hit on that objective.

Today was all about the stronger dollar.   I would hope that the stronger dollar's effect on the price of gold and silver in dollars does not require an explanation.

One can also justify higher stock prices by thinking that it will encourage foreign investors to buy our dodgy paper at these fat valuations.

Personally I think it is a mistake to attribute much to these short term antics.   So I will be skeptical for now.

I do not think the Fed can afford to sustain this stronger dollar, especially since they are looking for an excuse to raise rates for policy reasons, ie they want to get off ZIRP so they can cut rates in the future when their latest paper asset bubble ends in yet another financial crisis, without having to resort to negative rates.

It is a hard policy choice to go lower than zero, especially with a well-armed, cantankerous population.

In other news, Deutsche Bank has checked itself into balance sheet rehab for the next two years.  Considering they are a pre-eminent global counter party risk, I suppose that could be interpreted as 'good news.'

There was also intraday viewing of the fruits of neoliberalism with Chris Hedges and John Ralston Saul here.

So let us see how things progress.   I have a feeling that today was a bit of bravado, but it is wrong to underestimate the willful resourcefulness of the white collar criminal class.

Have a pleasant evening.