SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Wobbly Ahead of the Fed

The economic news came in weakly this morning.

And this seven years after the financial crisis.

Have a pleasant evening.

Meet the Malignant Narcissist

"A personality disorder characterized by grandiosity; an expectation that others will recognize one’s superiority; a lack of empathy, lack of truthfulness, and the tendency to degrade others."

"Narcissism becomes particularly malignant (i.e. malevolent, dangerous, harmful, incurable) when it goes beyond mere vanity and excessive self-focus. Malignant narcissists not only see themselves as superior to others but believe in their superiority to the degree that they view others as relatively worthless, expendable, and justifiably exploitable.

This type of narcissism is a defining characteristic of psychopathy/sociopathy and is rooted in an individual’s deficient capacity for empathy. It’s almost impossible for a person with such shallow feelings and such haughtiness to really care about others or to form a conscience with any of the qualities we typically associate with a humane attitude, which is why most researchers and thinkers on the topic of psychopathy think of psychopaths as individuals without a conscience altogether."

"There is nothing about the man that is service-oriented. He’s only serving himself.”

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Ol' Man River

Ol' Man River, that Ol' Man River
He must know somethin' but he don't say nothin'
He just keeps rollin', he keeps on rollin' along.

Just like gold, which keeps rolling along, from West to East.

South African headquartered multinational mining company Anglo-American was taken out and beaten with an ugly stick in London on the news that they were suspending the dividend and laying off about 85,000 workers.

Anglo is a member of the FTSE 100. They are one of the world's largest producer of platinum, and a major producer of diamonds, copper, nickel, iron ore and metallurgical and thermal coal.

So much for commodities that support the real economies of the world.

Gold held its value rather nicely, with silver given up just a few cents.

And surprise, there was an actual delivery of gold at The Bucket Shop yesterday, even though it was primarily a 'house to house' delivery of gold from GLD custodian HSBC to metals hump JPM.  Let's see if JPM is the big stopper as they were in the last active month, should anyone decide to try to take delivery of something in size.

There was nothing done in silver delivery which is a bit of a change of pace.

As for the warehouses, there was the customary slow leakage in both gold and silver.

In other words, the usual nonsense.

Have a pleasant evening.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - It's a Small World After All

US stocks slumped hard this morning on the overnight news which was posted here that the Chinese import/export figures for November were simply awful.

If Chinese exports were down sharply, what does that say about US domestic demand and likely retail sales?

Let's see if the US can strike a trend here ahead of the big events of next week.

Have a pleasant evening.