29 December 2015

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Painting the Tape


“Demagogues are like the fishers for eels; in still waters they catch nothing, but if they thoroughly stir up the slime, their fishing is good; in the same way it's only in troubled times that you line your pockets.”

Aristophanes, The Knights

Well, the end of year shenanigans to add some coin to the bonuses might not be all to waste.

We might get a decent shorting opportunity for January.  But we will have to wait and see about that one.

Someone asked me today about my 'year end' predictions.    I rarely give any.

January is likely to set the 'tone' for the equity markets for the year.

My long standing forecast is for stagflation, and that has not changed.   Deflation is a possibility, but as I have said repeatedly, that has to be a policy decision in a purely fiat currency.

And the financial elites are doing quite a few of the things to foster that, given their propensity to use top down stimulus and virtually ring fence it for their own speculations.

The stock markets overall appear to be very 'fragile' and susceptible to any shocks, even of a moderate character.   However the Fed and the TBTF zombie banks are increasingly brazen in their interventions.

Have a pleasant evening.







28 December 2015

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Kabuki Bonus Time


There were no silver deliveries reported, and JPM took another slug of gold for 'delivery.'

The Bucket Shop is little more than a betting parlor these days.

There were some little movements in the inventories as reported below.

Prices are going to be painted by number into the year end unless there is some exogenous event to shake the markets up.

Have a pleasant evening.








SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Pushed Up In Dull Trading


Stocks opened lower, but were slowly pushed up to near unchanged in light holiday trading.

There will not be a lot of economic news this week.

Unless some exogenous event occurs to shake up the markets I suspect we will see the usual tape-painting into the year end.

Have a pleasant evening.





26 December 2015

Shanghai Gold Withdrawals Top 2500 Tonnes For This Year


With 57.75 tonnes withdrawn in the latest week, the number of tonnes of gold bullion withdrawn from the Shanghai Gold Exchange stands at 2,503 tonnes for the year to date.

This is the most gold ever withdrawn from this or from any exchange in a single year that I can find in the post-WW II era.

And this record breaking phenomenon is for the most part being ignored.  It seems in retrospect almost unprecedented, and is particularly odd given the relative  'drying up' of deliveries of physical gold in NY and the shrinking of the 'free gold float' inventories in London.