Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - More and More Interesting

I am closely watching the December Comex gold contracts still standing. As of yesterday there were enough to pose a bit of a concern with the current amount of deliverable gold at the Comex, even with the recent additions.  

The price volatility, both up and down, on the Comex is symptomatic of the technical nature of the trading there now, with technical implying artificiality.

As I have said, I do not expect the Comex to be the locus of a break in the gold market, since it is not the focus of the action, which has now shifted firmly to Asia and the Mideast.  If the Comex should falter, it will most likely be because of a more fundamental break, or scandal, in the system.  but I can't rule it out, as a de facto if not actual default. 

Comex is becoming like a shell game, or liar's poker between ill-mannered children in suits, and it's really a shame.   But that is what happens when a society starts mistaking wealth for wisdom, and a trader's cunning for sound social or even economic judgement.  

Have a pleasant evening.

SP 500 and NDX Futurs Daily Charts - No Recovery

It is hard to believe, but Alan Greenspan actually said something of value today.

Greenspan noted the stock market valuations, and said that corporate profits may be reaching some diminishing returns as a percentage of GDP.

I have not done the math or looked up the figures, but he made the point I think that the artificiality of the recovery is notable, and cannot be sustained without some sort of organic growth from the real economy.

The one percent won't understand any of this, what is really going on, because they have lost all perspective, and so have their hangers-on who only say for pay.   Sometimes it almost gets funny if it were not so sad.  I thought JPM Jim Glassman's comments on Pope Francis were hysterical. 

They speak with one another, and get all sorts of confirmation bias from their 'winning,' but really the divergence between the real economy and the financial system as it is currently constructed is one of the more dangerous conditions we can see in a nation's history.

The chart of population employed as a percentage of total population below is rather telling.

Let's see how this all goes.  Generally it does not go well.

Shanghai Gold Exchange Cumulative Deliveries Of 8,655 Tonnes Since 2009

“In a room where
people unanimously maintain
a conspiracy of silence,
one word of truth
sounds like a pistol shot.”

Czesław Miłosz

Since the beginning of 2009, the Shanghai Gold Exchange has delivered about 8,655 Tonnes of gold bullion. That is about 278,264,715 troy ounces.

Comex is the tail wagging the dog of Asia and the Mideast.

The Shanghai Gold Exchange competitive differentiation is in their motto: Integrity Leads to Prosperity.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Deliverables from Scotia - Kozlowski Redux

Scotia added 60,000 ounces to the deliverable category yesterday from their vaults. Brinks threw in about 4,635 ounces as well.

This brings the deliverable (registered) bullion inventory back up to 655,556 ounces, a bit more respectable for the December delivery month.

As far as deliverable inventory goes,  Scotia and JPM hold the bulk of it.  As a percentage of total holdings, HSBC is remarkably light on deliverables.   Must be an Asian thing.

For now the Comex is setting price, the tail wagging the dog.  But at some point that will change, and the Comex will become a price follower, and then we may see some real market clearing.  The longer these antics go on, the more violent the market correction coming from a blind side will be.

But until then it is the usual games, and the usual suspects.

Speaking of financial antics and the usual suspects, after the bell it was announced that ex-Tyco CEO Dennis Kozlowski, who famously used fraud to take $134 million from his company, is being granted parole from prison.

He and the CFO Mark Swartz had been sentenced to 8 1/3 to 25 years in prison for grand larceny, conspiracy, falsifying records and violating business law. They were found guilty of giving themselves illegal bonuses and forgiving loans to themselves from 1999 to 2002.

In many ways Kozlowski and Swartz were pioneers for American financial innovations that were not fully realized until the 2007-8 financial crisis.

"Back when I was running Tyco, I was living in a CEO-type bubble. I had a strong sense of entitlement at that time," Kozlowski told the board.

Kozlowski was clearly a trend-setter.

Is it time to go long high-end umbrella stands and wastebaskets, or custom-tailored Italian silk burnt orange prison jumpsuits and Presidential handcuff links? Once an outlier, massive financial fraud now seems to be in season in both NY and London, if not de rigueur.

Have a pleasant evening.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Permanent Prosperity, Prêt-à-Porter

Stocks are tottering into the end of year, near to bubble levels.

With the Fed kicking in $85 billion per month as walking around money for the one percent, things have never looked better.

Equity price is way over its skis, and needs some organic earnings and revenue growth to justify even current levels. But that reckoning is for another day.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Lions, and Tigers, and Bears, Oh My!

This is a fairly economic information heavy week, which will see both a Non-Farm Payrolls report and the second look at Q3 GDP. The weekly economic calendar for the US is included below.

The metals were pounded fairly steadily all day, in light trade. As I mentioned some weeks ago, we may see the 'December effect' in gold and silver, in which the metals are hit in the first part of the month, only to recover into the year end.

There was little movement in the Comex metals warehouses on Friday as we had one large deposit into storage, and nothing was done with the deliverables.

Bloomberg TV was recommending the purchase of bank stocks as a means of employing your wealth,  instead of gold and silver today, complete with a comparison chart.  And they included European bank stocks in that, as if they were somehow inferior to the wondrous US bank stocks, but were still better than precious metals.

Sometimes it really is that obvious.

Today was the first delivery day for the December contract.

Have a pleasant evening.

"Take care that you do not despise one of these little ones; for, I tell you, in heaven they will continually see the face of my Father."

Matt 18:10