Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Quiet Option Expiration

Gold and silver both caught a bid this morning on a flight to safety after the key US ally Turkey shot down a Russian jet allegedly infringing on their border with Syria for a matter of less than seventeen seconds.

Russia disputes this as one might imagine.  They claim that the jet was one mile within the Syrian border.

Turkmen on the ground then shot the defenseless pilots as they descended by parachute.  And put a bow on it by shooting down a rescue helicopter that came searching for them.

Shooting a parachuting air crew member from a distressed aircraft is a violation of Article 42 of the Geneva Convention,  It is abhorred by professional military organizations as a despicable and dishonorable act.  And it is a war crime.

No worries.  Nothing to see here.  Move along.

Nothing much happened in The Bucket Shop yesterday. There were no deliveries, and only some silver leaked out of the warehouses.

Tomorrow the US markets will be open, but 'unless something happens' the markets will hit their objective by 1 PM, and the adults will leave the algos in the capable hands of junior traders.

Let's see if gold and silver get any gut checks in advance of the December contract after today's option expiration.

Here is a modest proposal.

All wars not in direct defense of US soil should be fully funded up front by a 'no exemptions' alternative minimum surtax on private incomes over one million dollars, corporate incomes over one billion, and a one-tenth of one percent tax on all Wall Street transactions, with no exceptions for The Banks or other pseudo 'market makers.'

Everyone has to do their part. The average poor Americans do most of the actual fighting and dying. Those who make the most money off these endless wars should be obliged to pay for them up front.

Have a pleasant evening.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Traditional Thanksgiving Week Rally And More War, Huzzah!

"War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it."

George Orwell

As you may have heard, Turkey shot down a Russian jet on the Syria/Turkey border.

Turkish Syrian freedom fighters then shot the Russian pilots as they descended on parachutes, and also shot down a Russian rescue helicopter that came to search for them.

Stock shrugged this news and some fairly spirit dampening economic news, and managed to shake off deep losses to finish largely unchanged with a slight gain in the lead sled dog SP futures.

No one can say that anything can dampen the traditional Thanksgiving Week rally on Wall Street. Especially when the volumes are light, and the algos are determined to push equities up by buying the SP futures and a few key bellwethers.

Have a pleasant evening.

NAV Premiums of Certain Precious Metal Trusts and Funds

Both Sprott Funds are estimated to have negative cash balances now. Gold has slightly gone negative but their silver trust continues to go a bit more. But as you can see, this is a tiny percentage of the overall fund assets. Still, it seems a bit odd.

Gold and silver had a 'flight to safety' bounce today as did most less risky assets in the aftermath of Turkey shooting down a Russian jet, with Syrian Turkmen then executing the pilots as they descended via parachute.

Stocks are struggling to go green. I suspect that a rally was in the gameplan for the Thanksgiving holiday week as it often is, but international events have intruded.

We must show that nothing can deter the financial asset bubble in the course of its wealth transferring rounds.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Comex Option Expiration

There were no deliveries in precious metals at The Bucket Shop on Friday. What a surprise.

There was a little movement in the warehouses.

There will be a precious metals option expiration on the Comex tomorrow.

We will be shifting gears into the big December gold contract at the end of the week.

The US dollar gained a little and the metals were off a little.

The US dollar long trade is a very crowded bus.

I have not yet seen a buy signal for the metals in all this.

Have a pleasant evening.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - All For the Fed

Stocks had a hard go of it today, but managed to hold the level on their latest bubble up to near highs.

Economic news was limping in this morning with existing home sales missing estimates.

Stock market volume fell 14% off its ten day moving average. Volumes are lackluster.

GDP second go for the 3Q estimate tomorrow.

Have a pleasant evening.

Here is the Lord's Prayer Advertisement Banned By British Cinemas

"Leading UK cinemas are refusing to screen a Church of England commercial reciting the Lord's Prayer. But what are the rules on religious advertising, asks Justin Parkinson.

It features the Archbishop of Canterbury, a grieving man, bodybuilders, a festival-goer, emergency workers, a cattle farmer, a choir, refugees, a commuter, schoolchildren and the audience at a baptism. They say the words of the Lord's Prayer.

Official advertising rules are aimed at preventing misleading, or causing harm or offence. Advertisers must take care not to incite hatred or promote discrimination on religious grounds

Three of the UK's biggest cinema chains - Odeon, Cineworld and Vue - have banned the advert from being shown on the same bill as Star Wars: The Force Awakens, due to open just before Christmas.

DCM, the agency handling these matters for the cinemas, argues it could offend those of "differing faiths and no faith".

The Church of England says this is "plain silly" and could have a "chilling effect" on free speech...

The Advertising Standards Authority, which ensures the CAP's rules are followed, has so far received no complaints about the Lord's Prayer advert and the dispute remains solely between the Church of England and the cinemas."

BBC, Lord's Prayer Advert


"Christmas celebration this year is going to be a charade because the whole world is at war. We are close to Christmas. There will be lights, there will be parties, bright trees, even Nativity scenes – all decked out – while the world continues to wage war.

It’s all a charade. The world has not understood the way of peace. The whole world is at war. A war can be justified, so to speak, with many, many reasons, but when all the world as it is today, at war, piecemeal though that war may be—a little here, a little there—there is no justification.

What shall remain in the wake of this war, in the midst of which we are living now? What shall remain? Ruins, thousands of children without education, so many innocent victims, and lots of money in the pockets of arms dealers.”

Francis I


The New Atheists embrace a belief system as intolerant, chauvinistic and bigoted as that of religious fundamentalists. They propose a route to collective salvation and the moral advancement of the human species through science and reason. The utopian dream of a perfect society and a perfect human being, the idea that we are moving towards collective salvation, is one of the most dangerous legacies of the Christian faith and the Enlightenment.

Those who believe in the possibility of this perfection often call for the silencing or eradication of human beings who are impediments to human progress. They turn their particular good into a universal good. They are blind to their own corruption and capacity for evil. They soon commit evil, not for evil's sake but to make a better world.

Reigns of terror are thus the bastard child of the Enlightenment. Terror in the name of utopian ideals would rise again and again in the coming centuries. The Nazi death camps and the Soviet gulags were spawned by the enlightenment. Fascists and communists were bred on visions of human perfectibility. Tens of millions of people have been murdered in the futile effort to reform human nature and build utopian societies.

The danger is not Islam or Christianity or any other religion. It is the human heart—the capacity we all have for evil. All human institutions with a lust for power give their utopian visions divine sanction.”

Chris Hedges

Part of me says this is of no consequence, but it is a sign of the times, of a world that has forgotten its weakness and seeks to become perfectly powerful on its own terms.

God has a way of standing before the nations in judgement.

And for that, I tremble for the world, and ourselves.

The way to answer this is not to take action against the cinemas, or those who would ban prayer or any mention of God on their media or in their presence.

The way to answer this is to make this Christmas a special season of prayer for peace in the world, to join hands spontaneously, and recite the Lord's Prayer. Not to provoke anger, but to witness for the good news. They may have their god of the markets, or their god of themselves. But we will not be silenced.

And much more importantly, without which all this is just vanity, we must take those words to heart, and not let them become a charade. To do this we must make them a living part of our daily routine and interactions with others, so that our lives themselves become living prayers, and we do not fall into a pious hypocrisy.

Answer harshness with kindness, anger with peacefulness, and indifference with caring.

'Your love for one another will show to the world that you are my disciples.'

Of course we do not do this well. Like the Lord's own apostle Peter we are tempted to anger and violence, tempted to deny our relationship, often confused and uncertain. And he had seen with his own eyes, and heard directly with his own ears, our Lord as He walked on the earth.

And so we gather ourselves up, acknowledge our faults, and go forward again, and again, in grace, ever-growing, ever becoming as He wills us to be if we do but accept his commandment to love one another as we love Him, and He us.