SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Pop R' Drop

Just to net this all out for you, the equity markets have been in an extraordinarily tight trading range since the post-Brexit rally that has stalled out, or roughly the middle of July.

They are ranging back and forth, on fairly light volumes, trying to decide which way to go.

Tomorrow we will be seeing one of the more important Non-Farm Payrolls reports, because of the implications that it might have for the Fed's next move on interest rates in September.

And so we might finally see a breakout, or breakdown, from this trading range.

So like many others I will be watching it to see if this gives us some direction.

Have a pleasant evening.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Silence of the Scams

The first chart below shows exactly what is wrong with the artifically rigged bubble economy in the US.

It has been essentially stagnant for 90% of the American people for quite a long time.

This has a deleterious effect on aggregate demand.

Everything else is commentary.

Deliveries for the September precious metals contracts have begun as shown below.   JP Morgan was the heavy hitter in the delivery of gold, but with the usual suspects were takers on silver.

Non-Farm Payrolls on Friday.

Have a pleasant evening.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Phony Baloney

Stocks were still in drifting mode with a sideways chop, albeit with a little histrionic action in the morning.

Chicago PMI missed by quite a bit.

Pending home sales were 'better than expected.'  However, the prior month was adjusted from slightly positive to more negative, and the year-over-year home sales declined by a little more than 2 percent.

There is so little real volume on the exchanges that the algos have pretty much a free hand in shoving prices around.

This is a market not worth trading for the non-insider.

Have a pleasant evening.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Stanley Steamer

Bernanke's mentor and Fed Vice-chair Stanley Fischer performed for the financial class as expected this morning, making hawkish sounds on interest rates.

More specifically he cast doubt on the notion of a 'one and done' for interest rate increases this year.

Well, Stan, let's see if you all have enough resolve to give the markets 'one' 25 bp raise before you start talking your book too aggressively about more.  So far the FOMC has as much conviction to do the right thing as a drunken sailor in a bar on a late Friday night.

As well they might.  Its a good thing they are on fat salaries and not piece work, because so far they have failed at just about every thing they have done, and often spectacularly so.

Except that they 'saved the Banks' and Wall Street's bloated corpse, for which we are supposed to be grateful.   Give a decent person with good common sense and practical judgement nine or ten trillion dollars in walking around money, and I suspect that they will do a lot more with it, guaranteed.   And you will see something tangible out of it, besides overpriced condos and a proliferation of commercial rent traps.

Well, at the end of the day, they just want to get farther off the zero bound so they have room to perform their policy rites when the next crash comes as a result of their policy errors and serial bubbles in financial assets.

What a system they have 'saved.'  What they have really saved is a rigged game that benefits a few, and at the expense of most everyone else.

Have a pleasant evening.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Slow Bubble

Notice from the charts that the equities have by and large been chopping sideways in a range for the last couple of weeks.

I expect some action towards the month end this week, and of course around the Non-Farm Payrolls, but no real moves until September and October.

The market is fully valued fundamentally, but with the central banks cramming liquidity top down through the financial system there is no telling what the financialized economy may do, and how far it may diverge from the real economy.

That is the very definition of a bubble:  too much money mispricing risk too greatly.

Have a pleasant evening.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - What Hump?

"What dost thou see, lone watcher on the tower
Is the day breaking? comes the wish'd-for hour?
Tell us the signs, and stretch abroad thy hand
If the bright morning dawns upon the land.

The stars are clear above me, scarcely one
Has dimm'd its rays in reverence to the sun;
But yet I see, on the horizon's verge,
Some fair, faint streaks, as if the light would surge."

Charles Mackay, The Watcher On The Tower

What failing economy?

Gold and silver drifted higher today in what can best be described as 'lackluster trading.'

The Comex was too bored with its own paper bullion game to even provide data on deliveries last Friday, as you can see from today's delivery report to be found below.

As you may recall, there will be a Non-Farm Payrolls Report for August this Friday.  It will be closely watched because one of the last 'safe' opportunities for the Fed to raise rates 25 bp before the election will be this September.

Janet's minder, Stanley Fischer, will be speaking on Bloomberg at 6:30 AM tomorrow, and he may have some things to say that *could* move the markets a bit, as he is sometimes inclined to do.

If I were Janet I would placate these knuckleheads by doing a 25 bp raise in September, and making it clear it was a 'one and done' unless the global economy starts percolating a whole lot more.  The last thing the US needs right now is a stronger dollar, given the palpable weakness in the real economy, despite the sloganeering and statistical razzle dazzle to the contrary, for the past six years or so.

RIP Gene Wilder.

Have a pleasant evening.