SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - First Day of Fall - Nature's Doxology

Today is the first day of Autumn.   This is the season to give thanks for all, our blessings and sorrows.

There was another down day on Wall Street as the post-Alibaba retrenchment set in.

Late in the trading day UK retailer Tesco's stock was knocked down on news that they have overstated their profits significantly.

"Tesco has suspended four executives, including its UK managing director, after the supermarket overstated its half-year profit guidance by £250m. That would be almost a quarter of its expected profit for the period. It has launched an investigation headed by Deloitte, and says it is now working to establish the impact of the issue on its full-year results..The news prompted a plunge in Tesco's share price, which closed 11.6% lower at 203p."

The economic news this week is the usual, and the third revision of 2Q GDP which is dead fish now, unless there is a major unexpected revision.

The dichotomy between what the leaders say the economy is doing, and what it is actually doing and where it is heading, looks to have a bit more air in it than usual, and it is increasing.

Have a pleasant evening.

Two Estimations of Chinese Gold Demand

I found it interesting that these two estimations of Chinese gold demand arrive at similar answers from two different methods and assuming two different start dates.

 

Before anyone asks, Koos Jansen has addressed the notion of 'round trips' of gold on the Shanghai Exchange in some detail.   It is not the same sort of bullion game that is the hall mark of the Comex.

 

The first chart is from the data wrangler Nick Laird at Sharelynx.

 

The second chart is from GoldSilver.com.

 

I don't think anyone knows the exact amount of physical gold that China and the BRICS are absorbing.   And how much unencumbered gold remains in many of the Western vaults either.

 

One has to chuckle at 'analysts' who just ignore what of the more significant trend changes in the international money markets.   The BRICS are buying tonnes of gold and adding them to their reserves?  Nothing to see here.  Just the usual hijinks of the uninformed and unsophisticated.

But no matter how one looks at it, there was a profound change in the metals markets around 2006, and that it is somehow involved with what has been called a 'currency war.'  As it has done in the past, the nature of the global reserve currency system is changing.

Gold is flowing from West to East.

 

 

Michael Parenti on Globalisation, Terrorism, and Conspiracy

“In societies that worship money and success, the losers become objects of scorn. Those who work the hardest for the least are called lazy. Those forced to live in substandard housing are thought to be the authors of substandard lives. Those who do not finish high school or cannot afford to go to college are considered deficient or inept.

No system in history has been more relentless in battering down ancient and fragile cultures, devouring the resources of whole regions, pulverizing centuries-old practices in a matter of years, and standardizing the varieties of human experience.

Official Washington cannot tell the American people that the real purpose of its gargantuan military expenditures and belligerent interventions is to make the world safe for General Motors, General Electric, General Dynamics, and all the other generals.

The worst forms of tyranny, or certainly the most successful ones, are not those we rail against but those that so insinuate themselves into the imagery of our consciousness, and the fabric of our lives, as not to be perceived as tyranny.

The guiding principle of ruling elites was--and still is: when change threatens to rule, then the rules are changed.”

Michael Parenti