Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Meh

 

Gold and silver were drifting higher most of the day.

 

Dennis Lockhart of the Atlanta Fed felt the urge to declare that barring the wheels falling off the economy, he was inclined to raise rates at the September meeting.

 

That sounds familiar.  Oh, this is what I have been saying for most of the year.

 

Wow, what a revelation.

 

Traders in stocks and short term rates, and their associated algos, bounced their pricing to generate some activity, and more 'vig' for the HFT programs and the brokers.

 

Other than that this was a nothing day. 

 

The most important development I am watching, besides the stagnant economy and the kabuki theater of the Fed-centered propeller heads, is the decline in AAPL.

 

This is a danger, very narrow market that has been driven to an extreme based on a handful of 'new era stocks.'

 

Where have we seen this scenario before?

 

Nothing much happened in The Bucket Shop. 

 

Someone at Scotia decided to move 10,000 ounces from eligible to deliverable which will give the guys who track these things breathlessly the change to recalculate that 124:1 ratio of paper to bullion a bit lower.

 

I'll keep an eye on it, but it does not matter much if it is 116:1, or 120:1, or even 130:1.   If you don't have it, you don't have it.  And so they go to plan B, the artful dodge, which they have been hitting like a crack pipe in the VIP room at a 10th avenue 'nightclub' on a Friday night.

 

Have a pleasant evening.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Janet Jett and the Blackhearts

"I think there is a high bar right now to not acting, speaking for myself. It will take a significant deterioration in the economic picture for me to be disinclined to move ahead."

Dennis Lockhart, Atlanta Fed President, 4 August 2015

This statement and the continuing decline in AAPL today were the primary movers in the market.

Apple cracked its 200 DMA and closed below it, for the first time in a very long while. This has technical market watchers spooked.

And in this highly narrowed market with just a few of the big tech fliers pulling the rally behind them, the potential for further declines in a behemoth like Apple has traders a little worried.

Let's see if Apple confirms this by continuing to close below the 200 DMA and can go out on the week, and then it might be a serious decline underway.

As for Lockhart, he is Yellen's buddy, and is continuing to give her cover for a rate increase that has nothing to do with the real economy, as I have said here many times. The Fed wants to pull the trigger before we get closer to the election because they do not want to provide a topic for the debates.

This market is dodgy.

Have a pleasant evening.

 

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Claims Per Ounce to New High of 121:1

As you can see from the first chart below, the number of potential claims per deliverable ounce on the Comex has risen to a record high of 121 to 1.

That can be corrected by higher prices for bullion that will prompt more legitimate sellers of actual bullion to take their stored gold and put it in the 'registered' for delivery category.

Or the trading desks of the banks and funds can continue to pummel the price with paper short selling, in the hopes of knocking down the open interest and the longs.

In the short term a fraud is relatively easy to sustain if you can compromise the 'cops on the beat' and you have powerful friends in the game with you.

In the longer term all such schemes collapse.  But con men and other criminal sorts are rarely thinking about the longer term consequences.

And it is the character of our time that those who say they are for reform, and vigilantly seek out injustice in their own case, will so often not only ignore, but join in on the taunts and misery of others less fortunate, who are suffering their own injustices, often from the same perpetrators.  

There is no real merit in acting solely out of self-interest.  Even the worst of people will do this.  But since this has become the guiding principle of our age, having sacrificed the notions of duty and honour on the altar of expediency and greed, so the virtue of the people is found wanting.

It is all too easy to  act out of the self-interest, with your mind, and not for what is right out of a principled stand for what is just, with the heart.

Have a pleasant evening.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Stick Save

Stocks were slumping most of the day, but managed to take back much of their losses in the closing minutes.

There is no sustainable recovery.

There cannot be a recovery while the causes of our problems cannot be discussed frankly, for the reasons cited in this intraday commentary here.

We may wish to have one.  The statisticians and pundits may paint a rosy picture of one.  But most are now aware of the huge discrepancy between what is said and what is done.  And their anger is being reflected in the political landscape.

Years of complacent looting and personal privilege have made the plutocrats tone deaf to the message.

The lack of reform of the financialized economy that caused the last two bubbles and crashes will most likely cause the next one as well.

The primary reason is the corrupting power of money in politics, academics, the media, and most of the higher level functions in a society. They are caught, complicit, in a credibility trap.

The contributing reason is the after effects of a sustained draining of income and wealth from the bottom 99% to the top, as a consequence of policy and injustice.

The Banks must be restrained, and the financial system reformed, with balance restored to the economy, before there can be any sustainable recovery.

And none of this can be accomplished without serious political campaign reform to staunch the enormous flow of money as soft bribes into the coffers of the politicians.

Have a pleasant evening.