Shanghai Gold Exchange Sees Strong 214.7 Tonnes Physical Bullion Offtake In November

Buying the dip.

The West keeps quacking, and Asia keeps stacking.

As goes the Western paper gold trade, thus ends most over-leveraged pyramid schemes and confidence games.

Badly.

Just Charts at 3:30 - 'Tis the Season

"The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, on them a light has shined."

Isaiah 9:2

Just Charts at 2:45

Stocks up, metals down.

A familiar pattern.

Interesting that The Donald seems to be bringing in the president of Goldman Sachs in order to fill an advisory post that Bill Clinton created for Robert Rubin.

I have places to go, and decorations to put up.

See you Monday.

Have a pleasant weekend.

Making Predictions is Tough...

...especially about the future.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - 'Smoking Gun' In Bank Silver Rigging

The precious metals turn in a weaker performance today based on dollar strength versus the euro.

The markets had a little difficulty in determining whether the action taken this morning with regard to their version of QE was hawkish or dovish.

Dovish finally won the day, and the euro slumped against Uncle Buck.

The most interesting news of the day is the discovery of a 'smoking gun' in the papers from the Deutsche Bank lawsuit and settlement that names a group of other Banks as active manipulators in manipulating the silver market.

You may read about that here and in a few other articles in today's selected reading. I particularly enjoyed the Wall Street On Parade piece that refers to the Banks as being a Silver Market Mafia.

Most informed participants could see the obvious price rigging in the gold and silver markets over the past several years.   Normal trading does not instruct one to dump billions of dollars in contract into the quiet market off hours.

And in fact this is a well known, time-tested market rigging ploy that some banks had internally referred to as the Dr. Evil Strategy.

How ironic that the CFTC, the primary regulatory body for commodities in the US, studied the silver market for about five years and then decided not to bother issuing any report, save for a simple statement that 'they found no evidence of market manipulation.'  

This is the sad story of our times of regulatory capture and pervasive 'soft corruption' in political circles.   As Senator Dick Durbin noted in the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008, 'the banks still own the place.'

The American people, and the people of a few other developed nations, are sick of this duplicity and dishonesty in the political and professional class.

As well they might be.   And their attempts at redress and reform are ignored or stifled, and so the anger keeps building to what some fear will be a 'Versailles Moment.'   One would hope not that, but history suggests that this sort of situation does not end well when if finally does.

Have a pleasant evening.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Excelsior

I wish that the Fed and their ilk and the politicians and professional class would concern themselves with the serial bubbles they have been creating in financial paper asset (and studiously ignoring or denying) about half as much as they seem to be worried about increases in wages and employment.

The stock market has left the building called reality and is heading for euphoria.

It may keep going.

Have a pleasant evening.