Stocks and Precious Metals - Options and Inaugurations

The stock option expiration was fairly quiet although there was a range in the trading, with tech finishing unchanged and the SP 500 gaining back what it lost yesterday.

Gold and silver both moved back up towards overhead resistance.

Donald Trump was inaugurated as the 45th president.   His speech was quite interesting in its bluntness.  Judging from the smirk on a few of the all too familiar political faces, I expect the Donald will have quite the fight on his hands with the long established swamp rats from both parties, if he indeed intends to do as he says.

Now we start the 100 days, during which I will try to retain an open mind and judge things by what happens, what is actually done, rather than what has been said and promised.

Larry Summers was speaking on Bloomberg TV from Davos of course, giving his economic and geopolitical advice to a president who presumably couldn't care less.   It is nice to see him on the sidelines, and not on the playing field.  He is almost the perfect Davos man.

Have a pleasant weekend.

Stocks and Precious Metals - Tender Mercies

Stocks were on the weaker side and the metals were chopping sideways as the markets anticipate the inauguration of the new president tomorrow.

And the stock option expiration as well.

We had a phone call late this afternoon with the doctors and the news was much better than expected. 'Nothing there' is a nice thing to hear, especially when the expectations were otherwise. One finds themselves much more grateful for the things that they do have, when something happens to remind us how fragile we really are.

Thanking God for His tender mercies.

Let's see how well the metals hold these levels just below their key short term overhead resistance.

And let's see how the rest of the year goes, with so much change apparently coming.

Have a pleasant evening.

Gold, Silver, Stocks and Economics - Stock Option Expiry on Friday

Gold and silver backed off almost perfectly from the overhead resistance on the charts.

The cause for this seemed to be 'technical' and was tied to a bounce in the dollar, which also seemed as much technical as anything else.

The equity markets were quiet, and tended to drift higher after the morning lows. Again, largely a technical type of trade.

Does anyone doubt that the markets are 'holding their breaths' for the inauguration of the Trump Administration this Friday?

The Fed minutes came out, and Chairman Yellen gave a long interview at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco. A number of market commenters pointed to her remarks as the reason for the strength in equities and weakness in the metals, but I did not really see it that way, so much as a relief rally that she did not say anything shocking or 'bad.'

I have posted a chart for this year below for US stock market option expirations. We will have such an event this Friday, so trading antics may add to any inaugural volatility.

I posted an update of the NAV premiums of some of the precious metals funds. You may scroll down to it or click on it here.

Have a pleasant evening.

NAV Premiums of Certain Precious Metals Trusts and Funds

Slightly negative across the board, so it would be hard to support a position that the market is over-enthusiastic or overbought in the short term.

The cash levels and shares outstanding for the most part have all changed since the last time I calculated this in November of last year as one might expect.

The prior report on this is below.