Stocks and Precious Metals - Forget it Jake, It's Chinatown

President Trump continues to rattle markets with change, or at least the proposals for them.

Stocks were off a bit, as well as the dollar, as the Executive Orders started flowing, to dump the TPP among other things.

No internationalist love and support there. I suspect this will cause increasing displeasure in his own party, and the establishment of the Northeast power corridor and Silicon Valley in general.

Otherwise, most of the markets seem to be locked into a fairly tight one percent trading range, with a back and forth motion chopping the off-footed daytraders.

Let's see which way this breaks. And not only the markets.

It's been a long time coming.   Going to be a long time gone.

Have a pleasant evening.

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.

Admin Note - No Updates Tonight - Waiting For Reform and Other Things

“Let no man pull you so low as to hate him.”

Martin Luther King

Or to become what you purportedly hate about them.

I will be out of pocket much of today, sitting in waiting rooms for the usual healthcare testing things. Sometimes the tests are far enough apart. But at other times they come in flurries as the interpretation of the results demands it.

Just as a reminder, my wife has a rare form of cancer that has been showing up here and there. There is no way to cure it, but the thing is to manage it as best as one can. And so we have been doing for the past five or six years now, with the usual ups and downs.

As I told her when we received the initial diagnosis, which was a bit shocking considering her otherwise perfect health and habits, that 'this is our life now, and I will be with you every step of the way.'

Consequently there will be no chart updates tonight, although I am reading mails and posting links.

Trump sent the dollar reeling with some interview comments, and the metals responded.

Economics, journalism, and politics are among the 'disgraced professions' that resent their bad reputations these days.  It seems that when things start going really wrong, the 'professions' always seem to be playing a key role.  And as the locus of the conscience and voice of society, that is quite understandable.

The solution is really quite simple— stop lying for and disgracing yourselves in the service of power and money, and access and credentialism, in a system which you know to be unjust and rotten, but personally rewarding and convenient.  Stop appointing yourselves as the moral judge, able to give yourselves a pass on the same types of behaviours that you claim to despise.

Once you throw away the moral high ground, and start acting like 'the other guys' with the usual 'what is truth' and 'I can act dishonestly because my cause is so important' arguments, you have lost.

It is just a matter then, not of the fate of meaningful reform, but of the specific identities of the abusers.

See you tomorrow.


Serene, I fold my hands and wait,
Nor care for wind, nor tide, nor sea;
I rave no more 'gainst time or fate,
For lo! my own shall come to me.

I stay my haste, I make delays,
For what avails this eager pace?
I stand amid the eternal ways,
And what is mine shall know my face.

Asleep, awake, by night or day,
The friends I seek are seeking me;
No wind can drive my bark astray,
Nor change the tide of destiny.

What matter if I stand alone?
I wait with joy the coming years;
My heart shall reap where it hath sown,
And garner up its fruit of tears.

The waters know their own and draw
The brook that springs in yonder height;
So flows the good with equal law
Unto the soul of pure delight.

The stars come nightly to the sky;
The tidal wave unto the sea;
Nor time, nor space, nor deep, nor high,
Can keep my own away from me.

John Burroughs