Gold And Silver Win The Week As Dow Sees First Weekly Loss In Seven

Volume was dismal - aside from a massive surge in S&P 500 e-mini volumes as the combo Bernanke bluff and ECB bond-band-rumor hit the tape and exploded stocks up from two-week lows. A late-day attempt to close the S&P green for the week failed and the Dow ended with its first down week in seven weeks - and largest loss in nine weeks - despite a magnificent centrally-planned triple-digit gain today (+100.1pts!) Stocks were 'aided' by new cycle highs in HYG as it saw its best performance in a month - amid massive fund inflows and heavy issuance (notably outperforming credit spreads in CDS land). The shift in HYG does look like some convergence trading with SPY though  - after a month of flat-lining. Gold (and even more so Silver) were the week's big performers (up 3.35% and 9.25% respectively) even as the USD only lost 1.1%. Treasuries ended the week better by 9 to 14bps (considerably different from stocks relative performance). The week was characterized simply as stocks bouncing between QE-off (Treasury strength) and QE-on (USD weakness and Gold strength) - on de minimus volumes.

The Other Side

The past several weeks have made one thing crystal-clear: Our country faces unmitigated disaster if the Other Side wins.

Thank You Wall Street

Thanks for everything...

 

 

 

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Quiet Day of Consolidation

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US Dollar Intermediate Term Chart

Net Asset Value Premiums of Certain Precious Metal Trusts and Funds - Why A Gold Crisis Looms

Fun With Numbers Friday

Dave in Denver at The Golden Truth - 4 hours ago

*I would just like to add that we see shares of Apple hitting new all-time highs, even though their last quarter wasn’t quite up to snuff. But the market cap of Apple is now greater than three times that of all of the world’s publicly traded gold and silver equities...This will be seen as preposterous in the fullness of time, and I can assure that this will reverse as the bull market in gold and silver mature.* - John Embry, King World News LINK I felt compelled to comment on the new home sales number for July number reported yesterday because the headline was egregiously misleadi... more » 

 

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With 30 Minutes To Go, NYSE Volume Run-Rate Hits Low Of Year

Presented with little comment - for the simple reason it has become a joke...

One Man's Melting Ice Cap, Is Another Man's 40% Transit-Time Boost

"The numbers are coming in and we are looking at them with a sense of amazement," is how the director of the Snow and Ice data center in Colorado describes the 'startlingly rapid rate' of melting at the Arctic Ice Cap this year. As Agence France Presse notes, if the melt stopped today, this would be the third lowest level of ice on record. Of course while this maybe terrible news for some; others are 'increasingly interested'. The thaw in the Arctic is rapidly transforming the geopolitics of the region, with the long-forbidding ocean looking more attractive to the shipping and energy industries. The first ship from China – the Xuelong, or Snow Dragon – recently sailed from the Pacific to the Atlantic via the Arctic Ocean, cutting the distance by more than 40%. Five nations surround the Arctic Ocean – Russia, which has about half of the coastline, along with Canada, Denmark, Norway and the United States – but the route could see a growing number of commercial players. Of course this 'benefit' of global warming appears to rely on the fact that there are people left to trade goods with.

Friday Humor: On Infinite Human Stupidity

With central bankers increasingly eclipsing even the most famous TV, music, and movie stars for the headlines, it appears the lengths we will go to in order to become 'famous' know no bounds. To wit, how to become famous? Appear famous!

The Real Election-Year Cycle: Buy Volatility In August, Sell In October

It seems everyone and their pet Goldfish has been brainwashed into the belief that because it's an election year, we have to buy stocks. There is plenty of noise in that empirical study with some large outliers. However, Credit Suisse's Harley Bassman notes there is another cycle in election years - that of implied volatility - and he adds "the clearly defined economic nature of this election should increase implied volatility on most financial assets." As the chart below shows, volatilities tend to trough in August and peak in October into a November election - only to fall once again from two-weeks before to one week after the election. The pattern is clear.

The Definitive QE3 Odds Calculator

The odds of Fed easing at the September FOMC meeting seem close to 50-50 (with both sides vehemently talking their books - Fed officials and equity managers alike). Recent data has been a bit better: payrolls, claims, retail sales, and industrial production. As UBS' Drew Matus notes, other factors that will play a role include the ISM report, claims reports, and 'fiscal cliff'-related events. However, the primary determinant will be the upcoming August payroll report. The chart below ignores these other factors and offers up the odds of further easing in September based on the base case that Bernanke’s primary concern is the state of the US labor market. July’s 8.3% unemployment rate and payroll gain of 163k put current odds of further easing at 45%.

 

A Gold Standard: Easier Said Than Done

If you haven’t heard yet, the committee which is drafting the platform for next week’s US Republican National Convention has announced that they are including a proposal to return to the gold standard. Big news. Remember, a gold standard is a monetary system in which individual currency units are fixed to an amount of gold held by the government; under a gold standard, the paper money supply cannot be expanded without also increasing the amount of gold on hand. At present, the market value of the federal government’s gold holdings only amounts to about $250 billion which constitutes a mere 2.5% of US money supply. Clearly one of the key risks in this scenario is that the US government would need to acquire as much gold as they can get their hands on, likely through Roosewellian-style gold confiscation, and if so - the safest place for your gold is going to be a snug safety deposit box in a place like Hong Kong or Singapore.

More 'Like' Obama Even As They Admit Romney Better For Economy, Gallup Finds

With the polls apparently seeing it all tied up at 46-46 (and heading into the period when McCain and Obama diverged so strongly in 2008), a recent Gallup poll brings up the age-old question of whether the electorate will vote with their hearts or their wallets. Only in a Facebook-world; but 54% 'like' Obama versus 31% 'like' Romney but this huge social-network-factor disappears when asked who will better handle the economy - 52% believe Romney will be better for the economy as opposed to 43% believing in Obama. Of course none of that matters if the market remains up here.

The Fantasy of Debt: No Trade-Offs, No Sacrifices

Debt offers a compelling fantasy: there is no need for difficult trade-offs or sacrifices, everything can be bought and enjoyed now. If income is flat and interest rates already near zero, then where is the leverage for additional debt going to come from? The answer is the game of relying on ever-expanding debt is over. You can claim phantom assets and income streams as collateral for a while, but eventually the market sniffs out reality, and the phantom assets settle at their real value near zero. Once the collateral is gone, the debt is also revalued at zero, and the debtor is unable to borrow more. This is the position Greece finds itself in; the collateral and income steams have been discounted, the credit lines have been pulled, and so the reality of living within one's means is reasserting itself. Living within one's income (household or national income) requires making difficult trade-offs and sacrfices: either current consumption is sacrificed for future benefits, or the future benefits are sacrificed for current consumption. You can't have it both ways once the collateral and credit both vanish. 

What Today's Real ECB News Really Means

Bloomberg has run a story, citing two anonymous central bank officials, stating the ECB may not be ready to finalise its plan to buy government bonds at the September 6th meeting. JPMorgan's European economists note that the story cites two reasons for this: (a) The Governing Council wish to wait until they have seen the German constitutional court ruling on September 12th before proceeding; and (b) The programme is still being worked on staff may not be able to finalize it by then. Critically, JPM, like us, regard (a) as something of a smokescreen. The idea that work “is not complete” may also be a euphemism for the fact agreement on the contours of the policy is proving elusive - which in turn contributes to the sense that opinion on the Governing Council is deeply divided, and hence its commitment to any policy intervening in markets will not run deep. That could undermine the effectiveness of policy interventions themselves - and no matter how many rumors you hear, you should focus on what you DO know - that a decision is delayed - and everything else is as useful as a personal guarantee from Samaras.

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