Appears I got it exactly wrong at the exact bottom, facing yesterday's outlook to today's performance. Ahh, the obese female hath not yet sung her aria, so let me cover my embarrassment with patience. Euphoria's mother today was a pledge from Europe to pony up 150 bn euros ($196 bn), which they don't have, to the IMF to apply to the European debt crisis, where the questionable debt amounts to $3 trillion, 15 times the magnanimous contribution. ECB also widened its support for bond markets (NYT-speak for I don't know what), German economic confidence indicators rose, and the US Commerce Dep't said builders broke ground on 9.3% more new homes in November than in October, while building permits jumped 5.7%. This number is rock solid until the adjustments are published next month. Yeah, buddy! All that sounds like the world economy and the European crisis turning the corner to me. Right. Anyhow, that's how markets reacted as if "Happy Days Are Here Again." STOCK buyers fell into a frenzy like lemmings on their way to the coast. Dow jumped 337.32 points or 2.8% to 12,103.58. S&P 500 rose 2.98% (35.95) to 1,241.30. This positions stocks for a triple top just above 12,200. SOURPUSS! You might say, You never have any- thing good to say about stocks! And you'd be right, as I have nothing good to say about any market that is in a primary down trend (bear market) & technically looks as ratty as an old 1970s burnt orange polyester leisure suit. Technically that took stocks above the 200 day moving average (11,936). Since they are already above the 50 DMA (11,835), that does give them upward momentum. At least until the next piece of bad news out of Europe sends scuttles investor hopes. Dow will not pass 12,300; S&P500 won't rise above 1,280. I reckon time's come for me to get more accurate and precise about the US dollar index. Today it lost 42.1 basis points, down 0.54%, to 79.829. I've been saying it needs to hold 80. Have I changed my mind? Nope, I've just sharpened my pencil. The actual support line is 79.84 - 79.70, site of the last two peaks. today the dollar came back to that line, so today's action is not fatal. More than that, the uptrend line right now stands just a mite above 79. Long as dollar doesn't break that, it will still be rallying. Now I'm just a natural born fool, but if I were them Nice Government Men and I wanted to boost the euro & trim the dollar, I'd wait for some nested good news, or make some up, & then I'd buy them stock futures real heavy early in the day, to make it look like some mad buying panic was carrying away the public, just to sort of spark a rally like. But what do I know? Euro today rose 0.63% to close at 1.3080. Another few points and it'll hit my 1.3200 target where the trend line stands in its way, & stop like a wild steer running headfirst into a concrete block wall. Japanese Yen rose 0.18% to close 128.39c/Y100 (Y77.89/$1). Nothing happening there. Mercy! Silver & gold had a field day. On Comex gold rose $21.20 (1.3%), smashed thru $1,605 resistance, & closed $1,615.60. Silver rose 67.4c (2.3%)to 2949.6. That's good, but it ain't exactly crossing over Jordan into the promised land just yet. Above lies resistance at $1,625, then $1,650, then $1,687. If this rally exceeds $1,675 it will command our attention and respect. Till then it earns only watching. And we'll find out something about that last low ($1,562.50) when this little rally-ette runs out of steam. Silver shone with a 2.3% rise, and Mondays trading looks like some sort of bottom -- permanent or interim is another question -- but now the rally meets real resistance at 2980. Must clear that barrier to maintain its reputation. To give y'all a nearer idea where today brings silver, think on this: the down trend line stands overhead at 3050c. Today's high reached only 2959c. All today's work was constructive, but settled nothing. Silver & gold remain in downtrends. They are only corrective downtrends, interrupting a primary bull market (uptrend), but down for the nonce still. On 20 December 1860 South Carolina resumed her rights as a "free and independent state" which she had partially and conditionally ceded to the American union. The American union under the Great Prevaricator judged this act worthy of a death sentence. I don't like doing it, but I'm going to tell you how your government will use the National Defense Authorization Act, assuming it becomes law, which now appears virtually certain. By secret administrative decision, a decision the victim will have no knowledge of & thus no opportunity or right to challenge, certain targeted persons will be declared "terrorists." Then they will be rounded up and imprisoned forever. Probably even their location will be a well-hidden bureaucratic secret. This will be the death of perhaps the most important right guaranteed by Magna Carta, habeas corpus, or the right of personal liberty forbidding government to arrest and hold any person without showing cause. It will also seal the coffin on due process of law, or any process of law. And although the sponsors swear to you that this will never be used against ordinary people, only against terrorists, Obama's signature won't be dry before the wiretaps and arrests begin. It may be Tea Party nuts or Occupy crazies, but they will be administratively defined as "terrorists" and they will disappear. Vanish. And they won't come back. And how, O Tennessee fool, do you know this? Because the yankee government played a like trick on me. You can read about my Fun with The Federal Government at http://www.the-moneychanger.com/dangerous.phtml. But this incident appears not there. When I went When I went back to jail in 1996 to flatten out my sentence rather than remain on probation (where they can pull your chain & jerk you back to prison any time they like) for 7 years and pay them $1,000 a month for seven years and do 1,000 hours of community service, for some weird reason they gave me the full court security press. Even though I was a measly Class E felon, one step above a jaywalker and not as dangerous or vile as a pickpocket, they put me into maximum detention, locked up 24 hours a day, except for three 15 minute spates of luxury gourmet dining. Neither my poor wife nor I could figure what had turned me into such a dangerous character, as I have never done any violence and anyway, violence from me would be like being savaged by a dead sheep. Didn't matter, because unknown to me the IRS had ADMINISTRATIVELY, without any opportunity for me to know or controvert, determined that I was a "PDT," Potentially Dangerous Taxpayer. Somehow or other the odor of that was stinking over into my state incarceration. I finally got to the "Red Roof Inn," i.e., the sublime luxury of work release, but not until once again the value of due process & the perils of bureaucratic secrecy had been proven to me. Now you all listen, as much as it pains my heart & grieves me to have to say this, due process & your rights are dead in this country, & federal courts are not to be trusted. That's why I am sure how this National Defense Authorization Act will be used. They'll call anybody a "terrorist" whom they want to call, & if you object to anything too loudly, well, they'll call you one, too. Not so long after that, your wife and children will be wondering why you left them without a word. Let him who has ears to hear, hear.
Argentum et aurum comparanda sunt —
Silver and gold must be bought.
— Franklin Sanders, The Moneychanger
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