Talking to a friend of mine from West Texas a few days ago, he said he had seen the weather there go from 80 degrees in the morning to 20 degrees that night. So they have a saying, if you don't like the weather, just hang around. It'll change soon enough. I feel the same way about silver & gold today, but when they change directions twice in one day, they like to wear out my thermometer. I am learning how to react to news events. I look across everything for the most meaningless item, & THAT will be what the media pundits pick out as the day's pivotal event. Today's bait for the causality-challenged came in the form of a report claiming the labor market is "healing." Now even with the Labor Dept's jimmying, jobless claims rose to 381,000 from 366,000 last week, yet fewer filed for unemployment in the past month than any in the past three years. What are y'all waiting for? Break out the champagne! Well, I say, One Hobo doth Not a Jungle Make. And if all you've got to brag about is that this month showed the smallest job losses of any out of the last 36, well, friend, you ought to put your hand over your mouth and retreat in silent shame. Yet hath the stock market not received it thus. The Dow rose 135.63 (1.12%) to 12,287.04 while the S&P500 roses 13.38 (1.07%) to 1,263.02. In the Moneychanger's tiny mind, the unemployment report would have generated no jubilation, but once again you see the perilous failure of following both stocks AND rationality. In my mind the Dow rising again to 12,300 resistance offers a splendid opportunity for another double-top failure. Should the Dow falter at 12,300, watch 12,150, because that will be the first trip-wire of a much larger fall. US DOLLAR INDEX is down 13.6 basis points (0.17%) to 80.361. Mattereth not, so long as it remains above morale-maintaining 80, & technical support at 79.50. Trend in force remains in force until violated, & this trend is up. Euro hardly worth talking about. Close at 1.2962, up 0.16%, but what a little mouse-burp deal. Who cares? Yen rose 0.42% to 128.82c/Y100 (Y77.63/$1), edging away from its lower channel line, at least enough so that you could slip a thin piece of paper between it and the line. Nothing happening there. I felt like a bimetallic thermostat in West Texas today, not knowing whether to heat or cool. Gold fell a meaty 1.5%, down $23.10 to $1,539.90 on Comex (low came at -- Eeek! -- $1,522!) but silver ROSE 8.2C to 2727.4c, then rose another 50c in the aftermarket! They are non-confirming each other, but which way? Is silver non-confirming gold's fall, or is gold non-confirming silver's rise? Clue comes from the gold/silver ratio, which fell today and closed Comex at 56.460. It reached my 57.25:1 target overnight, but markets never saw that price today. It should yet appear. Premium on US 90% silver coin keeps on rising, pointing to higher silver prices. Silver defended 2600c level with a low at 2614c. High came at 2785c. As long as gold keeps on closing above $1,530 & silver above 2600c, they're good. Longer they hold on above those points, less chance they will dip below them. Often markets are influence by year-end selling that has nothing to do with outlook or economics, only with some goofy government mandate that skews the economy. We may be seeing some of that, & certainly in stocks all those mutual fund managers & financial advisors want to see stocks fill the year just a bit, just any bit at all, higher than unchanged or negative. We'll see what happens when sobriety returns on 2 January 2012. I would NOT sell silver or gold here. Let's see if silver will drop once again before we go hog-wild buying, though. Somebody's got to do something about these spelling correctors on Iphones. My wife texted me to drive our Red Isuzu Trooper home, and that "the key is in the caT." In the CAT? Which cat? There are six or eight of them around here? And how do I catch the cat? Once I do catch him, how will I wrest the key away from him? This technology ain't all it's cracked up to be. On 29 December 1170 Thomas Becket, archbishop of Canterbury, was murdered by four knights acting on Henry II's orders. The murder set off a blizzard of books, plays, poems, and stories that has not stopped since. On 29 December 1890 the US 7th Cavalry massacred over 400 Indian men, women, and children at Wounded Knee, South Dakota. This was the last major conflict between Indians and US troops, mainly because the US troops had already killed almost all of 'em. On 29 December 1607 Indian chief Powhatan spared John Smith's life in answer to the pleas of Powhatan's daughter, Pocahontas. Sound sentiment, but maybe bad judgment, considering the long term. On 29 December 1998 Khmer Rouge leaders apologized for the 1970s Cambodian genocide in which they killed over a million people. None of the murdered millions was around to accept the apology, but it sure made the Khmer Rouge feel better about themselves. (I don't get the whole apology thing, unless the point is shameless, cynical, cheap propaganda. If I didn't do the harm, I ain't apologizing. If I did, what good is an apology without restoration & repentance?)
Argentum et aurum comparanda sunt —
Silver and gold must be bought.
— Franklin Sanders, The Moneychanger
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