Well, HERE'S a surprise. Just as Europe closed yesterday "somebody" sold over $2 billion notional ilver futures, about 115 million ounces at one pop. Surprise, surprise, silver dropped 72¢ & gold dropped $17. All just "natural," "free market" trading, right? Sure, sure, profit-maximizing sellers always dump everything they haveto sell on the market at once, so they can drive down the price and receive less. Sure enough makes sense to me. Recall that in April 2013 "somebody"" sold so much gold that the price drop was a seven-sigma event. What does that mean? Sigma is one standard deviation in a normal curve, a measure of data variability. Three sigma covers 97.7% of possible data. Seven sigma events are as improbable as you being mashed by a Hereford bull falling from a clear sky. To secure his ill-gotten gains, that misbegotten somebody saw that silver & gold closed lower on Comex, after which they promptly recovered. Yeah, buddy! Free markets. Out of her crooked mouth today spake the Fat Lady. Lo, Mother Janet raised the ante from "modestly accommodative" monetary possibly to "moderately accommodative." Widespread interpretation of this ripe compost is that the Fed will raise its discount rate next month. For the dollar index, it was a case of "buy the rumor, sell the news." Behold the chart, http://schrts.co/fhx9TW Yes, yes, that 66 basis point (0.64%) dive to 101.55 was the selling -- nullifying, nixing, and aborting the dollar index's threatened invalidation of the head and shoulders top. No, it's not a bankable turn just yet, it needs to confirm by falling below 100.7 and that little even-sided triangle outlined in blue. But it doth appear that shall come. Stocks fared not well today. Dow mislaid 19.31 points (0.09%) somewhere to close at a lower 20,983.66. S&P500 backed up 3.12 points (0.03%) to 2,378.80. Gold fell $6.40 (0.5%) on Comex to $1,225.50. Silver dropped 8/10 of 1¢ to 1769.7¢. 'Twas all painting the tape. In the aftermarket gold surged to $1,234.00 and silver to 1795¢, moves strongly stinking of scared shorts closing out the week's positions. Both three day charts leave me persuaded that yesterday's drop has ended. Aww, why stop there? On the WEEKLY chart gold has been relentlessly treading toward its 200 week moving average, now about $1,241. It closed above that last week, below this week, but be calm, it is working its way through, like a fat boy squeezing through blackberry briars -- not too fast. Same yardstick applied to silver shows the same picture. Silver's 200 week moving average now stands at 1799c. Momentum for both metals is up, higher, excelsior! Trumps talk of removing regulations from the Big Banks so they could, like hyenas returning to gnaw a dead gnu, resume feeding on the American public, sent the Bank Index (BKX) soaring. I watch the Gold/BKX spread because it reveals whether public confidence is flowing toward the financial & monetary system or away. Here's the chart, http://schrts.co/ZztMhp Watch out! The spread rises when confidence flows into gold, falls when confidence flows toward the stinking banks. (I'm so sorry. That just slipped out. 'Scuse me.) Y'all can see that the spread bottomed at about 12 in December, traded sideways, then bottomed again on 1 March at 12.46. Until gainsaid, I'm calling that a double bottom and expecting higher prices. My expectation will be confirmed by a rise above 13.62, the last high. BOTTOM LINE: Rough week when "Somebody," Nice Government Men or merely Big Bank Predators, smashed silver but failed. Strength, dear Readers, that shows strength. Expect silver to keep on rising toward 1900¢, yea, mayhap higher. A close below this week's low about 1770¢ would contradict that. Time to buy them metals: next five years they'll rise. Here's a Tiny Happy: check out Redwood City Seed Company at http://bit.ly/2mP23Yj The owners are even less tech-friendly than I am, so you cannot order from their website, but their seeds are so unique, especially hot peppers, that you will jump any hoops to get them. I'm ordering Tepins (Susan's favorite), Pequins, Anchos, de Arbols, Serranos, Japones, & Tabasco. There's nothing bad in their whole catalog, which you can download from their vestigial website. For about five years my young friend Stuart M. led long camping-hiking trips for a summer camp in western North Carolina. The camp had a strict "no purpling" rule, i.e., reds (boys) and blues (girls) must not mix unchaperoned at night. You can imagine this was a nightmare for Stuart, leading backpacking camping trips for spoiled rotten, rich urban teenagers. His solution was both elegant and effective. First night out he would gather them all around and warn them about the greatest danger in the woods. "You see, a number of years ago some monkeys escaped from a circus in Ashville, and multiplied into a now-feral breed, the Appalachian Pine Monkey. You can hear their laughing call, 'Haw, Haw, Haw!' {The call, of course, of the plentiful pileated woodpecker, & with any luck one would fly through the nearby woods during Stuart's explanation.] "The Appalachian Pine Monkey is not generally aggressive, except for one circumstance: the smell of human teenage hormones drives them crazy. You are safe in your tent, but if they catch you in the woods they attack wildly, throwing their feces at you and then scratching your eyes out. Under no circumstance go out of your tent at night." The Appalachian Pine Monkey worked so well the first year Stuart kept on using it for the next four. Then he changed jobs, guiding canoe trips in South Carolina. Came the day a young teenage group arrived from the North Carolina camp where Stuart had once worked. While they were putting the canoes into the river, a pileated woodpecker laughed raucously through the woods. Suddenly a 13-year old boy sought out Stuart with a look of genuine concern on his face: "Do you have Appalachian Pine Monkeys here?" "No, no," Stuart assured him, "they're only up in North Carolina ." Y'all enjoy your weekend.
Argentum et aurum comparanda sunt —
Silver and gold must be bought.
— Franklin Sanders, The Moneychanger
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