Trader Dan's Market Views: 11/03/11

"When misguided public opinion honors what is despicable and despises what is honorable, punishes virtue and rewards vice, encourages what is harmful and discourages what is useful, applauds falsehood and smothers truth under indifference or insult, a nation turns its back on progress and can be restored only by the terrible lessons of catastrophe." … Frederic Bastiat

Evil talks about tolerance only when it’s weak. When it gains the upper hand, its vanity always requires the destruction of the good and the innocent, because the example of good and innocent lives is an ongoing witness against it. So it always has been. So it always will be. And America has no special immunity to becoming an enemy of its own founding beliefs about human freedom, human dignity, the limited power of the state, and the sovereignty of God. – Archbishop Chaput

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Thursday, November 3, 2011

CME Group attempting to clean up the MF Global mess

Dow Jones is reporting this morning that a total of TEN firms have agreed to accept portions of MF Global's clientele.

The firms are as follow:

Dorman Trading LLC
BNP Paribas
RJ O'Brien & Associates
Mizuho Securities USA
Newedge
FC Stone
Rosenthal Collins Group
Penson Financial Services
ADM Investor Services
Macquarie Futures USA

HUI is continuing to outperform the broader equity markets

The lower interest rate environment (the ECB cut rates and the Reserve Bank of Australia did likewise) is proving to be a boon for gold. That is helping pull silver higher even as it waffles back and forth between risk on and risk off trades. The end result is that a fairly good stream of buying is coming into the gold shares, many of which remain undervalued in the eyes of prospective buyers.

The gains in the mining sector are outpacing the gains in the broader equity markets while on downside trips they are holding better. It would be a pleasant change if there were a growing group of investors who were viewing gold and silver shares as defensive holdings in the current economic climate.