"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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Gold managed to claw its way back above important technical resistance near the $1680 level in today's trade and is thus far holding above that number, albeit just barely. The market needs to push away from $1680 with some conviction and demonstrate that it can attract enough buyers at this level to take it firmly up and then through $1700. If it can do that, we have a solid shot at the $1720 level.
If it fails to sustain its footing above $1680, it will fall back within the recent trading range that it has been carving out with the bottom down near $1650 - $1640.
By the way, the Dollar continues to sink and unless it can recapture the 79 level immediately, it looks like it is heading for a test of support down near 78. Note that all of the shorter term moving averages and the 50 day are now all trending lower in sync again.
It appears from today's price action across both the equity markets and the commodity markets in general, that the beginning of the 2nd quarter is seeing hedge fund managers put money back to work across a wide variety of risk assets.
The catalyst seems to be both the Chinese manufacturing data and the US manufacturing PMI data which were on the friendly side and relieved traders' concerns for at least today. Oddly enough that same PMI data showed inflation data relatively tame which generated a move higher in the bond market in spite of the risk allocation trades. Then again, with the Fed managing the bond market, getting a read on it is particularly "fun".
The industrial metals of course led the charge higher with this sort of manufacturing news and so it is no suprise then to see copper, silver, palladium and platinum all strongly higher as a result. Gold benefitted somewhat from this reallocation back into the metals but definitely is underperforming silver with the risk trades in the forefront of the action.
Silver, which is currently up more than 2% as I write this, has managed to better two important overhead technical resistance levels. The first was at $32.50 and the latter near $33. It is now trading at the top of its recent range and should it be able to attract buying on any retreat in price that will keep it above both levels, it should be able to break out of the top of the range and have a decent shot at moving towards $34.25 - $34.45. If it fails to hold and sinks back inside the range once again, decent support emerges on the chart near $31.50.
Helping both silver and gold today is the fact that the mining shares are also relatively firm for a change further cementing that region from 465- 460 as very solid technical support. Time and time agian over the last two weeks the bears have pushed these shares lower but have not been able to absorb the valued-based buying originating at the recent lows of the last two trading weeks. It certainly appears that a bottom is in the shares; now whether they can finally generate any decent excitement on the upside is the question. The accumulation phase continues but we have await the advent of the markup phase.
charts later....
Please click on the following link to listen in to my regular weekly radio interview with Eric King on the KWN Weekly Metals Wrap.
http://tinyurl.com/6mhsjvf
Interesting recommendation by Goldman and even more interesting to see the market reaction in gold today. Can you say that someone is particularly overjoyed by the opportunity to take that recommendation?
By the way, Goldman is echoing the remarks from Chairman Bernanke the other day and repeating what my interpretation of those remarks were in this week's comments entitled, "Pass the Juice Please".
Goldman's views in summary can be translated as follows: Gold market weakness has been tied to the fact that the markets were expecting "REAL INTEREST RATES" to rise in light of the recent economic data showing improvement in the US economy. However, the economic recovery is not strong enough to allow for higher rates and that coupled with Bernanke's comments that acccomodative monetary policy will be required for the foreseeable future means that gold has overreacted to the downside.
Goldman is looking for another round of QE which will pressure the Dollar and thus drive gold prices higher.
Rest assured that the hedge fund long liquidation and fresh short selling of today is being met by solid buying from Goldman's customers.
Also, I find it EXTREMELY TELLING that the bond market cannot seem to get much going to the upside today given the fact that the broader equity markets are swooning and the US Dollar is currently higher as the risk aversion trades come back on.
While Gold has been able to punch through this critical resistance level, it has not been able to HOLD ABOVE it. This is must do in order to kick it up and out of its current malaise. Once it does so, it should make a run at $1720 - $1725 in relatively short order.
In news this morning that most of the gold community was completely expecting I might add , Chairman 'Easy Money Ben' Bernanke announced this morning that he was concerned whether economic recovery was strong enough to sustain itself without supportive and accomodative monetary policy. Translation - near zero interest rates will remain as far as the eye can see.
Talk about messing with the heads of the Fed Funds Futures traders - they are getting beat to death by this Fed. Every single time they start anticipating a rise in the short term interest rates based on economic data releases, some one or more of the Fed governors comes down from his or her ivory tower and squashes the idea that the economy is sufficiently on the mend. Out through the front door goes the notion that these insanely low interest rates are finally going to be begin lifting.
I have said it before and will say it again - the FED IS TERRIFIED OF RISING INTEREST RATES. Do not forget these two reasons:
1.) the entire "recovery" has been fueled by an ultra low interest rate environment in which short term money is basically free for those who want to borrow it and then leverage it up for speculative trading purposes. (Think a rising stock market which has all the feel of another speculative bubble).
2.) the US federal debt is at banana republic levels and any, I repeat, any rise in interest rates, will suck more of the incoming federal revenue into servicing the cost of this debt (paying the interest on it), leaving less for the spendthrift class to buy votes with.
Bernanke and company cannot afford to have a stock market that stops moving higher because if and when it did, the entire facade of an economy on the mend would come crashing down with it.
The monetary masters have reversed the entire reason for a rising stock market from one driven higher by solid underlying fundamentals to one being rammed higher by lots of JUICE. I am reminded of that scene for the original version of the hit movie, "The Matrix", where Neo and Trinity go to resuce Morpheus from the clutches of agent Smith where they are asked what they are going to need to pull off the stunt. "Guns, lots of Guns", comes the answer.
"Juice, lots of Juice" -
The mining shares have been absolutely obliterated over the course of the last couple of months as their longsuffering owners can all too sadly attest.
The carnage however has dropped the index deeply into oversold territory on the weekly price chart. If you notice the chart carefully, this particular indicator which I have tweaked a bit to optimize it to the index, is now nearing levels seen only TWICE since the entire bull market began. Not only that, it is also nearing an important Fibonacci retracement level of the rally that began off the 2008 low before peaking last fall.
Between the extreme undervaluation against the price of bullion and the broader S&P 500, we should be nearing a turning point on this sector within the not too distant future. They have not yet flashed a buy signal but are getting close.
Please click on the following link to listen in to my regular weekly radio interview with Eric King on the KWN Weekly Metals Wrap.
http://tinyurl.com/76qub7j
