evening wrap, november 19

market vibes

Life imitates art: a true humanizing fail in broadcast journalism

Gustav Klimt’s “Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer,” a life-size oil-on-canvas painting commissioned in 1914 and completed in 1916 as his final major portrait, fetched a record $236.4 million including fees at Sotheby’s yesterday, November 18—a record for modern art benchmarks. Picasso’s Les Femmes d’Alger (Version O, 1955) sold for $179.4 million in 2015.

NVIDIA’s reported EPS of $1.30 exceeded expectations of $1.25. Revenue of $57 billion exceeded expectations of $54.9 billion. The stock is up $14 to $196 after hours. The CEO is guiding $66 billion for Q4. There is heavy coverage of Musk and Huang on X in conversation this evening saying AI will make all humankind wealthier than they ever could have been without it.

In the markets

S&Ps are +80.

Silver is up $0.30-ish from the NVIDIA print. Prices have been making lows and highs on the equity opening (SLV) and in London at 2:00 AM EST. The range high is moving lower. The bottom of the range at $50 will probably be tested again before Friday and the dollar is involved, IMO (next chart).

CME yen futures… made new lows in all fractal samples today except for the yearly, and an all-time low (previous July 2024)…

…lifting the dollar index above 100 in a steady vertical ascent beginning at 2:00 AM EST, an hour before gold and silver made highs in London. Trump’s AI flows could be at work.

If so, a fraction of the trillions Trump is touting en route to America before January 2026 will need to buy dollars. Perhaps the yen carry trade is a source of funding? At any rate, the dynamic, if it unfolds, will embed a marginal deficit in the daily USD/FX auctions, attract CTA and spec length, and continue for many months…depending on the level of AI’s success, perhaps years. Food for thought.

Returning to gold in monthly data. All technical indicators are at extreme levels. Open interest is extremely low for a move of this magnitude…40% lower than its 2020 high…which is one reason October 2025 volume was 20% lower than March 2020. DMI has been positive for 25 months. ADX is the highest reading (implied strength of trend) since September 1976 when gold traded $100, down from $200 in January 1975.

Counterintuitive, I know. ADX measures the strength of a trend regardless of its direction (up or down) because it is derived from the difference between two directional indicators that are always positive. It deliberately removes directional information in its final calculation. ADX is still rising vertically in this monthly data sample, indicating the long-term trend is still strengthening despite the highest reading in the entire 50-year CQG data library. Remember it is measuring months of activity and it doesn’t recalculate November’s data until December 1.

The next chart is a better look at the extreme condition of ADX in gold today. This is one to watch and wait for it to roll over…probably sometime in Q1 or Q2 next year…or if it doesn’t… boom. I’ll keep you posted. My gut says by the time it rolls over it will be too late.

Bitcoin is +3000… Saylor was on X again saying MSTR could sustain a 90% drawdown…not that anyone is listening to him lately. If stocks continue to rally tomorrow, especially as Powell is speaking… Bitcoin will rally, too.

my vibe

Tomorrow Powell will go before Congress and deliver his testimony on the state of the American economy as Fed chairs have done for decades. Tomorrow gold will trade above $4,000.00 per ounce and silver above $50.00. No one will ask him why or what it means. The recent obsession with NVidia’s earnings seemed to be a distraction to turn the attention of the markets away from something else. What, I have no clue.

I saw a clip of Michael Lewis on X today being interviewed on 60 Minutes in 2014 saying in plain English “the stock market is rigged.” It reminded me of the Virtu IPO filing in 2013 saying the company had only one losing day since 2009 (Grok it). Eleven years ago… no one in Congress asked about it then and… no one remembers it now.

one of the better memes on X today

waltzing mathilda

night all …good luck in Asia

JJ

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Charts and data CQG and Bloomberg

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