evening wrap, october 16

market vibes

“Shut the front door.” Guy Fieri

It would be hard to pick a “best day” for gold, but Thursday, October 16, 2025, would be one of them. Comex December settled on its 9th all-time high for the month, up $130/toz., a range that a year ago would have been an impressive week; 2 years ago, an impressive quarter. Last week I said, “This chart is suitable for framing.” It still is. Today, as gold levitated in an orderly ascent on brisk volume, the storied bull market in stocks struggled to hold unchanged, and by midday the Dow was down 400, where it settled.

Bloggers on Telegram say small bars of silver are selling for $100/toz. or more in China. Some retail outlets are posting “out of stock.” Usually, these images and social media posts are toppy fomo, but I see no technical signs of a top and moderate coverage, if any. There is the occasional headline the financial press but reporting is mostly bearish. What is impressive is it didn’t take more than a few days to flip a sleepy, low-interest ETF squeeze into Frankensilver melt-up!

In the news today

Israel bombed some munitions stores in Lebanon. Trump had a productive call with Putin, which he intends to discuss with Zelenskyy tomorrow. Apparently a trilateral is planned for next week in Hungary. The shutdown enters its 17th day tomorrow with no end in sight. The U.S.-China rare earths dispute got worse today.

let’s check the charts