friday wrap

market vibes

April 11…)

“I think frankly when it comes to chaos you ain't seen nothing yet.” Nigel Farage

Net spec length in gold fell 38,088k lots, as of April 8. The EFP related location arbs may have had some overlap in the overall decline in COTs since January, however the latest decline is related to margin selling.

Gold rallied to an ATH in Asia last night, opened at record highs in NY, and spent the entire Comex session on the highs. A market that clings to its highs implies unfilled buying below…

It is possible gold prices are leaving a void above $3000. There is a void of OI (chart below), a void of futures positioning (chart above) and 3 day vertical price void to an ATH at $3250. More on this in the vibe.

Net spec length in silver fell 19,518 lots as of April 8. Margin selling, imo…

Comex silver OI fell 19k lots this week (chart below), conforming perfectly with the drop in managed money length. In the day-structure today, prices probed the April 3-4 sell void and stopped on the highs to close.

Fwiw, forgive the overuse of the word void but it can’t be avoided (no pun intended!).

I am glad to see these COTs aligned with open interest because it confirms metals length in futures is very low. The silver narrative this week was that wannabe gold longs who missed the move were weak buyers of silver. Not so much. Silver has been sluggish because China is not buying silver. Katie bar the door if they do!

At any rate, if CTA length comes back, there is little very length to sell. Platinum is actually net short. Interesting…

Equities spent a quiet day grinding higher on light volume. JPM was in the news a few times today. Their equity desk made record revenues in Q1 on the stock bust.

According to BBG, Jamie Dimon said S&P earnings would decline, and he opined a “kerfuffle” in the treasury market would force the Fed to “step in”. He attributed his expectations to excessive regs, not the stock market.

Technically, nothing has changed in S&Ps, other than the settlement price near the top of the range.

This long bond chart looks dangerously vertical and forewarnings from Dimon lend credibility to rumors of a liquidity seizure earlier in the week. I’m surprised the stock markets were sanguine today, blythe even, after a 700 handle range in S&Ps and gold up $200/toz in 3 days.

In other markets

Bitcoin and Oil continued to mirror stock indexes, which is simply the influence of similar algorithms, in my opinion. The dollar recovered a bit. If bonds go lower, the dollar will follow. I can’t imagine stocks will ignore that.

My vibe

We should acknowledge that America is in a civil war as well as a trade war. There’s no point in dancing around the fact that Trump’s opposition would relish a financial crisis to get rid of him or tie him up in courts again.

And that team Trump at the FBI and DOJ are investigating sources of stunning wealth in the congress aligned with evidence discovered by DOGE at USAID and other departments. Foreign influence is probaly connected to both parties and many prominent businesses. None this stuff is good.

Add that to the bond market and the stock market, and the “wars”… too many to list. All the players are on the stage. Politcal, financial, international and military; instability is trending. Gold is repricing on the order of the 1970s, in my opinion, meaning it will accelerate. Maybe not Sunday night or next week. But it’s coming.

Hat tip to Dave groom for posting a link to American Thought Leaders in a comment yesterday. I checked it out and found this interview with Kyle Bass from January … a worthy 15 minutes in the context of tariffs and trade.

Finally, if you think we’ve got problems, this monster was eating so many people the tribe had to get the army to find him and kill him. I’ll take my chances here!

Have an excellent weekend,

JJ

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Charts and data CQG and Bloomberg

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