Various thoughts
Alyosha745
April 23...)
That time when Bernanke met Volcker and Yellen
(Priceless art by Havenstein on X)
Monday's news
Elite US universities are facing a late 60s redux with pro-Palestine Passover protests. The cops were called in to apprehend objectors at Columbia yesterday, highlighting a metastatic expansion of protests at MIT and Yale. Fifty years ago, American students took on the military culture in Washington and won ... concurrently with the onset of the biggest bull move in gold, ever. Another item on gold: The WSJ says in a timely piece of FUD that Costco shoppers are finding it harder to sell it than buy it. Vending machines can't evaluate a hunk of metal. Only a human can do it on site, and they charge for doing it.
JPM's Kolanovic, a guy who's been bearish on stocks since Moby Dick was a minnow, says the correction is not over. In a similar lane of cerebral petrification, the esteemed ex GS devotee of $100/barrel oil is hoisting his tattered bullish flag again. His thesis, on behalf of the Carlyle Group, is simple: "The FOMC is higher for longer because growth is too good." Copper might agree with him (chart below). And... surprise surprise...SBF flipped on his FTX pals yesterday in a deal to rat out Brady, Curry, Shak and Larry David according to the Blaze.com.
In the markets
Gold is still weird. There seemed to be a buyers strike in New York for weeks, except for the post pit close period when gold rallied regularly $20/toz for days. Gold went up in Asia and drifted in NY. But it seems the boycott is non preferential as you can clearly see in the chart below. Open interest hasn't varied more than 20k lots since March 22. Down 5k on a $70 dollar move yesterday. Weird? I think so.
June Gold daily data. The only development since early March has been in prices.
Silver prices are down 10% in 7 sessions, which seems rather normal. But OI is down 5K which is not normal for a $1.50 plunge. Five of the 7 sessions since the high of $29.90 were calm horizontal distribution. Which may be a problem for the bulls if enough new length got in above $28. Since OI did nothing for a week, it seems highly likely that the sellers were p'tking.
I've never made a penny on Fib numbers, but this coincidence of a 50% retracement at 26.13 and the breakout void (25.80/26.20) caught my eye. The trends in longer term charts have not been affected and will not be for several weeks, imo.
Although Copper OI is shooting higher to challenge a 7-year record and volume has ebbed modestly the is no technical sign of failure in the trend. Period. I read slo-stochs above 90 as a measure of bullish buying pressure.
Silver ETF holdings fell 3.3 mm toz yesterday. Gold + a lac.
Last up here's a weekly continuous chart of WTI that could be construed as the last chapter of covid dysfunction. However, in weekly data ,which I think is tradable information, there is absolutely nothing technical to support Curie's call, I think. All DOE data implies a balanced American industry with ample supplies and reserves. Exxon's market cap is greater than Tesla's. Maybe Iran goes rogue. Or Israel shoots first. Unfortunately, those $100-dollar calls are fraught with decades of decay.
My vibe
There are wars, and there are wars. Today's hot wars where people die are proxies for powerful operators and their weapons are the bad part of global GDP. Always were, always will be. However, the ideologies at stake are so similar it's no surprise that no one ever wins (Afghanistan). It's just a lot of name-calling with real blood and bullets.
The other WMDs, like paper money in the west and gold in the orient are equally powerful. Money wins wars. Reagan won the cold war with paper money and debt. It seems to me, that China plans to fight us with gold.
Various thoughts is not a registered investment advisor and comments herein are for informational use only. Any mention of a particular security, index, derivative, or other instrument is NOT a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold that security, index, derivative, or any other instrument. Various thoughts makes no representations as to the accuracy of 3rd party data or data of any kind or any attributions.