It feels like a time of reckoning and disintegration for me with the US government going into shutdown last week as Congress and the White House could not even agree to a budget deadlock discussion, let alone come to an agreement. Time is running out and come Oct 17th with the debts ceiling limit being hit, well, you figure it out. Dow was at an all time high @ 15,709 two weeks ago, broke 15,000 last week.
And then there is the tale of gold. You would be forgiven if you thought that all these ramifications would be an ideal environment for gold to rise, but – and it’s a big but: On Tuesday October 1, around 8am it was reported that some invisible entity put in an order to sell a humongous 8,000 contracts of gold on the COMEX. That is 800,000 ounces of gold, or about $1B, yes that’s right, billion. With no liquidity in that market at that time, it resulted in gold tumbling rudely to 1276 within 24 hours (lowest since 7 August). Some dark knight ruthlessly covering shorts perhaps? You decide.
Talk about disintegration. Don’t forget about comet ISON, also known as ‘
Comet of the Century’s get-together with Earth around 28 November. As a sungrazer, it was expected to be so bright that it would be visible in broad daylight but latest is that the comet seems to be losing ‘steam’,
so it will either be a sizzle or a fizzle, almost like the markets. Time will tell but respect either way, it’s a new comet fresh from the Oort cloud and it’s visible to amateur astronomers, so dust off your telescopes.
China national holiday today and rest of Asian markets all red except for Shanghai (prev close), gold @ 1314, US futures red, IGT40 @ -150.
Moon’s F&G @ 35 Fear, same as last month, previous week @ 28 Fear so I’m guessing investors feel better for now.
No other significant eco reporting today.