On the week, gold fell 10.50 [-0.58%] to 1800.20. All of the losses happened on Thursday. The candle print was mildly bearish, but gold remains above the MA50 and the MA200. Gold does appear to have run into a little bit of trouble. Perhaps this is hinting about a potential low in the buck? Open Interest for gold remains low, but the COT report ticked higher in the bankster (commercial) shorts section. Perhaps the banksters see a near-term top forming?
The rest of the metals were hit harder: silver -1.62%, miners -1.92%, copper -2.99%, platinum -3.49%, and palladium was just crushed, down -13.32%, falling to a new 3-month low. Ratios: GDXJ:GDX +0.30% (bullish), GDX:Gold -1.05% (bearish), Gold/Silver ratio: +0.62% (bearish). In general, the metals experienced their largest losses on Thursday – the day following Powell’s press conference. The market, which rallied going into the Fed meeting, has since retreated, and is not pricing in a near-term “pivot.”
As with most other items, SPX sold off this week also, dropping 2.08%, ending the week below all three moving averages. SPX fell after the Fed announcement, but sold off even harder on Thursday and Friday. Sector map was bearish: energy (+1.99%) and utilities (-0.50%) did best, while discretionary (-4.12%) and big tech (-2.89%) did worst. SPX is back in a downtrend in all 3 timeframes. It looks like that momentary close above the 200 Moving Average last week may have been a head fake. Crappy debt (JNK) isn’t on board with the SPX bearish trend change just yet; it fell just -0.04%.
Crude rallied for much of the week, retreating a bit on Thursday and Friday. Crude rose 3.44 [+4.84%] to 74.46. The “bullish harami” candle was somewhat bullish (although harami patterns aren’t usually all that strong), but crude remains in a longer term downtrend. Crude did turn bullish on the daily chart (not shown) on Monday, and it ended the week above the 9 MA. Gasoline is showing a similar pattern; +3.71% on the week, back above the 9 MA, and in a short-term uptrend. Energy prices are trying to put in a low here. Not sure we’re there just yet.
The weekly raid on the Strategic Petroleum Reserve more than doubled last week – increasing to 4.7 million barrels drained week overt week, or about 1.2% of our entire remaining emergency oil reserve gone, even though there’s no emergency that any of us can see.
by cmartenson