In contrast to gold’s mostly-sideways move, the miners rallied strongly on the week, up 3.67%. Silver also did well, climbing +2.67%, making a new closing high. Ratios: GDX:gold +0.72% (bullish), GDXJ:GDX +1.54% (bullish), Gold:Silver ratio -2.64% (bullish). Even though gold barely moved, this was a bullish week overall for PM. I especially like how the miners behaved. For instance: on Thursday, gold was smashed [-1.6%], while the miners dropped just -0.68%. Unusual – and bullish; when gold gets smashed, usually the miners have heart failure, but not this week. Big Money appears to be moving into the higher risk mining shares. XAU looked really solid, as did silver, on a week where gold just chopped sideways.
Crude rose +5.10 [+6.85%] to 79.56. Crude appears to have made a modest bullish reversal, although it is not yet back above the 50 MA. Crude’s open interest remains very low, which suggests to me that there may be a lot of room to run. Gasoline rose too, up 5.83% to a new 6-week high. Gasoline is just below the 50 MA. Crude actually looks much better on the daily chart – it appears to be riding the nine MA higher. But for the longer-term trend, the weekly chart is more important to provide perspective. Crude still needs that close above the 50 MA; my weekly model is cautiously positive.
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) theft slowed last week; the WEF/Biden-Handlers stripped “only” 3.6 million barrels, or about 1% of the remaining U.S. strategic oil reserves. Why? Reasons unknown. Call it “Sudden Reserve Death Syndrome”, or SRDS. Is there an oil crisis? No. Oil is down $40 from its recent high. They must be stripping our oil reserve for some other reason. “You will own nothing!” But at least you’ll be happy.
Equities were largely unchanged, falling just -7.54 [-0.20%] on the week. Is this a reversal? While the “doji” candle looks somewhat bullish, the sector map was bearish: energy +3.10% and financials +0.74% led, while discretionary -3.46% and tech -2.31% did worst. That was an ugly sector map. You never want to see discretionary and tech doing worst – that is a bearish sector rotation. SPX remains below all 3 moving averages. Crappy debt (JNK) supports the bearish sentiment, losing -0.93%, printing a “swing high” bearish reversal pattern, and it is now in a mild downtrend.
by cmartenson 
