woody

Gawd-deemed Blimpberg !

 

Once again, they have cutaway in the middle of Ron Paul's question- the highlight

of the morning's testimony

I missed the question but CNBC had his post-answer comments in full. 'It is the unwinding of a 35 year bubble in the dollar', 'Prices haven't gone up in terms of gold, just the fiat currencies' etc. etc.. No comment from Binky.

That's a clear glitch in their system. The market didn't do that.

 

I think you have every right to take this up with them and demand your positions are re-instated. Although as Cuthbert C has found at his cost, sometimes this is a losing battle.

I've had this before with IG. They claim the silver and gold prices quoted are not the market spot but those of a feed. They don't say what feed and I've seen it deviate from the spot on many occasions usually just enough to whip me out of a guaranteed stop.

Current score GoldBugs 3 : PPT 2 ...now well into the first half, and the opponents attackers are getting tired

Yeah, looking good now. Stocks easing and oil rallying which is a big positive.

My short worked well (out at $920) but that choppiness after was a bit painful! Thankfully it has calmed down a bit now and looking good for a positive run.

watta ride, watta ride.

 

Titanic battle today

Getting very difficult to call now. Maybe time to switch the screen off for today :-)

Same with me, lifes stressful enough - and it only money we're talking about here :-)

Furthermore, I'd never take my eyes off the screen and attend to my day job !

 

Price looks like its holding, but I suspect there may be a few quite hot terminals on the gold exchanges

...now the buying should start (hopefully)

Looks like the bulls are back in charge. Real sharp uptick that!

yeah - I posted after watching the first 30second - 1minute. Quickly recovered from the low just over $919 - the trend definately wasn't the friend (for Longs) at open.

 

Next 20 minutes should be interesting - maybe will define the battle outcome for the day?

Right now you could flip yesterday's chart on its head which means there's a big downer coming very shortly...

Being the end of the month they may try to smash it back. BTW Eric King on FSNH was saying something about options being closed at the end of June so expect a drop at the beginning of July. I don't trade, just buy and hold but I wonder if selling, say, 10% today to buy back in a couple of weeks might be a bit of fun... I must say I'm tempted.

$925-odd is presenting a lot of resistance and we've only got 20 mins or so until the pre-market action starts. I've taken a tentative short at $925 (short-term - still long on core holdings) although I might rapidly change my mind in a bit :-) I agree, it looks like being violent one way or another.

The Fed statement was so wishy-washy that, frankly, they'd've been better off hiking cos looking at the Dow's numbers off 230 points so far this morning, at least the dollar would be firmer against the euro.

Interesting... they're wheeling out the technical analyists now talking about the S&P, FTSE-100 both being at or around trend and risking critical support. All good for gold although I haven't seen that chart pulled up yet!

Looks like it can't quite break 912. Looks like a shorting opportunity on a plate...

I've made a bit on the short side in G&S as the moves so far are incredibly smooth. $910 now providing a bit of support so another run to $912 is on the cards.

Surprisingly not. CNBC reckoned there was a wave of autostop buying as soon as gold hit $900. It's looking ok at the mo . . .

CNBS is like a comedy today. The shock and horror at all this unjustified weakness in stocks.

And quote of the day which says it all (re Golden Sacks downgraded GM & Citi):

"And they did it just 3 days before the end of the quarter"

$910 is important resistance. But its trying...

$910 gone

Mervyn King: Expect a one year pause in living standards

Interesting. Right timing to be the catalyst for this move.

this is it, the big run for gold! a retest of 900 and next week we are seeing the chart on TV, just like oil

$910 is important resistance. But its trying...

Oh Hell wheres my rocket picture when you need them.

Blimey! That is the kind of open I like.

Nice rally in silver, I bought some at $16.59, sold at $16.75, so it has been a profitable day after all.

Nice :-)

Looks strong this morning.

It got a little bit scary in the period between the inventory and Fed announcements and I nearly got stopped out several times. Thankfully, I hung in and am back in profit on the short-term positions. With hindsight I could have trade it down then for the bounce although I've been whipped a couple of times this week so am trying to trade a bit less with wider stops to avoid being stopped out.

I think we're in for a run today especially with oil bouncing too.

This is looking ugly now, but it's being driven by pure fear so may not have much further to run. If we break $876 there'll be more downside (although I'm not convinced it will be much more), but if we bounce off $876 we could get a nice rally.

 

The Fed could drop things further, but we all know that they're just going to talk without any action, so buying on a dip created by their jawboning seems like a good bet to me.

It is clearly being taken as an opportunity to take profits or short oil and ramp stocks. I think the move in gold/silver is somewhat secondary and they seems to be bouncing around a lot. As oil is down $4 now, I'm interested in the $130 level as for the last few weeks that has been the bottom of the trading range.

Silver could be a very good buy here, it's been thrown on the floor like no-one wants it. But you'd have to be very brave to go long right now. I suppose that's where the profit is, buying when everyone else is fearful.

 

I have a long from $16.69 and I'm wondering whether to hold onto it or sell out now just in case. I'm pretty sure PMs are going to take a knock today, and even if it's only for a very short time that still means I could be able to buy back lower.

 

Edit: Just sold at $16.76. I believe the market will react in a manner negative to gold whatever the Fed says. I'm on standby to buy the dip (if it happens).

Your sale looks good Marceu. Inventories up, oil off $3.

There was some major volatility in the silver price in the hour before the announcement. It seems to be clinging to the $16.60 level though.

... and feeling increasingly contrarian after listening to the naked short podcast posted above. Potent stuff.

Silver could be a very good buy here, it's been thrown on the floor like no-one wants it. But you'd have to be very brave to go long right now. I suppose that's where the profit is, buying when everyone else is fearful.

 

I have a long from $16.69 and I'm wondering whether to hold onto it or sell out now just in case. I'm pretty sure PMs are going to take a knock today, and even if it's only for a very short time that still means I could be able to buy back lower.

 

Edit: Just sold at $16.76. I believe the market will react in a manner negative to gold whatever the Fed says. I'm on standby to buy the dip (if it happens).

I'm still long in core positions but also have a short term CFD position from the drop earlier in the week. I got stopped out in the mid-day (US) move yesterday and re-opened this morning . I'm half-expecting a move lower but no lower than $16.60 and very short-lived (i.e. I don't mind riding it out), but don't want to miss a possible leap. Fingers crossed

Well, it's FOMC day. What does everyone predict?

 

My bet is no changes to the base rate, a load of stealth liquidity measures and an even bigger load of nonsensical woolly jawboning about keeping an eye on inflation (without saying they'll actually raise rates).

 

Of course the market, being stupid, will probably buy the DOW AND sell oil and gold in moves which run completely contrary to each other. They just won't be able to shake that reality-defying optimism that the Fed has it all under control.

I'm inclined to agree - no action but a lot of rhetoric. I'm actually more interested in the oil inventories figures and think that'll lead to a move in a strong move in crude one way or another, hopefully upwards. I'm undecided how that'll affect gold although, like you, expect bullish fundamentals to lead to negative action!

On another note, I'm disappointed with silver's lack of a recovery this week. In the event of a bullish move in gold, it has a lot of catching up to do.

Of course the price will now go sky-high within Vietnam.

 

Could this happen at some stage in the US and UK as well? The price would then explode in a buying panic, which is when you maybe would like to sell and switch into houses or general stocks. But I think we're still far from this.

It does pose the scenario where physical could move well away from paper given the paper isn't necessarily geographically constrained, i.e. a London traded ETF may hold gold in Switzerland. It does tempt me to look at my physical weightings.

IMO Long Gold and Short Oil is looking like a pretty good trade now. My theory is if both rise Gold will rise much more than Oil so there will be an overall profit same if both fall there is much more potential downside to Oil than there is to Gold. I also can't foresee a scenario that Oil rises substancially and Gold doesn't. As long as you have enough money to maintain the margins this seems like a good trade to me.

I'm long both currently and suspect there's a bit to run yet but I'm inclined to agree on a couple of month view. Taking the scenario that the investment banks are ramping oil and suppressing gold, both of which make sense and I've read in a number of places, it makes sense that at some point they will switch. They'll cease being long or more than likely short oil to fund closing shorts and going long in gold (and silver). Joe Public who has followed them in (read/heard lots of talk about 'hedging your fuel bills by buying ETFs') will be left holding the baby, they replenish their coffers with profits from Fed capital and move on to the next victim. They have too much capital to fight but by second-guessing, or at least trading with the trend, we can do ok.

All of that said, I do still fundamentally believe in higher oil due to the supply/demand equation and a belief that Saudi's capacity to pump more indefinitely is not nearly what it has suggested and doubt we'll return anywhere near previous lows.

This is curious given yesterday's moves:

SPDR Gold Trust gold holdings rise 2 pct on Jun 23

24 Jun 2008 - 09:31

LONDON, June 24 (Reuters) - The volume of gold held in the

world's largest gold-backed exchange traded fund, SPDR Gold

Trust, rose by 2 percent on June 23, the fund said on Tuesday.

The fund, formerly known as StreetTRACKS Gold Trust, added

an extra 12.26 tonnes of gold bullion on Monday to bring its

total holding to 628.21 tonnes, its highest level since April

21.

Personally I think it was forced selling, no sane big money player would dump gold under these economic circumstances, but today's closing level really is crucial to gold's medium term future.

Looking into this a bit more, the suggestion seems to be that it was a forced sale to cover a margin call on oil. That makes sense if you think of what went on at the weekend and the (daft in my opinion) expectation that Saudi would pull a rabbit out the hat and oil would fall today. That backfired and any short would have been squeezed. Dumping gold (and silver) at the open could have provided the funding but, like you say, it would have needed to be a big position.

The only thing that doesn't fit with that is that immediately gold traded off, oil dropped a couple of dollars for no more than a few minutes before rebounding. Can we put that down to a sympathy move?

I've also seen talk that it was general selling to unwind a hedge against the falling dollar but that sounds like wishful thinking to me and the speed of the move doesn't fit.

The behaviour since the move has been pretty positive. After the move down in a single move, both gold and silver have been generally gaining ground. Silver has been stronger but then it fell 5% vs gold's 2%. Hopefully that'll continue although gold is not keen to trade above $885.

I'm fully long, weighted mostly to silver, and have taken a small speculative position in silver to try and benefit from the bounce which I hope will come over the next few days.

I'm no chartist either ... and whilst now looks like a great buying opportunity (and I have) ... I'm concerned that ~895-~898 ish was seen as a support level and we've clearly smashed down through it. If a move to $850 is on the cards I may have to re-think my position.

 

I'm praying for a push back through to $900 by the end of play today which would be hugely bullish IMHO.

We punched down through support at $885 but bounced off the up-trend we set quite recently. That is healthy but the rest of the day is key. I'd be far happier if we closed above $890. The concern right now is that whilst we bounced, it does look to be rolling over. If we dip back below $875 I'll worry. Nevertheless, I bought some silver CFDs (at $16.70) for the bounce as I feel the downside is limited from here and all the fundamentals point the other way to this move.