Expecting Little Amidst American Contradictions

Blessed are they who expect nothing during holiday weeks, for they shall not be disappointed.

Excess supply weighed on crude oil prices and that drove West Texas Intermediate down more than 3.30% and Brent North Sea just a touch more. (Brent is still trading below the Texas black gold, by the way.)

Gold seems assured of trading to its sixth straight quarterly loss amidst low physical demand (except in China), thin liquidity, and no real driving force to sustain the small rally it experienced during Christmas Week. There is also a good deal of money being pulled out of ETF’s as investors seek to take loses for the year before the close of trading on December 31st.

The static dollar, which is fairly predictable this week, neither helped nor hurt gold, which seemed to be falling on sentiment and the balancing of books.

Of all the precious metals, silver was hurt the most, falling nearly 3.50%. It too was a victim of loss taking as the accountants take over with close of year looming.

U.S. equities also found themselves in the doldrums generated by the end of the year blahs.

Amazon and Disney did not help the averages much as oil weighed on fundamentals. Little fresh cash was coming into the markets as people began to work off their eggnogs and Christmas puddings (or some such). That is really to say that big investors were taking time off and junior traders were manning the stations, so the status quo is the order for the week.

The people of the United States showed their penchant for contradicting themselves heartily and comically. In Gallup’s yearly survey of most respected people around the world, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama won first place – all well and good. Nobel Peace Prize recipient Malala Yousafzai and Oprah came in second and third among women.

Pope Francis and Donald Trump tied for second among the men.

Wishing you as always, good trading,