Meh-day, Not Tuesday

News was slim today and so it was cause to say "meh."

Unless you're around young hipsters or old Yiddish-speakers, you'll need a definition. It's a verbal shrug of the shoulders used when nothing about a particular event or experience makes much of an impression.

Short-covering was tepid, unenthusiastic, although strong enough to stop the previous few days' slide. (A good thing for gold bulls.)

Gold was swimming against a strong current today. U.S. consumer sentiment hit a six-year high.

The Conference Board's index of U.S. consumer confidence jumped to 82.3 in March, up from 78.3 in February. The gain was significantly larger than expected.

Lynn Franco, director of economic indicators at the board said, "While consumers were moderately more upbeat about future job prospects and the overall economy, they were less optimistic about income growth. Overall, consumers expect the economy to continue improving and believe it may even pick up a little steam in the months ahead."

New homes sales, however, dropped 4.4%, although that was no doubt due to weather and the loss will be recouped once the monstrous winter lets go of America's northern climes.

Improved consumer confidence is a key factor for gold bulls, although it comes with a caveat. It may touch off inflation (good for gold), but it may also instigate a Fed rate rise (bad for gold).

The most positive and most lasting aspect of increasing confidence is that when good times return, investors and savers will diversify their portfolios more and gold, which is currently underrepresented across all classes of investor, should be a winner.

For a few weeks we have been saying that the Crimea/Ukraine crisis isn't over. We have to note President Obama's uncharacteristically sharp knock on Russia's knuckles. The put down was quite illuminating.  

In response to a question about whether Russia is the number one geopolitical challenge (an assessment pushed by Mitt Romney), the President said:

"Russia is a regional power that is threatening some of its immediate neighbors - not out of strength but out of weakness.

"They don't pose the number one national security threat to the United States. I continue to be much more concerned when it comes to our security with the prospect of a nuclear weapon going off in Manhattan."

President Obama is right. There are only a few meaningful regional powers. Russia, China, Brazil, Israel, and South Africa. Russia is the only one that borders NATO countries and they would find themselves in terrible straits is they stepped on the uber alliance's toes.

Although the second part of his statement is unsettling and should be duly noted, let's stay focused. Russia can't possibly step back into a worldwide role. It is simply too poor. Putin's popularity soared after the illegal takeover of Crimea. However, merely the internal financial stress on Russia's resources in covering Crimea's social and infrastructure problems will cause a big headache. Once the hangover sets in, look for Putin's halo to tarnish again at home.

Our individual interpretations mean little. The markets will extract from the situation what it wants.

As for any big news of the day... meh. As always, wishing you good trading,