No One Needs This Around The Holidays Except For Gold

November’s Chicago Federal Reserve National Activity Index that had been predicted to rise 0.10 from the downwardly revised earlier figure of -0.17 actually dropped to -0.30.

Tomorrow and Wednesday we are likely to see even more U.S. Dollar volatility with several key domestic data reports due for release. Of particular significance will be Q3 Gross Domestic Product and Q3 Personal Consumption.

For now is the winter of our second-guessing the Fed rate hike… It is also, more realistically, a time to second-guess the near hysteria about inflation. It might also be a good time to come up with a scenario to start chipping away at the U.S. national debt.

Gold took a weaker dollar today as an assisting influence so regular traders had a base to stand on to bid up the yellow precious metal, yielding a total jump of more than $13.00 on the day.

Silver and platinum also managed beautiful gains, the latter almost 2.00%. Palladium remained the whipping boy in the complex, off $3.00 for the session.

U.S. equities, also due to the weak Chicago data, but also because of horrendous news from Chipotle concerning their e. coli scare, were up but struggling to stay in the green.

Crude oil prices also leaned on stocks, especially the Dow Jones Industrials. But the slight minor pause in the end-of-year downward trend we have been experiencing gives us heart that even if we don’t get a full-on Santa Claus rally, we may get the eight-tiny-reindeer version.

That sounds glib, but what we mean is that there may be a half dozen to a dozen quality stocks – oversold stocks – that will lead us into some sort of upward movement in the next two shortened trading weeks. (Please note: we only have two and a half days to trade left this week.)

Crude oil is struggling without cease.

West Texas Intermediate crude was stable, although it did probe the psychological $35 per barrel level. Brent North Sea meanwhile was down almost 2.00% and is itself looking at $36.00 per barrel, a crucial level for the world benchmark.

We are not sure right at the moment what to make of the persistent strength of a euro that should be falling against the U.S. currency. Yes, we did have the shaky data from the U.S. today, but something else is up.

We are left wondering if there isn’t some international movement of investment in cash – perhaps from Russia or a country like that. Some people from such an as-yet-undiscovered economic entity needs quick and easy access to its cash, so countries with squishier rules like Switzerland and certain EU nations often find “excess” cash in their banks.

This cash could wash back out next week or the first of the year. Otherwise, fundamentally we see no legitimate reason why the euro remains so steadfast against the greenback.

Euro strength is even more interesting when one considers the drop in European stock indexes today.

Wishing you as always, good trading,