In Plain Sight

Apparently Tsar Putin is doubling down on his bet in eastern Ukraine; he's on the verge of sending in heavy weapons (artillery) to aid the barbarians who have desecrated the murdered of Malaysia Flight 17 and its mechanical wreckage.

The fighting, too, in Gaza rages on.

We can merely observe, regretfully, that these conflicts have driven gold and silver higher. (We wish it were for other, more normal fundamental causes.)

In tandem with and abetting the rise in gold have been the fall of stock markets in Europe and the U.S. Dow stocks are down around 0.75%, S&P and NASDAQ issues are down around half a point. This has been one of the worst few weeks in stocks in six years. But equities weren't merely being affected by the shakes and shimmies of geopolitics.

Visa's earnings, on forecasts, came in disastrously low. Amazon, the head without a body, fell 11%. All that money that has fled equity markets has gone to emerging markets, to precious metals, and to the sideline, meaning cash.

"The markets are looking a bit tired," said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Rockwell Global Capital. "We're headed to a very busy week of economic data."

Cardillo is referring to pending home sales on Monday, July jobs data, personal income and spending, and construction spending. These could have a powerful impact on gold and silver. However, we could see contradictory data as we so often have recently, one set of information neutralizing another.

The only thing that really held gold and silver back today was the rising dollar. It took about 0.20% off both metals.

One further thing: We have been claiming that one of the reasons that China has turned away from official and private buying of gold is the country's out-of-control debt. It was reported today that China has public debt of more than 250% of GDP and private debt of more than 400% in debt over personal income. There's a ticking time bomb for you. (The U.S. public debt is about 130% of GDP; private debt is around 170% of personal income.)

As always, wishing you good trading,