Video-September-25-2013-Archives-Daily-Show

Agree or not with the movement to defund the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare), Senator Ted Cruz's antics on the floor of the U.S. Senate were no way to inspire confidence in world markets regarding a fix to the debt ceiling and the funding of government operations.

All three major American stock indexes were down again, as were two of three in Europe and two of three in Asia. Crude and Brent were down. The yield on the 10-year T-bill was down. The euro, based on reviving activity in Germany pushed up.

The rising euro helped gold as the dollar fell, accounting for about 55% in today'ss rise of gold.

Short covering and bargain hunting has helped gold, although the rise seems to be losing steam in late afternoon trading. 

All-inclusively, durable goods orders in the U.S. squeaked up 0.1% last month, short of expectations for a 0.2% increase, following a dismal, downwardly revised 8.1% decline in July.

The Congress, by injecting more uncertainty into an already wobbly situation, is helping no one, whether you're on Wall Street or Main Street. Instead of various House and Senate members laying out grandiose schemes to gut this program or that (and both sides are guilty), more targeted budget cuts achieved in a grown-up forum must be arrived at. Nothing should be sacrosanct but nothing should be considered expendable out of hand. 

Extremists believe that compromise itself is a bad thing when compromise lies at the very core of a functioning democracy. The Congress does not even discuss raising taxes on those most able to pay more, for instance. The military budget exists in a practically unassailable holy of holies. Food aid, the vast bulk of which goes to children, the elderly, the disabled and veterans, is not so sacrosanct. Should welfare cheats be caught and punished? Of course they should be. But the strategy of cutting all food aid in order to ferret out the cheats will only starve those in real need. It is also a sign of a government that is giving up. 

The Fed remains the friend of precious metals traders. Those who deliberately or through oafish, lazy work misinterpret FOMC signals are our adversary right now. 

One of the few bright spots in employment, the retail sector, seems as if it will be a little softer than last year. Anticipated brick-and-mortar sales are expected to decline for marco economic reasons, but the onward march of online retailing continues. While brick-and-mortars like Walmart, target, Kohl's and J.C. Penney will be adding between 40,000 and 70,000 workers for the holidays, Ebay is adding 800. 

On another front, little or no inflation means little or no growth. How long will the electorate sit by and let that keep happening? 

Wishing you as always good trading,