Gold

If anything characterizes movement in markets today, it could very well be the phrase “trimming the sails.” There are a number of reason investors and traders are cutting positions, or consolidating positions whether on upside or downside bets.

Jockeying for next week’s Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S. has already begun. Come Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, Europe and Asia will be left fairly much to their own devices. (Of course only Thanksgiving Day itself is a full on market-closed holiday, but between the run up and the lethargy of the day after, don’t expect much from New York or Chicago.

Many of the major trends in markets that we have been watching closely turned around today, although we feel that the shift is more in the way of consolidation than a strong change of sentiment.

Nature abhors a vacuum. People do, too, and generally seek to fill vacuums. With the world drifting under recent terroristic attacks and the threat of more, plus news of beheadings, torture and general mayhem wherever ISIS spreads its grimy wings, no wonder that investors and traders seem relieved and even happy about the particulars of the minutes of the last Fed meeting.

Before examining the specifics of today’s markets, it’s worth a minute to take a look at the resilience of markets across the globe, especially in those economies that have fully embraced the western model of openness and optimism.

Today was a day of recovery for markets as well it was a day of recovery from pondering the awful events in Paris this past Friday.

While we have much political and military business to take care of, it was good to see a little optimism on the stage. There were a couple of important factors driving the uptick of prices in equities, crude and the U.S. dollar.

Regardless of what consumer-spending activities were on a non-granular basis, the fact is that when two volatile components are taken out, in fact spending was very robust.

West Texas Intermediate crude fell over 3.00% today while Brent North Sea cratered by almost 3.70%. Both drops in price are signs that oil is about to test its recent (August) lows, and that prices could perhaps go lower.

The sound-barrier piercing drop in crude prices in the last four sessions has finally gotten everyone’s attention on worries that U.S. government data will show a seventh weekly U.S. rise in reserve stocks.

U.S. traders awoke today to data from China that increased concerns of deflationary pressure and lack of domestic-market response to stimulus measures so far.