Every day, fundamentals analysts are called upon to divine the future. So, a theory has to be found for almost everything. Drought? Gold rises. No, wait: drought plus wildfire? Gold falls. It can get a little silly.

We’re watching crude oil prices, especially West Texas Intermediate, as we head into the middle part of August because in a secondhand way it will be the deciding factor in whether the Federal Reserve raises interest rates in September.

The China seas calmed themselves today, basically on talk from the People’s Bank Of China.