1. Moving the markets

For sure, it was a market where anything was possible. The Dow reigned supreme for most of the day, with a 300-point advance at one point, while the S&P 500 cruised slightly above its unchanged line. Gold and the tech sector plunged, with especially the former getting hurt by rising yields as bond prices crumbled but reversed a bit late in the session.

Things changed in the afternoon when all rebound efforts failed and the major indexes, including the Dow, went into swan dive mode and headed sharply south.

Traders were not sure about the outlook for the economy, despite slowing new coronavirus cases. However, the lack of progress in Washington toward additional aid soured the mood, and down we went.

Of course, after the sizzling ramp in gold and tech over the past weeks, a pause was to be expected. It remains to be seen whether today was just an outlier, or the beginning of more liquidation, as all asset classes puked in sync.

Quipped ZH:

And one wonders if the ‘dead cat bounce’ is over (if nothing else, today’s reversal is interestingly timed):

We will find out soon enough how this analog to the 1930s plays out. Just in case, have an exit strategy in place.

1. Moving the markets

It was another sloppy and choppy session with the Dow being the leader, while the Nasdaq was unable to climb out of an early hole, but it trimmed some of its initial losses. The S&P struggled all day but closed in the green, while gold came off its early highs but hung on to some modest gains.

Commented MarketWatch:

Investors monitored signs that a long-awaited rotation on Wall Street into more economically sensitive cyclical stocks could be brewing, but at the expense of their highflying counterparts.

However, more attention was given to Trump’s signing of executive orders extending some of the coronavirus relief benefits. Maybe that will push the warring parties back to the negotiating table for a reasonable solution to the current crisis, while abandoning irrelevant pork that has nothing to do with the Covid-19 disaster.

While the torrid advances of gold and silver have slowed a bit during the past couple of trading days, the bull run is far from being over.

Analyst Graham Summers noted in his latest mailing:

The reality is that the only way the Fed could stop gold’s rise would be to begin tightening monetary policy via interest rate hikes and reducing its Quantitative Easing (QE) program.

The Fed cannot do this without triggering a market crash. As I’ve noted on these pages before, the ONLY thing that stopped the March meltdown was the Fed going nuclear with monetary easing, providing over $3 trillion in liquidity.

Indeed, today the Fed continues to spend over $125 BILLION per month in QE a full three months AFTER the crisis. And the Fed has stated it will continue to do this until there is a full recovery (the Fed believes this will come at the end of 2021).

Put another way, the Fed is trapped. It can either tighten monetary policy and crash the markets, or it can let inflation run wild and gold will go parabolic.

In the meantime, the saber rattling continued between the US and China with new sanctions against politicians and organizations being considered. Then we learned that Chinese jet fighters crossed the midline of the Taiwan Strait, just as a senior US official was visiting the island.

All these developments increase uncertainties, which to me means gold should be an important component in anyone’s portfolio.

1. Moving the markets

The major indexes meandered around their respective unchanged lines for most of the morning, when news that the State Department had lifted its global travel advisory from 4 months ago hit the wires. That was like poring gasoline on a fire, and the indexes rocketed higher for the remainder of the session and never looked back.

The gains were solid across the board with the Nasdaq faring the best out of the 3 indexes, but the tech sector was not able to catch gold’s performance with the yellow metal closing +1.25% at $2,075, now having been up 14 out of the past 15 days.

The early update on initial/continuing jobless claims offered a “positive” surprise, as they fell slightly after having risen for two weeks in a row. I don’t see the optimism, because still 1.186 million new Americans signed up for jobless claims for the first time. Ouch!

That new layoffs are well under way, is further confirmed by this study summarizing it like this:

Of workers who were placed back on payrolls after being initially laid off/furloughed as a result of the COVID-19 Pandemic Crisis, 31% report that they have been laid off a second time, and another 26% of those placed back on payrolls report being told by their employer that they may be laid off again.

Again, none of the above matters to the markets, until one day when it does. In the meantime, all eyes are on tomorrow’s jobs report, and it will be interesting to see how it will be spun in a positive light to keep the market levitation intact.

ZH summed up the insanity in the current market environment like this:

As Bloomberg notes, the pause in the leadership of the mega-cap technology stocks is over, as evidenced by their dominance today. Nearly all of the S&P 500’s 18-point gain can be explained by five stocks: Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet. That’s how the index can rise even though 54% of its stocks are down at the moment. Among the group on pace for all-time closing highs: Apple, Amazon and Facebook.

However even AAPL’s stunning move pales in comparison to the 150% surge in silver from its March lows.