Coffee, cream and METAL MANIA! (updated)

8:24 am (Hawaii) It rained overnight in Honolulu. Weather was cool for a July night. Perfect sleeping weather. I just got up after a productive workout last night, and it's almost the end of the session. Did I miss anything?

Hell yes. I remember Turd Ferguson noting yesterday that, technically, he expects gold to break out to a new high, and if that happened ... fully bullish. Turn on the TV. Turn on the computer. I sorta dread this. If gold breaks out, good. My XG and DGP will do nicely, even at small quantities. But I sold out of AGQ two days ago at a loss of $12/share. Small, small position, but still.

The Metals list I keep is almost all green (79%). It's a wipeout day for Metals bears. Only the bearish ETFs and ETNs are red. The indices are all up. XG is up 5%, DGP up 1.3%. AGQ is up 10% to 195. I sold at 172. Again, my timing ... not so good. I'm glad I held some gold stocks. It's like selling FAZ last Friday instead of holding until Monday. That cost me some. But the AGQ sell just cost me roughly $600. That's on a small position, really small. And if silver continues to rise, AGQ keeps going up at double warp speed, who knows, maybe to its all-time high at 382 (April 28).

I can imagine it's been a wonderful day so far for metal bugs. But Turd's site is down. Has it been overwhelmed by all the excitement? I need my Turd & Turdites fix.

James Turk, in his consistent, almost monotone voice, has been pounding the table for gold for a few months. He keeps repeating that this will be (not could be) a breakout summer for gold. Yesterday, he said it would be like the summer of 1982, when Mexico's default led to a golden rocketship. Holy cow, Mr. Turk is probably correct.

Everything at the top of my Metals list gapped up and is already enjoying bigger volume than yesterday: AGQ, AG, NUGT, EGO, SVM, SIL, DBS, XG, SLV, PSLV, GOLD, GDXJ, SLW, PLTM, EXK, REE, GDX, COPX ... wait, I take that back. PLTM hasn't matched yesterday's volume yet. It's all almost too good to be true. Like a setup. But on this kind of volume? I doubt it. It's usually a thin market that gets toyed with and peon traders like me get puppeteered.

Is it this simple? Obama threatens to yank Social Security, and the market reads it as a desperate threat and confirmation that QE3 is on? Or what's-his-face on Capitol Hill, the Republican who caved in and compromised on the Democrats' offer yesterday ... that's what's driving this? I haven't had time to check yet. Maybe after a bowl of cereal.

Update 8:51 am (Hawaii) On the 15-minute chart, AGQ has never exploded like it did this morning at the open. There was major volume two days ago, when shares sold off. But this morning was to the upside in a gap up. Trying find an entry point is difficult here. After closing yesterday at 177.68, there's a lot of room to pull back.

Has the CME mafia and the govt lost control of the price? Is the manipulation over? Probably not on both counts. But yesterday and today show that even in the middle of what's supposed to be the summer doldrums, the market may be too powerful to shackle 100% of the time — especially when it comes to gold. That is where old money resides. Old BIG money.

Update 9:07 am (Hawaii) Excellent post at SilverGoldSilver.com by guest writer SRSrocco about commercial shorts losing grip on silver. I'll add it to the library reading list later today. I got to eat some cereal. Kept watching AGQ but couldn't find a suitable point of entry. Now it's pulling back below 196, it looks like ... feeling desperate to get in near the highs is never a good feeling, and rarely leads to good results. I like the feeling of buying cheap, it's just that I really don't expect AGQ to go back near 177 any time soon.

Only a rocket ship loaded with 10 trillion ounces of gold and silver from another galaxy could save the US economy here. And that would be bullish for PMs. Production/GDP/jobs aren't about to spike high in the next several months. Not even space aliens can repair that.

Silver and gold stars

11:06 am (Hawaii) Today's silver stars?

GPL 3.82 +0.22 (+6.1%) volume slightly up

SLW 36.75 +1.77 (+5.1%) volume slightly up

EXK 9.81 +0.44 (+4.7%) volume slightly down

PAAS 46.44 +1.59 (+3.6%) volume slightly down

SIL 25.01 +0.67 (+2.8%) volume up big

AG 20.28 +0.42 (+2.1%) volume slightly up

SVM 10.37 +0.13 (+1.3%) volume slightly up

AGQ 177.38 +2.18 (+1.2%) volume even

All are afterhours prices. Not a lot of depth in silver gainers, but notable.

Gold stars:

NUGT 32.65 +1.92 (+6.3%) volume slightly down

GG 52.45 +2.04 (+4.1%) volume up big

NGD 10.75 +0.40 (+3.9%) volume slightly up

EGO 16.37 +0.55 (+3.6%) volume slightly up

XG 14.50 +0.46 (+3.3%) volume slightly up

GDX 57.36 +1.74 (+3.1%) volume up

ABX 47.14 +1.26 (+2.8%) volume up

GDXJ 36.30 +0.80 (+2.3%) volume up big

DGP 50.76 +0.74 (+1.5%) volume up big

UGL 53.80 (+1.4%) volume slightly up

Wednesday afternoon cinema & library (updated)

10:30 am (Hawaii) Just a lazy morning in Honolulu, partly cloudy, 80 degrees, light tradewinds as I enjoy the coolness out on my lanai. Haven't touched the TV remote all morning and enjoying zero white noise. DJ +0.6% to 12,261. Nas +0.4% to 2,740. S&P +0.8% to 1,307. End-of-month window dressing continues. Crude oil up; UCO +4.5% on roughly double of yesterday's volume.

AGQ, GPL, NUGT, COPX, PAAS, NGD, CU, GDXJ, DBS, AG, SLV, SLW top my Metals list (74% green). The miners: NUGT, GD XJ, SLW have significantly higher volume today, but the rest of the leaders had matching numbers to yesterday. Miners were long overdue for a bounce. Beware of dead cats.

Video

(new) StormCloudsGathering: Why the national debt will never be repaid (June 29 2011)

RealDemocracyGr: Greek police vs. Protestors (June 29 2011)
ABC: Fire surrounds New Mexico nuclear lab (June 29 2011)
morganslv: Silver update (June 29 2011)
MSNBC: Greece OKs austerity plan as riots grip Athens (June 29 2011)
James Turk: Philipp Vorndran interview (June 29 2011)
Robin Griffiths: Gold, silver will behave as money, not as commodities (June 29 2011)
Wafdawg: The psychology of silver and independence (June 29 2011)
MoneyBags73: 5 weeks to US default on debt obligations (June 28 2011)
Ron Paul: People are finally waking up to the tyranny (June 28 2011)
Sean Brodrick: Big stocks with big, fat dividends (June 28 2011)

(new) syyenergy7: Bob Chapman article from 2003, Silverado Gold (June 25 2011)
Robert Kiyosaki: Food storage, guns for coming 2012 Depression (Mar 22 2011)

Reports & Blogs

Silverfuturist: Master Pattern silver: $26 then $50 this year? (June 29 2011)
• Reasonable enough, though I don't expect 26. Then again, Spot silver went from 21 to 9 (57% pullback) before running to 49. A 57% pullback from 49 would take spot to 21. Again, I doubt that scenario.
Turd Ferguson: ChartDaddy (June 29 2011)
• Copper as a predictor?
Mineweb: China's first precious metals spot exchange opens in 'Silver City' (June 29 2011)

Chris Whalen: $200 billion in claims against JP Morgan, banks (June 29 2011)
Max Keiser: Live blogging from witness in Syntagma Square (June 29 2011)

Bix Weir: Frightening Comex silver volume in May massively distorts silver price (June 29 2011)
Dan Norcini: Gold-silver ration reflects trader views toward 'risk' (June 29 2011)
Ian Wyatt: Don't ignore this silver trend (June 29 2011)

Sam Kirtley: A look at trading gold and its Eurozone crisis premium (June 29 2011)
Chris Martenson: The screaming fundamentals for owning gold, silver (June 29 2011)

Doug Groh: Not adding gold bullion now (June 29 2011)

Kevin Kerr: Why Obama's desperate move could send oil ETF prices soaring (June 29 2011)

CNBC: Apple may offer older iPhone for free in fall (June 29 2011)
Info Wars: Ron Paul: Obama's Libya War power grab impeachable (June 29 2011)
Jeb Handwerger: Investors around the world monitoring expiration of QE2 (June 29 2011)
Salt Lake Tribune: Lee: Gold, silver should be treated like currency (June 29 2011)
Gary North: Geithner's victims of last resort (June 29 2011)

(new) U. of California Dept. of Nuclear Engineering: Radiation sampling results (June 28 2011)

James Turk: Summer gold trading will be one for history books (June 28 2011)

New York Sun: A first step to sound money (June 28 2011)

Jason Hommel: How I felt when I bought silver (June 28 2011)
• Tim Geithner: Letter to Sen. Michael Bennet (May 13 2011)
Vedran Vuk: China becomes choosy (June 29 2011)
Marin Katusa: America's oil supply: keystone for survival (June 29 2011)
Michael Johnson: Five muni ETFs to watch if Meredith Whitney's call is right (June 29 2011)
Tony Sagami: Latin stocks that are making a bundle from China (June 29 2011)
Le Fly: The Great Spectacular Continues (June 29 2011)
• He went long financials
Zero Hedge: US Mint to start selling 2011 ASE proofs at 75% premium (June 29 2011)
Doug Hornig: The great nugget scam (June 28 2011)
Wallet Pop: Food stamps for fast food? (June 28 2011)

New America Now: Economic collapse, top 5 places not to be (June 26 2011)
Gary North: Bernanke channels Benchley (June 25 2011)

Denise Milani

Easy come, easy go

9:10 am (Hawaii) Is this a paper mache market today? I woke up a few times in the past few hours, checked volume, and went back to sleep. Traders who stepped in on Monday and early today made their profits, but beyond today, it's all fluff, I'm guessing. Though my Regular watch list is 82% green, just about every upside play has anemic volume. A few have similar volume to yesterday or volume that's close to average. But a large majority are up on hardly any trading. Major caution sign!

Monster Worldwide (MWW) is an exception. Big volume, nice candlestick. CYB (Wisdom Tree Chinese yuan fund) is also up on huge volume. I'm always interested in ways to play yuan long term. Anyone (not me) with a huge stack of benjamins in the bank has to think about buying a significant amount of yuan to hedge against inflation.

73% of my Metals list is green, but it's the same trap there with light volume. It's true that there have been big moves, week-long moves, right after stocks trade lightly. Maybe we just don't have any sellers left. Maybe China saving the Eurozone (temporarily) is enough. Maybe the Fed buying up Treasurys is enough. Maybe Nike beating expectations is plenty. But I'm not sold on this.

The one byproduct of today's gains (DJ +1.1%, Nas +1.3%, S&P +1.1%) is that silver's downward momentum has finally stopped, at least for today. GPL (+5.9%), EXK (+4.6%), AG (+2.7%), SIL (+2.5%), SLW (+2.4%, PSLV (+2.2%) all helping the miners sector. But it's hard to get excited when volume is so restrained.

Gold also has a bunch of healthy players, including NUGT (+2.9%), NGD (+2.3%) and GDXJ (+2%), but again, thin volume. XG and GG are up on massive volume. Crude oil is up. Copper is up. But on the whole, it all smells more like end-of-month buying by hedge funds to pretty up the books, not a legit turnaround. There isn't another clear catalyst in sight, which means we could see a slow meltdown for days to come. Perhaps weeks. Same scenario we had a week ago, but in slow-motion. It's thinnish markets like this that set up the average guy for a beatdown via flash crash. I'm content to be mostly cash and getting my sleep.

Not quite minus squared

9:37 am (Hawaii) Market is down (Dow -99.83/-0.8%, Nas -31.77/-1.2%, S&P -13.09/-1.0%), but it's not convincing of an onrushing disaster, either. Dollar is up 6/10th of a percentage point, crude oil down again (SCO up 1%). The Metals list is 27% green, 73% red with a majority on the plus side being bear plays. But the key is low volume up and down. Maybe it's a respite of sorts and Monday begins a bloodbath. Or maybe this market will remain choppy, indignant and petulant.

ZSL is up 5.3% to 19.46. DUST, QID, gold bears GLL and DZZ are among the leaders on the list. REE, MCP and AVL have kept rare earths near the top.

Meanwhile, the finnies faded. Three were in the green in the opening minutes today, but now all are in the red. NBG, which got up to 1.43 yesterday on the positive news of austerity psuedo-measures, is down 7% to 1.32. Pulling back is no surprise, but I thought there might be continued momentum after profit-taking. It's tough to make it when you're a bankster.

Silver plays are getting minced again, not a shock. AGQ down 5.4% to 161.54, EXK (-5.2%), SLW (-4.3%), PAAS (-3%), GPL (-4.5%), SVM (-5.1%) are among the bruised silver miners. XG (-2%), NUGT (-5.3%), GG (-3.7%), GDXJ (-3.1%), DGP (-3%) are among the gold plays getting stomped. DGP's descent is unusual; it's normally not a big mover up or down. It's my lone play, a small position, and Spot Gold has room to fall, maybe to 1450. Not fun, but the puppet masters will do what they deem necessary to justify implementation of the next bailout/quantitative easing/big lie.

My Regular watch list is 26% green, 74% red. AAPL is down 1.6% to 325.95. TVIX (+7.5%) and VXX (+3.7%) are up big, as is QID (+3.5%). No buyers, and it seems some hedge funds have emptied out. It's nice to rest easy on summer vacation.

It gets interesting on the Regular list. CMG (+1.1%), RLOC (+0.8%), CSTR (+0.3%) are up. Then it's red, red, red, red ...

Interest rates status quo

 

6:27 am (Hawaii): Breaking news is no change in interest rates. That's no surprise. I like how the info usually gets released (on paper) to the media this way, an hour or two before Bernanke speaks. The FOMC statement notes the weakening labor numbers.

Generally bullish despite the flat indice numbers so far today. The losers on my Regular watch list are mostly down less than 1%, though NFLX is way near the bottom.

My Metals list is 75% green, 25% red. GPL is up 6%, EGO up 4.5%, NGD up 4.1%, NUGT up 3.8%, XG up 3.7%, MCP up 3%, GDXJ up 3%. My favorite miners are up: EXK (+1.3%) and XG (+3.2%). Both have comparable volume to yesterday at this point.

More losers: DUST (-3.8%), SCO (-2.2%), ZSL (-1.2%).

AAPL is flat. UUP flat, also. While other miners are up nicely, PAAS is flat (+0.2%). GLD is up just 0.4%.

Hitting for power

6:59 am (Hawaii) Just got up to another cool morning in the islands, a nice 73 degrees, partly cloudy, low humidity. The market is where it's hot. Dow up 91.96 (+0.78%), Nas up 47.31 (+1.8%), S&P +14.60 (+1.1%).

Silver is on fire and dominating the top of my Metals list, which is 79% green, 19% red. Unlike other up days, volume is huge so far, which has me intrigued.

AG 17.85, +7.1%
SVM 9.16, +6.9%
EXK 8.37, +6.5%
PAAS 30.36, +6.3%
NUGT 28.73, +5.5%
AVL 6.56, +5%
XG 11.99, +4.9%
SLW 32.57, +4.5%
EGO 13.99, +4%
SIL 23.46, +4%
GOLD 77.69, +3.5%
GDXJ 33.67, +3.16%

All of these upside plays are close to yesterday's volume or, like EXK and XG, have already surpassed it. How is this possible? US Dollar down, Euro up, Greece going through the formalities after the closing bell. Bernanke to speak tomorrow. Even AAPL is up 2.8% to 324.27.

Is it just about Greece and the Euro? I'd say it was a weak dead-cat bounce, but on this kind of volume? The finnies are up big. NBG (+7.4%), BBVA (+2.6%), STD (+2.4%), C (+1.8%), BAC (+1.1%), GS (+1%), GS (+1%), JPM (+0.6%) all up. FAZ down 2.9%.

Whatever the reason, EXK once again bounced off the 7.50-7.60 area. This is no place to chase here.

As for rare earths, AVL is hot on fair volume, MCP is up 1.3% to 53.11 on tiny volume, and REE is up 2% to 10.36, also on very small volume. They had their big run yesterday, but today isn't all bad at all. Looking forward, I'm leaning more toward trading in rare earths and/or holding a small long-term position. Otherwise, I'm still 90% cash, haven't made a trade in nearly two weeks. The game plan was to wait until tomorrow for a signal in either direction and I'm content waiting this out.

My Regular watch list is 87% green, 13% red. The big boys like AAPL, DIS, GOOG, NFLX are up, but on low volume. The smaller players like LULU are up on huge volume (+5%).

Bad credit, bad hair and Europe?

10:17 am (Hawaii) So what does this half-assed solution to the Greek debt crisis mean? How did it spur the indices higher through the closing bell? Was it all just AAPL?

How much of it was end-of-month window dressing? How many of those same fund bosses sell their AAPL and other assorted non-essentials tomorrow before the peon premarket?

A meltdown in Greece, then Portugal, then Spain, France, UK ... wouldn't all of this have left gold and silver alone to run higher and higher? Are we really that much closer to the stack-your-cans-of-sardines-and-Spam days?

One thing is clear. The daily charts show many, many silver plays with fairly bullish candlestick charts. I don't think it's an all-clear that silver shoots up vertically from here, but it's something to watch.

Big Apple

A major gap open and strong finish on increased volume. Under normal conditions, what's not to like, right? But even AAPL can't withstand the unnatural currents of the global market.

Crude activity

What's good for crude oil is good for the market? Not necessarily, but Sensei Turd Ferguson has been forecasting a crude move to the upside.

Silver hammers

AGQ, AG, EXK, SLV all have hammer candles that are somewhat bullish. It's not enough for me to jump in head first, so I'm still 90% cash. But it's getting attractive.

In an afternoon update, Turd pointed to 37.50 as an area of "stout support", with a re-test of 39.50 soon. I suppose I'm selfish wanting prices below 35 to buy physical.

Gold isn't looking as interesting, which is expected after last week's move (and the sputter action of silver). I don't know what to make of XG's candle today except that it finished with some momentum. An oddity.

The gold junior miners ETF looks nice, but GLD looks tired. It might be time for some consolidation. I'm still positive on gold in general, still holding a small piece of DGP, which also looks tired here.

Rare earths are foreign to me, but MCP looks full of vigor here.

If you look hard enough, the palladium ETF chart looks a little bit like XG. Bullish, but something's not quite right.

Copper ETF looks positive, but is all the news out of China already baked in? Copper was a good play a week ago when China's growth turned up strong, but this is a tightrope here. Long term, I wouldn't fear this trade, but I can't hold anything that long in this market.

I'm sticking to my gut for now and staying mostly out. AAPL will be interesting if it holds its ground, but much of that depends on the chaos in the Euro zone and, well, just about everywhere else.

SGS is skeptical about PMs and noted earlier that if gold can't keep up, silver will be ravaged by the puppet masters.

A pullback in PMs would be par for the course. Gold, in particular, tends to pull back on any gains during the summer. It has the last two summers. I'd look to add more physical on discount prices as volume wanes and the lulls take over.