Gold Poised for Worst Monthly Run in 11 Years on Europe

Gold futures fell in New York, capping the longest monthly slump since 2000, as Europe’s worsening debt crisis and signs of a U.S. economic slowdown crimped demand for the precious metal. Higher borrowing costs in Spain are putting pressure on Mariano Rajoy’s five month-old government to join Greece, Portugal and Ireland in seeking a rescue that would be the European Union’s biggest. First-time claims for U.S. jobless benefits rose by 10,000 to 383,000 last week, the Labor Department reported today. The Standard & Poor’s GSCI index of 24 raw materials fell as much as 1.5 percent and was headed for its biggest monthly drop since the recession in October 2008. “Gold is behaving like a classic commodity and declining along with the pack,” Adam Klopfenstein, a market strategist at Archer Financial Services Inc. in Chicago, said in a telephone interview. “It’s like the dead man walking.” Gold futures for August delivery retreated 0.1 percent to settle at $1,564.20 an ounce at 2 p.m. on the Comex in New York. The precious metal retreated 6 percent this month, the biggest drop this year as the dollar rallied 5.4 percent. Holdings in the bullion-backed exchange-traded products are set for a third monthly decline, data compiled by Bloomberg show. “Investors don’t have the same strategic approach to gold as before,” Edel Tully, an analyst at UBS AG, said in a report today. “Much of the exposure to gold has been on an intra-day bias of late. The market is too highly correlated with risk for many participants’ liking.” Silver futures for July delivery fell 0.8 percent to $27.757 an ounce on the Comex, extending the month’s loss to 11 percent. The metal’s third monthly loss is the longest slump since 2008. On the New York Mercantile Exchange, platinum futures for July delivery jumped 1.2 percent to $1,417.60 an ounce, helping narrow the month’s loss to 9.8 percent. Palladium futures for September delivery rose 1.2 percent to $613.90 an ounce. Still, prices fell 10 percent in May, the biggest monthly drop since September.

200MA in play

200MA is around 1284 is in place- What will deal it is end of of month, beginning of month stalling. Remember the tendency is for the first 2-3 days of the month to be bullish but i think we hit it very soon!!

Slow Collapse

Slow collapse in Gold, Oil, 20 yr Bonds yields, 10 yr Bond yields, Russell and it goes on . What does it mean????????? STAY OUT OF MARKETS !!!!!!!!! Dont catch a falling knife the heavy big guys are going into cash.

OIL

New lows for the Year

Housing new Lows

By TESS STYNES U.S. home prices ended the first quarter at the lowest levels since the housing crisis began in mid-2006, according to Standard & Poor's Case-Shiller home-price indexes. During the first quarter, home prices reached new lows, falling 2% sequentially and 1.9% year-to-year. Prices are down roughly 35% from their peak in the second quarter of 2006. The Case-Shiller index of 10 major metropolitan areas was down 2.8% in March from a year earlier. The 20-city index was off 2.6%. Month to month, the declines were 0.1% for the 10-city index, while the 20-city prices were basically unchanged. As of March, average home prices were at levels reached in late 2002 for the 20-city measure and early 2003 levels for the 10-city composite. Demand for homes has been showing some signs of stabilization, as low-mortgage rates, some loosening of credit conditions and improved job growth have pulled some buyers back to the market. However, "while there has been improvement in some regions, housing prices have not turned" said David Blitzer, chairman of S&P's index committee. Despite some better numbers in the latest period, "since we are entering a seasonal buying period, it becomes very important to look at both monthly and annual rates of change in home prices in order to understand the broader trend." During March home prices in five metropolitan markets fell to new lows: Atlanta, Chicago, Las Vegas, New York and Portland. However, this marked an improvement from the nine cities that reported new lows a month earlier. Of the 20 major U.S. metropolitan markets, 12 reported prices were higher than during February, while seven saw prices fall and one market--Las Vegas--was flat. Phoenix reported the strongest annual growth rate, up 6.1%, while home prices in Atlanta saw the biggest year-to-year drop, down nearly 18%. What a Surprise!!!! Just Joking.

Opps

Opps no hold on the 1304/5 area so we gave way immediately. The 1298.50 is the next level I have but as of now we are trading about 1 point below. It will be important level for the close indeed. Crude briefly dipped below $90 !

1304/5

This is the area where we have to hold or we are heading lower

FACEBOOK

Facebook down 12 % hmm- I have never seen such a big offering where the big guys are not interested. In the meantime JPMorgan losses are now 3 times higher people just dont understand this whole game! In the end it will be more like 5 times the original reported figure.

Interesting close

Market close at 1304.8- I made note of the 1303/4 area if we did sell off this morning. The hard thing about today action was that the closed us right at the level so it makes it hard to play for a bounce, I don't think anyone would be poking longs there at the close. I am going to do some charts and see what kind of pattern we are forming here in this sell off. Currently looking oversold but I wont know where to watch till i set up some charts. BINGO on the 1304!!

Weakness

We are still weak and APPLE looks horrible to say the least. Watch 1303/4 area on the S&P IF WE DIP THAT FAR!!! Scaling out puts on S&P HERE +85%!

Weak Cont'd

Weakness was obviously order of the day though we opened in the positive all volume indicators pointed that we were weak and the weak hands showed themselves in the last 2 hours. Don't try and catch a falling knife the first point I would look for some support is 1303 on the S&P. In the meantime my weeklies S&P puts I got in this morning are up 55% for me!!!! Bingo

Weak

Markets looks exceptionally weak here - I would not be trying to catch a falling knife- Actually stepped into some S&P weekly puts small play at the open

GOLD:

Magic number on GOLD is 1504, a number I think we will hit very soon!!!!!

TWM Calls

Going to be taking off the 20% left of my calls off at the open + over 300% BINGO. Sell in may and go away definitely in place. We are getting oversold down here but if we can't bounce then obviously we are looking for a much deeper correction..

JPMorgan Chase acknowledges $2B trading loss

JPMorgan Chase, the largest bank in the United States, said Thursday that it lost $2 billion in the past six weeks in a trading portfolio designed to hedge against risks the company takes with its own money. The company's stock plunged almost 7 percent in after-hours trading after the loss was announced. Other bank stocks, including Citigroup and Bank of America, suffered heavy losses as well. "The portfolio has proved to be riskier, more volatile and less effective as an economic hedge than we thought," CEO Jamie Dimon told reporters. "There were many errors, sloppiness and bad judgment." The trading loss is an embarrassment for a bank that came through the 2008 financial crisis in much better health than its peers. It kept clear of risky investments that hurt many other banks. The loss came in a portfolio of the complex financial instruments known as derivatives, and in a division of JPMorgan designed to help control its exposure to risk in the financial markets and invest excess money in its corporate treasury. Bloomberg News reported in April that a single JPMorgan trader in London, known in the bond market as "the London whale," was making such large trades that he was moving prices in the $10 trillion market. Dimon said the losses were "somewhat related" to that story, but seemed to suggest that the problem was broader. Dimon also said the company had "acted too defensively," and should have looked into the division more closely. The Wall Street Journal reported last month that JPMorgan had invested heavily in an index of credit-default swaps, insurance-like products that protect against default by bond issuers. Hedge funds were betting that the index would lose value, forcing JPMorgan to sell investments at a loss. The losses came in part because financial markets have been far more volatile since the end of March. Partly because of the $2 billion trading loss, JPMorgan said it expects a loss of $800 million this quarter for a segment of its business known as corporate and private equity. It had planned on a profit for the segment of $200 million. The loss is expected to hurt JPMorgan's overall earnings for the second quarter, which ends June 30. Dimon apologized for the losses, which he said occurred since the first quarter, which ended March 31. "We will admit it, we will learn from it, we will fix it, and we will move on," he said. Dimon spoke in a hastily scheduled conference call with stock analysts. Reporters were allowed to listen. Among other bank stocks, Citigroup was down 3.3 percent in after-hours trading, Bank of America was down 2.9 percent, Morgan Stanley was down 2.4 percent, and Goldman Sachs was down 2.2 percent. JPMorgan is trying to unload the portfolio in question in a "responsible" manner, Dimon said, to minimize the cost to its shareholders. Analysts said more losses were possible depending on market conditions. Dimon said the type of trading that led to the $2 billion loss would not be banned by the so-called Volcker rule, which takes effect this summer and will ban certain types of trading by banks with their own money. The Federal Reserve said last month that it would begin enforcing that rule in July 2014. Some analysts were skeptical that the investments were designed to protect against JPMorgan's own losses. They said the bank appeared to have been betting for its own benefit, a practice known as "proprietary trading." Bank executives, including Dimon, have argued for weaker rules and broader exemptions. JPMorgan has been a strong critic of several provisions that would have made this loss less likely, said Michael Greenberger, former enforcement director of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which regulates many types of derivatives. "These instruments are not regularly and efficiently priced, and a company can wake up one day, as AIG did in 2008, and find out they're in a terrific hole. It can just blow up overnight," said Greenberger, a professor at the University of Maryland. The disclosure quickly led to intensified calls for a heavier-handed approach by regulators to monitoring banks' trading activity. "The enormous loss JP Morgan announced today is just the latest evidence that what banks call 'hedges' are often risky bets that so-called 'too big to fail' banks have no business making," said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich.

1349.75

1349.75 is the critical S&P number/ area to watch on the close. Breaking there on the close would lead to much lower levels.

TWM

Taking 80% off my TWM calls- up 220% sweet. Gold down huge looks like it is starting to crack as I have been speaking about.

BINGO!! UPDATE

April 10 post :: Some Projections: These are still in place- Only way they get negated is if we hit new highs- Please note carefully that the past two years the market has peaked in April. April 10 Post: If we dont make new highs to negate the projections set up I will be looking for the following numbers to be hit in the following markets: OIL: 95.25 GOLD: 1504. These are longer time frame projections and I am still sticking to my analysis that in a longer time frame we are still in a bear market that will end sometime in 2016 so we go a long way to go. We are still trading around the all important 1270 level, it still needs to be resolved!!! Update> Oil overnight hit 95!!!!!!!. S&P also down 9 points so we will see if we can get Gold cracking also. Stay tuned

Update

There it goes folks- the russell head and shoulder worked !!! I am racking up on that one. I played TWM long with some calls and they are now ringing more than a double- BINGO. Now what to look for next? that all important 1270 level again now comes into place. range kind of distorted so I will use a range of 1270-1272.

Technicals:1405!!

This morning we spoke about the 1405 number on the S&P as an important number for us to watch. at the close we are where?? BINGO 1405. We broke higher out of the 1405 earlier on but we could not muster up the all important volume and I had been watching if we would fall back at that number or even below it at the close but once again the gamers closed us @ 1405. Where does that put us? Well in stalmate and the closing of Europe today will be used as the disguise for the gamers but here is what to watch. 1) volume : if we break tomorrow above today's highs above monday's volume then we have an upward bias, please note it must be Monday's volume and not today, that's the trick here. 2) we watch for what looks like a bearish head and shoulder formation happening on the russell. These are my two important signals for the rest of the week. We will see soon enough!!!!

1405

well the 1405 was barely hit last week so what now? As most folks know my work is 100% technicals and when I get numbers and we don't hit I use them as failures especially if we try at these numbers a total of 3 times. Today is May Day in Europe and therefore I expect a very low volume day and it might take till thursday to resolve where we are going. In the mean time I see articles on sell in May and go away popping up but we will see if it true once again. Remember the market highs last 2 years have been made in the April time frame so it is not time now to be carelessly LONG.