How many of you woke up on the morning of December 4 and thought to yourself, Today, gold prices are going to take a ride on the Nose-Dive Express? Specifically, the yellow metal was going to plummet more than $60, erasing one-seventh of its entire rally for all of 2009 in one single trading day. There was no good fundamental reason to expect such a violent retreat in gold prices. In fact, just Read More...

CalculatedRisk Scheduled data for the coming week include the trade report (Thursday) and retail sales (Friday). Also the Treasury is expect to release the Making Home Affordable Program data for November this week and include additional metrics such as the number of permanent modifications and the number of failed trial modifications. The number of permanent modifications is expected to be in t Read More...

By DANIA SAADI DUBAI –The Kuwait Investment Authority, the Gulf country’s sovereign wealth fund, said Sunday it sold a $4.1 billion stake in Citigroup Inc. making a profit on the deal. The fund, also known as the KIA, said it made a $1.1 billion profit from the sale, or a 36.7% return on its investment, according to an emailed statement. “The authority converted its preferred sh Read More...

Jesse’s Cafe’ Americain Chris Whalen does his usual good job of cutting through the fog of crisis to get to the bottom line of how Ben, Larry and Timmy have failed to discharge their responsibilities adequately. This does not speak to motives for their failure. Are they merely the pampered products of the government and educational sectors, inadequately prepared for high positions, u Read More...

Courtesy of The Pragmatic Capitalist Julian Robertson’s greatest fear may be coming to fruition. There are growing signs of reluctance on the part of foreign banks, to buy American debt.  The problem of debt is beginning to cause even greater problems in Japan.  There is now speculation that Japan will be forced to sell treasuries in order to meet their own budget needs. Bloomberg reports th Read More...

Scott Redler of T3Live At this point it’s all stock selection and timing–that’s what you do when you look for momentum moves after a huge run like we have had since March. Money is rotating into new sectors every few weeks. If you “chase” the hot sector after the move you get punished rather violently. I expect a lot of the same going into the year-end. We will cont Read More...

The Mess That Greenspan Made Ron Paul’s new book End the Fed should show up under the Christmas tree in our house sometime in the weeks ahead and maybe that’s true in Jim Grant’s house as well since it doesn’t sound as though he’s aware of what the Texas Congressman really has in mind for the central bank in this otherwise fine WSJ commentary about the U.S. currency. Read More...

SPDR TRUST SENIOR 1 ETF (PACF:SPY) Smart Scan Chart Analysis confirms that a strong uptrend is in place and that the market remains positive longer term. Strong Uptrend with money management stops. A triangle indicates the presence of a very strong trend that is being driven by strong forces and insiders. Market Club has a very interesting take on how SPY is playing out after the past volume surge Read More...

Submitted by John Bougearel of Structural Logic H/T Zero Hedge US Dollar Closes Above 50 Day Average Read More...

AC Investor ( click to enlarge ) JDSU had a good move on Friday. The stock has been under accumulation for a couple days now. The volume on accumulation days consistently exceeded the volume on distribution days. That’s a bullish sign. In addition, the technical daily chart above shows the stock is in a bull market as MACD is on top of signal line K line is on top of D line, both indicating Read More...

Courtesy of Mish It’s rare that I agree with Geithner on anything, so one and a half out of 4 is rather good. Please consider Geithner Dismisses Tax on Financial Transactions as Unworkable. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, throwing cold water on a plan by congressional Democrats to tax financial transactions, said banks and other market participants would find ways to circumvent the expen Read More...

John Carney of Business Insider The most suprising thing about the financial crisis is that the problems were so widespread in the banking system but absent, or nearly so, in the so-called “shadow banking” system. It was investment banks and commercial banks that loaded up on mortgage backed securities, rather than hedge funds, endowments, pension funds or money market funds. Why did Read More...

CalculatedRisk The FDIC closed six more banks on Friday, with the largest – AmTrust Bank – estimated to cost the Deposit Insurance Fund $2 billion. That brings the total FDIC bank failures to 130 in 2009. From the Plain Dealer on AmTrust: AmTrust Bank fails, bought by New York bank While the closure is not surprising — given the parent company’s bankruptcy filing this we Read More...

Courtesy of Jesse’s Café Américain It’s Alive! Well, Ben at least made the frog jump in response to repeated jolts of the dollar electric. As you may have already heard, the US Non-Farm Payrolls Report for November came in better than expected with a loss of only 11,000 jobs, as compared to expectations of a loss of 111,000. And on cue, right after the Jobs Summit. The One is in Pennsylvan Read More...

One of the big success stories in 2009 was the rise of Apple. With its sexy new products like the iPhone, the iPod, and the iMac, Apple has seen its fortunes rise in dramatic fashion. So what’s happening just before the holidays with Apple? Why are we seeing Apple stutter and falter? In my new video, I share with you what I believe is going to happen to one of my favorite markets. I will also sh Read More...