The market is rallying today on August performance gaming. The talking heads will claim this move has something to do with fundamentals, but the reality is that the move up yesterday and today consists of fund managers doing whatever they can to end this month with their holdings as high as possible. Nothing else.

“…  gold is the hard currency of choice, and we expect for this trend to accelerate going forward. We still believe that in the next couple of years we will be looking at a gold price of around $US3,500. As the gold/silver ratio plummets near 30, this would also suggest a silver price above $US100.”

U.S. and British Intelligence Officials Admit they Don’t Know Whether the Syrian Government Or Rebels Used Chemical Weapons

The Fed's GDP forecasts are still too optimisitc even after the Q2 GDP revisions.  And the core PCE deflator is closer to zero than it is to the Fed's target.  Tapering still a done deal ? 

French President François Hollande jumped straight in declaring in more Sarkozy-style fashion than ex-President Sarkozy himself that he would attack Syria. That was even before the UN investigators had been shot at by some unidentified people.

I have a drone or two!

Debunking U.S. Claims about UN Weapons Inspections In Syria

If Syria is invaded by the West, then we should be getting ready for a hike in the price of Brent that some say may reach a much as $150 since it will escalate into a regional problem and affect supplies coming out of Iraq.

If you remove this sector, then earnings for the S&P 500 in the second quarter so far are DOWN 2.9%

And The King of Beers...

The Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act. It’s a mammoth of a reform bill and runs 844 pages (plus 350 pages of annexes). A needed overhaul of the 1986 law, but it will have its downsides too.

Japanese finances are in a shambles and very soon investors are going to run screaming from the Yen and JGB markets.

Let's plan for it. 

But the U.S., Britain and Israel have Used Chemical Weapons within the Last 10 Years

Syrian President Bachar al-Assad has warned President Obama not to take military action against his country since: “Failure awaits the United States as in all previous wars it has unleashed, starting with Vietnam and up to the present day”.