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Guest Post: The New Regime For Precious Metals
Today we look at long term charts of some key commodities and investigate means by which we might gain insight into the dynamics of their price movements. The methods are from a tool-set I have used for studying climate, much of which has been presented previously.
The key problem is interpreting the dynamics of a complex system from empirical observations. These observations are in the form of measurements of some parameter, like temperature, salinity (in ocean climate studies), or price. For our purposes we will consider month-end prices of gold, silver, copper, and rough rice (CBOT contract) from January 1996 to December 2012. The copper chart appears below.
The charts are most commonly studied as a plot of price vs time. There are many articles written on the statistical methods used. Is it a cup with handle? What about that wedge at the end there? Many newsletter authors have made (or have attempted to make) a business of selling their special methods. For a limited time only*, The World Complex offers its techniques for free. At your own risk, of course.
The dynamical evolution of a complex system is described by a succession of states through which the system has evolved. We have no way of perceiving the actual state of a complex system at any given time, but we may create a "reconstructed state" from empirical observations. Ergodic theory tells us that the succession of reconstructed states will be topologically similar to the succession of actual states, so that studying the "reconstructed state space" will enable us make inferences about the dynamics of the complex system under observation.
Reconstructed states can be most easily created from multiple time series (outputs) from the system, if present, by simply presenting a scatter-plot of the corresponding observations from the different time series. They can also be constructed from a single time series, an example of which we will see next time.
Rather than drawing a best-fit line through the states, we connect them by drawing a curve through them in sequence. This curve is described as the trajectory of the system, and can be said to represent the system's evolution through time.
The state is reconstructed in n dimensions by n observations, where n (the embedding dimension) is ideally chosen so that there are no crossings. Usually n > 3, which is a little difficult to display. Consequently, I normally use n = 2, which is less than ideal, but still useful.
Example 1: Gold/copper vs Silver/rough rice (gold and silver as $/oz, Cu in $/lb, rice in $ per hundred-weight)
This is a plot we have looked at before. The trajectory of the system is complex and fine details are difficult to describe, but overall, the system has largely been confined to the yellow ellipse left of centre, with the exception of three periods: 1) the run-up in copper and silver prices starting in 2006; 2) the commodity collapse in late 2008, when gold held up better than the other commodities in this chart; and 3) the excursion of the past 3 years, which either started in March 2010 (orange arrow on the right at the break-out of the ellipse) or in mid 2009 (left orange arrow at the beginning of the trend). Given its size and duration, we give greater significance to the latest excursion.
But what is the nature of the excursion? Did rice collapse? Or silver rise? Silver has been rising since 2002. Then came a rapid advance up until early 2011, which I'm sure we all remember.
Same commodities--different order.
Not too different (although in this one I had rice in cents per hundredweight). Most of the past seventeen years has been spent confined to the portion of state space within the ellipse, with the exception of the three times noted in the first example, and Buffet's purchase of silver in 1998. None of the excursions had lasting power except for the current one, which broke out of the ellipse in early 2010.
Again--did rice collapse? Or did gold suddenly accelerate in 2010?
Recombining the ratios one more time . . .
Here we see the famous "rabbit sitting in a stroller" formation, which means . . . well, you'll have to subscribe to find out.
The main difference between this graph and the others is that there is no recent excursion of any length.
The reason is that the excursion is the separation of the precious metals (which still includes silver) from the industrial metals and agricultural commodities.
Even though gold and silver have been in a bull market for over ten years, the real regime change only happened about three years ago. What happened?
This.
* until the powers of darkness control the internet
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"Here we see the famous "rabbit sitting in a stroller" formation, which means . . . well, you'll have to subscribe to find out."
lol! IDK, kinda looks like the equally famous 'SCUBA diver scouring river bed' formation...
Good argument, but I assert that according to the law of informational infrastructure, multiplications of relevant physical quantities in either the universal scale or the microscopic scale approximately equal a fixed constant; and multiplications of strong interactions approximately equal a fixed constant and that accordingly stipulates to the price of gold going up as the supply of currency increases and supply of gold decreases.
Duh!
Charts look like Jack Lew's handwriting...
Is there a Conspiracy here?
I'm looking closely, and I think I'm seeing a "Linda Green" in there...
"dynamical"
Embarrassed I actually made it that far...
+1. That's when you put dynamo and comical together.
In the turbine industry this plot is called a dynamic orbital. Unless you subtract the static runnout it does jack shit to determine natural frequencies, forcing functions, loads etc.
Some dates would be useful, as its analoge would be shaft orientation. Also using the dollar as a measuring unit is a moot point for static runnout, its chasing a moving target.
Yea, these cats would to better to try to do a bit of dimensional reduction on their terminology in order to make it a bit more digestible to the non-quants they want to sell to.
Furthermore, you can try to "blind them with science", but you're not really doing anybody any favors unless you can provide useful data for the pragmatic trader/investor/observer.
its analoge would be shaft orientation.
All I know is that if there's a shaft involved, I'm highly likely to be on the receiving end of it...
When you use very complicated and aggregated data, you often find relationships and correlations that are not really there (or more accurately: causal).
While I am not an expert, I look at sales data almost every day: 600 active line items (past year), 400 active customers (past year) over the last 13 years, although it is really the last four or so that really count (older information shows potential gains and losses of pieces we had / do not have).
Mapping pairs of ratios and making any observations other than very obvious ones (so, why do it...?) seems to be NOT the best way to analyze this kind of data, especially threough time.
What isn't complicated or hard to see is that we are in the biggest debt bubble in the history of the world. Despite unprecedented Govt spending, we have a negative GDP, real unemployment keeps rising and our economy is contracting. The US dollar has been selling off for 10 yrs, that's all you need to know. I'm glad they keep smacking down PM's. It gives us the ability to keep stacking. Every dollar you have in your pocket is a unit of debt that's about to implode.
It's not the data, it's the model. NO FUCKING WAY TO PREDICT THIS SHIT WITH SO MANY VARIABLES. End of story.
Still, some nuggets of info.
... like the last chart, which to me is the only relevant one in the article.
oh and @thread: got silver?
It is obviously the "Santa (bernanke) in his sleigh pulling a rabbit out of his ass" formation, which indicates anything you want it to, as long as fundamentals are not applied.
Looks like Jack Lew dropped some of that bad acid again.
that is him signing his visa slip at the local strip club
kosher acid + colloidal silver + cloud watching = crouching liger hidden golum.
They look like those rorschach tests to me :)
what do you see? Naked chicks making out...
and what do you see in this one? Naked chicks making out...
okay...
and this one?... A puppy... looking at naked chicks making out...
and there is no wrong answer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLuGdZwGBNs
I don't worship at gold's feet.
Even with physical possession.
Why?
The government can hit you over the head and take it.
http://www.angrysinner.blogspot.kr/2013/01/yesterday-i-made-egg-rolls-and-steak.html
Can't take what they don't know about. Some day the myth of the omnipotent and omnipresent government will expire.
the myth of the omnipotent and omnipresent government
It's the drones.... the drones can do ANYTHING!!!
Heck, I can't find the load of precious I lost last year on a lake in Canada, so it's very small odds of a Canuck finding it, and exactly ZERO odds of our Gringo Federales 'taking' it.
Where's the, " Blythe stuffing our fucking assess with a strap on dildo" formation?
None of this horseshit matters when 2-3 fucking players control the entire fucking commodity "market"
Fuck you Bernanke, JPM, HSBC and you oher dark pool paper fuckers.
scotia mocatta shoud make the lineup. the guy with a touque on reeking of maple syrup
"lol! IDK, kinda looks like the equally famous 'SCUBA diver scouring river bed' formation..."
Looks like Ben in search of the gold you lost in your boating accident to me....
Are you certain that it is not the "Two Year Old Scribbling on the Wall with Permanent Marker" formation?
Maybe, just maybe, your Two Year Old may be a Savant with extraordinary Market Insights and is trying to tell you something.
While the Obamabots are realizing they've been screwed...
What Obamacare did for me
I thought it would be great, free health insurance, then I got a job. Boss says 28 hours a week is all they are offering now because over 30 requires insurance. Great, 30% pay cut right off the bat. But it gets better. My 28 hour week gives me about $18,000 a year which is too much for any government insurance. So now by law I haveto buy my own ($5000) or pay a fine. I'm fucked and every year the fine goes up. So what I thought was a sweet deal turned into an ass fucking. Thanks Obama, I wonder how many people like me turn 27 and find out you screwed us?
Fucking stupid partisans hacks never wanted to see the truth in the first place uh... you just wanted to believe your lord Obama...
Fuck you supreme court! Clearly unconstitutional!
Actually, you can thank the GOP for killing the Public Option.
or your employer for being such a cheap fuck they won't provide any benefits..... gotta love the 'dog-eat-dog' 'winner take all' capitalism we've got. The 6 WalMart heirs are worth more than 40% of the US but are too cheap to provide health care for most of their workers - the company deliberately keeps most employees on part-time status forcing them to apply for food stamps and go to ER's on the taxpayer dime if they get sick.
the social contract of providing a living wage and basic benefits has been sacrificed to allow top execiutives to get filthy rich - this being justified by their 'management' skills (e.g. - ability to screw everyone working for them)
why anyone with a brain would downvote you for that comment is a mystery.
"or your employer for being such a cheap fuck they won't provide any benefits..... gotta love the 'dog-eat-dog' 'winner take all' capitalism we've got."
So you think you should be a shelf stocker or Walmart greeter and make 6 figure salary just because you have done the same job for the last 25 years? Please. You want to do the EZ job all your life, with little responsibility, and you want to get paid top $$ for it. I have little sympathy for you, if you don't want to improve your lot in life by moving into better paying jobs. But hey, why give up your weekends and holidays right?
You can't work as a shelf stocker your whole life and think you are going to get $500,000 in medical care over your life. If you don't earn that much money over your entire lifetime, what makes you think you deserve all that "free" care?
If you don't want a dishwashers wage your whole life, then don't be a dishwasher your whole life. Simple.
Yeah. It is better that they quit their job and get better benefits and subsidies from the Government for not working. In that way they not only can have their weekends and holidays, they can have everyday off at taxpayer expense. Furthermore they will have their Rent subsidized and their Health Care needs paid for.
Guess who gets to pay for it??? YOU DO. LOL
Would you work as a dishwasher at a dishwasher's wage? No? Then why will you blame them for quitting and getting on the Government dole where the pay and benefits are better, when there is no incentive to work? So what is the purpose of employment when gain is not possible? There IS NO PURPOSE. So they stop and you wonder why?
You wrote, "I have little sympathy for..."
It is people like you that I laugh at, BECAUSE OF ATTITUDES as YOURS, when they take the Tax Man up their Keister.
Simple isn't it?
So the level of your health care should be determined by the money you make?
Get yourself some cancer and then lets see how you feel about things, douche!
shoot this...
www.ZIRPinUSA.com
Fuck you supreme court! Clearly unconstitutional!
ONE man did it, and it WAS/IS Unconstitutional, becausehe did not RULE on it as written AS submitted!!.
HE reworded it to say TAX, not Penalty.(outside his purview to re-word a submitted document would not agree?).
Yeah. That jerk Mitt Romney should have never wrote the ObamaCare Legislation in the First Place. One man. It is all Romney's fault.
Wanted, or couldn't? Who was responsible for educating them? Would that educator ever teach them that it is evil?
"Who was responsible for educating them?"
That would be the Democrat controlled public education system. Indoctrinating our children at a cost of 20-30k per student per year.
Which will shortly turn into 1 part time teacher on the WEB with 700 full time students overseen by 1,000 bureaucrats to make sure the education is "solid" and within legally enshrined boundaries.
Today we have an essay test and remember, no responses in excess of 40 characters, my lovelies.
Who was responsible for educating them?
Themselves. Educate yourself. Don't wait for the shills to tell you what to think. He didn't do his homework, now he's crying. It's his own damn fault.
On a long enough time line all unintended consequesces will surface, welcome to the Obama nation.
Except they're really intended consequences............
"We have to pass it to find out what is in it." Nancy Pelosi
Just wait until Obama Care fully kicks in and the costs rise significantly. You have not seen anything yet. You will make $18,000 a year and pay $17,999 for health care.
Yeah I've already seen people with health care insurance costs going up this year by 25-100%...
Thing is, the whole thing is so badly written, insurance costs will continue to go up insanely every year otherwise the insurance companies will go bankrupt.
The only firms able to afford Health Insurance will be large Corporations. This will make it a certainty that Smaller Corporations will be squeezed out from competition. It will shatter Small Business.
You will either own the Corporation or work for the Corporation and buy from the Company Store. What will happen is collapse.
Golf clap
I wonder what happens if you don't get insurance and then refuse to pay the fine. Will the feds actually arrest people for not getting insurance? Is that constitutional? Since it is Federal law does the FBI come around arresting literally millions of Americans who refuse or can't afford health insurance?
They will do like they do when you don't pay the unconstitutional IRS.
If you own stuff :
Seize your bank account.
Or your things.
If you don't have anything :
All is forgiven.
They'll give your free house, free phone, free everything on the taxpayers dime.
Metal bitchez
"Bagholders" bitchez!
Since you brought up bags, I have another tragic story. I just got back from a couple of weeks down in La Paz, BCS. My return flight was from LAP to TIJ, with a walk-through at the Tijuana border crossing. I put my bags on the X-ray conveyor and walked around. As I was taking them off at the other end, the CBP guy at the console said, "Sir, your leather bag--there's something very dense at the bottom."
I started to say, "Yeah, I put Janet Napolitano in there", thought better of it and said "Uh, it's Mexican coins. I collect them." He kinda shrugged and waved me on.
The tragic part was that, on takeoff from San Diego, the cargo door apparently wasn't latched fully shut. It came open and both my bags fell out into the Pacific, off Point Loma. It's killing me--my new "Dive La Paz, BCS" T-shirt was in there.
You should've sailed instead, dummy.
Well, I like that idea but I don't have a sailboat. And then there's the fact that the nautical charts are pretty vague about the waters between California and Asheville, NC. I've heard there are some mean shoals around northern New Mexico.
You could alway just do what most other Americans do, and sail the river of de Nial --- it is very wide and very deep, and based on all the evidence I have seen it is quite comfortable and easy to navigate. Although I gather that it is rather crowded nowadays.
I prefer paddling Upper Shit Creek. Unfortunately, I've forgotten my paddle.
And what Commercial Airliner did not seal the Luggage Compartment completely? That is a Major FAA Violation. That will have made NEWS Nationwide. I think they may have used that story to cover up a TSA Baggage Theft.
Seriously. Date? Time? Airline Company? Flight Number?
Events like that CRASH AIRPLANES. A Collision between an Airfoil Surface and Luggage can be just as devastatiing as a Shuttle Columbia Foam Strike accident. The Energy of collisions can rip wings off. This is NOT A JOKE.
The FAA needs to know. The NTSB needs to know. Many people can die from mistakes as these.
It was sarcasm. Just like ``i had a tragic boat accidents and all my guns fell at the bottom of the lake``.
I believe Tall Tom is new to these parts. I was just explaining why you won't find any gold, guns or grub around my house if it comes to a zombie apocalypse. All of it is at the bottom of the Pacific, Mission Bay, the Mississippee and Arkansas Rivers due to a Series of Unfortunate Events.
The 'rabbit in the stroller' formation has always fascinated me. I heard about it right after I read about "The Cat in the Hat" researched extensively by Dr Suess.
Both the rabbit and cat things still befuddle me.
Hope it's the Energizer Bunny, gold edition.
up vote for the use of the grossly underutilized word "befuddle".
Seriously, that last one looks like bugs bunny dressed as a kabuki samurai.
Etch-A-Sketch charts rule!
Is this deviant chart porn?
I have a quadratic transform that plots out what I refer to as the “infamous streetwalker in a love swing” pattern that comes to the same conclusion.
infamous streetwalker sounds about right.
I think this author is trying to get us to subscribe to his kids etch-a-sketch collection.
Now, what do you see in this one??
When the Powers of Darkness control the internet, I guess we
could go back to CB radios or sky-writing.
party like it's 1999...
with the Silver Liberation Army...
at...
www.ZIRPinUSA.com
Screw collectivist clap traps.
Looks like GOLD is captured by those crooks. JPY is off the charts, can even fit the MT4 screen.. Dullah looks good cause all others are falling as well.. I mean, if all majors get devaluated then USDX can stay at 80 forever. I'm not sure what GOLD doing here at $1650, while those insane idiots print like nuts. Heck Bernank mention that he got "Additional Tools" if Unemployment not improve quick enough :))) What? Participation rate is like 40% even this I think cooked number so real unemployment at least 15%.. 6.5% Unemployment target make this QE to infinity.. What a mess.. Look what is happening to Gold Miners.. WTF???
Complete absurd.. Amazon report $0.21 Per Q and trades at $280/share, Barrick GOLD
Makes 4x that and trades at 1/10 or the Amazon price.. OMG.. Fools are blind.. Everything upside down..
I'm sticking with Barret and Freeport McMoran and the likes. They can have FB, Amazon, GRPN, MFGlobal and so on.
Since the discovery process in the markets is pretty much gone unless you're one of the insiders, trying to reduce the whole of the market place to squiggles and graphs seems useless to me no matter how much I would have to pay for it to find out. Thanks for nothing.
Yeah. This smacks of reading tea leaves to me. I can drive down to Chinatown and get that done for 8 bucks.
And probably recieve just as accurate a forecast.
as well as a happy ending from the place next door.
Those charts look eerily similar to mouth-pen artistic efforts from the late Christopher Reeve.
Keep 'em above the belt kind sir. We're tryin' to drink here.
The author has made the common mistake of confusing the "rabbit stroller" pattern with the all too common "flight of the gnat" formation.
I am more familiar with the "ape on a motorcycle scratching his back" formation.
That is some crazy charts. They must be erratic because Obama is going to print food stamps backed by gold.
Here we see that the demand for and price of Fe, Pb and Cu keeps rising: http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/backfire-seattle-gun-buyback-turns-into-gun-show_01292013. Spot On!
I love seeing free markets spring up amid the fascism. We will not be assimilated!
WTF is this garbage? Looks like New-Age style sophistry.
silly string
Technical analysis is now dependant on formations that look like they were scribbled by a 4 year old.
:-|
Someone please wake me up post-absurdity. Thanks.
Ya, pretty much no ratios should have been used & if possible, 3-D scatterplots SHOULD have been used, potentially several of them. THEN if you can show some polyhedral region with some regular shape or some regular progression that matches a plain-english description, maybe some explanation, great.
None of that here.
Just a quick question to the author of the article.
Are you fucking retarded.?
That would help explain your theory.
I went back and re read the article ,and now I rephrase my last comment.
"YOU are fucking retarded"
I tried to absorb the pictures but I was distracted by the lady in the red dress
fffffff...........fucking ......what the fuck....."sign up" to explain a bunch of squiggly shit crap......fucking geeezzzzzzzzzuuussssssssss christ! The only thing more retarded than this attempt at explaining shit, is me actually reading it. 10 minutes of my life i'll never get back..........chart that dynamic complex.....fucker!
This could only mean buy silver and hide from the guy that came up with these charts.
“Rabbit sitting in a stroller” that’s Precious Mental.
Example 1 is the ancient and famous 'Pharoh releasing the bat’ that is a really positive chart, for bats.
Ah, if something is worth something and is cheap, BUY IT! Kinda simple, but it kinda works....
Etch-A-Sketch?
So...if I read this correctly, he is saying we should by AAPL on the dip here, and that Gold is a barbarous relic, and it costs less to dig silver out of the ground with a kitchen spoon that to buy it as a coin? I'm IN!!!
Thanks
Im sorry, but there is no way any of these charts mean anything.
I agree. The ratios as the axes is useless. You need to measure the raw prices, or have a reasonable conversion of currency, or justify use of a ratio for some reason, e.g. a food crop vs the energy cost for the type of energy (oil?) most used WITH that food crop to produce it cheaply (tractors for corn fields, for example), and so on.
Otherwise it's fairly nonsensical.
Still, putting all the effort into that math gets kudos from me. I push & hope that people will use math but so many just flat out refuse to try. This person did try.
Some charts are useful for displaying data but the ones shown look more like reading tea leaves to make a futures bet. Cup, rabbit, or ink blots, no thanks.