The already laughable story that the passport of a Syrian refugee had been found next to the bodies of one of the dead terrorists took an even more surreal twist when we learned hours ago that according to both French and US sources, the passport was most likely a fake.

It is important to keep in mind that the dollar’s attacks on gold always end the same way – in a painful knockout for the dollar. There have been no exceptions to this rule throughout monetary history, nor will there be this time. Hence the well-known market rule: “Any maximum of the gold price is not the last one.” It would be naive to believe that this golden rule is unknown to that grandmaster of patience, Vladimir Putin, and to Xi Jinping. By systematically increasing their gold reserves, Russia and China are relentlessly moving forward to strip the US dollar of its status as a global reserve currency. America’s standard military solution won’t work in this situation.

Over the past few years when it’s come to any criticism of business models, valuations, or other concerns encompassing the social media space, along with other dubious “hacking” inspired businesses emanating from Silicon Valley, the immediate rebuttal posed fell along the lines of first being looked as “you just don’t get it” (or just crawled out from under some rock) followed with, “It’s different this time.” But there are a growing number of clues that this won't end well...We’re going to find out much sooner than later. That we're sure of.

We have transitioned from free markets to centrally-planned and financially-engineered markets as the PhDs attempt to control the greatest monetary experiment ever undertaken. But they are almost out of runway... and they know it as mainstream market participants belief in their omniscience is rapidly fading.

As futures markets reopen, a flight to safety bid is evident with gold ($1090) and bonds bid as US equity futures extend Friday's losses (erasing half of the October surge gains). The Dollar is modestly bid against the euro (EURUSD 1.06 handle looms) and oil is holding slightly in the green (war premium)...