It started early this morning as Asia really went to bed - when gold markets were temporariliy halted. Someone decided that was the perfect time to sneak a few thousand contracts through the futures market (and clearly has no fiduciary duty to a client for best execution). As the US day-session opened, it was silver's turn totake a hiding (and gold less so that time); and then into the close, with both precious metals (and copper) heading towards their lows, Silver nose-dived (now -8% on the week) and its worst day in almost 3 months. Away from precious metals, Oil surged back over $109 as Syria chatter hotted up again (from Assad this time), the USD slid further (though ended flat on the day after an opening dump), and Treasuries shrugged off early gains to close red even as stocks closed lower (despite a late-day ramp effort) - breaking the streak and stunning a few TV anchors as VIX-slam and the 'short squeeze' seems over for now.
Today was all about gold and silver...
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But Silver was the biggest loser...
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Is this why? - It seems Silver was still trading well above the June Taper FOMC levels and now has collapsed back to unchanged in the last few days...
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Treasuries gave back all their gains - even as stocks sold off today... (and lots of chatter aorund that last week's rapid sell-off was as much about preparation for VZ launch as any macro/Taper/war relief)...
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But equities definitely didn't live up to the "global-growth-have-you-seen-European-PMIs-and-China-data... and-Taper-Schmaper" meme - closing at their lows (slapping below yesterday's closing ramp levels)...
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As The Dow hovers back at the pre-ramp ledge from yesterday... depsite being saved by DIS announcing a buy back that won;t begin til 2014 adding 12 points to The Dow...
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The 'Short Squeeze" seems over for now...
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So stocks weaker, bond weaker, USD pushed back higher in the afternoon, and precious metals weaker - is the market (and not just bonds) starting to prepare for next week?
Charts: Bloomberg