Gold Pop, Dollar Drop On “Red Hot” Mueller Social Media Probe Headlines

Following a weak 30Y auction, headlines struck that special prosecutor Robert Mueller is said to have “red hot” focus on social media with Bloomberg reporting his team probing Russia-backed fake news on social media. The instant reaction was dollar weakness and gold strength.

This just continues the narrative started last week with Facebook admitting collusion with Russian operatives…

Bloomberg adds:

“The ability of foreign nations to use social media to manipulate and influence elections and policy is increasingly seen as the soft underbelly of international espionage, another official said, because it doesn’t involve the theft of state secrets and the US doesn’t have a ready defense to prevent such attacks.

Agencies including the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are now examining what could be done to prevent similar interference and espionage in future elections, starting with the 2018 midterm congressional vote, the official said.

At the same time, Russia is ramping up its hacking operations, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said.

“Russia has clearly assumed an even more aggressive cyber posture by increasing cyber espionage operations and leaking data stolen from those operations,” Coats said Wednesday at the Billington Cybersecurity Summit in Washington.”

Mueller’s office declined to comment on the status of the investigation.

And the reaction is negative for the dollar and positive for gold…

As a reminder, we noted last night what a farce this current witch hunt has become… just in case it isn’t crystal clear why the above statement is so ridiculous, please allow us to demonstrate with one simple chart.This is how the $50,000 worth of ‘Russian’ ad buys on Facebook compares to the $1.2 billion that Hillary spent on her campaign…please note, this is not a mistake…the $50k literally isn’t even big enough to show up on the chart.