Gold and silver were hammered lower right on the release of the Non-Farm Payrolls report.  So needless to say we have still not seen any short term buy signals.

The number looked like an outlier to me based on a overly generous seasonal adjustment. If they had applied the same seasonality factor which they used last October the headline number would have been around 144,000.

There was one more business day in October last year, but jobs are not jars, and production of new jobs is not a linear daily function.

This is not to say that the NFP number was ‘wrong’ or even purposely fat in order to provide confidence to the markets and useful cover for the Fed.

Rather, these headline numbers for a single month are very noisy as we have discussed before. They get revised several times in the short term, and then often radically so in whole revisions that go back years.

This is why I like to look at the six and nine month moving averages for jobs to get a feeling for the trend. And the trend is still fairly sluggish.

But at the end of the day, the Fed wants to raise rates for all the reasons we have discussed, mostly having to do with their own policy mechanics.

And the financiers want to do what they wish to do, and they have their way for now. Winning.

As I suggested they might, JPM has transferred their recently acquired ‘house account’ gold from Nova Scotia’s warehouse to their own as shown in the report below.

The Bucket Shop was otherwise quiet, with the usual slow bleed out of the silver warehouses.

GATA’s Chris Powell let me know that he will no longer send out word of my columns about gold and silver or post them at the GATA.org site because I am an anonymous blogger and this is their policy. They have known who I am personally for a few years, as I recall there was a name on the check with which I paid my dues to join GATA about 2001 as I recall. lol I just wanted you to know that there was nothing more to it than that. 

The things I write often appear at LeMetropoleCafe.com, the blog site of Bill Murphy, the president of GATA. I have read his site since about 1999, and have known Bill about the same amount of time. I read that site every evening, and talk with Bill almost every day. He is one of the better guys and straight shooters in this business that I know. Two subscription precious metals sites I read regularly are Lemetropole.cafe and Nick Laird’s Goldchartsrus.com.

If I ever stopped writing a public blog, for whatever reason, I always imagined I would find a home for some occasional writings at some site like Murphy’s. It is worth reading. More people will do so I am sure when the metals finish this dalliance with a bear market trend. So keep that one in mind.

By way of reminder, I maintain my public anonymity for two reasons. It is not that I have anything to hide. First, I believe strongly that people should look at the facts of the thing presented, and not rely on some ‘reputation,’ and especially when there is something being sold along with it. I was just reading the plaintive woes from some fellow who got taken for a ride because he trusted the advice of a ‘good libertarian.’ Listen for facts, and make up your own mind, with everyone. Including me. I know I make mistakes, and if you ever think I don’t, my wife keeps a detailed catalogue.

And secondly, and most importantly, this is the policy of she-who-must-be-obeyed. And that is something I have learned to accept without question after 40 years. lol.

The precious metals are still a relatively ‘small tent.’ When they go mainstream, as I think that they will, I suspect that the metals will be as agnostic with regard to value, politics, and philosophy as any other form of wealth. 

But perhaps not in these politically divisive times with the financial engineers and their courtiers in the ascendancy. I notice lots of things fall into one side or another, and that is too bad, because it impedes the construction of bipartisan reforms and more sustainable solutions. The animosity that some have towards gold and silver seems almost religious in these times of the worship of power. But that too will pass.

Have a pleasant weekend.