asia and the metals 2-16
am 16.02.2006 13:34:50 von ronoGood morning all,
Well, the markets seemed to like Uncle Ben with several comments on his
'clarity'.
He's staying the course with rate hikes and it now looks like at least
2 more and maybe 3 in order to head off any inflation. (I'd guess 3
because he has a reputation as being soft on inflation and he may want
to change this). Note that the dollar liked this and gold did not.
Also, he refused to talk about taxes and fiscal spending issues unlike
Uncle Al. Lastly, as Bill Gross noted, he specifically mentioned he
didn't see any problem with an inverted yield curve. Gross took
particular exception to this . . . as does history. However, net/net,
he did very well and the markets generally liked it.
As mentioned, gold didn't like the FOMC continuing to do battle with
the inflation beasties and the dollar really liked higher future rates
of return on treasuries - so the metals all gave back their bounce and
settled back down around their recent lows - near gold spot support of
537. However, even with sinking back down, they all bounced and didn't
penetrate. Right now gold is 540.90 +1.30, silver is 9.19 +.01,
platinum is 995 +2 and palladium is 274 - flat. As mentioned,
everything was off yesterday after Uncle Ben and this is reflected in
the XAU at 134.28 -3.33.
Asia seemed to like things very much also with gains pretty much across
the board. Japan rose .70%, Korea +.80%, Taiwan +1.29%, HK +.18% and
India +.08%. Only China lost dropping -2.20%.
As mentioned below in response to Old Nick, I too lightened up a tad
yesterday but not in the precious metals. I raised about 10% cash
(normally I'm fully invested most all of the time). The only position I
eliminated was my energy services play with FSESX. Otherwise, I simply
reduced here and there - MPACX, EUROX, and PSPFX. I would have cut more
US equity holdings, but alas and alack, I just don't have that much in
my 'active funds' that is invested stateside. And this highlights the
fact that in some of my accounts, I'm a pretty diehard b&h type
investor - my IRA, my taxable account, all of wifey's stuff - they stay
pretty much the same year in and year out with the exception of
periodic rebalancing. And considering that wifey has a rollover IRA at
vanguard, does this make me a Vanguard Diehard? ;-) teehehe
peace,
rono