NVDA's CEO announced he was resigning, and that news pushed both NVDA and the S&Ps lower ahead of the open by a little over half a percent. It probably also didn't help that yields rose, and the dollar edged a little higher too, which appeared to once again trigger more short selling in the precious metals (more on that below).
The S&Ps opened down over half a percent as NVDA tumbled about 4 percent, and the S&Ps immediately began to rally.
After soaring back up into barely positive territory around mid-morning, we hit our high for the day and began to reverse. The remainder of the session was a steady slide off that high that eventually sent the S&Ps out back near the lower levels of the day with a loss of a third of a percent. The QQQ also lost a third of a percent, while the SOX merely lost half a percent.
The dollar was a little firmer once again, which pushed the DXY up a third of a percent to a new 52-week high. BTC fell over 3 percent.
Yields soared all across the curve by 13 bps both in the 2yr and 10yr.
Commodities were mostly lower, except for crude, which bounced 3 percent after Trump said we don't need a deal with Iran.
Gold tumbled overnight and eventually traded below its Oct 30th $3870 low in the US session to as low as $3853. Rather than collapse, the metal then inexplicably rebounded back above that prior low to as high as $3888 before going out back at around $3877 for a loss of nearly 3 percent. I would note that gold failed to make a new low in any other major currency besides dollars.
Silver also plunged, but unlike gold, it stopped well short of making a new low and bottomed at $49.75 and then rebounded to around $50 for the close to lose just over 3 percent.
The GDX gapped down on the open and then rebounded back up to the 20 dma before then reversing to go out back near the opening lows with a loss of 4 percent. That close also left the GDX with an inverted hammer candle, which can often be precursor to an upside reversal. It's not a guarantee though.
Gold, silver, and GDX all closed below their 5 dma for a third straight session, which leaves the bears in charge. If it wasn't for all the evidence that speculators are heavily short the precious metals, I would probably be short myself. However, in light of all the divergences we have at the moment, being short has a lot of danger associated with it.
Despite gold in dollars making a marginal new low today before recovering that prior low for the close, gold in other major currencies did not make new lows. Silver failed to make new lows in any currency. Platinum and palladium also failed to make new lows in any currency. The GDX, GDXJ, SILJ, SIL, HUI, and XAU also all failed to make new lows even below their late October lows, let alone their lows for the year back in July.
So what do all those divergences mean? Divergences typically appear at the turns, because it's evidence that the market is not 100% onboard with a particular move. At the moment, we have overwhelmingly bearish sentiment by every measure I follow (HGNSI is -32.84 and the DSI for gold is 12 and 14 for silver), but prices are not cascading lower. That bearish sentiment and positioning (gold open interest ROSE 2 percent yesterday as spec shorts opened new positions in a falling market) along with divergences doesn't guarantee upside, but it does create the conditions for a sudden reversal to appear, just as it did off the Nov 3rd low, which was a new low in platinum and palladium at the time but a higher low in gold and silver and GDX.
So we'll see what happens tomorrow when we get the PPI, but with my model on a Tier 3 BUY for a second session and the above potentially bullish conditions setting up, being long still has a higher probability of "working" than being short in the near term.
My gold model remained on a Tier 3 BUY for a second session.
Positions: Short SPY, QQQ, MDY, and IWM. Long IBIT, STRC, DBA, and BLDR.
Metals: Long GDXU, AGQ, and SHNY. Long SLV 49 calls for tomorrow, and I also added SLV 47 and 46.5 calls for tomorrow for 7 and 8 cents.
Lastly, I stole tonight's title from somebody else, but it was too funny to pass up.