Just One Sentence to Kill The Party

Morning Miners!

It is 6:36 am. The coffee's hot and there is a lot to chew through this morning. There's a big Pacific storm headed our way and there should be lots of white stuff from tomorrow on. Click the Report's new "Local Weather" and checkout what the NWS has to say. I like the infrared satellite imagery of the Western States with the 4 km resolution to get the big picture. Zoom out to 16 km and you can see the lower tail of the circulation extends from Hawaii to California. Ooooh-weee!

Let's start with markets by looking at yesterday's action. It took just one sentence from Calyon Securities analyst Mike Mayo to end the largest four-week run up on the DOW since 1933:

"...recent government efforts to stabilize the financial system won't prevent Wall Street's loan losses from exceeding those of the Great Depression by late 2010."

I don't know about you but the ole Colonel is sick and tired of living in the 1930s. I believe folks that have skin in the game and analysts usually don't. I'll stick with Dennis Gartman who has a lot of skin in the commodity markets; if you want to know what is really coming at you, track the metals!

So where are we at today? In currency markets the dollar fell against the Japanese yen but rose against the euro, which usually means investors are starting to feel a tightening of the sphincter muscle. Gold futures rose and yields on 10-year Treasury bonds fell. Crude-oil futures slipped below $50 a barrel.

So do we jump down the mine shaft? Hell no buckaroos, copper futures are still going up! Gold is up, silver is up and the commodity index is steady. Metals are your friend; no jumping, more digging!

Enough talk, let's walk the walk:

The dollar ("Dixie" or .DXY) is up 0.64 percent and the commodity index (.CRB) is down a thin flat washer, 0.12%.

Gold is up $9.5 to $882.3 (June contract); Silver is up $0.080 to $12.190; Copper is up $ 0.022 at $1.9810; Molybdenum remains steady at $8.20.

The DOW is down 155 points to 7,820.54; the S&P 500, down 16.15 points to 819.33. Miners are mostly good:

Barrick (ABX) $29.42 up 2.33%
Newmont (NEM) $42.97 up 0.40%
General Moly (GMO) $1.21 down 0.82%
Quadra (QUA.T) C$5.70 down 3.39%
Freeport McMoran (FCX) $42.6705 up 2.20% (a bellwether mining stock spanning gold, copper & molybdenum)

Bring your all-weathers tomorrow,

Cheers,

Colonel Possum