Let's Talk Black Friday (Because It Won't Take Much To Talk About Gold Or Silver This Week)
SD Friday Wrap: Light market wrap plus 6 observations about Black Friday you can use to argue your way out of a trip to Wal Mart or the mall...
Oh Canada, you're so civil on Black Friday:
#MeanwhileinCanada, this is literally a "door crasher" #BlackFriday sale in Canada.#BlackFriday2018 #VendrediFou #FridayFeeling pic.twitter.com/csyRv4GZgx
- Meanwhile in Canada (@MeanwhileinCana) November 23, 2018
I'm not sure if I'm supposed to laugh, be inspired, be ashamed, or be in awe.
We'll get to the observations on Black Friday in a moment, but first, a brief recap because the markets were very interesting this week.
On Monday I said this (bold added for emphasis):
For that one reason alone, I almost see the cartel backing-off and allowing price to rise, because fundamentally speaking, if there are good sales this year, and if the spot price is very low, stackers could take advantage and scarf up as much of the shiny phyzz as possible, and, by extension, risk a supply disruption that would surely give the cartel a headache they don't want going into the holidays.
I also said this a few paragraphs down:
So what do I think, fundamentally, will happen to gold & silver?
This week, I think the cartel, for the reason I argued above, will want to keep prices from falling this week.
Now, check out what the cartel did with silver:
A-freakin'-mazing!
Price looks to ramp a little? Smash it down, but not too much. Price starts to run a little more on Wednesday? Smack it back on Friday, but not too much. As such, silver is little changed from where it closed out the week last friday.
Silver ended the week coming in as expected with my "cartel will want to keep prices from falling" call.
Gold ended the week, also as expected, with my "I see the cartel backing off, and allowing price to rise" call:
Slight rise from last Friday, but in the average person's eyes, gold is "no big deal".
For now.
The gold to silver ratio came down a little, but the data is from Wednesday before today's silver smash:
Regardless, the ratio is right where it has been for month and months.
And months.
Palladium pulled back this week:
If we bounce and recover from here, that is going to be one bullish looking chart.
Wait a second.
I just realized something.
What about people who don't know what Black Friday is all about?
Hmmm...
Let me explain it: Basically, Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving in the United States. It always falls on the fourth Friday of the November. Black Friday is the one day a year the when sheeple can go out and totally misbehave when they're shopping, and when I say totally misbehave, I'm talking about grown women fighting children over toys, men fighting men over TVs, and teenagers fighting each other over Air Jordan's.
If you'd like to spend "A day in the life of a Sheeple", then by all means, indulge yourself.
Trying to explain Black Friday doesn't do it justice, and since most of the US, and maybe most of the world for that matter, isn't civilized like the Canucks, I'll just pick some random compilation from YouTube to show what Black Friday is all about:
And if that doesn't look like you're idea of fun, keep on reading because you'll learn some valuable "talking points" you could use to get yourself out of being dragged to the stores.
Back on track.
Platinum is still riding its 50-day moving average:
Which is where we have found platinum since the 14th of November.
All in all, the metals performed as expected this week. We knew the cartel wasn't going to let the metals fall. I showed for silver, on Monday, how this is the best buying opportunity for silver in four Black Friday/Holiday Shopping seasons. Silver is a gift horse right now, and while price didn't drop further, hopefully everybody who was willing and able scooped up some great deals on some shiny phyzz.
The deals are still going on.
Oh yeah, and before I forget, we are also having a very informal "where will the silver price close on December 31st" contest, so check out this post if you want to get in on the contest.
Like platinum, copper is also riding its 50-day:
Copper crashed first, and it's making an attempt to get that moving average pointed north.
Of course, crude oil is what the whole world was watching this week:
That is one heck of a crash in less than 2 months.
All eyes were also on the stock market this week:
I asked if the Nasdaq was going to put in a lower-low on the daily chart, and we got our answer.
Between the death cross on the Russel 2000, break-downs in the S&P 500 and the Dow, and now, this lower low on the Nasdaq, I am just not seeing the "Santa Rally" that everybody else is so sure is coming. I mean, the technicals are horrible, and we know traders and investors make decisions on the "technicals", so how anybody could call this a "dip buying opportunity" is beyond me.
Besides, I think it is the "soft, crash landing" the Fed is trying to pull-off.
I don't think they will be successful, by the way.
The VIX has been holding above 20/21:
The golden cross, which would be bad for the stock market, gets more defined and pronounced by the day.
All eyes were also on the bond market this week:
Yield on the 10-Year Note continued to fall this week.
The dollar is still hovering just below 97:
Yes, the chart looks bullish, and yes, everybody is all "strong dollar" drunk, but I really do see something coming which will begin the next leg-down for the dollar.
I don't know exactly what that is yet - a trade war truce, the ESF selling dollars, a Brexit "deal", but quite frankly, it doesn't matter the means because the end is what is important, especially if you use dollars regularly.
'Ol Half Dollar is building a gaming rig with his son this weekend.
The boy is eleven.
No, the computer is not for me.
It's for him.
Anyway, I bring this up because I would like to share my general observations of "black Friday" and "holiday shopping" in general, as well as offer some takeaways from my observations that anyone can use to get out of a dreaded Black Friday or holiday shopping trip. -
BLACK FRIDAY IS NOT WHAT IT USED TO BE. I personally haven't gone out and braved the idiocy for years, all for the thrill of the hunt. It used to be, prior to this whole internet boom, that we would go out and get the newspaper on Thanksgiving day. Thanksgiving evening, for a couple of hours, we often spent making our Black Friday strategy. Now, perhaps it was because I was freshly married, and married people need "stuff", but it was fun back then. This was also before Android, iPhones, and google maps. Maybe there was GPS, but I'm old school (and cheap) anyway, so I didn't have one. I say this because we would figure out which stores opened at what time, what the best deals were at the stores we were interested in, and then we would list and map out the order in which we would go hit the stores on Black Friday. This year? I almost want to delete my gmail email account and start over because I tell you, I must have received 1,000 "alerts", "starting now", "gotta have it", "new deals added", and "don't miss out" emails. And I'm not kidding when I say it seems like some companies send out an email every freakin' hour. Seriously. Dicks, Victoria's Secret, Bath & Body Works, eBay, Amazon, and many others, sending multiple emails a day, and in some cases, with the most notorious retailers, more than one email per hour. I mean, wow! Between cooking yesterday and spending some time on the "father and son project", it must have taken me an hour just to clear out clutter emails yesterday. Do the retailers not understand that the "shock and awe" marketing carpet bombing only makes us want to delete the email without even looking at it? TAKEAWAY: Argue, "there are plenty of options and we don't even need to go to Wal Mart to shop!".THE DEALS AREN'T ON BLACK FRIDAY ANYMORE. Really, I see the deals starting on November 1st. Especially with every retailer trying to "one-up" each other in the "race to the bottom" as it is often called. That said, I ordered all the components for the gaming rig two weeks ago, and I still got as good of deals as I would have yesterday, today, or this weekend, and I'm glad I did order them before hand, especially for reasons 3 and 4. TAKEAWAY: Argue, "there are plenty of deals to be had all year long".THE ITEM YOU WANT WILL NOT BE IN STOCK. I had a heck of a time trying to find two 8GB sticks of DDR4 ram at 3200 speed, compatible with an x470 MOBO to run with an AMD Ryzen 2700x. Regardless, if you are in the market for something specific as we were, if it goes on sale during the "pre-Black Friday" sale, or whatever they call it, you have to buy. It was slim pickings trying to get the ram, but I ended up getting it after searching around online, and I got it at the price I was looking for, but if I would have waited, I would have missed out on the deal. Now, there is plenty of ram to choose from, and plenty of slower ram out there for great prices, but we wanted decent ram, not slower ram. Gaming computers like fast ram. Oh yeah, and there is no such thing as a "rain check" on Black Friday stuff if your item is out of stock. Do they even still do that in the supermarkets? Probably not. TAKEAWAY: Argue, "there's no sense getting up in the middle of the night to fight over 5 'in stock' televisions".BLACK FRIDAY IS MARKETING HYPE MEANT TO MOVE OLD STOCK. I have suspected this before, and I am certain of it now. 90% of the computer stuff on "sale" is older tech they're trying to move out. Let me give an example with another component needed when building a PC - the power supply. You see, if you want a new gaming computer with the latest components, you can find it on sale, again, if it is available, but not for some super duper, ultra cheap Black Friday type of sale. Here's my experience as it related to the power supply. I went with a fully modular 750 watt EVGA 80 plus Gold PSU, and it was on sale, but not like other PSUs. But that's the point. We are not building an intel rig (well, an Nvidia graphics - RTX 2080), but case in point - I saw good deals on power supplies, but they would say things like "Haswell ready", LOL. "Haswell" is the name for Intel's 4th generation of their "core" processors, and "Haswell ready" means the power supply unit even pre-dates that generation of processors. Why is that absurd? Because Intel is currently on the 9th generation of core processors! The point is, yes, you can get super sweet heck-of-a-deals, but on a PSU that is six years old? That's what you call "marketing hype". Plain and simple. TAKEAWAY: Argue, "I'm looking for something very specific and can't just settle for what is being offered".THE REALLY, REALLY GOOD DEALS GET SCARFED UP BY THE Amazon/eBay RESELLERS. This point kind of builds on my point 3. I guess it irks me because I'm a cheap guy (when it comes to buying for myself). Case in point - $11 Wrangler jeans at Walmart.com. I went online early in the morning on Thursday, and not just my size, but every size, in every color, of all cuts (regular fit, relaxed, regular fit w/stretch, etc), of the $11 jeans were sold out. And there are something like 70 different sizes of each color of Wrangler Jeans. Plenty available at walmart.com for $19.99 though! bastards. I mean, they get those jeans from China or Mexico anyway, and what about all this "buying inventory in advance of the trade wars" line of BS. You would think they would have stocked up on the jeans, or just sold as many as were demanded, knowing they could get an order in with their suppliers before the first of the year. But nope. No jeans for me (in my best soup nazi impression)! TAKEAWAY: Argue, "sure, the jeans may be on cheap, but even if we're lucky, the only sizes they will have are 29? 36 or 54? 28".IF YOU HAVE TEEN-AGE KIDS, THE STUFF THEY WANT IS SUPER DUPER EXPENSIVE. Some of the stuff is not so expensive, but still, it adds up super duper quick. Teenage kids ask for very specific things, at least mine do, and a lot of the stuff they ask for is pretty much triple digits in price, and no, none of the digits are to the right of the decimal. Around the holidays, you also have the "but dad, those jeans are on sale for $78, and they're normally $109, so you're getting a great deal!" battle you will have to fight to no end. And kids are smart too. Come home to turn on your computer, only to realize it was just in "sleep" mode, and when you bring it back to life, you're greeted by an open Chrome browser with tabs open to pages of stuff on their "wish list", right down to size and color. Geez. It's really amazing. My 13 year old daughter makes a "PowerPoint" wish list and emails it to us, with "open in a new tab" links, high-definition pics, substitution items if not available, slide transitions, and generally more in-depth than any school project they have to do for homework. I mean, kids these days are not writing nice little letters to Santa for maybe "a football or something". Nope. And don't ask me how much a vanity mirror costs. Much less ask me about the "accessories" for their "accessories". Yes, those exist. TAKEAWAY: Argue, "we need to hold off going shopping so our bank accounts can re-charge".So there you have it: A market wrap and six talking points you can use to not get dragged out on a shopping trip you'd rather not take.
Your blood pressure and your wallet will thank you for it.
Even if you do get called The Grinch.
Stack accordingly...
- Half Dollar
 | About the Author U.S. Army Iraq War Combat Veteran Paul "Half Dollar" Eberhart has an AS in Information Systems and Security from Western Technical College and a BA in Spanish from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Paul dived into gold & silver in 2009 as a natural progression from the prepper community. He is self-studied in the field of economics, an active amateur trader, and a Silver Bug at heart. Paul's free book Gold & Silver 2.0: Tales from the Crypto can be found in the usual places like Amazon, Apple iBooks & Google Play, or online at PaulEberhart.com. Paul's Twitter is @Paul_Eberhart. |
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