2026 Lunatic Fringe - Market and Trade Chat

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Just think of the markets and some big money trying to steal as much money as possible from the casino. You'll understand its moves much better.
 

It's Starting! The gold price is exploding. Treasury announcement. All eyes are now on Sept 15th.​

This afternoon the gold price jumped over $100 in 90 minutes.

The rise came immediately after the US Treasury released an announcement on its website.

In the space of six days Treasury has doubled how often it buys long bonds, and then doubled how much it can buy each time.

The Fed is standing still. The Federal Reserve is not riding to the rescue. On 13 August, the New York Fed announced it would buy nothing at all between 14 August and 14 September.

The logical next step is fuller yield curve control, and that requires the Fed.

Gold is anticipating what the Fed will do. September 15th Could be the day to watch gold.

 
Crash stocks in order to sell bonds. Rinse & repeat.
 


China's SGE has been running at a discount to LBMA spot for the last few days. I have to wonder if that is encouraging an arbitrage trade for bullion banks to buy LBMA gold and ship it to China.
 
Looks like they are now seeing problems in Zinc supplies as well as it soars into backwardation. This is especially important for Silver because many of the largest Silver mines are Ag-Pb-Zn ores. So if they are having trouble with Zinc output then silver is gonna be there too.

HSBC Warns Global Zinc Market Is Flashing Signs Of Tightness <!-- --> | ZeroHedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero
www.zerohedge.com www.zerohedge.com

1787328385291.png
 
Ray Dalio recommendation for 15% portfolio rotation into gold is making the rounds...

pmbug said:
Free float gold stock (ie. actually available - not owned by ETFs or the Bank of England) in the LBMA + COMEX vaults as of the end of July was only ~2,375 metric tons. At $4,500/ozt, that's ~$344B. A rotation of just ~0.1% of that $350T would be enough to wipe out the entire available inventory of currently vaulted Good Delivery gold bars in Western markets.

The math is even more striking with silver (it's a much smaller market). Free float silver stock in the LBMA + COMEX vaults as of the end of July was only ~15,330 metric tons. At $80/ozt, that's $39.4B (10x smaller than gold). Just 0.01% of the $350T would wipe out available inventory of currently vaulted Good Delivery silver bars in Western markets.
Click to expand...

 
Clive is on top of it!

Panic as Bond Market Crisis Causes Bond Prices to Crumble. Gold Soars. Bitcoin up 22.6% on week.​

 
Posted for amusement



Breaking: Michael Burry has disclosed his updated positions
He:
• Bought CoreWeave $CRWV shorts
• Added to Micron $MU shorts
• Added to Palantir $PLTR shorts
• Added to Semiconductor ETF $SOXX shorts
• Added to Mercado Libre $MELI longs at $1890s
• Added to Lululemon $LULU longs at $115s
• Added to Molina $MOH at $201
• Bought Sprouts Farmer’s Markets $SFM shares at $70s
• Bought Temple & Webster $TPLWF shares in low $3s
• Bought Build-a-Bear $BBW in mid-upper $30s
• Trimmed PayPal $PYPL
• Trimmed Veeva $VEEV

Michael Burry said "The vast majority of people should never short, and likewise should never be on margin."
 
We have Sprouts stores in my area. They have decent merchandise and they are proud of it.
 
So Bessent screwed the pooch in today's presser threatening to kick nations supporting Iran out of the Dollar system/markets (SWIFT) and also threatening sanctions against an unknown major bank (speculated to be China's ICBC). They don't know what they are doing IMO. Playing with fire and going to get burned.
 
Well, we.know who are friends are and are not.
 
pmbug said:
We have Sprouts stores in my area. They have decent merchandise and they are proud of it.
Click to expand...

As do we!

Looks like he bought end of July. Long term trend seems to be rising. That last green rise is probably because of the X post above...?

Screenshot 2026-08-24 at 6.48.53 PM.png
 
pmbug said:
LBMA gold and silver supply is likely shrinking as spot prices are rising relative to COMEX futures.

EFP spreads (COMEX futures price - LBMA spot price) for August & September contracts continued to drop this morning with silver's Sep COMEX contract EFP spread flipping negative and gold's Aug COMEX contract EFP spread at >$5 below LBMA spot - the most it's been since early July.

LBMA prices are rising relative to COMEX futures. It's likely, IMO, that this is reflecting shrinking supply of available metal in the LBMA vaults (ie. free float vault stock). This would make sense as ETFs, China and India are all reporting increasing vault stocks. The ETF's gains are the LBMA's drains.

China and India could possibly be sourcing their inflows from somewhere other than the LBMA, but it's pretty safe to say they aren't sourcing from the COMEX directly (as COMEX withdrawals are low for August). The LBMA is the most likely venue (especially for India as that has been their preferred venue in the recent past).

I think there is a good chance the LBMA gets squeezed again before the end of this year if the current trend continues.
Click to expand...

 
This is NOT retail buying at all. They are still selling, at least mostly in the US, because they are freaking dumb. ETFs are also NOT reflective of real buying and selling either. Its all just an accounting gimmick, probably the banks building inventory possibly for themselves again.

 
I suspect the ETF buying is hedge funds, but that's just speculation on my part.
 
Its not even real. There are so, SO many games played with ETF shares outstanding... I don't think it represents any real physical metal at all. Zero.
 
Retail customers are selling now around $70, but they will be standing in line around the block to buy it back at $100.
 
a great primer for knowing what is coming

The $73 Trillion Bond Trap And The 4 Triggers For A Gold Price Explosion.​

Watch out for these words. They are triggers which could send the gold price soaring. "Debt", "Inflation", "Yield Curve Control", or "Fiscal Dominance". There are $73 trillion of government bonds in issue and that number is growing by $4 trillion a year. Add in corporate bonds and we have a global bond market worth $160tn. At today's gold price of $4'600, annual gold production is just $543 billion. A 1% shift out of bonds to gold would be $1.6tn. It would absorb over three years mined supply. The effect on the price of gold would be huge.
 
They crashed gold and silver because it looked like they were losing control again same as January.
 
The repeated redemption pressure at Blackstone’s flagship private credit fund is less about an immediate liquidity crisis and more about a growing mismatch between the liquidity investors expect and the liquidity the underlying assets can actually provide, because BCRED is designed to allow only limited quarterly withdrawals while its loans are fundamentally long-dated and illiquid, so when redemption requests remain near 10 percent for multiple quarters against a 5 percent repurchase cap, unmet requests begin to roll forward and create a persistent liquidity queue. The more important signal is that this is happening alongside rising markdowns and higher non-accrual rates across parts of private credit, especially in leveraged software, which means investor demand for liquidity is increasing at the same time asset quality is becoming somewhat weaker, making the structure more vulnerable if inflows slow or credit losses accelerate.

This does not mean private credit is breaking, because large managers such as Blackstone still have substantial liquidity buffers and the redemption cap is part of the fund structure rather than an emergency measure, but it does show that the semi-liquid private credit model is entering a more difficult test than during the easy-money period, particularly among wealthy individual investors who were attracted by high yields but may not have fully appreciated how limited liquidity becomes when many investors want to exit at the same time. If similar redemption pressure spreads across other large evergreen funds, managers could become more conservative in new lending, raise cash balances, or eventually sell assets at discounts, which would tighten credit conditions for highly leveraged borrowers even without a formal financial crisis.

Personal View

I see this as an early warning on liquidity rather than a systemic private credit crisis, because the real problem starts only if persistent redemption queues meet worsening credit quality and weaker new inflows at the same time. For now, Blackstone can manage the withdrawals because the fund still has significant liquidity and the 5 percent cap was already embedded in the structure, but if investors continue asking for around 10 percent every quarter while loan markdowns and defaults rise, the pressure can compound quickly because private credit cannot liquidate assets as easily as public bond funds, so this is something worth watching closely as a potential transmission channel from private markets into broader credit conditions.
Click to expand...

 
It's just a flesh wound...

"May" being the operative word here...



🇳🇴 The world's largest wealth fund may dump $80 BILLION of U.S Treasuries

Norway's fund has proposed slashing U.S government bond exposure from 34% to 22% of its bond portfolio.

The official reasoning is "diversification." Truthfully, decade-high yields and a $40 trillion debt pile doesn’t scream "safe haven" like it used to.

Norway’s wealth fund owns on average 1.5% of all listed companies globally.

Source: CNBC / Writers: Bri, Ian
 
Blackstone isn't the only PE fund mgr capping withdrawals...
 
Goldhedge said:
It's just a flesh wound...

"May" being the operative word here...



🇳🇴 The world's largest wealth fund may dump $80 BILLION of U.S Treasuries

Norway's fund has proposed slashing U.S government bond exposure from 34% to 22% of its bond portfolio.

The official reasoning is "diversification." Truthfully, decade-high yields and a $40 trillion debt pile doesn’t scream "safe haven" like it used to.

Norway’s wealth fund owns on average 1.5% of all listed companies globally.

Source: CNBC / Writers: Bri, Ian
Click to expand...

Looks like it is time to bomb my fedreland.
 
10Y is blowing up. Sorry Scott. Hope the house has insurance...
 
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