Chew On This One

tfmetalsreport.com / By Turd Ferguson / Friday, February 8, 2013 at 11:07 am

Maybe it’s the massive blizzard about to hit New York and Boston? I don’t know but the markets are so boring today that I thought I’d disappear down the rabbit hole for a moment or two.

Part of the reason that things are so quiet today is the general lack of news. The only noteworthy item was the release of the December U.S. trade deficit. It shrunk. This, of course, caused Reuters to cheer, happily proclaiming that perhaps Q4 GDP won’t be as awful as first projected. (http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/08/us-usa-economy-trade-idUSBRE9170J520130208) Of course, this is silly. The U.S. is a consumption-based economy and when imports fall, we are consuming less. And, as usual, ZH provides a better analysis (http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-02-08/us-trade-deficit-drops-lowest-january-2010-crude-imports-plunge-1997-levels).

The gold market yawned at the “news” and that, usually, is that. However, I soon thereafter received an email from a rather enlightened individual who noticed, contained within the Reuters story, was this little nugget: ”Friday’s data showed U.S. exports surged by $8.6 billion during the month, boosted by sales of industrial supplies, including a $1.2 billion increase of non-monetary gold.”

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