Most asset classes were lower this week. The only exceptions were coffee, up 2.2%, Bitcoin, which rose 0.9%, TLT long bonds, up 0.8%, and platinum, which gained 0.4%. Cotton (down 7.2%) and copper (off 5.9%) were the weakest asset classes.
The government-issued currencies were all lower. The Canadian Dollar was weakest, falling 3.0%. The Japanese Yen was relatively strong, dropping just 0.1%, followed by the Euro, off 0.2%, and the USD, which fell 0.3%.
Stocks were all lower, led by the Japanese Nikkei, which lost 3.9%, followed closely by the HUI gold stocks, which fell 3.4%, and the European STOXX, which gave up 2.8%. US stocks dropped the least, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling just 0.4%.
As mentioned earlier, commodities showed both the biggest gains and the biggest losses for the week. Silver lost 3.3%, while crude oil gave back 3.0%, pull backs from the large gains they have made over the last month. This is even more true of gold stocks, which despite this week's drop, are still up 18.3% from a month ago.
I have recently received some excellent questions from readers, and am working on posts to answer them. We are still out cruising (currently docked in beautiful Clarence Town on Long Island in the Bahamas) so posts and updates to the site may be sporadic… Thank you for your patience!
