Weekly Update 30 Nov 2018

This was a good week for bonds and the major stock indexes, but cryptocurrencies fell again and commodities were mixed. Palladium led the way higher, gaining 6.1%, while Ethereum took the worst beating, dropping 7.8%. The DJIA was the second best performer, rising 5.7%.

The only falling national currency was the Japanese Yen, which declined 0.2%. The US Dollar performed best, rising 0.5%. Its bonds did even better, as the 2-3 Year SHY rose 0.6% and 20+ Year TLT gained 0.7%.

Bitcoin continues to outperform Ethereum (and most of the altcoins), but both were lower, as BTC closed down 7.1% and ETH lost 7.8%. These declines, while large, were much smaller than we saw in the previous two weeks. In spite of these drops, Bitcoin is still about 20% above its exponential uptrend line begun back in 2015, rising at a compound rate exceeding 130% per year.

Only the gold stocks were lower this week, as the HUI fell 1.4%. US stocks led the field, with the Dow Jones Industrials rising 5.7% and S&P 500 gaining 5.4%. The Euro STOXX50 was the weakest major index, and it was up 2.1%.

Commodities were mixed, as platinum fell 3.5% and Coffee dropped 2.6%, while palladium rose 6.1% and cotton gained 2.7%. Copper and silver were little changed, up 0.6% and 0.4% respectively.

Palladium is now within spitting distance of parity with gold, something that has not happened since the fall of 2002, and about 30% above it's average price since 1995. Platinum, on the other hand, is just 1% above its all-time low, and less than half of its average price for the same period.

Priced in Gold Weekly Summary

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