One look at an intraday chart of Gold and you can see where the line in the sand for the day was drawn.  The 15 minute chart  of gold shows it very clearly, especially if you look at it with the volume up at the same time.  Anyone vaguely acquainted with Auction Market Theory can tell you that after a breakout from consolidation the volume comes in hot and heavy to move the price away from the consolidation range not to bring it back down to the range.  The whole point of moving past consolidation is that the supply of buyers at that price overwhelms those wishing to sell.  The sellers aren’t sitting there for hours on end saying they won’t take a penny less than $1765.55 as opposed to $1765.25.  But if you watch the price action in gold this is exactly the behaviour that is on display.

The point of all of this is not that there are stupid or sinister people in the world attempting (and on most days succeeding) in pushing the prices of assets to pre-determined levels.  There are, that much is a given and if you believe otherwise you are either in on it and talking your book or are hopelessly naive.  The real effect is that when markets are this manipulated it destroys not only the price discovery system but the confidence in the markets themselves, be-getting even more anomalous behaviour later.  Once there is no one left in the markets except those doing the price manipulation there’s no one left to fleece.

The sheep are finding out that they can’t buy stocks on their EBT cards.  What’s a bankster to do then?