- GOLD has broken the highs again and on Wednesday traded as high as +$13 dollars for the week, before selling off Thursday…

My sense here is that Gold has been money (REAL money!, not like the US dollars that we just simply print billions of each week, with what I have no idea what backing them?) for over 5000 years and when there are times of disaster and maybe INFLATION (I know they took food and energy out of the "inflation numbers" years ago, but I still don’t understand how or why? I still use food and energy and I am pretty sure others do so why delete those two items and bury your head in sand to look at prettier numbers?) people tend to want to own something that has had a real "shelf life" or that’s at least the way I am seeing it.

Also, Gold did have about a 25 year long Bear market and is up around 200 dollars over the last few years (they would be having those CNBC parades like when NASDAQ hit 5000 if that were in the stock markets) and no one really is talking about much, so probably still higher prices ahead.

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- OIL traded all over the place - - Monday alone had a nearly $4.00 range from high to low which is alittle over a 6% intra-day trading range! The rest of week averaged a nearly 4% intra-day range.

Which way is it going? I haven't a clue, but I will say it's going somewhere…

I accidentally have read a few great arguments for it to go to $100 or $150 which means it's probably going to $40 or lower, but like I said above she is moving everyday! And has provided the best of the futures trading vehicles that will last till?

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INTEREST RATES also had a volatile week with the Fed meeting on Tuesday etc. ...

The TLT which is really like a 20 year bond (they are now going to re-issue the 30 years bond again and the whole world watches the ten year so I have split the difference) I think gives the best picture of what rates are doing on the long end, jumped around quite a bit and has dropped from about 96 to the high 91s recently and now stands at 92.61

I think that with the interest rates hitting 50? Year lows, before the Fed started it's tightening which I think is up to 13 or 14 raises now, that the longer end of the "yield curve" has lots of room to move - - if 3 month paper trades 3.50% and 30 year paper trades 4.50% you get an extra 1% for the 29 and 3/4 year risk? Plus all the mark to market risk?

I guess the "yield curve" can invert and that would be fun also I guess … the bottom line is this: TLT is going to have a wide trading range and I feel will provide a great vehicle as a "position trading" type strategy using options to avoid the unlimited futures risk.

Interest rates have EVENTS every month with NUMBERS that people get crazy about, plus the Fed meetings every 6 weeks, making the chance of a static market like the US indices very unlikely.

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- STOCKS/RELATED INDEXES I have to tell the truth I barely looked...

I did notice that the S&P 500 is almost unchanged for the year as we approach the end of the third quarter, I stand my previous stance in the daily "Market Updates" that simply buying 3 month T bills (with majority of investment capital) and collecting something towards >3% without the risks was the prudent move.

Also, I found the below page in a book I was reading over the weekend that shows that the US equity markets do find windows of nothingness and the "impasse" of this tug of war between the bulls and bears I kept looking for to end in the "old Updates" could go on till???

Bottom line here is stocks/related indexes are DEAD!!! They simply have NO % movement to trade in any meaningful direction and I still feel the second leg of the Bear market will come someday and then there will have been opportunities, but why waste time waiting when there are things happening daily (huge % moves) in other vehicles???

-G