Phil Flynn: Rate Ruckus

Is the winner the country that has the most ink? Gold prices soar to a new record high as once again a global central bank decides to print their way to prosperity. The Bank of Japan gave gold another reason to make a new high by announcing what Dow Jones Newswires says is, “an ambitious” Y35 trillion monetary easing program to spur economic growth while cutting interest rates to virtually zero and launching a Y5 trillion program to buy private and public sector assets. Ambitious?! Boy, I’d say.

I guess there is more than one way to intervene in your currency. The Japan government is adding more stimuli while reducing the confidence in paper money. Looks like a golden opportunity to buy more gold. Perhaps it's time to buy black gold as well. Oil traders love to exploit devalued currencies and devalued confidence in the same way. Yesterday the oil market ignored the rebounding dollar and supplies that are 13% above the five year average and instead returned to focus on the shutdown of the Houston Shipping Channel that was shut down when a barge hit an electrical tower.

That disruption helped send oil to an eight week high. Dow Jones reported that U.S. Coast Guard says that the 3 1/2 mile stretch of the Houston shipping channel will likely be closed until late Tuesday so that low hanging power lines and a listing tower can be cleared away. The closure will affect crude deliveries to four refineries in the Houston ship channel. Dow says that the tower, which carries one of three transmission lines into Exxon Mobil Corp.'s (XOM) Baytown refinery, was struck.....Read the entire article.




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