It's a start I a guess............................

Gold, today, had an ok day, closing up $11. I say ok, because given everything else that went on, it should have been up much more. You would think with the dollar cracking to new lows, oil hitting a record high, wheat up a ton more, the CRB hitting a new high, and silver hitting a 27 year high, gold would have been up $25. This is what I mean by dead money. While not a bad day by any stretch, gold by all means should have hit a new high today, however, the looming IMF sales, IMO, puts a cap on the price, which is exactly what it is intended to do. However, anyone with a brain knows this effect will only be temporary.

Now, if you remember, last night I said, that barring anything extraordinary happening, gold gains would be limited. I think the dollar breaking to new lows (the Euro went over $1.50 for the first time) qualifies as extraordinary. Combine that with record oil and silver, along with the terrible economic data we got today, and gold, could, COULD power higher.

IBM, today raised their 2008 guidance, and that was all the market need to hear as it was off to the races as the market broke out of a recent trading range to the upside. I have two schools of thought here, the first being, that the market is a discounting vehicle usually looking out six months from now. The market is now telling us everything is going to be fine and dandy. Second, the bulls are absolutely nuts and will get crushed when the short covering and/or bullish wishful thinking ends. Put me in the latter camp. I think we get crushed. There is no way in hell stocks can keep powering higher with $100+ oil and the CRB at record highs. It's scary that so few have an idea of the food inflation that is about to come down the pike.

On top of this inflationary scenario, Fed head Fisher was out saying that growth is more important that inflation, all but guaranteeing more interest rate cuts. This is another reason the dollar tanked and gold SHOULD HAVE gone much higher that it did. Unbelievable the fed is going to cut rates again with these market conditions, but I guess the balls have to be kept in the air for as long as they can.

I have only good things to say about silver. WOW, that has been some advance over the last two days. There is a school of thought that goes when silver outpaces gold the way it has the last couple of days that gold plays catch up. You know my feelings as to why I don't think it will. Please understand that I am not saying the gold story is over and to sell everything you have. I still think gold goes to $1600+ eventually but will take that much longer now, because of the IMF gold sales. And the big joke is, we all know the gold is never going to hit the market, it will be snapped up by some country drowning in dollars. But, the black boxes, and the nervous longs don't care and will sell at any weakness.

In all, today was a good start in overcoming the IMF sales. But, including yesterday, gold is up a net of $4 and that is very disappointing given everything that went on. Well, at least the gold stocks had a nice day today. I keep telling my self, more than ever, all roads point to gold.

I still haven't decided if I am going to go to the Sinclair conference on Friday. I would love to go, as I think the information Sinclair would share is invaluable, but that would mean having to drive to JFK, which is about 90 minutes from my house, without traffic, fly to Buffalo, and drive into Toronto; it's a lot to do just for a three hour meeting. Is Toronto a cool city? I was only there once for a couple of hours, as I killed some time after seeing a client in Buffalo. Someone please let me know.