Silver has led precious metals higher, rising sharply to close Friday at a new record high, and touching $57 as the new month gets underway.
- Precious metals, especially Silver, are in focus today. Silver made a very strong bullish move last Friday, closing at a new all-time high, and trading at even higher prices as the new weeks gets going, touching $57 per ounce at one stage. Trend and momentum traders will be interested in being long here, but as its a breakout on high volatility, there is much doubt that it can go much higher. Traders might want to be long with an unusually small position size. Other precious metals are rising too, notably Gold which is threatening to end today at a record high closing price in New York.
- Global equities are mostly a bit lower this morning, however, by nothing significant. Last week was generally a good week for stock markets, with the broad S&P 500 Index closing the week just below a record high weekly closing price. It is still a bull market, and it is December in a year of gains, which suggests we are likely to see a "Santa Claus" rally and higher prices, possibly even new all-time highs.
- Bitcoin is looking more bearish after it fell quite strongly in early trading this week. It is currently trading below the round number at $90,000. Bitcoin's underperformance recently compared to other risky assets seems significant.
- In the Forex market, the strongest major currency since the Tokyo open is the Japanese Yen, with the weakest major currency being the British Pound, putting the Japanese Yen in focus. The USD/JPY currency pair is falling and trading well below ¥156.00. Trend traders will still be long of this currency pair, although they will remain vulnerable over the short-term to potential intervention from the Bank of Japan or Japanese Government which does not want to see the Yen depreciate much further.
- There will be a release today of US ISM Manufacturing PMI data
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