Platinum Pulling Away, Tax Day Loot $107B

And internal conflicts as the war rages on.

Platinum Pulling Away, Delivery in 7 Days

Will 10 year resistance become support again in platinum?

We just broke $1,300. Final resistance at $1,336.50, so let's say around $1,350. Usually, when the PGMs go crazy, it's a sign of monetary hiccups, as we saw in 2008.

Delivery for July platinum starts next Friday. 7 business days left.

Total Corporate Tax Day Loot $107B

Corporate Tax Day is in the can, the last major cash infusion for the Federal government until the next debt ceiling debacle. Total infusion from taxes, coporate plus individual quarterly for June 16 was $107.283B, just around the $100B I roughly estimated.

There might be a bit more from stragglers over the next 2-3 days but not that much. Total cash balance for the Treasury was up a higher $158B, but that's just a fluke due to the timing of bond redemptions. They were pretty light yesterday, but it'll even out over the course of the week. For now, Treasury cash balance is up to $446B, and that'll basically be the high mark until the account is drained, because the next major tax day is September 15, by which time it'll either have been emptied and defaults will start, or they'll have raised the debt ceiling and the repo market can then duke it out with the Treasury over remaining dollars until the Fed intervenes and inflates again.

Oil Hits Downtrend Line

The sudden move in oil on the Israel/Iran War (let's hope it stays between them only) may have been a bit jarring, but it's not that big of a deal in context. Oil markets do not seem freaked out by what's going on. We are now at the downtrend line that began in September 2023, coincidentally or not just two weeks before the October 7 massacre in Israel.

If oil turns down here, that would be a clear signal that markets do not believe this is going to lead to World War III. If they did, traders wouldn’t mind the line, they'd just buy through it. Let's see what happens.

Silver – What Now?

Final resistance before the $40s is at $37.46. That probably means something around $37.50. If we push through that without much fight, we'll head quickly into the $40s.

Next resistance after that is somewhere between $42.50 and $45, by the trend line I drew above.

By open interest though, the price does look a little shaky. We need a shakeout in the futures market to move forward here, or a little short squeeze.

Silver is at 180K, and every time we hit this level since 2020, it's signaled an intermediate top. So I wouldn't load up on silver derivatives here exactly. A shakeout could be a quick plunge of two weeks or so, don't need much more than that considering how volatile everything is now, or the fall in open interest could come from deliveries, since we have an active contract going to delivery in two weeks, with 83K still open. I'm saying we don't necessarily need a correction in price here since OI could fall in other ways, but if we get one, don't be surprised.

The Confusion of Evil Governments Fighting For Us

I'm writing this for my own processing.