When looking for a good theme for this post I pondered for a while and then decided to use a picture of a bristlecone pine, which are widely considered to be the oldest living trees in the world. You can find them near the Nevada/California border and if you wind up traveling in the area then I strongly recommend that head over to Bishop and from there head up high up into the White Mountains.

What goes [straight] up must eventually go down. However when exactly a symbol which has turned exponential runs out of fuel is the more important question. Once emotions reign high all bets are off – or in this case all bids are on. You may recall that I was pointing at gold the other day and suggesting that we may see another wild push to the upside.

Which is exactly what we got and I’m pretty glad I got out of my short position at break/even. We are now seeing an obligatory pullback but medium term this thing may have legs.

Just FYI – the P&F claims that we met the bullish price objective. However I wouldn’t really think [...]

I seriously doubt that the average market participant realizes the magnitude of the devastation that lays ahead. It is our human nature to project forward based on recent events – a common cognitive bias which can easily lead to painful losses during regular market conditions. But what we are facing over the coming weeks and months will register several standard deviations beyond current worst case scenarios, at least based on activity/pricing I’m currently seeing in the option chains.

We have a lot of material to cover this morning. So grab a cup of your favorite morning brew and pay close attention. Yes, there will be a test.

Let’s start with [...]

That will be my motto for this last full trading week of the year as we are at the same time approaching the most significant fork in the financial road of 2015. As I am sure you are all aware this Wednesday at 2:00pm Eastern the Federal Reserve will issue its verdict on whether to make good on a year long promise to finally raise its benchmark interest rate (i.e. fed funds rate). The current consensus is an increase from 25bps to 37.5bps – a meager increase of merely 1/8 of a percent. Nevertheless the increase would be the first since the financial crisis of 2008 and would be perceived as setting the stage for further tightening down the line.

You probably noticed that [...]