Gold is looking interesting.

Fundamentally, it shouldn’t as the Fed is tightening the screws on liquidity, the ECB is ready to stop the printing press, and international reserves continue to decline.

Check out the chart. 

Higher lows since August,  a breakout of a crude cup-and-handle formation, and what looks like the coming test of the 200-day at 1257, which has rejected the gold price over the last year almost as many times I was in high school asking girls out on dates.

Could be gold is sniffing out an escalation of the U.S.-China conflict or it could be something altogether different.

Chinese media reports that the situation in the South China Sea is expected grow more intense over the coming year, with one senior military official also declaring that China should be prepared to attack United States naval vessels, should the U.S. violate Chinese “territorial waters.”

Dai Xu (戴旭), who is President of the Institute of Marine Safety and Cooperation, as well as a PLAAF Air Force Colonel Commandant, was quoted by the tabloid Global Times saying the following.

“If the U.S. warships break into Chinese waters again, I suggest that two warships should be sent: one to stop it, and another one to ram it… In our territorial waters, we won’t allow US warships to create disturbance.” – Taiwan News, December 9th[1]

Double yikes.

Hope Mike Pence and John Bolton, who appear to be driving a Two-China Policy in the administration, at least to us, are reading the above.

Don’t say we didn’t warn you about a hotter Taiwan Straight, way back before it came on the radar.  See here[2] and here[3].

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