Meanwhile, back at the office, Gold hit an all time high today and the S&P 500 closed +14.26 points or 1.37% at 1054.72.

The gold market is going to offer an obscene amount of trading opportunities, both long and short, in the years to come. The breakout today is big news.

Gold - Weekly Chart

Now, the big bad question is what to do from here. It has been my viewpoint that gold is vulnerable to a violent sell off–if there is a sudden risk aversion rotation into the US Dollar. Last night, there were rumors that oil traders would abandon the US dollar and attempt to denominate oil against a basket of currencies. These rumors make the rounds now and again, and they are always funny. Oil is not going to trade against anything else anytime soon. After all, if you were an oil trader, what would you like the contracts settled in? I prefer my oil settlements in dollars (just fine thanks). That said, not everyone thinks like I do. The rumors of oil re-denomination, a 25 bps rate hike in Australia and weakness in the greenback all pointed to the the new high in gold today.

I remain sidelined in the yellow metal for the moment, and it feels lonely. The move in gold is starting to be about momentum and trading the technicals–an endeavor which I have a decent track record.

The next chart speaks to the conspiracy theory of the day. Rumors of a derivative loss at Goldman Sachs (GS) between 9:30 and 10:00 AM PST. These rumors come up from time to time. I discussed my thoughts on Goldie in a prior post. I’ll leave them at that. Before you dismiss the Goldman oil rumors straight away, check out the price action. They traded in lockstep throughout the equity session. Conspiratorial as these rumors may be, the charts sure move together.

Goldman Sachs Vs. Oil

After the bell today, a slew of oil numbers were released. They all seemed inline except the distillate numbers, which were -2.9 million versus a flat estimate. Oil traded a tad firmer on the news.

Tomorrow before the bell we’ll see numbers out of Monsanto (MON) and Costco (COST). After the bell Alcoa (AA).

I am off to dinner with a vice cop turned lawyer turned trader. Reinvention is the mother of innovation. And the beat goes on.

The stock market showed strength Monday as we began the first full trading week of October. The S&P 500 closed +1.49% or +15.25 points at 1040.46. There were 5 advancers for every decliner on the NYSE. The Nasdaq Composite closed at 2068.15 or +.98% with 2.7 advancers for every decliner.

Oil showed weakness at the open of the pit session on the NYMEX at 9AM EST. After initially trading lower, it found support at the lows from Friday. It then showed strength for the remainder of the session and closed at $70.41–just below the high of Friday–off a low of $68.05.

Light Sweet Crude Oil - Pit Session

On Wednesday September 30th, Crude Oil and the U.S. Oil Fund ETF (USO) rallied strongly. Since that time, any attempt to take oil lower has been met with buyers. If a meaningful correction is in the cards in the S&P 500, the dollar needs to strengthen. The recent strength in oil has been due to dollar weakness. If oil is strong, the dollar is not. As the dollar weakens, stocks inflate. Oil is the key to the equity puzzle into the end of the year. For that reason, X is traveling around to oil rich nations and meeting with business leaders. Any data he gathers will be important to my year end positioning.

USO - Daily Chart

Gold closed higher by 1.5% in what smelled like a rally that was due to more than just softness in the greenback.

Gold Futures - Daily

I continue to see a deflationary–as opposed to inflationary–macroeconomic landscape and I am positioned accordingly.

Tomorrow is the William Blair Emerging Growth Stock Conference, ICSC/UBSW Chain Store Sales are due out at 7:45 EST–last 0.1%, Redbook Retail Sales at 8:55–last -2.3%.

After the bell this evening Mosaic (MOS) announced Q1 $0.23 versus $0.35 expected, revenues $1.50 billion versus $1.54 billion expected. Margins were 37% versus 52% year/year.

Research In Motion was notably weak today. After the bell we found out why: Bernstein initiated (RIMM) with an underperform rating and a $60 price target.

And the beat goes on.

Meanwhile, back at the office, my assistant Tonya just walked in and told me that she knows me better than I know myself, and that if I’d spend more time with her, she’d enlighten me on me. I told her she is not unlike many of the other women in my life—convinced of their numinous insight into my complexity. She then told me what to wear to several of my meetings this week, informed me that I need more sleep, and threatened to throw away my little paper phone book.

“You are the best, Tonya,” I laughed.

Then I asked why she hadn’t told me about the Greenspan comments.

“Because I don’t think they are a big deal.”

I told her I’d decide the significance of the remarks, and reminded her that I asked her to always tell me when Greenspan said anything.

“OK, fine,” she said. “Greenspan made comments on ABC’s “This Week.” He said Friday’s jobs report was awful. He is not in favor of additional stimulus. He finds it debatable how effective the current stimulus has been and is concerned about extended periods of unemployment as it erodes skills. Additionally, he sees Q3 GDP growth over 2.5%.”

“I know,” I told her.

“Well then why did you ask?”

Because I wanted to be sure we construed the information the same way.

“What is my schedule this week?” I asked.

“I haven’t decided yet,” she faded.

I turned to look and she was gone.

Meanwhile, back at the office, I continue to refuse to buy into the necessity of having twitter verification. I am confused enough as to whether I am a human or a machine. How could I possibly verify either scenario? Further, how am I to know there isn’t someone out there who could do a better job at being me? I relayed these thoughts to The Shrink earlier. He told me I need to come by and chat with him sooner rather than later. After that I talked by Amateur Radio with X and we recapped today’s action.

The S&P 500 Index closed lower by 27.23 points or 2.58%. Breadth was strongly skewed to the downside in what I will term an official day of distribution: sellers clearly overwhelmed buyers across the board. Credit spreads widened, the cost of risk insurance escalated. Overall it was a positive day if you are positioned as I am: Dollar, treasury, default swap and volatility strength coupled with equity/commodity weakness.

Yesterday, the only strength in the broader indices was the oil sector. Had crude not rallied–and not held it’s ground today–the broader indices would have seen further weakness. I spoke to newspaper Joey–my contact who trades big size in NYMEX energy futures. His take: the strength in crude won’t last. Smart money is short oil cars here in reasonable size.

With the sell off as strong as it was, it is important to see how the market reacts from here. Since March, every sell-off with any hint at distribution has been bought. Look at the lows of July 8th, August 17th and September 2nd. Buyers came in every time. If this time is different we will know very soon–perhaps in the next couple of trading days. In my September 12th Rap, I showed a chart of interest rates. The level I highlighted was broken today.

If you are a long only fund manager it is very easy to hedge your portfolio by being long treasuries. If you are heavily invested in private equity or if the majority of your assets are not liquid–such as shares of non public technology companies, you can hedge your downside by buying Treasuries. If you are a trader, there are plenty of ways to profit from the risk aversion scenario I have outlined.

If you’d like to contact me directly, drop me a line or a call at my office - The Tinker Factory.

I’ll be back soon, as the beat goes on.

$TNX Ten Year Rates

Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. Reports Exercise of Over-Allotment Option by Underwriters.

The underwriters (Barclays Capital, Credit Suisse and UBS Investment Bank) acted as joint bookrunning managers of the offering of 4 million shares of common stock. By fully exercising their over-allotment option to purchase an additional 600,000 shares, the net proceeds are approximately $235 million, after payment of underwriting discounts and commissions.

Some buyers some sellers and the middlemen. That’s a market.

Press Release