How Precious Is It?

They call it a precious metal — and it did act like
one recently when it jolted higher in safe-haven buying in the wake of the
9/11 atrocity. But silver is more widely used in commercial applications
than gold and its price action today was anything but glittery, resembling
today, more closely, the behavior of industrial copper.

Plunging to new contract lows, December

silver

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dropped 9.7 to settle at 411.0. Multiple indicators
provided you with a better-than-average chance of silver making a
better-than-average loss — and direction.

When you get indications of volatility and direction
working together, you should pay particularly close attention.

Silver
indicated direction, pattern and the chance for an outsized move with its
Implosion-5
, Pullback
From Lows
, and Multiple Days Low
Volatility
readings, respectively. On the Implosion-5 List for the past five
sessions, silver made good on an Off The Blocks
short for the fourth consecutive session. (The signal never triggered on
10/29, the first day of the five that it posted on the I-5.)

December

copper

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failed to
trigger its

Turtle Soup Plus One Buy
(reversal) pattern today and plunged to new
contract lows, down .65 at 61.40. Called the metal with a Ph.D. because its
price action can accurately forecast economic peaks and troughs, copper’s
weakness is commensurate with the week’s dismal data on the economy.

In a decline nearly as spectacular as their ascent, T-bonds
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retraced
50% of their eight-day run. The 109 5/32 area, (the 50% retrace) should
provide consolidating support. In Thursday’s
Setups
from TradingMarket’s Nightly Futures Reports, we suggested
reasons why the parabolic run in T-bonds might not continue. Bonds sank 1
17/32 to 109 10/32.

November soybeans
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and
December soy meal
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, from Friday’s
Futures Setups
, consolidated gains after yesterday’s expansion bars left them at
New 10-Day Highs.
Both retraced after making gains out of Off The Blocks
entries. Both still closed near the highs of Thursday’s expansion bars,
down 1 1/2 and .2, respectively. But the long-side argument remains
intact.

Detailed in last night’s Futures
Report
, energies have tremendous deflating factors at work, suggesting
lower prices.
December crude oil
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,
heating oil
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and unleaded gasoline
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gapped lower out of their
Implosion
setups (making good on Off The Blocks
shorts) and hit new contract lows. Extended, the contracts closed at their
gap-down opening levels (unleaded managed a slight gain), suggesting they
will close at least one of multiple overhead gaps and laps.