A bang or a whimper?

 

PM- Up solidly due to speculation and safety seekers and anticipation of QE3 with many people buying precious metals for the first time. There is no possible scenario where gold doesn't go higher. Silver is less clear due to projected weaker industrial demand.

 

Bonds - No or moderate Treasury sell-off. Pundits will be talking about how this downgrade brings focus to the debt problems which may prevent a bigger problem in the future. Aaa/AA+/AAA is still pretty damn solid compared to most of the Euro countries.  I think our timing was pretty fortunate that the socialist Euros saw fit to blow themselves up to distract attention from our problems.

 

Equities - They won't go up unless The Bernanke hints strongly of imminent FED action. A down 500 morning will instantly generate rumors of help from the FED.

 

Politics - Liberal pundits will try to assign blame to the Tea Party and ignore the root causes of the problem - too much debt, growing deficits, out of control entitlement programs.