Friday’s Non-Farm Payrolls left much to be desired and any sell-of

Friday’s Non-Farm Payrolls left much to be desired and any sell-off, under the pretense of an improving jobs picture, has been met with support to the upside in early trading today. The precious complex is in positive territory this morning with gold and palladium up more than .5% and platinum and silver up roughly 1%. The U.S. created 146,000 new jobs in the month of November, according to the governments calculation, and unemployment fell to 7.7%. That would seem like good news if you choose to ignore the piece of the iceberg that lays just below the surface…the labor force participation rate, which dropped to 63.6%. That would equate to 350,000 people who simply gave up looking for a job! Across the pond, the Eurozone continues to add uncertainty to the markets and this time it isn’t Greece or Spain. Italy’s Prime Minister, Mario Monti, has announced he plans on resigning after the country’s government agrees on a budget. There’s not much else on tap for the start of the week, other than the normal fiscal cliff shenanigans. The Federal Reserve will meet this week to discuss the strategy of Operation Twist. This will culminate in the usual Wednesday afternoon announcement of what the Fed plans to do to crush the U.S. Dollar even more. Have a great day!