I know it is in fashion to trash the financial markets.

I know it is in fashion to trash the financial markets. Today I was hearing people talking about a show called Billions. It appears that traders are once again being portrayed as criminals in suits with a great desire for vice. I know that some of these types of characters do exist but the truth of the matter is it is a very small minority.  Luckily this show is on the cable channel Showtime which everyone knows makes its name by pushing the limits of social acceptance. This gives me hope that viewers don’t swallow this hook line and sinker. Sadly no matter how many times they tell people the stories are fictional the fact that they are “based” on real events leads some to understand that this is the norm in the financial markets. The reality though is that fact is stranger than fiction but maybe does not make for good television. So perception is often mislead by misunderstanding. In just the same way the Chinese government stimulus is expected to support their markets after they came out with the slowest annual growth in 25 years. Their market prices started recovering and has led to the impression that things will get better. The US stock markets starting going higher believing that this means some kind of recovery for the US as well. Gold has lost only very little ground on that news because fact do not bare out that this will definitely translate as people want it to.  The Platinum is up the most on the day but still not in a convincing manner. Until real growth becomes apparent we can expect gold to hold its own and the white precious metals to come under pressure for now.