Yesterday’s last minute budget deal was rather anti-climactic as the shambolic conservative wing of congress found themselves “between a rock and a hard place” giving market participants little reason to believe that they wouldn’t flinch in this game of chicken.

Yesterday’s last minute budget deal was rather anti-climactic as the shambolic conservative wing of congress found themselves “between a rock and a hard place” giving market participants little reason to believe that they wouldn’t flinch in this game of chicken. Unfortunately, this whole debacle appears to be for naught as what happened last evening amounts to nothing more than re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. The US of A hit the proverbial iceberg long ago but will now continue to take on water- approaching $17 trillion worth- at least until February 2014. Consumer confidence, and likely confidence in any other facet of the domestic economy, will likely be on shaky ground until then and barring any significant improvement in unemployment or inflation targets set forth by the FOMC , QE doesn’t appear to be going away anytime soon. The greenback took a beating overnight as Chinese credit rating agency, Dagong, noted their concern with a downgrade of their US credit rating. Combined with aggressive short covering, gold is now up 2.5% from yesterdays close, now trading $1314 after closing the previous session at $1282.30. The PGM side of the precious complex is finding support as the AMCU and Amplats, fresh off a two week strike by the union, are now in wage negotiations. Platinum is up nearly 2% to $1423 after closing yesterday’s session below $1400. Palladium now trades 1.75% higher at $725.90. Have a great day!