Quote from drsteph:
First off, a reasonable gold commentary! Rare in this sector. Agree with her thought process on trading this range.
Second, I would argue that this october/november is not likely to be anything but bullish given upcoming elections. Continued pause, with some of the economic #'s looking QUITE soft. Housing debacle will unquestionly demand a drop in interest rates on the short end of the curve if to do nothing but inject liquidity into the system. OTOH, longer term OTM puts are fairly cheap (in cash terms, not necessarily vol) and if you are willing to burn the theta, might be a nice time to pick up a few as a portfolio hedge or outright two or three sigma spec play.
Third, while I do think that the demographic issue is an important one, there are a few issues:
#1. Immigration is a longer term help to that problem. Of course, not if we chase them all home.
#2. The pension reform bill MAY have similar effects to the failed effort to reform social security and allow private accounts which would have spurred investment in the equity markets among the younger set. This MAY convert traditional DB pension plans which had certain restrictions on investment to IRA's which don't.
#3. Target date for a mess due to demographics is 2010-2012 from everything I've read that has some economic teeth behind it.
Hmm,that's interesting about the pension reform bill. I think I'll post that over in economics.