A snapshot of the financial world.

1. Spain.
In the news again. That's not good since the Media likes to cover only bad news. It is the next installment of the soap opera: how bad is the situation and will Spain need a bailout? Answer: the recession is deepening and yes, maybe, Spain will need some help. For comic relief, check out the story on French-Spanish co-operation agreement just signed by the Spanish PM Rajoy and French President Hollande. I guess that PM Rajoy was hankering for some good French onion soup so he traveled to Paris to sign a perfectly useless agreement.

2. Gold.
There was an attack on the gold price last Friday. It was heralded by the short interest increasing from -16,000 contracts to +14,000. The move took gold to 1,760 or so. Today, the shorts are being covered and gold is moving above 1,770 again. The supply of actual gold is tight and getting tighter. Larry has still not given a buy signal.

3. The phony jobs report.
The FED told us that it takes 240K new jobs/month to maintain employment at an even keel. The September job number was 114K, lower than the August number, which was lower than the July number. Yet, the percent unemployed magically fell to 7.8% from 8.1%. The Obama regime trumpeted this as a great success; a proof that Obamanomics is finally working. The actual figure of unemployed and part time employment remains steady at 14%. There is no improvement in unemployment.

4. The QE saga.
Nothing new to report.