August 17, 2020 - (Gold Market Wire) - Silver, our recent "guiding light", has started the week on a cautious but firm note, moving 2% higher in early European trading. Gold has put on about $10 an ounce, but it remains the "lesser metal", Silver, who is calling the tempo.

Right now we have Silver at $26.89, which is a not altogether unlikely place for the market to rest. In fact, is right on the third horizontal line we identified on Friday, and readers can reference that article for the full picture.

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Presently, our two trend lines have mapped out Friday's high/low almost perfectly, and in them we can see today's challenges, but it is the horizontal points we identified on Friday which are now taking preponderance.

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As ever, our job is to try and identify exactly which technical indicator appears to be reflecting the market action, and right now, we are favoring the horizontal lines. They are dominant, as the market is gravitating towards them.

News is now dawning on the world of professional gambling that the outside odds of Trump retaining the Presidency need to be narrowed before the bookmakers get clobbered like last time. So - Trump is narrowed from 6/4 to 6/5 and Biden widens from 4/6 to 5/6. You can call it a dead heat if you like. But there are two primary factors at work which demand our consideration. The first is that a Trump victory, and/or the mere likely-hood of a victory, may spur the US Dollar higher. Right now the Dollar is "port-side heavy" with people predicting it demise. That's an interesting aspect for a currency whose only other competitor is the politically fractious Euro. Such one-sided action demands that the market counter and we see now that the Metals upside action could be limited by a resurgent Dollar. The second, and contrary factor, at work is the continuing degradation in the state of US Politics as a whole. Abandoned cities; crime now soaring in NYC, as it returns to its dystopian 1970s past; California preparations for wealth taxes; a BLM movement that looks ready to morph into a para-military force that terrorizes people out of their homes; all start to add up to a picture that government is doing only what it needs to protect itself - and the well-being of the citizenry/economy can go to Hell for all they care.

In truth it is promptly doing just that - which is probably why Trump's odds of victory are narrowing.