I never knew this about the 3 sisters; though I would post for others.

Have a Great Weekend

West Coast Guy

Eric Fry, contemplating mystical influences, reports...

The precious metals are both monetary and mystical. As such, they rise and fall in response to factors that are sometimes monetary, sometimes mystical... and sometimes a combination of the two.

Over recent months, for example, the financial media has been crediting monetary factors like negative interest rates with spurring the rally in gold and silver.

Last week, by contrast, mystical influences played a larger role. The Brexit vote created panic in the financial markets and an environment of widespread fear and uncertainty. In such circumstances, according to the wisdom of the ages, gold and silver are to be bought because they ward off financial evil and impart a therapeutic effect across an entire investment portfolio.

Curiously, even though global financial markets have rallied sharply from their Monday lows, gold and silver have not surrendered their recent gains. For some reason, investors still want to own these shiny rocks, even though the panic has subsided and even though the financial markets have stabilized.

Perhaps this surprising financial market strength is telling us that the monetary reasons for holding gold and silver are more powerful than most folks realize. Or perhaps powerful mystical influences are at work.

Since Monday, for example, silver has been noticeably outpacing gold. This divergence became particularly conspicuous during midweek trading, when silver was advancing at the same moment that gold was drifting lower.

Upon noticing this mini-divergence, I thought to myself, "Hmmm... That's odd. I wonder if soybeans and sugar are also rallying." Sure enough, both commodities were in the midst of rallying to new two-year highs.

Are you confused? You should be... until you remember the mystical aspect of gold and silver. For whatever reason, soybeans, sugar and silver often rally in sync with one another.

"Old school" commodity traders from the 1970s and 1980s used to refer to silver, soybeans and sugar as "the Three Sisters" of inflationary trends. For some reason, the prices of these three commodities tended to lead the rest of the commodity complex during times of coming inflation.

Today, no inflationary trend appears to be on the horizon. Then again, we cannot see what lies just beyond the horizon. Perhaps the "Three Sisters" see something we cannot... kind of like the infamous three "weird sisters" in Shakespeare's Macbeth and their incantation, "Double, double toil and trouble." Those sisters were also pretty good at seeing the future before it arrived.

But whatever the exact influences that are animating gold and silver prices, the "tone" of the precious metals markets has improved quite a bit this year.

From 2011 through the end of 2015, all news was bad news for precious metals. Not even the Bernanke-Yellen $4.5 trillion money-printing escapade called quantitative easing was able to revive the precious metals from their comatose state.

Today, however, precious metals seem all but unstoppable. All news is now good news. They are rallying on monetary factors and mystical influences alike. And then when all else fails, silver joins arms with its other "two sisters" and finds a way to rally even when gold doesn't.

This is what a bull market looks like, folks... And it has a long way to go.