This post provides links to a number of interesting articles I have read over the past few days that you may also enjoy.

• Randall Forsyth (Barron’s): No bull! Rally hits the wall, August 19, 2009. Coming off a “sugar high,” stocks have stalled below the early August highs. Pause or correction?

• Brian Wesbury and Robert Stein (Forbes): This recovery is no sugar high, August 18, 2009. The way we see it, those who were pessimistic about stocks and the economy early this year are going through the classic five stages of grief. First, they denied a recovery was going to happen anytime soon. Then they lashed out with anger at those who spotted signs of the recovery. Now, they are bargaining, admitting the existence of the recovery that they did not see coming, but belittling it. Next, as things keep

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There was a brief flurry of excitement in Globex trading on Sunday evening’s New York open. Both gold and silver were up right out of the starting gate…silver especially so.

The U.S. bullion banks [the only ones allowed to trade at that time of day] were either going long or covering shorts. This rally continued through the Sydney open in gold…and into the beginning of trading in Hong Kong for silver. At those two points, a not-for-profit seller showed up…or the buying/short covering stopped. Those were the highs of the day in both metals. It’s quite unusual for the not-for-profit sellers/price cappers to hit the metals at two widely separated times like this. Almost without exception, they hit both metals at precisely the same time. I should quickly point out that trading volume in New York on Sunday night…and in Sydney and the Far East early Monday morning….was basically air in

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blockquote“A significant amount, if not all, of the speculative attacks on the ruble are funded by the central bank itself,” said Vladimir Osakovsky, Moscow-based economist for UniCredit/blockquotepThe underlying dynamics of the current ruble devaluation are provoking more than a little consternation in Russia at the moment. In the forefront of the debate are data from Bank Rossii (the central bank) which show they lent 7.7 trillion rubles ($214 billion) in overnight and seven-day loans (secured with bonds or other collateral) in just 16 trading days last month - this was about double the 4.8 trillion rubles provided via so-called repurchase auctions in December. Over the same period the ruble lost 18 percent against the dollar. The question is, is there a connection here?/ppRussia's banking authorities now certainly seem to think there is and Kommersant reported (Friday) that policy makers planned to reduce bank loans in an attempt to limit ...