From today's Gartman Letter...... (12-28)

"COMMODITY PRICES ARE A BIT STRONGER as the dollar is a bit weaker, with the most notable change being the very strong performance of the "industrial/precious” metals platinum and palladium, both of which are up very sharply indeed on the carryover support from the news that these ETF will soon be available to the public and demand for the metals will rise accordingly if the history of the gold and silver ETFs are any reasonable indication. The decision by the SEC last week caught many off-guard for there was thought to be material opposition to these exchange traded funds by the auto industry and by other users, but the SEC has chosen to disregard the rather modest opposition that had arisen.

Gold too is strong, rising in all currency forms and we remain bullish of gold in terms of the EUR, Sterling and the Yen, wishing to continue to hedge away the usual dollar exposure that one has incumbent in a long position in gold predicated only in dollar terms. Shall we ever profit as largely as one might by owning gold in EUR, Sterling or Yen terms as one might by owning gold solely in US dollar terms? Likely we shall not, except for that period when the EUR is under pressure because of problems within the Union itself, however, by owning gold as we have we find ourselves open to far less volatility, and perhaps more importantly, we find ourselves better able to “sleep at night” holding our gold positions intact… and that, after all, is our objective: to hold larger positions that are insulated from random market noise and to add to them as our profits increase. Weathering harsh storms is part of the art of trading, and being long of gold in foreign currency terms caused us to suffer materially less strain than did our friends who owned gold solely in dollar terms."