The wild start for the financial markets earlier in the week has calmed quite a bit as the week has progressed. The VIX index has move steadily lower and gold has sold off the last few days as equities have stabilized.  China being off the grid overnight to celebrate its Victory national holiday certainly helped the markets consolidate. With China out, volume on the Comex exchange for December gold was light at just over 100,000 lots traded.  The short term trend in gold is lower and initial support is coming in at the double bottom set last week at $1,117.50.  Silver bucked gold’s price movement today and made modest gains.  It ultimately failed ahead of psychological resistance at $15 and the 50 day moving average at $15.05 though.