Last night the Far East and Australian equity markets were down, as are the London, European and U.S. markets this morning. This morning Eastern Daylight Time:

• The Dow Futures and S&P Futures were down 213 points and 26 points respectively at 9:00 a.m., and at time of writing (10:00 a.m.) 30 minutes after the markets opened were down 346 points (3.1%) and 40 points (3.3%) respectively.

• Gold and silver prices were up (U.S.$) $27.61 to $1,817.73 and $0.33 to $40.65 respectively. At 10:00 a.m. gold and silver were up $25.90 and $$0.31 respectively.

• At 8:30 the U.S. Jobless Claims number for the week ended August 6 was announced at 409,000, 9,000 higher than 'economists estimates'. The previous week's number, initially reported at 395,000, was revised to 399,000 - which sounds like pricing something at $2.99 instead of $3.00 to me. I commented in my August 16 e-mail on what I think are nonsensical, knee-jerk reactions by the U.S. equity markets to reports such as this - see my commentary 'Grasping At Peanuts'.

I am taking what for StockResearchPortal.com is the unusual step of sending a brief 'second e-mail commentary' to you this morning. The reasons I am doing this are:

• When I got up this morning at 6:00 a.m. ET the gold price was up about $15, I think probably based on recent continuing Eurozone news. Certainly it could have had little to do with the U.S. Jobless Claims report, as that report was over 2 hours away from release.

• I continue to find the U.S. equities markets reaction to small bits of data that don't matter as I see things to any reasoned view on the U.S. economy or the world economy both nonsensical and knee-jerk. My reason is that most such data is immaterially different from week to week, and I would have thought in line with what ought to be expectations of continued U.S. general economic 'morass'. This type of market reaction makes the equity markets for me ever less credible when viewed on a day/day basis. I suggest you need to reach your own conclusion on my view on the equity markets, and speak with your investment advisor about 'current equities markets credibility' if you are not already doing that on a regular basis.

• It seems to me that whether it proves in the end to be right or wrong, the gold market, viewed from the perspective of physical gold as a 'safe haven', is sending loud and clear message. That message may be falling on a lot of 'deaf ears'. Again, I suggest you speak with your investment advisor about my view on this, if you are not already doing that.

There are lots of warning signs out there, or so I think. That said, there were a number of 'differently informed' people on the Titanic moments before it hit the iceberg. At extremes there were:

• those having dinner in their black ties and ballroom gowns who were laughing and making merry, thinking only about the good times they were having while oblivious to the iceberg; and,

• those standing on the bow who saw the iceberg from a 300-yard distance. Those people were putting their life jackets on, and beginning to head for the lifeboats.

If you are currently trying your formal clothes on, you might think hard about whether that is the right thing to do today, tomorrow, and the next day.

Disclosure: I indirectly own, and control ownership of, both physical gold and physical silver.