Gold is setting price records, oil is climbing — but stocks are retreating Wednesday. What's going on? Art Cashin offered his market insights to CNBC.
"We saw some real resistance up at the [S&P] 1060, 1065 area" on Tuesday, Cashin said.
"But the amazing thing is that it's all about the dollar. Kind of like Gresham's Law*."
Cashin declared that "if you were sitting in a [floor] cage, you wouldn't be asking about anything from earnings to economic data. All you'd have to ask is, 'hey, Art, what's the dollar doing?' — and you'd know where gold, oil and stocks are going."
CNBC Data Pages:
Cashin conceded that belief in the US dollar's decline may be due to rumors — since denied — that certain "Arab states" sought a different reserve currency. But he said that such anxiety has a way of snowballing — and traders want to get out of greenbacks before an imagioned fall occurs.
"As long as the shopkeeper will take [the dollar], we'll buy gold" and any other hard assets we can, Cashin declared.
*Gresham's Law: "Bad money drives out good."
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Disclosures:
Disclosure information was not available for Cashin or his company.