Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Hope for the Faithful, Delusions for the Damned

 

“Man has places in his heart which do not yet exist, and into them enters suffering, in order that they may have life.”

Léon Bloy, Le Pèlerin de l'absolu, Bourg-la-Reine, 1914

“God is not ashamed of the lowliness of human beings.  God marches right in.  He chooses people as his instruments and performs his wonders where one would least expect them.  God is near to lowliness; he loves the lost, the neglected, the unseemly, the excluded, the weak and broken.  The celebration of Advent is possible only to those who are troubled in soul, who know themselves to be poor and imperfect, and who look forward to something greater to come."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Raising Up the Lowly, London, 17 December 1933

"The Lord did not come to make a display.  He came to heal and to teach suffering humanity.  For one who wanted to make a display the thing would have been to appear and dazzle the beholders.  But for Him Who came to heal and to teach, the way was not just to appear here, but to place Himself in the service of those who needed Him, and to be made known to them as they could accept it, not diminishing the value of His Divine presence by overwhelming their capacity to receive it."

Athanasius, On the Incarnation of the Word,  Alexandria 335 AD

All that takes place within us, around us, or through us, contains and conceals His divine action. All souls must admire and respect one another, walking along our path to the same goal, united in purpose and with the help of God's plan which, in its great variety, is in us all. To escape the pain caused by regret for the past or fear about the future, this is the rule to follow: leave the past to the infinite mercy of God, the future to His good Providence, and give the present wholly to His love by being faithful to His grace.”

Jean-Pierre de Caussade, L'Abandon a la Providence Divine, France, 1861

"Christ has no body but yours,
     No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
     Compassion on this world.

Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
     Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
     Yours are the eyes, you are his body.

Christ has no body now but yours,
     No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
     compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours."

Santa Teresa de Ávila

"In the Incarnation the whole human race recovers the dignity of the image of God. Thereafter, any attack, even on the least of men, is an attack on Christ, who took on the form of man, and in his own Person restored the image of God in all. Through our relationship with the Incarnation, we recover our true humanity, and at the same time are delivered from that perverse individualism which is the consequence of sin, and recover our solidarity with all mankind."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Nachfolge, Germany 1937

"Debt-fueled spending on AI is driving up the risk of a global financial crisis, central bankers have warned. The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) said on Sunday that 'excessive' spending on new AI data centres and opaque transactions risked a financial meltdown similar to the global credit crunch nearly two decades ago.

The BIS, known as the bank for central banks, said there was growing 'peril' in financial markets from the complex web of financial ties between AI giants, shadow banks and data centre builders unraveling. “Financial stability could be at risk in the event of an AI bust,” the BIS said. “Should hyperscalers slow or halt the aggressive pace of capex deployment, many borrowers across the supply chain could struggle to replace lost revenue and service their debt. The opacity of AI-sector financing compounds these vulnerabilities.”

Matthew Field, AI Boom Risks Global Financial Crash Say Central Banks, 28 June 2026


These are very confusing times indeed. 

And yet our calling for those who follow the Word remains the same.  Perhaps even more strongly put than in easy times of overabundance where the temptations to complacency harden some hearts.

I addressed the spark for today's stock rally earlier today here:  Why Are Stocks Rallying?

And stocks indeed rallied, with a single pause and backstep, into the close.

Non-Farm Payrolls report this Thursday, the last business day before the great 250th American Anniversary.

The Dollar fell a bit.

Bitcoin continues bouncing along the bottom of its intermediate trading range.

VIX fell.  All is well.

The first chart below compares the AI stock phenomenon to prior phenomena in the markets. 

Canal mania.   It's always something.

SpaceX bounced almost back to where it began its IPO journey.

There are a number of things worth watching this week.  

In particular the geopolitical developments in Iran and the Ukraine. 

Europe has taken up the mantle of trying to provoke Russia from a safe distance.  The EU leadership is anaemic and at times almost craven.  Sorry, but we all have our burdens, and the US certain has its own.

In Iran, the US government is continuing to engage in enormously expensive lengths to impose a Pax Judaica on the Near East, in its global and never ending quest for oil, minerals, and beachfront property development. 

But at the end of the day, we are held responsible for what we do, and the love we bring with us when we come home.  

We are to be in the world, but not of it.  And the temptation to let our love grow cold is powerful.  So many Christians have abandoned Christ, with a virulent piety worthy of the worst of the Pharisees.

In the end, the only real tragedy is not to have been a saint.

Have a pleasant evening. 

 

Why Are US Equities Rallying This Monday?

 

Is this just another 'Market Pumping Monday? 

I find it hard to believe the claims that an Administration could be blatantly manipulating the US stock markets for their own profit under a guise of controlling oil prices.  It's very base and greedy behaviour unbecoming of any leader of a Western democracy.  

Let's see if Iran's claims are false.  This is tiresome and very bad for the economy.

=======

Barak David from Axios on Sunday night an hour before the futures market opened announced a news 'scoop' that Iran has requested a peace talk at Doha.  The only other mentions of this in the media I saw were quotes of the Axios story. 

The stock futures rallied and oil fell.

And Iran denied it. Here is the latest.

The Hormuz Newsletter on X says again just now:

BREAKING: Iran's Foreign Ministry has directly rejected Trump's claim that Tehran requested a meeting in Doha—stating no negotiations at any level are scheduled with the U.S. in the coming days, per Fars News.

Foreign Ministry Spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei clarified that U.S. representatives traveling to Qatar—including special envoy Steve Witkoff—have no connection to the Iranian delegation's movements.

Trump had posted on Truth Social: "IRAN HAS REQUESTED A MEETING. IT WILL TAKE PLACE TOMORROW IN DOHA!"

Iran says otherwise. No request. No talks. No schedule. Trump is either lying—or trying to manipulate the market.

Very frustrating to see these opaque developments moving markets.

Let's see what happens.  Then we may know.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Great American Swindle

 

Personal Copy From My Library

"There was time when average Americans could be counted upon to know correctly whether the country was going up or down, because in those days when America prospered, the American people prospered as well.  These days things are different.

If you look at the middle of the 1930's (the Depression) up until the year 1980, the lower 90 percent of the population of this country, what you might call the American people, that group took home 70 percent of the growth in the country's income. 

If you look at the same numbers from 1997 up until now, from the height of the great Dot Com bubble up to the present, you will find that this same group, the American people, pocketed none of this country's income growth at all.

Our share of these great good times was zero, folks.  The upper ten percent of the population, by which we mean our country's financiers and managers and professionals, consumed the entire thing.  To be a young person in America these days is to understand instinctively the downward slope that so many of us are on."

Thomas Frank, What to Make of the Age of Trump, Kansas City, 6 April 2017

“Based on the value of the stock market compared to GDP, with modifications, this is the most expensive market in American history."

Jeremy Grantham, CNBC Interview, 26 June 2026

"I would say that practically all the financial journals were on the take.  This includes reporters for The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Herald-Tribune, you name it.  So if you were a pool operator, you'd call your friend at The Times and say, "Look, Charlie, there's an envelope waiting for you here and we think that perhaps you should write something nice about RCA."  And Charlie would write something nice about RCA.  A publicity man called A. Newton Plummer had canceled checks from practically every major journalist in New York City.

Then, they would begin to — what was called painting the tape. Now, what's happening is the stock goes from 10 to 15 to 20 and now, it's at 20 and you start buying, other people start buying at 30, 40. The original group, the pool, they've stopped buying. They're selling you the stock. It's now 50 and they're out of it. And what happens, of course, is the stock collapses."

Robert Sobel, The Crash of 1929,  PBS Frontline, April 24, 2012

"An investigation later discovered that business journalists for at least eight papers promoted stocks in their writing in return for bribes. The most embarrassing were at the Wall Street Journal. The revelations about the Journal reporters came out during hearings by the Senate Banking and Currency Committee in 1932, more than three years later, when Congressman Fiorello LaGuardia produced cancelled checks written to the Journal reporters from publicist A. Newton Plummer. The stories based on the bribes had gone as far back as 1923."

University of North Carolina, History of Business Journalism: 1920s

"I have come to realize that the vast majority of decent, wonderful people, have no idea how they are being hoodwinked day in and day out by the scum of this world. We are lied to, misled, bamboozled, suckered, cheated, misrepresented, conned, manipulated and royally screwed. They take us to the cleaners day in and day out in every way possible. We, the people, pay the price of their cheating, their folly, their lying and their sheer stupidity."

Pierre Rinfret, Parida.com, 2004 (before he passed on in 2006)

"Control frauds in the financial markets are by their very nature conspiratorial in that they involve the suborning of regulators, ratings agencies, exchanges, the media, and legislators to ignore and facilitate misrepresentation that enable white collar crime. They are difficult to prosecute because by their nature they involve twisting the legal into the extra-legal on a broad basis to achieve a particular financial effect, while limiting many specific aspects to the letter of the law, or at least the gray areas. By and large they operate in the shadows, hiding behind secrecy and a general mindset towards short term greed and lapses in ethics. Investigations following the Crash of 1929 and the S&L crisis demonstrated that the existence of such pervasive lapses in stewardship do exist."

Jesse, Control Frauds Extend Bubbles Maximizing Damage, 27 April 2010

"When the modern corporation acquires power over markets, power in the community, power over the state and power over belief, it is a political instrument, different in degree but not in kind from the state itself. To hold otherwise — to deny the political character of the modern corporation — is not merely to avoid the reality.  It is to disguise the reality."

John Kenneth Galbraith, Power and the Useful Economist, 1973


Stocks wobbled around today, as the geopolitical risks raise their ugly heads over the official proclamations and celebrations of peace.

Gold and silver bounced around as usual, finishing higher on the day.

Bitcoin in also bouncing around, stuck for now on the lower end of its intermediate trading range.

VIX of course fell.

We can't have any disappointments for Donnie's big 250th anniversary celebration of himself. 

Iran and Russia may not have gotten the memo.

Breaking News after the bell:  US forces struck Iranian missile and drone storage locations and coastal radar sites today as a response to Iran's drone attack yesterday on a cargo ship in the Strait of Hormuz, per CENTCOM.  These are the first US strikes since the MOU was signed.

If you are getting your news from the ideologically/financially aligned mainstream news channels, you may have no idea what is going on, and what is coming your way. 

I can remember an online acquaintance telling me in the aftermath of 9/11 and the aggressive campaign for waging war on Iraq that he could not bear to watch anything but Fox News.   

I made a promise to myself that if the whole WMD agitprop turned out to be false, I would never watch the mainstream media channels again.  And it was false, and I no longer watch them.  

It is not news, it is not journalism.  It is performative art for pay.  

So we move forward into the holiday-shortened trading week to come.   

What the Epstein files need now is a new Daniel Ellsberg.  They really are that bad.  They will never be willingly released by either party.  Insiders take care of their own and don't criticize each other, as they say in the halls of power. 

Have a pleasant weekend.  

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Time to Come Home

 

"The Lord requires you to act justly, and to love kindness and mercy, and to walk humbly with your God."

Micah 6:8

"The dazzling and consuming act of pride that transformed the angel of light into a prince of darkness condemned him to an insatiable, desperate to acquire. The loss of the wellspring of life gives rise to an essentially inextinguishable thirst. The entire world can not fill the emptiness. Having fallen from the eternal, Satan's desires are endless and insatiable. Having fallen from pure Being, he seeks to possess. All he takes into himself he destroys."

Denis de Rougemont, Switzerland, 1944

“Addiction might be the best word to explain the lostness that so deeply permeates society.  Our addiction make us cling to what the world proclaims as the keys to self-fulfillment: accumulation of wealth and power; attainment of status and admiration; lavish consumption of food and drink, and sexual gratification without distinguishing between lust and love.  These addictions create expectations that cannot but fail to satisfy our deepest needs. 

As long as we live within the world's delusions, our addictions condemn us to futile quests leaving us to face an endless series of disillusionments while our sense of self remains unfulfilled.  In these days of increasing addictions, we have wandered far away from our Father's home.  The addicted life can aptly be designated a life lived in 'a distant country.'  It is from there that our cry for deliverance rises up.”

Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Return of the Prodigal Son

"All sin, indeed, when repented of, He will put away; but pride hardens the heart against repentance, and sensuality debases it to a brutal nature."

John Henry Newman

"Almighty God lets the sinner go his own way, for He has given to man free-will, and does not want a forced obedience, but an obedience springing from love.  The sinner falls under the dominance of Satan, and becomes the slave of his lowest passions, which are signified by the swine which the prodigal was forced to feed.  But the more he obeys his passions, the more dissatisfied he becomes.  He feels an emptiness and spiritual hunger in his heart which he is powerless to satisfy.  He only knows that he is miserable, and hateful to himself."

Friedrich Justus Knecht, The Prodigal Son, 1910


Turn away from the fatal embrace of your empty desires, your gripes and petty peeves, and come home. 

With loving kindness, in joy and forgiveness, you will be received into the house that has been prepared by your loving father.   

Do not think,  'Forgiven? I can never be forgiven.'  Or in the hardened hearts, 'Forgiven?  I have done nothing wrong.  I only did what was necessary for myself and my family. And I dealt with others in the world with God's own justice as is my right.'

Come home, and be forgiven.   Angels will rejoice and the devils will curse and grind their teeth.

The hour is growing late.  This is the twilight of the gods of the world. 

Time to come home. 

Stocks popped wildly higher in the overnight futures, with the beat in the Micron earnings sparked hopes in an extension of the Tech Bubble part deux, aka AI Über alles.

This on top of 'reasonably good news' on the economy this morning.

Not constructive for the bullish agenda.

Bitcoin has dropped to the bottom of its intermediate trading range.

Gold and silver bounced back a bit on this option expiration day on the Comex.

These expirations often mark bottoms.  We may get another 'gut punch' to test the resolve of those few brave souls who took fresh futures contracts from in the money calls.

VIX went higher.

A ship was stopped by force in the Strait of Hormuz today as it tried to move past the Iranian position through the US recommended southern portion of the channel.

Risks are wildly mispriced.  The tech bubble seems to be topping, judging by all those 'well reasoned' pieces coming out now saying that it isn't.

The numbers don't lie.  But they can be useful accoutrements to embellish the lures of the Wall Street bubblemeisters.

The hour is growing late. This is the twilight of the gods of the world. 

But your soul will still be, even as the stars burn out, and scatter into dust. 

Repent your prodigal heart, and come home.

Have a pleasant evening.