On Vacation

Back the latter part of October.

“The world is being ravaged by a handful of tyrants.” — Pope Leo XIV

 

Just Charts for Tuesday - Market Capitalism Falls into Vanity and Greed

 

It is sad to see the global markets become increasingly irrelevant as the rule of law falls into vanity and greed. 

"My warning to subscribers remains the same: do not confuse the price blinking on your screen with some immutable statement about economic reality.

This isn’t the stock market of the 1980s or 1990s. We now have zero day options, enormous passive vehicles, algorithmic strategies, volatility products, dealer gamma hedging and trillions of dollars responding mechanically to price.

After more than a decade of zero rates, QE and monetary intervention, I increasingly think we’re staring at a financial mirage, a fiat driven, QE induced hallucination where price temporarily becomes its own justification.

Nothing feels particularly real anymore.

But that’s the funny thing about a mirage, it all looks perfectly real right up until you try to drink the water."

QTR Research

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Lone and Level Wastes Stretch Far Away

 

"I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:

'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."

Percy Shelley, Ozymandias

"The Son of Man will depart as it is written of him, but woe to the one by whom the Son of Man is betrayed. It would have been better that he had never been born.”

Matthew 26:24

"While some of the crowd were speaking about how the temple was adorned with costly stones and offerings, he said,  'All that you see here, the days will come when there will not be left a stone upon another stone that will not be thrown down.'  

Then they asked him, 'Teacher, when will this happen?   And what sign will there be when all these things are about to happen?'  And He said to them, 'Where death is, there a gathering of vultures will be.'”

Luke 21:5-7, 37 

Since they didn't even bother to provide a plausible reason for the aggressive strike on another country while in the midst of peace negotiations, it should not surprise that they did not bother to provide a plausible rational for today's record breaking rally in stocks, and slamming of the price of crude oil.

Regarding the stock market action today Jason Goefpert observes:

There are 2 days in history like today, when the S&P 500 $SPY rallied at least 1% to within 1% of a new high, and more of its stocks fell to new lows than highs.

• Jul 23, 1929
• Dec 21, 1999

This is a dangerous narrowing of a highly stretched Index valuation without a base of more general growth in the broader market.   It is a sign of a topping secular mania.

The witch of November is waiting. 

There will be an option expiration for the precious metals futures option expiration on the Comex this week on Thursday the 24th.

The SP futures set a new high.  The NDX tried its best but could not quite do it. 

Bitcoin rallied sharply today breakup out of its short term trading range.   Let's see if they can build on this.

Volatility remains subdued,  remarkably.

I will be leaving on vacation later this week and will not be checking emails or posting items here, except perhaps on a hit or miss basis. 

I have not been to Asia in a very long time, and I am looking forward to sharing what I see there when I get back.    

Have a pleasant evening. 

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Great Emptiness of Worldly Pride

 

"The thing now is to live in the world in which you are, not to think or dream about the world you would like to be in.  Look at people’s sufferings, physical and mental, you have them close at hand, and this ought to be a good remedy for your troubles.  Another way is to take a rest whenever you ought to take one and collect yourself.

As to religious thoughts I do not think the craving for placidity is religious; I think a religious person regards placidity or peace as a gift from heaven, not as something one ought to hunt after.  Look at your patients more closely as human beings in trouble and enjoy more the opportunity you have to say ‘good night’ to so many people.  This alone is a gift from heaven which many people would envy you.  And this sort of thing ought to heal your frayed soul, I believe.  I think in some sense you don’t look at people’s faces closely enough."

Ludwig Wittgenstein, Letter to Maurice O’Connor Drury, February 1938

"If you are wise and understand God’s ways, prove it by living an honorable life, doing good works with the humility that comes from wisdom.  But if you are bitterly jealous and there is selfish ambition in your heart, don’t cover up the truth with boasting and lying.  For jealousy and selfishness are not God’s kind of wisdom. Such things are earthly, unspiritual, and demonic.  For wherever there is jealousy and selfish ambition, there you will find disorder and evil of every kind.

But the wisdom from above is first of all pure.  It is also peace loving, gentle at all times, and willing to yield to others. It is full of mercy and the fruit of good deeds.  It shows no favoritism and is always sincere.  And those who are peacemakers will plant seeds of peace and reap a harvest of righteousness."

James 3:13-18

"The blessed John the Evangelist lived in Ephesus until extreme old age.  His disciples could barely carry him to church and he could not muster the voice to speak many words.  During individual gatherings he usually said nothing but, 'Little children, love one another.'  The disciples and brothers in attendance, annoyed because they always heard the same words, finally said, 'Teacher, why do you always say this?'  He replied with a line worthy of John: 'Because it is the Lord's commandment, and if it alone is kept, it is sufficient.'"

Jerome, Commentary on Galatians, 4th century

And so we had another cooked up triple witching stock option expiration.

America is no longer a market capitalist country.   It is an oligarchy, and the veneer of democratic civility is growing increasing thin.

So stocks ended up in the green.

Oil fell (lol).

VIX fell.

Bitcoin rallied.   I don't have much optimism for Bitcoin, as I think it is being 'farmed' by insiders who are content to keep reaping the trading range.

Gold and silver rallied.

I think we are in for a difficult autumn and a brutal winter.

Remember to love one another, as the Lord has loved you.

I will be going on a real vacation (without my laptop) at the end of September, and I doubt I will be posting anything here at that time.   

Have a pleasant weekend. 

Stocked and Precious Metals Charts - The Proud Chains of Hell

 

"That one finally becomes the thing he violently fights is a fact that Hitler understood, in 1933, when he said, 'The great strength of the totalitarian state is that it forces those who fear it to imitate it.'"

Bayard Rustin, In Apprehension How Like a God, William Penn Lecture, 1948

“When pride comes, then comes disgrace. But with disgrace comes humility, and with humility comes wisdom.  The humility of the righteous will guide them, but the deceitfulness of the proud will destroy them."

Proverbs 11:2-3

"Our hearts are continually prone to wander from Him; prosperity and enjoyment all too easily satisfy us, dull our spiritual perception, and unfit us for full communion with Himself.  It is an unspeakable mercy that the Father comes with His chastisement, makes the world round us all dark and unattractive, leads us to feel more deeply our sinfulness, and for a time lose our joy in what was becoming so dangerous.  Though He has indeed no pleasure in afflicting us, He will not keep back even the most painful chastisement if He can but thereby guide His beloved child to come home."

Andrew Murray, Abide in Christ, 1895

“There are only two kinds of people in the end— those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, in the end, 'Thy will be done.'  All that are in Hell choose it.  Without that self-choice there could be no Hell.”

C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce, 1945

"For to admit that the Reich was a lie, and a mistake, that they were fanatical fools, and Hitler an incompetent creature of evil would be to admit that one was wrong, a failure, and worse, had become an accomplice to an unimaginable evil.  To accept that guilt, to admit one's complicity in such a horrendous assault on justice, to humble oneself and ask for forgiveness, would have taken a heroic act of self-awareness, humility and repentance.  

And worse, for these fanatics, it would diminish their pride, which was at the foundation of the most fervent supporters of such flamboyant excess.  That, and a desire to become beasts, to lose themselves in their mindless fanaticism, and escape the pain of being men.  And so they struck out, and killed everything that held up a mirror to their darkened souls, and showed them their pride was based on a lie."

Jesse, Seth the Arbiter of Chaos, 15 May 2018

"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. Behold, your house is now yours, but is made desolate."

Matthew 23:37-38

 

Stocks rallied today ahead of the big quad witch option expiration tomorrow.

Oil fell.

VIX fell.

Gold and silver rallied.

The Dollar rallied to the 100 handle, but still in a sideways chop.

What are the limits of vanity?   The deadly allure of the pride is that the proud lose sight of their limits.

Until they encounter reality.

Not one stone will be left standing on another when proud consequence is reaped.

Have a pleasant evening.