Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Shattered Ornaments of Grotesque Vanity

 

"The fact he could publicly project an Antichrist image with pride, having no fear of reprisal, and his seeming diabolical art of escaping all punishment when others who were considered heretics had burned at the stake for less, would certainly signal that an unnatural individual walked in their midst.  It is true in many respects he assumed the role of the charlatan, yet how apropos, considering his willingness to follow the Father of Lies and deception.”

E.A. Bucchianeri, Faust: My Soul Be Damned for the World, 2008

"Because of your hard and unrepentant hearts you store up wrath for the Day when God's righteous judgement will be revealed, who will render to each according to what they have done."

Romans 2:5-6

"Whoever today still doubts the reality, the existence of demonic powers, has failed by a wide margin to understand the metaphysical background of this war.  Behind the concrete, the visible events, behind all objective, logical considerations, we find the irrational element: the struggle against the demon, against the servants of the Antichrist."

The White Rose, Fourth Leaflet, Munich, 1942

"We sit by and watch the barbarian. We tolerate him in the long stretches of peace, we are not afraid. We are tickled by his irreverence; his comic inversion of our old certitudes; we laugh. But as we laugh we are watched by large and awful faces from beyond, and on these faces there are no smiles.”

Hilaire Belloc

"But if not, I will not bow, and God grant that we will never bow, before the gods of evil."

Martin Luther King, But If Not, Ebenezer Baptist Church, 5 November 1967 

Having tired of blowing bubbles, the boys of Wall Street have left for their havens in the Hamptons.

Stocks finished at all time highs.

Gold and silver were hit and then recovered a bit.  Silver itself was impressive.

The Dollar edged higher.  As the epitome of world power, how could it not?

VIX is sending out quiet SOS signals.

Bitcoin closed unchanged from yesterday after the usual sturm und drang of the insubstantial.

It appears as though the GOP's signature 'Big, Beautiful Bill' will be passed.

The masks keep falling away as the boldness of the darkness gathers and grows.

And the day of reckoning draws nearer. 

Have a pleasant holiday weekend.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Idylls of Betrayers and Conmen

 

"The political order, once a decentralized set of several dozen states with a weak spinal cord, has become a centralized executive establishment which has taken up into itself many powers previously scattered.  The military order, once a slim establishment in a context of distrust fed by state militia, has become the largest and most expensive feature of government.

A society that is merely expedient does not produce men of conscience.  A society that narrows the meaning of ‘success’ to the big money and in its terms condemns failure as the chief vice, raising money to the plane of absolute value, will produce the sharp operator and the shady deal.  Blessed are the cynical, for only they have what it takes to succeed."

C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite, 1956

"What I see here is a toxic relationship between deregulation, underpriced risk, and exorbitant, inefficient pay scales that contribute to the growth of inequality, not to mention the shampoo economy: bubble, bust, repeat."

Jared Bernstein, A Generation of Economists Helped Get Us Into This Mess, September 13, 2019

“Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. And what is this liberty which must lie in the hearts of men and women?  It is not the ruthless, the unbridled will; it is not freedom to do as one likes. That is the denial of liberty, and leads straight to its overthrow.  A society in which men recognize no check upon their freedom soon becomes a society where freedom is the possession of only a savage few, as we have learned to our sorrow."

Judge Learned Hand, The Spirit of Liberty, 21 May 1944

"Thus did a handful of rapacious citizens come to control all that was worth controlling in America. Thus was the savage and stupid and entirely inappropriate and unnecessary and humorless American class system created. Honest, industrious, peaceful citizens were classed as bloodsuckers, if they asked to be paid a living wage. Thus the American dream turned belly up, turned green, bobbed to the scummy surface of cupidity unlimited, filled with gas, went bang in the noonday sun."

Kurt Vonnegut, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, April 5, 1965

"Injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured."

Martin Luther King, Letter From a Birmingham Jail, April 16, 1963

"For these are a rebellious people, deceitful children.  They say to their seers,‘Do not see!’ and to the prophets,‘Say nothing of what is right!  Tell us only things that please us, prophesy illusions."

Isaiah 30:8-10

The markets will be watching for the Non-Farm Payrolls report tomorrow morning.

The volumes on the market, barring something unforeseen, will be increasingly subdued as Wall Street slides into a three day, holiday weekend.

Markets will be closed on Friday in observance of July 4th.

Bitcoin is hovering near its all time high.

Stocks managed to squeeze out another rally.

Gold and silver rebounded.

VIX is submissive to complacency.

The Dollar looks to be comfortable on the 96 handle.

It is hard to believe how badly things have turned out, as the masks of deceit continue to fall away. 

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Wild Chase

 

"The days of chastisement are coming, and judgement is at hand. Their sins are many, and their hatred great. They think prophets fools, and the righteous mad. Even the faithful are deep in their corruption. God is mindful, and holds them to account for their lawlessness."

Hosea 9:7-9

"As dawn was breaking angels urged Lot, saying, ‘Hurry! Take your wife and your daughters who are here, or you will be swept away when the city is punished.’ When he hesitated, they grasped his hand and the hands of his wife and daughters and led them to safety out of the city, for the Lord was merciful to them...

Then the Lord rained down fire and brimstone from the sky on Sodom and Gomorrah. He devastated them, along with the other cities and villages of the plain, wiping out all the people and every form of vegetation. Lot’s wife looked back as she was following, and turned into a pillar of salt.

Abraham rose early that morning and hurried out to that place where he had stood in the Lord’s presence. He looked out across the plain toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and watched as dark columns rose from the cities like smoke from a furnace."

Genesis 19:15-16,24-28

"To enter hell is to be banished from humanity. What is cast (or casts itself) into hell is not a man: it is 'remains.'  To be a complete man means to have the passions obedient to the will and the will offered to God: to have been a man – to be an ex-man or 'damned ghost' – would presumably mean to consist of a will utterly centered in its self and passions utterly uncontrolled by the will."

C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, 1940

“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


And so we toddle on into the second half of 2025.

I have trouble finding reliable sources of information these days. 

And when it comes to making careless, clickbait statements of speculation,  excess is considered the rule.

This is the age of puffery.  And the cheeto-bandito is the puffiest.

Stocks finished the day unchanged to lower.

Gold and silver rallied higher, but gave up a chunk of their gains as the day wore on.

There will be a Non-Farm Payrolls report this Thursday in a holiday shortened week.

VIX is low and complacency is high.

The Dollar has firmly slid off the 97 handle.  

The Euro is not a suitable replacement for the Dollar as a global reserve currency.

I would think that a basket of leading currencies, and at least gold, might be more acceptable.

And those currencies should reflect the current state of the world economy.  

But before then, we have to get past the current crop of growing and festering world crises.

So, in the short term, gold looks like the best bet, with some additional allocation to silver.

Other metals are primarily an industrial play that may be quite profitable.  But not from a monetary perspective.

As the Dollar falters, it is likely to be a wild chase. 

Have a pleasant evening. 

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Great Sifting of Sins

 

"Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man.  It’s the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest.  Pride is spiritual cancer: it eats up the very possibility of love, or contentment, or even common sense.”

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

"What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works?  Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill’, and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that?  So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead."

James 2:14-17

"They have become twisted in their reasoning, and their foolish hearts are darkened."

Romans 1:21

“Not everyone who calls me Lord will enter God’s kingdom.  The only people who will enter are those who do what my Father in heaven wants.  On that last Day many will call me Lord. They will say, ‘Lord, Lord, by the power of your name we spoke for God.  And by your name we forced out demons and did many miracles.’  Then I will tell those people clearly, ‘Get away from me, you who are lawless. I never knew you."

Matthew 7:21-23

“'You that are cursed, depart from me into the eternal darkness prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.'  Then they will answer, 'Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?' Then he answered, 'Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’”

Matthew 25:40-46

"You should become resigned to the fact that you will seem ridiculous to a race of janitors and bureaucrats if you are to enter the service of His Splendor.  Then you will know what it means to be the friend of God. The Friend of God!"

Léon Bloy

"Wonderful providence indeed which is so silent, yet so efficacious, so constant, so unerring.  This is what baffles the power of Satan.  He cannot discern the Hand of God in what goes on; and though he would fain meet it and encounter it, in his mad and blasphemous rebellion against heaven, he cannot find it.  Crafty and penetrating as he is, yet his thousand eyes and his many instruments avail him nothing against the majestic serene silence, the holy imperturbable calm which reigns through the providence of God."

John Henry Newman

 

And so we see the end of the first half of 2025.   The paint on the tape is drying.

Our illusions, our willful distortion of what is real, is in place. 

Stocks managed to squeeze out another late day rally to finish at all time highs.

This is a vanity market.  And as always, part of the great wealth transfer scam that is now the US economy.

Gold and silver moved higher.   

The Dollar gave up the 97 handle.

VIX is wallowing in complacency.

If you cannot see what is happening, in this great sifting of sins and the revelation of lawlessness, then your eyes are closed and your hearts have hardened.

Look carefully to what it is that you serve.

It breaks my heart to see those who have been among the faithful sliding peacefully into the abyss.

And for what?   A corrupt politician?  A vicious set of policies?   The despoliation of law?  Simple murder?   Personal vanity and greed?  

They have given themselves over to their desires,  thinking themselves to be righteous. 

And the regrets when their eyes are opened will be the torments of their hell.. 

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - And All the Consequences

 

"Time to move the blame to where it really belongs.  That means no more coddling banks with bailout billions marked 'secret.'  No more allowing their executives lavish bonuses and new corporate jets as if they’ve won the megalottery and not sent the economy down the tubes.  And no more apostles of Wall Street calling the shots."

Bill Moyers, Changing the Rules of the Blame Game, Bill Moyers Journal, April 7, 2009

"Over the past 30 years the plutocrats have used their vastly increased wealth to capture the flag and assure the government does their bidding. Remember that Citigroup reference to "market-friendly governments" on their side? It hasn't mattered which party has been in power — government has done Wall Street's bidding.

This marriage of money and politics has produced an America of gross inequality at the top and low social mobility at the bottom, with little but anxiety and dread in between, as middle class Americans feel the ground falling out from under their feet. So it is that like those populists of that earlier era, millions of Americans have awakened to a sobering reality: they live in a plutocracy, where they are disposable. Then, the remedy was a popular insurgency that ignited the spark of democracy.  Now we have come to another parting of the ways, and once again the fate and character of our country are up for grabs. Democracy only works when we claim it as our own."

Bill Moyers, Bill Moyers Journal (last episode), 30 April 2010

"That sound of shattered glass you’ve been hearing is the iconic portrait of Jamie Dimon splintering as it hits the floor of JPMorgan Chase.  As the Good Book says, 'Pride goeth before a fall,' and the sleek silver-haired, too-smart-for-his-own-good CEO of America’s largest bank has been turning every television show within reach into a confessional booth.  Barack Obama’s favorite banker faces losses of $2 billion and possibly more – all because of the complex, now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t trading in exotic financial instruments that he has so ardently lobbied Congress not to regulate.

Once again, doing God’s work — that is, betting huge sums of money with depositor funds knowing that you are too big to fail and can count on taxpayers riding to your rescue if your avarice threatens to take the country down — has lost some of its luster. The jewels in Dimon’s crown sparkle with a little less grandiosity than a few days ago, when he ridiculed Paul Volcker’s ideas for keeping Wall Street honest as 'infantile.'”

Bill Moyers, Are JPMorgan's Losses the Canary in the Coal Mine?, May 16, 2012

"America's corporate and political elites now form a regime of their own and they're privatizing democracy. All the benefits - the tax cuts, policies and rewards flow in one direction: up. They (the corporations) are counting on your patriotism to distract you from their plunder. They're counting on you to stand at attention with your hand over your heart, pledging allegiance to the flag, while they pick your pocket.

In one way or another, this is the oldest story in America: the struggle to determine whether 'we, the people' is a spiritual idea embedded in a political reality - one nation, indivisible - or merely a charade masquerading as piety and manipulated by the powerful and privileged to sustain their own way of life at the expense of others."

Bill Moyers, September 23, 2016

And so we close in on the end of the first half of 2025.  And Donnie will be bragging about the stock markets being at new all time highs.

It's no longer Biden's market.  Or wars.   He owns it now.  And all the usual consequences.

The elite don't care.  Our rulers are not even concerned.  They don't believe in laws, or justice, or plagues. 

US markets will be closed next Friday for the Fourth of July.

The market in equities is at a bubble high in my estimation.  

Gold and silver were smacked down so the metals bears can minimize their paper losses and maximize their gains. 

'So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.'

And judgement waits. 

Have a pleasant weekend. 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Blind Tyranny of Shameful Foolishness

 

"They defended him, verbally and physically, every time he committed one of his criminal acts. They went blithely on past the suffering of all the bombing victims, the prisoners in the concentration camps, and the religious persecutors, because a different regime would have meant the end of their power."

Friedrich Reck-Malleczewen, Diary of a Man in Despair, 1947

"For these are a rebellious people, deceitful children, unwilling to listen to the commandments of the Lord. They say to their seers,‘Do not see!’ and to the prophets,‘Say nothing of what is right! Tell us only things that please us, prophesy illusions."

Isaiah 30:8-10

"Foolishness is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice.  One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force.  Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own downfall in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease.

Against such foolishness we are defenseless.  Neither protests nor the use of force accomplish anything here; reasons fall on deaf ears; facts that contradict one’s prejudgment simply need not be believed — in such moments the foolish person even becomes critical — and when facts are irrefutable, they are just pushed aside as inconsequential, as incidental.  In all this the foolish person, in contrast to the malicious one, is utterly self-satisfied and, being easily irritated, becomes dangerous by going on the attack.

For that reason, greater caution is called for dealing with a foolish person than with a malicious one.  Never again will we try to persuade the foolish person with reason, for it is senseless and dangerous.  If we want to know how to get the better of foolishness, we must seek to understand its nature.  This much is certain, that it is in essence not an intellectual defect but a human one.  There are human beings who are of remarkably agile intellect yet foolish, and others who are intellectually quite dull yet anything but foolish. 

The fact that the foolish person is often stubborn must not blind us to the fact that he is not independent. In conversation with him, one virtually feels that one is dealing not at all with a person, but with slogans, catchwords and the like that have taken possession of him.  He is under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in his very being. Having thus become a mindless tool, the foolish person will also be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil. This is where the danger of diabolical misuse lurks, for it is this that can once and for all destroy human beings. 

We must abandon all attempts to convince the foolish person. The word of the Bible that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom declares that the internal liberation of human beings to live the responsible life before God is the only genuine way to overcome foolishness."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, executed on April 9, 1945

Foolishness has overreached.  If you cannot see this by this point, you cannot see. 

All that remains is for them is failure after failure, and the sickening downfall, and judgement in this life or the next.

Stocks rallied once again.

The complacency in the VIX is apparent.

Gold lost a bit of ground, silver gained.

The gold miners ignored the paper metal and were bought by the smart money.

The Dollar continues to slide.

And so it goes down the familiar halls of history. 

Have a pleasant evening.