Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Refusing to See, Hardening Their Hearts

 

"We want to go on the record, here and now, that the past scandals of the New York Stock Exchange are going to look like minor hiccups when the history of the current New York Stock Exchange era is written. The listing standards for companies that the New York Stock Exchange allows to trade under its imprimatur is the worst in its history."

Pam Martens, Wall Street On Parade, 30 December 2021

"What normalization does is transform the morally extraordinary into the ordinary. It makes us able to tolerate what was once intolerable by making it seem as if this is the way things have always been.

The dangers of fascist politics come from the particular way in which it dehumanizes segments of the population. It limits the capacity for empathy among other citizens, leading to the justification of inhumane treatment, from repression of freedom, mass imprisonment, and expulsion to, in extreme cases, mass extermination."

Jason Stanley, How Fascism Works, 2018

"In this respect our townsfolk were like everybody else, wrapped up in themselves; in other words they were exceptional humans: they did not believe in plagues.'It's impossible that there could be a plague, because everyone knows that they have vanished from the West. We should not act as though half the town were threatened with death, because then it would be.'  Yes, everyone knew that, except for the dead.

Our townsfolk were not more to blame than others; they forgot to be human, that was all, and thought that everything still was possible for them; which presupposed that plagues were impossible. They went on doing business, arranged for journeys, and formed views. How could they have given a thought to anything like a plague, which rules out any future, cancels journeys, silences the exchange of views. They fancied themselves free, and no one will ever be free so long as there are plagues."

Albert Camus, The Plague, 1947

“Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be powerful earthquakes, famines, and plagues from place to place; and awesome sights and mighty signs will come from the sky."

Luke 21:10-11

Stocks sold off early, on signs that the 'peace' in the Mideast is an illusion.

Gold was sold but bounced back a bit.  Silver shook off the sellers and gained for the day.

VIX fell of course.

The Dollar continues to hang around the 98 handle.

Japan is selling dollars to support the yen.  But their portion of the DXY index is not large enough to move it.

Bitcoin fell back to support on the higher end of the 80k handle.

I continue to believe, very strongly, that if the 'peace' with Iran falls apart, the markets are going to crater, and take a number of things with them.

But cooler heads *might* prevail.   

Donald regrets getting himself into this, against the advice of his own intelligence agencies and military.

But Netanyahu wants to dominate the area, and Iran stands in his way.

Why Trump allows himself to be used in this way is a puzzle.  Every president since Reagan has been approached with the same proposition, and turned it down.

Perhaps some day the truth will be revealed.  

In the meantime, the mispricing of risk continues.

Let's hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. 

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - In These Final Hours

 

"The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see nothing but sand;  the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone".

George Eliot, Scenes of Clerical Life, 1858

"The human spirit will not even begin to try to surrender self-will as long as all seems to be well with it. Now error and sin both have this property, that the deeper they are the less their victim suspects their existence; they are masked evil.  Pain is unmasked, unmistakable evil; every man knows that something is wrong when he is being hurt.  And pain is not only immediately recognisable evil, but evil impossible to ignore.

We can rest contentedly in our sins and in our stupidities; and anyone who has watched gluttons shoveling down the most exquisite foods as if they did not know what they were eating, will admit that we can ignore even pleasure.  But pain insists upon being attended to.  God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world."

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

"Behold, I am standing at the door, knocking. If one of you hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and dine with that person, and that person with me."

Revelation 3:20

"God is constantly knocking at the gate of my heart to invite me to go beyond the state I have reached, because my whole life should be a journey on the way to Love.  I cannot give a renewed assent to Love, nor above all can I give a more intensified assent than hitherto, unless a divine movement comes secretly to my heart to help it ascend higher.  I can refuse it.  But if I let God act he will raise me further, step by step, to a greater love."

Charles Journet, The Meaning of Grace, 1960

"This great masquerade of evil has played havoc with all our ethical concepts. For evil to appear disguised as light, compassion, historical necessity or even social justice is quite bewildering to anyone brought up on traditional concepts. The Incarnation is the ultimate reason why the service of God cannot be divorced from the service of man.

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, The Cost of Discipleship, 1937

"And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth."

John 1:14

A person who does not read, who has not explored and reflected upon the thoughts and experiences of those from other lands and times, those gone before us, is left stumbling through life, afflicted with what the Buddhists call the three poisons: greed, hate, and delusion. 

And many grow quite comfortable with that impairment, with the notion that their cravings are the principal laws of the world.  And they will destroy all that is the truth, and offends their hollowness. They raise their flags on fields of barbaric self-absorption, and attempt to fill the great hole in their being with things and structures and people whom they consume.

It is the role of the law, and the duty of good people through all time, to restrain the bestial spirit which possesses those given over to madness, who if they can will live on the flesh of the innocent.

Let us not judge those who have been derelict in their duty toward God and their fellow men in days gone by, but rather learn from them, and not place that mantle of disreputable guilt on ourselves and our children.

Stocks managed to gather themselves and squeeze a little higher yet, falling back a bit into the close.

There is little doubt in my mind that this is a purposeful distortion of the markets for a number of reasons, the most potent of which is the need for gilding the lily of failure by those unworthy few in power. But primarily to help to disguise their looting, and their future plans for retaining it.

As one of their vile breed once said, 'Never waste a crisis.'

Gold managed to rally higher again after its recent event-driven shellacking.  But silver bolted higher, with the force and momentum that never ceases to amaze.

The industrial component of silver is powerful, but also a two-edged sword of beta volatility.  

VIX ticked up a bit, but is still in a fog of delusion.

Bitcoin is continuing to break up and out of its trading range.  So far the action looks more calculated than organic.  But we'll know more at overhead resistance. 

Inflation data tomorrow.

A serious economic dislocation is gathering on the horizon.   And the captain and crew of the goodly ship of state are busy looting the purser's office, and walking the decks saying 'all is well'.

Who could have seen it coming?

Have a pleasant evening.

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Drenched by Storms, Faithful to the Last

 

"The world does not understand what our real power is, and where it lies.  And until we put ourselves into its hands of our own act, it can do nothing against us.  Till we leave off patience, meekness, purity, resignation, and peace, it can do nothing against that Truth which is our birthright, that Cause which is ours, as it has been the cause of all saints before us.  But let all who would labour for God in a dark time beware of any thing which ruffles, excites, and in any way withdraws them from the love of God and Christ, and simple obedience to Him."

John Henry Newman, The Weapons of Saints, 29 October 1837

"The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him."

G.K. Chesterton, Illustrated London News, December 31, 1910

"His instruments are poor and despised; the world hardly knows their names. They are busied about what the world thinks petty, and no one minds them. They are apparently set on no great works; nothing is seen to come of what they do: they seem to fail. But there is an unseen connection in the kingdom of God. Such is the rule of our warfare. We rise by falling; we inherit the earth through meekness; we gain comfort through mourning; we earn glory by penitence and prayer. Heaven and earth shall sooner fall than this rule be reversed; it is the law of Christ's kingdom, and nothing can reverse it but sin."

John Henry Newman, Joshua, Christ and His Followers, 13 April 1834

"Seek the Lord, all you humble of the earth, you who carry out what He commands. Seek righteousness, and seek humility, that you may find shelter on the day of the Lord’s wrath."

Zephaniah 2:3

"I know there is a God – and I see a storm coming. If he has a place for me, I believe that I am ready.'”

John F Kennedy, from James Douglass, JFK's Rendezvous with Death, November 2009

"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 providences of God. He makes a guess here, or does a bold act there, but all in the dark. If even devils, sagacious as they are, spirits by nature and experienced in evil, cannot detect His hand while He works, how can we hope to see it except by that way which the devils cannot take, by loving faith."

John Henry Newman, Christ Manifested in Remembrance, 19 May 1833

"The Beatitudes remain a paradox only for those who believe that God is other than how Christ reveals him. Those who expect the arrogant to always rule the earth are surprised by the Lord’s words. Those who are accustomed to thinking that happiness belongs to the rich may believe that Jesus is deluded. However, the delusion lies precisely in the lack of faith in Christ. He is the poor man who shares his life with everyone, the meek man who perseveres in suffering, the peacemaker persecuted to death on the cross."

Pope Leo XIV, Angelus Address, 1 February 2026

 

If, say six months from now, you could look back on this time, what would you do differently?

Think about it.   And then do it now, and not when you are looking back with regret.

Stocks powered to a new high, setting the bubble and all that follows from it firmly in place.

This is the hubris of worldly power gone mad.

Gold and silver bounced a bit.

Bitcoin held its own.

VIX remain dulled to the mispricing of risk.

Trump will be going to China to visit with Xi Jinping.

I am sure the meeting will be very polite and mannered.  And that Donald will rein in his restless impulses.

Elsewhere around the world, there are storms that seem to be gathering in their power.   Men have lost their way, 

As a group of students wrote in Munich 84 years ago:

"Everywhere and always demonic powers lurk in the dark, waiting for the moment when man is weak; when of his own volition he leaves his place in Creation, as founded for him by God in freedom; and when he yields to the forces of evil, he separates himself from the powers of a higher order; after voluntarily taking the first step, he is driven on and on to the next and to the next, at a furiously accelerating rate."

When the times seem dark, and it becomes difficult to see ahead through the storm, we are obliged to gather ourselves together and move forward, advancing in confidence with our shepherd.  

Even though in fear and trembling, as those who we remember have walked before.

Have a pleasant weekend. 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Things, Passing

 

"Beauty is but a flower
   Which wrinkles will devour;
Brightness falls from the air;
   Queens have died young and fair;
Dust hath closed Helen's eye.
   I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us.

Thomas Nashe, Litany in Time of Plague


"Et Jehanne, la bonne Lorraine,
   Qu'Anglois bruslerent à Rouen;
Où sont-ilz, Vierge souveraine?
   Mais où sont les neiges d'antan."

François Villon,  Ballade des dames du temps jadis


"Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
   Is one with Nineveh and Tyre.
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
   Lest we forget, lest we forget!"

Rudyard Kipling, Recessional

"Wir sind aus solchem Zeug wie das zu Träumen...
Und drei sind Eins: ein Mensch, ein Ding, ein Traum."

H. von Hofmannsthal, Terzinen, 1894

¿Qué fue entonces del rico y de su poderío
    de la vanaglorïa, de su orgulloso brío?
Todo ya es pasado y corrió como río;
    de todo su pensar fincó él mucho frío."

Pedro López de Ayala, Ubi sunt, 1385
 
“物の哀れ。 終わるからこそ、大切。消えるからこそ、美しい”。

Motoori Norinaga, Tama no Ogushi, 1796

"Where are the princes of this world, and those who lorded it over the creatures of the earth? Those who made sport of the birds of the air, and hoarded up riches in which they trusted. Those for whom there is no limit to their greed, those who schemed to get more wealth, and were always anxious about their possessions.

Now there is no trace of them. They have vanished down into the bowels of the earth, and others have risen to take their place."

Baruch 3:16-19

"That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang."

William Shakespeare, Sonnet 73, 1609

"For these small troubles of the moment work for us an absolutely incomparable eternal weight of glory. So do not focus on what is seen, but on what is unseen.  For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is forever."

2 Corinthians 4:17-18
 

Few understand that the object of war is not to take and claim territory, although that certainly serves a purpose.   

The object of war is to degrade and break the enemy's ability and will to fight on.   That is where victory resides.    

The US financial interests are engaged in a war of attrition against freedom, fair trading, and honest valuation.  

Claiming seats in government is not the goal.  It is to break the financiers pattern of corrupt impunity and moral hazard.

This is why the 'lesser of two evils' strategy is so perfidious, so perniciously debilitating. 

It is a bandage that, for a time, masks a festering wound. 

Stocks backed off a bit as the 'war/peace' three card monte game faltered. 

Gold and silver rallied sharply off their recent event-driven price suppression activities.

There will be a Non-Farm Payrolls report tomorrow.

The valuations of the stock indices, in particular the Tech heavy NDX, are near manic levels.  The correction, when it comes, may be ferocious, especially if the government based buying support falters.

It is time to gather ourselves, and prepare the for the worst, while hoping for the best.   And to remember what truly matters.

This mispriced risk in the market is a monument to an empire of deceit.

This gilded grandeur too shall pass, like Babylon, Nineveh, and Tyre. 

Where are they now? 

Have a pleasant evening. 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Blinded by Their Idolatry

 

"Leur aveuglement est le châtiment du crime d'idolâtrie.”

Simone Weil, L'enracinement 1943

"In the federal elections of November 1932, the last free election in that nation for some time, the NSDAP received 33% of the national vote, and 196 of the seats.   In a January 1933 compromise promoted heavily by industrialists who feared socialism and communism, the NSDAP party leader was named chancellor of a coalition government.

In February 1933 there was a fire that destroyed part of the Reichstag building that was blamed on leftists and communists.   The government passed the Decree of the Reich President for the Protection of People and State, Reichstagsbrandverordnung, which suspended civil liberties and outlawed all other political parties.  This is known as Machtergreifung, the seizure of power.

In March 1933, in an election marked by violent repression and the silencing of most political opponents, starting with the left but moving quickly to include the Social Democrats and the Zentrum, or Center Party, the NSDAP received 43% of the national vote, and 288 seats out of 647.

The Enabling Act, Gesetz zur Behebung der Not von Volk und Reich, was passed, and plenary power was granted to the Chancellor to enact laws without the involvement of the Reichstag.

By July 1933 there were about 27,000 key political leaders and journalists, in opposition to the NSDAP, housed in newly established concentration camps in Oranienburgm Esterwegen, Dachau, and Lichtenburg.  There were no more meaningful elections until 1949.

In their fear and anger the German people reached for a strong and decisive leader who promised them a return to normalcy and freedom from their confusion, and sought to preserve themselves as they wished to be with the heady fumes of power.  The great majority of the people looked on, and did nothing."

Jesse, Fear, Intolerance, and Anger, 12 December 2015

"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

"It seems that under the overwhelming impact of rising power, humans are deprived of their inner independence and, more or less consciously, give up establishing an autonomous position toward the emerging circumstances. 

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 him as 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.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, After Ten Years, 1943

"It was in the torment of the abyss that the rich man's eyes were opened. Looking across the great chasm he finally sees Lazarus and holy Abraham. And the first thing that the rich man does is to beg for favors and comfort for himself, rather than forgiveness. He feels no shame, no repentance, never once saying that he is sorry. Even as his eyes were opened, his heart remained hardened in the grip of his greed. His sins are the chasm that separates him from salvation. He holds himself apart from the abundant grace of God.

Nations that have been blessed can blind themselves to the misuse of their power and good fortune, given to them by God, to harm and oppress others, to fulfill their own greed and vanity. They exalt themselves as the greatest good, the exceptional— even as they oppress and plunder and murder. Until at long last God breaks the arm of their power, and with chastisements humbles them.

'The more secret God's hand is, the more powerful — the more silent, the more awful.'

Jesse, Truly, He Is Risen, 5 April 2026


Do the price swings in the financial and commodity markets seem strange to you?  Yeah, me too.

"Whistleblowers now claim news was coordinated with insiders, leaking order info up to 30 minutes before the reports went live. Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and analysts like Mohammad Marandi are calling this 'war/peace' rhetoric a cover for massive insider trading. And this was not the first time. Since March, more than $3.5 billion worth of perfectly timed oil shorts have been placed before major Iran war headlines."

This corruption is destroying the price discovery mechanism of market, and erode confidence and honesty among all traders.  And this insider profiteering is reported to go all the way to the top, to not only those who report the news, but those who make it. 

There are also those who show correlations between a rise in US debt interest rates and the release of 'news' designed to keep them below the 5% level.   I have included this in the first chart below.

And it doesn't end there.   In the Magnificent 7 of our New Era, it seems there is a lot of circular investing and financing going on between vendors and customers, customers who happen to have substantial stakes in the stocks of those suppliers.

It is also reported that hedge funds are dumping the Mag 7 tech stocks in size, and are feeding it to the retail buyers.   When this bubble breaks it is going to be one for the books.  And in the ensuing chaos, do not be surprised if some of these same actors start calling for extreme measures to 'maintain order.'

Smells like teen spirit. 

Gold and silver popped today after their recent price suppression.  The buying in the global markets, notably from the BRICS, continues unabated overall.

There will be a Non-Farm Payrolls report on Friday.

Stocks powered to new highs.  We are now looking at some very impressive mispricing of risks, on a par with the worst bubbles of our recent past.

It will break.   Truth will come out.  These jokers are not particularly careful and clever.  The nations and worldly powers know what is happening. 

Maybe this time we will see some actual justice done, and serious reform.  The percentage of kool-aid drinkers seems to be in decline.  But the big money has the power elite and their enablers in thrall. 

"Peace I leave you, my peace I give to you.  Not as the world gives, do I give it to you.  Do not let your hearts be troubled, do not be afraid."   John 14:27

This is our refuge, our promised light in the gathering storm. 

Have a pleasant evening.