Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Mystery of Lawlessness

 

"For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work.  But the one who now restrains it will continue to do so until he is taken away.   And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will slay by the breath of his mouth and bring to an end with the splendor of his coming.

The coming lawlessness will be the work of Satan made manifest in all power and false signs and wonders, and in every wicked deception for those who are perishing because they refused to accept the love of the truth to be saved.

For this reason, God permits them [the exceptional] a powerful delusion to believe their lies, that all may be condemned who deny the truth and instead take pleasure in lawlessness."

2 Thessalonians 2:7-12

"Their tongues are devious weapons, bent like a drawn bow. With falsehoods rather than truth they have gained power in the land.  They commit one crime after another.  They do not know me."

Jeremiah 9:3

"When humanity, subjugated by the terror of crime, has been driven mad by fear and horror, and when chaos has become the supreme law, then the time for the empire of lawlessness will have come."

Fritz Lang, Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse, 1933

"Expose them sharply, so that they may be restored in the faith, instead of following traditions and laws of people who have repudiated the truth.  Both their minds and their consciences are tainted.  They claim to know God, but by their acts they deny him, being vile and disobedient, and worthless for any good cause."

Titus 1:13-16


It was groundhog day on the equity markets, as stocks showed a ranging weakness, and then gathered themselves to drift higher into the close, although they gave back a bit at the end.

This was an organized effort to pump stocks higher, a sort of low key short squeeze.   It's what they do.

Wash and rinse.

The Dollar strengthened.

Gold continued to break out higher after the big campaign to pin it lower last week for options expiry.

Silver struggled a bit.

VIX floundered around.

Biden and crew seem to be determined to do damage to the nation on the way out the door, in part because they don't give a darn and need to pay back their money men, and also to leave Donnie with some difficult situations.

Some of Israel's far right Likud leadership were formally charged with war crimes, and arrest warrants were issued by the International Criminal Court.  

Russia dropped a hypersonic missile on the Ukraine today, in a sign that the escalation of the conflict being fomented by the US and UK will not go unanswered.

And so stocks had to show their support for the great patriotic effort to make money through other people's misery.

"A true opium of the people is the belief in nothingness after death, the huge solace, the huge comfort of thinking that for our betrayals, our greed, our cowardice, our murders, we are not going to be judged.”    Czeslaw Milosz

Nice to be so exceptional that the rules do not apply.

It's the rationale for every evil since time began.  As old as Babylon, and evil as sin.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Such a Parcel of Rogues in a Nation

 

"From the least to the greatest, they are greedy for unjust gains;
      and from prophet to priest they all deal falsely.
They have treated the suffering of my people carelessly,
      saying, ‘all is well’ when there is no safety.
They act shamefully, they commit terrible offenses;
      and yet they are not ashamed,
      and do not even know how to blush.
Therefore they shall fall among those who are fallen."

Jeremiah 6:13-15

"A baited banker thus desponds,
   From his own hand foresees his fall,
They have his soul, who have his bonds;
   'Tis like the writing on the wall...

"When other hands the scales shall hold,
   And they, in men's and angels' sight
Produced with all their bills and gold,
   "Weigh'd in the balance and found light!"

Jonathan Swift, The Run on the Bankers

"O, would or I had seen the day
That treason thus could sell us,
My auld grey head had lien in clay
Wi' Bruce and loyal Wallace!
But pith and power, till my last hour,
I'll make this declaration:
We're bought and sold for English gold—
Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!"

Robert Burns, A Parcel of Rogues In a Nation, 1791

"Easy is the descent to hell; all night long, all day, the doors of dark Hades stand open; but to retrace the path; to come out again to the sweet air of Heaven - there is the task, there is the burden."

Virgil, The Aeneid


Qui est le trompeur trompé?

Stocks took a fairly substantial dive this morning, after being pumped up overnight.

But never fear, they found some footing and manage to drift back up to unchanged in the late afternoon.

Gold extended its rally a little higher.

Silver fell in sympathy with stocks, but unfortunately did not recover as they had done.

Nvidia reports after the bell, and the Street waits with bated breath.

VIX rose with the decline in stocks, but only fell back again part way.

The Dollar rallied.   Flight to safety.

Have a pleasant evening.

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Feeling Secure in Their Wickedness

 

"And the gospel of the kingdom of God will be preached to all nations, and then the end will come. Therefore, when you see the abomination of desolation standing in His holy land, spoken of the prophet Daniel, then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains."

Matthew 24:14-16

"You are a sinful nation, weighed down by lawlessness.  A race of corrupt and wicked children, you have forsaken your Lord, despised the Holy One of Israel, and turned your backs to him."

Isaiah 1:4

“I know your works; I know that you are neither cold nor hot.  But because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.  For you say, ‘I am rich and affluent and have no need of anything,’ and yet do not realize that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked."

Revelation 3:15-17

“You feel secure in your wickedness. You think, ‘No one sees what I do.' But your so-called wisdom and knowledge have led you astray. And you believe that, ‘I am the one, no one else matters.’ Disaster will overwhelm you, and you won’t be able to talk it away. Misfortune will descend upon you, and you won’t be able to buy your way out. A catastrophe will strike you suddenly, one which you cannot avoid."

Isaiah 47:10-11

Stocks were weak most of the day, but managed to gain some footing and gain some ground into the close, after the rest of the world went home to bed.

Gold and silver continued to rally.   The selling into the option expiration was 'technical' and overdone.

These jokers have no shame.

Speaking of shameless, Blinken, Sullivan, Biden and crew have the strategic sense of the schoolyard, and less finesse.  They are embarrassing, and bookended by Trump, that's saying something. 

But what has been tolerated, and in many cases excused and enabled, in the Mideast is something that will not be easily forgotten, or forgiven.  And it ought not be.   

The madness serves none but itself, and especially not those who seek to channel it for their own lawless ends, and are brought down by it into the abyss.

I think we will see gold and silver have some room to move between now and the option expiration on the Comex on the 25^th.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Without Love, Nothing

 

“The one who holds the seven stars in his right hand and walks in the midst of the seven gold lampstands says this: 'I know your works, your labor, and your endurance, and that you cannot tolerate the wicked; you have tested those who call themselves Apostles but are not, and discovered that they are impostors. Moreover, you have endurance and have suffered for my name, and you have not grown weary.

Yet I hold this against you: you have lost the love you had at first. Realize how far you have fallen. Repent, and do the works you did at first. Otherwise, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.'”

Revelation 2:1-5

"Worldly pride is easier for us to perceive. We see it clearly in the self-proclaimed elite of our time. But less obvious perhaps is the spiritual form of pride, that reduces us into an insidiously distorted order of things. Spiritual pride blinds us to our own faults. But even worse, it leads us to magnify and fix ourselves upon the faults of others.

Spiritual pride leads to a lingering spiritual death. It turns the living being into a living tomb, all bright and polished on the outside, proudly ornamented with scrupulous attention to detail, and ostentatious adherence to the letter of the law— but inside full of corruption, and festering foulness. This is all too common among those whose love is directed to the rituals and the forms of religion, but wanting nothing to do with the human realities of it, the acts of mercy to others which are the second great commandment. It is a sickening romance with the self, unto death."

Jesse, Being Human, 20 August 2017

"If I speak with the words of men and of angels, but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal.  And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have the faith to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing.   If I give away everything that I have, and if I hand myself over for sacrifice but do not have love, I gain nothing."

1 Corinthians 13:1-3

"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


Stocks managed a small gain today.

Gold and silver bounced back strongly from their recent shellacking in observance of the stock option expiration.

What a surprise.

VIX and the Dollar fell.

There will be a December futures options expiration on the Comex next Monday the 25^th.

Thanksgiving is around the corner, and then a month later, Christmas.

It's always something.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Most Likely To Be Left Standing

 

“Gold is money. Everything else is credit.”

J. P. Morgan, Congressional Testimony, 1912

"The consensus investment view seems to be that the credit crisis of 2008 was a freak occurrence, unlikely to repeat.  That is wishful thinking.  Monetary policy has painted itself into a corner.  Based on our present course, there will be more bubbles and more meltdowns.

Financial markets and institutions sense trouble, as reflected in the flight to supposedly safe assets such as Treasuries and corporate-debt instruments with paltry yields, as well as the reluctance to lend by commercial banks.  We are stuck in an epic liquidity trap.  The irony is, if global central banks succeed in creating inflation, the value of these safe assets will be destroyed.  It is a slaughter waiting to happen.

In the pedantic mentality of central bankers, their playbook creates just the right amount of inflation.  As inflation accelerates, consumers will spend to get rid of their dollars of diminishing value and spur the economy.  Once consumers start spending, it will be time to raise interest rates because a solid foundation for prosperity will have been established, they say. 

The belief among policy makers and financial markets in the possibility of this sort of fine-tuning is preposterous, but it is the slender thread on which remaining investment and business confidence rests.

The breakdown of the monetary system will be chaotic.  When inflation commences, it will be highly disruptive.  The damage to fixed-income assets will seem instantaneous.  Foreign-exchange markets will become dysfunctional.  The economy will become even more fragile and unpredictable.

Gold is an imperfect, but comparatively reliable, market gauge for the extent of current and future monetary destruction.  The recent acceleration in the dollar price of the metal to $1,381, a record high in nominal terms, coincided with talk of a new round of quantitative easing and highly visible discord among major nations on trade and currency-valuation issues.

Naysayers point to gold’s price and see a bubble, without understanding that the only acceleration that is taking place is in the rate of decline of paper currency.  The sudden torrent of commentary on gold isn’t the sign of a bubble.  Anti-gold pundits provide a great service to those who grasp this historical moment: they facilitate the advantageous positioning of the one asset most likely to be left standing when the dust settles."

John Hathaway, Tocqueville Asset Management, October 28, 2010

"We suspect that shorting gold has come to seem like a riskless proposition as long as there is confidence in the Fed.  Synthetic gold is the perfect substance for a carry trade: an easy borrow with very low carrying cost and little upside basis risk. 

Such a hypothesis, in our opinion, does much to explain the incongruity of a declining gold price while fundamentals for paper currency, and the U.S. dollar in particular, obviously deteriorate; while demand for physical gold has exceeded new mine supply for several years running; and while above-ground 400-ounce .995-gold bars located in London, New York, and other financial capitals (in cohabitation with speculative trading activity in paper markets) have steadily dwindled and disappeared into Asian financial centers reformulated as .9999 kilo bars."

John Hathaway, Tocqueville Gold Newsletter, 2Q 2015

"Gold has worked down from Alexander's time.  When something holds good for two thousand years I do not believe it can be so because of prejudice or mistaken theory."

Bernard Baruch, 20th century American financier


What determines the relative value of a currency?

I don't think we need to beat the question of 'what is a currency' to death.  I think everyone over the age of 12 has developed a feeling for that.   Except for propeller heads who are paid to pick nits.

Is it just something that exists in a finite amount?  Is it just relative scarcity?   

How much of your portfolio do you have invested in Limited Edition Nascar plates?  Beanie babies?

Faith, fraud, and force in varying degrees determine the relative value of a currency.  Where faith, or rational expectation in the continuing integrity of the redemption value in goods and service of a currency falters, fraud may suffice - for a time.  

Some monetary authorities love to misrepresent the relative value of real things compared to their favorite  issuance, or so we hear.

But at some point, official narratives and misrepresentations grow thin, and the day to day experience of people tends to scour away the ornaments of the monetary Pharisees.

And so, in the end, the issuer may come to rely on varying degrees of force.  But it only works where you are able to apply that force, the area which you control, and how effectively you can control it.  Empires like to extend their span of control for this reason.

Faith is easily lost.  And once lost, force is a tool that has a difficult task in restoring faith.  At most it can obtain varying degrees of compliance.  But that is not easy to sustain for longer periods of time.  

What has been in place for most of our lifetimes, the dollar hegemony, seems to be changing - slowly.   And so the prudent may seek alternatives.   And others may not.

Stocks continued to decline today, with a little more conviction.  The perception of their values may be wearing a bit thin.  You think?

Gold and silver were holding their own with varying degrees of success.   I would imagine that the open interest of the December contracts has declined quite a bit this week, as it rolls over to March. 

This rigging of the markets for profit is force, being applied by the enablers of the financial system.   They obtain their pound of flesh from the other market participants in return for promoting the official narrative which calls for graceful declines in confidence when necessary.   This is why the officials tolerate certain levels of price manipulation, when they are not doing it themselves.

I think we are well beyond the notion that markets are not manipulated.  Maybe not.  But at this point the facts speak for themselves.   A big difference from the dumb debates of 20 years ago.  Some people learn nothing, and new crops of greater fools show up to be harvested.  

The risk in equities remains elevated.   We are one exogenous event away from a serious revaluation of that risk.  And I have never been more certain that it is coming.

I am trying to remain optimistic, but everything that I see suggests that it will be rough seas ahead.

Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.   Or not.

"A fire broke out backstage in a theatre.  The clown came out to warn the public; they thought it was a joke.  He repeated the warning, but the applause was even greater.  I think that's just how the world will come to an end: to general applause from those who believe it's a joke.”

Søren Kierkegaard

To remain standing firm in difficult times, in the great falling away, is what matters.

Everything else is pride and ornament.

Have a pleasant weekend.