Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Pivotal Events

 

"As with many personality disorders, those who are severely flawed of character, but especially the narcissist, when they face public disgrace, when they are outed as criminals or for their misbehavior, or when they fail in a very public way—that is when they become metastable, placing us as family, friends, co-workers, corporations, the public, or a nation in greatest danger.  When things begin to sour for the narcissist, here is what we can expect:

1.  They will falsely claim that everything is fine and that there is nothing wrong.  They will try to first misdirect us or claim there is nothing to the allegations or circumstances.

2.   If evidence is presented, they will seek to have it invalidated or claim that it is false, fake, or a product of vague conspiracies, but most certainly not true.

3.   Any evidence presented, and those that present it will be attacked aggressively and vindictively.  The better the evidence, the more aggressive the attack.  Individuals who are doing the right thing by reporting criminal acts, unethical behavior, or failings are to be discredited, humiliated, hounded, and bullied—not even their families are to be spared if need be.  The narcissist will engage supporters or enablers to simultaneously attack those who offer proof or evidence, even if it embarrassingly exposes their poodle-like behavior as that of spineless sycophants.

4.   Foolproof evidence will be portrayed as false and the result of pettiness, jealousies, bad actors, malicious individuals, negativity, haters, enemies, losers, conspirators, opposition, gain seekers, the faithless, or as we are seeing now in American politics, 'fake news' or 'deep state' actors.  There is always a large constellation of people to blame, the narcissist casts wide to see which vacuous claim resonates, especially with their supporters.

5.   As they lash out with vindictiveness, the malignant narcissist will continue to talk about themselves in glowing terms; irrespective of their actual situation, as they are incapable of introspection, much less contriteness.  They will trumpet their greatness, their real or imagined achievements, their faux infallibility, and even portray themselves as worthy of being revered rather than reviled.

6.   They will seek to find someone to blame for their troubles or downfall, preferably someone that cannot defend themselves.  A scapegoat is always useful and when there is not a real one, one will be invented.  If they are not promoted or fired, it is because a cabal at work was against them. If they cheat their business partners, it was because they deserved it. If they lose an election it is because of campaign managers, unappreciative voters, trickery, fraud, or some other kind of malfeasance on the part of a conspiracy.  Conspiracies are useful to the narcissist because they conveniently require no evidence.  As they are not married to the truth, they will prattle countless baseless reasons that all point away, never at themselves.

7.   As circumstances become dire, the narcissist will not take any responsibility—ever.  Anything that has gone wrong is the responsibility of others.  They will blame spouses as undeserving of their greatness, ignorant colleagues who just don’t measure up, the disloyal, those who abide by rules and laws because ironically, they abide by rules and laws, or those that just clearly did not understand the very specialness of the narcissist.  Everyone, and I mean everyone from people long gone, to the peripherally connected, to the earthly departed will be blamed for the failure or downfall of the narcissist.  Once more it is never their fault.

8.   In the process of casting blame, even the most loyal and stalwart will be discarded and denigrated if needed with reptilian indifference.  For the malignant narcissist, there is only the 'good' — those that provide blind, unwavering loyalty and who are useful, and everyone else who is an enemy, useless, and thus 'bad.'  Whether you are in or out, good or bad, is not determined by history, by friendship, sacrifices, or how well you have performed in the past—it is determined by the capricious and selfish needs of the narcissist, and that can change in a moment.

9.   Expect lies to increase and to be repeated exponentially.  They will, even in light of factual evidence to the contrary, lie more profusely and adamantly.  Lies are and always will be the number one tool of the malignant narcissist.  The only difference now is that in facing failure or public ridicule, the lies must increase in frequency and audacity to the point of incredulity.  The narcissist will expect supporters, the unethical, and enablers to lie for them or even create plausible alibis.  That they imperil others by compelling them to lie is the collateral damage the malignant narcissist does as they thrash in despair when they are failing or caught.

10.   And while lies will increase, so too will be the need to devalue others in order to further value themselves.  They will attack everyone and anyone in the most vicious and vindictive ways.  This is when we see their rage come through.  Not just anger, but unbridled rage.  They will say things that shock the conscience and they expect everyone to swallow what they say, much as their enablers do.  The most decent of persons will be attacked, mocked, ridiculed, and turned into a human chew-toy as the narcissist unleashes untethered rage and hatred.  They will dip down into a bottomless cauldron of antipathy and like an arterial spurt, will spew this toxic brew far and wide with metronomic regularity.

11.   The malignant narcissist, lacking guilt or a conscience, is only concerned with respect and not being publicly shamed.  Any kind of public embarrassment will cause them further anger, further rage, further attacks, further unethical comportment, and unprecedented incivility.

12.   If the narcissist is going to be brought down, they will also seek to bring everyone else around them down to vindictively make them suffer.  How the narcissist vilifies, lashes out, or destroys others (spouse, friends, business partners, workmates, the general public) is up to the morbid creativity and depravity of the malignant narcissist, the viable tools they have available, and of course how dire or desperate the situation.  The internet and social media are certainly useful as lives can be ruined with a single tweet.  But so are guns and rifles, poison, and even assassins for hire.  And if they command a country, they can put the security organs or the military to work on their behalf.

13.   In certain situations, as the end nears, the suffering of others is paramount to the malignant narcissist.  It is their way of elevating themselves—sick as that sounds—by malevolently paying back society with even more suffering.  As they lash out, they will show no concern or empathy because they have none.  If others are suffering because of their actions, the narcissist simply does not care.  Lacking a conscience or any kind of remorse, much like Robert Hare’s psychopath, they sleep very well at night while everyone else is anxious, worried, stressed, physically or psychologically traumatizes all the while nervously and justifiably pondering what further malevolence will take place.

14.   As they face failure, arrest, indictment, or dismissal, they will endlessly air their grievances.  Narcissists are natural wound collectors and as such, they have been collecting and nurturing social slights and perceived wrongs just for this occasion.  They will wallow in victimhood claiming they have been relentlessly and needlessly persecuted.  They, of course, expect their attorneys, followers, or enablers to subserviently echo their flatulent claims.

So, what happens in the end?  Difficult to predict.  Each circumstance is different.  Some will kick and flail and disappear for a while, intentionally or thanks to incarceration—biding their time until they can do it all over again.  Others regroup, plan, scheme, and prepare another triumphant entry into the lives of the unsuspecting to victimize them when the opportunity arises.  

Others, unfortunately, will seek to do harm as they face a breakup, a divorce, are fired from a job, are outed for their crimes, or are removed from office.  Others will hound, stalk, or just make life intolerable for those they deem responsible. Their past can often give us insight as to what they might do, but one can never be sure—humans are terribly complex and as with many afflicted with a personality disorder, sensitive to the smallest of unrecognized but catalytic triggers.

In the case of narcissistic cult leaders, the cult members often pay with their lives as they did in Jonestown Guyana when Jim Jones came under investigation.  In interpersonal relationships, violence is always something to be concerned. "

Joe Navarro, FBI Behavioural Analysis Veteran, When the Narcissist Fails, Psychology Today, 2 January 2024

The Fed did nothing with interest rates today.  

The amended statement is in the first chart below.

The markets are shaking off risk concerns for now.

But the underpinnings are highly unstable.

Tech is showing signs of strain.   I am hearing more and more about layoffs in size for AI related companies, the suppliers.

It appears that Netanyahu did not succeed in his election, but he was not exactly repudiated either.

There is going to be a price to be paid for that.

Donnie faces the US midterm elections next week.

If the House and Senate go to the opposition it will be interesting to see how he reacts.

He may kick things off by starting a real war so he can hide behind wartime powers.

Bring popcorn.

Have a pleasant evening. 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - My Soul Is Sorrowful, Even Unto Death

"Satan’s monomaniac concern with himself and his supposed rights and wrongs is a necessity of the Satanic predicament.  He has wished to ‘be himself,’ and to be in himself and for himself, and his wish has been granted.  To admire Satan, then, is to give one’s vote not only for a world of misery, but also for a world of lies and propaganda, of wishful thinking, of incessant autobiography."

C. S. Lewis

"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

"Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring.  Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating.  Human beings are so made that the ones who do the crushing feel nothing; it is the person crushed who feels what is happening.  Unless one has placed oneself on the side of the oppressed, to feel with them, one cannot understand.  As soon as men know that they can kill without fear of punishment or blame, they kill; or at least they encourage killers, with approving smiles."

Simone Weil

"Leur aveuglement est le châtiment du crime d'idolâtrie.” (Their blindness is the punishment for their Idolatry.)

Simone Weil, L'enracinement 1943


Today was a fairly uneventful option expiration on the Comex today.   Gold rallied and even silver got into the act.

Tomorrow will be an FOMC day. 

The VIX fell and stocks rallied.

Sans souci. 

Brace for impact.

Have a pleasant evening. 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Heart of the Gospel

 

"You shall not mistreat or oppress a foreigner, for you too were foreigners in the land of Egypt.

You shall not take advantage of the widow or the orphan.  If you mistreat them and they cry out to me for help, I will surely hear their cry.  And my just fury will burn, and descend upon you like a sword. Your wives will be widows and your children will be orphans.

If you lend money to any of the poor among my people, you will not act as a creditor toward him nor will you take any interest.  If you take your neighbor’s mantle as a pledge, you shall restore it to him at sunset, for it is his covering.  It is the cloak for his body.  What else would cover him when he sleeps?  Otherwise, when he cries out to me, I will listen to his cry, for I am merciful and compassionate."

Exodus 22:20-26

"When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together and one of them, a scholar of the law, sought to test him by asking, 'Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?'  And Jesus said, 'You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

The whole of the law and the prophets stands upon these two commandments.'”

Matthew 22:34-40

“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you accursed, into the damnation prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, a stranger and you gave me no welcome, naked and you gave me no clothing, ill and in prison, and you did not care for me.’

Then they will answer and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?’ He will answer them, ‘Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.’ And these will go off to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

Matthew 25:31-46

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven."

Matthew 7:21


The priority of the good news is remarkably clear and easy to remember.

People put forward a great deal of effort to confuse and disregard it.

But at the end of the day, there it is, in supreme simplicity. 

There is a minor precious metals futures market option expiration tomorrow. 

The big contract is now December.

Today was a typical Monday, with rumors of peace deals on Sunday driving stock futures higher and oil prices lower.

I think there will be an important election in Israel tomorrow.   Some of this play-acting may have been in support of that.

Macro events will continue to drive the markets and to a significant extent the economy until there is a resolution.

Donnie has his own important midterm elevations coming up shortly. 

Keep an eye on events in the Middle East and the Ukraine.   

Have a pleasant evening. 

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Vulgar Acolytes of Lawlessness

 

"There can no longer, except for reasons of game-playing or more deliberate intellectual evasion, be any separation by economists between economics and politics.  When the modern corporation acquires power over markets, power in the community, power over the state, power over belief, it is a political instrument, different in form and 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.

The victims of that disguise are those we instruct in error.  The beneficiaries are the institutions whose power we so disguise.  Let there be no question: economics, so long as it is thus taught, becomes, however unconsciously, a part of an arrangement by which the citizen or student is kept from seeing how he is, or will be, governed."

John Kenneth Galbraith, Power and the Useful Economist, March 1973

"The Roman politician and philosopher Cicero once said: ‘Not to know what has been transacted in former times is to be always a child. If no use is made of the labours of past ages, the world must remain always in the infancy of knowledge.'

Economics is a political argument.  It is not — and can never be — a science; there are no objective truths in economics that can be established independently of political, and frequently moral, judgements.  Therefore, when faced with an economic argument, you must ask the age-old question cui bono, who benefits?  Ninety-five per cent of economics is common sense — made to look difficult, with the use of jargon and mathematics.

The economist Joseph Schumpeter emphasized that all analysis in economics is preceded by a pre-analytical cognitive act, called vision, in which the analyst ‘visualises a distinct set of coherent phenomena as a worth-while object of his analytic efforts’. He pointed out that ‘this vision is ideological almost by definition’, as ‘the way in which we see things can hardly be distinguished from the way in which we wish to see them’.

The free market doesn't exist.  Every market has some rules and boundaries that restrict the freedom of choice.  A market looks free only because we so totally accept the regulations and underlying restrictions that are propping them up that they become invisible.  How 'free' a market is cannot be objectively defined.  It is a political definition.  There is a human tendency to be seduced by a theory that supposedly explains everything.

Markets do weed out inefficient practices, but only when no one has sufficient power to manipulate them.

Once you realize that trickle-down economics does not work, you will see the excessive tax cuts for the rich as what they are — a simple upward redistribution of income, rather than a way to make all of us richer, as we were told.  

 Since the 1980s, we have given the rich a bigger slice of our pie in the belief that they would create more wealth, making the pie bigger than otherwise possible in the long run. The rich got the bigger slice of the pie all right, but they have actually reduced the pace at which the pie is growing.  The best way to boost the economy is to redistribute wealth downward, as poorer people tend to spend a higher proportion of their income.

The widely accepted assertion that, only if you let markets be will everyone be paid correctly and thus fairly, according to his worth, is a myth.  Only when we part with this myth and grasp the political nature of the market and the collective nature of individual productivity will we be able to build a more just society in which historical legacies and collective actions, and not just individual talents and efforts, are properly taken into account in deciding how to reward people.

Why do we need to make the rich richer to make them work harder, but make the poor poorer for the same purpose?

When some people have to run a 100 metre race with sandbags on their legs, the fact that no one is allowed to have a head start does not make the race fair.  Equality of opportunity is absolutely necessary but not sufficient in building a genuinely fair and efficient society.

We need to design an economic system that, while acknowledging that people are often selfish, exploits other human motives to the full and gets the best out of people.  The likelihood is that, if we assume the worst about people, we will get the worst out of them."

Ha Joon Chang, Economics and the Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism

Economics and financial reporting can become just another facet of the long con in a highly artificial speculative bubble.

It serves the purposes of the power elite and their acolytes. 

We will have an option expiration for the Comex precious metals futures on Tuesday, the 27th.

Oil was spiking on widespread rumors of a military confrontation in the Middle East this weekend.

An election very important for Netanyahu is coming up in Israel.   

Trump is sweating the midterm elections.

Stocks are on the edge.

Gold and silver and Bitcoin have been beaten down.

VIX is elevating.

Let's see what actually happens.

The last resorts of scoundrels is the fog of war. 

Have a pleasant weekend.