Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Poverty of the Faithful Remnant

 

"To experience means to know facts just as they are, to know in accordance with facts by completely relinquishing one's own fabrications. By pure I am referring to the state of experience just as it is without the least addition of deliberative discrimination.

God is not something that transcends reality, God is the base of reality. God is that which dissolves the distinction between subjectivity and objectivity and unites spirit and nature."

Kitarō Nishida, An Inquiry Into the Good, 1911

“Having found this refuge, the intellect begins to confine itself within the walls of its own beliefs.  In doing so, it constructs an internal framework that conceals and hollows out a more expansive awareness of the mind as a whole.  When this occurs, an incomplete self-awakening — rooted in unawakened ignorance and lacking true awareness — becomes a pitfall. 

Behind the radiance of a self-awakening that has supposedly reached a higher plane, the darkness of ignorance persists in an even deeper form.  Behind the certainty of, and belief in, one’s inner truth, the dark shadow of delusion lingers.”

Nishitani Keiji, The Cold Mountain Poems, trans. Norman Waddell, 2026

"Religion without philosophy is blind; philosophy without religion is vacuous. Philosophy seeks to know the ultimate; religion seeks to live it. Yet for the whole human being, the two must be nondualistically of one body, and cannot be divided. If religion is isolated from philosophy, it falls into ignorance, superstition, fanaticism, or dogmatics. If philosophy is alienated from religion, it loses nothing less than its life."

Hisamatsu Shin'ichi, Collected Works, Tokyo, 1971

"To be enlightened by all things is to cast off the body and mind of yourself as well as all others. No trace of realization remains, and this traceless enlightenment continues on and on endlessly."

Dōgen Zenji, Genjōkōan: Shōbōgenzō, 1233

"True poverty is a state of spiritual nakedness, a total detachment from all self-righteousness, all spiritual security, all claims to merit or holiness.  It is a state of absolute dependence upon God, in which the soul, having lost everything, possesses everything in Him.  It is here, in this poverty, that man regains the eternal being that once he was, now is and evermore shall be.  This is the poverty of the anawim, the poor of Yahweh, who have nothing but their trust in His mercy."

Thomas Merton, Zen and the Birds of Appetite, 1968

Stocks dumped today in the disappointment following the Trump-Xi Summit, in which no magic solutions to Trump's dilemma with his misconceived Mideast adventures were provided.

VIX ticked up to the longer term moving average, but it remains subdued, all things considered.

The Dollar rallied back to the top of its intermediate trading range.

Bitcoin dumped, but is still bouncing around at overhead resistance.  I have included a chart that shows this more clearly.

Gold and silver were hit with selling, with silver just getting hammered.  Boys will be boys.

The first chart below shows how the broader market showed signs of an impending top and decliner well in advance of the 'meme stocks' of The Great Crash of 1929.

Breadth is a crossmarket indicator that seasoned traders will always keep in mind.

If not the NYSE Advance-Decline indicator, one may also keep an eye on the broader indices when a market is floating higher on narrowing leadership.  As we see today.

In the 'Financial Panic' of 2007-2008, the SP 500 made its peak bubble top on October 9.  But the Russell 2000 reached its peak on July 13.  It had already fallen over 10% by the time the financial bubble stocks were topping.

Who could have seen it coming?   If their eyes were closed, they did not.

Bubbles are difficult.  It is infectious, and the relentless push higher inclines people to believe that it will keep going, and going, and going.  And if not, they think they will be able to get out in time.

The Tech Bubble of 2000-2002 was essentially the same with the NDX being the lead sled dog.

There is a little bit of a difference now.  The great bamboozle is being more aggressively and openly supported by the insider traders from the political world, with their acolytes and enablers.

You have to wonder if they were dumping their positions ahead of some event planned for the weekend. This is why it is hard to 'think like a criminal.'  They are not rational, and act not out of their own will but in obedience to the powers of the world. 

They think they would be as gods.  Even as they slide with arrogant indifference into the abyss.

Need little, want less, love more.  For those who abide in love abide in God, and God in them.  

Have a pleasant weekend.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Change Forged in Misery and Blood

 

"The only resource against political disorders that had been known till then was the concentration of power. Solon undertook to effect the same object by the distribution of power.  He gave to the common people as much influence as he thought them able to employ, that the State might be exempt from arbitrary government.  It is the essence of Democracy, he said, to obey no master but the law.  Solon recognised the principle that political forms are not final or inviolable, and must adapt themselves to facts; and he provided so well for the revision of his constitution, without breach of continuity or loss of stability."

John Dalberg Lord Acton, History of Freedom in Antiquity, 1877

"Gold does have some remarkable qualities that make it quite suitable for use as money.  No one can create it, it is enduring, and relatively stable in terms of growth.  As an external standard it is almost ideal.  There is little wonder that diverse societies have gravitated towards gold and things like it down the long corridor of time.  And yet it does have one drawback: gold alone cannot enforce honesty on a corrupted system.  The recent growth on paper of the rehypothecated gold supply is one case in point.

There is no secret to creating a workable system.  I know I could do it, and many other people could so as well and perhaps much better.  The problem is that people with power do not wish to have a good system.

There will be no good and sustainable monetary system easily reached for the same reasons that this generation of leaders can no longer create and put forward fair and workable laws for their own country.  They are overcome by ego and greed.  They wish for a system riddled with loopholes and personal advantage for them and their friends.  So this is what is produced.  And until this changes, progress and change will be spattered with misery and blood, as it has so often been in the past.

If there is any key point I wish you to take and hold in your minds and hearts it is that there is no such thing as a perfect, self-regulating monetary system.  There could only be such an ideal model if men and women were angels, perfectly rational and reliably virtuous.

And like wealth, the distribution of reason and virtue is very uneven, and so all systems must rely on a continuing effort and bias towards equal justice for all.  And this has inescapable requirements for the design of the system.  Among these are transparency and the rule of law.  And the assumption that there will always be those who will be actively attempting to subvert the system, some bluntly, and some quite cleverly. So there must be a mechanism for administering justice, for all.

Money is power, and power corrupts.  No system can succeed by its own design if its reins are held in the hands of mortal people, with all their weaknesses and failings.  So the system must account for this, and accommodate change and judgement, as well as the balance of justice.

This was the great innovation of the US Constitution, the balance of power and its ability to change and evolve through law, with its commitment to justice and equality as an ideal, integrated into its construction, even though imperfectly by imperfect men of their time. This is what made it such a bright star on the darkened horizon of human endeavour, a hymn to human freedom. And look what they've done to our song.

It will be fascinating to see how this evolves. Will we see the creation of an SDR like monetary instrument based on a basket of items and currencies not under the control of a single power bloc?

Will the world evolve into three or four powerful trading blocs, each with their own currency arrangements? Will the current dollar hegemony continue on until the collapses, and the what could have been an evolution will be a more sudden monetary revolution in which great wealth is destroyed, transferred and created anew?

We do live in interesting times. And inescapably, these questions are now being addressed in the ongoing struggle for monetary power, in what some have called the currency wars."

Jesse, Currency Wars, 9 September 2013

"How long can the US government protect the dollar’s value by leasing its gold to bullion dealers who sell it, thereby holding down the gold price?  Given the incompetence in Washington and on Wall Street, our best hope is that the rest of the world is even less competent and even in deeper trouble.  In this event, the US dollar might survive as the least valueless of the world’s fiat currencies."

Paul Craig Roberts, The Golden Rule, Daily Kos, 19 May 2009

"The vast majority of privately negotiated OTC contracts are settled in cash rather than through delivery. Cash settlement typically is based on a rate or price in a highly liquid market with a very large or virtually unlimited deliverable supply, for example, LIBOR or the spot dollar-yen exchange rate. To be sure, there are a limited number of OTC derivative contracts that apply to nonfinancial underlying assets.

There is a significant business in oil-based derivatives, for example. But unlike farm crops, especially near the end of a crop season, private counterparties in oil contracts have virtually no ability to restrict the worldwide supply of this commodity.  Nor can private counterparties restrict supplies of gold, another commodity whose derivatives are often traded over-the-counter, where central banks stand ready to lease gold in increasing quantities should the price rise."

Alan Greenspan, Testimony to Congress, July 24, 1998

We are now dealing with people in positions of power who are lawless, and have demonstrated that no crime, no matter how horrific or dishonorable, is beyond them.  And they have no shame, and believe that they will never be held to account for their transgressions.  This is the fruition of moral hazard.

Change is coming, slowly.  And those who have served their basest desires and wickedness in high places, for many, many years, will not accept that change quietly. 

This is the lesson from history.

Global automotive giant Honda has reportedly posted an annual loss for the first time in 70 years.

Stocks shook off geopolitical tremors and awful inflation numbers and extended their rally.

Bitcoin jumped higher in the last hour of trading.   I am now more convinced than ever that it is a control fraud that will end in misery, but only after it has been used by unscrupulous people to add to their wealth.

The Dollar rallied.  Gold and silver were smacked lower.

Never forget this is a currency war, and the US and the BRICs are at the epicenter of it.

VIX is once again supine.  The mispricing of risk is a key element of any financial asset bubble.  

I am not going to try and convince anyone of anything.   There is no sense talking with people given over to madness, and those determined to be rich through extraordinarily means. 

As always, people are free to serve whom and what that they wish.

Free to follow and serve their idols, even into the abyss.  And many will.

This is the lesson from history.

But for many of us, the challenge is to be a Christian, and remain standing in faith in an increase of lawlessness. 

Have a pleasant evening. 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Power: The Will to Destroy and Be Destroyed

 

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

Jeremiah 9:3

"When one knows it is possible to kill without risking either punishment or blame, one kills; or at least one surrounds those who kill with encouraging smiles.  If one feels a little disgust, one keeps quiet about it, and before long one extinguishes it, for fear of seeming to lack manliness.  One is swept up; it is an intoxication impossible to resist without a strength of soul I am obliged to consider exceptional, since I have never encountered it anywhere.  

In contrast, I have encountered peaceable French persons, whom I did not despise up to this point, who would not have had themselves the idea of killing, but who bathed in this atmosphere soaking in blood with visible pleasure.  For the latter I can never have any esteem in the future."

Simone Weil, Letter to George Bernanos on the War in Spain, Paris, 1938

"We shed blood for high-sounding words spelled out in capital letters. We seek to impart content to them by destroying other men who believe in enemy-words, also in capital letters. … The nothingness of national, class, or racial myth must receive an apparent substance, not from intelligible content but from the will to destroy and be destroyed."

Thomas Merton, The Answer of Minerva: Pacifism and Resistance in Simone Weil, 1968

"You have accepted things you would not have accepted five years ago, a year ago, things that your father, even in Germany, could not have imagined. Suddenly it all comes to be, all at once.  You see what you are, what you have done, or, more accurately, what you haven’t done.  For that was all that was required of most of us: that we do nothing.  You remember everything now, and your heart breaks.  Too late.  You are compromised beyond repair."

Milton Mayer, They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45, 1955

Stocks managed to shake off a mountain of awful news to rally again, led by the tech bubble.

The Dollar rallied.

Bitcoin pulled back.

Gold stumbled, but silver powered higher, most likely on Chinese stockpiling and the bubble enthusiasm for the economy.

We live in times that try men, that weigh their souls.

God will determine by our actions who will be judged righteous, and not.   

And for many, they are weighed, and will be found wanting.

This will not be a trial, with testimony and response.  It will be a perfect exposition.  

The light of truth will show you what you are, with no need for explanation or excuses or negotiation.

Evil, when we are in the presence of its power, seems attractive, and even an obligation.

Do not be deceived, for God is not mocked.  What a man sows, so shall he reap.

And that will be that, the only thing that matters, in the end. 

Have a pleasant evening.

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.