Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Precarious Propositions

 

“Where is the noble face of modesty, or the strength of virtue, now that blasphemy is in power and men have put justice behind them, and there is no law but lawlessness, and none join in fear of the gods?”

Euripides, Iphigenia in Aulis

“The outstanding negative quality of the totalitarian elite is that it never stops to think about the world as it really is and never compares the lies with reality.  Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty.”

Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism

"Even if it were to explode into smithereens today, the fact would remain that [the Party] recently won fifteen million votes.  Its brutality, loud-mouthedness and brainlessness have acted not as a deterrent but rather as an attraction, and have generated unconditional and subservient followers."

Carl von Ossietzky, Die Weltbühne, January, 1933

"If at the start this cancerous growth in the nation was not particularly noticeable, it was only because there were still enough forces at work that operated for the good, so that it was kept under control. As it grew larger, however, and finally in an ultimate spurt of growth attained ruling power, the tumor broke open, as it were, and infected the whole body."

The White Rose, Second Leaflet, Munich 1942

"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord', will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and accomplish great things in your name?' Then I will declare to them, ''I do not know you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.”

Matthew 7:21-23

VIX turned higher as the Persian Gulf is turning quickly into a serious shooting match.

AFTER THE BELL: Iran orders a complete evacuation of oil tankers in Kuwaiti and Bahraini ports — warning crews to leave immediately or the vessels will be targeted, potentially triggering a chain reaction across the region, per Tasnim News. The warning applies to tankers at anchor or docked, with an attack reportedly potentially coming within hours. It comes after reported U.S. strikes on Iranian oil tankers, with Tehran now openly signaling immediate retaliation.

During the day Wall Street plays their games, because they don't face many consequences for their duplicity, and have a fine example to follow in Washington.

Things will improve once we revert to the mean on that topic.

Gold got hammered lower late in the day.   Probably wiseguys cleaning up their Non-Farm Payroll bets.

Silver rallied and fell.

Bitcoin drifted lower.

The Dollar is still in its usual chop, but off the 99 handle.

Oil, despite some of the intraday paper games, is starting to break out.

This is going to get very ugly.  

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Currency Wars: The Fog of the Great Reset

 

BREAKING: Iran launches a surprise ballistic missile attack against US bases in Jordan, with loud explosions heard near US Muwaffaq Salti Air Base moments ago.  A US official says no attacks took place, despite multiple ballistic missiles entering Jordanian airspace, meaning the US is once again not going to respond to the latest Iranian attack.  The US has still not responded to the surprise attack on Kuwait 2 days ago.

For the first time in the war, Iran has just launched the Qasem Basir medium-range anti-ship ballistic missile, firing several of them from Isfahan toward vessels under US Navy escort in the US-backed southern Omani corridor of the Strait of Hormuz, per multiple initial reports.  Several flights are now being put on hold in UAE airspace following the launches from Isfahan, likely targeting US-backed Gulf ship-to-ship oil transfers.

Iran launches anti-ship cruise missiles from southern Iran toward US Navy vessels in the Gulf of Oman, the first time in 3 months, as opposed to oil tankers or commercial ships, per initial reports.

Israel says in a dramatic shift in its assessment, Israel is now preparing for the absolute possibility that Iran will renew the war in the near future, per Channel 14.

Iran has been launching multiple waves of anti-ship cruise missiles and Shahed-136 drones from Sirik, southern Iran, in the past few hours, toward vessels under US Navy escort in the US-backed southern Omani corridor of the Strait of Hormuz, per initial reports.

Iran has directly warned the US that it would launch "a large-scale Iranian attack" on Israel, in response to any Israeli offensive on the Ali al-Taher ridge in southern Lebanon where Iran's IRGC military personnel are located alongside Hezbollah fighters, per Reuters citing 3 senior officials briefed on the message.

The Israeli military has already occupied swathes of Lebanese territory south of the Ali al-Taher ridge and has publicly identified the ridge as one of its "primary operational focuses," signalling it will proceed with the plan of destroying it in the coming weeks.

The Hormuz Letter, From the Last 24 Hours on X, 4 September 2026
 

The mispricing of risk in the US markets is truly remarkable. Washington spins its confabulations, and the oligarchs and their enablers continue looting the nation's capital. The long term outlook is pain.

VIX is complacent.

The Dollar chopped a tad higher.

Gold, silver and bitcoin gave back a bit of their recent gains.

The wiseguys are trying to make a stand on the price of oil at the rim of the 'cup and handle' on the chart around 92-93.   

As a reminder Monday September 7 is the Labor Day holiday in the US.  All markets will be closed. 

The reckless disregard the power elite have for their own country is just astonishing until you realize that they do not consider themselves to be Americans, but a superior transnational class.

“Wherever there is an ascendant class, a large portion of the morality emanates from its class interests and its class feelings of superiority.  They, as a class, believed that they alone maintained civilization.”   Jack London, The Iron Heel

Reform will come.  And it will be messy. 

Their delusion clouds their minds that they may believe their lies, and thereafter be judged in their lawlessness. 

Do not be deceived, for God is not mocked.  

Have a pleasant weekend.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Knight, Death, and the Devil

 

"Fear of something is at the root of hate for others, and hate within will eventually destroy the hater."

Alvin Smith, George Washington Carver: Man of God, 1961

“We live in a world in which you can talk all you want about international niceties and everything else, but we live in a world, in the real world, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power.  These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.”

Stephen Miller, CNN Interview, 6 January 2026

"Do you desire to be great?  make yourselves little.  There is a mysterious connexion between real advancement and self-abasement.  If you minister to the humble and despised, if you feed the hungry, tend the sick, succour the distressed; if you bear with the froward, submit to insult, endure ingratitude, render good for evil, you are, as by a divine charm, getting power over the world and rising among the creatures.  God has established this law.  Thus He does His wonderful works.

His instruments are poor and despised; the world hardly knows their names, or not at all.  They are busied about what the world thinks petty actions, 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.  Nay, even as regards religious objects which they themselves profess to desire, there is no natural and visible connexion between their doings and sufferings and these desirable ends; but there is an unseen connexion in the kingdom of God. They rise by falling.

Let this be the settled view of all who would promote Christ's cause upon earth.  If we are true to ourselves, nothing can really thwart us.  Our warfare is not with carnal weapons, but with heavenly.  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.

Such is the rule of our warfare  We advance by yielding; we rise by falling; we conquer by suffering; we persuade by silence; we become rich by bountifulness ; 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, 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

The Dollar slid off the 99 handle today.

Gold, silver and Bitcoin rallied higher.

Stocks rose sharply for no apparent reason and VIX fell.

We could be in store for a major exchange of missiles and drones around the Straight of Hormuz.

Iran is threatening a major attack on Israel if the IDF proceeds further in Lebanon, as they have promised to do.

Non-Farm Payrolls report tomorrow. 

Have a pleasant evening. 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - In the Stillness of the Trees

 

“Christians, regardless of their organizations, are going to have to interest themselves in economy — which is to say, in nature and in work. They are going to have to give workable answers to those who say we cannot live without this economy that is destroying us and our world, who see the murder of Creation as the only way of life.

Rats and roaches live by competition under the law of supply and demand; it is the privilege of human beings to live under the laws of justice and mercy.  It is impossible not to notice how little the proponents of the ideal of competition have to say about honesty, which is the fundamental economic virtue, and how very little they have to say about community, compassion, and mutual help.”

Wendell Berry, What Are People For?, 1990.

“There are no unsacred places;
there are only sacred places
and desecrated places.”

Wendell Berry, How To Be a Poet, 2005

“In a society in which nearly everybody is dominated by somebody else's mind or by a disembodied mind, it becomes increasingly difficult to learn the truth about the activities of governments and corporations, about the quality or value of products, or about the health of one's own place and economy.

In such a society, also, our private economies will depend less and less upon the private ownership of real, usable property, and more and more upon property that is institutional and abstract, beyond individual control, such as money, insurance policies, certificates of deposit, stocks, and shares.  And as our private economies become more abstract, the mutual, free helps and pleasures of family and community life will be supplanted by a kind of displaced or placeless citizenship and by commerce with impersonal and self-interested suppliers.

Thus, although we are not slaves in name, and cannot be carried to market and sold as somebody else's legal chattels, we are free only within narrow limits.  For all our talk about liberation and personal autonomy, there are few choices that we are free to make.  

The great enemy of freedom is the alignment of political power with wealth.  This alignment destroys the commonwealth — that is, the natural wealth of localities and the local economies of household, neighborhood, and community — and so destroys democracy, of which the commonwealth is the foundation and practical means.”

Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays, 2002

"No doubt there always will be some people willing to do anything at all that is economically or technologically possible, who look upon the world and its creatures without affection and therefore as exploitable without limit.  Against that limitlessness, in which we foresee assuredly our ruin, we have only our ancient effort to define ourselves as human and humane.

Now the two great aims of industrialism—replacement of people by technology and concentration of wealth into the hands of a small plutocracy—seem close to fulfillment.  At the same time the failures of industrialism have become too great and too dangerous to deny.  Corporate industrialism itself has exposed the falsehood that it ever was inevitable or that it ever has given precedence to the common good. It has failed to sustain the health and stability of human society. Among its characteristic signs are destroyed communities, neighborhoods, families, small businesses, and small farms.

Land and people have suffered together, as invariably they must.  Under the rule of industrial economics, the land, our country, has been pillaged for the enrichment, supposedly, of those humans who have claimed the right to own or exploit it without limit. Of the land and community much has been consumed, much has been wasted, almost nothing has flourished.

But this has not been inevitable. We do not have to live as if we are alone."

Wendell Berry, It All Turns on Affection, 2012

The great Kentucky naturalist and writer Wendell Berry has passed away at the age of 92.

Stocks were rebounding a bit today, as our obsessive-compulsive markets cannot bear to look at reality for any length of time, don't you know.

Gold and silver rebounded a bit after their recent smackdown.

VIX fell back down again.  

The Dollar is just happy to chop sideways.

The war in the Mideast is cooking as the US and Iran climb the ladder of escalation.

The consequences of oil scarcity are just beginning to be priced in.  They will stall that reckoning until after the midterm elections if they can. 

It will be interesting to see how far they are willing to go.

I don't know if this is completely accurate, but this fellow who reports it is legit. 

"Former US Army Secretary Dan Driscoll reportedly met with Trump to inform him that the Iran war was making it impossible to achieve foreign-policy goals, Trump talked exclusively about his ballroom in response, causing Driscoll to resign believing the admin was 'doomed.'”   Dominic MichaelTripi, Post on X, September 2, 2026

Need little, want less, and love more.

For those who abide in love abide in God, and God in them. 

Think of it.  A friend of God!

Have a pleasant evening.