Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - A Gathering of Vultures

 

"And Jesus said, 'Where death is, there a gathering of vultures will be.'”

Luke 17:37

"We need these parables to remind us how dangerous it is to speak the truth generally, and the Christian truth in particular: I mean dangerous for the one who speaks it.  Kierkegaard never stopped repeating this in all his works: if you want to be Christians, well and good, but know the price.  For nineteen centuries that price has been fixed.

The Devil’s first trick, remarks Andre Gide, is to make us believe that he does not exist. This trick has never better succeeded than in the modern epoch. All America has fallen into the snare. Kierkegaard alone had perhaps recognized the Devil with accuracy in the ink of the newspapers, when he noted that one cannot preach Christianity any longer in a world dominated by the daily press. 

The dazzling and consuming act of pride that transformed the angel of light into an angel and prince of darkness condemned him to an insatiable, and therefore desperate, need to acquire. The loss of the wellspring of life gives rise to an essentially inextinguishable thirst. The entire world can not fill the emptiness which the awareness of having left their rightful place in the world forms in the heart of a creature.

Having fallen from the eternal, Satan's desires are endless and insatiable. Having fallen from pure Being, he seeks to possess. But the problem is forever insoluble. For in order to have and possess, it would be necessary to have life, to Be, and he is connected to life no longer. All he takes into himself he destroys.

And to be sure, he can have it, since he is called Prince of this World in Scripture— but he will never have anything but the things of this world. He will never regain Heaven, which is properly the soul of this world, and the essence of existence. He knows this full well. This is why his desire and his rabid jealousy fasten on our individual souls. He prowls around like a roaring lion in quest of his prey, says the Bible. He prowls around us, like a criminal, obsessed by kidnapping. But his victories will always be sterile.

One does not become a father by stealing a child. One can steal the child, but not the paternity. One can steal power, but not authority. Satan can steal this world, but not its divine essence. And yet we humans can lose all of these things, which are our heritage as children of God. It is the Devil's only chance. He does not intend to miss it.

The France of 1939 was on the whole democratic, and almost every Frenchman sincerely called himself anti-Nazi, and believed himself proof against this kind of temptation. He had his good conscience as a democrat. Hitler came, France capitulated, and today the 'anti-fascist intellectuals' of Paris suddenly discover that at bottom Nazism is not so bad as all that, that, on the whole, they had always desired something passably resembling it, and that after all, 'the Nazis are men like us, so let us work together.'

That is the danger that American democracy is exposed to, as were the others.  She too believed and still believes that the Nazis are animals of an altogether different race from Americans.  She too risks discovering some day that 'after all, they are men like us.' And it is quite true that they are men like us, in the sense that their sin is also in us, secretly.

It seems to me that the clearest lesson which emerges from European events is this: The sentimental hatred of the evil that is in others may blind one to the evil that one bears in himself and to the gravity of evil in general.  The overly facile condemnation of the wicked man on the opposite side may conceal and favor much inward complaisance toward that very wickedness.  

I suspect a profound ambivalence in certain democratic denunciations of Hitlerism, for in the violence of the tone and the obstinate simplicity of the judgments, we betray our bad conscience, our secret anxiety, our unacknowledged temptation.  In regard to anti-fascists who wish only to be anti, I cannot help thinking that sooner or later the pro which slumbers in a corner of their soul will suddenly awaken and overwhelm them.

I believe that I know whereof I speak when I say to honest democrats: Look at the Devil that is among us! Stop believing that he can only resemble Hitler, or Stalin, for it is you yourself that he will always contrive to resemble the most.  If you want to catch him, I am going to tell you where you will most surely find him—seated in your own armchair.  It is in you alone that you will catch him in the very act.  And then only will you be in a state to track him down in others.  And then only will you be cured of your almost incredible naiveté before the totalitarian danger and be able to escape hypnosis. 

We were lacking a modern picture of the Demon.  We had therefore stopped believing in him. Then we imagined that the Devil was Hitler.  And the Devil rejoiced.  It would be more fruitful, more realistic, and finally more truthful, to try picturing the Devil to ourselves as having the features of a dynamic and optimistic playboy, lacking all thought.  Or, if we are liberal intellectuals for example, as having the features of a liberal intellectual who does not believe in the Devil."

Denis de Rougemont, La Part du Diable, Switzerland, 1944
 

Stocks failed to rally today, despite some weekend prompting by Messrs. Bessent and Trump.

I think Iran dropping a missile on a wayward tankard this morning punctuated their statements about who is begging for what deal.

Stocks were under some pressure, but not much compared to the headwinds the economy is clearly facing in the not too distant future.

Oil popped higher as one might have expected.  Once demand hits the wall of physical supply at price we may see some energetic action.

VIX rose very little, in keeping with the current complacency among the West's power elite.

Iran decided to troll the Don and his crew in a news release today. 

"Iran has completely ruled out any future negotiations with the Trump administration, declaring it will wait out Donald Trump's term until January 20, 2029, per Iranian outlets and Ghalibaf advisor's post."

The Dollar ticked a little higher, but really in a more consistent sideways chop which is more apparent on the longer term chart.

Gold and silver both bolted higher, continuing to take out the artificial suppression which the Street put upon them for 'technical reasons' of fairly blatant price manipulation. 

“If you shut up truth and bury it under the ground, it gathers to itself such explosive power that on the day it bursts it will blow up everything in its way."    Émile François Zola

There will be a lot more of these eruptions of the obvious going around over the next six months. 

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - So Shall They Reap

 

"It does not matter how small the sins are, provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing.  Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one— the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts."

C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, 1942 

"The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists. The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil."

Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951

"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, 1955

"Anyone can be misled by a clever person, and no one likes to readily admit that they have been had.  It is a sign of character and maturity to realize this, and admit your were deceived. But some cannot, even when the facts of the deception are revealed.  The more incorrect that the truth shows them to be, the louder and more strident they become in shouting down and denying reality.  At the extremes, it is no longer about justice, but about the objectification of the individual, the elevation of ideology over truth, and the dehumanisation of 'the other.'"

Jesse, The Economics of Demagogues, 18 June 2012

"One of his heads appeared to have been wounded, but its wound had been healed.  The whole world then became fascinated with the Beast, and gave their allegiance to him.  And they worshiped the serpent, for giving such power to him, as they also worshiped the Beast.  'Who is as great as the Beast?' they shouted. 'And who is able to resist him?'  And the Beast was allowed to speak proud boasts and words offensive to God, and was given authority and power for forty-two months."

Revelation 13:3-5

“We have always known that heedless self interest was bad morals, we now know that it is bad economics. The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerated the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That in its essence is fascism: ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power.

We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace—business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering. They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt, Address at Madison Square Garden, New York, October 31, 1936

A late selling of oil and buying of stocks came a little ahead of this latest announcement.

"US to lift its blockade on Iran once a deal is announced between Iran and Oman over the Strait of Hormuz, adding that the US expects this deal very soon, a US official tells Reuters. This is another major US concession to Iran, coming after Iran added the lifting of the US naval blockade as one of its 4 new demands earlier this week."

The Dollar declined after the lower than expected Jobs number significantly decreased the probability of a Fed rate hike later this year.

Gold and silver bounced.

SpaceX managed a bounced.   Well done, Elon and punters.

VIX fell as peace descends over the markets.

Bitcoin continued in its trading range doing the crypto cha-cha.

Let's see what new and amazing signs and wonders the rest of August brings.

Have a pleasant weekend.  

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - An Illness of the Mind and Spirit

 

"Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac. All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.  War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it."

George Orwell, Experientia Docet, The New Statesman, August 1937

"All the most noted destroyers and deceivers of our species, all the founders of arbitrary governments and false religions have been extraordinary people; and nine tenths of the calamities that have befallen the human race had no other origin than the union of high intelligence with low desires."

Thomas Babington Macaulay, Milton, Edinburgh Review, August 1825

"Democracy has become a weapon of moneyed interests. It uses the media to create the illusion that there is consent from the governed. The press today is an army with carefully organized weapons, the journalists its officers, the readers its soldiers. The reader neither knows nor is supposed to know the purposes for which he is used and the role he is to play. The notion of democracy is often no different than living under a plutocracy or a government by wealthy elites.”

Oswald Spengler, Der Untergang des Abendlandes, 1922

"Journalism is one of the devices whereby industrial autocracy keeps its control over political democracy; it is the day-by-day, between-elections propaganda, whereby the minds of the people are kept in a state of acquiescence, so that when the crisis of an election comes, they go to the polls and cast their ballots for either one of the two candidates of their exploiters."

Upton Sinclair, The Brass Check, 1919

"The most valued characteristic of our system seems to be the willingness of the individual to surrender themselves to the unspeakable— to do whatever they are told to do, say anything that they are told to say, attend whatever institution and join whatever organization that may be required, and to profess anything with fervent conviction that they are told to believe. And to never, ever violate the secrecy and carefully crafted image of the ruling class."

Jesse, The Higher Immorality of the Elite, 25 October 2024

"The men of the higher circles are not representative men; their high position is not a result of moral virtue; their fabulous success is not firmly connected with meritorious ability. Those who sit in the seats of the high and the mighty are selected and formed by the means of power, the sources of wealth, the mechanics of celebrity, which prevail in their society.  Commanders of power unequaled in human history, they have succeeded within the American system of organized irresponsibility.  A society that is in its higher circles and on its middle levels widely believed to be a network of smart rackets does not produce men with an inner moral sense; a society that is merely expedient does not produce men of conscience."

C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite, April 1956

“A clique of US industrialists is hell-bent to bring a fascist state to supplant our democratic government and is working closely with the fascist regime in Germany and Italy. I have had plenty of opportunity in my post in Berlin to witness how close some of our American ruling families are to the Nazi regime. Certain American industrialists had a great deal to do with bringing fascist regimes into being in both Germany and Italy. They extended aid to help Fascism occupy the seat of power, and they are helping to keep it there.”

William E. Dodd, Ambassador to Germany, 1938   

"The present war crisis is something we have made entirely for and by ourselves.  There is in reality not the slightest logical reason for war, and yet the whole world is plunging headlong into frightful destruction, and doing so with the purpose of avoiding war and preserving peace!  This is true war-madness, an illness of the mind and spirit that is spreading with a furious and subtle contagion all over the world."

Thomas Merton, The Root of War, The Catholic Worker, October 1961

"Violence does not necessarily take people by the throat and strangle them.  They are required merely to become accomplices in its lies.  The world is being inundated by the brazen conviction that power can do anything, and justice nothing."

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Nobel Lecture, 1970


Not to put too fine a point on it, but mostly everything that Trump, Bessent, and their mouthpieces in the media said about an imminent peace deal with Iran was a lie woven out of whole cloth.

It's purpose was to smash the price of oil, and further inflate the bubble in US equities.

"Iran's Parliament and National Security Commission is reviewing a formal draft bill on management of the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf to severely tighten transit rules, per Fars.

Iran is looking to permanently ban US, Israeli, and all other 'hostile' vessels from transiting through the Strait of Hormuz, with fines of up to 20% of cargo value for violations, both military and civilian. Israeli cargo (military or civilian) will not be allowed to transit through the region."

Most things seem to be chopping sideways these days, like they are pacing around while waiting for the bus or a train.

VIX fell into its usual pattern of complacency.

There will be a Non-Farm Payrolls report on Friday.  It is being produced by contaminated sources. 

Gold and silver popped but were pushed back closer to unchanged.

Everything is chopping sideways now unless it benefits an exceptional few.

I have never seen the like of it except in places suffering an onslaught of lawless corruption that were in highly troubled times. 

Yeah, that sounds about right.  An illness of the mind and spirit.   

It's a contagion that has been spreading for some time.

And in late breaking news after the bell:

Multiple credible intelligence reports indicate Yemen's Houthis, Iraqi militias, and Iran's IRGC are preparing to launch massive coordinated attacks against Saudi Arabia, a senior Saudi source tells Al Arabiya. Targets are expected to include civilian, energy and oil facilities, critical infrastructure, airports, and ports. The source adds that missiles and drones are being repositioned for simultaneous attacks.

It's always something. 

Have a pleasant evening. 

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - A Hard Row to Hoe

 

"Ray Dalio, the billionaire founder of Bridgewater Associates, delivered one of his starkest warnings yet on the current market environment arguing AI enthusiasm has pushed markets into bubble territory reminiscent of 1929 and 2000.  His warning arrives just as the market prepares to test his thesis in real time: SpaceX has already gone public in the largest IPO ever, and Anthropic and OpenAI are barreling toward trillion-dollar valuations—precisely the kind of speculative issuance surge that market historians treat as a bubble's clearest warning sign."

Fortune 3 August 2026

"There seems little question that in 1929 the economy was fundamentally unsound. This is a circumstance of first-rate importance. In 1929 the rich were indubitable rich. The figures are not entirely satisfactory, but it seems certain that the five per cent of the population with the highest incomes in that year received approximately one-third of all income.

This highly unequal income distribution meant that the economy was dependent on a high level of investment or a high level of luxury consumer spending or both.  The rich cannot buy great quantities of bread.  If they are to dispose of what they receive it must be on luxuries or by way of investment in new plants and new projects.  Both investment and luxury spending are subject, inevitably, to more erratic influences and to wider fluctuations than the bread and rent outlays of the $25-week workman. This high bracket spending and investment was especially susceptible, one may assume, to the crushing news from the stock market in October 1929."

John Kenneth Galbraith, The Great Crash of 1929, 1955

"Hoover quickly developed a reputation as uncaring.  He cut unemployment figures that reached his desk, eliminating those he thought were only temporarily jobless and not seriously looking for work.  In June 1930, a delegation came to see him to request a federal public works program.  Hoover responded to them by saying, 'Gentlemen, you have come sixty days too late.  The Depression is over.'  He insisted that 'nobody is actually starving' and that 'the hoboes are better fed than they have ever been.'  He claimed that the vendors selling apples on street corners had 'left their jobs for the more profitable one of selling apples.'

'There are some principles that cannot be compromised,' Hoover remarked in 1936.  "Either we shall have a society based upon ordered liberty and the initiative of the individual, or we shall have a planned society that means dictation no matter what you call it.  There is no half-way ground.'  He was convinced that the economy would fix itself."

Digital History, Herbert Hoover, 2021

“Thanks to the tax cuts we passed, Americans’ paychecks are a little bigger today.  Every business can write off the full cost of the new investments they make this year.  These steps will grow the economy.”

Herbert Hoover, Campaign Speech, Detroit, October 22, 1932 

"In his memoirs, Hoover describes a 'leave it alone' school of thought headed by Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon, who advocated allowing the economic slump to run its course.  Mellon believed in a harsh restructuring, famously stating 'Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate farmers, liquidate real estate. It will purge the rottenness out of the system. High costs of living and high living will come down. People will work harder, live a more moral life. Values will be adjusted, and enterprising people will pick up the wrecks from less competent people.'"

Herbert Hoover, Memoirs of Herbert Hoover, 1952

"J. P. Morgan and Andrew Mellon made their billions through inter locking directorates and outright ownership of hundreds of nationally prominent enterprises.  Glass-Steagall is one crucial piece of a litany of legislation designed to place checks and balances on the concentration of financial resources.  To repeal it would be tantamount to bringing back the days of the robber barons."

Mark D. Samber, End Bank Law and Robber Barons Ride Again, NY Times, March 5, 1995

"The money was all appropriated for the top in the hopes that it would trickle down to the needy. Mr. Hoover was an engineer. He knew that water trickles down. But he didn’t know that money trickled up. Give it to the people at the bottom and the people at the top will have it before night, anyhow. But it will at least have passed through the poor fellows hands.”

Will Rogers, Weekly Column, St. Petersburg Times, Nov 26, 1932

 

The rumors spread about an imminent deal with Iran by high ranking officials of the government, including the cleverly worded statement by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, were greatly exaggerated.

But it did provide the opportunity to once again crush the price of crude oil to a price that, from what I hear and see, is not available for actual physical delivery just about anywhere.

There seems to be a lot of that going around these days.  Such are the times, and the purposeful fog of war.

There were missiles flying and tankers sinking today.   If you did not know this and the recent announcement from Iran on the Strait of Hormuz then you may wish to find another source of news - or be content to operate on faulty information.

So we had quite the pop and flop in stocks day, with new highs fading quickly into the red as the false underpinnings of the rally faded.

Ok, so the reckoning with oil supply is likely to become more noticeable in a few weeks.  But the general deterioration of the economy and the nature of the AI tech bubble is very apparent.

Gold and silver rallied sharply.   Before I draw too many strong conclusions about this I want to see how they perform through the Non-Farm Payrolls report this Friday, a traditional event for metals smashing.

SpaceX popped and then flopped back to the distribution trendline.   There are more shares coming out of 'lockup' in the near term than were issued at the time of the IPO.

But the problem is really that the underpinnings of the AI tech rally are just not sustainable or even realistic.  It seems to be a classic 'new era' stock bubble.

Ray Dalio and Michael Burry see this.  With well-deserved humility I see it as well.

I am fairly convinced that there is going to be a reckoning of memorable proportions later this year, on a scale with other significant financial adjustment events of the past as Dalio indicates.

The power elite are feeling good, and giddy with success.

If there are damned souls in Hell, it is because men blind themselves. 

Have a pleasant evening.