Stocks and Precious Metal Charts - Those Who Have Lost Their Way

 

“We have been called to heal wounds, to unite what has fallen apart, and to bring home those who have lost their way.

Blessed is the servant who loves their brothers and sisters as much when they are sick and helpless, as when they are well and of service.

Keep a clear eye toward life's end.  And remember that when you leave this earth, you can take nothing that you have received, but only what you have given.”

Francis of Assisi, Fioretti di San Francesco

"To love at all is to be vulnerable.  Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken.  If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal.  Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness.

But in that casket – safe, dark, motionless, airless – it will change.  It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.  The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation.  The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.”

C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves, 1960

"Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life."

Francis of Assisi


As you have probably heard by now, the US Non-Farm Payrolls report came in much higher than expected this morning.

And the Dollar and risk assets rallied, backed off, and then rallied back into the weekend close.

Gold declined with the Dollar rally, but silver rode the equity rally and gained some ground.

And so we shuffle into the weekend, and the fourth quarter of the year.

We are living in a time of savagery, where the bully is admired, and might makes right.

Let us be mindful of what really matter, so we may remain standing strong in the faith.

And give support and strength to the afflicted, and mark the path for those who have lost their way.

For what does it profit a man...

Have a pleasant weekend.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Easy the Descent Into Darkness

 

"Easy is the descent into darkness.
      The door to hell stands open, day and night.
But to retrace one's steps, to return once more
      to the pure clean air, and cheerfulness and life:
That is the task, that is our true labour."

Vergil, Aeneid

"To whom can I give warning?
      Who will listen when I speak?
Their ears are closed,
      and they cannot hear.
They scorn the word of the Lord.
      They don’t want to listen at all.

From the least to the greatest,
      their lives are ruled by greed.
From prophets to priests,
      they are all frauds.
They offer superficial treatments
      for my people’s mortal wound.
They give assurances of peace
      when there is no peace.
Are they ashamed of their disgusting actions?
      Not at all—they don’t even know how to blush.
Therefore, they will lie among the slaughtered.
      They will be brought down when I punish them, says the Lord."

Jeremiah 6:10-11,13-16

"And I saw a white horse, its rider having a bow, and there was given to him a crown, and he went forth overcoming not in righteousness, but that he may conquer."

Revelation 6:2

 

Stocks traded weakly ahead of the Non-Farm Payrolls tomorrow, and a weekend of escalating conflicts.

Gold and silver were hit early and hard with selling, but managed to climb back and regain their levels.

VIX is just swinging in the wind.

This might be an interesting weekend.

The servants of Moloch stalk the land, spreading darkness and lawlessness.

I almost cannot believe the things that I am seeing.

So many have closed their ears and eyes, and remain blithely trusting, seduced by the voices of madness, unprepared.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Reap the Whirlwind

 

“Pity the nation that raises not its voice, except to praise conquerors and acclaim the bully as hero and aims to rule the world with force and by torture."

Lawrence Ferlinghetti, New Poems, City Lights

"Financial Predators, on the other hand, are usually narcissistic and audacious criminals. They regularly have an extreme sense of entitlement coupled with high self-efficacy. Many of them have a charismatic quality and are preternaturally persuasive. Financial Predators are commonly shameless and quite adept serial liars. They perceive themselves having near unlimited guile and resourcefulness to extricate themselves out of any compromising situations."

Russ Alan Prince, Unmasking Financial Predators, Forbes 2017

"At the root of America's economic crisis lies a moral crisis: the decline of civic virtue among America's political and economic elite. A society of markets, laws, and elections is not enough if the rich and powerful fail to behave with respect, honesty, and compassion toward the rest of society and toward the world."

Jeffrey Sachs, The Price of Civilization, 2011

"For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind."

Hosea 8:7

 

Stocks were slumping today, but managed to gather themselves and push higher into the close.

In this grand game of force and fraud, perception management is everything.

Gold and silver are holding their own, even as the Dollar moved higher.

Non-Farm Payroll report coming at the end of this week.

The dogs of war are unleashed and playing havoc in the Mideast and eastern Europe.

History will not absolve us.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Time Is the Father of Truth

 

"Complex systems that have artificially suppressed volatility tend to become extremely fragile, while at the same time exhibiting no visible risks. In fact, they tend to be too calm and exhibit minimal variability as silent risks accumulate beneath the surface. Although the stated intention of political leaders and economic policymakers is to stabilize the system by inhibiting fluctuations, the result tends to be the opposite. These artificially constrained systems become prone to 'Black Swans' — that is, they become extremely vulnerable to large-scale events that lie far from the statistical norm and were largely unpredictable to a given set of observers.

Such environments eventually experience massive blowups, catching everyone off-guard and undoing years of stability or, in some cases, ending up far worse than they were in their initial volatile state. Indeed, the longer it takes for the blowup to occur, the worse the resulting harm in both economic and political systems."

Nassim Taleb, The Black Swan of Cairo, Foreign Affairs, May 2011

"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, Congressional Testimony on Regulation of OTC Derivatives, 24 July 1998

"We hypothesize that, having learned from the misadventures of the 1960s, the policy elites, well-versed in the practice of financial engineering and market manipulation, would have seen no need to dump stocks of government gold reserves onto the market, 1960s style, to keep the price in check.  Instead, synthetic gold, sourced in pyramids of credit extended to bullion bankers by central banks with little or no claim on physical substance, have provided a more efficient, better-camouflaged form of intervention. COMEX synthetic gold and related over-the-counter derivatives are traded in macro strategies implemented by hedge funds, high-frequency trades, and commodity funds in pair trades with interest-rate, currencies, equity futures, or even more exotic offsets. The volumes traded are huge, and bear little resemblance to actual flows of physical metal."

Tocqueville Gold Newsletter 2Q 2015

"Le temps mûrit toute choses; par le temps toutes choses viennent en évidence; le temps est père de la vérité."
Time ripens all things; with time all things come to be evident; time is the father of the truth.

François Rabelais


The long awaited invasion of Lebanon by the Israeli army shook the markets back into reality.

What a surprise.

The usual safe harbors saw activity as gold, silver, and the Dollar all rallied.

Risk assets like stocks slumped.

This is just an opening round in what appears to be a serious confrontation, stoked by ideological sociopaths and neo-cons.

Free speech comes under renewed assault, as the fog of war descends, and the false narratives of power are repeated shamelessly.

"Secrecy is completely inadequate for democracy, but totally appropriate for tyranny."

Malcolm Fraser, former PM of Australia

Have a pleasant evening.