Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Tender Mercies

 

Pardey, Daffodils in Search of Grace

"We must be faithful to the present moment or we will frustrate the plan of God for our lives.  Worry is a weakness from which very few of us are entirely free.  We must be on guard against this most insidious enemy of our peace of soul.  Instead let us foster confidence in God, and thank Him ahead of time for whatever he chooses to send us."

Solanus Casey 

 

"Wonderful providence indeed which is so silent, yet so efficacious, so constant, so unerring.  This is what baffles the power of Satan.   He cannot discern the Hand of God in what goes on; and though he would fain meet it and encounter it, in his mad and blasphemous rebellion against heaven, he cannot find it." 

 J. H. Newman 

 

“The books which the Holy Spirit is writing are the living, with every soul a volume in which the divine author makes a true revelation of His word, showing it to every heart, unfolding it in every moment. 

There is not a moment in which God does not present Himself under the cover of some pain to be endured, of some consolation to be enjoyed, or of some duty to be performed. All that takes place within us, around us, or through us, contains and conceals His divine action. 

All simple souls must admire and respect one another, saying: 'Let us each proceed along our path to the same goal, united in purpose and by means of God's order which, in its great variety, is in us all.' 

To escape the pain caused by regret for the past or fear about the future, this is the rule to follow: leave the past to the infinite mercy of God, the future to His good Providence, and give the present wholly to His love by being faithful to His grace.” 

 Jean-Pierre de Caussade

 

This is one squirrelly market. 

The Dollar bounced back up a bit to take back the 92 handle.

Gold and silver gave back some of yesterday's gains.

Stocks were trading weakly, but managed to rally back in the last ten minutes of trading.

Yay us!

The clearing report is included for gold showed quite a bit of new activity.

A new warehouse report for Hong Kong has not yet been issued.

I think August and September might prove to be rather interesting.  

We are only one trigger event away from a banquet of tail risk consequences.

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 - Metals Rebound Strongly From Recent Option Related Price Suppression

 

"Of course, even before Flaubert one did not doubt the existence of stupidity, but it was understood a little differently, it was considered as a simple absence of knowledge, a defect correctable by instruction.  In the novels of Flaubert, stupidity is an inseparable dimension of human existence, but the most shocking, the most scandalous in Flaubert's perspective of stupidity is this: stupidity does not fade away in front of science, technology, progress, modernity, on the contrary, with progress, it progresses too." 

Milan Kundera, La Pléiade Tome II

 

“Against such foolishness we are defenseless.   Reasons fall on deaf ears; facts that contradict one’s prejudgment simply need not be believed – in such moments the foolish person even becomes critical – and when facts are irrefutable they are just pushed aside as inconsequential, as incidental.  In all this the foolish person, in contrast to the malicious one, is utterly self satisfied and, being easily irritated, becomes dangerous by going on the attack.” 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison 

 

"The time is almost here — and ignorance, falsehood, cruelty, greed and lust of power were never stronger in the hearts of any ruling class in history than they are in those who constitute the Invisible Government of America today.   Day by day the money-masters of America become more aware of their danger, they draw together, they grow more class-conscious, more aggressive." 

Upton Sinclair, The Brass Check, 1919

 

“I am patient with stupidity, but not with those who are proud of it.” 

Edith Sitwell

 

"We have severely underestimated the Russians, the extent of the country and the treachery of the climate.  This is the revenge of reality."

Heinz Guderian, as quoted in Images of Kursk: History's Greatest Tank Battle, July 1943

 

The economic data this morning was very soft on the GDP and labor force area.

This provided more fuel for the dovishness of the Fed. 

The Dollar declined, giving up the 92 handle.

Gold and silver rallied strongly, recovering significant ground from the recent price suppression in observantce of their option expiration.

A fair chunk of physical gold departed from the Comex Hong Kong warehouses.

Stocks rode the wave of easy money expectations higher, but gave  up quite a bit of their gains in the afternoon, with the NDX finishing unchanged, and the SP 500 only a minor gain.

When a pricing pool collapses, especially in the case of a commodity, the resulting price increases required to clear the market can be quite impressive. 

As the old rock song goes, 'you ain't seen nothing yet.'

Have a pleasant evening.

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts- Mammon's Dolorous Visage - Metals Rise, Dollar Slumps on Fed Dovishness

 

“The mob believes everything it is told, provided only that it be repeated over and over.  Provided too that its passions, hatreds, fears are catered to.   The grosser, the bigger, the cruder the lie, the more readily is it believed and followed.  The mob has no memory; needless to pretend to any truth: the mob is radically incapable of perceiving it: the mob can never comprehend that its own interests are what is at stake.”

Alexandre Koyré, Réflexions sur le Mensonge 

 

"A thriving upper class accepts with a good conscience the sacrifice of untold human beings, who, for its sake, must be reduced and lowered to incomplete human beings, to functionaries, to instruments." 

Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

 

"You should thank God for bank bailouts— absolutely required to save your civilization.  So I think when you have troubles like that you shouldn't be bitching about a little bailout.  You should have been thinking it should have been bigger.  You should thank God the government saved the big banks and their investors. 

Now, if you talk about bailouts for everybody else, there comes a place where if you just start bailing out all the individuals instead of telling them to adapt, the culture dies.  Suck it in and cope." 

Charlie Munger, Christian Science Monitor,  September 30, 2010

The Fed left its benchmark rate unchanged.

A dovish note was struck and reinforced in Chairman Powell's press conference.

The Dollar tanked.

The metals rallied.

Stocks rose a bit.

And a fortunate time is guaranteed—  for a few.

Have a pleasant evening.

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - It's Always Something - Expiration Today, FOMC Tomorrow

 

"While everyone enjoys an economic party the long-term costs of a bubble to the economy and society are potentially great.  They include a reduction in the long-term saving rate, a seemingly random distribution of wealth, and the diversion of financial human capital into the acquisition of wealth.  As in the United States in the late 1920s and Japan in the late 1980s, the case for a central bank ultimately to burst that bubble becomes overwhelming.  I think it is far better that we do so while the bubble still resembles surface froth and before the bubble carries the economy to stratospheric heights.  Whenever we do it, it is going to be painful, however.” 

Larry Lindsey, Federal Reserve Governor, September 24, 1996 FOMC Minutes 

 

“I recognize that there is a stock market bubble problem at this point, and I agree with Governor Lindsey that this is a problem that we should keep an eye on... We do have the possibility of raising major concerns by increasing margin requirements. I guarantee that if you want to get rid of the bubble, whatever it is, that will do it.” 

Alan Greenspan, September 24, 1996 FOMC Minutes 

 

"Where a bubble becomes so large as to pose a threat the entire economic system, the central bank may appropriately decide to use monetary policy to counteract a bubble, notwithstanding the effects that monetary tightening might have elsewhere in the economy.  But how do we know when irrational exuberance has unduly escalated asset values, which then become subject to unexpected and prolonged contractions as they have in Japan over the past decade?  And how do we factor that assessment into monetary policy?  We as central bankers need not be concerned if a collapsing financial asset bubble does not threaten to impair the real economy, its production, jobs, and price stability." 

Alan Greenspan, December 5, 1996, Speech to the American Enterprise Institute

 

As you may recall, the bubble denial by the central banksters was vehement, until everything collapsed in 2001. 

Greenspan was taken aside by Robert Rubin after that 'irrational exuberance' speech.  

And that was that.  Until it all imploded, and then it was observed, 'who could have seen it coming?

Stocks were lower today, weighed down by concerns about the spread of the Covid D variant, and China's get tough regulatory policy towards its own big cap techs.

The NDX led stocks lower, but managed to gain some off the bottom.

You might recall what happened last week when stocks dropped sharply on Covid concerns.

Hint: the concerns were fleeting to say the least, and stocks went back to new bubblicious euphoria.

Silver was hammered along with stocks.

Gold was a bit higher.   The Dollar was lower.

FOMC tomorrow.

Curb your expectations.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Comex Option Expiration Tomorrow

 

"There seems little question that in 1929, modifying a famous cliche, the economy was fundamentally unsound.  This is a circumstance of first-rate importance.  In 1929 the rich were indubitably 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. 

The proportion of personal income received in the form of interest, dividends, and rent – the income, broadly speaking, of the well-to-do – was about twice as great as in the years following the Second World War.  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. 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 

 

"Time is a flat circle. Everything we have done or will do we will do over and over and over again— forever. This place is like somebody's memory of a town, and the memory is fading. It's like there was never anything here but jungle." 

Rust Cohle, True Detective 

 

"Foolishness has a knack of getting its way; as we should see if we were not always so much wrapped up in ourselves. In this respect our townsfolk were like everybody else, wrapped up in themselves; they did not believe in plagues." 

Albert Camus, The Plague

 

Stocks had the wobbles today, but managed to close higher in the late afternoon while the rest of the world slept.

Gold, silver, and the Dollar all were weakly trading.  Silver finished unchanged.

There will be a Comex option expiration for the metals tomorrow. 

All eyes will be on the FOMC meeting this Wednesday. 

I doubt they will do anything or say much before their soiree in Jackson Hole in August.

Try to remember yourselves, who you are, and whom it is you serve.

We have gone through a period of madness, which I would have not believed possible.

Hopefully we will come back to our senses.  Especially if we stop filling our minds and hearts with lies and hate.

It is not worth it.   And especially for those who send and teach these things to their children and grandchildren.   Their sorrow will be profound.

Have a pleasant evening. 

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Who Let the Hogs Out

 

“I know now that one of the characteristics of evil is its desire to confuse.”

M. Scott Peck 

 

“You might as well bang your head into a brick wall if you expect the narcissist to be reasonable, empathetic or human in any way."

Tina Swithin 

 

"Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter... Who acquit the guilty for a bribe, and deprive the innocent of justice."

Isaiah 5:20-23 

 

After some early weakness US equities, led by the story stocks, went on a tear to new highs.

This bubble in valuations is going to leave a mark when it falls back down to the mean.

Gold and silver took another morning hit, in the market's version of Groundhog Day.

There will be an FOMC decision next Wednesday, and a Comex option expiration for the precious metals on Tuesday.

The earnings reports will be rolling out as well, with an emphasis on the big tech names.

Have a pleasant weekend.