Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Snakes in Suits: Influence, Betrayal, and Madness

 

"War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it."

George Orwell, The New Statesman and Nation, August 1937

"Boys who were found hiding were hanged as traitors by the SS as a warning that, 'he who was not brave enough to fight had to die.'   When trees were not available, people were strung up on lamp posts. They were hanging everywhere, military and civilian, men and women, ordinary citizens who had been executed by a small group of fanatics.  It appeared that the Nazis did not want the people to survive because a lost war, by their rationale, was obviously the fault of all of us.  We had not sacrificed enough and therefore, we had forfeited our right to live, as only the government was without guilt."

Dorothea von Schwanenfluegel, Eyewitness account, Fall of Berlin 1945

"Our plutocracy, whether the hedge fund managers in Greenwich, Connecticut, or the Internet moguls in Palo Alto, now lives like the British did in colonial India: ruling the place but not of it.

Mike Lofgren, The Deep State: The Fall of the Constitution and the Rise of a Shadow Government, 5 January 2016

"Under pretence of governing they have divided their nations into two classes, wolves and sheep.  I do not exaggerate.  If once they become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress, and Assemblies, judges and governors shall all become wolves.  It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions; and experience declares that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the governments of Europe, and to the general prey of the rich on the poor."

Thomas Jefferson,  Letter to Edward Carrington, 16 January 1787

"Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?
Why, if it prosper, none dare call it treason."

John Harrington, Epigrams: Of Treason, 1618


Gold and silver came in steaming from the overnight foreign trade.

But a rally in the Dollar in NY time knocked them back down to mostly unchanged.

Stocks gathered themselves together at the same time and turned sharp losses into smaller losses and nearly unchanged.

The BRICs will have their summit meeting in Kazan, Russia over the next two days.

Never, ever expect the classic narcissist leader to fail to try every trick in the book, up to and including leading their nation into the abyss, in order to advance even their most narrow, pettiest desires.

This stuns the average person who would never even considering doing something so dishonorable and madly selfish.   

The disadvantage of the average person is that they are not given over to madness, and find the mere concept of it horrifying.

But for some it is just the business of the day.

We have seen it in history.  I have seen it in business.  It is stunning.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - These Violent Delights Have Violent Ends

 

"The period of financial distress is a gradual decline after the peak of a speculative bubble that precedes the final and massive panic and crash, driven by the insiders having exited but the sucker outsiders hanging on hoping for a revival, but finally giving up in the final collapse."

Charles Kindleberger, Manias, Panics, and Crashes

"These violent delights have violent ends
And in their triumph die, like fire and powder,
Which, as they kiss, consume."

William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

"Simply put, a market dislocation is when a sustained bubble begins to wobble and fall apart, and the realization comes generally that it is collapsing, with all participants remaining invested heading for the exits in a mass panic. These patterns of collapse tend to have a common framework. The challenge is separating a market dislocation from an ordinary correction. 

The setup for a market dislocation begins with a sustained increase in price (the Ramp) to a significant new high (the Top) over a period of time which is multiples of the subsequent decline. US equity markets saw such a top late last year in October. From there the first assault in confidence occurs as profit taking, creating a decline more significant than the declines serving as corrections up to the Top.

It is usually an initial decline of ten percent or greater. Often we get an uncharacteristic decline. The rally back from this first low not exceed the Top (obviously) and is referred to as the Second High (with the TOP being the first or highest high). It can be equal to the TOP. The next low must set a lower low, ruling out a double bottom. It is preferable but not necessary that the Lows be noticeably lower than the Highs.

The lower the lows, the more likely that the dislocation will mark the start of a bear market rather than just a market clearing event like the Crash of 1987. It is not uncommon to reach this point, and the vast majority of times will merely be an A-B-C correction. The next step is a critical differentiator, the Failed Rally. If there is a bounce of 2 to 5 percent that fails to gain momentum, and drops back to a lower low, and fails to rally again from there, it sets up a higher than normal probability of a market dislocation which we define for our purposes as a market decline of 30 percent or greater within a one year period."

Jesse, Crash: The Rally that Fails as Hallmark of Major Market Dislocations, 27 January 2008


It was rally mode today for equities.

They were certainly not cowed by the anniversary of Black Monday in October 1987.

Even more impressive, gold and silver both broke out of resistance and ran higher.

It was in the charts.  It's just hard to believe when it actually happens.

We don't believe in plagues, or wars.  Or the occasional triumph of reality over madness.

VIX fell.

The Dollar did an all day decline, sans chop.

All in all, another monthly option expiration.

It is definitely autumn weather here now, with the temperatures falling towards freezing at night.

And the 'boys of autumn' are in their playoff season.

Halloween is around the corner, and Thanksgiving is in the air.

So let us be thankful, and prayerful.

Have a pleasant weekend.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - What Sorrow Awaits Them

 

If there are damned souls in hell, it's because men blind themselves.

"Why can you not understand me?  Because you are unable to hear what I say.  You belong to your father, the devil, and you live to serve your father’s desires.   He was a murderer from the beginning, and did not stand in the truth, for there is no truth in him.  When he lies he speaks from his heart, for he is a liar and the father of lies."

John 8:43-44

“Woe to you, Pharisees.  For you love to sit in the seats of honor in the synagogues and receive respectful greetings as you walk in the marketplaces.  What sorrow is awaiting you.  For you are like hidden graves in a field.  People walk over them without knowing the corruption.”

“Teacher,” said an expert in religious law, “you have insulted us too, in what you just said.”

“Yes,” said Jesus, “what sorrow also awaits you lawyers and teachers of the law. For you crush people with unreasonable demands, and you never lift a finger to ease their burden. What sorrow awaits you. For you build monuments for the prophets that your fathers killed.  But in fact, you stand as witnesses who agree with what your ancestors did.  They killed the prophets, and you join in their crime by building the monuments. This is what God in his wisdom said about you: ‘I will send prophets and apostles to them, whom they will kill and persecute.’

As a result, this generation will be held responsible for the murder of all God’s prophets from the creation of the world— from the murder of Abel to the murder of Zechariah, who was killed between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, it will certainly be held to account against this generation.

What sorrow awaits you authorities of the law.  For you remove the key to knowledge from the people. You do not enter the Kingdom yourselves, and you prevent others from entering as well.”

As Jesus was leaving, the scribes and the Pharisees became hostile, and tried to provoke him with their questions."

Luke 11:40-53

"For those who are determined to be rich fall into temptations and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful passions which drown them in ruin and destruction.  For the love of money is the root of all evil, after which some have coveted, and have lost their faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows."

1 Timothy 6:9-10


We had the customary pop and flop today, ahead of the stock option expiration tomorrow.

Gold rallied.  Silver not so much.

The Dollar did its usual choppy thing.

The BRICs will be holding their summit meeting in Russia next week.

Grab a secure position, well funded and solid, and hang on.  It looks to be a bumpy ride.

 The madness progresses, and serves none but itself.

And before this is all done, you may wish to remember how to pray. 

It's been some time.  Generational. 

We forget.  And then we remember.  

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Rule of Law

 

"A lot of white-collar criminals are psychopaths.  But they flourish because the characteristics that define the disorder are actually valued.  When they get caught, what happens?  A slap on the wrist, a six-month ban from trading, and don't give us the $100 million back.  I've always looked at white-collar crime as being as bad or worse than some of the physically violent crimes that are committed."

Robert Hare, as quoted in Psychopaths Among Us

“I've always resented the smug statements of politicians, media commentators, corporate executives who talked of how, in America, if you worked hard you would become rich.  The meaning of that was if you were poor it was because you hadn't worked hard enough.  I knew this was a lie, about my father and millions of others, men and women who worked harder than anyone, harder than financiers and politicians, harder than anybody if you accept that when you work at an unpleasant job that makes it very hard work indeed.”

Howard Zinn, You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train

"People can rationalize almost anything, for even a considerable time, for years, and ignore all the consequences of their actions and inactions.  And when someone finally forces them to look at what they have done, and shows it to them firmly, describing it in uncompromising words, they are shocked, defiant, in denial, then appalled, and finally ashamed.  One does not become a monster overnight, but in stages."

Jesse, Psychopaths Among Us and the Necessity of Law, 9 September 2011

"THOMAS MORE:  Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?

WILLIAM ROPER:  I'd cut down every law in England to do that!

THOMAS MORE:  Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat?

This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast, man's laws, not God's, and if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then?  Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake."

Robert Bolt, A Man for All Seasons

"He who fights with monsters should be wary that they may become a monster. For if you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss gazes back in you."

Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, 1886

This was an interesting day of seeming convergences.

Stocks rose overall, although big cap tech was flat.

VIX fell.

Gold and silver were higher.

The Dollar rose.

Was this a flight to safety, or a flight of the imagination.

There will be a stock option expiration on Friday.

And as a reminder, there will be a BRICs Summit meeting next week on October 22-24.

There may be some implications for the markets, particularly gold and silver. 

And of course, as a consequence of the madness of the exceptional, we remain dancing on a volcano.

Have a pleasant evening.