Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - And on Earth, Peace to Men of Good Will

 

"The Lord did not come to make a display.  He came to heal and to teach suffering humanity.  For one who wanted to make a display the thing would have been to appear and dazzle the beholders.  But for Him Who came to heal and to teach, the way was not just to appear here, but to place Himself in the service of those who needed Him, and to be made known to them as they could accept it, not diminishing the value of His Divine presence by overwhelming their capacity to receive it.

He became as we are, so we might become what he is."

Athanasius of Alexandria, On the Incarnation of the Word, 335 AD

"Now there were shepherds in that region, living in the fields, and keeping the night watch over their flock. The angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them.  And they were struck with great fear."

And the angel said to them, 'Do not be afraid.  For behold, I bring you good news of great joy for all people.  Today in the city of David there has been born to you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a babe, wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.'

And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying,

'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men of good will.'

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, 'Let us go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.'  So they left in haste, and found Mary and Joseph and the baby, who was lying in a manger.

After they had seen the Child, they spread the message that they had received about Him. and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. And Mary treasured up all these things, and pondered them in her heart."

Luke 2:10-19

"The glory of God is the human being, fully alive; and the humanity of a person is found reflected in the glory of God."

Irenaeus of Lyons

VIX, the measure of potential market volatility, and thereby 'risk', has fallen to its lowest level of the year.

Remarkable complacency, in a boiling morass of potential exogenous events including the expansion of existing wars to other fronts.

Fear of Missing Out, FOMO, is a powerful factor of greed that extinguishes fear.

If the market went up today, despite all these problems, it can certainly go up tomorrow.

Until something happens, and the mesmerizing allure of self-absorbed certainty collapses. 

And so we go into Christmas.

The tech heavy NASDAQ 100, which has been the lead sled dog for this latest phase of the AI tech bubble, is failing to make a new high, in a sharp divergence to the SP 500. 

Gold and silver continued powering higher.

Their breakouts, from a long period of artificial price suppression, has bolted up and is uncoiling decades of demand.

The Dollar is hanging around on the 97 handle.  A look at the long term DXY chart does not suggest that this is so far out of bounds as to be hard to rationalize.

The US is busily engaged in undermining the confidence of the world in the full faith and credit required to sustain any fiat currency, even one who has long enjoyed the status of the reserve currency of choice.

And the times, they are a-changin'.

I have a large number of our growing extended family coming over tomorrow.  And le Propriétaire will be the Maître d'hôtel, responsible for the dinner and decorations in the absence of his sous chef, the young man, who is basking in the presence of his bride in beautiful Hangzhou.

Daisy, I am sad to report, is of little utility in practical matters.  Like most small dogs, her major competency is a careless presumption based on 'cuteness'.   And here we thought this was only the major qualification for corporate spokesmodels, and certain positions in government.

As an aside, His simple creatures are often an instrument of His kindness towards us.  Yesterday evening, I was updating my little financial plans, and feeling satisfied in the returns on my investment portfolio for this year.

And little Daisy jumped up on my recliner and blanket, and pushed my computer aside, and threw up in my lap.

Surely a tender mercy from God, a caution against pride, in remembering my true place in life. lol

So I dropped everything a made a donation to a charity that my goddaughter devotes much of time to, that will help to feed and shelter the poor in eastern Pennsylvania this winter.  And I filled the bird feeder, and put out something for the foxes and other critters that come around at night.

Message received, Lord.  No need for any more reminders.

At this time of year old men remember lost loves and old friends.  I have a surprising number of those for someone who is fooled by the gradual passage of time.  

But I am even richer in new friends, many of whom I speak with often, but have never met!  Such are the times of the internet.   

These friends often give me, as I hope to give to them, the kind of comfortable encouragement and example to remain standing against the tides and winds that blow at times through the long halls of history.

I won't name them but they know, I should like to think, who they are.  Joe, Matt, Dave, Leigh, Jason, Peter, Sheila, Bruce, Lars,  Ducky, Andrew, Carlos, Tony, Bill, Victor, Henry, Philippe, Christopher, Doug, Steve, 'Elvis', John, Ronan, Doug, Vitaly, Prakash, and so many, many others.

And as these things happen you often lose touch, and drift away.  And sometimes when you try to regain contact, you find they are no longer with us.  And you may also wonder when you will join them.

But the examples and memories remain, strengthening and encouraging you to do their best..  And there is the opportunity to remember them fondly, in both your thoughts and your prayers.

May you and all your families have a joyous and peaceful Christmas day.

See you briefly on Friday.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - That City of Pride, Crime, Wickedness, and Lust for Power

 

"Our Lord has no body now but yours, no hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which He looks with compassion on this world, yours are the feet with which He walks to do good. Yours are the hands, with which He blesses all the world."

Teresa of Avila

“God is not ashamed of the lowliness of human beings. God marches right in. He chooses people as his instruments and performs his wonders where one would least expect them. God is near to lowliness; he loves the lost, the neglected, the unseemly, the excluded, the weak and broken. The celebration of Advent is possible only to those who are troubled in soul, who know themselves to be poor and imperfect, and who look forward to something greater to come."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“Love endures everything, love is stronger than death, love fears nothing. Help me,  Lord, that my eyes may see all with mercy, so that I may never suspect or judge from appearances, but look deeper for what is good and beautiful in others' souls, and then come to their aid.  Let all my nothingness be drowned in the ocean of your mercy.”

Maria Faustyna Kowalska

"Lost friend, lost child, lost parent, sister, brother, husband, wife, we will not so discard you. You shall hold your cherished places in our Christmas hearts, and by our Christmas fires; and in the season of immortal hope, and on the birthday of immortal mercy, we will shut out nothing."

Charles Dickens, What Christmas Is As We Grow Older, Household Words, 1851

"And Peter understood that neither Nero, nor all his legions, could overcome the living truth — that they could not overwhelm it with tears or blood, and that now its victory was beginning. He understood with equal force why the Lord had turned him back on the road to Rome. That city of pride, of crime, of wickedness, and of a lust for power, was beginning to be His city."

Henryk Sienkiewicz, Quo Vadis: A Narrative of the Time of Nero

Where is Nero now, what remains?   A piece of dirt, perhaps, under the fingernail of a little child, to be wiped away by their loving mother. 

The Dollar attempted to rally, but slipped back off the 98 handle in the closing hour.

Gold and silver continued to rally higher, setting new closing highs.

This has been a remarkable year for the precious metals, as they finally broke free of the bounds of sustained price suppression by the Western governments and their banks, for a variety of self-serving reasons.

I tip my hat for all who stood the long watch, patient while being derided and discouraged by the mouthpieces of the financial establishment, waiting with hope even against sharp reversals and abuses.

We have been proven right.  Enjoy it.  

Remember that this is the time of year for giving and mercy.  Bear in mind the message of Matthew 25.

There are too many suffering needlessly from hunger, and hate, and oppression, and a campaign of hate and greed by the foolish and the damned, unrighteous before the nations gathered by the hand of God. 

This is the time of year when we remember our most wondrous victory,the greatest gift beyond all compare that we have been freely given, in the mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God.

So do not be discouraged by those who seems formidable to us now.  

They too will fall, and be forgotten.   Sooner than they might even imagine.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Gold and Silver rally to New Highs

 

“Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts, perhaps fear of a loss of power?”

John Steinbeick, The Short Reign of Pippin IV, 1957

"Most of those who consciously want war and accept it, and so help to create its 'inevitability,' want it in order to shift the locus of their problems."

C. Wright Mills, The Causes of World War III, 1960

"All governments suffer a recurring problem: power attracts pathological personalities.  It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible.  Such people have a tendency to become drunk on violence, a condition to which they are quickly addicted."

Frank Herbert, Chapterhouse Dune, March 1985

"Fascism begins the moment a ruling class, fearing the people may use their political democracy to gain economic democracy, begins to destroy political democracy in order to retain its power of exploitation and special privilege."

Thomas Clement Douglas, Canadian MP

“It could be argued that we are now in the midst of a coup d’état in slow motion. Democracy is weakening; few people would disagree. Corporatism is strengthening; you only have to look around you. Yet none of us has chosen this route for our society, in spite of which our elites quite happily continue down it. Certainly corporatism is creating a conformist society. It is a modern form of feudalism.”

John Ralston Saul, The Unconscious Civilization, 1995

"This elite-generated social control maintains the status quo because the status quo benefits and validates those who created and sit atop it. People rise to prominence when they parrot the orthodoxy rather than critically analyze it. Real change in politics or society cannot occur under the orthodoxy because if it did, it would threaten the legitimacy of the professional class and all of the systems that helped them achieve their status.

Kristine Mattis, The Cult of the Professional Class, April 4, 2016

VIX is now in the very complacent range as noted in the chart below.

Santa Claus staged a little equity rally today.

The Dollar dumped.  

Gold and silver soared higher.

 Impressive performance for the year.  

Silver is a beta monster of volatility.

There will be a gold futures option expiration for the January contract tomorrow. 

We'll get some economic data tomorrow.  

But this should be a fairly quiet week, barring some exogenous event.

The markets will be closed for Christmas on Thursday.

The young man is in China with his bride.  

Daisy and I abide. 

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Only Love Creates

 

“No one in the world can change Truth. What we can do and and should do is to seek truth and to serve it when we have found it. The most deadly poison of our times is indifference. Only love creates."

Maximilian Kolbe, Martyr for Love, Auschwitz, August 14, 1941

"Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day.”

Theodore Roosevelt, The Progressive Platform, April 19, 1906

“Propaganda is the executive arm of the invisible government.”

Edward Bernays, The New Propaganda,

"We are slow to master the great truth that even now Christ is, as it were, walking among us, and by His hand, or eye, or voice, bidding us to follow Him. We do not understand that His call is a thing that takes place now. We think it took place in the Apostles' days, but we do not believe in it; we do not look for it in our own case.

God's presence is not discerned at the time when it is upon us, but afterwards, when we look back upon what is gone and over. The world seems to go on as usual. There is nothing of heaven in the face of society, in the news of the day. And yet the ever-blessed Spirit of God is there, ten times more glorious, more powerful than when He trod the earth in our flesh."

John Henry Newman

"We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed."

2 Corinthians 4:8-9


We lost power and the internet this afternoon.   A somewhat vigorous line of thunderstorms ripped through the area.

Daisy and I curled up with a book by the fire.   It was certainly no hardship.  We are creatures of leisure.

Silver it must be observed, seems to have no problem putting physical foot to bullion banker behinds these days.

The young man is leaving for China next week, to spend the holidays with his bride who is a well-respected professor at a prestigious university.  Their quest for a spousal green card is failing to gain traction.  This may be for the best, all things considered.  Such are the times.  

But Christmas approaches and the extended family will all be here, with their growing horde of little ones.  They are growing in both size and energy.  Remarkable.

So just the charts for now.

Have a pleasant weekend