Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Option Expiration: For the Love of An Illusion

 

"As a country becomes industrialized, its governance and corruption challenges do not disappear. They simply morph and become more sophisticated: transfer of a briefcase stashed with cash is less frequent. Instead, subtler forms of capture and 'legal corruption' exist: an expectation of a future job for a regulator in a lobbying firm, or a campaign contribution with strings attached. In many countries this may be legal, even if unethical. In industrialized nations undue influence is often legally exercised by powerful private interests, which in turn influence the nation's regulations, policies and laws."

Daniel Kaufmann, Corruption And The Global Financial Crisis, Forbes, 27 January 2009

"America is caught in a confidence or credibility trap, in which the changes, investigations, and reforms necessary to restore trust to an economy or market are rendered unlikely because doing so would expose a pervasive corruption that the principals fear would destroy the careers of politicians and business people who may have permitted and even appeared to facilitate the control fraud that caused the financial crisis in the first place."

Jesse, America Trapped in a Massive Coverup of Control Fraud and Corruption, 22 January 2011

"Jesus began to speak to his disciples, saying: ‘Beware the leaven of the Pharisees, which is their hypocrisy.  There is nothing concealed that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be made known.  What has been said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what has been whispered in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the rooftops.

‘I tell you my brothers, do not be afraid of those who can kill the body and after that do no more.  Rather you should fear him who, after your body has been killed, has the authority to cast your soul into hell. Amen, I tell you, fear his judgement."

Luke 12:1-6

There were a number of significantly negative developments over the weekend.

You can read about the war in the Mideast and Ukraine for yourselves.

The AI giants are starting to buckle under the weight of their own outrageously 'optimistic' revenue forecasts and spending.

Statements were issued, and hands were revealed for those who had the eyes to see them.

So why did the markets do what they did today, that is, open significantly lower and then recover throughout the day?

For the same reason that the market insiders have been covering up the problems in the oil and gas markets for months now.

There is money to be made in a control fraud.   And this one has the backing of the power elite.

The biggest stock option expiration of the year is this Friday.

One can cite evidence, and historical examples, and most people will sagely nod their heads as if they understand, and then proceed on to obsessively follow the illusion of being exceptional until they leap as a group of true believers into the abyss.

I saw this in so many heartbreaking ways in 2002.  And again in 2008. 

And we are about to see it again.   And they will not believe it is happening until the deluge sweeps them away.

Do not be deceived, for God is not mocked.   What a man sows, so shall he reap. 

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Spiritual Wickedness in High Places

 

"...further, the distinction between military and commercial space systems – combatants and noncombatants – will become blurred.   Information systems will become an important focus of attack, particularly for U.S. enemies seeking to short-circuit sophisticated American forces.  And advanced forms of biological warfare that can 'target' specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool.

This is merely a glimpse of the possibilities inherent in the process of transformation, not a precise prediction.  Whatever the shape and direction of this revolution in military affairs, the implications for continued American military preeminence will be profound.

...the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor. "

The Project For a New American Century, Rebuilding America's Defenses, September 2000

The Project For a New American Century was a think tank founded in 1997 by Robert Kagan and William Kristol, with John Bolton, Bruce Jackson, and Devon Gaffney Cross as Directors. Robert Kagan is the husband of Victoria Nuland. PNAC was replaced in 2009 by the 'Foreign Policy Initiative' which was also founded by Kristol and Kagan.

In addition to promoting 'neo-conservative' policies within the Clinton, Bush, and Obama Administrations, the organization issued a major position paper called Rebuilding America's Defenses which you may read about here.

PNAC was a leading proponent for regime change and wars in Iraq, Libya, Syria, Lebanon, and Iran. There is a list of the original signatories and contrbutors on the last page although there is no evidence that they specifically approved of this position paper.

Jesse, Whiling Away the Stabilization Phase, 13 August 2015

"I told you once that I was searching for the nature of evil.  I think I've come close to defining it: a lack of empathy.  It's the one characteristic that connects all the defendants.  A genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow man.  Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy."

G. M. Gilbert, Nuremberg Diary, 1947

"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places."

Ephesians 6:12

As a reminder there will be a triple witch stock option expiration next Friday.  It could be significant.

Wall Street and the politicians honored the national observance of 9/11 by doing their best to cloak their scheming and conniving for personal gain by draping themselves in the American flag.

Oil fell to 'profit-taking' which was a bunch of baloney.

The situation with energy related products is going to rock the Western economies.  

The war situation is only getting worse, caught in a spiral of escalation. 

Dollar chopped.

Bitcoin held its ground.

VIX fell.

Gold and silver bounced back a bit.

May God have mercy on us.

Have a pleasant weekend. 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - And Who Then Will Be Able to Stand?

 

"Now the end is at hand. Now it is our task to find one another again, to spread information from person to person, to keep a steady purpose, and to allow ourselves no rest until the last man is persuaded of the urgent need of his struggle against this system."

The White Rose, Second Leaflet, Munich 1942

"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

"We from our youth up have lived in peace; with no persecution, no terror, no hindrance in serving God. The utmost we have had to endure, is what is almost too trifling for a Christian to mention — cold looks, or contempt, or ridicule, from those who have not the heart themselves to attempt the narrow way.  Our sins are more in number than the hairs of our head; yet even the hairs of our head are all numbered by Him.  He counts our sins, and, as He counts, so can He forgive; for that reckoning, great though it be, comes to an end; but His tender mercies fail not, and His Son's merits are infinite."

John Henry Newman, Present Blessings, 1839

"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 Kindelberger, Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises, 1978

"Then the kings of the earth, the nobles, and the military commanders, the rich and the powerful, and all the rest who served hid themselves in caves and sheltered among the rocks of the mountains.  And they implored the mountains and the rocks, 'Fall on us and hide us from the face of the one who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb.  For the great day of his wrath has come, and who then will be able to stand?”

Revelation 6:15-17

Gold and silver were hammered.

Stocks fell.

VIX rose sharply.

Bitcoin sold off a bit.

This looked to be some of the big boys starting to raise liquidity. 

This is the pronounced receding of the ocean that precedes certain natural events of magnitude, that strange phenomenon that draws many to the shoreline, only to be engulfed in the relentless tsunami that follows.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Remember, Remember

 

“Persuading the people to vote against their own best interests has been the awesome genius of the American political elite.”

Gore Vidal, Homage to Daniel Shays, 1972

"Nothing is great but truth, and the smallest truth is great.  The other day I had a thought, which I put like this: Even a harmful truth is useful, for it can be harmful only for the moment and will lead to other truths, which must always become useful, very much so.  Conversely, even a useful error is harmful, for it can be useful only for the moment, enticing us into other errors, which become more and more harmful."

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Letter to Charlotte von Stein, 1787

"The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth."

H.L. Mencken, The Smart Set, 1922

"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society.

The minority has discovered a powerful help in influencing majorities. It has been found possible so to mold the mind of the masses that they will throw their newly gained strength in the desired direction. The mechanism by which ideas are disseminated on a large scale is propaganda, in the broad sense of an organized effort to spread a particular belief or doctrine. Propaganda is the executive arm of the invisible government.

This practice of creating circumstances and of creating pictures in the minds of millions of persons is very common. Virtually no important undertaking is now carried on without it, whether that enterprise be building a cathedral, endowing a university, marketing a moving picture, floating a large bond issue, or electing a president. Sometimes the effect on the public is created by a professional propagandist, sometimes by an amateur deputed for the job. The important thing is that it is universal and continuous; and in its sum total it is regimenting the public mind every bit as much as an army regiments the bodies of its soldiers.

Modern propaganda is a consistent, enduring effort to create or shape events to influence the relations of the public to an enterprise, idea or group. Clearly it is the intelligent minorities which need to make use of propaganda continuously and systematically. In the active proselytizing minorities in whom selfish interests and public interests coincide lie the progress and development of America. Only through the active energy of the intelligent few can the public at large become aware of and act upon new ideas."

Edward Bernays, Propaganda, 1928

"Many will become addicted to hateful and malicious thoughts and hateful words. Slaves to their desires, they will be ferocious, angry despisers of what is good and right. With brutal treachery they will act without restraint, bigoted and blinded by clouds of conceit. They will demand and find their delight in the pleasures of this world, and ignore their need to serve God. They may act religious, but they want to serve themselves."

2 Timothy 3:1-5

As a reminder there will be an option expiration on September 18^th, and it looks like it may be a memorable example of a triple witch in the latter stages of a dodgy episode of egregiously mispriced risk.

Keep a weather eye on the horizon, for the witch of November may come early. 

So, stocks finally bent to the fracas in the Persian Gulf and sensed, as missiles took out various ships and bases and reportedly even struck a carrier, that the risk of war and oil disruptions are in the air.

Stocks fell but in a fairly controlled manner.  No panic yet.

Oil rose again and is pushing up against that trendline for a breakout.

The weather might have to get a little chilly for some to wake up.  Natural gas is sleeping.

Dollar chop.

Gold and silver rallied.  I don't know why Bessent is bothering, since he has his hands full of yen, but it feels like gold is being held down.  

At some point, again, it is going to rocket higher.

Bitcoin is dawdling around a trading range.

Inflation data coming out the next two days.  I am pressed to believe any numbers coming out of the Administration now.  

Bully worship seems to be the trend in the West these days.   It's like a bad relationship that never seems to end. 

Our 'thought leaders' and our politicians are about as bad as I have ever seen, 

This is reminiscent of the days of Senator McCarthy and the Red Scare.   Barely a lick of conscience, courage, or conviction for the Constitution and rule of law anywhere, except for a few shining lights now and then. 

We will have some serious work to do in the days ahead.  I probably won't be here to see it, but I hope you will do yourselves proud.  

Have a pleasant evening.