Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Who Could Have Seen It Coming?

 

"The oligarchic character of the modern English commonwealth does not rest, like many oligarchies, on the cruelty of the rich to the poor.   It does not even rest on the kindness of the rich to the poor.

It rests on the perennial and unfailing kindness of the poor to the rich."

G. K. Chesterton, Heretics


"We've become, now, an oligarchy instead of a democracy.  I think that's been the worst damage to the basic moral and ethical standards to the American political system that I've ever seen in my life."

Jimmy Carter, television interview, September 27, 2015


"It is precisely this — high-powered computers and the swagger of those who operate them — that is causing worries over high-frequency trading’s increasing sway.  'The markets used to be about capital formation,' said Mr. Quast, the consultant.  'Now 80 percent of trading is driven by some form of statistical arbitrage.  We are buying into a statistical house of cards that could unravel very quickly.'”

Landon Thomas, Inquiry Stokes Concern over Trading Firms that Shape Markets, 3 September 2009


“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy — they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby


"A rogue does not laugh in the same way that an honest man does; a hypocrite does not shed the tears of a man of good faith. All falsehood is a mask; and however well made the mask may be, with a little attention we may always succeed in distinguishing it from the true face."

Alexandre Dumas, Les Trois Mousquetaires


“We can have democracy in this country or we can have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we cannot have both.”

Louis Brandeis, source


"God has a way of standing before the nations with judgement, and it seems that I can hear God saying to America 'You are too arrogant!  If you don't change your ways, I will rise up and break the backbone of your power!  And I will place it in the hands of a nation that doesn't even know my name.  Be still, and know that I am God.'"

Martin Luther King, Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam, 1967


The ECB bid au revoir to nominally negative interest rates today. 

And so the euro rallied and the Dollar declined a little further into the 106 handle, which is still rather elevated.

Stocks rallied on the bad economic news this morning.'

It's that kind of Fed-eriffic, otherworldly market.

Gold and silver rallied sharply after a big overnight plunge in honor of the Comex option expiration and FOMC decision next week.

The VIX is at recent lows.  I put a more extended VIX chart up to put it into a broader context.

Stocks have a way to go in order to take out those secondary highs on the CrashTrak model.

But they are finally having a decent go at it. 

Have a pleasant evening.

 

CrashTrak Update With Preliminary Targets

 

Needless to say this is highly speculative and dependent on the formation remaining active.

As I have previously noted this feels more like a long, grinding bear market than a 'crash.'

Ultimate bottoms may be much lower depending on how the Fed and especially the government react.

The tone was set in 1987 for massive intervention to rescue the financial system, if not the public.  

The policy has continued and strengthened in the last three bubble and busts.

Or it may not continue on like this at all.  

But for now it is 'in the pipe, 5 by 5.'

 

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Buddha's Palm Descending - Toro de Fuego

 

"Our share of these great good times was zero, folks.  The upper ten percent of the population, by which we mean our country's financiers and managers and professionals, consumed the entire thing.  To be a young person in America these days is to understand instinctively the downward slope that so many of us are on."

Thomas Frank, 6 April 2017


"When the modern corporation acquires power over markets, power in the community, power over the state and power over belief, it is a political instrument, different in degree but not in kind from the state itself.  To hold otherwise — to deny the political character of the modern corporation — is not merely to avoid the reality.  It is to disguise the reality.  The victims of that disguise are those we instruct in error."

John Kenneth Galbraith


"Hot money seeks out the conscious mispricing of risk.  Capital, in the form of both money and personal talent, increasingly flows into malinvestment and the gaming of markets.   The productive economy languishes, left wanting for the lack of creative resources and attention.  The bubble rises to unsustainable valuations— and fails, and a nation's capital is consumed. 

The next five years are not about winning, but surviving."

Jesse, The Men Who Sold the World, 5 August 2019


“Reality denied comes back to haunt.”

Philip K. Dick, Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said

 

Today was not constructive for the bullish case.

But tomorrow is another day.

And another stock index option expiration.

The Dollar fell off its perch.

Gold and silver soared.

We are heading into a three day weekend.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - We Watched It Coming - Never Say Again You Did Not Know

 

“By means of gradual, treacherous, systematic abuse, the system has put every man into a spiritual prison.  Everywhere and always demonic powers lurk in the dark, waiting for the moment when man is weak; when of his own volition he leaves his place in Creation, as founded for him by God in freedom; when he yields to the force of evil, he separates himself from the powers of a higher order; and after voluntarily taking the first step, he is driven on to the next and the next at a furiously accelerating rate.

Sophie Scholl


“Hatred can be nurtured anywhere, idealism can be perverted into sadism anywhere.  The inferno could erupt anew anywhere.  The history of man is the history of crimes, and history can repeat.  So information is a defense.   Through this we can build, we must build, a defense against repetition."

Simon Wiesenthal


"Everyone knows that plagues have a way of recurring throughout history, yet somehow we find it hard to believe in the ones that crash down on us out of the sky. There have always been plagues and wars, yet they always take us by surprise. When war breaks out people say it's stupid and won't last long. Stupidity has a knack of getting in the way, which we would see if not wrapped up in ourselves. In this our townsfolk were like everybody else— they did not believe in plagues."

Albert Camus, The Plague


“You may choose to look the other way, but you can never say again that you did not know.”

William Wilberforce


What is surprising is not that we are called to do so much, but rather, so little.  Love and be grateful to God, treat people as you would like to be treated with respect, kindness, mercy and forgiveness.  Do not lie or steal or cheat or act with violence and lawlessness, do not be proud and look down on your fellow creatures, and act with honor and respect for the gifts of His creation.

And when we fail through weakness, we are readily forgiven if we are but genuinely repentant for our misdeeds, by action or omission.

But all too often we bargain away our souls, one piece at a time, rebelling from even these small and reasonable requests to goodness— and for relatively so little in return.  A little more money, some prestige and recognition from the worldly, more than the other guy, and a feeling of being superior to the rest of humanity. 

Those people are fools, but I am smart, and fully deserve of everything that we have been given, owing nothing to anyone, including God.  We are self-sufficient; we are like God.

And we may hold on to that poisonous bargain out of stiff-necked, stubborn pride and a willful blindness refusing to repent and admit our errors, until we allow them to drag us into the abyss, often bringing our family and friends with us.  

Misery loves company, and the sinful insulate themselves from a recognition of the foulness of their hearts by rationalizing their sinfulness by excusing it, and attempting to convert those around them to the same wickedness.

Even now most will gloss over this, or assume I am speaking only about their financial investments, or the markets in general.  Or those other guys.  Because that is where their hearts and minds are, with what they truly love and serve, to get what they want.

The worst may be those who embrace the leaven of the Pharisees, and serve some greater good until they kill goodness incarnate, and make their deal with the powers of darkness with their 'righteous anger.'

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.  On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

Let me be blunt.   In the greater scheme of things the only thing that matters is your soul, for that is what this is all about.  

And most are just letting theirs go, little by little,into accepting anger and hatred, lies and violence and lawlessness.  I have seen it before, in the 50s and 60s.  Every century is like every other, but each think that they are exceptional, and that theirs is the worst.

It is a story old as Babylon, and evil as sin.

Stocks took a dive today, as reality continues to puncture the terrific asset bubble that was fomented by the trousered apes and their financial system.

Gold and silver were hammered today, as they seemed to be no haven from the selling except the Dollar.  Not even bonds.

VIX took a jump higher.

The impetus for this latest selling seems to be the notion that has been spreading among the trading desks and their media is the idea that the Fed is going to surprise the markets with a 75 to 100 basis point rate increase on Wednesday.

It's possible, but not probable.

Did I mentions that there is an option expiration on Friday.

Never forget that these jokers have no conscience, and thereby no shame, in their higher priorities.

The CrashTrak model is being updated since we set some new lows today.

I am struggling with a number of probabilities here.   Did we just reaffirm and more firmly set that second low, or are we truly into a failed rally scenario and a deeper decline.

A crash may be a misnomer here.   The average duration from top to break in a 'crash' is generally about 62 days.  We are well beyond that at 190+ days.

The selling is quite orderly.   And the seasonality is all wrong.  The VIX has not yet topped 40.

The dip buyers keep coming back in, dragged by their perverse need to beat the other guy.

Winning...

I am thinking this *could* be a crash in slow motion, thanks to the interference of the Fed at al.

Or maybe more likely the genesis of a grinding bear market as we had seen in 73-74.

I will be thinking more about it.

For most the higher ground is the place to be.

But if your greed drags you out into the deeper waters, well, enjoy.

Have a pleasant evening. 

CrashTrak Update for June 10, 2022 - YTD Performance

 

"Life is a school of probabilities."

Walter Bagehot


I have updated the CrashTrak profile for the lows on June 10, 2022.

That '3rd Low' is obviously a work in progress.

We might even get a new 'failed rally' depending on where the stock indices go next.

Given the duration and the fluctuations I am more open now to the idea of a long, grinding bear market, rather than the quicker resolution of a proper crash.

FOMC and a stock index option expiration next week.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Bonfire of the Banalities - Cloudy With a Chance of Carnage

 

"There is not a more perilous or immoral habit of mind than the sanctifying of success.”

Lord Acton


"It is the belief of the elite that the power of their office is an achievement that rewards them with the right to lie, cheat and steal, both for themselves and their friends.

Although it is most important to understand that they would be shocked and insulted if one used those words, lie, cheat and steal, to describe what they are doing.  They view themselves as exceptionally hard working, and obligated by their natural gifts and superiority.

Through a long indoctrination that starts in their families, but is most often affirmed in their elite schools and among their circle of privileged friends, they learn to rationalize selective moral behaviour not as immoral but as 'the entitlement of our success.'  

And they are supported by a horde of morally ambivalent enablers who will tell them whatever they wish to hear.  There are one set of rules for themselves and their friends, and another set of rules for the rest.

Few who actually do evil consciously choose to be evil.  They rationalize what they do in any number of ways, but the deceit often hinges on their assumed natural superiority, and the objectification and denigration of the other.  We are makers, and they are takers.  Although many may work hard, they see their own work as having special value and merit, while the actions of the others are inconsequential and unworthy.

Given enough time, their rationalizations become an ideology, desensitized to the meaning and significance of others outside their own select group. This supremacy of ideology empties their souls, and opens the door to mass privation and even murder, although rarely done by their own hands.

Jesse, Goldman, Banking, Washington, and Business Ethics, 26 February 2013

To say that the equity market action today was not constructive would be an understatement.

At best we can say that the major indices are going back down to test the prior low, the second low in our CrashTrak model.

Worst case, they are teetering on the abyss.

What was stunning about today for me was the sharp upward movement in gold, silver and The Dollar, all in one of the first coordinated flights to safety we have seen among those three in a very long time.

Needless to say, I am on the highest ground I can find for the weekend.

More inflation and economic data next week.

Stock index option expiration on Friday.

Have a pleasant weekend.