Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - This Attractive But Deceitful World - Dr Evil Followed Up By Mini-Me

 

"The wealthiest 1 percent of Americans are the nation’s most egregious tax evaders, failing to pay as much as $163 billion in owed taxes per year, according to a new Treasury Department report released on Wednesday.

The analysis comes as the Biden administration is pushing lawmakers to embrace its ambitious proposal to invest in beefing up the Internal Revenue Service to narrow the 'tax gap,' which it estimates amounts to $7 trillion in unpaid taxes over a decade. 

The White House has proposed investing $80 billion in the tax collection agency over the next 10 years to hire more enforcement staff, overhaul its technology and usher in new information-reporting requirements that would give the government greater insight into tax evasion schemes.  The proposals have been met with deep skepticism from Republicans and business lobbyists." 

DNYUZ, The top 1 percent are evading $163 billion a year in taxes

 

"Ayn Rand's 'philosophy' is nearly perfect in its immorality, which makes the size of her audience all the more ominous and symptomatic as we enter a curious new phase in our society.  Moral values are in flux.  The muddy depths are being stirred by new monsters and witches from the deep.  Trolls walk the American night.  Caesars are stirring in the Forum.

To justify and extol human greed and egotism is to my mind not only immoral, but evil. "

Gore Vidal,  Comment, Esquire, July 1961

 

"But there is a sort of 'Ok guys, you're mad, but how are you going to stop me' mentality at the top." 

Robert Johnson, Audacious Oligarchy

 

Gold and silver were hit again today down to trend resistance, but managed to bounce back a bit into the close.

Not a Dr Evil class market swindle as we saw a week or so ago, but maybe a 'mini-me.'

Stocks were lower, even the storied big cap tech stocks.

The Dollar moved a little higher.

Again this looks like a very technical trade.

But we are entering what has proven historically to be a volatile season for stock bubbles.

Let's see what the rest of the week brings.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Watchfulness - Stock Option Expiration on Friday

 

Another well-crafted bubble, shot to hell?

"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 

 

"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.  In our work, we have arrived at some hallmarks that characterize a market dislocation, which as you know is always a low probability event.  

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 

 

Stocks continued a leg lower today after the release of the Fed Minutes showed additional discussion of instituting a taper in purchasing towards the end of the year. 

This looks so far to be just a correction for 'technical reasons' ahead of the stock option expiration. 

Gold and the Dollar were unchanged. 

Silver was off a bit. 

Have a pleasant evening.