Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Wash and Rinse in Silver - Global Turmoil

 

"Caesar was swimming in blood, Rome and the whole pagan world was mad. But those who had had enough of transgression and madness, those who were trampled upon, those whose lives were misery and oppression, all the weighed down, all the sad, all the unfortunate, came to hear the wonderful tidings of God, who out of love for men had given Himself to be crucified and redeem their sins.

When they found a God whom they could love, they had found that which the society of the time could not give any one— happiness and love."

Henryk Sienkiewicz, Quo Vadis: The Time of Nero

"Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song."

John Paul II

"He went about doing good and healing all those oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. We are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree.

This man God raised on the third day and granted that he be visible, not to all the people, but to us, the witnesses chosen by God in advance, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. He commissioned us to preach to the people and testify that he is the one appointed by God as judge of the living and the dead.   To him all the prophets bear witness, that everyone who believes in him will receive forgiveness of sins through his name.”

Acts of the Apostles 10:37-43

 

The 'highly anticipated' Fed minutes came out at 2 PM and basically added nothing new to the conversation given the recent speeches by Fed heads Bulland and Mester.

 Stocks were meh, although the NDX showed some strength all things considered.

But not to waste an opportunity, gold and silver were lower as the Dollar edged higher.

And I am shocked, shocked, that silver got smacked down after the seemingly uncorrelated rally.

 As noted in yesterday's commentary.

"Silver was the standout, rallying up for most of the day, contra just about everything.  We have an option expiration for silver on the Comex coming on the 23rd.  Forewarned is forearmed."

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Our Lady of Sorrows - Quad Witch Expiration Tomorrow

 

"The child’s father and mother were amazed at what was said about him; and Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, 'Behold, this child is destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed, and a sword will pierce your own soul, so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.”

Luke 2:33-35


"When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said, 'Woman, behold, your son.'  Then he said to his disciple, 'Behold, your mother.'  And from that moment the disciple took her into his home."

John 19:26-27


"When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, 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 2:17-19


"And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed in the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head."

Revelation 12:1


“Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to sift all of you like wheat.  But I have prayed that your own faith may not fail.  And once you have returned to faith, you must strengthen your brothers.”

Luke 22:31-32

The Dollar and VIX chopped sideways and were essentially unchanged.

The spokesmodels were talking up 'King Dollar' with pom-poms flashing.  Sis boom bah.

Stocks declined quite a bit but came back from the selling pressure in the last half hour.

Gold and silver were slammed.

What a surprise.

Tomorrow must be a major stock option expiration and rebalancing, aka a 'quad witch.'

Lawless, with little to no consequences.

Fedex withdrew their 2023 earnings forecast in an early announcement after the bell and was knocked down 11%.  Ouch.

Have a pleasant evening.

How the Banks and Hedge Funds Manipulate the Precious Metals Markets

 

"If price discovery is compromised by manipulation, then we will all be gradually impoverished and the economy will be imbalanced and unstable.   Over the past 25 years the forces of regulatory liberalisation and demutualisation of markets have allowed the largest global banks to set the rules, processes and infrastructure of global markets to their own self-interested requirements."

London Banker, Lies, Damn Lies, and LIBOR 

 

"American political corruption was the buying up of legislatures and assemblies to keep them from doing the people's will and protecting the people's interests; it was the exploiter entrenching himself in power, it was financial autocracy undermining and destroying political democracy.   By the blindness and greed of ruling classes the people have been plunged into infinite misery.

It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” 

Upton Sinclair

 

"He who does not bellow the truth when he knows the truth makes himself the accomplice of liars and forgers."

Charles Peguy

 

When I write about 'running the stops' this is what I mean, as is explained in the video below.  They do it quite a bit in the metals markets, but also in the rest of them, including the bond markets.

There are commentators and sites that continue to excuse and cover up the corruption ongoing in the markets. 

You might be correct, given all the evidence, to be a bit skeptical if not suspicious of those professional scoffers, and the perennial promoters of unregulated 'free markets' in which powerful insiders have the ability to cheat and defraud the public at will.

The pity is that it still continues, along with quite a bit of additional antics and shenanigans.

Here is something I wrote back in 2009 about a particular event, which was called the Dr. Evil strategy by Citibank when the European regulators took them to task for running the stops in the European bond market. 

Ted Butler and many others have been doing good work citing and challenging this silver and gold market manipulation, for years.   Ted in particular has been writing the book on JPM and the silver market.

Bart Chilton passed away some years ago at age 58.   But Gary Gensler, his old boss, is now back again.   Will anything be done?

You can find the related pieces over time by clicking on the Dr. Evil topic here.

Here is Kyle Bass' opinion on the physical metals leverage in the Comex.  The video keeps getting taken down, but this copy remains.

And here is James Cramer's notorious description of how he manipulated the markets.

If you are trading with a online broker, do you notice how odd the price action has become when you place an order?

I do not seek to persuade you.  If you don't realize yet what is going on, it may be because you cannot.

I just feel an obligation to bring things like the video below into the light of day. 

Make up your own minds.

Or listen when the opinion molders say, 'nothing to see here move along,' and 'look look over there, people are trying to take your freedom by making you wear a mask.'

But if and when the physical markets blow up, as these highly leveraged schemes generally do, and no one could have seen it coming, and some outlandish rationale is advanced, you will know what happened, if you choose to see what has been there all along.

Stocks and Precious Metal Charts - Slowdown in US Manufacturing Stuns the Markets - A Nation of Servants

"The trust of the innocent is the liar's most useful tool."

Stephen King, Needful Things


"The bully type, the false 'tough,' has been the first to break down under the actual fire of battle.  The quiet, the calm, the determined have made the best soldiers.  Why? Obviously the bully is insecure in himself— he blusters to muster his own courage."

Pearl S. Buck, What America Means to Me


"Narcissists damage and hurt but they do so offhandedly and naturally, as an afterthough. They are aware of what they are doing to others - but they do not care.”

Sam Vaknin, Malignant Self-Love


"We have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men. It is not merely that at present the rule of naked force obtains almost everywhere. Probably that has always been the case. Where this age differs from those immediately preceding it is that a liberal intelligentsia is lacking. Bully-worship, under various disguises, has become a universal religion."

George Orwell


“Crowd-pleasers [demagogues] are generally brainless swine who can go out on a stage and whip their supporters into an orgiastic frenzy— then go back to the office and sell every one of the poor bastards down the tube for a nickel apiece.”

Hunter S. Thompson


The so-called paradox of freedom is the argument that freedom in the sense of absence of any constraining control must lead to very great restraint, since it makes the bully free to enslave the meek. The idea is, in a slightly different form, and with very different tendency, clearly expressed in Plato."

Karl Popper


"A confident, aggressive delivery style - often larded with jargon, clichés, and flowery phrases - makes up for the lack of substance and sincerity in their interactions with others ... they are masters of impression management; their insight into the psyche of others combined with a superficial - but convincing - verbal fluency allows them to change their personas skillfully as it suits the situation and their game plan.

The most debilitating characteristic of even the most well-behaved psychopath is the inability to form a workable team."

Paul Babiak and Robert Hare, Snakes in Suits

The end of quarter antics of Wall Street hit a brick wall this morning, when before the bell the ISM Manufacturing Index came in at 47.8%, which was quite a miss, and showed the early signs, not only of slowdown, but contraction. This also reinforced the Chicago PMI which came in with a shockingly low 47.1 on Monday.

And so stocks dumped and gold and silver rallied. The Dollar was marginally lower.

I would not count these jokers out just yet. We have some additional data coming out this week, especially the Non-Farm Payrolls and the ISM Services Index, which may serve to provide the wiseguys some additional courage in their market manipulation.

After all, 'manufacturing' is so much an old economy thing, and services are where we wish to be. A nation of servants ruled over by a few oligarchs and their enablers.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - End of Quarter Boogie Woogie - Non-Farm Payrolls and Golden Week

"Price discovery is not a sexy function of markets, but it is critical to the efficient allocation of scarce capital and resources, and to the preservation of the long term wealth of investors and the economy as a whole.  If price discovery is compromised by manipulation, then we will all be gradually impoverished and the economy will be imbalanced and unstable.

Over the past 25 years the forces of regulatory liberalisation and demutualisation of markets have allowed the largest global banks to set the rules, processes and infrastructure of global markets to their own self-interested requirements."

London Banker, Lies, Damn Lies, and LIBOR


"Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose."

Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr, Les Guêpes

Today was the end of the third quarter. As usual the paint was going on the tape again to make those end of quarter results look better, or at least less bad.

The big shorts in the gold and silver markets, primarily on the Comex, managed to continue the knockdown of the metals that began with the October option expiration last week. see the Dr Evil strategy for details about this.

'Golden Week', a seven day national holiday in China, begins on October 1. There markets are closed. This provides a good cover for the paper trading to be conducted without undue physical buying pressure. Although the rise and steady level of gold inventories in the Comex Hong Kong has been notable.

There was a huge amount of gold contracts changing hands on the Comex last Friday.   The big seller was customers at JPM and the house account at HSBC. I have included that clearing report below.

The big gold contract buyers were the house accounts at JPM, Goldman, Citi, and MacQuarie.  Presumably some of this was short covering.

I would imagine that the price smackdown today and the past few trading sessions will have knocked down the number of longs being held in both gold and silver.

The Dollar was up marginally, as were stocks, and the VIX drifted lower.

There will be a Non-Farm payrolls report on Friday.

I was closed out of the remaining trading position I had long gold in the opening minutes today, on a tight stop.  A good chunk of it went out on Friday.  I will be looking for a re-entry point.  Carefully.

My thoughts on the markets with regard to support and resistance levels are marked on the charts below.

Have a pleasant evening.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - 'Smoking Gun' In Bank Silver Rigging

The precious metals turn in a weaker performance today based on dollar strength versus the euro.

The markets had a little difficulty in determining whether the action taken this morning with regard to their version of QE was hawkish or dovish.

Dovish finally won the day, and the euro slumped against Uncle Buck.

The most interesting news of the day is the discovery of a 'smoking gun' in the papers from the Deutsche Bank lawsuit and settlement that names a group of other Banks as active manipulators in manipulating the silver market.

You may read about that here and in a few other articles in today's selected reading. I particularly enjoyed the Wall Street On Parade piece that refers to the Banks as being a Silver Market Mafia.

Most informed participants could see the obvious price rigging in the gold and silver markets over the past several years.   Normal trading does not instruct one to dump billions of dollars in contract into the quiet market off hours.

And in fact this is a well known, time-tested market rigging ploy that some banks had internally referred to as the Dr. Evil Strategy.

How ironic that the CFTC, the primary regulatory body for commodities in the US, studied the silver market for about five years and then decided not to bother issuing any report, save for a simple statement that 'they found no evidence of market manipulation.'  

This is the sad story of our times of regulatory capture and pervasive 'soft corruption' in political circles.   As Senator Dick Durbin noted in the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008, 'the banks still own the place.'

The American people, and the people of a few other developed nations, are sick of this duplicity and dishonesty in the political and professional class.

As well they might be.   And their attempts at redress and reform are ignored or stifled, and so the anger keeps building to what some fear will be a 'Versailles Moment.'   One would hope not that, but history suggests that this sort of situation does not end well when if finally does.

Have a pleasant evening.