Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Confronting the Unspeakable

“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."

John Henry Newman

And indeed, based on the above, we might further wonder if that fallen one, which is the very absence and antithesis of goodness, is also walking the earth among us, and summoning the similarly proud and willful with his intoxicating illusion of power to his embrace as well.   Oh no, this surely could not be.

Stocks rallied today in light trading as I suggested that they might yesterday.

Our elites' hypocrisy knows no bounds.

Bloomberg notes that the House's Tax Reform is 'littered with loopholes for the wealthiest.'

Gold and silver took back a little of the losses from yesterday's resurgent dollar.

Tomorrow is likely to be a slightly buoyant day unless *something happens* overnight, and stocks will most likely strike a level early, and then move sideways for the rest of the day as the adults leave for their holiday.

There will be a light half day of trading on Friday.

I was reading a very interesting article today about Heinrich Himmler's order of 24 Nov 1944, to stop the horrific killing machine he and his minions had constructed at the camps.   Himmler thought that if he stopped his genocide, and offered to ship some of the camp inmates to Switzerland, that the Allies would agree to treat himself and his followers as honorable prisoners of war, rather than as the despicable war criminals that they were.

When it became apparent that he would not be easily excused for his years of foul and unspeakable crimes, he settled the matter by biting down on a capsule of cyanide, thus escaping the hangman's news.

His delusion of an easy amnesty based on a last minute, very cynical and transparent change of heart, seems ridiculous, doesn't it?

As Czesław Miłosz wisely noted about such absurdly convenient misconceptions about life,  many are lulled by 'the huge solace of thinking that for our betrayals, greed, cowardice, and murders that we are not ever going to be judged.'

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - What's Cooking, Doc? - Lawyers, Guns, and Money

This will be a holiday shortened week in the US markets for the national holiday of Thanksgiving on November 23.

Trading will be light this week, especially after noon tomorrow. Plenty of room for the usual trading hijinks and shenanigans.

Gold and silver were smacked down this morning in light trade, the dollar rallied, and the VIX dropped.

In days gone by they used to expect a 'Thanksgiving rally' in stocks. We may or may not see that again, although in this thin trade I would not be going short the market in anticipation of anything, except perhaps into the close on Wednesday or into the early close on Friday at 1 PM. Or perhaps not at all.

I am having some fun this week with the 'InstantPot' which I purchased a little while ago. It is a versatile cooker, but I primarily use it as a pressure cooker, at which it is far superior to the old stove-top types with the wobbling metal weight.

On today's menu was a simple split pea soup, with some very nice hamhocks I had purchased on my trip to the Amish market last week, mixed in with a large onion, celery, and some carrots, with a little seasoning and herbs.

If you let the InstantPot release its pressure quickly, rather than slowly and naturally, it tends to expand the peas quite effectively making for a fairly creamy soup, but with the carrots and celery intact. 35 minutes cooking time and you're good to go.

I cook sixteen bean soup similarly but cut the cooking time way down because I like them to retain their shape.  I often add a diced 'waxed turnip' as they call them here.

I do not use it as a rice cooker, although you can.  We have a very nice Zojirushi which the queen and I purchased many years ago. Their price has declined quite a bit since we had purchased it when it was the latest thing with its 'fuzzy logic.'   They do an excellent job.

We're having the souop with the bread I have been baking. I have not done that for some years, but it is coming back quickly. I am making crusty bread to use for the Thanksgiving day stuffing. Adding a cup of hot water to a hot rimmed cooking sheet at about 450 degrees makes for a very nice crust.

I would not take this week too seriously 'unless something happens.' The trading will be heavy on the pros, pushing things around, until the volume simply dies off and the juniors are left to mind it into the holiday.

But if you are trading these markets this week, be sure to bring your own lawyers, guns and money.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Willful Mispricing of Risk - Who Runs Bartertown?

Today was a stock options expiry.

Gold and silver rallied smartly, back up to the levels where they roughly were before they were bushwhacked on the Comex into the FOMC meeting and Non-Farm Payrolls boogie woogie.

I guess the theory that this smackdown of gold to retest 1270 earlier this week was a gambit ahead of stock option expiry was tradeable.

We are in a new era. I am hearing this on TV and in comments and on chat forums.

We are in an era where risk has been abolished by the central banks and their free money. So there is little difference between prime and subprime, between 2 year and 10 year Treasuries, and between stocks and bonds.

According to some of the Pied Piper pundits stocks are better than riskless cash, because stocks are going to keep rallying forever after, and cash is trash.   Buy buy buy, and don't be left behind.

This is the kind of mantra that the sell-side and the wiseguys of the Street too often resort to when they are taking profits from their pool after a big price run higher, and unloading mispriced junk on mom and pop, through the funds and institutions.

Once the selling starts in earnest, and it will beyond any doubt at some point, by whatever event that may happen to trigger it, this is going to get ugly very quickly.  But this is the system that we have today.  This will be the third bubble and bust since the repeal of Glass-Steagall, one of the highest funded PR and political campaigns in modern history.

And no one could have seen it coming.

Who runs Bartertown?

Have a pleasant weekend.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Rally Monkeys Away

US equities rallied today on the earnings report from WalMart, and an excess of hot money with nowhere productive to go.

Today was characterized as a great time to buy the dip, which occurred earlier this week.

Stocks are a buy because corporations are enjoying record profits, which they mostly spend on dividends, boondoggles, monopolization,  and tax buybacks.

Quick, give those folks a tax break!

Tomorrow will be a stock options expiration.

The House passed its version of 'tax reform' today. It will have to be reconciled with reform from the Senate.

The yield curve differential between the 2y and 10y treasuries continues to flatten, with some suggesting it will go to '0' next year.

This is a signal of an oncoming recession.  The other data suggests that the US consumer is 'tapped out.'

The Fed says that healthcare is contributing to the lack of inflation.  Seriously?

How do you know when Paul Ryan is lying about tax reform being done for the average American?    His lips are moving.

How does Paul Ryan know when he is lying about tax reform?   He doesn't care.

I agree with Jeffrey Gundlach's recent observations about the carried interest rule in the tax reform legislation, and that the swamp is not being drained— it is getting larger.

Sow it; reap it; eat it.

Have a pleasant evening.