Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Leaven of the Pharisees

"Moral hazard is a situation in which one party gets involved in a risky event knowing that it is protected against the risk and the other party will incur the cost. It arises when both the parties have incomplete information about each other."


“People with advantages are loathe to believe that they just happen to be people with advantages. They come readily to define themselves as inherently worthy of what they possess; they come to believe themselves 'naturally' elite; and, in fact, to imagine their possessions and their privileges as natural extensions of their own elite selves.”

C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite


“Instead of flooding the entire economy with liquidity, and thereby increasing the danger of inflation, the Fed could support the stock market directly by buying market averages in the futures market, thereby stabilizing the market as a whole.”

Robert Heller, Federal Reserve Board, 1989


“Only crime and the criminal, it is true, confront us with the perplexity of radical evil; but only the hypocrite is really rotten to the core.”

Hannah Arendt

A massive, 'price insensitive' buying program turned stocks around and closed them in the green.

Very impressive.

Some times when you have nothing nice to say, it is better to say nothing at all.

Our 'self-identified elite' on both sides of the ideological spectrum are most often unprincipled, delusional hypocrites, otherwise known as whited sepulchers.

Aren't they always?

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Making Stocks Great Again - Big Bounce Off Deeply Oversold

Feeding the beast

"They have record kinds of numbers.  So I think it's a tremendous opportunity to buy.   Really a great opportunity to buy."

D. J. Trump, 25 December 2018

As soon as Trump said the above on Christmas Day, I was fairly certain that my theory of why Treasury Secretary Mnuchin was calling the banks was correct.

The word came back to Trumpolini that the fix was in, and he could not resist making a statement to show what a great stock market trend caller he is.

Mnuchin did not need to know how the Banks were doing with regard to liquidity. And he certainly didn't need to let it slip that he was calling the Banks to the public.   He was getting Wall Street in line, and giving the other wiseguys out there a heads up so they would not get in the way.

And then Trump came out an hung a lantern on it.  It was like erecting three billboards proclaiming the official desire to 'Make Stocks Great Again.'

And so we saw the rescue of the stock markets today, in the first real, concerted attempt by government and business to pump that bubble back up.

And it worked fairly well.  And those who had faith in the bubble were rewarded.

And if you think that they did this for your benefit, you are rather foolish.

so another check has been paid to that great account marked, 'moral hazard.'

I was only a little surprised that they did not put their minds to this sooner in the decline.  Perhaps they needed for the oversold condition to work itself into place, and get a clear path for the ramp higher in the busy holiday schedule.

I did not watch television after the first couple of hours, because we went out and about with the company that is still here.    My son's girlfriend is a real sweetheart from Shanghai via London, and is a wonderful helper in the kitchen.

She has never seen an actual prime rib roast of size before.  And she was very much taken with the electric carving knife.  She kept volunteering to cut the roast for me.  She found the whole thing to be fascinating.  LOL.   Tonight we are going out for a hot pot dinner.  I am really enjoying all this.

I have marked the Fibonacci retracement levels on the charts. I may have to tinker with them a bit. The problem is where to mark the beginning of the decline.

Let's see how long they can keep this pig aloft.

Gold and silver were higher most of the day, with silver hanging on but gold given up its safe haven gain.

Have a pleasant evening.

Humility Saves Us From Foolishness

“As long as you are proud you cannot know God.  A proud man is always looking down on things and people: and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you...

True humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself, less."

C. S. Lewis


"Further, all of us should be kind and helpful to one another, and carry ourselves with humility: for God is set against the proud, but graciously favours the humble."

1 Peter 5:5


And how did little Tim behave?" asked Mrs. Cratchit, when she had rallied Bob on his credulity, and Bob had hugged his daughter to his heart's content.

"As good as gold," said Bob, "and better.  Somehow he gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and thinks the strangest things you ever heard.  He told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk, and blind men see."

Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol


"It seems that under the overwhelming impact of rising power, humans are deprived of their inner independence and, more or less consciously, give up establishing an autonomous position toward the emerging circumstances.  The fact that the foolish person is often stubborn must not blind us to the fact that he is not independent.

In conversation with him, one virtually feels that one is dealing not at all with him as a person, but with slogans, catchwords, and the like that have taken possession of him.  He is under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in his very being.

Having thus become a mindless tool, the foolish person will also be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil. This is where the danger of diabolical misuse lurks, for it is this that can once and for all destroy human beings...

Only the humble believe in Him and rejoice that God is so free and so marvelous that He does wonders where people despair, that He takes what is little and lowly and makes it marvelous. And that is the wonder of all wonders, that God loves the lowly.

God is not ashamed of the lowliness of human beings. God marches right in. He chooses people as his instruments and performs his wonders where one would least expect them. God is near to lowliness; He loves the lost, the neglected, the unseemly, the excluded, the weak and broken...

In the Incarnation the whole human race recovers the dignity of the image of God. Thereafter, any attack even on the least of men is an attack on Christ, who took on the form of man, and in his own Person restored the image of God in all.

Through our relationship with the Incarnation, we recover our true humanity, and at the same time are delivered from that perverse individualism which is the consequence of sin, and recover our solidarity with all mankind."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer


"And so Jesus gave us a new norm of greatness.  If you want to be important—wonderful.  If you want to be recognized—wonderful.  If you want to be great—wonderful.  But recognize that he who is greatest among you shall be your servant.

That's a new definition of greatness.  And this morning, the thing that I like about it: by giving that definition of greatness, it means that everybody can be great, because everybody can serve."

Martin Luther King, The Drum Major Instinct

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - A Banquet of Consequences, a Celebration of Love

"The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them a light has shined."

Is 9:1


"An angel of the Lord appeared to the shepherds, and the glory of the Lord shone around them."

Lk 2:9

After the market action today one has to wonder if we will be hearing 'Santa Claus Is Coming to Town' or 'Nearer My God To Thee' in the trading houses and watering holes of the financial elite around the world.

Perhaps now it is easier to understand why Goldman was standing for so many gold contracts over the past month for their 'house account.'

What if I told you, with a reasonable amount of confidence with supporting facts about what would come next, would you listen to it?  Would you act upon it?

Or would it just enter into that great flood of data, hardly worth being called information, from which people pick and choose what to see and hear, based on whatever favors the narrative which best suits their personal prejudices, preferences, and desires of the moment?  This is the power of madness, or perhaps better said, the madness of power.

Tomorrow is Christmas Day, and we will have a house full of guests for Christmas dinner and the exchange of presents, and all that goes with it.  We are having a prime rib, and creamed spinach, and mashed potatoes with gravy, and a few other odds and ends that are traditional accompaniments for a Christmas dinner with friends and family.  The latest headcount is twelve to fourteen.

The young man is at the airport picking up his girlfriend who is coming in from London.  This will be the first chance I will have had to meet her in person.  I wonder who is more nervous, me or her.

I wish Mary was here, for any number of reasons, but mostly because her judgement and instincts on so many of the things that are truly important in this life were sound, empathetic, if not almost uncannily unerring.  I sought her opinion and counsel on everything (except anything mechanical).   She made me human.  She was my best friend.

I will see you on Wednesday.   I may post a little something tomorrow as the holiday permits.

Need little, want less, love more.   For those who abide in love abide in God, and God in them.

Merry Christmas.

Have a pleasant holiday.