Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Of Black Swans and Cooked Goose

 

“Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that any one who embarks on that strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter.  The Statesman who yields to war fever must realise that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events. 

Antiquated War Offices, weak, incompetent or arrogant Commanders, untrustworthy allies, hostile neutrals, malignant Fortune, ugly surprises, awful miscalculations — all take their seat at the Council Board on the morrow of a declaration of war.  Always remember, however sure you are that you can easily win, that there would not be a war if the other man did not think he also had a chance. ”

Winston Churchill, My Early Life 1930, p. 229

"The Commonwealth of Rome grew great by the misery of the rest of mankind.  The Romans, like others as soon as they grew rich, grew corrupt; and in their corruption sold the lives and freedoms of themselves, and of one another.”

Samuel Johnson, Review of Memoirs of the Court of Augustus, 1756

"Trust in God, but everyone else shows the data.  Check the facts and the underlying assumptions.  The reason should be obvious, but people deal with the complexities of life by using assumptions, which are a kind of shorthand way of breaking reality down into manageable chunks.  Everyone does it. 

But it is useful, and prudent, to check those assumptions you make, and that other people are making, to see if they are still valid, especially if they involve things that are important (cf. Long Term Capital Management).  Is there a bus coming down the road you are crossing?  Are you financially solvent?  Have you allowed for lower probability but potentially corrosive and existential risks? (Taleb's famous Black Swan).  Those sorts of things."

Jesse, Investment Performance for 2007,  December 21, 2007

"All governments [and organizations] suffer a recurring problem: power attracts pathological personalities.  It is not that power corrupts, but that it is magnetic to the corruptible."

Frank Herbert, Chapterhouse Dune, March 1985

"Psychopaths don’t feel they have psychological or emotional problems, and they see no reason to change their behavior to conform with societal standards they do not agree with.  Psychopaths see the rules and expectations of society as inconvenient and unreasonable impediments to their own behavioral expression.  They make their own rules, both as children and as adults. 

Many of the antisocial acts of psychopaths lead to criminal charges and convictions.  But not all psychopaths end up in jail.  Many of the things they do escape detection or prosecution, or are on 'the shady side of the law.'  For them, antisocial behavior may consist of phony stock [and crypto] promotions, questionable business practices, spouse or child abuse, and so forth.  Many others do things that, though not necessarily illegal, are nevertheless unethical, immoral, or harmful to others: philandering or cheating on a spouse to name a few."

Robert Hare, How to Spot Predators Before They Attack, December 5, 2017

"They know of no solutions to the paradoxes of the Middle East and Europe, the Far East and Africa except the landing of Marines. Being baffled, and also being very tired of being baffled, they have come to believe that there is no way out—except war—which would remove all the bewildering paradoxes of their tedious and now misguided attempts to construct peace. In place of these paradoxes they prefer the bright, clear problems of war—as they used to be. For they still believe that 'winning' means something, although they never tell us what.

Some men want war for sordid, others for idealistic, reasons; some for personal gain, others for impersonal principle. But most of those who consciously want war and accept it, and so help to create its 'inevitability,' want it in order to shift the locus [epicenter] of their problems."

C. Wright Mills, The Causes of World War III, 1958 pp. 86-89


Stocks slumped and then rallied hard into the close.

This was the usual Monday short squeeze where they jam up the specs who took short positions in the market as a safeguard over the weekend.

Gold and silver were slammed, but they both bounced, with silver showing an impressive rise for a decent gain.

I wonder if Bessent and his oligarch buddies are running low on ammo like Hegseth is.

VIX came in hot with slumping stocks this morning, and then collapsed back down into the afternoon.

The Dollar popped at the open of NY trading, and then fell sharply into the close.

The market here is largely smoke and mirrors.  Be careful.

Bitcoin managed to hold a decent bounce.  Good for them.  Enjoy it while it lasts.

A little economic data on jobs from ADP will be coming out tomorrow morning. 

Wednesday is the more important release when we get some inflation data.  Alas, it's already a bit dated because it will not take into account the inflationary effects of the Iran war.

I keep playing scenarios on the outcome of this global adventurism, and they always seem to come out from very bad to disastrous.

As I have said, the US decision to participate in Netanyahu's war will be viewed in retrospect with the Germany invasion of Russia in Operation Barbarossa.

The way things are going if we are able to have unimpeded midterm elections, not by any means a sure thing, then the GOP will probably lose their Congressional majority and the Democrats will be able to make some headway in reining in this imperial presidency.

Even better, if the Democrats can displace Schumer and Jefferies from their leadership we might see some more meaningful reform.  But that does not seem likely at the moment. 

Have a pleasant evening. 

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Weep For Yourselves and Your Children

 

"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who murder the prophets, and stone those whom God sends to you. As you have willed it, so your house is now yours — but is made desolate.”

Luke 13:34-35

Shout loudly, without holding back.
Lift up your voice like a trumpet.
Proclaim to my people their wicked deeds,
   to the house of Jacob their sins.
Yet they search for me day after day
   in their desire to know my ways,
   as if they are a nation that adheres to righteousness
   and has not abandoned the law of their God.
They request that I make righteous judgments,
   and they long to be near God.
They ask, “Why should we fast
   when you do not even notice?
Why should we mortify ourselves
   when you pay no heed?”
The truth is that on your fast days
   you serve your own interests
   and oppress all your workers.
Your fasting only leads to quarrels and fights
   and lashing out with vicious blows.
Such fasting as you currently practice
   will not make your voice heard on high.
Is this the type of fast that pleases me,
   a day for a man to humble himself,
   to bow his head like a reed
   and lie in sackcloth and ashes?
Is this what you call a fast,
   a day acceptable to the Lord?
This rather is the type of fast that I wish:
   to loosen the fetters of injustice,
   to undo the thongs of the yoke,
   to set free those who are oppressed
and to break every yoke,
   to share your bread with the hungry
and to offer shelter to the homeless poor,
   to clothe the naked when you behold them
   and not turn your back on your own kin.
Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
   and your wound will quickly be healed;
   your righteousness will go before you,
   and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
Then, when you call, the Lord will answer;
   you will cry out for help,
   and he will say, “Here I am.”
If you cease to tolerate the yoke of oppression,
   the pointing of fingers and malicious words,
   if you offer your food to the hungry
   and satisfy the needs of the afflicted,
   then your light will rise in the darkness,
   and your night will become like midday.

Isaiah 58:1-10

“Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me. Weep for yourselves and your children."

Luke 23:28


Stocks rallied and went out near the highs. 

Gold and silver rallied sharply, and went out near the highs.

The Dollar fell a little away from the 98 handle.

VIX, of course, fell.    Our hypocrisy knows no bounds.

Bitcoin is holding a level, and I think winding up for a move.  Whether higher or lower it is hard to tell.

If stocks break badly, Bitcoin is to be eviscerated.  

Perhaps cooler heads will prevail at the last.

It is hard to see the truth through the blizzard of lies.

Speaking of blizzards, it appears there is a nor'easter coming up the coast that may hit the northeastern US with high winds and drifting snow.   

The neo-cons, and chickenhawks, zionist Christians and people maddened with their moldering delusions of glory, are beating the drums of war, seeking for a judgement from God.

If judgement comes, you proud and greedy and lawless, weep for yourselves and your children.

Have a pleasant weekend. 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Beast Rising

 

"God will send them a deceiving power so that they may believe the lie, that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have taken pleasure in their lawlessness."

2 Thessalonians 2:3-12

"Once a certain class of people has been placed by the temporal and spiritual authorities outside the ranks of those whose life has value, then nothing comes more naturally to men than murder. As soon as men know they that they can kill without fear of punishment or blame, they kill; or at least they encourage killers with approving smiles."

Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace, 1947

"Satan has been in the Heaven of Heavens and in the abyss of Hell, and surveyed all that lies between them, and in that whole immensity has found only one thing that interests Satan. Satan’s monomaniac concern with himself and his supposed rights and wrongs is a necessity of the Satanic predicament. He has wished to ‘be himself’, and to be in himself and for himself, and his wish has been granted. The Hell he carries with him is, in one sense, a Hell of infinite boredom."

C. S. Lewis, A Preface to Paradise Lost, 1942

"Great and sustained destruction requires great ambition. It must be conceived as the means toward achieving a new order, and although the idea behind that new order may be criminal and objectively very stupid, it must also be compellingly simple and at the same time absolute.  The ideology of genocide is all of those things.”

Philip Gourevitch, Tomorrow We Will Be Killed, 1998

“Every idol, however exalted, turns out, in the long run, to be a Moloch, hungry for human sacrifice.”

Aldous Huxley, The Devils of Loudon, 1952

"Those who have faith had better keep in the state of grace, and those who have neither had better find out what they mean, for in the coming age there will be only one way to stop your trembling knees, and that will be to get down on them and pray.  The most important problem in the world today is your soul, for that is what the struggle is about."

Fulton J. Sheen, The Day of the Beast, 1947


You have accepted things, things that your father and mother could not even have imagined. 

Stocks were dodgy again today.

I think it will continue to be like this for some time.

The market wants to revalue lower, but Trump and Bessent see it as an important symbol of their administration.

This is a recipe for a bone-crunching correction.

Gold and silver bounced.

There will be an option expiration on Friday.

The US State of the Union meeting will be next Tuesday.

This will weigh heavily on all those things that the administration can control, for now.

An attack in force on Iran will likely be viewed in retrospect as a similar poor decision as Operation Barbarossa.

The thought processes in both are strikingly similar. 

Have a pleasant evening. 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Soft and Gradual Road Into Hell

 

"The illusions of extremists, of both the right and the left, are very dangerous things, for the very reason that they often incline themselves to sacrifice the individual, and even surprisingly large groups of individuals and segments of society, for the 'greater good' of their extremes and their illusions.  No people, no organization of people, and no nation are immune or exceptional to this extremity.  Evil is a choice, a long, gradual succession of choices.  And the madness never sleeps, hunting for souls to devour."

Jesse, A Cruel Deception, 28 October 2022

"No doubt it is more comfortable to deliberately wear blinkers that prevent one from seeing the evil done in the discharge of their responsibility— to be unwilling to see that one is defending murder and robbery."

Helmuth James Graf von Moltke, Executed in Plötzensee Prison, Berlin, 23 January 1945

"For these are a rebellious people, deceitful children, unwilling to listen to the instructions of the Lord. They say to their seers, ‘Do not see!’ and to the prophets, ‘Say nothing of what is right!  Tell us only things that please us — prophesy illusions."

Isaiah 30:9-10

"It does not matter how small the sins are, provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing.  Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one — the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts."

C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, 1942

"The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists. The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil."

Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951

"Power will achieve its murderous potential. It simply waits for an excuse, an event of some sort, an assassination, a massacre in a neighboring country, an attempted coup, a famine, or a natural disaster, to justify the beginning of murder en masse."

R. J. Rummel, Mass Murder and Genocide, 1994


The Dollar took a major slip off the 98 handle down to 96.

But VIX fell.  None so blind as those who will not see.

Gold and silver rallied.

Stocks were wobbly.

There is some significant US economic data coming out the next two days, including the slightly delayed Non-Farm Payrolls report.

I will be highly skeptical of all of it.  This is a time when dishonesty is fashionable in Washington.  All the finest and most powerful people wallow in it.

Slowly, gradually, things are falling apart.  There are consequences for incompetence and systematic fraud.

Have a pleasant evening. 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Oligarchs, Flush With Victory

 

"Fascism begins the moment a ruling class, fearing the people may use their political democracy to gain economic democracy, begins to destroy political democracy in order to retain its power of exploitation and special privilege."

Thomas Clement Douglas, Canadian MP

"Communism and fascism or Nazism, although poles apart in their intellectual content, are similar in this, that both have emotional appeal to the type of personality that takes pleasure in being submerged in a mass movement and submitting to superior authority."

James Alexander Campbell Brown, Techniques of Persuasion, 1963

"Whoever today still doubts the reality, the existence of demonic powers, has failed by a wide margin to understand the metaphysical background of this war.  Behind the concrete, the visible events, behind all the objective, logical considerations, we find that which goes beyond the merely rational: the struggle against evil, against the servants of the antichrist."

Die Weiße Rose, Fourth Leaflet, Munich, 1942

"Around the world, authoritarian leaders are on the rise.  They're working from a common playbook.   They use violent rhetoric.  They attack the media.  They see their political rivals as existential enemies to the nation.  Demagogues are willing to do or say anything to gain office or to consolidate their power. Unconstrained by ideology, they have no concern for the consequences of their actions.  Anything that serves to make them more powerful is good enough for them — even if the political system that facilitated their rise should be destroyed in the process."

Daniel Ziblatt, Saving Democracy from Demagogues, 2022

"The oligarchs are flush with victory, and feel that they are firmly in control, able to subvert and direct any popular movement to the support of their own fascist ends and unslakable will to power. This is the contempt in which they hold the majority of American people and the political process: the common people are easily led fools, and everyone else who is smart enough to know better has their price.

And they would beggar every middle class voter in the US before they will voluntarily give up one dime of their ill gotten gains. But my model says that the oligarchs will continue to press their advantages, being flushed with victory, until they provoke a strong reaction that frightens everyone, like a wake up call, and the tide then turns to genuine reform."

Simon Johnson, The Quiet Coup, May 2009

"The more power a government has the more it can act arbitrarily according to the whims and desires of the elite, and the more it will make war on others and murder its foreign and domestic subjects.  Power will achieve its murderous potential.  It simply waits for an excuse, an event of some sort, an assassination, a massacre in a neighboring country, an attempted coup, a famine, or a natural disaster, to justify the beginning of murder en masse."

R. J. Rummel, Mass Murder and Genocide, 1994


The Fed did not change interest rates today.

Stocks popped and flopped back to unchanged.

VIX is wallowing, oblivious to the growing economic and geopolitical risks.

Gold and silver went ballistic in an impressive rally to new highs.  

What are the precious metals telling us?   

If you don't yet know, you have not been listening.  

And you certainly are not prepared for what is coming next.

The hand of God is moving, slowly and silently among us.

I know, you don't believe it.

Did you believe that gold would be near $5400 and silver at $118 even six months ago?  

If someone could tell you what would happen over the next 24 months you would not believe that either.  But you could figure it out for yourself, if you were not so taken over by foolish pride and fantasy.

"God will allow a powerful delusion to take those who rejected the truth, so that they may believe the lie and be condemned, because they have delighted in their lawlessness."   2 Thessalonians 11-12

Have a pleasant evening.