SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Wash Cycle

"People feel like the system is rigged against them, and here is the painful part, they’re right. The system is rigged. Look around. Oil companies guzzle down the billions in profits.

Billionaires pay a lower tax rate than their secretaries, and Wall Street CEOs, the same ones the direct our economy and destroyed millions of jobs still strut around Congress, no shame, demanding favors, and acting like we should thank them. Does anyone here have a problem with that?"

Elizabeth Warren

If you have been short this market recently that most likely has been some pain. 'Never short a dull market.' And especially a dull (low volume) market in which the Fed and their Banks are running rampant with free, hot money.

I think we *might* be nearing the end of the wash cycle, and I could be on the lookout for something on the downside, but not quite yet. There is still some room to go higher and shorting is an advantageous, short term strategy at most times.

Disgraceful really, but they do not care.

Have a pleasant evening.

NAV Premiums of Certain Precious Metal Trusts and Funds - Crash In a Matter of Months?

In case you were wondering there is a Comex precious metal options expiration on Thursday the 24th.

Since the expiration is for the inactive month of May, I am wondering if they are not going to do an early hit with a head fake on this one as the day comes.

 Hard to forecast.  Typically a noted player will show their hand at some point and the pit crawlers will follow their lead.  They used to walk into the pit, but now I wonder if they just don't print it on the electronic trade, if you know what to look for.

The 'hit' on the metals was pretty much standard operating procedure this morning.

We are clearly in the 'wash' cycle for equities.  Except for the miners which are getting pummeled.  That is a hard trade lately.

Normally I take this sort of thing with a grain of salt, but I have quite a bit of respect for Richard Russell.  He has an interview in which he says that he says 'the dollar will crash in a matter of months.'

"The US will lose its reserve currency advantage within a few years or probably less time. Our defense against a weak economy is always to print more money. In a matter of months, I see the dollar crashing.”

Now the stock market I could understand, and agree with much of what Richard Russell has to say about it and the economy. Although as a traditionalist I would be looking more towards Sept-Oct timeframe, and would have to see a classic 'crash pattern' which has worked well for me in the past.  I have not seen that yet, and if we get close to it, I will start discussing it.   But it is the familiar 'failed rally' two step that I can find in almost every major US stock market crash.

But as for a dollar crash, I am struggling with that one.  It is possible but not likely.  And the obvious questions are why and against what?   Since the dollar is not pegged against anything, it would take a serious event to trigger a 'crash.'

And it takes quite a bit for a major developed currency to fail.  The Fed may not have a literal printing press, but they do have a Balance Sheet and can absorb any amount of debt they wish.   It may not be pretty, and it could weaken the dollar against some commodities and imports, but a crash?  That seems like a real long shot now.  But I am keeping an open mind on it.

As you know I am aware of the major hyperinflationary episodes of the past, and have been following the arguments of those who do and do not think it is possible with a sovereign currency like the US dollar.   And I think you know that my own opinion is that this is highly unlikely, excepting for some major exogenous events, and a colossal policy error or two.  Stagflation seems much more likely to me based on the lack of reforms.

But I thought you might like to be aware of what Richard Russell has to say, and what I think about it at this time.  Legendary legends make all sorts of predictions, and write their hits in marble and their misses in sand.  And I know I cannot forecast the future very often, except at the extremes.  And I am not there yet on any crashes excepting some unforeseen exogenous event which no one can really forecast.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Lies, Damn Lies, and an Option Expiration

“A true opium of the people is a belief in nothingness after death - the huge solace of thinking that for our betrayals, greed, cowardice, and murders that we are not going to be judged.”

Czesław Miłosz

The action for the precious metals did not bode well, when late last night as gold drifted higher and crept over 1300 it was smacked down by some heavy dumping of contracts in quiet trade in the Globex market.

And we saw that classic back and forth sea saw today around the level targeted by that late night selling at 1290. Its a little thing after all, but it is discouraging to those who watch these daily antics too closely.

As a reminder, there is an option expiration on the Comex this week, on Thurday the 24th. Since May is an 'off month' I would not expect it to be all that significant.

More notable is the interesting delivery month we are seeing, with plenty of warrants for the April contracts changing hands, but little to no gold showing any visible movement in the warehouses.

As you may have read, China has opened Beijing as a third point of imports of gold, in addition to Shanghai and Hong Kong.  One might suspect that the numbers so closely watched by some in Hong Kong will continue to become increasingly less relevant to that actual world trade in gold.  Much like the Comex.

Big things are happening behind the scenes.  But you will see only traces of their footprints in the news of the day. 

Have a pleasant evening.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Wash, Rinse, Repeat

"Come, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to Him with songs of praise. For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all.

In His hands are the deep places of the earth, the heights and strength of the hills. The sea is His, for He made it, and His hands formed the dry land. Come, let us worship respectfully, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker. For He is our God and we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand. Now, if you will but hear His voice."

Psalm 95

Neflix 'beat' after the bell.

There was little economic news this morning.

It appears that Pfizer is wooing AstroZeneca, and Barrick has been schmoozing with Newmont. Neither of these lusty pairings has been bearing fruit we hear.

The public interest is not even an afterthought in most things, but particularly in matters financial like the stock market which is, as they say, rigged.

Have a pleasant evening.

 

Ukraine: The Global Corporate Annexation

"War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it."

George Orwell


"War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small 'inside' group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."

Major General Smedley Butler, USMC

There is certainly a long established difference between a just war, a defensive war, and a war of adventure or aggression. No one understand this better than those who suffer loss in fighting them.

Like quite a few people I found myself asking, 'Why the Ukraine? Why the sudden push there, risking conflict with Russia on their own doorstep?' Why are we suddenly risking all to support what was clearly an extra-legal coup d'état?'

It is telling perhaps that one of the first things that happened after the coup d'état is that all of the Ukraine's gold was on a flight to New York, for the safekeeping by those same people who have managed to misplace a good portion of the German people's gold. It is the most transportable and fungible store of wealth, where the transfer of less portable assets by computerized digits may lag.

Follow the money...

GlobalResearch
Ukraine: The Corporate Annexation
'For Cargill, Chevron, Monsanto, It’s a Gold Mine of Profits'
by JP Sottile

As the US and EU apply sanctions on Russia over its annexation’ of Crimea, JP Sottile reveals the corporate annexation of Ukraine. For Cargill, Chevron, Monsanto, there’s a gold mine of profits to be made from agri-business and energy exploitation.

The potential here for agriculture / agribusiness is amazing … production here could double … Ukraine’s agriculture could be a real gold mine.

On 12th January 2014, a reported 50,000 “pro-Western” Ukrainians descended upon Kiev’s Independence Square to protest against the government of President Viktor Yanukovych.

Stoked in part by an attack on opposition leader Yuriy Lutsenko, the protest marked the beginning of the end of Yanukovych’s four year-long government.

That same day, the Financial Times reported a major deal for US agribusiness titan Cargill.

Business confidence never faltered

Despite the turmoil within Ukrainian politics after Yanukovych rejected a major trade deal with the European Union just seven weeks earlier, Cargill was confident enough about the future to fork over $200 million to buy a stake in Ukraine’s UkrLandFarming...

Read the entire report here.

Anti-Gold Scare Tactics Seem To Be Largely Ineffective

I have seen the most recent surveys in Asia that show the appeal of gold as a store of wealth, but I had not known of similar results elsewhere.   I also think that physical silver is enjoying some strong interest that is barely mentioned.

The propaganda of the Western banks and their friends at Shill & Troll seems to be almost as heavy handed and fairly obvious as their trading tactics of dumping large numbers of contracts to see at market in quiet periods. 

They are free have their way in their phony, rigged markets, but perhaps the old saying from Abraham Lincoln really holds true:  You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.

Press’ anti-gold scare tactics largely ineffective
by Michael J. Kosares

Gallup poll ranks gold second best long term investment after real estate

Under normal circumstances, I might let a rutty headline about gold in the Financial Times pass without much notice. I say “rutty” because the Financial Times has long been stuck in a rut as one of the principle apologists for Keynesian economics — big banks, big deficits, big governments and powerful central banks. It doesn’t think much of gold enthusiasts and gold enthusiasts do not think much of it. (Although I still read it every morning.)

When I took-in the headline — Bumpy ride in store for gold with price forecast to fall 15% — with my morning coffee, my first reaction was to disregard it, as I do most of the day-to-day, routinely negative Financial Times’ reports on gold. Scanning the article (with the hope some nugget of important information might be gleaned), something tugged at the back of my mind with respect to the entities referenced — Gold Fields Mineral Services (GFMS), Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse. All three obviously were predicting 2014 would be a bad year for gold. What was nagging was their near-term record in the art of gold forecasting...

Read the entire article here.

Retiring SEC Attorney Proposes a Market That Puts the Public Interest First

I am not sure what the particular solutions might be, but I think an historically large number of people might agree that the government no longer has their best interests at heart.

The public interest has been sold to the special interests and their ideologues. 

I cannot think of any other reason why the government supports that obscene tax loophole of carried interest that so heavily subsidizes the financialization of the real economy.

I cannot think of any other reason why the government continually refuses, on principle and as a matter of policy,  to prosecute the individuals responsible for monumental financial crimes and abuses of the public trust, handing out wrist slap fines to the wealthy perpetrators and campaign contributors who are engaged in a serial white collar crime spree.

And I cannot think of any other reason why so many state governments would deny medical coverage to the most vulnerable of their own people by refusing the offer of Medicaid expansion on principle. What principle?  That people who are not as fortunate as others should suffer and die, even when adequate medical treatment is available and has been shown to work even better in other countries?

It is an historic feat of propaganda, that the American people think themselves to be the finest people on earth, the paragon of civilization, bringing freedom to the oppressed in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria,  Libya, and the Ukraine from their presence in over seven hundred foreign military bases. while their own infrastructure and living standards crumble at home, and their own people become increasingly alienated from a self-serving power structure that governs by and for itself. 

Asking Capitalism to Cure Capitalist Woes:
The US Exchange, a Market for the Rest of Us
By James A. Kidney

High-speed trading, synthetic credit derivatives and other risky Wall Street products are described as refinements of our capitalist system — or lamented as the inevitable product of emerging technology. But the system benefits traders more than real capitalists – those who seek investors on the basis of the merit of their products and services to customers.

The response to the many problems posed by these new technologies, products and delivery systems is predictable: New statutes and rules, inevitably chewed into mush by politicians and lobbyists, and long delays in implementation by regulators. By the time these new rules are in place, Wall Street has found ways to circumvent them, requiring a new cycle of debate, lobbying and minimally effective rule-making in response to the next resulting crisis.

One possible solution seems to have been overlooked: Bringing capitalism to the capital markets. It is not that the trading markets have lacked opportunistic capitalists. Entire new trading platforms have been created to supplement or replace the traditional New York Stock Exchange, the NASDAQ and the old American Stock Exchange. Certainly, many new trading products have been invented. But few of these developments address any real need except trading itself.

 Let me post an example, simple and naïve as it may be, of how capitalism genuinely could improve the market beyond meeting the needs of traders themselves. The notion can at least be the start of something. But first, some background...

Read the entire article here.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Counting Blessings and Tender Mercies

The markets were quiet today for a stock option expiration ahead of a three day weekend.

Next Thursday there will be an option expiration on the Comex for precious metals on Thursday the 24th. I would expect it to be relatively quiet since May is not a major contract month.

There were more deliveries on the April contract declared, but little activity has been reflected in the Comex warehouses.

Every person must have a purpose that takes them outside of themselves.  And so I thank God for the opportunity to maintain this quiet corner of the internet for us, that He provides the time and the energy it takes to put it together, and the pull that brings people here to read and join in.

Every person must feel the warmth of human compansionship, and so I thank God for the readers' emails and the many friends with whom I share news, and comforts, and the occasional smile every day. 

Every person must come to understand themselves in context, and so I thank God for the good teachers and the business travel, the knowledge and the seasoning that can permit one to look at the troubles of our own time in the light of history, and know that these too shall pass.  There is nothing which we are called to face that has not been encountered by people just like us, with the same weaknesses and failings.   It is not only books but experience that teaches this to us, the commonality of all that is human.

As a very wise friend of mine recently said, 'the nature of my rebellion, is to rebuff the quiet overtures from heaven.'  There can be a certain sick sweetness in wallowing and worrying over not only what is real but is also imagined, and to try and bear the troubles of the world by ourselves.  But it is a sickness, unto death.

"Let us feel what we really are-  sinners attempting great things. Let us simply obey God’s will, whatever may come. He can turn all things to our eternal good. Easter day is preceded by the forty days of Lent, to show us that they only who sow in tears shall reap in joy.

Contemplate then yourself, not as yourself, but as you are in the Eternal God. Fall down in astonishment at the glories which are around you and in you, poured to and fro in such a wonderful way that you are dissolved into the Kingdom of God.

The more we do, the more shall we trust in Christ; and that surely is no morose doctrine, that leads us to soothe our selfish restlessness, and forget our fears, in the vision of the Incarnate Son of God.

May the Lord support us all the day long, till the shades lengthen, and the evening comes, and the busy world is hushed, and the fever of life is over, and our work is done. Then in His mercy may He give us safe lodging, and a holy rest, and peace at last.”

So let us pray for a serene vision of things as they really are, and that strength, which used to be called the virtue of fortitude, to never give in to the allure of falsehoods and the emptiness of despair.  The tomb is empty, and death is overthrown.

We are an Easter people, and hallelujah is our song.

Have a pleasant weekend.  See you Sunday evening.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Quiet Trade On Options Expiration - Shamelessness

Today's stock market action was relatively quiet for an option expiration ahead of a three day weekend.

The economic news this morning was better than expected.

From the oligarchy is audacious department, the BP crisis manager was fined by the SEC for front running the Gulf Oil spill, selling all his family stock holding before the extent of the disaster was revealed.

The US markets will be closed tomorrow for Good Friday.

Have a pleasant weekend. See you Sunday evening.

 

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Hubris Incorporated

“I am telling you if there is a God, when I get to heaven I’m not stopping to be interviewed.  I am heading straight in. I have earned my place in heaven. It’s not even close.”

Michael Bloomberg, Billionaire Financier and Master of the Universe, I Have Earned My Place In Heaven

Ah, the rich miscalculating their fit through the eye of a needle.  Its an old, old story.  Memento mori.

I am sure he is not intending this seriously, and we ought not to take it as such.  As we should with most of the gauche things that he and his fellow financial sharpers and masters of the universe say.

Speaking of dull financial people miscalculating their place in the cosmos, this looks like it is going to be a dull week for the precious metals, except for the major bear raid yesterday.

Nothing much happened in the Comex warehouses yesterday. The number of ounces claimed in the April delivery continued on, reaching a total of 461,400 ounces for the month.  It will be interesting to see if anyone decides to actually do anything with them that will show up in the warehouse reports, or just continue to pass their warrants around like hot potatoes.

The Comex is becoming increasingly irrelevant to the world markets, and a bit of an anachronism in the current influence it still has over price.

Hubris.  It means that they never see it coming. That is what makes the reckoning so often spectacular.

Have a pleasant evening.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Quiet Holiday Week, Before the Storms

VIX is back down to more complacent levels.

This is a holiday shortened week, with Friday trading closed for the Easter holiday.

Let's see if the traders can carry this rally into a three day weekend with the Ukraine bubbling along. I suspect that some squaring up may be in the cards.

Have a pleasant evening.

 

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - From Sea to Shining Sea

"Plunderers of the world, when nothing remains on the lands to which they have laid waste by wanton thievery, they search out across the seas. The wealth of another region excites their greed; and if it is weak, their lust for power.

Nothing from the rising to the setting of the sun is enough for them. Among all others only they are compelled to attack the poor as well as the rich. Robbery, rape, and slaughter they falsely call empire; and where they create a desolate wasteland, they call it peace."

Tacitus, Agricola

Today was an absolute classic.

From one market to the other, from one lie to the next, they seem to have no fear, and certainly no shame.

Have a pleasant evening.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Another Turnaround Tuesday

LOL. ROFLMAO.

How'd you like that market action today.  A Robert Rubin special with the SP futures leading the markets higher out of a deep hole on 'Turnaround Tuesday.'

A bewildered reader asks, 'Do they realize what they are doing?'

To which I responded, 'Let's keep this straight.  Almost by definition, sociopaths and narcissists really don't give a fuck what happens as long as they are getting what they want now.  And you wonder why things are as they are?'

Have a pleasant evening.

Why Gold? 85% of Pension Funds Will Go Bust in 30 Years

I have not seen the scenarios run by Bridgewater Associates, but I do have respect for their name and their work.  I would like to know their assumptions.

In an inflation, stocks may do quite well, as their inflated valuations keep pace with inflation. Bonds are likely to get obliterated. In a stagflation not so much.  The Fed and the Treasury would like a modest inflation to provide a controllable dilution of debts without opening the door to a debt jubilee for the hoi polloi.  The Fed serves the Banks, and therefore the creditor class.  But a parasite must also preserve the relationship with their hosts.

The system is broken and the oligarchs do not wish to fix it, because they like things just the way that they are.    They have bought the politicians and are running the regulators.  What could go wrong?

It is hard to credit the Fed with a policy error when their actions seem to be so conscious and wanton.  But I am sure when the time comes they will claim ignorance as usual.

In line with a time of general frauds, Grant Williams has a particularly good essay this week, and you may wish to read it.  I admire his writing and insight as always.  The only slight quibble I might have is that a 'rigging' that is out in the open is hardly as foul and as fraudulent as one that is conducted under cover of denials and opaqueness.

So for example, I would not equate the Fed's 'rigging' interest rates through their well publicized open market operations with the same critical eye as I might consider the manipulating of certain commodity prices and inflation measures to hide its effects.  There is war and there is war profiteering, and there is war crime, as there is a difference between conducting a financial war, and machine-gunning the life boats full of innocent refugees in order to hide the effects of your misguided policies.

The point of a control fraud is deception and secrecy.  And I think the amount of it in our markets is unsustainable, and the moral hazard that nourishes this has its roots in the monied interests and their corrupted leadership.

"The 'pensions timebomb' keeps on ticking and as societies we become less prepared by the day.

Yet another report shows that the U.S. public pension system is in dire straits. This one comes from renowned hedge fund manager Bridgewater Associates.

The study estimates that public pension funds will earn an annual return of 4% or less in coming years due to near zero percent interest rates and financial repression. That, in turn, would cause bankruptcy for 85% of the pension funds within 30 years, the study warns.

Public pension plans now have only $3 trillion in assets to invest so that they can pay out $10 trillion of retirement benefits in coming decades, according to Bridgewater. The funds would need an annual investment return of about 9% to meet those obligations, the report says.

It is likely that many pension funds will go bust in the medium term and this may be a crisis that looms large sooner than the Bridgewater research suggests...

Pension funds traditional mix of equities and bonds may underperform in the coming years as many stock markets appear overvalued after liquidity-driven surges in recent years and bonds offer all time record low yields and are at all time record highs in price and can only fall in value in the coming years.

Pensions allocations to gold are exceptionally low internationally and yet gold has an important role to play in preserving and growing pension wealth over the long term.

Pension funds’ overexposure solely to paper assets and lack of diversification has cost pension holders dearly in recent years. This will almost certainly continue in the coming years."

Mark O'Byrne, Futures Mag

Read the entire article here.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - The Mother of Madness - Bart Through the Revolving Door

“Most men would rather deny a hard truth than face it.”

“A toast to the proud Lannister children: the dwarf, the cripple, and the mother of Madness.”

Tyrion Lannister, Game of Thrones

The lid has been shut down on silver with some serious force.

Gold continues to come in to the Comex warehouses to buttress them for the April delivery which proceeds. If there is so much loose gold around, as Shill & Troll have asserted, then why can't the Fed return Germany's gold for seven years?

The games will continue, until they don't.  Winning....

(Reuters) - Bart Chilton, an outspoken former regulator who spent more than six years as a member of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, will join the law firm DLA Piper, the company said on Monday.

Chilton, a Democrat who left the CFTC last month, witnessed its transition from a little-watched overseer of futures markets into a powerful body put in charge of the $690 trillion swaps market after the credit crisis.

"Bart will be an invaluable resource for clients who will be subject to increased regulation over the next few years," the firm said in a statement...

Maybe Bart is just going undercover to find out if Jim Kidney was right about the allures of a plush corporate sinecure after a much-publicized, but effectively innocuous, regulatory career.

Have a pleasant evening.

 

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Wheel of Fortune

“Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Retail sales came in a little stronger than expected this morning, and Citi turned in decent quarterly numbers, despite its having failed the stress test.

So stocks rallied.   The economic indicators were excuses.  The market is close to achieving self-actualization.

The action in the rest of this week will let us know if this was a 'relief rally' or something more positive for stock prices.  Or just another opportunity for a short squeeze in a technical trade, in a market utterly dominated by internally focused gamesmanship.

Have a pleasant evening.

His Final Journey: Remembering the 149th Anniversary of the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln

"Unconscious, Lincoln was carried from Ford's Theatre to the nearby house of Williams Peterson at 453 10th Street. There, in a room rented to William Clark, a boarder, Abraham Lincoln died at 7:22 a.m., April 15, 1865.

When Lincoln died Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton is reported to have uttered, 'Now he belongs to the ages.'"

"It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

†