Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Narrow Way Through the Darkness

 

"The barbarian hopes — and that is the mark of him, that he can have his cake and eat it too. He will consume what civilization has slowly produced after generations of selection and effort, but he will not be at pains to replace such goods, nor indeed has he a comprehension of the virtue that has brought them into being. We sit by and watch the barbarian.  We tolerate him in the long stretches of peace, we are not afraid.  We are tickled by his irreverence; his comic inversion of our old certitudes; we laugh.  But as we laugh we are watched by large and awful faces from beyond, and on these faces there are no smiles.”

Hilaire Belloc, This and That and the Other, 1912

"Now it is our task to find one another again, to spread information from person to person, to keep a steady purpose, and to allow ourselves no rest until the last man is persuaded of the urgent need of his struggle against this system."

The White Rose, Second Leaflet, Munich 1942

"Gloom is no Christian temper; that repentance is not real, which has not love in it; that self-chastisement is not acceptable, which is not sweetened by faith and cheerfulness.  We must live in sunshine, even when we sorrow; we must live in God's presence, we must not shut ourselves up in our own hearts, even when we are reckoning up our past sins.  As many as are our sins, His grace is greater.

Great mercy indeed, which we forget because we are used to it; which many prophets and righteous men in the first ages of the Gospel had not, yet which we have had from our youth up.  We from our youth up have lived in peace; with no persecution, no terror, no hindrance in serving God.  The utmost we have had to endure, is what is almost too trifling for a Christian to mention — cold looks, or contempt, or ridicule, from those who have not the heart themselves to attempt the narrow way.

Our sins are more in number than the hairs of our head; yet even the hairs of our head are all numbered by Him.   He counts our sins, and, as He counts, so can He forgive; for that reckoning, great though it be, comes to an end; but His mercies fail not, and His Son's merits are infinite."

John Henry Newman, Present Blessings, 1839

 

US equities did a major 'pop and flop' today, as a wash and rinse is more colloquially known.

I have not looked into what event or which component of the DXY index caused the Dollar to take a precipitous swan dive this afternoon. 

But its always something.

Big Trouble in Little Bank Land if it starts a fresh slide below 100.

Gold and silver managed to spike some new highs today, as gold futures breached $2700 and silver briefly tagged the $33 mark.

Non-Farm Payrolls next week.

Wars are simmering around the globe with most of them marked with the fingerprints of Blinken and his Merry Pranksters.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Rustling Leaves, Whispers On the Lips of the Dead

 

"We wonder, and some hunter may express
Wonder like ours, when through the wilderness
Where London stood, holding the wolf in chase,
He meets some fragment huge, and stops to guess
What powerful but unrecorded race,
Once dwelt in that annihilated place."

Horace Smith, Ozymandias, 1818

“The essence of the this-time-is-different syndrome is simple.  It is rooted in the firmly held belief that financial crises are things that happen to other people in other countries at other times; crises do not happen to us, here and now.

The lesson of history, then, is that even as institutions and policy makers improve, there will always be a temptation to stretch the limits.  Just as an individual can go bankrupt no matter how rich she starts out, a financial system can collapse under the pressure of greed, politics, and profits no matter how well regulated it seems to be.

In sum, historical experience already shows that rich countries are not as 'special' as some cheerleaders had been arguing, both when it comes to managing capital inflows and especially when it comes to banking crises.”

Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly, 2009

"Babylon will not live again.
It will be desolate, for generations.
Nomads will not pitch tents there,
or shepherds bed their flocks.
Desert animals will roam the city,
its homes filled with howling creatures.
Owls will live among the ruins,
and wild goats will dance.
Hyenas will watch from its towers,
and jackals rule hopeless palaces.
Babylon’s days are numbered;
its time of destruction is coming."

Isaiah 13:20-22

“When you see the desolation of abomination standing where it should not, let those who seek knowledge understand, then flee from Judea to the mountains."

Mark 13:14

Stocks turned in a very mixed performance today, with the broader market showing the greatest weakness, and the heart of the bubble, the tech stocks, showing more resilience.

The Dollar took back the 50 cents it gave up yesterday.  

Gold was unchanged.   Silver gave up some ground back to the 32 handle.

VIX wallows.

War fever continues to build.

The incumbent party and its candidates have a strong vested interest in the strength of equities and the illusion of victory in foreign adventures, at least until the November elections.

The mighty rise and are fallen.  The word and the spirit endure.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Land of Illusion: The Hollow Men

 

"Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us—if at all—not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men."

T. S. Eliot, The Hollow Men, 23 November 1925

"I see dead people.  Walking around like regular people.  They don't see each other.  They only see what they want to see.   They don't know that they're dead."

Cole Sear: The Sixth Sense

"We have all seen examples of the 'macho tough guy' culture that certain elements of the financial and political class likes to portray for themselves.   Interacting with them is like dealing with hollow men, walking around trying to convince themselves that they are winning.  Everything that they do in their private moments seems false, and exaggerated, a caricature and poor imitation of life.  Superficially charming, even glamorous.  But inside, hollow and full of corruption. 

They just keep shoving people and things into the emptiness of their souls, in the hopes of achieving some semblance of being by consuming.  If we could see their true selves, see into their souls, we might well run away screaming.  And so would they.  So maintaining the illusion becomes the primary thing."

Jesse, Costumes, 31 October 2018


It was up and away in the markets today.

Stocks managed to pull together a rally after some initial sputtering.

The big story was the breakouts in gold and silver.

Yes the Dollar fell fifty cents.

But gold and silver took off, rocketing higher as they broke out through resistance, and settled up at the highs in the close.

There will be a precious metals options expiration on the Comex tomorrow.  Let's see if they can pull together one of their usual market gambits.

I watched Biden speak to the UN today.  The best part was knowing that this is probably the last time he will ever do so.   It was a very effective recruiting message for the BRICs.

Like the other 'great names' of our age, his legacy is a hollow memorial made of straw and dead men's bones, and every manner of corruption.

And will be soon be thankfully forgotten.  

Be mindful of the gathering storms in the Mideast and eastern Europe.  

Vanities and madness. 

Ashes, ashes, they all fall down.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - In the Service of Power, Lies, and Murder

 

"If there are damned souls in Hell, it is because men blind themselves.”

E.A. Bucchianeri, Faust: My Soul Be Damned for the World, 2010

"Greed is not good.  Greed is a disease, an aberration of simple honest ambition and necessary provision taken to excess. This simple distinction may be lost on a people no longer able to distinguish between virtue and sin, honor and expediency, appetite and gluttony, the means and the ends. 

Every great religion, every school of philosophy has cautioned throughout history on the perils of unbridled and unregulated greed.  Greed, often in company with hubris and fear, is a handmaiden of the corrupting influence of power and triumph of the will. Greed is contagious, and attacks the very contentment of society at its heart, turning it towards oligarchy and oppression."

Jesse, Greed Is Not Good, 19 December 2010

“When pride comes, then comes disgrace. But with disgrace comes humility, and with humility comes wisdom. The humility of the righteous will guide them, but the deceitfulness of the proud will destroy them."

Proverbs 11:2-3

"For where envy and selfish ambition exist, there is lawlessness, and every wicked action.   Where do the wars and where do the conflicts among you come from? Is it not from your worldly desires that make war among yourselves? You desire but do not possess. You kill and envy but you cannot obtain; you fight and wage war. You do not receive because you do not ask. You ask but do not receive, because you ask for things in the wrong way, to spend it on your passions."

James 3:16-4:3

"You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies."

John 8:43-44


Stocks just wobbled around today.

Gold and the Dollar gained a little.

Silver was smacked down lower for now to the 31 level.  Because they can.

They are bulking up the Comex gold inventories in Hong Kong. 

This sometimes presages a raid on prices.

There will be an option expiration on the Comex for gold and silver this week on the 25^th.

VIX wallowed.

The intention of Israel to invade and occupy parts of Lebanon seems to be progressing.

The markets are not pricing in a wider conflict in the Mideast yet, or the coming climax of the war in Eastern Europe.

The BRICs will be meeting next month, and may have some interesting announcements with regard to currencies.

It is a commonplace to say that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

It is perhaps more to the point that power attracts the corruptible, and those with major personality flaws such as psychopathy and narcissism.  

The same is true not only of politics, but of most large organizations, especially those who lack the balance of oversight by the righteous, and rules against the abuses of power.  

The world extracts a price from those who serve power for its rewards.

"Evil when we are in its power is not felt as evil, but as a necessity, or even a duty.  As soon as men know that they can kill without fear of punishment or blame, they kill; or at least they encourage killers, with approving smiles."

Simone Weil

Such is the way of Leviathan, embodiment of chaos, and the most ardent of its servants.

Have a pleasant evening.

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Consumption of the Ages

 

"It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes."

Andrew Jackson, On the Second Bank of the United States

"Jim, lad, there be consequences an' then there be consequences. Devil take 'em all, says I, and pass aft the rum."

Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island

“Financial operations do not lend themselves to innovation. What is recurrently so described and celebrated is, without exception, a small variation on an established design. The world of finance hails the invention of the wheel over and over again, often in a slightly more unstable version.”

John Kenneth Galbraith, A Short History of Financial Euphoria

"It is no exaggeration to say that since the 1980s, much of the global financial sector has become criminalised, creating an industry culture that tolerates or even encourages systematic fraud.  The behaviour that caused the mortgage bubble and financial crisis of 2008 was a natural outcome and continuation of this pattern, rather than some kind of economic accident.

This behaviour is criminal.  We are talking about deliberate concealment of financial transactions that aided terrorism, nuclear weapons proliferation and large-scale tax evasion; assisting in major financial frauds and in concealment of criminal assets; and committing frauds that substantially worsened the worst financial bubbles and crises since the Depression.   And yet none of this conduct has been punished in any significant way.

Charles H. Ferguson, Wall Street's Role in the Financial Crisis, The Guardian, 20 May 2012

"The asset bubbles since the turn of the 21st century have been enabled by four basic instruments of monetary policy error: Greenspan, Bernanke, Yellen, and Powell."

Jesse, Malice Domestic and Endless Foreign Wars, 31 July 2018



Gold and silver gave us some clean breakouts today, and went out near the highs. 

The dollar chopped sideways again, finishing marginally higher.

VIX fell.

The major indices gave back a little of  yesterday's meteoric rally.

 "Great designs have linear consequences. Bad designs have exponential consequences."

The coming dislocation from illusion may prove jarring, and as always, inexplicable and unanticipated.

Some large entities may not make it, at least in their current forms. 

They are sliding peacefully into the abyss.

Have a pleasant weekend.