SP 500 September Futures - Goal of 1100 Reached Inspiring Euro Confidence, Or Not

The Merry Marketeers were able to coax the SP futures to the 1100 level, in a show of support for the results of the Euopean Bank Stress Tests. Huzzah!

The results were rather anemic, even given the somewhat unrealistic nature of the tests.

I can understand that they did not include a sovereign default by the likes of Greece, but that they included only the banks' trading portfolios, and not their commercial loan portfolios, seemed almost astonishing.

Reggie Middleton does a good job discussing the European Stress Tests here and here

But in the meanwhile, the increasing trivialization of the capital markets by the financial engineers in the service of their nonsensical schemes seems more alarming than anything else I could imagine.

Can they do what they did in 2005, and break the market out to the upside and inflate yet another financial asset bubble? They may very well do this. And it will once again end badly, much worse than the last. But why should they care, or stop, while they continue to become rich?

Gold Daily and Weekly Charts; Silver Charts; 1099 Change Does Not 'Target Gold and Silver'

There was quite a bit of central bank concern over the results of the 'stress tests' for the European banks.

I will not address the tests themselves here, but let it suffice to say that they only involved the banks' trading portfolios, and not their loan portfolios, which could give you some idea of their lack of rigor. And 7 of 91 banks failed.

But the spokesmodels on Bloomberg were remarking, frequently, that the markets are pleased by the tests and the crisis is over because 'stocks are higher,' and 'gold was lower.'

The lies and market manipulation will continue until confidence is restored.


Gold Daily Chart



Gold Weekly Chart



Silver Weekly Chart



Miners (HUI) Weekly Chart

Gold Daily Chart

“Central banks stand ready to lease gold in increasing quantities should the price rise.”

Sir Alan Greenspan, US Federal Reserve Bank, 24 July 1998


"We looked into the abyss if the gold price rose further. A further rise would have taken down one or several trading houses, which might have taken down all the rest in their wake. Therefore at any price, at any cost, the central banks had to quell the gold price, manage it. It was very difficult to get the gold price under control but we have now succeeded. The US Fed was very active in getting the gold price down. So was the U.K."

Sir Eddie George, Bank of England, September 1999


"The schools would fail through their silence, the Church through its forgiveness, and the home through the denial and silence of the parents. The new generation has to hear what the older generation refuses to tell it...The only value of nearly five decades of my work is a warning to the murderers of tomorrow, that they will never rest.”

Simon Wiesenthal

"Who is our Simon Wiesenthal? Who will track down these criminals in the coming months, years, decades? Perhaps we need some old men to spend their last years in prison after thinking they effectively fleeced the world. Perhaps the cycle of crises can be mitigated if the prosecution for these particular crimes continues for decades and every so often Wall Street is reminded that there is no sanctuary and that individuals will be hunted down at whatever time in whatever place."

The Fourteenth Banker, Financial Crime, the Statute of Limitations, and Simon Weisenthal