"You are the very cause of your ignorance, yourselves. You put away the light, yourselves; you first pluck out both your own eyes, yourselves; and after that other men’s too, so that the blind may lead the blind, until you both fall into the pit.”
Thomas More, The Sadness of Christ (Gethsemane), Tower of London, 1535
"Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song."
John Paul II
"Without a doubt, at the center of the New Testament there stands the Cross, which receives its interpretation from the Resurrection."
Hans Urs von Balthasar
"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.
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.”
"Beneath some burning, unknown gaze
I feel my very wings unpinned.
And give my name to the abyss
Which waits to claim me as its own.”
Charles Baudelaire, Lament of Icarus
"Even great men bow before the Sun; it melts hubris into humility."
Dejan Stojanovic
"But, what creates the most intense surprise,
His soul looks out through renovated eyes."
John Keats
Stocks just could not get much lift today, despite early rally attempts centered on the SP 500 futures.
Tech was just a dead weight, and the financials could not carry the ball when it was handed to them.
Tech and financials have been the lead sled dogs throughout this entire post-election rally.
And unless a substitute can be found, it is going to be difficult for stocks to be able to pick up the moment again.
I had to chuckle a little this afternoon. The pundits and spokesmodels were making the case that the problem with stocks is 'isolated' to the extreme overvaluation in the big cap techstocks and the mispricing of risks in constructing their future profit and cash flows.
Nice theory. But that is like saying that a fellow's health problems are limited to his failing heart.
Tech has been 'the market' for some time now in this parabola of pricing. And the big five are stumbling badly.
Not that they have gotten any worse per se. Rather, the assumptions about them are getting less ridiculous.
Gold and silver were lower today, in what looked like a technical cross-currency play with the US Dollar. I have included the chart for Uncle Buck below.
In other words, their price performance has nothing whatsoever to do with supply and the demand in the short or long term-- it is a pricing exercise carried from the currency markets, which are some of the most manipulated markets around.
So let's see what happens next, with attention towards Shanghai and Hong Kong in particular where the commodity markets tend to touch down to the earth a little more often. Comex NY price action is like a game of Liar's Poker.
Markets will be closed on Friday. Tomorrow may have just charts as it is Maundy Thursday.
Let us pray for those whose hearts are hardened against His grace and loving kindness by greed, fear, and pride, and the seductive illusion and crushing isolation of evil.
We pray that we all may experience the three great gifts of our Lord's suffering and triumph: repentance, forgiveness, and thankfulness. And in so doing, may we obtain abundant life, and with it the peace that surpasses all understanding.
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