Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Heartless - Harden Not Your Hearts

"Our future could be one in which continued tumult feeds the looting of the financial system, and we talk more and more about exactly how our oligarchs became bandits and how the economy just can’t seem to get into gear.   Recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform.  And if we are to prevent a true depression, we’re running out of time."

Simon Johnson, The Quiet Coup, May 2009


"Why do the nations rage
and their peoples utter folly?
The kings of the earth rise up,
and the princes conspire together
against the Lord and against his anointed."

Psalm 2


"It may be true that the law cannot change the heart, but it can restrain the heartless."

Martin Luther King

The big tickle today was the price of oil, specifically West Texas Intermediate Crude.

People were getting exercised by the deeply negative print on the May futures contract in the negative $30's range. lol

Deflation, OMG!! We're doomed!

The contract front month is rolling over from May to June, and those trying to unload and/or roll the May contracts are getting skinned alive, because no one wants to take delivery of oil. There is a glut and storage is at a premium.

The June contract is around $21, which while still low by recent history, is still reflective of the intra-OPEC+ price war and the glut of oil because of the slack demand for oil products because of the virus lockdowns.

Stocks went out on the lows of the day, despite an intraday jam into the green and a lower opening.

Gold and silver were up a bit, as VIX also climbed back a bit.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Stock Option Expiration

“A narcissist paints a picture of themselves as being the victim or innocent in all aspects. They will be offended by the truth.  But what is done in the dark will come to light.  Time has a way of showing people’s true colors.”

Karla Grimes


“Imagining that you are deep and complex, but others are simple, is one of the primary signs of malignant selfishness.”

Stefan Molyneux


"Do you not know that to whom you give yourselves as servants, his servants you become, whether of a corruption unto death, or of a righteousness unto life?"

Romans 6:16

Stocks gapped higher on enthusiasm for a return to normalcy.

Gold and silver got sold lower.

All in all it was another stock option expiration.

We have given ourselves over to willfulness.   And a price will be paid.

So we will just have to see what happens.

And hopefully learn.

But even that is no sure thing with such a corrupt and stiff-necked people.

Have a pleasant weekend.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Writing on the Wall - Stock Option Expiration Tomorrow

"If you want to find out what a man is to the bottom, give him power.  Any man can stand adversity — only a great man can stand prosperity.”

Robert Ingersoll


“You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe


“It is the magician’s bargain: give up our soul, get power in return.  But once our souls, that is, ourselves, have been given up, the power thus conferred will not belong to us.  We shall in fact be the slaves and puppets of that to which we have given our souls.”

C.S. Lewis

At what point does stupidity become a sin?

This is no idle question. Because the most pervasive and convincing reason I have found to not hold people, including myself, accountable for their usual bad actions is stupidity.

They are not really evil, even when they may accommodate evil things. They are mostly stupid. 

But surely, like most things in excess, stupidity becomes a sin when it is wanton in a careless manner, or even worse, purposeful.  Habitual stupidity that favors the person who gives themselves over to it.

Surely almost all people will be taken in by a con man at some point in their lives.

But there are those who become the devotees of purposeful liars. And in their wanton stupidity they can become the accomplices of terrible sins, and sometimes sensational crimes.

Be careful then, of what you feed to your minds, and what foolishness you may stubbornly embrace, because it suits your purposes.

At the time of your judgement, cleverness and connections and impertinence will be of no use.  The penetrating gaze of the Almighty will expose you naked before it.

The markets were mixed today as they like to say.

The economic news was dire. But we are becoming used to this.

Trumpolini will be announcing something distractingly fabulous tonight no doubt.

There will be a stock market option expiration on Friday.

And there is a reckoning coming, most likely by July.

Have a pleasant evening.