Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Risk On - FOMC Tomorrow

 

"No one today likes truth: utility and self interest have long ago been substituted for truth.  We live in a nightmare of falsehoods, and there are few who are sufficiently awake and aware to see things as they are."

Nikolai Berdyaev 

 

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

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

 

"The wealthy, not only by private fraud but also by common laws, do every day pluck and snatch away from the people some part of their daily living.  They invent and devise all means and crafts, first how to keep safely without fear of losing that which they have unjustly gathered together, and next how to hire and abuse the work and labor of the people for as little money and effort as possible." 

Thomas More, Utopia 

 

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

George Orwell

 

"Hubris calls for nemesis, and in one form or another it's going to get it, not as a punishment from outside but as the completion of a pattern already started." 

Mary Midgley, The Myths We Live By

The markets were clearly in a risk on mood today.

Perhaps it is due to some insights about what the illustrious Fed will be announcing tomorrow.

Or on the other hand, just a setup for an options week wash and rinse.

Be that as it may, gold and silver were pushed lower, but managed to hold up a little against the selling.

The Dollar chopped sideways.

Perhaps as a side effect of stocks, the miners I watch were in the green today.

FOMC tomorrow.   Stock index option expiration on Friday.

Here is a sample of what happens when a short metals trade implodes: JPM At the Center of Another Multi-Billion Trading Scandal.

The lies will continue, until confidence is restored.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Dog That Did Not Bark

 

"Satan’s monomaniac concern with himself and his supposed rights and wrongs is a necessity of the Satanic predicament.  Certainly, he has no choice.  He has chosen to have no choice.  He has wished to ‘be himself,’ and to be in himself and for himself, and his wish has been granted.  To admire Satan, then, is to give one’s vote not only for a world of misery, but also for a world of lies and propaganda, of wishful thinking, of incessant autobiography."

C. S. Lewis


"These are suitable feelings towards this attractive but deceitful world.  What have we to do with its gifts and honours, who, having been already baptized into the world to come, are no longer citizens of this?  Why should we be anxious for a long life, or wealth, or credit, or comfort, who know that the next world will be every thing which our hearts can wish, and that not in appearance only, but truly and everlastingly?  Why should we rest in this world, when it is the token and promise of another?   Why should we be content with its surface, instead of appropriating what is stored beneath it?

To those who live by faith, every thing they see speaks of that future world; the very glories of nature, the sun, moon, and stars, and the richness and the beauty of the earth, are as types and figures witnessing and teaching the invisible things of God.  All that we see is destined one day to burst forth into a heavenly bloom, and to be transfigured into immortal glory.  Heaven at present is out of sight, but in due time, as snow melts and discovers what it lay upon, so will this visible creation fade away before those greater splendours which are behind it, and on which at present it depends.  In that day shadows will retire, and the substance show itself."

John Henry Newman 

"The Lord is my light and my salvation –
     whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the refuge of my life –
     of whom shall I be afraid?

I believe still that I will see the goodness of the Lord
     in the land of the living!
Wait for the Lord;
    be strong, and let your heart take courage;
Yes, wait upon the Lord."

Psalm 27

Stocks came in with another overnight attempt at rallying higher.

And once again it faded away during the daylight trading, and stocks were lower.

The Dollar rallied back to 99 and the VIX was higher.

So it was clearly 'risk off' most likely about concerns with the Ukraine, although there is some influence from the Fed meeting and likely 25 bp rate increase this week.

What was curious is that gold and silver both diverged significantly from their risk off partner assets.

Maybe it was in sympathy with commodities in general, and maybe it was something else.

I did see the miners taking it on the chin especially, although there was a significant easing up on the downward pressure in the late afternoon.

I have marked the 50% Fibonacci retracement level on the chart for gold.   You may take note of it. 

This is where the price closed today, after flirting with it previously.

Let's remember what all is occurring this week, including the FOMC meeting Wednesday and a stock option expiration on Friday.

I have pretty much stopped watching the news, and even bubblevision.

I think that all is not as it seems, in a number of areas, where that which cannot be sustained has been extended again and again by lies and various deceptions.

“Crime, once exposed, has no refuge but in audacity.” 

Tacitus

Nominations are being entertained for the position(s) of designated scapegoat.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Idols and Images, Exhaustion and Despair - The Market as God

 

“Every idol, however exalted, turns out, in the long run, to be a Moloch, hungry for human sacrifice.”

 Aldous Huxley, The Devils of Loudon

 

"All of the traditional religions teach that human beings are finite creatures and that there are limits to any earthly enterprise.  A Japanese Zen master once said to his disciples as he was dying, 'I have learned only one thing in life: how much is enough.'  He would find no niche in the chapel of The Market, for whom the First Commandment is 'There is never enough.' Like the proverbial shark that stops moving, The Market that stops expanding dies.  That could happen."

Harvey Cox, The Market As God

 

"A society that narrows the meaning of 'success' to the big money, and in its terms condemns failure as the chief vice, raising money to the plane of absolute value, will produce the sharp operator and the shady deal." 

C. Wright Mills

“Possibly the most devastating realization of all is when the real God shows up, and in the showing up all of this comes crashing down.” 

Craig D. Lounsbrough

 

Stocks were coming in higher this morning, and gold and silver were smacked down.

And voila, all of this reversed by the end of the day.

What a surprise.

The Dollar, VIX, gold and silver moved higher.

Stocks went out near the lows.

Bitcoin fell, even as the spokesmodels cheered its performance and durability in the morning vis a vis gold. 

Let's see what happens geopolitically over the weekend.

Options expiration for stock indices next Friday.

See you next week.