Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Need little, Want less, Love more

 

"The people ask, “Why should we fast if the Lord never notices? Why should we go without food if he pays no attention?”

The Lord says, “At the same time that you fast, you do what you want, and oppress your workers.   Your fasting makes you violent, and you quarrel and fight.  Do you think this kind of fasting will make me listen to your prayers?  When you fast, you act like you suffer; you bow your heads low like a blade of grass and spread out sackcloth and ashes to lie on.  Is that what you call fasting?  Do you think I will be pleased with that?

The kind of fasting I want is this: remove the burden of oppression and the yoke of injustice, and let the oppressed go free.  Share your food with the hungry and provide homes to the homeless poor.  Give clothes to those who have nothing to wear, and do not refuse to help those around you."

Isaiah 58:3-7

"And we have come to know and to trust the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God in them."

1 John 4:16-17

“If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you.  But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins.   And when you fast, don’t make it obvious, as the hypocrites do, for they try to look miserable and disheveled so people will admire them for their fasting.  I tell you the truth, that is the only reward they will ever get.  But when you fast, comb your hair and wash your face.  Then no one will notice that you are fasting, except your Father, who knows what you do in private.  And your Father, who sees everything, will reward you."

Matthew 6:16-18

The PCE inflation number came in a little higher than expectations today, so Wall Street decided to hang out the laundry.

The Dollar rallied.

Gold, and particularly silver got hit hard.

One data point, or even a few, do not make a trend.

I suspect the Fed will just stick to its 25 bp rate increases for now.

Crushing the real economy in order to correct for the Fed-induced inflation that benefited only the one percent and the financiers seems only fair.

Today is the first anniversary of the Ukraine-Russia war.

As George Orwell said,  'War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it.'

Need little, want less, love more.  For those who abide in love abide in God, and God in them.

Have a pleasant weekend.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Bread and Circuses - Of Parliaments and Pipelines

 

"Once you go down the path of empire, you inevitably start a process of overstretch, of tendencies toward bankruptcy, and, in the rest of the world, a tendency toward the uniting of people who are opposed to your imperialism simply on grounds that it’s yours, but maybe also on the grounds that you’re incompetent at it.  Indeed, one wonders whether we have already crossed our Rubicon, whether we can go back.  I don’t know."

Chalmers Johnson, Sorrows of Empire


"Now, the key to all this, of course, is the fact I have already mentioned.  Sy Hersh’s piece has not been published in Germany.  The New York Times hasn’t published it.  The major media haven’t published. Where did Sy have to publish this?  On Substack.  He used to publish in The New York Times, then in The New Yorker. He has been banned."

Ray McGovern


"I was satisfied that I wasn't personally to blame and that I hadn't known about those things.  I wasn't aware of the extent of the crimes. But one day I went past the memorial plaque which had been put up for Sophie Scholl in Franz Josef Strasse, and I saw that she was born the same year as me, and she was executed the same year I started working for Hitler.  And at that moment I actually sensed that it was no excuse to be young, and that it would have been possible to find things out."

Traudl Junge, Im toten Winkel - Hitler's Sekretärin


"Behind the concrete, the visible events, behind all objective, logical considerations, we find the irrational element: The struggle against the demon, against the servants of the Antichrist.

Everywhere and always demonic powers lurk in the dark, waiting for the moment when man is weak; when of his own volition he leaves his place in Creation, as founded for him by God in freedom; when he yields to the force of evil, he separates himself from the powers of a higher order; and after voluntarily taking the first step, he is driven on to the next and the next at a furiously accelerating rate.

Everywhere, and at times of greatest trials, men have appeared, prophets and saints who cherished their freedom, who preached the One God and who with His help brought the people to a reversal of their downward course.  Man is free, to be sure, but without the true God he is defenseless against the principle of evil.  He is a like rudderless ship, at the mercy of the storm, an infant without his mother, a cloud dissolving into thin air.

The White Rose, Fourth Leaflet, Munich, 1942


"Wonderful providence indeed which is so silent, yet so efficacious, so constant, so unerring.  This is what baffles the power of Satan.  He cannot discern the Hand of God in what goes on; and though he would fain meet it and encounter it, in his mad and blasphemous rebellion against heaven, he cannot find it.  Crafty and penetrating as he is, yet his thousand eyes and his many instruments avail him nothing against the majestic serene silence, the holy imperturbable calm which reigns through the providences of God.  Crafty and experienced as he is, he appears like a child or a fool, like one made sport of, whose daily bread is but failure and mockery, before the deep and secret wisdom of the Divine Counsels."

John Henry Newman

 

Stocks caught a little bounce at the end during another spike and plunge and recover day.

Gold and silver took a hit as always on a Comex option expiration.

It is traditional to enjoy another gut check tomorrow for all the new holders of futures contract positions from their 'in the money' options.

These are times of many lies and deceptions.

The depth and intensity and audacious nature of evil among the powerful is almost daunting.

There are too few righteous people in power, having been crowded from the stages by those given over to the madness.

"But let all who would labour for God in a dark time beware of any thing which ruffles, excites, and in any way withdraws them from the love of God and Christ, and simple obedience to Him.  Such is the rule of our warfare."

John Henry Newman

Be careful of any accommodations you are tempted to make with the unspeakable. 

The madness serves none but itself.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Wash and Rinse in Silver - Global Turmoil

 

"Caesar was swimming in blood, Rome and the whole pagan world was mad. But those who had had enough of transgression and madness, those who were trampled upon, those whose lives were misery and oppression, all the weighed down, all the sad, all the unfortunate, came to hear the wonderful tidings of God, who out of love for men had given Himself to be crucified and redeem their sins.

When they found a God whom they could love, they had found that which the society of the time could not give any one— happiness and love."

Henryk Sienkiewicz, Quo Vadis: The Time of Nero

"Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song."

John Paul II

"He went about doing good and healing all those oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. We are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree.

This man God raised on the third day and granted that he be visible, not to all the people, but to us, the witnesses chosen by God in advance, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. He commissioned us to preach to the people and testify that he is the one appointed by God as judge of the living and the dead.   To him all the prophets bear witness, that everyone who believes in him will receive forgiveness of sins through his name.”

Acts of the Apostles 10:37-43

 

The 'highly anticipated' Fed minutes came out at 2 PM and basically added nothing new to the conversation given the recent speeches by Fed heads Bulland and Mester.

 Stocks were meh, although the NDX showed some strength all things considered.

But not to waste an opportunity, gold and silver were lower as the Dollar edged higher.

And I am shocked, shocked, that silver got smacked down after the seemingly uncorrelated rally.

 As noted in yesterday's commentary.

"Silver was the standout, rallying up for most of the day, contra just about everything.  We have an option expiration for silver on the Comex coming on the 23rd.  Forewarned is forearmed."

Have a pleasant evening.