Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Afflictions of the Spirit

 

“Some madness doesn't act mad to begin with, sometimes it will knock politely at the door, and when you let it in, it'll simply sit in the corner without a fuss — and grow.”

Nathan Filer

"The greatest want of the world is the want of men — men who will not be bought or sold; men who in their inmost souls are true and honest; men who do not fear to call sin by its right name; men whose conscience is as true to duty as the needle to the pole; men who will stand for the right though the heavens fall."

Ellen G. White

"And this is the judgement, that the light has come into the world, and people love the darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil."

John 3:19

"The great banks and insurance houses where surplus wealth is kept among us. That surplus wealth, produced by the cheap labor of 'peasants', must now be protected from the peasants by law and by military force.

We labor and labor and labor for stuff that never satisfies us. The market ideology is now the new form of imperial power and many of us, without any critical reflection, have signed onto that, and organized our lives in that way so we do not have any time, energy or capacity for the things that are rightly important to us, our humanness."

Walter Brueggemann, Truth To Power

"With tears in my eyes I tell you now that some may be lost, forever. For their desires are the god that they worship. They boast with pride about things of which they should be ashamed. They think only about the privileges and glories of this world."

Philippians 3:19-20

A wave of enthusiasm for a Fed pivot to rate cuts took the markets by storm, given the mild PPI numbers.

This was reflected in another sharp decline in the dollar back towards the DXY 100 handle.

Gold and silver rose higher, and are now pushing up against breakout resistance levels.

Equities also had a made rally with the SP 500 now firmly set against the resistance that has triggered several failed rallies in the recent past.

VIX is showing some complacency.   

Let's see how we tomorrow and into the weekend.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Careless People, Jerome and Janet

 

“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy — they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

"It is not possible to found a lasting power upon injustice, perjury, and treachery.  These may, perhaps, succeed at first, and limp along on hope for awhile with a flourishing appearance.  But time betrays their weakness, and they eventually fall into ruin of their own designs."

Demosthenes

"Laws exist to protect society from the actions of aberrant personalities.  It does not shock us when they wield a gun.  Why then does it surprise us when they utilize a pen, a glib personal patina, a reckless disregard for others, and a persistent, amoral cunning?

Until there is reform and a restoration of justice there will be no sustained and genuine recovery."

Jesse, A Brief History of the Greatest Financial Fraud in History, 15 December 2008

"There are no necessary evils in government.  Its evils exist only in its abuses.  If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing."

Andrew Jackson, Veto of the Second Bank of the United States

"Looking at the world as a whole, the drift for many decades has been not towards anarchy but towards the reimposition of slavery.  We may be heading not for general breakdown but for an epoch as horribly stable as the slave empires of antiquity.

Few people have yet considered the kind of world-view, the kind of beliefs, and the social structure that would probably prevail in a state which was at once unconquerable and in a permanent state of cold war with its neighbors."

George Orwell

Stocks did another one day wash and rinse special.

It started with a rocket rally up from the relatively benign CPI data this morning, but fell apart and went deeply into the red by the market close.

The Dollar fell.

Gold and silver rallied, with a similar volatility to stocks.

VIX is in a fairly tight lower range.

Earnings season kicks off with the Banks on Friday.

It was in the high 80s here today.   More like Summer than Spring.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - An Impasse in Expectations

 

"She was steadfast when stability was unknown, and honorable in an age which had forgotten what honor was; she was a rock of convictions in a time when men believed in nothing and scoffed at all things. She was of a dauntless courage when hope and courage had perished in the hearts of her nation.”

Mark Twain, Joan of Arc

“A decline in courage may be the most striking feature that an outside observer notices in the West today.   The Western world has lost its civic courage.  Such a decline in courage is particularly noticeable among the ruling and intellectual elite, causing an impression of a loss of courage by the entire society.”

Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, A World Split Apart, 8 June 1978

"At the root of America's economic crisis lies a moral crisis: the decline of civic virtue among America's political and economic elite. A society of markets, laws, and elections is not enough if the rich and powerful fail to behave with respect, honesty, and compassion toward the rest of society and toward the world. America has developed the world's most competitive market society but has squandered its civic virtue along the way. Without restoring an ethos of social responsibility, there can be no meaningful and sustained economic recovery."

Jeffrey Sachs, The Price of Civilization, October 4, 2011

"That is a dirty word in this age of empire, to serve.  Ironically we all end up serving something or someone, even if it is only ourselves.  And we become defined by what we serve.  Anyone can be a hero or a saint, not flawless, but faltering, not perfect, but persevering, not proud but pushing forward often in fear and trembling, not losing their own way but following the light of righteousness and goodness, even while stumbling and going forward again, because everyone can serve, and serve well if they choose something lasting and worthy."

Jesse, Heroes and Saints, 18 January 2015


The secret of courage is to care for something, someone, more than you care for yourself. 

Stocks had another waffling day, seemingly waiting with bated breath for the Consumer Price Inflation data tomorrow.

Earnings season will begin on Friday with the Banks.

Gold and silver rose a little.

The Dollar gave back Monday's gains.

Back and forth, wash and rinse.

The VIX looks to be caught in a tight range.

I suspect something will break soon.

Let's see what tomorrow brings.

Have a pleasant evening.