Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - A Slow Descent into Madness

 

“Dogma gave every man importance only in so far as the tribe was important and he was a member of the tribe.   If the good had been twice as good and the bad only half as bad, I still ought to have seen it.  But I didn't want to see it, because I would have then had to think about the consequences of seeing it, what followed from seeing it, what I must do to be decent.”

Milton Mayer, They Thought They Were Free: The Germans 1933-45

"This slow and awful self-hypnotism of error is a process that can occur not only with individuals, but also with whole societies.  It is hard to pick out and prove; that is why it is hard to cure.   But this mental degeneration may be brought to one test, which I truly believe to be a real test. A nation is not going mad when it does extravagant things, so long as it does them in an extravagant spirit.   But whenever we see things done wildly, but taken tamely, then the State is growing insane."

G. K. Chesterton, National Madness

"It [Citizens United vs FEC] violates the essence of what made America a great country in its political system.  Now it’s just an oligarchy, with unlimited political bribery being the essence of getting the nominations for president or to elect the president.  And the same thing applies to governors and U.S. senators and congress members.  So now we’ve just seen a complete subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors, who want and expect and sometimes get favors for themselves after the election’s over."

Jimmy Carter, July 2015

“People are often unreasonable and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.
  If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.
  If you are honest, people may cheat you. Be honest anyway.
  If you find happiness, people may be jealous. Be happy anyway.
  The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.
  Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough. Give your best anyway.
  For you see, in the end, it is between you and God.
  It was never between you and them anyway.”

Mother Teresa

Stocks were trading indecisively today, ahead of more information about the debt limit and the Fed's intentions with interest rates.

Gold and silver slipped lower ahead of the Comex futures option expiration on Thursday the 25^th.

The Dollar chopped sideways.

VIX was slightly elevated.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Watch Me Pull a Rabbit Out of My Hat - Liar's Poker

 

"If JP Morgan leases gold from the US Treasury it does not mean that they back up a truck in Fort Knox and drive the gold away.  There is no need for that.  It is just a paper transaction.  The gold can sit in Fort Knox.  JP Morgan can take a hypothecatable title.  Now once JP Morgan has the gold what they do is they sell it at times 100 to gold investors who think they have gold but what they really have is what is called unallocated gold.

Unallocated gold is a euphemism for no gold.  If I call up JP Morgan and I say, 'You know I wanna buy a million dollars worth of gold,' they will say, 'Fine. Here is our contract.  Send us the million dollars.'  I sign the contract.  I send the million dollars.  They send me a confirmation and it says I own a million dollars worth of gold subject to the contract.

Well, read the fine print in the contract.  What it says is your gold is unallocated which means that they do not claim to have any specific bar with a serial number or your name on it.  In reality they have taken the same bar of gold and sold it to a hundred different investors.

Now that is fine if we are happy with the paper contract, but if all 100 of us show up at JP Morgan and they have only got one bar of gold, the first person may get the gold. The other 99 people, they are going get their contracts terminated.  They are going to get a check for the value of gold at the close of business yesterday, but they are not going to get today's price movement or tomorrow's price movement when super spiking going up to $2,000, $3,000, $4,000 an ounce.  That is when you want your gold for the price protection when everything else is falling apart.  That is when you are going to discover that you do not have gold."

Jim Rickards, Seeking Alpha: The New Case for Gold, April 2016

"The [Comex gold] exchange is a fractional reserve exchange, and they think that price will solve everything."

Kyle Bass, Hedge Fund Manager, Taking Delivery of Gold as a Fiduciary

"Nor can private counterparties restrict supplies of gold, another commodity whose derivatives are often traded over-the-counter, where central banks stand ready to lease gold in increasing quantities should the price rise."

Alan Greenspan, Congressional Testimony, July 24, 1998

"We looked into the abyss if the gold price rose further. A further rise would have taken down one or several trading houses, which might have taken down all the rest in their wake.   Therefore at any price, at any cost, the central banks had to quell the gold price, manage it.   It was very difficult to get the gold price under control but we have now succeeded.  The US Fed was very active in getting the gold price down.   So was the U.K."

Edward George, Bank of England in conversation with Nicholas J. Morrell, of Lonmin Plc, 1999, from Reg Howe v. BIS, JPM et al.


Today was a day of reversals in the recent market trends, just in time for the stock option expiration today.

What a remarkable coincidence!

Stocks fell.

The Dollar fell.

VIX rose.

Gold and silver rallied.

There will be a precious metals futures option expiration on the Comex next week on Thursday the 25th.

My son is exploring the wonders of amateur radio. 

Among other things he obtains messages from the international space station as it passes overhead.  He has an 'app' of course that let's him know where it is.

It is astonishing how easy it is to see, and how quickly it passes over the area.   With the sun glinting off it even at 10 PM given its height, it is very bright, and could be mistaken for a fast moving plane.

Have a pleasant weekend.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - A Tsunami of Insouciance - Oligarchy Large and In Charge

 

"As God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.  Bear with each other, and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone.  Forgive as the Lord has forgiven you.   And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.  Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace.  And be thankful."

Colossians 3:12-15

"God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand tempests and floods.  But he cannot save them from fools."

John Muir

"There ain't no clean way to make a hundred million bucks. Maybe the head man thinks his hands are clean but somewhere along the line guys got pushed to the wall, nice little businesses got the ground cut from under them and had to sell out for nickels, decent people lost their jobs, stocks got rigged on the market, proxies got bought up like a pennyweight of old gold, and the five per centers and the big law firms got paid hundred-grand fees for beating some law the people wanted but the rich guys didn't, on account of it cut into their profits.  Big money is big power and big power gets used wrong.  It's the system.

The tragedy of life, Howard, is not that the beautiful die young, but that they grow old and mean."

Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye

"Then the kings of the earth, their nobles and their commanders, the rich, the powerful, and every one of their willing slaves and free men, hid in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains.  And they cried to the mountains and the rocks, 'Fall on us, and hide us from the face of the one who sits on the throne, and from the righteous anger of the Lamb.'"

Rev 6:15-16

Stocks were in a risk on rally higher stampede today.

The spokesmodels were ebullient in a boiling flurry of pom-poms.

Tech took out its prior high in its bearish stepladder decline.  

The SP 500 has a little way to go.

As you might have expected the VIX has dropped back down to its recent lows.

The Dollar rose rather strongly as fears of the debt limit receded, for no particular reason.

Gold and silver continued to decline as bully shed his fears and streaked the field.

Banking crisis - over.

War with Russia and Ukraine- meh.

Increasing tensions with China -  paper tiger.

 Impending domestic recession - not for those who matter.

 E pluribus screw'em.

Stock index option expiration tomorrow.

Have a pleasant evening.