Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Rise of the Anti-Human - Théâtre du Grand-Guignol

 

"Mega banks on Wall Street and other bad actors are particularly hostile to the fact that the CFPB [Consumer Financial Protection Bureau] allows consumers who have been victimized by financial firms, even where small amounts of money are involved, to file a complaint with the CFPB, who then demands a timely written explanation from the alleged wrongdoer. Bad actors dislike the fact that these complaints go into a permanent database at the CFPB, which can be mined by the public, reporters, class-action attorneys and prosecutors looking for patterns of fraud.

The hatred of the CFPB is so strong by predatory financial actors that another front group, American Action Network, launched a $500,000 ad campaign during the November 10, 2015 Republican presidential debate, comparing the advocate for the little guy to a communist organization. The advertisement was a masterpiece of misinformation, overtly suggesting that the job of the CFPB is to deny car loans and mortgages to regular folks seeking credit. The agency, in fact, has absolutely nothing to do with approving credit applications. Its job is to root out and punish financial institutions that are ripping off customers."

Wall Street on Parade, Kochs Push To Smother Agency that Protects the Little Guy, 28 September 2023

'What is truth?'  Sometimes people ask this question because they wish to do nothing. Generic cynicism makes us feel hip and alternative even as we slip along with our fellow citizens into a morass of indifference. It is your ability to discern facts that makes you an individual, and our collective trust in common knowledge that makes us a society.  Authoritarians need obedient civil servants, and concentration camp directors seek businessmen interested in cheap labor.

To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power, because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle. The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights. You submit to tyranny when you renounce the difference between what you want to hear and what is actually the case.”

Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny

Stocks managed to pull themsevles together for a bounce today.

VIX declined.

Gold and silver were hit hard again today as an after-effect of the recent expiration, but especially for the end of quarter tape painting by the big metals shorts.

The Dollar dropped sharply giving up its gains from yesterday.

Wash-rinse-repeat.

Lawlessness is becoming fashionable among those who have hardened their hearts, playing heedlessly with the darkness.

The potential shutdown of the Federal government continues to draw near.

There is no way to have a rational discussion with those who have given themselves over to the irrational impulse of the anti-human.

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity...
And what rough beast, its hour come 'round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born.

W. B. Yeats

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Fruits of Graft - Costco Selling One Ounce Gold Bars

 

“Trickle-down theory represents the less than elegant metaphor that if one feeds the horse enough oats, some will pass through to the road for the sparrows.”

John Kenneth Galbraith

"You should thank God the government saved the big banks and their investors. Now, if you talk about bailouts for everybody else, there comes a place where if you just start bailing out all the individuals instead of telling them to adapt, the culture dies. Suck it in and cope."

Charlie Munger, Christian Science Monitor, September 30, 2010

"Inequality is a euphemism for all the things that have gone to make the lives of the rich so much more delicious for the last three decades. And for the things that have made the lives of working people so wretched and so precarious.  You catch a glimpse of inequality every time you hear about someone that had to declare bankruptcy because a child got sick.  Inequality is about the way in which speculators, and even criminals, get a helping hand from Uncle Sam, while the Vietnam Vet down the street loses his house."

Thomas Frank, Listen Liberal

“Sin is not a distance, it is a turning of our gaze in the wrong direction.  Evil when we are in its power is not felt as evil, but as a necessity, or even a duty."

Simone Weil

Today we had the expected 'gut punch' follow up to the recent precious metals option expiration on the Comex.

I would normally expect this to be about it, but since we are approaching the end of the third quarter we will have to wait and see if the big metal and miner shorts have used this opportunity to square up their books for quarter end.

The Dollar rallied and took the 106 handle and then some.

Stocks were punched down hard, but managed to rally into the close and finish unchanged to green.

What a surprise.

The government shutdown looms as the House continues in disarray.

But this reaction in the equity markets so far is mostly the usual end of quarter shenanigans.

And as a surprise in the news, national retailer Costco is now selling one ounce gold bars.   And they are selling out as fast as they can stock them.    Physical gold to go and a free lunch of tasty samples.   What will they think of next. 

There may be a flight to safety of sorts in the air.  Let's see what happens. 

As Cicero is said to have famously observed in his first oration against Cataline, 'O tempora, O mores.'

When he spoke in 63 BC his republic was failing as well.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Foolish and the Shameless - Comex Option Expiration

 

"The most urgent problem facing the US and the Western nations is not a [debt limit] 'fiscal cliff.'  It is the pernicious corruption in the financial system that has captured the politicians of both parties, and distorted the public conversation through influence in the media and directing the opinions and buying the research of 'experts' through the power of big money."

Jesse, New Twists In MF Global Scandal, 21 November 2012

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

Kyle Bass

"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 [100:1 leverage] 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, The New Case for Gold, Seeking Alpha, April 3, 2016


Seems like we had another precious metals option expiration on the Comex. 

I was warning that this was the quarterly expiration for an active contract month, and the wiseguys in their shamelessness certainly did not disappoint.

Gold and silver were sold hard, going out near the lows of the day.

The Dollar was marginally higher.   This was not a dollar cross trade. 

VIX rose sharply.

Stocks were sold, driven by the usual bipolar interest rate wash and rinse memes.

There are also concerns that the self-centered brats in the Congressional Freedom Caucus,enabled by the clueless and spineless are going to keep acting out until they finally break something important.

The lesser of two evils is still evil.   And nothing will improve until we demand something better.

The low in the VIX and the nonsensical utterances of the spokesmodels and the Wall Street pigmen auxiliary last week seemed to indicate a major wash and rinse was in the works.   The rationales for a further rally in the equity markets and a stealth economic recovery were laughable.

Remember when we used to pass the time arguing about whether deflation was inevitable (it is not) or if the precious metals and other markets are manipulated? (they are)  Or whether Elliott waves and other charting gimmicks were prescient? (they were not)  

Now we seem to have become resigned to life in an empire of fruitless anger and lawlessness.  The occasional hit on the outrage button makes many feel like they are alive.  Cynicism and selfishness reigns, and the love in their hearts has grown cold.

What is your responsibility?  It is to walk with the Lord, and be His hands and feet in the world, no matter what else the foolish and the headstrong and the unrighteous around you may be doing. 

It is never between you and them.  It is always between you and your God.  This is what it is all about.

My eyesight is slowly but steadily improving.  It requires determination and patience.

And so it may be, with the cure of one's soul.  Everyone carries this burden.

Have a pleasant evening.