Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Tail Risks

 

“When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, ‘It is going to rain,’ and so it happens.  And when you see the wind blowing from the south, you say, ‘It is going to be hot,’ and so it happens.  You hypocrites.  You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky.  Why then do you not know how to interpret the present time?"

Luke 12:54-56

"We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other's children."

Jimmy Carter, Nobel Lecture, December 10, 2002

“Pity the nation whose people are sheep,
and whose shepherds mislead them.
Pity the nation whose leaders are liars,
whose sages are silenced,
and whose bigots haunt the airwaves.
Pity the nation that raises not its voice,
except to praise conquerors
and acclaim the bully as hero.”

Lawrence Ferlinghetti, New Poems, City Lights

"All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born."

W. B. Yeats, Easter 1916


Are we not exceptional?

Are you not entertained?

Gold and silver rallied higher today out of their coiling patterns, as the war in the Mideast intensified. 

Stocks finished weakly again, grappling with the risks of the fog of war.

VIX rose.

The Dollar chopped sideways finishing largely unchanged.

And so it begins again.

Have a pleasant weekend.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Self-Interest Without Morals - Option Expiration

 

"It is no exaggeration to say that since the 1980s, much of the global financial sector has become criminalised, creating an industry culture that tolerates or even encourages systematic fraud.   The behaviour that caused the mortgage bubble and financial crisis of 2008 was a natural outcome and continuation of this pattern, rather than some kind of economic accident.

This behaviour is criminal.  We are talking about deliberate concealment of financial transactions that aided terrorism, nuclear weapons proliferation and large-scale tax evasion; assisting in major financial frauds and in concealment of criminal assets; and committing frauds that substantially worsened the worst financial bubbles and crises since the Depression.   And yet none of this conduct has been punished in any significant way."

Charles H. Ferguson, Heist of the century" Wall Street's Role in the Financial Crisis, The Guardian, 20 May 2012

“Leadership is getting results in a way that inspires trust. It’s maximizing both your current contribution and your ability to contribute in the future by establishing the trust that makes it possible.   A nation’s well-being, as well as its ability to compete, is conditioned by a single, pervasive cultural characteristic: the level of trust inherent in the society.  The more people rationalize cheating, the more it becomes a culture of dishonesty.  And that can become a vicious, downward cycle.  Because suddenly, if everyone else is cheating, you feel a need to cheat, too."

Stephen Covey, The Speed of Trust

"Capitalism is at risk of failing today not because we are running out of innovations, or because markets are failing to inspire private actions, but because we’ve lost sight of the operational failings of unfettered gluttony.  We are neglecting a torrent of market failures in infrastructure, finance, and the environment. We are turning our backs on a grotesque worsening of income inequality and willfully continuing to slash social benefits.  We are destroying the Earth as if we are indeed the last generation."

Jeffrey Sachs, Self-interest, Without Morals, Philadelphia Fed, April 17th, 2013
 

The economic data came in a little hot this morning, and with the recent earnings report flops, that served to take the equity markets down.

Gold and silver were hit rather hard in honor of an otherwise inconsequential Comex metals options expiration.

It's the spirit, never the substance, of the scam.

The Dollar chopped sideways.

VIX came in high and drifted lower.

The war in the Mideast is smoldering in a most ominous way.

The odor of the moral character of the centers of power is most foul.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Storm Warnings

 

"No one screams against this hell.  No one protests.  And if they abhor what they see, they do not have the courage to damn the damned.  One alone would not have failed us.  Péguy would have spoken, I hope, he would have let loose his scream.  He is not here, and there is no one else."

André Suarès, 1939

“We must always tell what we see.  Above all, and this is more difficult, we must always see what we see.”

Charles Péguy

"Bully-worship, under various disguises, has become a universal religion."

George Orwell, Review of Bertrand Russell's Power, Adelphi, 1939

“Ayn Rand's 'philosophy' is nearly perfect in its immorality, which makes the size of her audience all the more ominous and symptomatic as we enter a curious new phase in our society.  Moral values are in flux.  The muddy depths are being stirred by new monsters and witches from the deep.  Trolls walk the American night.  Caesars are stirring in the Forum.  There are storm warnings ahead.”

Gore Vidal, Comment, Esquire, July 1, 1961

"Legitimate power always includes attentiveness to justice.  When power is not attentive to justice it cannot endure.  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."

Walter Brueggemann, Truth Speaks to Power, 2013

"We've become, now, an oligarchy instead of a democracy.  I think that's been the worst damage to the basic moral and ethical standards to the American political system that I've ever seen in my life."

Jimmy Carter, television interview, September 27, 2015

"The gates of hell are open night and day; the descent is smooth, and easy is the way.  But to return to the open air again, and view the cheerful skies, in this the task and mighty labor lies."

Virgil, The Aeneid

Stocks took a dive today, finishing off near the lows.

VIX rose.

The Dollar climbed a little higher.

Gold rallied a bit while silver flattened after a big intraday drop.

The US apparently has persuaded Israel to hold off on their invasion of Gasa in order to allow the US to deploy more missile defense systems 'to protect US troops.'

I suspect this, and the timeliness for a rinse in the old wash-rinse cycle, was the primary motivation.

There was some positive economic news, but meh, it looks like the markets are a bit jumpy.

We'll be getting another Payrolls report at the end of next week, but really the timing and scope of a Middle East conflict seems to be the primary influence for market sentiment.

Have a pleasant evening.