Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Gold Speaks Uncomfortable Truths

 

"For the game had never been fair, the dice were loaded. They were swindlers and thieves of pennies and dimes, and they had been trapped and put out of the way by the swindlers and thieves of millions of dollars."

Upton Sinclair, The Jungle

"Gold has worked down from Alexander's time. When something holds good for two thousand years I do not believe it can be so because of prejudice or mistaken theory."

Bernard Baruch

“Absolute power does not corrupt absolutely, absolute power attracts the corruptible.”

Frank Herbert, Children of Dune

"The press is the hired agent of a monied system, and set up for no other purpose than to tell lies where their interests are involved."

Henry Adams, The Letters of Henry Adams

The equity markets were divergent today, with the SP500 moving higher, but the tech heavy NDX finishing decidedly lower.

Gold fell, as the Dollar rose sharply.

Silver rallied once again, in step more with the SP 500.  It has the appearance of a short squeeze.

VIX fell.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Apparitions of Prosperity - The Foolish Rich

 

Then he told them a parable: “There was a wealthy man whose land yielded an abundant harvest. He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I do not have sufficient space to store my crops?’  Then he said, ‘This is what I will do.  will pull down my barns and build larger ones, where I will store my grain and other produce, and I shall say to myself,  “Now you have an abundance of goods stored up for many years to come.  Relax, eat, drink, and be merry.” ’

“But God said to him, ‘You fool!  This very night your life will be required of you.  And who then will get to enjoy the fruit of your labors?’  That is how it will be for the one who stores up treasure for himself yet fails to become rich in the sight of God.”

Luke 12:16-21

“Religion used to be the opium of the people. To those suffering humiliation, pain, illness, and serfdom, religion promised the reward of an after life.   But now, we are witnessing a transformation: a true opium of the people is the belief in nothingness after death, the huge solace, the huge comfort of thinking that for our betrayals, our greed, our cowardice, our murders, we are not going to be judged.”

Czeslaw Milosz, Discreet Charm of Nihilism

And when He had called the people and His disciples, He said to them, “Whoever will come after Me, let them deny themselves, and take up their cross, and follow Me.  For whoever will save their life shall lose it; but whoever shall lose their life for My sake and for that of the good news shall save it.   For what does it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his soul?

Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? Whoever shall be ashamed of Me and of My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him also will the Son of Man be ashamed when He comes with holy angels in the glory of His Father.”

Mark 8:34-38

Stocks staged a remarkable failed rally today.

Gold and silver marked time as they digested their recent breakout. 

Let's see if they can hang on to it.  Overhead resistance calls.

The Dollar chopped sideways.

Risks remain underappreciated.

We have a pronounced habit of sanctifying worldly success.

It is a phantom and often a thin facade of deception.

In the end, the only real tragedy is not to have been a saint.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Glory of Greece, the Grandeur of Rome

 

"I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."

Percy Shelley, Ozymandias

"While some of the crowd were speaking about how the temple was adorned with costly stones and offerings, he said, 'All that you see here, the days will come when there will not be left a stone upon another stone that will not be thrown down.'

Then they asked him, 'Teacher, when will this happen? And what sign will there be when all these things are about to happen?' He answered, 'See that you are not deceived, for many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he,’ and ‘The time has come.’ Do not follow them. When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified; for such things must happen first, but it will not immediately be the end.' Then he said to them, 'Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be powerful earthquakes, and in some places famines and plagues, and awful warnings and mighty signs from heaven.'"

Luke 21:5-11

"And they said to him, 'Where will this happen, Lord?' And He said to them, 'Where death is, there a gathering of vultures will be.'”

Luke 17:37

Gold and silver were rallying strongly today as the wiseguys flipped the option expiration to squeeze the shorts, especially in the miners.

I love it when they do that.

Stocks were slumping but managed to rebound to the green into the close.

VIX rose, and then plummeted back to unchanged.

The Dollar declined.

Have a pleasant evening.