Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Royal Death Pits of Ur

 

"What is offensive is that they lie, and worship their own lying."

Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

"You have lost your reason and taken the wrong path.  You have taken lies for truth, and hideousness for beauty.  You would marvel if, owing to strange events of some sorts, frogs and lizards suddenly grew on apple and orange trees instead of fruit, or if roses began to smell like a sweating horse; so I marvel at you who exchange heaven for earth.  I don't want to understand you.”

Anton Chekhov, The Bet

"You who make wicked judgements, who write oppressive laws, to deprive the needy of justice, and to rob the poor of their rights, that widows may be your victims, and that you may make the orphans your prey— what will you do on the day of reckoning, when the consequences come from afar? To whom will you run for protection, and where will you hide your wealth?"

Isaiah 10:1-3

“In progressive societies the concentration [of wealth] may reach a point where the strength of number in the many poor rivals the strength of ability in the few rich; then the unstable equilibrium generates a critical situation, which history has diversely met by legislation redistributing wealth or by revolution distributing poverty.”

Will and Ariel Durant, The Lessons of History

“You felt secure in your wickedness. ‘No one sees what I do,’ you think. But your ‘wisdom’ and ‘knowledge’ have led you astray. And you so believe that, ‘I am the only one, and no one else matters.’ Disaster will overtake you, and you won’t be able to charm it away. Misfortune will descend upon you, and you won’t be able to buy your way out. A catastrophe will strike you suddenly, one for which you cannot prepare."

Isaiah 47:10-11

 

Our bi-polar market mavens managed to be cheered by the less than robust economic numbers this morning, easing their fears of the restrictive rates of the Fed.

What a surprise.

Stocks went out near their highs.

The Dollar fell.

Gold and silver rallied.

VIX fell.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

Tomorrow will be the stock option expiration.

We are heading into a three day weekend here in the States, with Monday being a holiday in remembrance of the Presidents.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - As Old as Babylon, and Evil as Sin

 

"The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.”

Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism

"Human beings are so made that the ones who do the crushing feel nothing; it is the person crushed who feels what is happening. Unless one has placed oneself on the side of the oppressed, to feel with them, one cannot understand. As soon as men know that they can kill without fear of punishment or blame, they kill; or at least they encourage killers, with approving smiles. Evil when we are in its power is not felt as evil, but as a necessity, or even a duty."

Simone Weil, Lectures on Philosophy

"It is, I am afraid, the first step in a process which, if followed to the end, will make us into devils. You see, one is beginning to wish that black was a little blacker. If we give that wish its head, later on we shall wish to see grey as black, and then to see white itself as black. Finally we shall insist on seeing everything -- God and our friends and ourselves included -- as bad, and not be able to stop doing it: we shall be fixed for ever in a universe of pure hatred.”

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

"If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts."

Psalm 95:8

"Having thus become a mindless tool, the foolish person will also be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil.  This is where the danger of diabolical misuse lurks, for it is this that can once and for all destroy human beings.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers From Prison

"Even now, says the Lord, return to me with your whole heart, with fasting, and weeping, and mourning.  Rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to the Lord, your God.  For gracious and merciful is he, slow to anger, rich in kindness, and relenting in punishment.  Perhaps he will again relent and leave behind him a blessing, Offerings and libations for the Lord, your God."

Joel 2:12-14

Happy Valentine's Day.

After the panic in Ratesville yesterday, stocks managed to shake off their fear of the Fed and bounce back again today.

Don't overthink this.   Either the market is being driven to and fro by hapless idiots, or rather clever conmen.  

Take your pick.

Gold was flat, silver bounced with equities.

VIX dropped.

The Dollar fell.

Did I mention that there will be a stock market option expiration on Friday?

Nuts.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts -- The Rule of the Forsaken

 

“The greatest hazard of all, losing one’s self, can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all. No other loss can occur so quietly; any other loss - an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife - is sure to be noticed.”

Søren Kierkegaard, The Sickness Unto Death

“'The world says: 'You have needs — satisfy them. You have as much right as the rich and the mighty. Don't hesitate to satisfy your needs; indeed, expand your needs and demand more.' This is the worldly doctrine of today. And they believe that this is freedom. The result for the rich is isolation and suicide, for the poor, envy and murder.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

"It was pride that changed angels into devils; and it is humility that makes men angels. There never has been, and never can be, and there never shall be any sin without pride.”

Augustine of Hippo

“Evil always wins through the strength of its splendid dupes; and there has in all ages been a disastrous alliance between abnormal innocence and abnormal sin.”

G. K. Chesterton

"Those among the rich who are not, in the rigorous sense, damned, can understand poverty, because they are poor themselves, after a fashion; they cannot understand destitution. They will be moved, to the sound of beautiful music, at Jesus’s sufferings, but His Cross, the reality of His Cross, will horrify them. They want it all out of gold, bathed in light, costly and of little weight; pleasant to see, hanging from a woman’s beautiful throat."

Léon Bloy

 We are frightened by the strength of evil, and the weakness of men.

"Quo vadis, Domine?"

Our masters of the universe apparently discovered their chronic mispricing of risks today, and their reaction was swiftly self-serving.

In other words, we had yet another grand wash and rinse.

The CPI data, which is skewed by the way in which it accounts for housing, as compared to the Fed's favorite measure the PCE, came in a bit high this morning.

And there it was.

Gold and silver sank, as the Dollar rocketed higher.

Finally the continued nagging of Jay Powell that the Fed would not be pivoting dramatically anytime soon was believed.

Stocks dropped like rocks, with all the wax winged demi-gods plunging back towards earth.

VIX rose dramatically.

I came in expecting something like this, but it was certainly impressive in its shamelessness. 

Markets seem to be mimicking our geopolitics in their ruthless destruction of the innocent.

We deserve better than this.  But we are not going to get it, anytime soon.

Crime in the land ruled by the forsaken pays, very well. 

Consequences are for those who believe in something besides their own exceptionalism.

And yet, despite everything, the people of God endure.

Tomorrow is another day.

Have a pleasant evening.