SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - No Fear, No Conviction - Flash Ready Market

For all that is going on the complacency amongst the pros is remarkable. There are wild swings in the futures overnight, the markets come in lower each morning during the retail trade, and the wiseguys buy the dip.

No fear. But I wonder how much conviction there is as well.

ICE Follows CME in Lowering Margin Requirements to Mute MF Global Impact

ZeroHedge initially misinterpreted the somewhat vague release from CME, raising an alarm amongst a number of people who sent it to me. And a number of people have since been critical of their mistake, which from what I could see was understandable. The CME release was very misleading.

ZH has since corrected it. And the ICE release makes the exchanges' intentions abundantly clear. When you are on the 'cutting edge' of releasing and interpreting news, it is possible to get it wrong once in a while. And it is to your credit to correct it as soon as you can, which has been done.

Zerohedge performs a valuable service in making headlines and news available to general readership in a timely manner, and I thank them for this. Sometimes the headlines are a bit sensational but that is what it is. But on net I am exceptionally glad that the site exists.

The exchange actions on margin may tend to quell some of the expected volatility from MF Global, which is good news to those who have accounts there which they are still trying to resolve.

But greater events are in motion, and it may end up having little lasting effect once the herd starts to move.

Exchange Actions Re: MF Global Inc.

Effective immediately, ICE Futures U.S. is temporarily
lowering the Initial Margin rate for all Speculative accounts to a
level equal to the Maintenance Margin rate for all contracts. The
Initial Margin rate for hedgers already is the same as the
Maintenance Margin rate.

This action is being taken to mute the impact of the transfer of
accounts from MF Global Inc. to other clearing members that
was effected overnight, and thereby support the integrity of
Exchange markets.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Freedom Without Virtue



"But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint."

Edmund Burke

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La la la, whatever. La la la, doesn't matter. As cynical an IPO as seen since 1999 they said today.

Where is the MF Global customer money? First it was missing, and then it was not. And then it was lost (or) missing again, and then found at JPM. And then that was denied, and now it seems to be lost at sea in a financial storm of venality.

Maybe Judge Crater and Jimmy Hoffa took it with them.

Value can be an ephemeral thing, but especially when it is defined at a keystroke from the touch of a faceless bureaucrat. To create and distribute a nation's money at will is liberty without virtue, folly, vice and madness.

I have seen strange markets and economies, and the organizations that ran them, going back to the days of Richard Nixon. But this is one for the record books. As I remarked in the equity commentary:

'Perhaps the disconnected nature of the nation's money, its profound alienation from the real economy, is the key to the market's increasingly erratic behaviour, and the remarkable silence of the lambs.'

Relativism at the extremes has a will of its own. You may wish to grab something solid, and hang on. The trick is to properly define 'solid,' and to stick with it amongst the growing madness.

Expect some serious volatility in the days ahead.

"The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but to those who see it coming and jump aside."

Hunter S. Thompson, The Rum Diary

Have a pleasant weekend.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts

As fraudulent enterprises go, the US markets were relatively calm today in the face of uncertainty in Europe and a rather weak Jobs Report.

Perhaps the disconnected nature of the nation's money, its profound alienation from the real economy, is the key to the market's increasingly erratic behaviour, and the remarkable silence of the lambs.

"Resplendent and unfading is wisdom,
and she is readily perceived by those who love her,
and found by those who seek her.
She hastens to make herself known in anticipation of their desire;
Whoever watches for her at dawn shall not be disappointed,
for he shall find her sitting by his gate.
For taking thought of wisdom is the perfection of prudence,
and whoever for her sake keeps vigil
shall quickly be free from care;
because she makes her own rounds, seeking those worthy of her,
and graciously appears to them in the ways,
and meets them with all solicitude."

Wisdom 6:12-16