SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Cue Ethel Merman

Volumes on the NYSE just crossed over 550 million here today.

There is little selling pressure, but almost as little buying pressure except for the fluff generated by HFTs and cynical bubble-meisters.

I wonder if Ben and his Merry Pranksters are mad enough to stress the system with another asset bubble again for the benefit of the one percent.

I am starting to hear traders say: "This doesn't make sense, but don't fight the tape."

From here to whenever, all it will take is one event. As it goes higher, the magnitude of the event becomes less and less.

Ben did not know when it was time to just quit...

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Markets In Monetary Driven Stasis

I believe that at some point the bullion dealers will abandon spot pricing which is based on a Net Present Valuation of the futures front month.

But what would they use instead, the London fix? That is just as dodgy if not more.

Let's see if Bart Chilton and the CFTC can do anything to restore confidence and transparency in the futures markets. I am not expecting much if anything from them.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Low Volume Levitation

Cisco after the bell. Let's see if they can make the revenues. They are harder to gin up using accounting gimmicks.

Sleeply trade, with little conviction.

The Time of Antichrist

"God's temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant could be seen. And there came flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, earthquakes, and severe storms.

A great sign appeared in the sky, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars."

"...Surely, there is at this day a confederacy of evil, marshalling its hosts from all parts of the world, organizing itself, taking its measures, enclosing the church of Christ as in a net, and preparing the way for a general apostasy from it. Whether this very apostasy is to give birth to Antichrist, or whether he is still to be delayed, we cannot know; but at any rate this apostasy, and all its tokens, and instruments, are of the Evil One and saviour of death.

Far be it from any of us to be of those simple ones, who are taken in that snare which is circling around us! Far be it from us to be seduced with the fair promises in which Satan is sure to hide his poison!

Do you think he is so unskillful in his craft, as to ask you openly and plainly to join him in his warfare against the truth? No; he offers you baits to tempt you. He promises you civil liberty; he promises you equality; he promises you trade and wealth; he promises you a remission of taxes; he promises you reform.

This is the way in which he conceals from you the kind of work to which he is putting you; he tempts you to rail against your rulers and superiors; he does so himself, and induces you to imitate him; or he promises you illumination, he offers you knowledge, science, philosophy, enlargement of mind. He scoffs at times gone by; he scoffs at every institution which reveres them.

He prompts you what to say, and then listens to you, and praises you, and encourages you. He bids you mount aloft. He shows you how to become as gods. Then he laughs and jokes with you, and gets intimate with you; he takes your hand, and gets his fingers between yours, and grasps them, and then you are his."

J.H.Newman, The Times of Antichrist