27 March 2013

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Buying the Dip Into End of Quarter


Stocks sold off early on the realization that the debt and monetary crisis in Europe is hardly averted.

The austerity being enforced in Europe and the UK is very likely to drive those areas into an economic Depression.

But while Bernanke supplies the Banks with a fresh round of $85 billion per month, hope floats.

It is almost the end of the first quarter and the paint will be applied to the tape. I am sure they will take a few more serious runs at a new all time high on the SP 500. And our intermediate chart objective lies tantalizingly overhead.

And hard as it may be to believe, Alcoa will kick off a new earnings season in just a few weeks.

Market Shadows Newsletter: A Little Strategy, A Little Action






Currency Wars: Global Sustainable Currency Summit - Sept 26-28, Xi'an China: Bitcoin


The world is looking for a replacement for the outdated US dollar global reserve currency arrangement.

 The reasons for this are fairly obvious. How can the Fed independently conduct monetary policy to support domestic US needs for a global currency?

The Anglo-American banking cartel will fight this development at every turn, because control of the currency is power.

I trust that a basket of currencies anchored with gold and silver will be on the table.  The discussion of such an arrangement was circumvented by the US and UK.

The BRICs are not happy with the status quo.  As you may recall, they have recently discussed forming their own version of the World Bank.

A global fiat currency for the world, without fiscal and political union, is the euro experience writ large.

Currencies have a life cycle, and often a regional life and custom.   No money in the world has lasted for more than ten generation and achieved almost universal acceptance other than gold and silver.  It seems to be in their very nature, and in the nature of money.


About Bitcoin

As an aside, people ask me now and then to comment on Bitcoin.    I did look into it quite intensively over the Christmas holiday and was aware of it before then. 

The good news for Bitcoin is that is does have 'a flywheel' in the fairly transparent algorithm that expands the money supply in a reasonable predictive manner.  And from a technology standpoint it does have a coolness factor.

The Achilles heel is its inherent instability because of the manner in which it is sustained and exchanged.  The exchanges are a serious weakness because they are unregulated, opaque, and privately owned.   They rely heavily on the efficient markets hypothesis and on a few other articles of faith.

Liquidity and stability is the name of the game for money:  use and store of value.

It is almost predictable that the Bitcoin currency will have speculative booms and busts, because it has the nature of a Ponzi scheme with the greatest gains going to early adopters and promoters.

It does have its good points, but I am afraid I would defer on it unless a number of sovereigns were to adopt it and guarantee liquidity and exchangeability. Starting a new currency is not easily done. It must be based on something widely accepted and easily exchanged for a broad range of goods and services with a easily recognized unit of value.

But for now the early adopters and adherents do not wish to hear this, very much in the manner of an early stage Ponzi scheme.  You'll miss out, better get aboard, you're losing money!

Money is a funny thing.  So few people understand it.  It often takes on the nature of a belief system, a religion.  I recall the very heated and passionate inflation/deflation debates of not so long ago.

Welcome to the fog of currency war.

On the behalf of the organising committee, we cordially invite you to join the Global Sustainable Currency Summit (GSCS-2013), held during September 26-28, 2013 at the International Convention Center in Xi’an, China.

Due to the imbalances in global trade, countries and regions adopted different currency policies to develop and defend their economies, causing a serious international currency crisis - even currency wars and treasury collapses.

These circumstances have led us to promote the establishment of an international mechanism to create a global currency by organizing the GSCS-2013 summit with leading economists and policy makers as international platform for the analyses of the failures of actual and past currency systems, discussion and resolution of the international currency crisis and for the determination of future needs of all nations and the world trade by defining a global solution with a Global Currency G, based on the Global Money Charter for Sustainable Development, as announced at the Rio+20 Summit.

GSCS-2013 aims to discuss and resolve the international currency crisis/currency wars and establish an international mechanism to create a global currency to create an even level playing field for everyone.

It will bring together economists, university professors, Nobel Price laureates, industry leaders, legislators and senior officers from governments, the United Nations, Regional Economic Zones, and financial institutions. Attendees will get an opportunity to meet world-class economists and bankers benefiting from their analysis and solution presentations, and also learn about the major trends of the currency markets.

We would like to invite you to be part of GSCS-2013 and actively join this historical event in the field of global currency policy. You will experience unforgettable encounters and have a wonderful travel to the cradle of the first coins and the origin of the Silk Road in China.
Read the details here.



Matières à Réflexion For Wednesday March 27th


Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

A. E. Housman

Having dutifully reported the breakdown in the 'links list' gadget to Google once again (it's a daily thing), I have decided to post a few links in this manner.

I may add some items to this list as the day goes on.

Links For Today

Lawsuit Challenges Constitutionality of the No-Fly List

Cyprus Readies Capital Controls, Hires Extra Security

Bank of Cyprus CEO and Board Sacked At Request of ECB, EU, and IMF

The Morality Brigade - Reich

Mario Draghi’s Economic Ideology Revealed

Excessive Healthcare Costs and the War on Social Security - Baker

Argentina and Cyprus Collapses: Gold and Silver Protects - Tekoa da Silva

Prosecutors Look at JP Morgan's Actions in Madoff Case

Europeans Planted Seeds of Crisis in Cyprus

Rethinking Bernanke's and the Fed's Powers

Europe's Flesh Eaters Now Threaten to Devour Us All

Russia and South Africa Setting Up OPEC-like Platinum Cartel

Free Trade and Unrestricted Capital Flow: How Billionaires Destroy the Rest of Us - Yves

The London Whale, Cyprus, and Washington - Baker

Historic Section of Berlin Wall Demolished for Condos

Are The BRICS Tossing One Through The United States' Window?

The Corporate Predator State - Vanden Heuvel

Cyprus Shows Your Savings Will Be Stolen - Market Oracle

Written Off Student Debt Doesn't Mean It's Gone - Practical Dad

Market Shadows Newsletter - A Little Strategy, A Little Action


Despite a dark and remnant fed winter, the tomb is empty, the glory of life is resilient, and death is overthrown.

The profound comes cloaked in simplicity.

26 March 2013

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Day After Expiry, And It's Risk On


"Even great men bow before the Sun; it melts hubris into humility."

Dejan Stojanovic


"In vain I had at heart to find
The center and the end of space.
Beneath some burning, unknown gaze
I feel my very wings unpinned...

And give my name to the abyss
Which waits to claim me as its own.”

Charles Baudelaire, Lament of Icarus


"But, what creates the most intense surprise,
His soul looks out through renovated eyes."

John Keats, Ode to Apollo

It was risk on today as Wall Street shook off any fears as it smells a new high on the SP 500.

Protect yourselves.