Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Psychopathy Means Never Having to Say You're Sorry

Or even feel sorry for that matter.

Regret and remorse are the stuff of the untermenschen. the ordinary people, as both faith and conscience come from a simple sense of ourselves as we really are, and a redeeming concern for others.

The Recovery™ is proving to be a highly selective experience, and the masters of the universe remain rampant on a field of greed.

“Though this be madness, yet there is method in it.”

The precious metals market is showing signs of wear.  There is some fairly pointed intraday commentary on that subject here.

Speaking of the importance of the day, it is all too easy to allow a tragedy like 911 to become a mere abstraction or a political symbol.  After all, we are a conceptualizing species, often lost in the heat of the present.  It is surprising how quickly and easily we forget, and stumble, and get our priorities all wrong.  But always so self-importantly. And that is what makes us so funny.

I remember, on that day of momentous events, being amazed at how quickly the class mothers at our grammar school got together to handle the very practical problem of what to do about children who might not have a parent coming to pick them up after school that day.  And it did happen. 

I remember the story of the woman who took one of her husband's suits out of the closet, and laid next to it on the bed, to embrace the last faint smell of him from it, as she gave herself over to her grief.  I am only now beginning to truly appreciate that as the shadows lengthen.

These are the little, human things that form the rich texture and meaning of life.  It is this mere but precious humanity that is so often wholly lost to the self important ego and actions of the ubermenchen, to their everlasting shame, and special place in the hereafter. 

Essere umano, to be human.   Memento mori,  and remember thou art also mortal, arrogant dust.  I think we have forgotten this once again.  Whom the gods would break, they first make mad.

So in keeping with the day, let's all try to remember what is important, and what truly lasts.

"Gentleness is everywhere in daily life, a sign that faith rules through ordinary things...Even in a time of elephantine vanity and greed, one never has to look far to see the campfires of gentle people.  Lacking any other purpose in life, it would be good enough to live for their sake."

Garrison Keillor

Have a pleasant evening.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Madness Rampant On a Field of Blind Arrogance

There was an interesting divergence between the financials and tech today. VIX continued its sharp decline.

This eerily reflects the cognitive dissonance between the frivilous and self-centered land of make believe, and the land of real people and things.

It is a nice emblem for NY-Washington-London metroplex and the rest of the world. It almost reminds one of the relationship between the Capitol and the Districts in The Hunger Games.

It goes without saying that this will end badly, and the collected leadership of the intelligentsia will express complete astonishment and surprise.

There is nothing more fearful to behold than the destructive potential of a bureaucrat or central banker blinded by web of their own willful making.

The fearful madness of bureaucrats and central bankers blinded by a web of their own willful making.

NAV Premiums Of Certain Precious Metal Trusts and Funds - Physical Gold Demand Provokes Another Bullion Redemption - A Murder of Black Swans

The woods decay, the woods decay and fall,
The vapours weep their burthen to the ground,
Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath,
And after many a summer dies the swan.

Alfred Lord Tennyson, Tithonus


N’en déplaise à ces fous nommés sages de Grèce,
En ce monde il n’est point de parfaite sagesse;
Tous les hommes sont fous, et malgré tous leurs soîns
Ne diffèrent entre eux que du plus ou du moins.

Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux, from the frontspiece of Mackay's Madness of Crowds

The short term demand for gold bullion provoked another exchange of units for bullion from the Sprott Physical Gold Trust.

The fund saw 1,500,000 units exchanged for 12,460 ounces of gold bullion at the rate of .008 ounces per unit.   That is about a $17,000,000 transaction.

I believe that this redemption feature is one of the reasons why the Sprott funds tend to hold their premiums a little better than others, although in the longer term that makes little difference. I use it to measure the overall tenor of the market, and also to help pick certain entry and exit points.

Since there is no real financial advantage in the exchange, one would tend to attribute this to the huge short term demand for physical gold bullion that makes the forward rates negative and drives other behaviours not ordinarily seen.  All things considered where else is one going to obtain a large amount of high quality physical gold at these prices?

Grant Williams says in a recent interview that he has heard of requests for GLD bullion redemptions in excess of the $14,000,000 minimum that have been recently denied.   If this is in fact the case, it is a sign of tremendous short term pressure in the bullion market that could be a sign of the failure to reach a genuine market clearing price.   I find it hard to believe that GLD could refuse such a transaction given the terms and condition of their fund. 

Normally I would discount such speculative things, but given the astonishing fact that the Fed literally denied the legitimate request of the Bundesbank for the repatriation of their national gold is a clear sign that something seems to have gone terribly wrong.   And the other inventory measures I regularly show are out at the tails of probability and sustainability.

This type of protracted market distortion can create some very difficult conditions that may place the integrity of the markets at risk.   It reminds one of the late stage MF Global situation, but on a significantly larger scale.  These jokers are so leveraged that they seem to be robbing Peter to pay Paul, and everything is flowing until the music stops, and then ba-boom.  Who could have seen that coming?

Thus a single trigger event can set off a cascade of nearly catastrophic events in a system that has been allowed to become overly fragile.  And that fragility is very often directly tied to interconnected rehypothecation of assets, a mispricing of risk, and excessive leverage.  That is the story of the most recent financial crisis, and why there will likely be more.  They ignore the lessons of history in their arrogance and their greed.  Being a sociopath or narcissist means never having to feel that you're sorry, much less say it.

I don't see any other way to explain this, what I see happening.  And the consequences could be quite dramatic.  

This could make for a scandal of memorable proportion, even for this time of financial scandals.  Is there any market that is not being rigged and manipulated by the financiers and their friends?   Their hypocrisy seems to know no bounds. 

COMEX Deliverable Gold Bullion Continues to Slowly Bleed Out

"Though justice often moves slowly, it seldom fails to overtake the unjust."

Horace, Odes

There were no deposits into the COMEX warehouses yesterday.  Apparently GLD was not able to squeeze out any bars for the banks.

Someone transferred 4,946 ounces of their gold bullion out of the deliverable category at the Brink's warehouse, and out of the COMEX storage complex altogether it seems.

This leaves 664,664 ounces of gold bullion in the deliverable category.

There are a quite a few delivery days left this year. 

And there is a shrinking supply of gold available for sale, especially at these artificially low paper prices.  And the claims keep piling up, higher and higher.

What happens when some nation less compliant than the Germans asks for the return of its sovereign gold?

Pricing antics and bluff moves aside, I think that the writing is on the wall. 

"Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin"

Weighed, and found wanting.

Stand and deliver.