SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - T'was the Witch of November Come Stealin'

When suppertime came, the old cook came on deck
Sayin'  Fellas, it's too rough to feed ya
At seven PM a main hatchway caved in
He said, Fellas, it's been good to know ya
The captain wired in he had water comin' in
And the good ship and crew was in peril
And later that night when his lights went out of sight
Came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

Gordon Lightfoot, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

I have included the two stock index cash market charts with technicals.

There is a potential 'island top' forming on the NDX, and the SP 500 looks like it might be testing the 200 DMA.

Bottom line is if stocks start rolling over with some real selling, and not this tissue thin HFT shell game that has taken the place of actual price discovery, then we could be in for a very rough ride.

Let's see how much more the Fed is willing to spend to support their latest paper asset bubble. And let's see if they can raise rates fast enough to have enough room to lower them again in response to another crisis which they have themselves would most likely have caused.

Today is the 40th anniversary of the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald during a fierce November storm on Lake Superior.

I remember it fairly well.  At the time I was in my senior year of college, and was living in the heights area east of Cleveland, Ohio, which was also the 'snow belt' for lake effect snow caused by moist winds rising up off the lake.  So the news of the ship lost at sea was very big on the local news, and affected families in the area from Ashtabula to Toledo.

Erie itself is a relatively shallow and narrow lake, with an average depth of only 30 feet. We used to fish for walleyed pike around the western islands to Pelee in Canada.  But the storms out on the open water could kick up the waves very quickly, and you did not want to be out too far in a 16 footer if a storm came in from the northwest.  The waves could lift you up and then smash you down on the partially submerged rocks.  More than a few times we raced a pop up thunderstorm to Put-In-Bay, and the safety of the old Roundhouse Bar.

I like to think I have a reasonably well-honed sense of potential danger.  And I feel that dangerous potential in this market.  Whether it comes to be or not is another matter.  It is more possible than probable for now, and the Fed is spreading the oil of printed money over Wall Street's troubled waters.

Have a pleasant evening.

Deep State at Home and Abroad: Mike Lofgren and David Talbot

"Behind the ostensible Government sits enthroned an invisible Government, owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible Government, to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics, is the first task of the statesmanship of the day."

Theodore Roosevelt, The Progressive Platform


"As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying it. Words are to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests...

Any individual who is able to raise enough money to be considered presidential is not going to be much use to the people at large. He will represent whatever moneyed entities are paying for him. Hence, the sense of despair throughout the land as incomes fall, businesses fail and there is no redress."

Gore Vidal, The Decline and Fall of the American Empire, 1992


"Last year, pressed by progressive donors at a dinner party to act more like the progressive they thought he was, Obama responded sharply, 'Don’t you remember what happened to Dr. King?'”

Ray McGovern, Doubting Obama's Resolve To Do Right


"The TPP, along with the WTO and NAFTA, is the most brazen corporate power grab in American history. It allows corporations to bypass our three branches of government to impose enforceable sanctions by secret tribunals.

These tribunals can declare our labor, consumer and environmental protections unlawful, non-tariff barriers subject to fines for noncompliance. The TPP establishes a transnational, autocratic system of enforceable governance in defiance of our domestic laws."

Ralph Nader


"Citizens in many countries wonder how certain government policies can persist in spite of widespread popular opposition or clear perceptions that they are harmful. This persistence is frequently attributed to a 'deep state.'

'The Establishment,' as it’s been called in the United States, where it evolved from the Washington-New York axis of national security officials and financial services executives. They are said to know what is 'best' for the country and to act accordingly, no matter who sits in the White House."

Philip Giraldi, America's Establishment Has Embraced 'Deep States'

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Incompetence, Coverup, and Felony

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it."

Upton Sinclair


"The problems we face did not come down from the heavens. They are made, they are made by bad human decisions, and good human decisions can change them."

Bernie Sanders


"Throughout my long service life in the Department of Defense, first as an army officer and then as a member of the Defense Intelligence Senior Executive Service, there was a phrase in common usage: 'I will fall on my sword over that.' It meant that the speaker had reached a point of internal commitment with regard to something that his superiors wanted him to do and that he intended to refuse even though this would be career suicide. The speaker preferred career death to the loss of personal honor.

This phrase is no longer widely in use. What has taken its place is far more sinister in its meaning and implications. 'I drank the Kool-Aid' is what is now said. It signifies that the person in question has given up personal integrity and has succumbed to the prevailing group-think that typifies policymaking today. This person has become 'part of the problem, not part of the solution.'"

W. Patrick Lang, Drinking the Kool Aid, 2004

Gold had a little bounce today. Silver, not so much.

There is intraday commentary on why I think this is happening now as it is. It its titled An Almost Perfect Storm of Incompetence and Felony.

Incompetence is probably much too kind an interpretation.

There are now 666.11 tonnes of gold in the GLD ETF.

The decisions that these public servants are making are not so often out of well intentioned ignorance and ideological blindness, as a former Fed Chairman seems to suggest.  That is what I call the CEO-defense.  Rather they are made as a price of power and privilege, and selfish betrayal of trust.

See who is getting the sinecures in the financial sector, and the enormous fees for speeches after their 'public service,' all out of proportion to their real value.  And then you may understand why there is no reform, and no sustainable recovery.

And this is why the great mass of voters are feeling 'restless' with things as they are.   And the people of privilege do not know what to make of their growing discontent.

Have a pleasant evening.


P.S.  Gold is moving from West to East.  And there will be consequences, as there always are, not so much with the original misdeeds, but the ongoing coverup.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Retracement, For Now

US stocks were rolling over today, in recognition that the asset bubble rally which we had just experienced was over, at least for now.

Right now we are in a very overdue retracement.  The depth of the decline will give us some information on the chart about a potential move higher into year end.

Fundamentals rare matter in the short term, and with the reckless monetary policy of the Fed and the fiscal malfeasance in Washington, the fundamentals are a barely heard voice of conscience.

We stand two bubbles in, and on the verge of another, at least according to the IMF, and you know that I have had that forecast for some time now.

There is no reason why we cannot have a fourth or fifth bubble and crisis as well.   They are serving a purpose.  If you do not know what that is, then you have not been paying attention to the growing chasm in economic and political equality between the elite and the rest in the 'free world.'

Have a pleasant evening.