SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - On the Slippery Slopes of Pigmanistan

"Over the last thirty years, the United States has been taken over by an amoral financial oligarchy, and the American dream of opportunity, education, and upward mobility is now largely confined to the top few percent of the population. Federal policy is increasingly dictated by the wealthy, by the financial sector, and by powerful (though sometimes badly mismanaged) industries such as telecommunications, health care, automobiles, and energy.

These policies are implemented and praised by these groups’ willing servants, namely the increasingly bought-and-paid-for leadership of America’s political parties, academia, and lobbying industry.

If allowed to continue, this process will turn the United States into a declining, unfair society with an impoverished, angry, uneducated population under the control of a small, ultrawealthy elite. Such a society would be not only immoral but also eventually unstable, dangerously ripe for religious and political extremism."

Charles Ferguson, Predator Nation, 2012


"Predator Nation demolishes the view that the global financial crisis was merely some sort of freak accident. Charles Ferguson makes a convincing case that the world’s banking system was brought to the brink of complete collapse in 2008–09 by a virulent combination of unchecked greed and criminal behavior.

This is an epic crime story with an apparently clean getaway, courtesy of the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations. Both presidents proved unwilling to hold anyone to account—or even to launch meaningful investigations.

Leading bankers walked away with billions of dollars in unjustified compensation. The costs imposed on the rest of us can be measured in the trillions of dollars."

Simon Johnson, economist and author,  book review of Predator Nation


“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy– they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

We have become so frivolous, so easily distracted, and so wantonly shallow that we are all becoming Tom and Daisy now.   We get by, like addicts, on partisan fear and hatred.  It is unfortunate but most have nothing to fall back on after the bread and circuses have run their course— no money, no love of anything but themselves, and no firm moral beliefs and principles.  Nothing but the abyss.

So far this dip we saw today in the wondrously mispriced risks of the US markets is just a pause, merely another day in the dismal lands of Pigmanistan.   Let's see if they can keep pumping this pig up to one of the more difficult levels of overhead support.

And a pig of a market this is.   The 'smart money' has been selling the rallies for the last couple of weeks. I wonder if they will be able to hang on until the end of the first quarter.

The vested financial interests, aka the dark hearts of fraud, wanted to get the major indices back to at least even if not green in the worst way.  And so far they have managed to do it with atavistically  named 'Dow Industrials' which is the favorite index of tourists.

What else would you call it, when this august index from history includes such 'industrial giants' as JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, American Express, Travelers, and Visa?

Well, after all, in Pigmanistan the major product is debt, wrapped up as dodgy financial paper.

Have a pleasant evening.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - The 'Dangerous Obsession' with Gold

"Gold has worked down from Alexander's time.  When something holds good for two thousand years I do not believe it can be so because of prejudice or mistaken theory."

Bernard Baruch


"The commerce and industry of the country, however, it must be acknowledged, though they may be somewhat augmented [by paper money], cannot be altogether so secure, when they are thus, as it were, suspended upon the Daedalian wings of paper money, as when they travel about upon the solid ground of gold and silver."

Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, p. 262


"Gold, unlike all other commodities, is a currency...and the major thrust in the demand for gold is not for jewelry. It’s not for anything other than an escape from what is perceived to be a fiat money system, paper money, that seems to be deteriorating."

Alan Greenspan, former US Federal Reserve Chairman, August 23, 2011


"For central banks this [gold] is a reserve of safety, it’s viewed by the country as such. In the case of non-dollar countries it gives you a value-protection against fluctuations against the dollar."

Mario Draghi, ECB President, Q&A at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, 2014


"Le papier-monnaie revient finalement à sa valeur intrinsèque - zéro."

Voltaire

Someone sent me another clumsy hit piece on the precious metals today, coming out from the mainstream financial press, passed on by their courtiers and hangers-on in support of a hit on the metals. They do this not only for the metals but for the miners as well, and it is sometimes surprisingly blatant. New York and London have nothing over the Canadians in this regard.

And why a hit on the metals now? Because I think the physical bullion 'float' in the West is getting more and more thin as a result of the misguided attempt of the financial engineers to correct their outrageous and persistent errors in monetary and fiscal policy by reshaping the markets and values to suit their own personal needs.

They are attempting to sustain the unsustainable, which is one of the artifacts of the credibility trap.

These sorts of affairs are 'fiat' with a capital 'F.' Things are this way and of this value because we say so. But unfortunately that sort of approach to reality only works as far as your span of significant control.

And this seems to be the reason why so many modern theoreticians seem to be caught up in a Ponzi-like need to keep expanding and increasing that control, because their policies and theories are cutting so badly against the grain of reality.

External standards and restraints, such as gold in the case of money, seem particularly dangerous to those with an almost pathological obsession with power.  Perhaps I am incorrect, but this is where the data leads my thinking, and history tends to support it.

But, after all, we are in a largely unreformed and corrupt financial system against the broader backdrop of a major change in the global currencies, also known as a currency war.   And truth is often one of the first victims.   C'est la guerre.

Speaking of data there was little meaningful action for gold at The Bucket Shop yesterday, although there was some movement in silver.

A customer coughed up some silver bullion and the house at JPM took most of it, with Nova Scotia taking the rest.   And in the warehouses, silver continues to move since this is how CNT is managing its wholesale bullion business.

The cup and handles on the charts are still operating but not activated yet.  If you do not understand this you may wait for it to happen and be reported here or you can click on the topic on this site and read the explanations of this chart formation.

We need to see a resolution of 'the handles' especially in gold. In silver it must merely sustain any retests.

In the short term gold is now oversold.   It may become even more oversold.  Silver is not quite there yet as can be seen on the special charts with technical indicators below.

Have a pleasant evening.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Nothing Has Changed

Just the usual nonsense from these jokers today.

The box scores are all in the reports below.

Not one thing has changed, except we are in a period of extended shenanigans as the pros attempt to push more bad paper out to the public before things take a turn down again.

You will forgive the brevity of the posting this week, but it is an especially important one to me.

Have a pleasant evening.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Wobbling

The pros want to 'hand off' this dreck of a market so badly to the public that they are practically dancing on one leg in pursuing it.

And in so doing, the market becomes increasingly divergent from reality and risks.

Let's see how far they can take it.

Have a pleasant evening.