Thomas Frank: A Meritocracy of Failure

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Le Bon Samaritain

It would be hard to have seen a more technically perfect performance on the chart by gold today, as it came down and bounced off support and finished higher on the day.

Gold was a snoozer in the deliveries and the warehouse reports, as is befitting a normally dull July contract.

Let's see how things go next week.

Silver continues to bleed out, slowly but surely in the warehouse inventories, with JPM having a virtual corner on Comex physical supply.

Price-wise silver is looking very good, and approaching the first of a big set of potential cups and handles with an eye towards $54.

And so we'll put this week in the books.

There was a certain lawyer in the crowed who offered the appearance of respect by standing up, but sought to test him, saying, "Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"

And Jesus asked him, "What is written in the law? How do you read it?"

And the lawyer said in reply,
"You shall love the Lord, your God,
with all your heart,
with all your being,
with all your strength,
and with all your mind,
and your neighbor as yourself."

And Jesus replied to him saying, "You have answered correctly;
do this and you will live."

But the lawyer, wishing to make himself feel righteous and define the limits of his obligations, asked Jesus,
"And who is my neighbor?"

And similarly, as Pilate the wily parser of the laws, wishing to make himself feel righteous according to the fashions of a worldly empire asked, "What is truth?"

Such is it with all those who deceive others, even as they deceive themselves.  They wish to feel righteous in according to the laws, but only to the limit that they do not inconvenience themselves, and their personal desires and powers.  They wish to serve God, but not too much.

And so they look to the law, not in the spirit of love and service, but as a game or worldly bargain, in all its particulars and in twisted interpretations of it, in order to bend and distort it to their own will and desires.   They may serves with their mouths, but not with their hearts, the word of the law, but certainly not the spirit of it.

Have a pleasant weekend.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - The Best of All Wall Street Worlds

The thunderstorms are booming outside, and I hope this breaks the heat which has been oppressive all day.  Whoops, we just lost power.  Luckily I have my PC and internet access routers/modem all on UPS.

Stocks staged a rally today after the Non-Farms Payrolls came in hot and heavy.

I spent several hours today plugging all the heavily revised BLS numbers into my excel spreadsheets.

The seasonality is nonsensical, but I have not finished plugging all the numbers and analyzing them yet.

I do suspect that they might try to 'smooth the way' for Hillary by goosing the economic numbers until at least November.   Today's number, with the prior revisions lower, makes a case for a rolling headline boost to make things look better than they are.  And the Fed may go along with the hope of squeezing out another 25 basis points of policy room for themselves.

Wall Street sees things rolling their way.  Jobs are coming so they can ignore the last few months.  Note that the last two months were revised lower still.

But the Fed is going to find it a hard go to raise rates with the rest of the world cutting, and engaging once again in competitive currency devaluations to support exports, in a 'beggar your neighbor' strategy.

And there comes the power back on.   I will try and post this before the next hit. lol

And finally it looks like it will be Hobson's choice for the corporate candidate of your choice.

Have a pleasant weekend.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Pause Ahead of the Non-Farm Payrolls - Winter Is Coming

"Every increase of knowledge may possibly render depravity more depraved, as well as it may increase the strength of virtue.

It is in itself only power; and its value depends on its application."

Sydney Smith

Let's see if the Non-Farm Payrolls Report tomorrow gives the Fed enough of a recovery fig-leaf to start talking about rate increases, and sufficient nudge for the market takers to shove the price of the precious metals around to catch any of the over-leveraged specs leaning in the wrong direction.

Except for the occasional exogenous news that moves markets, we are in the Summer doldrums where the market fakers and takers like to shove prices around to generate enough action to fuel the vig.

 It used to be ridiculously high commissions and the occasional frauds, but now it is pervasive insider trading and the soft corruption surrounding HFT and the exchanges that fuels the Jabba the Hutts of Wall Street and Washington.

So I wisely chose to spend a pleasant afternoon doing a thorough overhaul on our old Troybilt Pony rototiller on the driveway in the shade, and rewarded myself with an ice cold beer after it was done.   It has done us good service over the past twenty five years on both lawn and garden.  It really needed some careful attention, a few parts, and a bit of elbow grease.

Like most things in daily life really.  You choose quality and take good care of it, and it serves you well in the long run, from kits to chickens to investments.

It is very hot and humid here this week. But it was nice to get out and do a few chores, tidy up the yard, and feed the birds.  They are very vocal in their gratitude, and the birdsong makes the backyard seem very cheerful.  In a little while I will be taking the queen out for some light shopping.  What more could one ask for?

Support levels on the charts are important to watch here.

Have a pleasant evening.