Listen, And I Will Tell You a Mystery

"Listen, and I will tell you a mystery."

1 Cor 15:51

Caravaggio, The Calling of  St. Matthew

“We are slow to master the great truth that even now Christ is, as it were, walking among us, and by His hand, or eye, or voice, bidding us to follow Him. We do not understand that His call is a thing that takes place now. We think it took place in the Apostles' days, but we do not believe in it; we do not look for it in our own case.

God's presence is not discerned at the time when it is upon us, but afterwards, when we look back upon what is gone and over. The world seems to go on as usual. There is nothing of heaven in the face of society, in the news of the day.

And yet the ever-blessed Spirit of God is there, ten times more glorious, more powerful than when He trod the earth in our flesh.

God beholds you. He calls you by your name. He sees you and understands you as He made you. He knows what is in you, all your peculiar feelings and thoughts, your dispositions and likings, your strengths and your weaknesses. He views you in your day of rejoicing and in your day of sorrow. He sympathizes in your hopes and your temptations. He interests Himself in all your anxieties and remembrances, all the risings and fallings of your spirit.

He encompasses you round and bears you in His arms. He notes your very countenance, whether smiling or in tears. He looks tenderly upon you. He hears your voice, the beating of your heart, and your very breathing.

You do not love yourself better than He loves you. You cannot shrink from pain more than He dislikes your bearing it; and if He puts it on you, it is as you would put it on yourself, if you would be wise, for a greater good afterwards.

There is an inward world, which none see but those who belong to it. There is an inward world into which they enter who come to Christ, though to men in general they seem as before. If they drank of Christ's cup it is not with them as in time past. They came for a blessing, and they have found a work.

To their surprise, as time goes on, they find that their lot is changed. They find that in one shape or another adversity happens to them. If they refuse to afflict themselves, God afflicts them.

Why did you taste of His heavenly feast, but that it might work in you—why did you kneel beneath His hand, but that He might leave on you the print of His wounds?

God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission -- I may never know it in this life but I shall be told it in the next.

I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for naught.

I shall do good, I shall do His work. I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place while not intending it if I do but keep His commandments.

Rembrandt, The Return of the Prodigal Son

Therefore I will trust Him. Whatever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him; in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him. If I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him.

He does nothing in vain. He knows what He is about.

He may take away my friends. He may throw me among strangers. He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide my future from me -- still He knows what He is about.

Let us feel what we really are--sinners attempting great things. Let us simply obey God's will, whatever may come. He can turn all things to our eternal good. Easter day is preceded by the forty days of Lent, to show us that they only who sow in tears shall reap in joy.

Contemplate then yourself, not as yourself, but as you are in the Eternal God. Fall down in astonishment at the glories which are around you and in you, poured to and fro in such a wonderful way that you are dissolved into the Kingdom of God.

The more we do, the more shall we trust in Christ; and that surely is no morose doctrine, that leads us to soothe our selfish restlessness, and forget our fears, in the vision of the Incarnate Son of God.

May the Lord support us all the day long, till the shades lengthen, and the evening comes, and the busy world is hushed, and the fever of life is over, and our work is done.

Then in His mercy may He give us safe lodging, and a holy rest, and peace at last.”

John Henry Newman

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - To the Moon, Alice

"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places."

Ephesians 6:12

Stocks continued moving higher.

Where they'll stop, nobody knows.

Asia is rolling out the most new stocks in the US since the Alibaba IPO.  Making America great again.

And the pundits know plenty of reasons why this is still a good time to buy.

Permanent prosperity and a recovery, for some.   It's all in your perspective.

Have a pleasant weekend.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - All Is Well -1987 and Its Consequences

"On a side bar. remember a couple of years ago, when I went on CNBC to talk to them about things that were happening in the markets in the afterhours that didn't make sense, and looked like an 'outside force' was moving them?   And they laughed at me, and told me to take my theory to Hollywood, and see if they would make a movie of it!  And then a month or so later, a guy came out and proved my theory?  Well. I have to believe that the rise of Gold and Silver, the rise of Treasury yields, and Oil, all being reversed on a dime, smells like PPT. it walks like PPT. and it talks like PPT."

Chuck Butler, Everbank World Markets


“Instead of flooding the entire economy with liquidity, and thereby increasing the danger of inflation, the Fed could support the stock market directly by buying market averages in the futures market, thereby stabilizing the market as a whole.”

Robert Heller, Federal Reserve Board


"There is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself.”

Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye

Today is the 30th anniversary of Black Monday, the crash of 1987.  I remember it very well.

As you may not recall, on Tuesday following the crash, with the futures market indicating a significantly lower open, Alan Greenspan and the Fed came in buying SP 500 futures in order to turn the markets around. And it worked.   And it continued, with the Fed supporting the equity markets with jawboning, persuasion, and occasionally direct intervention, so that by the end of the year all was well with the markets.

And most will forget that Mr. Greenspan's expansion of the role of the Exchange Stabilization Fund for currency markets to manipulate equity and commodity markets was formalized in the following year. On the advice of his financial advisors, President Reagan formed The Working Group on Financial Markets (colloquially referred to as the Plunge Protection Team) was created by Executive Order 12631, signed on March 18, 1988.

 And thus came the era of bubble-nomics.

Stocks in the US opened significantly lower after an overnight sell off overseas.

The cause of that selling was the news out of Taiwan that Apple has significantly reduced orders to its suppliers for the iPhone 8.

Bearing in mind that there is an option expiration on Friday, and more importantly that the stock market has become a proxy for the economy in general, steady buying was applied almost from the opening bell, especially to the SP 500 futures.

And see that the SP and the Dow managed to finish in the green, while the tech heavy NDX finished in the red.

This is classic bubble top action.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Stock Option Expiration on Friday - Anything Goes

"Wall Street did not accidentally run a barge aground and leave a small oil slick on the Hudson River. Wall Street did not accidentally release tainted lettuce that sickened a few dozen people.

What Wall Street did was intentional and criminal: it financially engineered a toxic subprime house of cards which it knew from its own internal reviews was going to collapse; it then molded the toxic product into inscrutable bundles; it sold the bundles to unsuspecting investors around the globe while making side bets that it would all come crashing down.

Then, after causing the greatest financial collapse in the United States since the Great Depression, Wall Street’s unrepentant scoundrels paid themselves billions of dollars in bonuses with taxpayer bailout funds."

Pam and Russ Martens, Wall Street On Parade

There will be a stock options expiration for October on this Friday.

The touts are talking up stocks this week. I'll take that as a good sign to take profits out of equities if you have them. We are nearing what is likely to be at least a short term top.

The bullish argument is that the Fed will keep supplying easy money to Wall Street, and they and their minions will keep piling into stocks because they have no other choice. That is sounding a bit tired at this point.

Never forget what Pam and Russ Martens said above.  We were all there watching it. We know what happened, not only from the news but our own personal experiences.  The myth makers are out in force, trying to rewrite history.

And I think this is because they are concerned about another big wash and rinse, again.  And they are softening up public opinion in advance.   Yes, they really do think that most people are that easily led.  And you know what, they may just have a point. 

You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time.    Hillary forgot to include that one in her book.

Have a pleasant evening.