Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Je Vois Tout - Appearance Designed to Mask Reality

"Caution in handling 'generally accepted opinions' that claim to explain whole trends of history is especially important for the historian of modern times, because the last century has produced an abundance of ideologies that pretend to be keys to history, but are actually nothing but desperate efforts to escape responsibility.”

Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism


"Flattening of the yield curve is happening so slowly no one noticing the 2s-10s gap is now 24 bps. Meanwhile yields on 30s are back to 3.02% & falling. Trump and media are talking pickup in US growth, but global institutional investors not buying it, and see trouble in the rest of world."

Dr. Harald Malmgren

A brief respite, to unload the recent acquisitions from the car, has allowed me to at least post updated charts (and more fulsome commentary later in the evening).

As you can see, the metals were hammered a bit today, out of proportion to strength in the US dollar at least, which finished mostly unchanged.

That tells us something about the price action, right here, today and tonight.

As you may know, I think that there is more to this than meets the eye.

The problem is that the denouement is very difficult to forecast in time, so trading ahead of it, in anticipation of it, is only for the nimble.

For mere mortals, it is a more reliable strategy to get right and sit tight.

Stocks were weak, led lower by tech which is debubbling just a bit with regard to the real world results.

Never have so many lied so much for so few.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Bananas - Stock Option Expiration On Friday

“But you can't make people listen.  They have to come round in their own time, wondering what happened and why the world blew up around them.  It can't last.”

Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451


"The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty."

Abraham Lincoln

Stocks managed to rally today.

US Dollar and paper are being viewed as safer investments given the relative strength of the US economy and the current interest rate tightening bias at the Fed.

Gold and silver had a dead cat bounce after yesterday's steep declines.

Let's see if that bottom starts forming around here. Indicators suggest that it might.

There will be a stock option expiration for August on this Friday. I have included that calendar below.

Being a tour guide for the relatives was a bit tiring today, but great fun nonetheless.   There is nothing better in life than the company of simple, honorable people, salt of the earth.

Need little, want less, love more. For those who abide in love abide in God, and God in them.

Have a pleasant evening.

Bill Binney Assesses the DNC Hack and the Mueller Indictments

"But the impotence one feels today— an impotence we should never consider permanent— does not excuse one from remaining true to oneself, nor does it excuse capitulation to the enemy, what ever mask he may wear.

Whether the mask is labeled fascism, democracy, or dictatorship of the proletariat, our great adversary remains The Apparatus— the bureaucracy, the police, the military. Not the one facing us across the frontier or the battle lines, which is not so much our enemy as our brothers’ enemy, but the one that calls itself our protector and makes us its slaves. No matter what the circumstances, the worst betrayal will always be to subordinate ourselves to this Apparatus, and to trample underfoot, in its service, all human values in ourselves and in others."

Simone Weil

We live in an age of hypocrisy, where the narratives flatter us, and relieve us of the problem of thinking.

Power, control and money—  the bullet or the bribe.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Rulers of the Darkness of This World - Riders on the Storm

"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


Thomas More: (With a sudden, contemptuous sweep of his arm)  These are terrors for children, Master Secretary— an empty cupboard to frighten children in the dark, not me.

Robert Bolt, A Man For All Seasons

Respect the righteous justice of God, and then fear nothing from the works or approval of men.

What is going on with Turkey?

Personally I think that Erdogan is being 'put in his place.'

But that's just my opinion, and I could be wrong.

What a sad spectacle. Trump and Omarosa deserve each other.

I was out most of the day taking the Ohio contingent of visitors around seeing the sights.

Gold and silver were spanked today, out of proportion to the rise in the dollar.

I think we are putting a bottom in right here. 

The futures and commitments of traders are at the kinds of extremes where they start flashing a warning.   And the hedge funds were making sure that a dire pictures of gold and silver were being painted on the tape and by their muppets in the media, frequently, today.

But again, that is just my take on things, and I could be wrong.

Stocks were saved today, from a much worse decline. But even with that, they still finished lower on the day.

 And the devil take the hindmost.

Have a pleasant evening.