Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - In the Bleak Midwinter - The Holy Innocents

Merson The Flight Into Egypt

"What can I give Him,
Poor as I am? —
If I were a Shepherd
I would bring a lamb;
If I were a Wise Man
I would do my part, —
Yet what I can I give Him, —
Give my heart."

Christina Georgina Rossetti, A Christmas Carol


"And Joseph rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, 'Out of Egypt I called my son.'

Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious, and he sent word to kill all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the magi."

Matthew 2:13-16

Pride and a love of self and of power makes families homeless— and in its rage murders innocents, as it was then and is now.

Stocks attempted to extend the government-sponsored 'rebound rally' today but with only mixed success, as they finished largely unchanged after a solid try to move higher.

Please note from the charts that this retracement rally is now at the 38.2% level on the Fibonacci index.

Next Monday will be a full day trading session, but the markets will be closed on Tuesday for New Year's Day.  Monday will be the last trading session of 2018.

Typically the day of New Year's eve is one of light trading, but in this market who can tell.

Gold and silver continued to move higher, planting a solid close as they appear to break out from their intermediate trend higher, from gold's bottom at 1159 in early August.

I have marked some new lines on the charts that may help us to track the price of gold as it climbs 'a wall of worry.' 

At some point the 'gold pool' of price management will collapse due to a dearth of physical gold at the current prices.  And then we may see a significant price adjustment, as has happened in the past after protracted periods of similar 'management' by the Banks.

There will be a Non-Farm Payrolls Report on Friday.

My son and I have been watching Narcos: Mexico on Netflix this week.  It is a very good extension to the series.

Have a pleasant weekend.

RussiaGate In Review with Aaron Mate - Unreasoned Fear is Neoliberalism's Response to the Credibility Gap

At the inception of this entire RussiaGate spectacle I suggested that it was a political distraction to take the attention away from the rejection by the people of neoliberalism which has been embraced by the establishments of both political parties.

And that the result of the investigation would be indictments for perjury in the covering up of illicit business deals and money laundering.  But that 'collusion to sway the election' was without substance, if not a joke.

Everything that has been revealed to date tends to support that.

One thing that Aaron overlooks is the evidence compiled by William Binney and associates that strongly suggests the DNC hack was no hack at all, but a leak by an insider who was appalled by the lies and double dealing at the DNC.

In general, RussiaGate is a farcical distraction from other issues as they say in the video. And this highlights the utterly Machiavellian streak in the corporate Democrats and the Liberal establishment under the Clintons and their ilk who care more about money and power than the basic principles that historically sustained their party. I have lost all respect for them.

But unfortunately this does open the door for those who use this to approve of the Republican establishment, which is 'at least honest' about being substantially corrupt servants to Big Money who care nothing about democracy, the Constitution, or the public.  The best of them are leaving or have already left, and their party is ruined beyond repair.

This all underscores the paucity of the Red v. Blue, monopoly of two parties, 'lesser of two evils' model of political thought which has come to dominate the discussion in the US.

We are heavily propagandized by the owners of the corporate media and influencers of the narrative, and a professional class that has sold its soul for economic advantage and access to money and power.





And here is a bit more from Nate Silver—

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Leaven of the Pharisees

"Moral hazard is a situation in which one party gets involved in a risky event knowing that it is protected against the risk and the other party will incur the cost. It arises when both the parties have incomplete information about each other."


“People with advantages are loathe to believe that they just happen to be people with advantages. They come readily to define themselves as inherently worthy of what they possess; they come to believe themselves 'naturally' elite; and, in fact, to imagine their possessions and their privileges as natural extensions of their own elite selves.”

C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite


“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, 1989


“Only crime and the criminal, it is true, confront us with the perplexity of radical evil; but only the hypocrite is really rotten to the core.”

Hannah Arendt

A massive, 'price insensitive' buying program turned stocks around and closed them in the green.

Very impressive.

Some times when you have nothing nice to say, it is better to say nothing at all.

Our 'self-identified elite' on both sides of the ideological spectrum are most often unprincipled, delusional hypocrites, otherwise known as whited sepulchers.

Aren't they always?

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Making Stocks Great Again - Big Bounce Off Deeply Oversold

Feeding the beast

"They have record kinds of numbers.  So I think it's a tremendous opportunity to buy.   Really a great opportunity to buy."

D. J. Trump, 25 December 2018

As soon as Trump said the above on Christmas Day, I was fairly certain that my theory of why Treasury Secretary Mnuchin was calling the banks was correct.

The word came back to Trumpolini that the fix was in, and he could not resist making a statement to show what a great stock market trend caller he is.

Mnuchin did not need to know how the Banks were doing with regard to liquidity. And he certainly didn't need to let it slip that he was calling the Banks to the public.   He was getting Wall Street in line, and giving the other wiseguys out there a heads up so they would not get in the way.

And then Trump came out an hung a lantern on it.  It was like erecting three billboards proclaiming the official desire to 'Make Stocks Great Again.'

And so we saw the rescue of the stock markets today, in the first real, concerted attempt by government and business to pump that bubble back up.

And it worked fairly well.  And those who had faith in the bubble were rewarded.

And if you think that they did this for your benefit, you are rather foolish.

so another check has been paid to that great account marked, 'moral hazard.'

I was only a little surprised that they did not put their minds to this sooner in the decline.  Perhaps they needed for the oversold condition to work itself into place, and get a clear path for the ramp higher in the busy holiday schedule.

I did not watch television after the first couple of hours, because we went out and about with the company that is still here.    My son's girlfriend is a real sweetheart from Shanghai via London, and is a wonderful helper in the kitchen.

She has never seen an actual prime rib roast of size before.  And she was very much taken with the electric carving knife.  She kept volunteering to cut the roast for me.  She found the whole thing to be fascinating.  LOL.   Tonight we are going out for a hot pot dinner.  I am really enjoying all this.

I have marked the Fibonacci retracement levels on the charts. I may have to tinker with them a bit. The problem is where to mark the beginning of the decline.

Let's see how long they can keep this pig aloft.

Gold and silver were higher most of the day, with silver hanging on but gold given up its safe haven gain.

Have a pleasant evening.