Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Yippee ki yay - Risk On

"But Peter and the apostles answered, 'We must obey God rather than men.'"

Acts 5:29


"People worshiped the dragon because he had given his authority to the beast, and so they worshiped the beast as well, saying, ‘Who is like the beast? Who can wage war against him?’  The beast was given a mouth to utter proud words and blasphemies and to exercise its authority for forty-two months."

Revelation 13:4-5

Today was quite the event, as the cowboys of Wall Street were hurrahing the townsfolk with a celebration of a rip-roaring risk on recovery.

There was a massive reversal of the past few days' trade as bonds were dumped and the punters piled into stocks.

Gold and silver held in exceptionally well.

To say that I am skeptical of this Jobs Report would be an understatement.

To say that the bipolar state of the markets, from extreme highs to lows and back again, does not inspire confidence is a certainty for anyone with a thinking mind.

Trump is engaging in the usual hysterics that pass for negotiation NYC style, threatening to declare a national emergency or shut the government 'for years' if he does not get his way about building a wall that hardly anyone except Rush and Ann think is a good value for the money.

What I would really like to see is this thing settled in binding arbitration, with Pelosi and Schumer meeting with Trump and McConnell in front of Judge Judy, for example.

I will spare you and myself any additional comments tonight because the cold that has been lingering on the periphery is making a proper nuisance of itself, and I am feeling just knackered.

At least the new season of Gotham has started.   And a few other good ones are not too far away.

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

Have a pleasant weekend.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Narcos Americano - Wall Street On Parade Is Back

"It is the eternal struggle between these two principles — right and wrong — throughout the world.  They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time; and will ever continue to struggle.  The one is the common right of humanity, and the other the divine right of kings.  It is the same principle in whatever shape it develops itself. It is the same spirit that says, 'You toil and work and earn bread, and I’ll eat it.' 

No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle."

Abraham Lincoln, Oct. 15, 1858.

Stocks have managed to rebound from the big selloff in December, and hit the 38.2% Fibonacci retracement.

And then they failed, and have sold off again today, despite a number of 'rescue efforts' led by the powers that be to buy stock futures to support the markets.

This is not constructive action.

Gold continued to plow higher, acting as a safe haven from the risks of phony paper assets and undisclosed counterparty risks.

How unusual.

Big Pharma gave us a present, and raised the prices of over 1,000 prescription drugs for the New Year. It was somewhat ironic that as I was reading this article, the spokesmodels on financial tv were commenting on the Bristol-Myers acquisition of Celgene and said that pharmaceutical companies 'are scrambling to lower prices' and that there are no antitrust concerns in the sector.

Yeah, right.

Journalist William Arkin resigned from NBC/MSNBC with a rather scathing letter.

This is going to be an interesting year as the credibility trap compels our best and brightest to speak and act in a manner that is increasingly divergent from reality.

Apple's announcement of a big revenue miss was a bit odd, because they seemed to point the finger at an economic slowdown in China.   Apple is not a major player in the cellphone market there as far as I know.   Perhaps they are the victims of rosy forecasts of growth fueled by market penetration that did not materialize because they were just not competitive?

On a happy note, Wall Street On Parade is back online, after a long hiatus due to a family illness.   It is so good to see them publishing again.  Reform minded bloggers are in short enough supply.

Non-Farm Payrolls report tomorrow morning.

Have a pleasant evening.

Gold Daily Chart To the Cup of the Cup and Very Long Handle Formation

As you may recall I keep a number of charts and spreadsheets that I do not post here that I use for my own analysis.

Here is a copy of the longer term gold chart, back to the very large cup and handle formation.

As you can see it is a bit difficult to view, although you might be able to download it and see it more easily thereby.

I also include a standard weekly chart of gold going back five years.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Greatest Showman On Earth - The Trump Put

“It could be argued that we are now in the midst of a coup d’état in slow motion. Democracy is weakening; few people would disagree. Corporatism is strengthening; you only have to look around you. Yet none of us has chosen this route for our society, in spite of which our elites quite happily continue down it. Certainly corporatism is creating a conformist society. It is a modern form of feudalism.”

John Ralston Saul


"Donald Trump is not an anomaly. He is the grotesque visage of a collapsed democracy. The creeping corporate coup d’état that began forty five years ago is complete.  It has destroyed the lives of tens of millions of Americans no longer able to find work that provides a living wage, cursed to live in chronic poverty.”

Chris Hedges


“A narcissist paints a picture of themselves as being the victim or innocent in all aspects. They will be offended by the truth.  But what is done in the dark will come to light.  Time has a way of showing people’s true colors.”

Karla Grimes


"Although journalism was always a loose extension of establishment power, something has changed in recent years. Dissent tolerated when I joined a national newspaper in Britain in the 1960s has regressed to a metaphoric underground as liberal capitalism moves towards a form of corporate dictatorship.

This is a seismic shift, with journalists policing the new groupthink, dispensing its myths and distractions, pursuing its enemies.

The source of 'fake news' is not only trollism, or the likes of Fox News, or Donald Trump, but a journalism self-anointed with a false respectability: a liberal journalism that claims to challenge corrupt state power but, in reality, courts and protects it, and colludes with it.

Complex stories are reported to a cult-like formula of bias, hearsay and omission. So much of the mainstream has descended to this level. Subjectivism is all; slogans and outrage are proof enough. What matters is the 'perception.'"

John Pilger, Hold the Front Page: The Reporters are Missing


“Narcissism falls along the axis of what psychologists call personality disorders, one of a group that includes antisocial, dependent, histrionic, avoidant and borderline personalities. But by most measures, narcissism is one of the worst, if only because the narcissists themselves are so clueless.

There's a reason narcissists don't learn from mistakes and that's because they never get past the first step which is admitting that they made one.  It's always an assistant's fault, an adviser's fault, a lawyer's fault.  Ask them to account for a mistake any other way and they'll say, 'what mistake?"

Jeffrey Kluger


“Hate obscures all distinctions.”

C.S. Lewis

All the ruling elite have to offer to us is hate and fear— both of which obscure reason, that instrument of scrutiny which their self-serving actions and policies cannot bear.

Stocks opened significantly lower, but with the support of some determined, price insentive buying programs in the futures markets, were able to finish virtually unchanged.

Gold was trying to break out, but was pushed back down into the close.

Today was the first trading day of this new year of 2019.  And it is almost certainly going to be interesting.

Non-Farm Payrolls report on Friday.

It is not that our age is lacking in self-aggrandizing 'heroes'.   We have an excess of them.  They cast themselves as our saviours against phantoms of fear and the troubles that they themselves have created.   Our two political parties and the corporate monopolies act like competing crime families rather than the organizers and protectors of society.

Rather, there is an alarming shortage of the basic principles of morality being exercised by mature adults.  And this shortage is particularly acute in NY and DC, the halls of big business and the government which big money has bought.

This will end, but it will not end well.

Have a pleasant evening.