15 February 2019

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Bubble Up To the Bar - Stocks Rise Ahead of Three Day Weekend


“Man has places in his heart which do not yet exist—  and into them enters suffering, in order that they may have life.”

Léon Bloy


"Remember us, O Lord, in your loving kindness and tender mercies, as they ever have been from old."

Psalm 25:6

Stocks rose today in the face of poor economic news led higher by the SP 500 futures.

What a surprise.

Gold and silver also turned higher, with gold sticking a close over the 1320 resistance.

The Dollar moved lower.

Markets in the US will be closed on Monday for President's Day.

Repentance, forgiveness, and thankfulness.  These are the greatest gifts of all.

Have a pleasant weekend.


14 February 2019

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Gig and Glitch Economy - Options Expiration Tomorrow


“Love is our true destiny... The point where you become free not to kill, not to exploit, not to destroy, not to compete, because you are no longer afraid of death or the devil or poverty or failure.  If you discover this nakedness, you’d better keep it private.  People don’t like it.

 We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone - we find it with another.”

Thomas Merton, Love and Living

Stocks were knocked for a loop today when the retail sales number for December came out to be the worst in the Great Recession. Administration spokesmodel Larry Kudlow dismissed it as a 'glitch.'

There are a lot of glitches out there in the official narrative, if you have not yet noticed.

Gold would not be denied, although it remains in the shorter term trading range. Pretty much the same for silver which seems to be tagging along.

Stock option expiration tomorrow.

It looks like the Senate has the votes to prevent another shutdown. Trumpolini is making orangutan noises about signing it, but seems to have little choice, except to declare a national emergency.

The trade talks with China seem to be stuck in a rocky patch.

Happy Valentine's Day.

Have a pleasant evening.


13 February 2019

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - London Calling - Stock Option Expiration on Friday


“Here's all you have to know about men and women:  women are crazy. And the main reason that women are crazy is that men are stupid.”

George Carlin

The queen used to say the latter part of this quote to me.   Often.

And I would reply that God made me that way so I would love her.

There will be a stock market option expiration on Friday.

Stocks tried to rally today, but flopped back giving up their gains in the afternoon.

Gold and silver rallied in the morning, but fell off as the Dollar gained strongly in the afternoon.

Have a pleasant evening.












12 February 2019

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Weimar Berlin - Lawlessness, Inequality, Extremism, Divisiveness and Crime


"He drew near and saw the city, and he wept for it saying, 'If you had only recognized the things that make for peace. But now you are blinded to them.   Truly, the days will come when your enemies will set up barriers to surround you, and hem you in on every side. Then they will crush you into the earth, you and your children. And they will not leave one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the way to your salvation.'”

Luke 19:41-44


"You hypocrites! You build monuments for the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous. And you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of His messengers.’"

Matthew 23:29-30

Stocks were on a tear today on the hopes for a better turn of events with the government budgetary squabbles, optimism on a China trade deal, and the results of the Senate GOP finding no evidence of 'collusion' with Russia by the Trump Administration to influence the results of the presidential election..

This last item is not surprising, because this entire Russian collusion meme seems as though it is an hysterical reaction to the spin put out by the Clinton political faction and their neoliberal enablers after their shocking loss in the 2016 Presidential election.

Too bad though, because the financial corruption and private pilfering using public power, money laundering and the kind of soft corruption that is rampant amongst our new elite is all there. And by there we mean on both sides of the fence— which is why it had to take a back seat to a manufactured boogeyman.

Gold and silver were still marking time and the Dollar backed off a bit.

There is a long road ahead before we see anything like a resolution to this troubling period in American political history.

We look back at other troubled periods and places, and either see them as discrete and fictional, a very different world apart, or through some rosy lenses of good old times which were largely benign and peaceful.  We fail to see the continuity, the similarity, and the commonality of a dangerous path with ourselves.  As they did with their own times gone by.   Madness blinds its acolytes, because they wish it so.   They embrace it to hide their shame.

We are reassured and misled by the same kinds of voices that have always served the status quo and the monied interests, the think tanks, the so-called 'institutes,'  and the web sites and former con men who offer a constant stream of thinly disguised propaganda and misstatements of principle and history.  We are comforted by their lies.

People want to hear these reassuring words of comfort and embrace it like a 'religion,' because they do not wish to draw the conclusions that the genuine principles of faith suggest (dare we say command in this day and age) in their daily lives.  They blind themselves by adopting a kind of a schizoid approach to life, where 'religion' occupies a disrete, rarefied space, and 'political or economic philosophy' dictates another set of everyday 'practical' observances and behaviours which are more pliable, and pleasing to our hardened and prideful hearts.

We wish to strike a deal with the Lord, and a deal with the Devil—  to serve both God and Mammon as it suits us.   It really is that cliché.  And it is so finely woven into the fabric of our day that we cannot see it; we cannot see that it is happening to us and around us.

And so we trot on into the abyss, one exception and excuse and rationalization for ourselves at a time.   And we blind ourselves with false prophets and their profane theories and philosophies.

As for truth, the truth that brings life, we would intertrupt the sermon on the mount itself, saying that this sentiment was all very well and good, but what stocks should we buy for our portfolio, and what horse is going to win the fifth at Belmont?  Tell us something useful, practical!   Oh, and can you please fix this twinge in my left shoulder?  It is ruining my golf game.
"Those among the rich who are not, in the rigorous sense, damned, can understand poverty, because they are poor themselves, after a fashion; they cannot understand destitution. Capable of giving alms, perhaps, but incapable of stripping themselves bare, they will be moved, to the sound of beautiful music, at Jesus’s sufferings, but His Cross, the reality of His Cross, will horrify them. They want it all out of gold, bathed in light, costly and of little weight; pleasant to see, hanging from a woman’s beautiful throat."

Léon Bloy
No surprise in this.  It has always been so, especially in times of such vanity and greed as are these. Then is now.  There is nothing new under the sun.  And certainly nothing exceptional about the likes of us in our indulgent self-destruction.

Are you not entertained?

Have a pleasant evening.