Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Fat Lady Is Warming Up - Citi's Traces in the Gold Sell Off

"Stock buybacks were illegal until Reagan's SEC opened the gates. Nobody willing to stop it now because that would crash stock markets. But it is cannibalizing much of our industry and must be ended in next crisis."

Harald Malmgren

Stocks were surging higher today, but pulled off substantially into the close.

If they do this a few more times, we might see the beginning of something here.

Gold was slammed again this morning as the same manner as yesterday.

From the clearing report, it appears like Citi had a hand in this large change in gold positioning, with the 'customer' over at JPM being the receiver.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Management of Savagery - Stock Option Expiration on Thursday

"Restore our fortunes, Lord,
     as streams renew the desert.
Those who sow in tears
     shall reap with shouts of joy.
They weep as they go to plant their crops,
     but they sing as they return with the harvest."

Psalm 126

Gold, and to some extent silver, were hit today in a fairly obvious and expected bear raid.

Silver managed to hold its positive close and gold recovered most of the day's decline.

The US Dollar did not cooperate and was lower, so making the price declines stick were a bit difficult.

Stocks were down sharply during the day, but managed to take back most of their losses into the close.

There will be a stock option expiration on Friday.

The 850 year old Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris was devastated by fire today.  The queen and I visited it some years ago.  It is sad to see such an iconic and majestic example of religious art and architecture destroyed.

My mentor, and my son's godfather, had told me the story of his bicycle trip around Europe when he was a young man during the summer of 1939.  He had just graduated from college and was taking some time off. He visited the Île de la Cité of course. While he was there he saw workmen piling sandbags around the beautiful Sainte-Chapelle, the smaller church on the island, which has spectacular stained glass windows. He asked the workmen what they were doing, and the workman replied, "C'est la guerre." He caught the boat back to the States shortly thereafterwards.

This was another example of 'the management of savagery.'

I picked the quote for this posting yesterday afternoon.  I left it, since it seems fitting.

Have a pleasant evening.

Max Blumenthal: The Management of Savagery

"This empire, unlike any other in the history of the world, has been built primarily through economic manipulation, through cheating, through fraud, through seducing people into our way of life, through the economic hit men."

John Perkins


‘Whatever happens, the [1997 Asian currency] crisis probably signaled the beginning of the end of the American empire and a shift to a tripolar world in which the United States, Europe, and East Asia simultaneously share power and compete for it.’

Chalmers Johnson, Blowback, 2004


"The enormous gap between what US leaders do in the world and what Americans think their leaders are doing is one of the great propaganda accomplishments of the dominant political mythology."

Michael Parenti

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Civilisation - Risk On

“I believe that order is better than chaos, creation better than destruction.  I prefer gentleness to violence, forgiveness to vendetta.  On the whole I think that knowledge is preferable to ignorance, and I am sure that human sympathy is more valuable than ideology.  I believe that in spite of the recent triumphs of science, men haven't changed much in the last two thousand years; and in consequence we must try to learn from history. History is ourselves.

I believe in courtesy, the ritual by which we avoid hurting other people's feelings, by satisfying our own egos.  And I think we should remember that we are part of a great whole, which for convenience we call nature.  All living things are our brothers and sisters. "

Kenneth Clark, Civilisation


"At the root of America's economic crisis lies a moral crisis: the decline of civic virtue among America's political and economic elite. A society of markets, laws, and elections is not enough if the rich and powerful fail to behave with respect, honesty, and compassion toward the rest of society and toward the world."

Jeffrey Sachs


"Assange is a deeply polarizing figure.  That’s almost certainly why the Trump DOJ believes it could get away with indicting him based on a theory that would clearly endanger core journalistic functions: because it hopes that the intense animosity for Assange personally will blind people to the dangers this indictment poses.

But far more important than one’s personal feelings about Assange is the huge step this indictment represents in the Trump administration’s explicitly stated goal to criminalize journalism that involves reporting on classified information.  Opposition to that menacing goal does not require admiration or affection for Assange.  It simply requires a belief in the critical importance of a free press in a democracy."

Glenn Greenwald


“If all the world hated you, and believed you wicked, while your own conscience approved you, and absolved you from guilt, you would not be without friends.”

Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre

Stocks were enthused by the Chinese export data, and the futures were sharply higher in the morning.

It was risk on all the way around, and so the VIX and the Dollar and gold were lower.

As Chalmers Johnson noted, 'Nemesis, the goddess of retribution and vengeance, the punisher of pride and hubris, waits impatiently for her meeting with us.'

And no one could have seen it coming.

As previously noted, we are in a time of hysteria, and people are doing and saying some very headstrong things, that may be sowing the seeds for their future troubles.  And we may expect a reckoning, one which will be remembered.

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

Have a pleasant weekend.