Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Bubble 'n' Squeak - Comex Expiry Action in the Metals

Weighed, and Found Wanting...

“An enthusiastic philosopher, of whose name we are not informed, had constructed a very satisfactory theory on some subject or other, and was not a little proud of it. 'But the facts, my dear fellow,' said his friend, 'the facts do not agree with your theory.'

'Don't they?' replied the philosopher, shrugging his shoulders, 'then, tant pis pour les faits' — so much the worse for the facts!”

Charles Mackay


"Our little systems have their day;
They have their day and cease to be:
They are but broken lights of thee,
And thou, O Lord, art more than they."

Alfred Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam


"A shudder in the loins engenders there
The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
And Agamemnon dead."

W. B. Yeats, Leda and the Swan


“Any moment might be our last.  Everything is more beautiful because we're doomed.  
You will never be lovelier than you are now.  We will never be here again.”

Homer, The Iliad


"Surely, there is at this day a confederacy of evil, marshalling its hosts from all parts of the world, organizing itself, taking its measures, enclosing the church of Christ as in a net, and preparing the way for a general apostasy from it.   Whether this very apostasy is to give birth to Antichrist, or whether he is still to be delayed, we cannot know; but at any rate this apostasy, and all its tokens, and instruments, are of the Evil One and savour of death."

John Henry Newman, The Times of Antichrist

Gold got hit today, as is befitting of an option expiration in our loosely regulated markets.

The Dollar closed higher.

Stocks are hitting new highs.

Never short a stock or stock index just because it has moved higher.

Keep your eyes open though. Things are progressing faster than one might have expected.

Perhaps now is the time to take some profits as one may have them in equities, and redeploy them in safe havens, including cash.

The bubble is frothing.

And so is Trumpolini.

Neither is likely to end well.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Comex Precious Metals Options Expiration This Week

“The gentle downward slope gets steeper,
and imperceptibly becomes an abyss.”

Tomas Tranströmer


“A person who has not been completely alienated, who has remained sensitive and able to feel, who has not lost the sense of dignity, who is not yet 'for sale', who can still suffer over the suffering of others, who has not acquired fully the having mode of existence - briefly, a person who has remained a person and not become a thing - cannot help feeling lonely, powerless, isolated in present-day society.   He cannot help doubting himself and his own convictions, if not his sanity."

Erich Fromm

The US Dollar DX index was lower today.

Gold and silver were also trading weakly. There will be Comex option expirations this week. The calendars are included below.

Stocks moved higher today, in preparation for the next blow off top and decline.

It will be interesting to see how high they can take it, and how arrogantly they will attempt to justify it.

Have a pleasant evening.

Lacrimosa Dies Illa - The Worldly Misunderstanding and Misstatement of Risk

Lacrimosa dies illa
Qua resurget ex favilla
Judicandus homo reus.

Huic ergo parce, Deus:
Pie Jesu Domine,
Dona eis requiem. Amen.


Full of sorrows will be that day
When from the dust and ashes rise
Those who will be judged.

Have pity on them, God,
O merciful Lord Jesus,
And grant them rest. Amen.


“Religion used to be the opium of the people.  To those suffering humiliation, pain, illness, and serfdom, religion promised the reward of an after life.

But now we are witnessing a transformation: a true opium of the people is the belief in nothingness after death, the huge solace, the huge comfort of thinking that for our betrayals, our greed, our cowardice, our murders,  that we are not going to be judged.”

Czeslaw Milosz, The Discreet Charm of Nihilism


"Those among the rich who are not, in the rigorous sense, damned, can understand poverty, because they are poor themselves, after a fashion; but 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 beautiful woman’s throat."

Léon Bloy

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Fat Lady Is Clearing Her Throat - Dancing Towards the Abyss

"Over the last thirty years, the United States has been taken over by an amoral financial oligarchy, and the American dream of opportunity, education, and upward mobility is now largely confined to the top few percent of the population.  Federal policy is increasingly dictated by the wealthy, by the financial sector, and by powerful (though sometimes badly mismanaged) industries such as telecommunications, health care, automobiles, and energy.

These policies are implemented and praised by these groups’ willing servants, namely the increasingly bought-and-paid-for leadership of America’s political parties, academia, and lobbying industry.

If allowed to continue, this process will turn the United States into a declining, unfair society with an impoverished, angry, uneducated population under the control of a small, ultrawealthy elite.  Such a society would be not only immoral but also eventually unstable, dangerously ripe for religious and political extremism."

Charles Ferguson, Predator Nation, 2012


"For what does it profit a man, to gain the whole world, but lose their life?"

Mark 8:36

Poverty wants—  but greed wants everything, and more.  They can never have enough, because their acquisition is driven not by any need, but by a sick and overpowering lust for more, and more.

This is why our financial and political system can never be effectively self-regulated, or even reformed from within.

The gold price manipulation down for this stock market option expiration (think miners' options, etc.) seems to be about over.

Citi coughed up another large tranche of gold contracts on the cheap to the unknown large customer dealing through JPM.

Technically gold is short term oversold.  And it went up today, in the face of a much stronger Dollar.

There will be Comex option expirations for gold and silver April contracts on the 25th.

Stocks managed to hold on for yet another up day.

We are building a blow off top. There is not much doubt in my mind.

Don't get in front of this, however, since as long as the Fed keeps providing hot money the wiseguys will keep dancing.

The text of the Mueller Report was released today to much flapping of gums and gnashing of keys.

Are we not exceptional? Are you not entertained?

Have a blessed holiday.