Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Heroic Effort to Prop Up the Markets Fails to Boost Uber

"I am worried about my own country. The economic crisis of recent years reflects a deep, threatening, and ongoing deterioration of our national politics and culture of power.

The crisis, I will argue, developed gradually over the course of several decades. We are not facing a short-term business cycle downturn, but the working out of long-term social, political, and economic trends.  It is a bipartisan affair: both Democrats and Republicans have played their part in deepening the crisis

By understanding the deep roots of the crisis, we can move beyond illusory solutions such as the stimulus spending of 2009-2010, the budget cuts of 2011, and the unaffordable tax cuts that are implemented year after year. These are gimmicks that distract us from the deeper reforms needed in our society.

The American economy increasingly serves only a narrow part of society, and America's national politics has failed to put the country back on track through honest, open, and transparent problem solving. Too many of America's elites, among the super-rich, the CEOs, and many of my colleagues in academia, have abandoned a commitment to social responsibility. They chase wealth and power, the rest of society be damned.

Jeffrey D. Sachs

Uber priced at around 45$, which was near the bottom of the range for the IPO.

And it struggled to make a market on the open.

After finally struggling out at a small discount to the pricing, it attempted to rally back up into the green, and failed to inspire much interest into the close.

Uber finished up down a little over seven percent around $41.

Stocks were getting hammered on the open, but true to form there was a steady buying program that took the prices up after the rest of the world closed for trading. And they actually finished green.

Things remained at an elevated level of risk.

From our oasis to yours, have a pleasant weekend.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Pig Kings Rising - Uber IPO Prices At Bottom of Range

“To love at all is to be vulnerable.  Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken.  If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal.  Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements.  Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness.  But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change.  It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.

To love is to be vulnerable.”

C.S. Lewis


"All creatures of our God and King,
lift up your voice and with us sing
alleluia, alleluia.

Thou burning sun with golden beam,
thou silver moon with softer gleam,
O praise him, O praise him,
alleluia, alleluia, alleluia."

Francis of Assisi

Stocks were reeling a bit today, with fresh concerns about trade relations between China and the US.

Negotiations are expected to begin again about now, and continue into the evening.

Supposedly the US will decide after midnight whether to increase tariffs on China goods or not.

Brinksmanship most likely, but let's see what happens.

Angelo Mozilo was a prominent interviewee on Bloomberg today, as they made the rounds of the SALT conference at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. 

Angelo, the ex-CEO of the housing crisis' notorious Countrywide Financial, had words about the mortgage markets and the economy for Bloomberg's Eric Schachter.  He took care to note how homeowners continue to abuse and victimize the financial system. 

Next up, insights on personal grooming and hairstyles by tonsorial thought leader Sweeney Todd, late of Fleet Street.

Being a Wall Street pigman means never having to say you're guilty, much less sorry about it, for the many lives that you have ruined.

SALT is the brainchild of Anthony 'The Mooch' Scaramucci of Skybridge Capital, and is 'a global thought leadership forum devoted to unlocking growth opportunities in the fields of finance, economics, entrepreneurship, public policy, technology and philanthropy'.

The 10 Year Treasury auction today was rather ugly, and the Dollar continued to dip lower.

Gold is still being held in check, purportedly by a Bank that finds itself holding a largish short which they still hope to cash in.

And stocks are being saved in the US trade every afternoon by the underwriters and assorted wiseguys who would like to get the Uber IPO out the door tomorrow.

Let's see what happens tomorrow with the trade negotiation and the Uber IPO.

I hear bells faintly ringing, maybe after a last big push higher with a trade deal, or some other flight of fancy.  Or not.  Things are very risky.  It may not take much more to get the ball rolling.

From our oasis to yours, have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Uber Alles the IPO

Uber the IPO

"If you’re the Democrats and you look at the lessons of the election, you saw that people rejected your neoliberal economic legacy, that means you have to start challenging the powerful corporate sectors that you’ve been representing for a long time, actually posing real alternative policies to Donald Trump.

If you do that, though, you risk losing your privileged status within the power structure. And it's the same thing if you’re in the media and you identify with that faction of the power structure."

Aaron Maté, America In Denial: The Psychology of Russiagate

I had just finished a commentary for this evening after the close, while I was watching Tottenham vs. Ajax Amsterdam in the UEFA final. Tottenham has just come back with two quick goals to tie it up 2-2.

And I hit 'delete' rather than 'update.' And blogger is very unforgiving about that sort of thing, alas.

Stocks remain in elevated risk, although the wiseguys will be propping the market until Friday at least.

There is a big IPO for Uber coming out, and they won't let the market decline much further, if it can be helped, until they launch that oinker.

Have a pleasant evening.

Postscript:  In an electrifying finish Tottenham just won to advance to the final against Liverpool in Madrid. 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Are You Not Entertained? - Liverpool Vs. Barcelona

"The Federal Reserve printed $4 trillion to buy up the banks’ bad debt while permitting ten million homeowners to be foreclosed.  Student loan debt prevents university graduates from forming independent households.  Mortgage and credit card debt prevents households from having discretionary income with which to drive retail sales."

Paul Craig Roberts


"Gentlemen! I too have been a close observer of the doings of the Bank of the United States. I have had men watching you for a long time, and am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country.

When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin!

Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves. I have determined to rout you out, and by the Eternal, (bringing his fist down on the table) I will rout you out."

Andrew Jackson, in a meeting with the Bankers, February 1834


"The truth is, there are not two kinds of people.  There’s only one: the kind that loves to divide up into gangs who hate each other’s guts.  Both conservatives and liberals agree among themselves, on their respective message boards, in uncannily identical language, that their opponents lack any self-awareness or empathy, the ability to see the other side of an argument or to laugh at themselves.  Which would seem to suggest that they’re both correct...

Let me propose that if your beliefs or convictions matter more to you than people—if they require you to act as though you were a worse person than you are—you may have lost perspective.”

Tim Kreider, We Learn Nothing

Stocks were on another wild ride today, plunging lower than the lows from yesterday, which were erased by a 'timely' boost in buying.

But alas, it was not to be today, as this fresh draft of fear swept over the halls of the mighty, the financial engineers and giants.

Although some short covering and late day buying in the futures managed to take stocks back up to some levels with more 'comfortable' losses.

If stocks cannot shake this off and manage to close the week out in a decent position on some support, we could see a fresh wave of more serious selling next week. Or sooner.

But never fear.  Things will soon be looking up.  The Trump Administration is going to reduce poverty in America—  by redefining it.

Just another glorious day in the Empire. Are you not entertained?

Gold and silver continued higher. The chicanery assoaciated with the recent 'FOMC and Non-Farm Payrolls' slam dunk is over, at least for now.

But gold needs to lead the way and break out cleanly above the very obvious and tempting overhead resistance.

I have been watching the UEFA Championship Semi-Final game between Liverpool and Barcelona this afternoon.

Postscript:  And Liverpool wins in an historic upset.

From our oasis to yours, have a pleasant eveening.