Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Saving Private Equity

"In particular, over a protracted period of good times, capitalist economies tend to move from a financial structure dominated by hedge finance units to a structure in which there is large weight to units engaged in speculative and Ponzi finance."

Hyman Minsky, The Financial Instability Hypothesis


"It is always the soul that dies first, even if it's departure goes unnoticed. And it always carries the body along with it. Man is nourished by the invisible, man is nourished by that which is beyond the personal. He dies from preferring the opposite."

Jacques Lusseyran, Poetry at Buchenwald


"Thus we see how the neoliberal utopia tends to embody itself in the reality of a kind of infernal machine, whose necessity imposes itself even upon the rulers. Like the Marxism of an earlier time, with which, in this regard, it has much in common, this utopia evokes powerful belief - the free trade faith - not only among those who live off it, such as financiers, the owners and managers of large corporations, etc., but also among those, such as high-level government officials and politicians, who derive their justification for existing from it.

For they sanctify the power of markets in the name of economic efficiency, which requires the elimination of administrative or political barriers capable of inconveniencing the owners of capital in their individual quest for the maximisation of individual profit, which has been turned into a model of rationality. They want independent central banks.

And they preach the subordination of nation-states to the requirements of economic freedom for the masters of the economy, with the suppression of any regulation of any market, beginning with the labour market, the prohibition of deficits and inflation, the general privatisation of public services, and the reduction of public and social expenses."

Pierre Bourdieu, L’essence du néolibéralisme

I am out of pocket this afternoon.

Here are the charts and other information for today.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Risk On! - Powell Pumps Equities With Rate Cuts Talk

"The mischief springs from the power which the moneyed interest derives from a paper currency which they are able to control."

Andrew Jackson, Farewell Address


"Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,
A hero perish, or a sparrow fall,
Atoms or systems into ruin hurled,
And now a bubble burst, and now a world."

Alexander Pope


"And if you go chasing rabbits, and you know you're going to fall
Tell 'em a hookah-smoking caterpillar has given you the call
And call Alice, when she was just small.

When the men on the chessboard get up and tell you where to go
And you've just had some kind of mushroom, and your mind is moving low
Go ask Alice, I think she'll know
When logic and proportion have fallen sloppy dead
And the white knight is talking backwards
And the red queen's off with her head
Remember what the dormouse said
Feed your head, feed your head."

Jefferson Airplane, White Rabbit

It's all just a game when you make it up, isn't it?

Stocks were on a tear higher today on the double barreled talk about a quick and favorable resolution to the Mexican tariffs question and suggestions of Fed rate cuts this year.

If the economy is so vibrant, so expansive, and the recovery is so strong, why would it be necessary for the Fed to cut rates?

Ah but that is just earthbound logic, and we have decided to create and live by our own logick and magick, and a panopoly of other profane mysteries now.  

The dollar was lower, but despite the risk on frenzy both gold and silver managed to finish higher.

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

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Risk Off - Gold Breaks Out to the Upside from the Wedge

"The received wisdom is mistaken on how recessions are made. They are not simply caused by shocks.  They are caused by a window of vulnerability in the economic cycle where the cyclical drivers of the economy have weakened to the point where it’s susceptible to a negative shock.  Within that window of vulnerability, virtually any reasonable shock becomes a recessionary shock. That’s how you get a recession."

Lakshman Achuthan, Economic Cycle Research Institute

In a similar manner one also gets a stock market crash.  Or the collapse of a long running gold pool.  What he calls a negative shock I call a 'trigger event.'

The more vulnerable and unstable a market structure may become, the less of a trigger event is required to initiate a sharp shift in valuations.

Today was definitely a 'risk off' day in the US markets.

Gold broke out and up out of the descending wedge, and with a relatively large about of energy.

As you know I had expected this to happen, but not until after the Non-Farm Payrolls report.

In contrast to May, June is an 'active' month for the gold trade, and there has been a remarkable withdrawal of gold marked as available for delivery at the NY Comex recently.

There are rumors that a bank was caught short with its pants down in gold, and it is now buying its way out, as sufficient bullion is not available in sufficient quantity, so that money must be thrown at the problem. Whoever they are, they must not be a member of the bullion bank club.

Well, in any event, it is difficult to contain a commodity market when it has been coiling with so much energy.   And so much of it has been flowing to the Asian markets, not to return at anything near to these prices.

Silver followed gold up towards its fifteen handle, settling just below that.

This breakout may not be a clear runner, but may have to back and fill a bit. Let's watch its progress, and see if the big cup and handle bottom can be activated.

Stocks slumped, and badly at times during the day, led by big cap tech.

The Trump administration is leaning on Silicon Valley. There is no love lost between Trump and the tech giants, and this makes for strange bedfellows with the progressive Democrats who also consider the antitrust aspects of companies like Facebook, Google, and Apple et al.

Let's see how the rest of this week goes. The stock decline was 'orderly' and there was a bit of a cynical bounce into the close.

Yet is this is truly a risk awareness situation, one wonders if it can be stabilized and pushed to the upside for long.

Or if the quote at the top of this posting described it, stocks will remain vulnerable, and it will take only some trigger event, some tweet, to set them rolling downhill again.

Have a pleasant evening.

Financial Crisis III: Stores of Precious Metals in Trusts and Funds - Junk Bond and Credit Market Concerns

Here is the state of the gold and silver holdings in trusts and funds.

In other matters, there were two articles about risks in the credit markets that caught my eye this weekend.

These *could be* stories spread by market operators who are hoping for turmoil in the junk bond markets.

Or on the other hand this could be signs of something which some have feared would be approaching, as we seem to keep repeating the behaviours that prompted the last two financial crises this century.

The truth is hard to discern these days— it has few friends, and even fewer willing to stand for it.

Nevertheless, I thought it would be appropriate to bring them to your attention, for what it is worth.

Greenwich Time, A New Credit Bubble Gets Ready to Burst, May 31, 2019

The Street, U.S. Officials Meet in Secret Over Junk-Loan Frenzy as Recession Alarms Flash, June 1, 2019