Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Sleepwalking Into the Abyss

"As I have stated strongly before, and just to reiterate, if Turkey does anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off limits, I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey (I’ve done before!)"

Donald J. Trump


"China uses a host of monopolizing strategies to extend its geopolitical and commercial power, everything from below cost pricing to grab market share, patent trolling, espionage, mergers, and financial manipulation. In fact, the CCP is best understood as a giant monopoly that also controls a nation of 1.4 billion people and a large military apparatus...

China’s biggest asset in gaining power was how most people in the West just didn’t realize that the CCP aimed to use it. Now China’s cover is blown. The raw exercise of power to censor a random Houston Rockets basketball executive has made millions of people take notice. Everyone knows, the Chinese government isn’t content to control its own nation, it must have all bow down to its power and authority.

Matt Stoller, How Joe Biden Empowered China's Censorship of the NBA

Matt overstates the headline I think.  The empowerment of China may have gone into higher gear with Bill Clinton perhaps, but has been fully supported by every President, both parties, and especially the moneyed interests in the US, who place their short term greed first and foremost.

Follow the money.  China is certainly not alone among organizations, and even nations, in playing on the personal greed, divided loyalties, and lust for power of our political and financial class. 

This in itself is nothing new.  But the extent of it, and the fashionable acceptance of it amongst our society's elites, the industrialization of political corruption and big money in politics, has been breathtaking.

Stocks were wobbly for much of today.

Trading volume was lackluster and the market action for the most part was 'dull.'

There was a brief rally around the middle of the day, when Larry Kudlow lit up the trading algos with talk about the progress being made in a trade deal with China.

That wore off fairly quickly, as the human beings quickly realized this was just another story designed to pump up the markets, and that there was no substance to it.

Gold and silver were off a bit and the Dollar was marginally higher in a seesaw session.

Have a pleasant evening.

Precious Metal Holdings and Commitments of Traders

Thanks to Nick Laird the data wrangler at goldchartsrus.com as always.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - RISK ON! - Sitting on Top of the World

"I have hitherto been assuming that such teachers...do not fully realize what they are doing and do not intend the far-reaching consequences it will actually have.  There is, of course, another possibility.  What I have called the trousered ape and the urban blockhead may be precisely the kind of man they really wish to produce.

The differences between us may go all the way down.  They may really hold that the ordinary human feelings about the past or animals or large waterfalls are contrary to reason and contemptible and ought to be eradicated.  They may be intending to make a clean sweep of traditional values and start with a new set."

C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man


"This explains much about how Trump — whose company has been linked with everything from housing discrimination to outright fraud — has gotten away with so much.  His standards are low; his ethics, nonexistent.  And yet he is adored by millions.  This says as much about him as it does about us."

Paul Brandus, The Real Reason Behind Trump's Meltdown


‘The banks are circling the wagons.  Somebody’s got a problem.’

Charles R. Geisst,  as quoted in There’s Nothing Normal About the Fed Pumping Hundreds of Billions Weekly to Unnamed Banks on Wall Street

Today's Non-Farm Payrolls Report missed to the downside, and the growth of wages was nil.

And so it was time for a rally!

Stocks were propelled higher. Gold and silver were off a bit, and the Dollar was also lower.

The Street was piling into risk, on the assumption that if they are bold enough in denying what is expected of them, that the Fed will be compelled to bail them out once again.

On one hand the recent reliance on daily Fed repos to balance the banking systems cash on hand could be argued to be a return to what was more commonplace in the 1980's. Of course, those were times of tremendous economic strain, now long forgotten, in the aftermath of the Volcker interest rate gambit, and the oil shocks to the economy.

But we are in some golden recovery now, right?  Jobs and the economy and booming!   And yet our financiers are clamoring for rate cuts, with rates already at historically low levels.

But then there are the deficits, which seem to be a hallmark of Republican governance.  All that debt issuance by the Treasury to finance the tax cuts for the wealthiest and corporations must surely require something extraordinary to support it.

It is the mark of our genius to hold several contradictory assumptions and observations at the same time, and blithely push on as though they were all tied together by impeccable reason.

Like the recent weather, that flashes from hot humid summer to the crisp coolness of autumn overnight, we seem to be finding our balance in the extremes.  The madness of one side is answered with the obsessive madness of the other.  Madness abounding, and so it all seems chaotic, but normal—  the new normal, thoroughly modern, so climb on board.

But still, there is that nagging feeling that something behind the scenes is going extraordinarily wrong, and that our complacency and confidence are at best bravado, but at worst a kind of madness.  And who can call it madness if all our best and brightest deny it?  What happens if we declare madness to be common sense, a sign of proper belonging, or even a patriotic duty?

As Sir John Harington once noted, 'Treason doth never prosper.  What's the reason?  Why if it prosper, none dare call it treason.'  And say we same the same for madness?  If we are all mad together, who but the mad would call it madness?

There is a feeling that despite all the talk of our exceptionalism and glorious excellence, that something very wicked this way comes.  That one cannot make their deal with the devil without paying, at long last, some terrible price.

Quid pro quo, Clarice?

Do not be deceived, for God is not mocked. Whatever a man sows, so shall he reap.

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

Have a pleasant weekend.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Justice, For Some - Non-Farm Payrolls Tomorrow

"Free Markets"

"The IRS audits the working poor at about the same rate as the wealthiest 1%.  Now, in response to questions from a U.S. senator, the IRS has acknowledged that’s true but professes it can’t change anything unless it is given more money.

ProPublica reported the disproportionate audit focus on lower-income families in April. Lawmakers confronted IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig about the emphasis, citing our stories, and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., asked Rettig for a plan to fix the imbalance.  Rettig readily agreed.

Last month, Rettig replied with a report, but it said the IRS has no plan and won’t have one until Congress agrees to restore the funding it slashed from the agency over the past nine years — something lawmakers have shown little inclination to do."

ProPublica, IRS: It’s Just Easier and Cheaper to Audit the Poor


"Since the first Fed rate cut, these are what the stock market benchmarks have done: Dow -2.9%; S&P 500 -3.1%; Nasdaq -4.8%; Russell 2000 -6.0%.   Even before today’s slide, the small-caps were down 14% from their peaks and are flashing warning signs for the broader market.  As an aside, when the ISM has hit 47.8 in the past, it rarely bottomed there and indicates 60%+ chance that the recession is about to start."

David Rosenberg

The ISM Services number came in very weakly this morning, missing all estimates.

And so stocks and the dollar took a dive, and gold and silver rallied.

But the wiseguys were not to be denied, and used the quiet afternoon to walk stocks back up to a gain.

The Non-Farm Payrolls number tomorrow could be a market mover, one way or the other. I did not take positions on the bearish side overnight because the NFP is far too easy for the executive branch to manipulate in the short term.

And the brazen obviousness of the lies coming out of Washington are just stunning.

We  are in the land of oligarchs, and their demagogues and stooges.

Have a pleasant evening.