Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - On the Brink, Dancing Blindly - Tail Risk and a Banquet of Consequences

'Tail Risk'

“You cannot play with the animal in you without becoming wholly animal, play with falsehood without forfeiting your right to truth, play with cruelty without losing your sensitivity of mind. He who wants to keep his garden tidy does not reserve a plot for weeds.

Your cravings as a human animal do not become a prayer just because it is God whom you ask to attend to them.

God does not die on the day when we cease to believe in a personal deity. But we die on the day when our lives cease to be illumined by the steady radiance, renewed daily, of a wonder the source of which is beyond all reason.

For all that has been,
thank you.

For all that will be,
yes."

Dag Hammarskjöld, Markings


“Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lies comes to a point when he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.

What is hell?   It is the pain of being unable to love.”

Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov


"Love does not make you weak, because it is the source of all strength, but it makes you see the nothingness of the illusory strength on which you depended before you knew it."

Léon Bloy

It was another 'risk on' day, although that was barely enough to keep the major indices treading water.

Gold and silver were flattish as the Dollar continued to decline.

The mispricing of risk is due to several factors. The misappropriation of the nation's money supply by the Fed and its Banks looms large. But the awful fiscal policy of Washington, driven by an oligarchy, and the steady drumbeat of propaganda from the corporatist think tanks and their media courtiers is not all that far behind.

Not one thing has changed.   Except perhaps that the Fed has started to apply heavier doses of plaster to cover the rot in the walls and the foundation of the economy.

Personally I think that we are on the brink of a hair-raising sell off, that will seemingly come out of nowhere. The actual 'trigger event' may even seem incidental, although there are plenty of candidates that could be more momentous. But it will have its roots in deception, and the mispricing of risks.

The elite and their courtiers are increasingly at a divergence from reality.  And the many naive and innocent and corruptible who have been slavishly mouthing their slogans and platitudes are in for a major case of cognitive dissonance.

It is one thing to fill your own mind with the dishonest nonsense written for personal gain by con men and demagogues.  It is obviously from a foul source because there is no love in it, only derision, delusion, harshness, and selfishness.

Once we are made to see ourselves and things we have done as they are, the sorrow and repentance that we may feel may be painful to see, especially for those who have led others, such as their children, astray.

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

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Things Are What We Say They Are - Stock Market Option Expiration on Friday

Are you going to believe your lying eyes, or me?

"The banks must be restrained, and the financial system reformed, and balance restored to the economy, before there can be any sustained recovery."

Jesse, July 2009


"He who does not shout the truth when he knows it makes himself the accomplice of liars and forgers."

Charles Péguy


“Man has places in his heart which do not yet exist— and into them enters suffering, in order that they may have life.”

Léon Bloy


"Abide with me. Fast falls the eventide;
The darkness thickens. Lord, with me abide
When other helpers fail, and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, O Lord abide with me."

Henry Francis Lyte

Stocks were on the wobbles today, as the euphoria over the impending China trade and EU-UK Brexit deals paled a bit in the harsh light of day.

Retail sales missed this morning casting a further pall on the prevailing narrative of The Recovery™.

But it did spark thoughts of the next rate cut, which drove the dollar lower.

After the bell IBM and Netflix both missed their key metrics.  

Netflix initially plunged, but then remarkably and sharply rallied back to the green based on some rosy projections for the future.  Confidence restored! The transformation will be made, from growth unicorn to a 'value stock.'

Smells like teen spirit. Or something like that.

Trumpolini reassures us that the situation in northern Syria is 'nicely under control.'

As a reminder there is a stock option expiration on Friday.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Hope Floats - Stock Option Expiration on Friday

"Among the items of interest in JPMorgan Chase’s written [earnings] presentation was that it spent $6.7 billion in this past third quarter buying up its own stock and thus boosting its stock price artificially beyond outside investor demand. The third quarter buybacks of its stock came on top of spending $5 billion in the second quarter and $4.7 billion in the first quarter, bringing its net repurchases of its own stock just so far this year to a whopping $16.4 billion — money that could have otherwise gone to loans to small businesses to kickstart innovation and job growth in America.

The [House Financial Services'] Subcommittee notes that buybacks have skyrocketed from less than $200 billion in 2000 to a record $811 billion last year. The mega banks on Wall Street are responsible for a big chunk of those dollars.

Another unprecedented and totally crazy aspect of today’s banking scene is that criminal felony charges no longer matter. You can be a bank like JPMorgan Chase, holding $1.6 billion in deposits for risk-adverse savers, while also being regularly charged with crimes."

Pam and Russ Martens, Capping the Craziest Banking Era in US History

Stocks were off to the races today, on optimism for both a US-China trade deal and a Brexit deal.

The usual Banks (JP Morgan Chase, BofA, Citi, Barclays, Deutsche Bank) have been accused of long term collusion and criminal practices in rigging the bond market in Mexico. Ho hum.

There will be a stock market option expiration on Friday.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Corruption of the Public Mind and Flight Into Fantasy

"It is no exaggeration to say that since the 1980s, much of the global financial sector has become criminalised, creating an industry culture that tolerates or even encourages systematic fraud. The behaviour that caused the mortgage bubble and financial crisis of 2008 was a natural outcome and continuation of this pattern, rather than some kind of economic accident.

This behaviour is criminal. We are talking about deliberate concealment of financial transactions that aided terrorism, nuclear weapons proliferation and large-scale tax evasion; assisting in major financial frauds and in concealment of criminal assets; and committing frauds that substantially worsened the worst financial bubbles and crises since the Depression.

And yet none of this conduct has been punished in any significant way."

Charles H. Ferguson, Heist of the century: Wall Street's role in the financial crisis


"Gold is a trust anchor.  With shares, bonds and other securities: there is a risk to everything.  If things go wrong, prices may fall.  But, crisis or not, a gold bar always holds value.  Central banks such as DNB have traditionally had a lot of gold in their house.  Gold is the ultimate 'nest egg': the trust anchor for the financial system.  If the entire system collapses, the gold stock provides a collateral to start over.   Gold gives confidence in the power of the central bank's balance sheet.  That gives a safe feeling."

Dutch Central Bank Statement


"Being in a position to know and nevertheless shunning knowledge creates direct responsibility for the consequences.”

Albert Speer


"Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy."

Captain G. M. Gilbert, Army Psychologist, Nuremberg Trials


"Those who corrupt the public mind are just as evil as those who steal from the public purse."

Adlai Stevenson

The oligarchs and demagogues of Rome famously provided their public with 'bread and circuses.'

We are being given platitudes and fantasy, often designed to keep the readers in a continual state of distraction, and outrage, addicted to the consumption of junk food and cheap thrills for the mind. 

Stocks vacillated around unchanged today. They could not really bring themselves to admit that the 'trade deal' was just another story.

But it was an odd sort of day. The VIX dropped again, but the Dollar, gold, and silver were all higher together.

Let's see how earnings and the international news affect prices this week.

There will be a stock options expiration on Friday.

Have a pleasant evening.