Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Corporate Buybacks Are the Stock Market

"There is no clean way to make a hundred million bucks.  Somewhere along the line guys got pushed to the wall, nice little businesses got the ground cut out from under them.  Decent people lost their jobs.  Big money is big power, and big power gets used wrong."

Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye


"The very banality and innocence of the first act only allowed the blow to fall afterwards with more awful effect.”

Robert W. Chambers, The King In Yellow


"There is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself.”

Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye

No worries, as long as corporations can keep dodging taxes and borrowing on the cheap.

And the band played on.

Stocks were off quite a bit today on a worse than expected ISM Manufacturing number, and a fresh round of trade war headlines.

The underpinnings of the markets are a bit thin, and hardly resilient.

Gold and silver were flattish despite the weaker Dollar and the elevated VIX.

The action in the December gold contract is very strong as expected. I  have included the latest clearing report from the CME below.

People go mad in herds, it is said, but come back to their senses one at a time.

Have a pleasant evening.

Welcome to December

Not much snow so far, but everything outside is covered with sleet and ice.

Frosty.

The grocery stores saw a brisk trade yesterday afternoon and this morning, I'd say.

The real snow is supposed to start showing up tomorrow afternoon until Tuesday morning.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Light Equity Trading, Brisk December Gold Contract Action Reported

“Whoever commits a fraud is guilty not only of the particular injury to him who he deceives, but of the diminution of that confidence which constitutes not only the ease but the existence of society."

Samuel Johnson


"The world of finance hails the invention of the wheel over and over again, often in a slightly more unstable version.”

John Kenneth Galbraith


"Make no mistake about it, just as Lehman Brothers was set up to take the fall for triggering the 2008 collapse, China is being groomed as the new scapegoat for the coming crisis. But China’s economic slump is only a symptom, not the disease.

The reality is that the repeal of Glass-Steagall ushered in the greatest wealth transfer scheme in the history of America, allowing six mega banks in America to control the vast majority of insured deposits, use those taxpayer-backed deposits to gamble for the house, loot the bank from the inside by paying billions of dollars to select employees and customers and then hand the gambling tab to the taxpayer when the casino burns down. This model is a staggering headwind on both U.S. and global growth because it has created the greatest wealth and income inequality since the Great Depression."

Pam and Russ Martens


“Each day we are becoming a creature of splendid glory, or one of unthinkable horror.”

C. S. Lewis

There was the expected brisk action in the December gold contract reported today. I have included the clearing report below. Because of the holiday there were no inventory reports at the market close.

Stocks drifted lower, in anticipation of a protracted lack of forward progress in the US-China trade talks.

Market risks remain elevated and under-anticipated.

There will be a Non-Farm Payrolls report next week.  I have included the economic calendar for next week below.

The banks must be restrained, and balance restored to the economy, and the dark money power limited from its manipulation of policy, politics, and public discourse, before there can be any sustainable recovery.

We had these things, put in place many years ago, and we allowed them to be slowly but surely eroded away.

Have a pleasant weekend.

Thanksgiving 2019

"Rejoice in the Lord always; and again I say, rejoice.   Let your gentleness and consideration be known to all, for the Lord is always near.   Do not be anxious about anything.  But with prayer, and by supplication, and with thanksgiving, let your needs be made known unto God.  And the peace of the Lord, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds, in Christ Jesus."

Philippians 4:4-7


"Our Lord's love shines forth as much in the simplest of souls as it does in the most highly gifted, as long as there is no refusal of His grace."

Thérèse Martin de Lisieux

May the peace of the Lord, which surpasses all understanding, be with you and yours, always.

DÜRER, St. Jerome In His study

"The blessed John the Evangelist lived in Ephesus until extreme old age [age 94 c 100 AD).   His disciples could barely carry him to church and he could not muster the voice to speak many words.  During individual gatherings he usually said nothing but, 'Little children, love one another.'   The disciples and brothers in attendance, annoyed because they always heard the same words, finally said, 'Teacher, why do you always say this?'  He replied with a line worthy of John: 'Because it is the Lord's commandment, and if it alone is kept, it is sufficient.'"

Jerome, Commentary on Galatians, based on the commentaries of Origen of Alexandria