Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Wax On - Stocks Parabolic Into the Quad Witch Expiration

“Crime, once exposed, has no refuge but in audacity.”

Tacitus


"At times God will be the only witness to your righteous behavior.  Sometimes God is the only one who will understand your motives.  At such times all you can do is maintain your integrity, trusting that God always keeps His eyes on you.  God looks favorably upon those who walk with integrity, doing what they know is right, regardless of how others perceive their actions.  The most important thing is that you are a person of integrity before God."

Henry Blackaby, Integrity Upheld


“Evil, when we are in its power, is not felt as evil but as a necessity, or even a duty. Power is as pitiless to the man who possesses it, or thinks he does, as it is to its victims; the latter it crushes, the former it intoxicates. The truth is, no one really possesses it."

Simone Weil

Stocks went out on the highs today in remarkably quiet trading, with all the flavor of a drift higher.

This is probably for the benefit of the big quad witching option expiration tomorrow, the last of the decade.

Although the eyes of the market players are on the year end as well, which is remarkably closer than we may realize.

Destiny calling.

You can do this.  But not everyone can.  Help them whenver you can, with forgiving kindness, but without allowing them to pull you into their ways.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Snow Squalls and Whiteouts - Quad Witch Expiration

Cromwell:  Sir Richard is appointed Attorney General for Wales.
Thomas More:  For Wales. Why Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world—  but for Wales?"

Robert Bolt, A Man For All Seasons


"It is not possible to found a lasting power upon injustice, perjury, and treachery. These may, perhaps, succeed at first, and limp along on hope for awhile with a flourishing appearance.  But time betrays their weakness, and they eventually fall into ruin of their own designs."

Demosthenes


“They are hypocrites—  they think the Church is a cage to keep God in, so he will stay locked up there and not go wandering about the earth during the week, poking his nose into their business, and looking in the depths and darkness and doubleness of their hearts, and their lack of true charity; and they believed they need only be bothered about him on Sundays when they have their best clothes on and their faces straight, and their hands washed and their gloves on, and their stories all prepared.”

Margaret Atwood

We are heading into what is expected to be the biggest quad witch option expiration of the year this Friday.

The tape is being managed, closely and carefully.   And it is likely to continue to be so while organic trading activity, especially selling, remains quiet.

Stocks were largely unchanged today.

Gold and silver were down a little, the Dollar was up a little.

Trumpolini is getting himself impeached today most likely, as a result of a number of very bad decisions taken against advice.  And ironically, he can thank the record gains made in the House by the Democrats in the 2018 election, for which he himself was largely responsible.

As I noted last month, "The major defense is going to be political. This is going to be the 'so what' defense. When you don't have the law or the facts, just pound the table. Just lie boldly, yell at people, attack them personally, and try to scare them into silence and submission. So what if Trump did all these things. They are not impeachable, and the GOP in the Senate will not act upon any charges in a suitably judicial manner, because they can."

And so here we are at last.

As Sophocles noted, 'many are the wonders, but nothing stranger than man.'

We have dark snow squalls and wind-whining whiteouts moving through.    It is really quite impressive to see.

But this darkness will pass quickly.

I am less optimistic about the other kinds of darkness falling over the land.

 For God is not mocked for long.  And we are just about due.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Ice Storm - Quiet Trading Day

"Demagogues are willing to do or say anything to gain office or to consolidate their power.  Unconstrained by ideology, they have no concern for the consequences of their actions.  Anything that serves to make them more powerful is good enough for them — even if the political system that facilitated their rise should be destroyed in the process.

This, rather than some deep similarity to fascism, also explains the affinity between demagogues and political violence.  True fascists venerate violence but also want to make it serve a purpose larger than themselves, like territorial conquest.  Demagogues, on the other hand, tap into the most violent currents in a population simply to bolster their own popularity.

In the process, they often unleash lethal damage.  They wreck the informal rules of civility that democracies require to survive.  Once voters are activated along violent lines and fervently believe the myths propagated by the demagogue, the dam is broken;  the ordinary rules of democratic politics no longer apply, and there is no telling what might come next."

Daniel Ziblatt


"The inability to identify with others was unquestionably the most important psychological condition for the fact that something like Auschwitz could have occurred in the midst of more or less civilized and innocent people.  What is called 'fellow traveling' [collaboration] was primarily business interest: one pursues one’s own advantage before all else and, simply not to endanger oneself, does not talk too much. That is a general law of the status quo."

Theodor Adorno


"I will not bow, and God grant that we will never bow, before the gods of evil."

Martin Luther King, But If Not

Here are the charts for today.

There will be a fairly important stock options expiration on Friday.

This is driving much of the short term action in a lightly traded, pre-holiday week.

That, and the billions and billions in cheap money that the Fed is giving in bundles to the Wall Street Banks.

Sociopaths like to imagine themselves as powerful, inspiring fear in others.  They practice outrageous behaviour, to intimidate and shame others.  They often seek power in the world of money, for example, having a taste for crime which makes them feel special and privileged, but not for actual violence of the hardened criminal.

They may offer quite a show on the surface, effecting the loud and effusive manner of the rough and tough.  But inside are half-formed and emotionally stunted people who lash out at others for the emptiness and pain that they feel life has given to them.   They may become increasingly paranoid and prone to uncontrollable acting out as their tall tales and grand visions of themselves unravel.

And these are the people who too drive the management and shape the formation of our public principles.   This is why the rule of law is paramount, and why no one can be allowed to rise above it.

This is the Achilles heel of unrestrainged free market capitalism which assumes that everyone is rational and virtuous.  What a fatal error! Especially in a system that appeals to atomizing motives such as selfishness and greed, and seeks to reward and empower the worst in us.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Greatest Show on Earth - Stock Option Expiration on Friday

"O, for a muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention,
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!"

William Shakespeare, Prologue, Henry V


"Since God has accepted you to be among the holy people that He loves, you must clothe yourselves with tender mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Make allowances for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must also forgive others.

Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which brings us all together in harmony. And let the peace of the Lord rule in your hearts. For as members of one body you are called to live in peace. And always be thankful."

Col 3:12-15

Stocks were on a pre-holiday tear higher today, starting in the late hours last night.

The Fed is filling the stockings of Wall Street with bundles of easy money.

Gold and silver were up slightly and the dollar closed a bit lower.

The fantastic, every-retreating trade deal remains tantalizingly on the keyboard of Twitter Trumpolini.

There is a fairly important stock market option expiration on Friday.

Shenanigans are already well underway.

The weather here is rather rotten with freezing rain and icing moving in with the afternoon commute.

A good opportunity to make some bone broth soup.   I use a method of my own, but it is similar to this.

And a happy birthday to Ludwig von Beethoven.

Have a pleasant evening.