Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Listen, And I Will Tell You a Mystery

"Fear not, little flock, for your Father delights to give you welcome into His Kingdom."

Luke 12:32


"And the angel said to them, 'Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; for today in the city of David there has been born to you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a babe wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying,

'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased.'

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, 'Let us go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.'

So they left in haste, and found Mary and Joseph and the baby, who was lying in a manger. After they had seen the Child, they spread the message that they had received about Him. and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them.

Mary treasured up all these things, and pondered them in her heart."

Luke 2:10-19


"What does the modern world know of love, with its light touching of the surface of love.  It has never reached down into the depths, to the misery and pain and glory of love which endures to death and beyond it.  We have not yet begun to learn about love.  Now is the time to begin, to start afresh, to use this divine weapon."

Dorothy Day, The Catholic Worker, June 1946


"Listen, and I will tell you a mystery."

1 Cor 15:51


“We are slow to master the great truth that even now Christ is, as it were, walking among us, and by His hand, or eye, or voice, bidding us to follow Him. We do not understand that His call is a thing that takes place now. We think it took place in the Apostles' days, but we do not believe in it; we do not look for it in our own case.

Every century is like every other, and to those who live in it seems worse than all times before it.

God's presence is not discerned at the time when it is upon us, but afterwards, when we look back upon what is gone and over. The world seems to go on as usual. There is nothing of heaven in the face of society, in the news of the day.

And yet the ever-blessed Spirit of God is there, ten times more glorious, more powerful than when He trod the earth in our flesh.

God beholds you. He calls you by your name. He sees you and understands you as He made you. He knows what is in you, all your peculiar feelings and thoughts, your dispositions and likings, your strengths and your weaknesses. He views you in your day of rejoicing and in your day of sorrow. He sympathizes in your hopes and your temptations. He interests Himself in all your anxieties and remembrances, all the risings and fallings of your spirit.

He encompasses you round and bears you in His arms. He notes your very countenance, whether smiling or in tears. He looks tenderly upon you. He hears your voice, the beating of your heart, and your very breathing. You do not love yourself better than He loves you. You cannot shrink from pain more than He dislikes your bearing it; and if He puts it on you, it is as you would put it on yourself, if you would be wise, for a greater good afterwards.

There is an inward world, which none see but those who belong to it. There is an inward world into which they enter who come to Christ, though to men in general they seem as before. If they drank of Christ's cup it is not with them as in time past. They came for a blessing, and they have found a work.

To their surprise, as time goes on, they find that their lot is changed. They find that in one shape or another adversity happens to them. If they refuse to afflict themselves, God afflicts them.

Why did you taste of His heavenly feast, but that it might work in you—why did you kneel beneath His hand, but that He might leave on you the print of His wounds?

God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission -- I may never know it in this life but I shall be told it in the next.

I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for naught.

I shall do good, I shall do His work. I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place while not intending it if I do but keep His commandments.

Therefore I will trust Him. Whatever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him; in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him. If I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him.

He does nothing in vain. He knows what He is about.

He may take away my friends. He may throw me among strangers. He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide my future from me -- still He knows what He is about.

Let us feel what we really are--sinners attempting great things. Let us simply obey God's will, whatever may come. He can turn all things to our eternal good. Easter day is preceded by the forty days of Lent, to show us that they only who sow in tears shall reap in joy.

Contemplate then yourself, not as yourself, but as you are in the Eternal God. Fall down in astonishment at the glories which are around you and in you, poured to and fro in such a wonderful way that you are dissolved into the Kingdom of God.

The more we do, the more shall we trust in Christ; and that surely is no morose doctrine, that leads us to soothe our selfish restlessness, and forget our fears, in the vision of the Incarnate Son of God.

May the Lord support us all the day long, till the shades lengthen, and the evening comes, and the busy world is hushed, and the fever of life is over, and our work is done.

Then in His mercy may He give us safe lodging, and a holy rest, and peace at last.”

John Henry Newman


"In the Incarnation the whole human race recovers the dignity of the image of God. Thereafter, any attack even on the least of men is an attack on Christ, who took on the form of man, and in his own Person restored the image of God in all.  Through our relationship with the Incarnation, we recover our true humanity, and at the same time are delivered from that perverse individualism which is the consequence of sin, and recover our solidarity with all mankind."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Stocks drifted with an upwards bias on this quad witching expiration.

Gold and silver finished essentially unchanged, with silver show a little push higher. The Dollar also drifted just a little higher.

Next week will be the Christmas holiday week, and the markets will be closed early on Christmas eve and on Wednesday, December 25th for Christmas Day.

Expect trading to be light and variable, along with the morals of our leaders.

The young man is back from London after a long visit there. We will be having all sorts of guests arriving for the holidays next week.

Prime rib is on the menu, along with the usual suspects for sides.

One can do worse than a life of work and prayer, especially if it is seasoned by good friends and pleasant conversations now and then.  It is hard to lose one's best and longest friend, but there is another who is constant, in His loving kindness and tender mercies.

And then there is a joy which awaits us at the end of our days.  For all our passings here are reunions there.

The only real tragedy is not to be among the saints.  I will hold their coats and try to sneak in with the luggage.   The queen always went in first and saved me a seat, and hopefully will do so again.

Lord, pierce our hardened hearts, enlighten our minds, heal our blindness, and break the self-made chains of our pride and self-deception, so that we may choose repentance, forgiveness, thankfulness, and life.

"Today, if you hear His voice, harden not your hearts."

Hebrews 3:15

Have a pleasant weekend.

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.