Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Davos Man Dismisses Risk - Amazon Soars After the Bell

Surfing Newark Bay and the Bayonne Bridge

“The main condition for the achievement of love is the overcoming of one's narcissism. The narcissistic orientation is one in which one experiences as real only that which exists within oneself, while the phenomena in the outside world have no reality in themselves, but are experienced only from the viewpoint of their being useful or dangerous to one.

The opposite pole to narcissism is objectivity; it is the faculty to see other people and things as they are, objectively, and to be able to separate this objective picture from a picture which is formed by one's desires and fears.”

Erich Fromm, The Art of Loving

Stocks were weak most of the day.

In the afternoon the World Health Organization (WHO) gave its report on the coronavirus, and declared it a global emergency, but held off declaring travel bans, trusting to China and the nations to take the appropriate measures.

And that put a fire under stocks, and tossed risk concerns to the winds.

After the bell Amazon announced 'better than expected' numbers and big tech soared, with Amazon joining the Trillion Dollar Market Cap club.

Gold and the Dollar and VIX gave it up as it became clear that Davos Man has once again defied reality.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Brainless on the Potomac

"If you add up the market capitalizations of just four stocks, Google (Alphabet), Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon, their combined worth exceeds $5 trillion.  If you throw in Facebook, you get the top 5 biggest firms by market capitalization, and they compose an amazing 18% of the SP 500."

Michael Pento


"When we had the SARS outbreak China was 4% of the global economy.  Today it is 16%.  I think markets are right to be worried."

Danielle DiMartino Booth


"Indifference is a form of sloth, and sloth in its turn is one of the symptoms of lovelessness. One isn't lazy about what one loves. The problem is: how to love?”

Aldous Huxley, Eyeless in Gaza


"And because of the increase in lawlessness, the love of most will grow cold."

Matthew 24:12

The Fed provided little of substance today, except to reassure Wall Street and the Banks that they are quite concerned with them.

As for the broader public, not so much. A kind of grudging indifference.

Our national policies are being driven with all the depth and gravity of a Punch and Judy show.

The printing will continue until the application of force and fraud loses traction. And then comes the deluge.

Gold and silver fluctuated around today, driven by the whimsy of what passes for monetary and fiscal policy in this land of make believe.

The situation is much graver, much more serious than you might gather from listening to Trumpolini and his merry pranksters.

The mantra of the spokesmodels and the commentariat was that the Fed 'will do whatever it takes' to keep the expansion going.'   Hi ho.

It is fascinating to watch the Senate contort themselves into ever greater levels of logical absurdity and moral bankruptcy, driven alternatively by a lust for power, fear, and greed.

Be watchful, waitful, and walk carefully, one day at a time.

The oligarchy smells gullibility and blood, and is becoming increasingly audacious.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Captain America Saves the Day - Metals Hammered for Comex Expiration

Captain America

"We are the United States of Amnesia, which is encouraged by a media that has no desire to tell us the truth about anything, serving their corporate masters who have other plans to dominate us."

Gore Vidal


“The world says: 'You have needs -- satisfy them. You have as much right as the rich and the mighty. Don't hesitate to satisfy your needs; indeed, expand your needs and demand more.'  This is the worldly doctrine of today. And they believe that this is freedom. The result for the rich is isolation and suicide, for the poor, envy and murder.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov


"Full of joy, and full of sorrow,
Full of thoughts;
Yearning and trembling
In uncertain anguish;
Exulting to heaven,
Cast down unto death—
Happy alone is the soul that loves."

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Egmont

Gold and especially silver took a hit today, which was their options expiration on the Comex.

What a surprise. No notions, no pretext. Simple thievery.

Silver *might* be setting an inverse head and shoulders bottom on the weekly chart, and I have tentatively marked it as such.

Let's see how the metals make it past the FOMC announcement tomorrow, and then the rest of the week.

Stocks were in rally mode as the dread coronavirus was eradicated by the attention deficit syndrome of the Wall Street spin machine, powered by hot money and greed.

The expectation of a 'Fed put' under the market is the strongest I have seen since the tech bubble and Greenspan, the poster child for moral hazard.

I am not so foolish to think that many people will listen to what I say now.

Perhaps there will be some knowledge here for those who come back later, to see how and why a supposedly exceptional people went quietly mad.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - A Saturation of Arrogance - Comex Options Expiration Tomorrow

“Engage people with what they expect; it is what they are able to discern and confirms their projections. It settles them into predictable patterns of response, occupying their minds while you wait for the extraordinary moment — that which they cannot anticipate.”

Sun Tzu, The Art of War


“Hubris calls for nemesis, and in one form or another it's going to get it, not as a punishment from outside but as the completion of a pattern already started.”

Mary Midgley


"I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid."

T. S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

Stocks declined sharply today, from their recent lofty heights, on a sudden feeling that we are not destined to enjoy a permanent series of new highs, no matter how outsized, guaranteed by the Fed.

Despite the obvious flight to safety, and new recognition of risk reflected in the VIX and the Dollar, gold and silver were carefully managed, no doubt with respect to the precious metals option expiration on the Comex tomorrow.

Despite all the selling in stocks, marked by a huge gap down on the open, there was remarkably little fear apparent in the trading of the day, and the commentariat in the media.  There was more of a sense of resentment that the entitlements our our elites to new highs were going to be delayed by some very rude act of nature.   Ignore it, and it will simply go away. It is an epidemic of careless indignation born of arrogance.

There will be ups and downs, ebbs and flows as we once again encounter our mortality.  We have only just begun to dine on the banquet of our consequences.

Have a pleasant evening.