Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Staggered Disbelief - Stocks Flirting with Bear Market Territory

“When pride comes, then comes disgrace.  But with disgrace comes humility, and with humility comes wisdom.  The humility of the righteous will guide them, but the stubborn and clever illusions of the proud will destroy them."

Proverbs 11


"The reason America can’t handle the coronavirus is the same reason we can’t do anything else right.  We don’t let the people who do the work have any say over how or whether the work is done.  American institutions are organized entirely around the short-term horizon of financiers, and these financiers seek to create monopolies and to grab cash by thinning out supply lines and generating hidden risk."

Matt Stoller


“We must speak truth to power, and confront ignorance with facts.  But facts are threatening to those invested in fraud.”

DaShanne Stokes

Stock futures went down limits early last night, and stayed pegged there until this morning.

On the open of the cash market the major stock indices continued to fall, and quickly triggered a market-wide trading halt.

I have market the limit down and trading halt on the index charts.

I have also marked the 20% 'bear market' level on the charts as well.

Gold soared over 1700 last night, but in the quiet was smacked down and hard. It recovered some of that and managed to close higher on the day.

The dollar continued its slide.

Silver and the miners are getting hit with bear raids. I suspect that the ringleaders on Wall Street, the Banks, are leading the charge here, to protect their own short positions, and to provide a good trading opportunity for themselves.

Although a surprisingly large number of Americans continue to believe whatever alternative facts that the financial elite and their influencers puts forward, recent events have staggered their ardent disbelief.

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

Have a pleasant evening.

When History Rhymes: Woodrow Wilson and the Spanish Flu

What Woodrow Wilson did was reprehensible, even if it was for the war effort.

But for the stock market?

"The year 1917 saw the formation of the Committee on Public Information by executive order which aimed at Wilson getting more recruits for the war. By the summer of 1918, as the disease started to tighten its grip over the country, the government was focusing on the War and encouraging people to do their bit for the War but made almost no mention on anything else.

The committee was not used to combat the pandemic and was looked over. There were also cases of people being prosecuted over public discussion of the flu.

The fact that the government was attempting to keep the 'morale' up turned out to be extremely damaging. The president had been able to sell the war to the people even though he had initially promised that America would not enter World War 1, but fell short on informing the people about a much greater threat with the potential to wipe out the world."

Ishani Ghose, The Great American Coverup


"Asked if he was concerned about the virus getting closer, Trump said: “No, I’m not concerned at all. No, I’m not. We’ve done a great job.”

Darlene Superville, Associated Press, Trump ‘not concerned’ as coronavirus cases rise in DC area, 8 March 2020


"By October 1918, the city of Washington, D.C. became a breeding ground for the highly contagious H1N1 strain of the flu. As civilian cases multiplied, local health officials initiated bans on public gatherings in order to quell the spread of infections. Across the city, public schools and universities closed their doors, and Congress and the Supreme Court adjourned.

Meanwhile, emergency hospitals opened across the District as nurses desperately tried to care for the constant influx of patients. Influenza cases continued well into the next year, disproportionately affecting healthy residents in their mid-twenties and thirties, a group normally predisposed to fight infectious disease. The infection of the strong and youthful, in addition to babies and the elderly, caused life expectancy in the U.S. to drop by twelve years in 1918."

Sarah Fling, White House History: Spanish Influenza in the President's Neighborhood


"The president struck a defiant tone as he spoke to reporters about the outbreak at his Mar a Lago resort in southern Florida, where he was hosting his Brazilian counterpart Jair Bolsonaro. "We will have tremendous rallies and we're doing very well, and we've done a fantastic job with respect to that subject," Trump responded when asked if his "Keep America Great" campaign events would continue."

AFP, Trump refuses to halt rallies as coronavirus surges


"...in April of 1917, the United States entered the First World War, and President Woodrow Wilson launched a dubious campaign to shore up popular support and suppress criticism.  He established the Committee on Public Information, whose chairman, George Creel, set out to promote what he called propaganda in the true sense of the word, meaning the ‘propagation of faith.’  Wilson also signed the Sedition Act, which criminalized 'disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the form of government' or anything else that might impede the war effort. The government put up posters around the country urging citizens to report anyone 'who spreads pessimistic stories'...

Throughout history, diseases have posed an unsparing test of political leaders and their fidelity to the facts. According to Howard Markel, a medical historian at the University of Michigan, 'From the political to the purely mercenary, secrecy has almost always contributed to the further spread of a pandemic and hindered public health management.'

Evan Osnos, How Political Spin Has Worsened Epidemics

The Dollar and Gold Diverging

"People can die from an excessive dose of the truth, you know.”

Ariel Dorfman, Death and the Maiden


“Your strength is just an accident arising from the weakness of others.”

Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness


"It's probably early days, but now might be the time to start taking precautions against a 2008 class event in the financial markets. I would suggest it might arrive anytime between now and July 2020."

Jesse, Le Cafe Americain, 24 July 2018


"My cyclical calculations and trend forecasts suggest that July 2020 may be a decisive, if not pivotal, period in our time."

Jesse, Le Cafe Americain, 26 February 2019

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - A Flight to Safety - Non-Farm Payrolls Fails To Stop Gold Haven Buying

Stocks were plummeting on the overnight.  Same old same old.

They plunged much further during the day, with the SP futures down over 100 points.  But as is now often the case they managed to take back a chunk of their losses into the close.

Gold rocketed during the early trade to 1690, in an obvious a flight to safety.

And then the Non-Farm Payrolls Party Crowd just wantonly smashed gold down to 1242, by pretty much dumping contracts into the market to 'run the stops.'

And then, having achieved their objective or more likely run out of energy, the market for gold went back up again to retest the 1690 level.   Wheee!!

If the US markets were not so serious to pension funds, corporations, and investors this would almost be funny, in the manner of the Three Stooges of trading, full of obvious nonsense and shenanigans..


I think that those who still say that there is no manipulation in these markets must have issues of one sort or another.

If the precious metals are not manipulated then they would seem to be the only market that is not, given all the scandals and serial felonies, albeit addressed by wristslaps, over that past fifteen years.

This is not a good way to support a major global industry and serve legitimate companies and customers.   But it does pay off very well for the well connected white collar criminal types, and their enablers.

Next week is next week, but most likely more of the same. I suspect we will keep seeing extreme volatility ahead, as the US financial system continues to come to terms with its own obvious mortality.

Have a pleasant weekend.