Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - We Are the Champions - Hubris and Nemesis

"Nemesis, the goddess of retribution and vengeance, the punisher of pride and hubris, waits impatiently for her meeting with us."

Chalmers Johnson


"This is the contempt in which they hold the majority of American people and the political process: the common people are easily led fools, and everyone else who is smart enough to know better has their price. And they would beggar every middle class voter in the US before they will voluntarily give up one dime of their ill gotten gains."

Simon Johnson, The Quiet Coup, May 2009


"As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool returns to his folly."

Proverbs 26:11


"Everyone knows that plagues have a way of recurring throughout history, yet somehow we find it hard to believe in the ones that crash down on us out of the sky. There have always been plagues and wars, yet they always take us by surprise. When war breaks out people say it's stupid and won't last long. Stupidity has a knack of getting in the way, which we would see if not wrapped up in ourselves. In this our townsfolk were like everybody else— they did not believe in plagues."

Albert Camus, The Plague

Stocks rallied hard on the news that a vaccine may be closer than thought.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Downfall - These Violent Delights

Anthonisz, Allegory of Transitoriness

"These violent delights have violent ends
And in their triumph die, like fire and powder."

William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet


“He will choose you, disarm you with his words, and control you with his presence.  He will delight you with his wit and his plans.  He will smile and deceive you, and he will scare you with his eyes.   And when he is through with you, and he will be through with you, he will desert you, and take with him your innocence and your pride."

Robert D. Hare, Without Conscience

Stocks finished lower across the board today, as the markets adjust to their recent sharp gains from the bottom, just a month or so ago.

Gold and silver showed the kind of weakness we have come to expect the day after a comex metals option expiration.

Gold seems to be in a triangle pattern that *most likely* will be a continuation pattern for its test of 1800, and beyond.

The big tickle tomorrow will be the advance 1Q GDP numbers, and of course the FOMC rate decision and press conference which will be around 1 PM.

You would hardly notice that the market recently crashed, and in a big way.

I have people ask me even recently if i thought the market would crash. It's like, 'hello?'

I guess our attention span really is that short. Or we are that convinced of our exceptionalism.

We are just still bouncing off the bottom, after the Fed and government literally tossed trillions, directly at the markets and corporate America, with a few crumbs for the sparrows in the public.

I would try not to underestimate the self-absorbed incompetency of the DNC's avaricious and badly-aging elites, but for the most part Trump is pretty much done— you can stick a fork in him.

Yeah, I know, he will maintain a hard core of highly vocal supporters even to the end, but he has lost the big money guys, and most of the discerning public. It was a try for a change, but it flopped.

His political instincts are awful, and his aversion to listening to expert advice is crippling.  He should have limited his personal exposure on this viral crisis, which for the most part was badly handled by most of Washington's leadership.

His almost childlike grabbing center stage and inability to recognize and deal with issues in an effective manner tended to highlight his weaknesses as a political leader, which are almost astonishing at times.

And yet he is hardly the worst in the wings of potential leaders from that side of polticial spectrum.

The problem is that there is a huge leadership gap with his stepping off the stage on the other side of the aisle as well.   I don't see Biden doing much except safeguarding the status quo ante for corporate America, while paying lip service to change and reform.

And seeing Hillary coming back to the stage for an encore is off-putting for a country yearning for change to say the least.   The Democrats need a makeover, badly.  They cannot do it for themselves, because they are mired in a credibility trap and big money.

The looting and imbalance will most likely continue, until change comes from some unexpected source and direction.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Interesting Comex Metals Expiration

“A narcissist paints a picture of themselves as being the victim or innocent in all aspects. They will be offended by the truth. But what is done in the dark will come to light. Time has a way of showing people’s true colors.”

Karla Grimes


"Self-love is often rather arrogant than blind; it does not hide our faults from ourselves, but persuades us that they escape the notice of others, and disposes us to resent censures lest we should confess them to be just."

Samuel Johnson, The Rambler

Stocks were rocking and rolling today, as the Russell 2000 and the SP 500 were doing the heavy sledding.

Gold and silver had an option expiration on the Comex futures today.

Gold was interesting in that the price of gold in the futures market was hit.

But many of the non-futures indicators of gold that I watch just blew the futures price action off. Ignored it.

This could get interesting.

We will be getting a number of earnings announcements this week.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Tender Mercies - Earnings Announcements and Metals Option Expiration

"Now the end is at hand. Now it is our task to find one another again, to spread information from person to person, to keep a steady purpose, and to allow ourselves no rest until the last man is persuaded of the urgent need of his struggle against this system."

The White Rose, Second Leaflet, Munich 1942


"I have hitherto been assuming that such teachers as Gains and Titius do not fully realize what they are doing and do not intend the far-reaching consequences it will actually have. There is, of course, another possibility. What I have called the trousered ape and the urban blockhead may be precisely the kind of man they really wish to produce."

C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man


"The barbarian hopes — and that is the mark of him, that he can have his cake and eat it too. He will consume what civilization has slowly produced after generations of selection and effort, but he will not be at pains to replace such goods, nor indeed has he a comprehension of the virtue that has brought them into being. We sit by and watch the barbarian. We tolerate him in the long stretches of peace, we are not afraid. We are tickled by his irreverence; his comic inversion of our old certitudes; we laugh. But as we laugh we are watched by large and awful faces from beyond, and on these faces there are no smiles.”

Hilaire Belloc


"We must live in sunshine, even when we sorrow; we must live in God's presence, we must not shut ourselves up in our own hearts, even when we are reckoning up our past sins. As many as are our sins, His grace is greater.  Our sins are more in number than the hairs of our head; yet even the hairs of our head are all numbered by Him.  He counts our sins, and, as He counts, so can He forgive; for that reckoning, great though it be, comes to an end; but His mercies fail not, and His Son's merits are infinite."

John Henry Newman

Stocks powered higher in the afternoon, going out near the highs.

It was all about 'optimism.'

And Trump signing a new virus bailout package for $484 billion.

Gold and silver had a mixed day.

There will be a precious metals option expiration on the Comex next week Monday. The calendars are below.

Have a pleasant weekend.