Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Stocks Fizzle - Non-Farm Payrolls Report Coming

"Bullies are not as sophisticated or as smooth as the manipulative type, as they rely on coercion, abuse, humiliation, harassment, aggression, and fear to get their way.  Psychopathic bullies do not feel remorse, guilt, or empathy. They lack any insight into their own behavior, and seem unwilling or unable to moderate it, even when it is to their own advantage.

They are adept at manipulating people—pulling the strings—from a distance, in order to get those directly under their control to abuse or bully those lower down in the organization. Because they see most people as weak, inferior, and easy to deceive, psychopathic con artists will often tell you that their victims deserved what they got."

Paul Babiak and Robert Hare, Snakes in Suits

Stocks took a run at another day of gains, but pretty much gave them all up into the close, going out on the lows.

Except for big cap tech of course. Digital will save us.

Gold took a real shot, in part because of a stronger dollar, but mostly as anticipated with a Non-Farm Payrolls Report coming up on Friday.

I am wondering if we get the hit up front, and then gold bases and resumes its rally with the news.

Well, we will have to see on this. It's not like fundamentals are driving much.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Happy Cinco de Mayo - Stock Rally Fades in the Last Hour

"He has shown you what is good. The Lord requires you to act justly, and to love kindness and mercy, and to walk humbly with your God."

Micah 6:8


"People who know nothing of God and whose lives are centered on themselves, imagine that they can only find themselves by asserting their own desires and ambitions and appetites in a struggle with the rest of the world.  They try to become real by imposing themselves on other people, by appropriating for themselves some share of the limited supply of created goods and thus emphasizing the difference between themselves and the other men who have less than they, or nothing at all."

Thomas Merton


"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


"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 were in risk on rally mode today.

They were full steam ahead, until the last hour, when reality intruded and they gave up a chunk of their gains.

The Dollar and gold and silver were higher.

We can look forward to a Non-Farm Payrolls report on Friday.

I was very busy today outside doing yardwork, and then helping review my son's thesis which he submitted today.

And I gave Dolly a bath. She was not happy.

There are many voices in this world.

We choose those to which we listen. Those are the ones that we love, for whatever reason.

Some say that they would listen to the good news, but God does not speak to them.

He does speak. He speaks as directly as He had done when He walked this earth among us.

We choose not to listen.

Because we wish to please ourselves.

We will reap as we sow.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Non-Farm Payrolls Report on Friday

Stocks faltered a bit off the open, but gained ground and managed to end the day higher led by big cap tech.

Gold and the Dollar gained a bit while silver gave up a little ground, and the 15 handle.

Need little, want less, love more, for those who abide in love abide in God, and God in them.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - May

"It is an old maxim and a very sound one, that he that dances should always pay the fiddler.  Now, sir, in the present case, if any gentlemen, whose money is a burden to them, choose to lead off a dance, I am decidedly opposed to the people's money being used to pay the fiddler...

These capitalists generally act harmoniously, and in concert, to fleece the people, and now, that they have got into a quarrel with themselves, we are called upon to appropriate the people's money to settle the quarrel."

Abraham Lincoln, Speech in the Illinois Legislature Concerning the State Bank, 11 January 1837


“But you can't make people listen.  They have to come round in their own time, wondering what happened, and why the world blew up around them.”

Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451


"Dividers speak evil about things that are different, 'the other,' or which they do not understand. Like instinctive animals, they follow wherever their passions lead them, and so they bring about their destruction. What sorrow awaits them. For they follow in the footsteps of Cain, who killed his own brother. Like Balaam, they deceive other people for money. And like Korah, they destroy themselves with their rebellious natures.

If they eat with you in your fellowship meals of the Lord’s love, they are hidden and dangerous reefs that can shipwreck you. They are shameless shepherds who care only for themselves. They are like clouds blowing over the land but not giving any rain. They are like wild waves of the sea, which churn up foam with their shameful deeds. They are orphaned stars, doomed to wander forever in blackest darkness.

People like this are detractors and complainers, living only to satisfy their desires. They are loudly boastful and arrogant, bragging loudly about themselves, and flattering others to get what they want."

Jude 1:10-13,16

Stocks gave up much of the bubbly, optimistic gains that market had taken at the end of the quarter in the past two days.

Gold and silver moved a bit lower, with the Dollar steady.

Next week we will see a Non-Farm payrolls report on Friday.

The consensus is for a fairly hefty loss of jobs.

Have a pleasant weekend.