Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Another Comex Options Expiration - Bluster and Bravado

"Another toast to Citizens United, gentlemen?"

"It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes."

Andrew Jackson, On the Second Bank of the United States


"Jim, lad, there be consequences an' then there be consequences. Devil take 'em all, says I, and pass aft the rum."

Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island

It was a risk on day today, with the prospects for risky assets rising higher on a wave of hot air.

The NDX was a huge non-confirmation of this latest rally, as the futures actually finished unchanged. The SP futures did better but still gave up much of their gains.

Gold was hit hard as expected for a key futures month in option expiration. Silver gave up its gains and finished in the red as well.

The Dollar was lower.

Today was an excellent example of the deep and cynical corruption of the financial system, overfunded and underregulated.

Let's see how the rest of the week goes.

The young man is back from England, working from home now at his new job. He is in two weeks quarantine here. I bought the supplies today for a small garden, so he can fulfill his new interests in that regard in addition to his technical work.

We always had a modest garden, but over the past years had taken it down and returned it to the lawn.

As Cicero noted, 'if you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.'

Have a pleasant evening.

Memorial Day 2020

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war.

We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.

It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.”

Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863


"The pride of nationalism, however, trumpets its country's virtues and denies its deficiencies, while it is contemptuous toward the virtues of other countries.  It wants to be, and proclaims itself to be, 'the greatest', but greatness is not required of a country; only goodness is."

Sydney J. Harris


“Can we actually suppose that we are wasting, polluting, and making ugly this beautiful land for the sake of patriotism and the love of God? Perhaps some of us would like to think so, but in fact this destruction is taking place because we have allowed ourselves to believe, and to live, a mated pair of economic lies: that nothing has a value that is not assigned to it by the market; and that the economic life of our communities can safely be handed over to the great corporations."

Wendell Berry

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Holiday Weekend - Tempting Fate

“Berlin. I used to love this old city. But that was before it had caught sight of its own reflection and taken to wearing corsets laced so tight that it could hardly breathe. I loved the easy, carefree philosophies, the cheap jazz, the vulgar cabarets and all of the other cultural excesses that characterized the Weimar years and made Berlin seem like one of the most exciting cities in the world.”

Philip Kerr, Berlin Noir: March Violets


“Love is hard to find, hard to keep, and hard to forget.”

Alysha Speer

Stocks were weak once again, but managed to climb up in the very lightly traded afternoon, as they have been often wont to do.

Gold and silver fluctuated ahead of the June option expiration on Tuesday.

There will be a three day holiday for Memorial Day.

Consequences to follow.

Have a pleasant weekend.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Golden Age of White Collar Crime - Metals Option Expiration on Tuesday 26th

"So, in a curious lurid calm which could not last and yet, it seemed, could not end, the days went by.”

Iris Murdoch


"An entrenched, unfettered class of superpredators is wreaking havoc on American society. And in the process, they've broken the only systems capable of stopping them."

Michael Hobbes, The Golden Age of White Collar Crime

Stocks were slack today, although the broader Russell 2000 futures held up to close unchanged.

Gold and silver were hit hard ahead of the three day weekend with a key futures option expiration coming on Tuesday the 26^th.

Let's see how we go into the three day Memorial Day weekend.

Have a pleasant evening.