Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - A Gathering of Vultures

 

"What is truth? said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer."

Francis Bacon 

 

“Once they’re in power, narcissists consolidate their position by firing everyone who challenges them.  In their place rise a plague of toadies, opportunists, and enablers equally guided by self-interest and short on scruples.   So you end up with these individualistic cultures with no teamwork and low integrity."

Lee Simmons, Stanford Business School 

 

“Now we are witnessing a transformation: a true opium of the people is the belief in nothingness after death, the huge solace, the huge comfort of thinking that for our betrayals, our greed, our cowardice, our murders, that we are not going to be judged.” 

Czeslaw Milosz, The Discreet Charm of Nihilism 

 

"And they said to him, 'Where will this happen, Lord?' And He said to them, 'Where death is, there a gathering of vultures will be.'” 

Luke 17:37 

 

Stocks shook off the early morning inflation/interest rate concerns and managed to close higher.

Gold and silver also recovered quite a bit from their morning lows.

I was expecting a backfill and bounce after the  big  run higher to resistance yesterday, and that is what we got.

Gold still needs to crack higher over 1770, but if it can hold 1730 on the retests then that is fine.

The Dollar held on to the 92 handle.

The VIX dropped further.

There will be a stock market option expiration next week.

Have a pleasant weekend.

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Little Lord FedLeroy -The Pampered Princes of Wall Street

 

"In the last days there will be difficult times.    People will love only themselves and their money.  They will be boastful and proud, scoffing at God, disobedient to their parents, and ungrateful.  They will consider nothing sacred.

They will be unloving and unforgiving; they will slander others and have no self-control.  They will be cruel and hate what is good.  They will betray their friends, be reckless, be puffed up with pride, and love their own pleasure more than God.   They may act religious, but they will reject the grace that could make them righteous." 

2 Timothy 3:1-5

 

"The store-house cities [of biblical Israel] are an ancient parallel to the great banks and insurance houses where surplus wealth is kept among us. That surplus wealth, produced by the cheap labor of peasants, must now be protected from the peasants by law and by military force.

We labor and labor and labor for stuff that never satisfies us.  The market ideology is now the new form of imperial power and many of us, without any critical reflection, have signed onto that, and organized our lives in that way so we do not have any time, energy or capacity for the things that are rightly important to us, our human-ness." 

Walter Brueggemann, Truth To Power 

 

"And then many will fall by the wayside, and will hate and betray one another.  False prophets will arise, and lead the people astray.  And because of the increase in wickedness, the love of most will grow cold.  But those who stand firm in faithfulness to the end will be saved." 

Matthew 24:10-14

 

It was risk on again as stocks moved higher.

Gold and silver continued to move higher towards key resistance.

The Dollar slumped again, hanging on to the 92 handle.

VIX moved lower.

Have a pleasant evening. 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - On the Road to Emmaus - An Afternoon Boost from the Fed

 

“Fraud and falsehood only dread examination. Truth invites it.

Whoever commits a fraud is guilty not only of the particular injury to him who he deceives, but of the diminution of that confidence which constitutes not only the ease but the existence of society." 

Dr. Samuel Johnson 

 

"Price discovery is not a sexy function of markets, but it is critical to the efficient allocation of scarce capital and resources, and to the preservation of the long term wealth of investors and the economy as a whole.  If price discovery is compromised by manipulation, then we will all be gradually impoverished and the economy will be imbalanced and unstable." 

London Banker, Lies, Damn Lies, and Libor

 

Stocks were mostly unchanged, but with a slight risk on flavor after the release of the Fed minutes.

Big cap tech led the way up, with money coming out of the small caps in the Russell 2000.

Gold and silver ended mostly unchanged after a morning attempt to break up higher.

I think the chart is pretty clear what gold needs to do.  And silver will follow.

Let's see if they can get the job done.

The Dollar chopped sideways.

And the band played on. 

I think the chart shows the potential for gold to move to $4,000 within a few years at the most.

Have a pleasant evening.

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Tulips, Popular Prophets, and Beanie Babies

 

“The essence of a speculative bubble is a sort of feedback, from price increases, to increased investor enthusiasm, to increased demand, and hence further price increases.  Major speculative bubbles, as I argued in Irrational Exuberance, are always supported by some superficially-plausible popular theory that justifies them, and that is widely viewed as having sanction from some authority figures.  These may be called new-era theories.”

Robert Shiller 

 

"The term mania describes the frenzied pattern of purchases, often an increase in prices accompanied by an increase in trading volumes; individuals are eager to buy before the prices increase further. The term bubble suggests that when the prices stop increasing, they are likely – indeed almst certain – to decline.” 

Charles Kindleberger 

 

“In reading The History of Nations, we find that, like individuals, they have their whims and their peculiarities, their seasons of excitement and recklessness, when they care not what they do.  We find that whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object and go mad in its pursuit; that millions of people become simultaneously impressed with one delusion, and run after it, till their attention is caught by some new folly more captivating than the first.” 

Charles MacKay

 

Foolishness is always popular, but it seems especially so among a surprisingly large minority of the people these days.

The more foolish the subject or theory, the louder and more aggressive the followers of a delusion seem to speak.

For many, continuing the delusion seems much more attractive than the alternative, which is to admit  their foolishness, which they cling to proudly. 

Pride indeed goes before a fall.   

And it often blindly follows a more cynical and self-deluded fool into the abyss.

Stocks backed off their highs a bit today.

Gold and silver continued to advance to overhead resistance and to what could be the top of a short term trading range.

Let's see if they can break out, or if this will continue on a bit longer.

Have a pleasant evening.