Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Deal with the Devil - Precious Metals Rebound From Obvious Manipulation

 

"I write to you from a disgraced profession. Economic theory, as widely taught since the 1980s, failed miserably to understand the forces behind the financial crisis.  Concepts including 'rational expectations,' 'market discipline,' and the 'efficient markets hypothesis' led economists to argue that speculation would stabilize prices, that sellers would act to protect their reputations, that caveat emptor could be relied on, and that widespread fraud therefore could not occur.  Not all economists believed this – but most did. 

Control frauds always fail in the end. But the failure of the firm does not mean the fraud fails: the perpetrators often walk away rich.  At some point, this requires subverting, suborning or defeating the law. This is where crime and politics intersect.  At its heart, therefore, the financial crisis was a breakdown in the rule of law in America.   In this situation, let me suggest, the country faces an existential threat.  Either the legal system must do its work.  Or the market system cannot be restored." 

James K. Galbraith, May 16, 2010

 

"They [moneyed interests] are ruthlessly going forward to eliminate land, labour, entrepreneurial-managerial skills, and everything else the economists once told us were the chief elements of production.  The only element of production they are concerned with is the one they can control: capital." 

Carroll Quigley, The State of the Individual

 

“The fine thing about pacts with the devil is that when you sign them you are well aware of their conditions.   Otherwise, why would you be recompensed with hell?”

Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose

 

Stocks were mixed again, with the SP500 moving higher, and the tech heavy NDX continuing to move lower.

The Dollar fell slightly, giving back the 93 handle.  

Gold and silver rebounded sharply from the recent overnight assault on the integrity of the precious metals futures markets.  

The stock market is in an obvious bubble, to be followed once again by a crisis and collapse.

If it not so much if but when.

And no one could have seen it coming. 

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Least of These

 

"Those among the rich who are not, in the rigorous sense, damned, can understand poverty, because they are poor themselves, after a fashion; they cannot understand destitution.  Capable of giving alms, perhaps, but incapable of stripping themselves bare, they will be moved, to the sound of beautiful music, at Jesus’s sufferings, but His Cross, the reality of His Cross, will horrify them.  They want it all out of gold, bathed in light, costly and of little weight; pleasant to see, hanging from a woman’s beautiful throat. 

 In the end, the only real tragedy is not to have been a saint."

Léon Bloy

 

“A man who lies to himself, and believes his own lies, becomes unable to recognize truth, either in himself or in anyone else, and he ends up losing respect for himself and for others.  When he has no respect for anyone, he can no longer love, and in him, he yields to his impulses, indulges in the lowest form of pleasure, and behaves in the end like an animal in satisfying his vices.  And it all comes from lying — to others and to yourself.” 

Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

 

“Then the rich man said, ‘I beg you, Father Abraham, send Lazarus to my father’s house.  For I have five brothers for him to warn, so that they also will not come to this place of desolation and torment.’ 

But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets.  Let them listen to them.’ 

But the rich man again said, ‘No, Father Abraham, but if someone from the dead comes back and speaks to them, they will repent.’ 

And Abraham said, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, neither will they listen if someone tells them who has risen from the dead!’”

Luke 16:27-31

Stocks were mixed today, with the SP 500 unchanged and the NDX lower.

The Dollar was slightly higher.

Gold and silver were largely unchanged.

The miners were once again under pressure.

Have a pleasant evening.

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Because They Can, Without Meaningful Accountability

 

"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.

Over the past 25 years the forces of regulatory liberalisation and demutualisation of markets have allowed the largest global banks to set the rules, processes and infrastructure of global markets to their own self-interested requirements." 

London Banker, Lies, Damn Lies, and LIBOR 

 

"This is the Dr. Evil strategy, as so named by the US traders who got nailed pulling this baloney in the European bond market some years ago.  It is a massive dumping of contracts into a dull market for the purpose of gaming the price to achieve some objective." 

Jesse, 21 September 2018

 

"Most of them became wealthy by being well connected and crooked. And they are creating a society in which they can commit hugely damaging economic crimes with impunity, and in which only children of the wealthy have the opportunity to become successful. That’s what I have a problem with. And I think most people agree with me." 

Charles Ferguson, Predator Nation

 

"No lie can live forever." 

Thomas Carlyle

 

The data shows that about 24,000 gold futures contracts with a nominal value of 4 Billion in gold were dumped in the quiet overnight trading hours.

I wish we could be surprised by this, but it is an all too common event in US markets.  In all these years I have learned to trade around it and live with it.   But it is still discouraging to see this sort of thing so quietly tolerated.

There was no fundamental reason for this 'flash crash.'   But you would not have picked the details of this up from the facts-lite description of this by the Wall Street spokesmodels and bubblevision bobbleheads.

Europe has taken steps to curb this malicious practice by the Banks in their bond markets, limiting the amount of heedless selling (dumping) that can be done in short periods of time in quiet markets.

The US continues to tolerate this and other abuses of its markets.   It is particularly brazen in gold because it does not offend the powers that be in the Fed and Treasury, who look on it somewhat favorably.

Until this corruption is rooted out of its monopolized and under-regulated markets there can be no sustainable economic recovery in the US.

That's why we can't have nice things.   It's an oligarchy, dominated by rigged markets and monopolies, and paid-for politicians, so that a very few benefit the most, without a meaningful counterbalance and accountability.

And now back to your favorite distractions,  junk calls and spam emails, healthcare system landmines, demagogues, conflict entrepreneurs, and conmen.

Have a pleasant evening.

 

 

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - All Hail The RecoveryTM

 

“Do not accept anything as the truth if it lacks love.  And do not accept anything as love is it lacks the truth.  One without the other is a destructive lie. When you seek truth you seek God, whether you know it or not.

My God, fill my soul with holy joy, courage and strength to serve You.  Kindle your love in me and then walk with me along the next stretch of road before me.  I do not see very far ahead, but when I have arrived where the horizon closes down, a new prospect will open before me, and I shall meet it with peace.” 

St. Edith Stein

 

"Only the humble believe in Him and rejoice that God is so free and so marvelous that He does wonders where people despair, that He takes what is little and lowly and makes it marvelous.  And that is the wonder of all wonders, that God loves the lowly.   God is not ashamed of the lowliness of human beings.  God marches right in. He chooses people as his instruments and performs His wonders where one would least expect them.   God is near to lowliness; He loves the lost, the neglected, the unseemly, the excluded, the weak, and the broken. 

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 

 

“No one in the world can change Truth. What we can do and and should do is to seek truth and to serve it when we have found it. The real conflict is the inner conflict. Beyond armies of occupation and the catacombs of extermination camps, there are two irreconcilable enemies in the depth of every soul: good and evil, sin and love. And what use are the victories on the battlefield if we are ourselves are defeated in our innermost personal selves?” 

Maximilian Kolbe

 

The Jobs report came in much stronger than expected.

And so the taper-related bets were reversed.

The Dollar rallied.

The metals and miners were hammered.

Stocks of the big cap story variety were off, jonesing for more bubble.

The SP 500 rose to a new high.

Real worldly concerns were pushed aside and forgotten.  At least for now. 

In the long run there is only one trade that really matters.  

For what does it profit a man...

Have a pleasant weekend.