Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Two Fed Presidents 'Retire Early' - Comex October Gold Option Expiration

 

"Dallas Fed President, Robert Kaplan, wasn’t just trading like an aggressive hedge fund kingpin in 2020, he’s been doing the same thing for five years at the Dallas Fed while simultaneously having access to non-public, market moving information from the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate setting FOMC meetings and other confidential communications."

Martens, Trading Like a Hedge Fund Kingpin for Five Years while President of the Dallas Fed; a Dozen Legal Safeguards Failed to Stop Him

 

"At first, the love of money, and then that of power began to prevail, and these became, as it were, the sources of every evil.  For avarice subverted honesty, integrity and other honorable principles and, in their stead, inculcated pride, inhumanity, contempt of religion and general venality.  

Ambition prompted many to become deceitful; to keep one thing concealed in the breast and another ready on the tongue; to estimate friendships and enmities, not by their worth, but according to interest; and to carry rather a specious countenance than an honest heart. 

These vices first advanced but slowly, and were sometimes restrained by correction; but afterward, when their infection had spread like a pestilence, the state was entirely changed, and the government, from being the most equitable and praiseworthy, became the most rapacious and insupportable." 

Sallust, Conspiracy of Cataline

 

"And because of the increase in wickedness, the love of most will grow cold.   But those who stand, firmly to the end, will be saved." 

Matthew 24:12

Stocks were wobbly once again, and were not able to hold their rally attempts.

The big cap techs were leading to the downside on reports of supply chain disruptions because of power shortages and related issues in China.

The Dollar was choppy and finished slightly higher.

Gold was a bit lower, most likely due to its option expiration for the active October contract on the Comex.

Silver, not being in option play, finished higher.

The two Federal Reserve Presidents who were shown to be trading while in possession of insider information have both decided to resign, while asserting that they followed all of the Fed's ethical standards. 

The Fed's secret ethical standards must be very flexible indeed.    

In light of this scandal, Chairman Powell has promised to give them a double secret review.  While admitting no wrongdoing.

Hoo-hah.

"The Banks must be restrained, and the financial system reformed, with balance restored to the economy, before there can be any sustainable recovery." 

Jesse, May 2009

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Shameless and Defiant to the End

 

“He comes to us as One unknown, without a name, as of old, by the lakeside, He came to those men who knew Him not. He speaks to us the same words: "Follow thou me!" and sets us to the tasks which He has to fulfill for our time.  He commands.  And to those who obey Him, whether they be wise or simple, He will reveal himself in the toils, the conflicts, the sufferings which they shall pass through in His fellowship, and, as an ineffable mystery, they shall learn in their own experience Who He is.” 

Albert Schweitzer

 

"Here we may reign secure, and in my choice to reign is worth ambition though in Hell: Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven."

John Milton, Paradise Lost

“There are only two kinds of people in the end— those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, in the end, 'Thy will be done.'  All that are in Hell, choose it.” 

C.S. Lewis

The financial spokesmodels were waggling their drooping pom-poms with all the vigor they had today.

And stocks managed to overcome their early losses, and were able to move into the green in the afternoon, after the rest of the world had gone home for the weekend.

The Dollar was higher along with Treasury yields.

Gold and silver were quite a bit lower intraday, but managed to come back to slight losses.

I suspect we are positioning ahead of the futures contracts expiration for precious metals om Monday the 27th next week.

The inventories of physical gold in the Comex warehouses in Hong Kong had fallen to lower levels.  So perhaps it was time to hit the metals and scrape more inventory out of the ETFs.

Have a pleasant weekend

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Keep Calm and Bubble On

 

"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 

 

"What is most offensive is not their lying— one can always forgive lying— lying can be a delightful thing, for it leads to truth. What is offensive is that they lie, and worship their own lying." 

 Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment 

 

“A true opium of [worldly] people is a belief in nothingness after death— the huge solace of thinking that for our betrayals, greed, cowardice, and murders that we are not going to be judged.” 

Czesław Miłosz

 

“You cannot play with the animal in you without becoming wholly animal, play with falsehood without forfeiting your right to truth, play with cruelty without losing your sensitivity of mind.  He who wants to keep his garden tidy does not reserve a plot for weeds.  Your cravings as a human animal do not become a prayer just because it is God whom you ask to attend to them.  God does not die on the day when we cease to believe in a personal deity.  But we die on the day when our lives cease to be illumined by the steady radiance, renewed daily, of a wonder the source of which is beyond all reason." 

Dag Hammarskjöld, Markings

Stocks were off and running today starting with a boom in the futures overnight.

The Dollar was lower.

Gold and silver were lower.

Risk on!

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Sweet Nothings - Nothing Personal, It's Just Business

 

"One of the most disturbing facts that came out in the [Adolf] Eichmann trial was that a psychiatrist examined him and pronounced him perfectly sane.  I do not doubt it at all, and that is precisely why I find it disturbing.  If all the Nazis had been psychotics, as some of their leaders probably were, their appalling cruelty would have been in some sense easier to understand.  It is much worse to consider this calm, 'well-balanced,' unperturbed official conscientiously going about his desk work, his administrative job which happened to be the supervision of mass murder.  He was thoughtful, orderly, unimaginative.  He had a profound respect for system.

The sanity of Eichmann is disturbing.  We equate sanity with a sense of justice, with humaneness, with prudence, with the capacity to love and understand other people.  We rely on the sane people of the world to preserve it from barbarism, madness, destruction.  And now it begins to dawn on us that it is precisely the sane ones who are the most dangerous.

The whole concept of sanity in a society where spiritual values have lost their meaning is itself meaningless." 

Thomas Merton, Raids on the Unspeakable 

 

"One of the primary characteristics of narcissists is their exaggerated sense of entitlement.  It's hardly surprising then that so many politicians somehow think they 'deserve' to game the system.  After all, from their self-interested perspective, isn't that what the system is for?  In their heavily self-biased opinion, if they want something, by rights it should be theirs.  So, nothing if not opportunistic, they take from public and private coffers alike whatever they think they can get away with.  

And given their grandiose sense of self, they're inclined to believe they can get away with most anything.  Exploiting their privileged position in such a manner hardly leaves them plagued with guilt.  In general, guilt isn't an emotion they're prone to.  How could they be if they feel entitled to the objects of their desire? In their minds their very ability to attain something must certainly mean it was merited." 

Leon F. Seltzer

 

"There is no clean way to make a hundred million bucks. Somewhere along the line guys got pushed to the wall, nice little businesses got the ground cut out from under them. Decent people lost their jobs. Big money is big power, and big power gets used wrong. It's the system. The tragedy of life, Howard, is not that the beautiful die young, but that they grow old and mean." 

Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye

 

And so we had another FOMC announcement today.

The Fed is clearly teeing up a tapering of their bond purchases.

I think the focus will be on the September Jobs Report.

Gold was a little lower on the cross Dollar trade.

Silver edged up a bit with stocks, which rallied.

The market is trying to have this both ways.

I think the downside risks for equities will remain pronounced though to November.

Have a pleasant evening.