Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Cloudy With a Chance of Vertigo

 

"Power is always dangerous.  Power attracts the worst and corrupts the best."

Edward Abbey

 

"This elite-generated social control maintains the status quo because the status quo benefits and validates those who created and sit atop it.  People rise to prominence when they parrot the orthodoxy rather than critically analyze it.  Intellectual regurgitation is prized over independent thought. Voices of the dispossessed, different, and un(formally)educated are neglected regardless of their morality, import, and validity.  

Real change in politics or society cannot occur under the orthodoxy because if it did, it would threaten the legitimacy of the professional class and all of the systems that helped them achieve their status." 

Kristine Mattis, The Cult of the Professional Class

 

"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."

Charles Ferguson

 

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” 

Upton Sinclair

Stocks were a bit wobbly today, getting a slight nosebleed from their recent lofty valuations. 

Gold and silver took off on the stronger than expected measure of inflation.

The Dollar also rallied, in what is likely a combination of a flight to safety and anticipation of higher interest rates.

Have a pleasant evening.

 

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Remarkable Fragility - The Madness Serves None But Itself

 

"Asset prices remain vulnerable to significant declines should investor risk sentiment deteriorate, progress on containing the virus disappoint, or the economic recovery stall.

Leverage of life insurance companies remained at post-2008 highs.  Corporate bonds, CLOs [Collateralized Loan Obligations], and CRE [Commercial Real Estate] debt continued to account for a large proportion of life insurers’ assets.  If these assets lose value, life insurers’ capital positions—and, hence, their ability to honor debt obligations—could be impaired.

Excessive leverage within the financial sector increases the risk that financial institutions will not have the ability to absorb even modest losses when hit by adverse shocks.  In those situations, institutions will be forced to cut back lending, sell their assets, or, in extreme cases, shut down.  Such responses can substantially impair credit access for households and businesses.” 

Federal Reserve, Financial Stability Report, November 2021

 

"Foolishness has a knack of getting its way; as we should see if we were not always so much wrapped up in ourselves.   In this respect our townsfolk were like everybody else, wrapped up in themselves; they did not believe in plagues." 

Albert Camus

 

Stocks were a bit wobbly today.

Considering how far and how fast they have come in this melt up phase of the financial asset bubble, it is pretty much just a breather, so far.

I am trying to take most things people say with a grain of salt now in this period of extreme hyperbole and detachment from reality, in so many areas.

It's tough for people living in a bubble to maintain their bearings.

Madness is contagious, and a relief for many from reality.

Gold was higher again.   It is approaching a key resistance area.

Silver was a bit higher, but is lagging a bit.

The Dollar continued to chop sideways around  the 94 handle.

Keep a good eye on yourself, moreso than the other guy.

And especially who or what it is that you serve.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Never-Ending Story

 

“In a speculative market, what counts is imagination and not analysts.” 

Benjamin Graham 

 

“Human nature being what it is, small loopholes are likely to be exploited until they become big ones, and big ones until they turn into financial disasters.   At the root of all financial bubbles is a good idea carried to excess.”

Seth Klarman 

 

“Booms start with some tie-in to reality, some reason which justifies the increase in asset values, and then -- and this is the critical feature of speculative mood -- the market loses touch with reality.  What we do know is that speculative episodes never come gently to an end.  The wise, though for most the improbable, course is to assume the worst.” 

John Kenneth Galbraith 

 

"Wall Street in boom days is an aggregation of madmen.  The Stock Exchange becomes Bedlam well dressed.  In the end, of course, all violations of the fundamental laws of economic and financial common sense are paid for; but every bull thinks he will unload before the break.   They really do not know when to stop winning, and so in the end they lose profit and principal.” 

Edwin Lefevre

 

 Stocks were striving to keep up their efforts to keep posting new highs, with  mixed results.

 Gold and silver were slightly higher.

The Dollar was lower, but managed to hang on to the 94 handle with its fingernails.

The VIX was slightly higher.

And the band played on.

Have a pleasant evening.

 

 

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Found Wanting

 

“They support freedom for themselves and slavery for everyone else, and they use the freedom of the market to disguise this.  Economic coercion is just a different form of force.” 

Robert Peate 

 

“As long as there are crazed or crafty leaders to play on old fears, a mob will turn cruel.” 

Leigh Brackett 

 

“Hatred is the most accessible and comprehensive of all the unifying agents.  Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a god, but never without a belief in a devil.  And there is perhaps no surer way of infecting ourselves with virulent hatred toward a person than by doing him a grave injustice.” 

Eric Hoffer 

 

"Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not for every man's greed." 

Mohandas K. Gandhi

 

The Non-Farm Payrolls Report came in hot this morning.

One might have thought that this would put a dent in the market, as the number might encourage the hawks among the Fed governors.

But no, stocks went off on a melt up rally to new highs. 

The market took the numbers as a sign of recovery, and were trusting in Chairman Powell's tender dovishness with the money spigot.

In the short term perception and the power of leverage is all that matters, especially in an asset bubble.

And gold and silver were also off on a fairly remarkable rally, as the coiling suppression they have been taking on the chin suddenly broke free.

Let's see if gold can hold a breakout over 1800 which has been so psychologically intimidating.

The Dollar was off a bit but managing to hang on to the 94 handle and then some.

There will come a time when you will realize what truly matters in your life, at least at the very end.  

Let's hope that this comes sooner for us all, rather than too late, at a time when we can see past all the distractions and false gods of our own passionate obsessions, and still do something about it.

Can you imagine what the realization that it was all simply true as you were told, but did not listen and just pushed aside with other distractions and things, must be like?  

The regret must be stunning, almost unimaginable.   All else pales before it.  

What a loss to bear.

Need little, want less, love more.  For this, in the end, is all that matters.

Have a pleasant weekend.