Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Why Do You Still Waver and Doubt - Option Expiration Tomorrow

 

"And when He had fed the multitudes and sent away, He went up on the mountain by Himself to pray.  Now when evening came, He was alone there.  But the boat was now in the middle of the sea, battered by the waves, for the wind was against them. 

Now in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went to them, walking on the sea.  And when the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, 'It is a ghost!'  And they cried out for fear.   But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, 'Take heart and have courage!  It is I; do not be afraid.'

And Peter answered Him and said, 'Lord, if it is truly You, command me to come to You on the water.'  So He said, 'Come.'  And when Peter got out of the boat, he walked on the water to go to Jesus.  But when he saw that the wind was so powerful he was afraid; and beginning to sink he cried out, saying, 'Lord, save me!'

And immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and took hold of him, saying, 'O you of little faith, why do you doubt?'"

Matthew 14:23-31

 

"To have even a portion of illuminative reason and true philosophy is the highest state to which nature can aspire, in the way of intellect; it puts the mind above the influences of chance and necessity, above anxiety, suspense, unsettlement, and superstition, which is the lot of the many.  

Men, whose minds are possessed with some one object, take exaggerated views of its importance, are feverish in the pursuit of it, make it the measure of things which are utterly foreign to it, and are startled and despond if it happens to fail them.  They are ever in alarm or in transport.  

Those on the other hand who have no object or principle whatever to hold by, lose their way, every step they take.  They are thrown out, and do not know what to think or say, at every fresh juncture; they have no view of persons, or occurrences, or facts, which come suddenly upon them, and they hang upon the opinion of others, for want of internal resources."

John Henry Newman

 

The longest partial lunar eclipse in nearly 600 years will appear in the night sky late Thursday evening and early Friday morning.  According to NASA, the eclipse will last three hours and 28 minutes, making it the longest partial eclipse in 580 years. 

Too bad we have lines of storms making their way to us for tonight.

Stocks advanced with a narrow leadership, led by some of the usual suspects.

 The Dollar was lower.   The VIX was a bit higher.

Gold and silver was lower.  The miners were hit.

Tomorrow must be a stock option expiration.

Little children, love one another.

Have a pleasant evening.

 

 

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Exceptionals - The Downward Spiral of Dumbness

 

"Many of my colleagues tell the American people, day after day, how deeply concerned they are about the deficit and the national debt.  They tell us that we just don't have enough money to expand Medicare, guarantee paid family and medical leave, and address the climate crisis to the degree that we should if we want to protect the well-being of future generations.

Yet, tomorrow, the U.S. Senate will be voting on an annual defense budget that costs $778 billion—$37 billion more than Trump's last defense budget and $25 billion more than what President Biden requested.  All this for an agency, the Department of Defense, that continues to have massive fraud and cost overruns year after year and is the only major government agency not to successfully complete an independent audit.   

Isn't it strange how even as we end the longest war in our nation's history concerns about the deficit and national debt seem to melt away under the influence of the powerful military-industrial complex?" 

Bernie Sanders, Nov 16, 2021

 

"What grabbed our attention in that paragraph from the Credit Suisse report is that the Board of Directors is actually acknowledging that trading positions posed “catastrophic risk” to the bank.  What also grabbed our attention is that banking regulators in the United States have been reading this same kind of assessment of catastrophic risk within the mega banks on Wall Street since the financial crisis of 2008, while doing absolutely nothing meaningful to rein it in.

Even more striking, banking regulators and Congress continue to allow the majority of the largest trading houses on Wall Street to continue to own federally-insured deposit-taking banks where the taxpayer would be on the hook for bailouts if they blow themselves up." 

Wall Street on Parade, Congress, the Banks, and Catastrophic Risk, 11/17/2021

 

"No one today likes truth: utility and self interest have long ago been substituted for truth.  We live in a nightmare of falsehoods, and there are few who are sufficiently awake and aware to see things as they are.  Our first duty is to clear away illusions and recover a sense of reality." 

Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev

 

"The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness.  The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.” 

Hannah Arendt

Stocks caught the wobbles again today, but did not all out bed.

Except for the broader index, the Russell 2000.

Gold and silver bounced back up, as the Dollar fell off the 96 handle.

This is going to end badly, for most of us at least.   But great riches for a few.

First time, shame on you.

Second time, shame on me.

Third time's what again?  The charm?

And who could have seen it coming?

Have a pleasant evening. 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - La Douleur du Monde

 

“Unlimited power in the hands of limited people always leads to cruelty.” 

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 

 

“Nature doesn't ask your permission; it does not care about your wishes, or whether you like its laws or not.   You're obliged to accept it as it is, and consequently all of its consequences as well.” 

Fyodor Dostoevsky 

 

"What will you do on the day of reckoning, and in the time of desolation which follows?   To whom will you flee for relief?   Where will you safeguard your riches?" 

Isaiah 10:3 

 

"Having fallen from the eternal, the evil one's desires are endless, insatiable.  Having fallen from pure Being, he is driven by the desire to possess, to fill his emptiness.  But the problem is insoluble, always.  He is compelled to have and to hold, to possess and consume, and nothing else.  All he takes, he destroys." 

Denis de Rougemont

 

“The narcissist devours people, consumes their output, and casts the empty, writhing shells aside.”

Sam Vaknin 

"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 

The Dollar was showing some continuing strength today, as the DX index ran up to just short of the 96 handle.

Gold and silver were weakened, for a change of pace.

No flight to safety here.

Stocks were higher, although it seemed to be a little weaker and more narrow than one might expect.

I do think we are shaping up for a dire short squeeze in the physical metals.  

But it has been a long time coming.

Gradually, and then all at once.

Have a pleasant evening.

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Running on Emptiness

 

“Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man.  It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest.  

As long as you are proud you cannot know God.  A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.” 

C.S. Lewis 

 

"It was pride that turned angels into devils." 

Augustine of Hippo 

 

"A more repulsive picture can hardly be imagined.  A mob, a moneyed class, and an aristocracy almost equally worthless, hating each other, and hated by the rest of the world; swarms of slaves beginning to brood over revenge as a solace to their sufferings; the land going out of cultivation; native industry swamped by slave-grown imports; the population decreasing; the army degenerating; wars waged as a speculation, but only against the weak; provinces subjected to organized pillage; in the metropolis childish superstition, whole sale luxury, and monstrous vice. 

The hour for reform was surely come.  Who was to be the man?" 

A.H. Beesley, The Gracchi Marius and Sulla, 1921

 

"Many will become addicted to hateful and malicious thoughts and hateful words.  Slaves to their desires, they will be ferocious, angry despisers of what is good and right.  With brutal treachery, they will act without restraint, bigoted and blinded by clouds of conceit.   They will demand and find their delight in the pleasures of this world, and ignore their need to serve God.  They may act religious, but they want to serve themselves."

2 Timothy 3:1-5

 

“Through pride we are ever deceiving ourselves.  But deep down below the surface of the average conscience a still, small voice says to us, something is out of tune. ” 

Carl Gustav Jung

Stocks had the wobbles again today, but managed to end up with only minor losses.

The Dollar rallied higher to the mid 95 level.

Gold and silver gave up a little ground.

The VIX also gave up a bit of ground.

The big infrastructure bill was signed into law today in Washington DC.

The 'shortage of turkeys' for Thanksgiving seems to be another false rumor here.

At every store I checked there were many available, and my local grocery is going to be giving us a free one again this year. 

At Costco they had plenty fresh turkeys on offer for $.99 per pound.

Don't believe everything that you hear.   

The flim-flammers and their spokesmodels are out there trying to sway public fears for their own profits and purposes.   

Even when it comes to issues of health and public safety.

Yes there are some supply chain disruptions.   But in almost every case I have checked it is because of a very poor management planning with a strong emphasis on short term profits, with la brazen disregard for the consequences of 'just-in-time' fragility and single sourcing and offshoring critical components.

Logistics are the rocks on which many a high-flying business leader has foundered.

These are all too often accidents of fragility in planning, managerial short-sightedness incompetence, waiting to happen.   

It was a pet gripe of mine when I was managing some significant aspects of a global business.  The guys who paid attention to these kind of practical details and processes were always looked down upon by the pampered princes as nay-sayers and wet blankets -- until the shit hit the fan.

Details, details.

And who could have seen it coming, right?

Have a pleasant evening.