Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - And It Is

 

"The problem with movies and books is they make evil look glamorous, exciting, when it's no such thing.  It's boring and it's depressing and it's stupid.  Criminals are all after cheap thrills and easy money, and when they get them, all they want is more of the same, over and over." 

Dean Koontz

 

"Is it that we are that dumb, or they are just that brazen?" 

Jesse, 2008 

 

“I wish I had an answer to that because I'm tired of answering that question.” 

 Yogi Berra 

 

"While everyone enjoys an economic party the long-term costs of a bubble to the economy and society are potentially great.  They include a reduction in the long-term saving rate, a seemingly random distribution of wealth, and the diversion of financial human capital into the acquisition of wealth.” 

Larry Lindsey, Federal Reserve Governor, FOMC Minutes, September 24, 1996 

 

“Crime, once exposed, has no refuge but in audacity.” 

Tacitus

 

“He did not care for the lying at first.  He hated it.  Then later he had come to like it.  It was part of being an insider, but it was a very corrupting business.” 

Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls

 

And there it is, ladies and gentlemen.   

Another precious metals futures option expiration on the Comex.

Another wash and rinse in the equity markets.

Don't blame Powell.  He is just the messenger, another manservant for Mackie Messer and the moneyed interests. 

Blame all those 'very important people' who tolerate a dirty rotten system in the hopes of getting a little more than they deserve for themselves. 

And the band played on.

Have a pleasant evening.

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Wash, Rinse, Repeat - Greed is not a Motivation: It is a Pathology

 

“People with advantages are loathe to believe that they just happen to be people with advantages. They come readily to define themselves as inherently worthy of what they possess; they come to believe themselves 'naturally' elite; and, in fact, to imagine their possessions and their privileges as natural extensions of their own elite selves.”

Charles Wright Mills, The Power Elite 

 

"There is not a more perilous or immoral habit of mind than the sanctifying of success.” 

 Lord Acton

 

"Through a long indoctrination that starts sometimes in their families, and is often affirmed in their elite schools and with their circle of privileged friends, they learn to rationalize selective moral behaviour not as immoral but as 'the entitlement of success.'  And they are supported by a horde of morally ambivalent enablers who will tell them whatever they wish to hear. 

There are one set of rules for themselves and their friends, and another set of rules for the rest.   Few who actually do evil consciously choose to be evil.  They rationalize what they do in any number of ways, but the deceit often hinges on their own natural superiority, and the objectification and denigration of the others.  We are makers, and they are takers.  They see their own work as having special value and merit, while the actions of the others are inconsequential and unworthy."

Jesse, February 2013 

"Those among the rich who are not, in the rigorous sense, damned, can understand poverty, because they are poor themselves, after a fashion; but 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." 

Léon Bloy

 

Stocks sold off hard again this morning, but failed in the attempt to turn those pains into gains.

After the bell Microsoft 'beat' its numbers, and to the outrage and indignation of the spokesmodels and the corporate mouthpieces, the market sold it off.

Gold advanaged as the Dollar slid sideways.

Silver struggled again, being pulled along somewhat with the weakness in equities.

FOMC and a Comex precious metals option expiration tomorrow.

Need little, want less, love more.  For those who abide in love abide in God,and God in them.

Have a pleasant evening.

 

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Wash and Rinse Continues

 

“The explanation requiring the fewest assumptions is most likely to be correct.” 

William of Ockham 

 

"Ignorance is the mother of presumption." 

Marie Le Jars de Gournay 

 

“The most important things to say are those which often I did not think necessary for me to say — because they were too obvious.” 

André Gide

 

 
"When speculation has done its worst, two and two still make four." 

Samuel Johnson 

 

The underpinnings of the equity markets is froth.

 And so we should not be surprised at its apparent instability.

Speculation can only go so far, and then retreats with all haste in the face of its mispriced assumptions.

But greed turns to fear and fear back to greed, so the wash and rinse continues.

The easy money in this bubble has been made. 

Stocks plunged but managed to claw their way back to unchanged at the close.

Gold was up a bit along with the Dollar.

Silver showed some sympathy with the market weakness.  It often does.

The VIX rocketed and then backed off with the bounce in stocks.

Is this the wash out that ends what is a normal and customary correction in a bull market?

Are you feeling lucky?

FOMC on Wednesday.

Precious metal option expiration on the COMEX also on Wednesday.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Dead Reckoning

 

"What good is it, brethren, if someone claims to have faith but does not perform acts of love?  Can this kind of faith save them?  If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacks food, and one of you says to them, 'Go with God, keep warm and eat well,' but do not help them at all to receive what they need, what good is this?  So also is faith, which if it does not flourish as acts of love and exists alone with itself, is dead."

James 2:14-16

 

“Reality denied comes back to haunt.” 

Philip K. Dick, Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said 

 

"The seed sown on rocky ground is the person who hears the word and receives it in faith with joy.  But their faith takes no root in their daily lives and actions, and does not endure.  When personal sacrifice or persecution come because of the Word, they quickly fall away.  And the seed sown among thorns is the person who hears the word and takes it into their hearts, but the struggles of material things and the seductiveness of money choke their faith, so it produces nothing, no fruits." 

Matthew 13:20-22

 

"Through the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small; With patience He stands waiting, with exactness He grinds all."

Friedrich von Logau, Sinngedichte

 

“It is better to be a child of God than king of the whole world.” 

Aloysius Gonzaga 

 

Stocks were hammered down again today, going out near the lows.

Reckless capital meets mispriced risk, and is consumed.

This is not constructive for bully.

Stocks are falling hard, without a noticeable exogenous event.   

Smells like a taper tantrum.

The major indices are at some 'must hold' levels if this is to be a correction, and not a rout. 

As the old saying goes, 'as goes January, so goes the year.'

Gold and silver gave up some gains in the selloff, but managed to hold some impressive advances for the week, especially in the case of silver.

The Dollar drifted lower.

VIX rocketed higher.

FOMC next week.   

Have a pleasant weekend.