Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Why We Can't Have Nice Things

 

"They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest.  Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection." 

Henry Wallace, 9 April 1944

 

“Above all, don't lie to yourself.  The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.”

Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

"As you have willed it, so your house is now yours to command— but it is made desolate.’”

Matthew 23:38

Another wild day on Wall Street, as stocks once again had wild swings, ending higher than yesterday's close, but much lower than their open today as you can see on the charts.

It was a ranging, volatile day. 

This is one dangerous market.

Gold and silver rose a bit.

The Dollar chopped sideways.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

Have a pleasant weekend.

 

 

 

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Meta-Shock, Bezos Bounce - Non-Farm Payrolls Tomorrow

 

"Beneath some burning, unknown gaze
I feel my very wings unpinned,
And give my name to the abyss
Which waits to claim me as its own.” 

Charles Baudelaire, Lament of Icarus 

 

“How you are fallen from heaven, Lucifer, son of the morning!  How you have been cut down to the ground, You who laid low the nations!  For you said in your heart: ‘I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God.  I will sit on the mount of the most holy on the farthest sides of the north.   I will ascend above the heights of the clouds.   I will be as God.’ 

Isaiah 14:12-14

 

"It is a comfort to the wretched to have companions in misery.” 

Christopher Marlowe, Dr. Faustus

 

"When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank.   You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter I shall ruin ten thousand families.  That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin!  Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin!  You are a den of vipers and thieves. I have determined to rout you out, and by the Eternal, (bringing his fist down on the table) I will rout you out." 

Andrew Jackson

The Facebook Meta-miss in its numbers last night took the markets down hard.

And then they went down even harder during the day, reaching some fairly impressive lows.

But huzzah, after the bell Amazon posted a big sales beat, and the futures roared off their lows, taking back a good chunk of the days losses, but still finishing deeply in the red.

These guys could not get more brazen than if they just went out and started sticking people up on the streets in Manhattan.

Gold and silver got hammered intraday, in the kind of shenanigans I was expecting ahead of the Payrolls report.

That's exactly what it was--  shenanigans.

I am not sure what to expect tomorrow, but the tail risks seem fat, and the officials and referees are looking the other way.

There is always some cheating, scamming, and insider information trading in the markets.

But now it is becoming almost routine and expected. 

You know, you do have the option not to give them your money, at least so readily, and lay back in cash and pick your shots more carefully and less frequently.

The dollar continued to decline.

Non-Farm Payrolls tomorrow.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Let's Do the Hustle - Non-Farm Payrolls on Friday

 

"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 defeated in our innermost selves?” 

Maximilian Kolbe

 

“Judging others makes us blind, whereas love is illuminating. By judging others we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which others are just as entitled to as we are.” 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

 

“One reason we rush so quickly to the vulgar satisfactions of judgement, and love to revel in our righteous outrage, is that it spares us from the impotent pain of empathy, and the harder, messier work of understanding.” 

Tim Kreider

"And they cried to the mountains and the rocks, 'Fall on us, and hide us from the face of the one who sits on the throne, and from the judgement of the Lamb.'" 

Revelation 6:16 

 

"The most important problem in the world today is your soul, for that is what the struggle is all about." 

Fulton Sheen

 

Never allow someone to bring you so low as to hate them, said Martin Luther King.

It is one of the great ironies of life that, over time, we become what we hate.

The SP500 took the huge negative miss in the ADP Jobs Report this morning in stride, and managed to add to their rally a bit, particularly in the afternoon.

The tech heavy NDX not so much, although it did take back much of its earlier losses.

Stocks still look a bit wobbly, after what could have been just a relief rally.

Gold and silver drifted higher, as the Dollar slipped off the 96 handle. 

Caution is advised especially for equities which remain volatile.

Let's see what Friday's Jobs Report brings.

Even if only in small and simple ways, even if seemingly unnoticed, walk with the angels, for His sake, and for your own.

This is what the struggle is all about. 

For in the end, the only real tragedy is not to have been a saint.

Have a pleasant evening.

 

 

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Hearts of Darkness

 

"We suspect strongly that history will view the last 20 years as a period of collective madness in the United States.   It is a madness brought on by the gods to the proud and those who would be as gods, but stumble and fall through a tragic flaw, an error in judgement.  Often that flaw is related to the strength that had made them great.  The US can fall from greatness through pride and imbalanced judgement, and therein lies the recipe for tragedy."

Jesse, 15 April 2008 

 

"What I have called  the trousered ape and the urban blockhead may be precisely the kind of man they really wish to produce.  They may be intending to make a clean sweep of traditional values and start with a new set." 

C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man

 

"These are peoples that have lost the power of astonishment at their own actions. When they give birth to a fantastic fashion or a foolish law, they do not start or stare at the monster they have brought forth. They have grown used to their own unreason; chaos is their cosmos; and the whirlwind is the breath of their nostrils.  These nations are really in danger of going off their heads en masse; of becoming one vast vision of imbecility, with toppling cities and crazy countrysides, all dotted with industrious lunatics.” 

G.K. Chesterton, In Defense of Sanity 

 

"Your adversary, the devil, prowls the earth like a roaring lion, seeking those whom he may devour." 

1 Peter 5:8

 

"Do you think he is so unskillful in his craft, as to ask you openly and plainly to join him in his warfare against the truth?  No; he offers you baits to tempt you.  He prompts you what to say, and then listens to you, and praises you, and encourages you.  He bids you mount aloft.  He shows you how to become as gods.  Then he laughs and jokes with you, and gets intimate with you; he takes your hand, and gets his fingers between yours, and grasps them, and then you are his." 

J.H.Newman, The Times of Antichrist

 

Stocks rallied today as some Fed heads sought to reassure the markets that their action would not be excessively bubble-unfriendly. 

The Dollar fell again.

Gold and silver rallied in the morning, but fell in the afternoon trade to maintain some thinner gains.

The VIX dropped.

There are numerous earnings reports this week.

Non-Farm Payrolls on Friday.

 Let us commend ourselves to the mercy of God.

Have a pleasant evening.