Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Idols and Images, Exhaustion and Despair - The Market as God

 

“Every idol, however exalted, turns out, in the long run, to be a Moloch, hungry for human sacrifice.”

 Aldous Huxley, The Devils of Loudon

 

"All of the traditional religions teach that human beings are finite creatures and that there are limits to any earthly enterprise.  A Japanese Zen master once said to his disciples as he was dying, 'I have learned only one thing in life: how much is enough.'  He would find no niche in the chapel of The Market, for whom the First Commandment is 'There is never enough.' Like the proverbial shark that stops moving, The Market that stops expanding dies.  That could happen."

Harvey Cox, The Market As God

 

"A society that narrows the meaning of 'success' to the big money, and in its terms condemns failure as the chief vice, raising money to the plane of absolute value, will produce the sharp operator and the shady deal." 

C. Wright Mills

“Possibly the most devastating realization of all is when the real God shows up, and in the showing up all of this comes crashing down.” 

Craig D. Lounsbrough

 

Stocks were coming in higher this morning, and gold and silver were smacked down.

And voila, all of this reversed by the end of the day.

What a surprise.

The Dollar, VIX, gold and silver moved higher.

Stocks went out near the lows.

Bitcoin fell, even as the spokesmodels cheered its performance and durability in the morning vis a vis gold. 

Let's see what happens geopolitically over the weekend.

Options expiration for stock indices next Friday.

See you next week.

 

 

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - A Gathering of Vultures

 

"Whoever shuts their ears to the cry of the poor
       will also cry out and not be answered."

Proverbs 21:13


"When you hold a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind.   And then blessed indeed will you be because they are not able to repay you.  For there will be a repayment for you at the resurrection of the righteous.”

Luke 14:13-14

"If anyone has sufficient worldly goods, and upon seeing a fellow in need, closes their hearts against them, how does the love of God abide in them?  Little children, let us love not in words and speeches, but in action and in the truth. And in this way we will know that we are of the truth, and our conscience will be at peace in Him."

1 John 3:16-19

 

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

Czeslaw Milosz, The Discreet Charm of Nihilism

“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.” 

Voltaire

 

“Each day we are becoming a creature of splendid glory, or one of unthinkable horror.”

C. S. Lewis

 

Stocks fell back a bit from yesterday's Jäyger Bomb short squeeze deluxe.

Gold, silver and the Dollar all bounced back higher respectively.

VIX fell, but remains elevated.

Let's see how this goes into the weekend.

The eastern US is expecting snow bomb cyclone this weekend. 

As usual the rain-snow line will be the wild card.

Have a pleasant evening.

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Wash and Rinse Deluxe - Markets in Reversals

 

“Those who are capable of tyranny are capable of perjury to sustain it.”

Lysander Spooner

 

"The American fascist would prefer not to use violence.  His method is to poison the channels of public information.  With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power.  We must not tolerate oppressive government or industrial oligarchy in the form of monopolies and cartels.”

Henry Wallace

“The point of modern propaganda isn't only to misinform or push an agenda.  It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth.”

Garry Kasparov

“Before mass leaders seize the power to fit reality to their lies, their propaganda is marked by its extreme contempt for facts as such, for in their opinion fact depends entirely on the power of man who can fabricate it.”

Hannah Arendt
 

"It [Citizens United] violates the essence of what made America a great country in its political system.  Now it's just an oligarchy with unlimited political bribery being the essence of getting the nominations."

President Jimmy Carter

Stocks exploded higher today, based on some lame excuse of a news item about how Ukraine offered to engage in cease fire talks with Russia-- but won't give them anything.

That's like a guy whose girlfriend has given him the boot offering to talk about taking her back, but won't change anything he does.

The news flow around this Ukraine-Russia military action is a little surreal at times.

In terms of market effects, today was a 'technical trade' off a deeply oversold short term condition.

The insiders saw a great opportunity to squeeze those leaning too far on the short side.

Forget alcohol, the mavens of the financial markets dropped some potent pharmaceuticals in the punch bowl.

You can wrap any lingo and terms around it you want, but that was what happened. 

And so in the same spirit of 'risk on' gold, silver and the Dollar all got hammered.

All a technical trade.

I have to admit I was a little concerned about this when we saw JPM selling big tranches of gold contracts out of their house account at 1993 and 2040. 

What does 'technical trade' mean?

It means that today was probably not a trend reversal, or something weighty in terms of market direction.  

At least, not until they run out of over-eager shorts and small specs to burn.

Liars poker.   It's what passes for the market distribution of capital in these days of the systematic mispricing of risks by an out of control financial system.

Have you noticed the spokesmodels and talking heads grilling their guests about why Biden and crew don't do more to increase oil production, to 'open the spigots' and start dealing way federal lands for more drilling?

If oil at $130 doesn't provide incentive for these jokers to increase production without more government subsidies, then our system is broken beyond belief.  Or hopelessly entangled in shameless monopolies and cartels.

But let's see what happens next.  As I've said, this is a double black diamond market.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Exhausted on a Wreckage of Devices - Metals Breakout

 

"Bizarrely, it’s precisely the jobs that shift money around – creating next to nothing of tangible value – that net the best salaries.  How is it possible that all the agents of prosperity are paid so poorly, while the unimportant, superfluous, and even destructive shifters do so well?  In a hierarchically organised society, the Machiavellis are one step ahead.  They have the ultimate secret weapon to defeat their competition.   They’re shameless.” 

Rutger Bregman 

 

"One thing I have learned in my time in politics is that if one of the parties is shameless, the other party cannot afford to be spineless."

Frank Lautenberg

 

"Do not join your efforts with the false and treacherous, for what does justice have to do with lawlessness?   Or what fellowship does light have with darkness?   What is there in common between Christ and Belial?  What do the faithful have in common with the faithless?" 

2 Corinthians 6:14-16

 

"The market ideology is now the new form of imperial power and many of us, without any critical reflection, have signed onto that." 

Walter Brueggemann

 

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

Fulton J. Sheen 

 

Stocks were volatile again, with a wide range between the highs and lows.

And once again they made a determined effort to finish them in the green.

But alas, it was not meant to be.

And so stocks continued their declines from their blow off bubble tops.

Gold and silver rallied hard this morning.

They fell back from the highs, but held on to their breakouts fairly well.

The London Metal Exchange halted trading in nickel today as the metal doubled in price.

I know a lot of silver bulls who would like to see the same thing happen to the hi ho metal on its road back to $50.

The Dollar chopped sideways and settled down a bit, just managing to hold on to the 99 handle.

Bitcoin maintained its correlation to the big cap tech bubble, but for a change managed not to decline today.   

Green shoots?

JPM let a large number of March gold contracts go at $1994 from their house account the other day according to the clearing report below.

Maybe they felt like sharing?   Don't want to be pigs given their corner on physical silver? 

Smells like team spirit.

Let's see what happens.

Have a pleasant evening.