Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - What Time's the Next Bailout

 

"Financial institutions such as JP Morgan love to buy derivatives because they are opaque, create fictional income that leads to real bonuses, and when, not if, they suffer losses so large that they would cause the bank to fail, they will be bailed out." 

William K Black 

 

"A synthetic instrument has no real assets.  It is simply a bet on the performance of the assets it references.  That means the number of synthetic instruments is limitless, and so is the risk they present to the economy. Synthetic structures referencing high-risk mortgages garnered hefty fees for Goldman Sachs and other investment banks. They assumed an ever-larger share of the financial markets, and contributed greatly to the severity of the crisis by magnifying the amount of risk in the system. 

Increasingly, synthetics became bets made by people who had no interest in the referenced assets. Synthetics became the chips in a giant casino, one that created no economic growth even when it thrived, and then helped throttle the economy when the casino collapsed." 

Carl Levin, US Senator 

 

“Most people are good and occasionally do something they know is bad.  Some people are bad and struggle every day to keep it under control.  Others are corrupt to the core and don’t give a damn, as long as they don’t get caught.  But evil is a completely different creature.  Evil is bad that believes it’s good.”

Karen Marie Moning

 

“Propaganda serves more to justify ourselves than to convince others; and the more reason we have to feel guilty, the more fervent our propaganda.”

Eric Hoffer

 

It was risk on again today, as stocks shook off their early losses and managed to rally back into the green, and finally went out near the highs.

The SP and NDX are approaching the level of their latest failed rallies.  

This could provide a good test of bully's new resolve to buy.

Gold and silver were higher.

The Dollar and the VIX both fell on the risk appetite for equities.

Quad witching option expiration tomorrow.

Every day we read and hear fresh stories of how the Russian military is experiencing disaster after disaster in the Ukraine.  

Their generals are dropping like flies, soldiers are abandoning their equipment and surrendering in tears, 

Every day it seems as though Russia is on the verge of admitting defeat and surrendering. 

And the Ukraine goes from victory to victory, triumph to triumph.

Just like the economy.

One can only wonder.

Have a pleasant evening.

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Darkness of This World - Quad Witching Expiration Friday

 

"We cannot speak to the conscience of the world when our own conscience is asleep." 

Carl von Ossietzky

 

"In the [60 Minutes] interview, Kroft asks [Michael] Lewis: 'What’s the headline here?'  Lewis responds: 'Stock market’s rigged.  The United States stock market, the most iconic market in global capitalism is rigged.'

Kroft then asks Lewis to state just who it is that’s rigging the market.  Lewis responds that it’s a 'combination of these stock exchanges, the big Wall Street banks and high-frequency traders.'

It’s just shy of eight years since Lewis wrote the definitive book on the corrupted structure of Wall Street, and yet, Congress has taken no meaningful action to reform it.

Congress has taken zero meaningful actions to reform Wall Street since it brought the U.S. to its economic knees in 2008 because much of Congress is receiving large chunks of campaign dough from Wall Street and its outside lawyers, as well as from hedge funds that drop $10 million to a Super Pac as casually as paying for lunch at Milos.

The failure of America to reform its campaign financing structure has corrupted Congress in its ability to reform Wall Street. In turn, the lack of reform of Wall Street has left the U.S. with a dangerous financial system...”

Wall Street On Parade, Fog of War Providing Smoke Screen for Dangerously Unreformed Wall Street
 

"Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves." 

Matthew 7:15 

 

The Fed did as it was expected today and raised its benchmark interest rate by 25 bp.

After some initial fakeout moves, stocks went into full risk on rally mode, going out near the highs.

The Dollar fell about 75 cents, and the VIX dropped back to its 50 day moving average.

Surprisingly enough both gold and silver came well off their lows, and finished in the green.

Let's see how bully goes into the weekend tomorrow.

As a reminder, this Friday is a quad witching index option expiration. 

What a surprise.

Have a pleasant evening.

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Risk On - FOMC Tomorrow

 

"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."

Nikolai Berdyaev 

 

"If there are damned souls in Hell, it is because men blind themselves.” 

E.A. Bucchianeri, Faust: My Soul Be Damned for the World 

 

"The wealthy, not only by private fraud but also by common laws, do every day pluck and snatch away from the people some part of their daily living.  They invent and devise all means and crafts, first how to keep safely without fear of losing that which they have unjustly gathered together, and next how to hire and abuse the work and labor of the people for as little money and effort as possible." 

Thomas More, Utopia 

 

"War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it."

George Orwell

 

"Hubris calls for nemesis, and in one form or another it's going to get it, not as a punishment from outside but as the completion of a pattern already started." 

Mary Midgley, The Myths We Live By

The markets were clearly in a risk on mood today.

Perhaps it is due to some insights about what the illustrious Fed will be announcing tomorrow.

Or on the other hand, just a setup for an options week wash and rinse.

Be that as it may, gold and silver were pushed lower, but managed to hold up a little against the selling.

The Dollar chopped sideways.

Perhaps as a side effect of stocks, the miners I watch were in the green today.

FOMC tomorrow.   Stock index option expiration on Friday.

Here is a sample of what happens when a short metals trade implodes: JPM At the Center of Another Multi-Billion Trading Scandal.

The lies will continue, until confidence is restored.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Dog That Did Not Bark

 

"Satan’s monomaniac concern with himself and his supposed rights and wrongs is a necessity of the Satanic predicament.  Certainly, he has no choice.  He has chosen to have no choice.  He has wished to ‘be himself,’ and to be in himself and for himself, and his wish has been granted.  To admire Satan, then, is to give one’s vote not only for a world of misery, but also for a world of lies and propaganda, of wishful thinking, of incessant autobiography."

C. S. Lewis


"These are suitable feelings towards this attractive but deceitful world.  What have we to do with its gifts and honours, who, having been already baptized into the world to come, are no longer citizens of this?  Why should we be anxious for a long life, or wealth, or credit, or comfort, who know that the next world will be every thing which our hearts can wish, and that not in appearance only, but truly and everlastingly?  Why should we rest in this world, when it is the token and promise of another?   Why should we be content with its surface, instead of appropriating what is stored beneath it?

To those who live by faith, every thing they see speaks of that future world; the very glories of nature, the sun, moon, and stars, and the richness and the beauty of the earth, are as types and figures witnessing and teaching the invisible things of God.  All that we see is destined one day to burst forth into a heavenly bloom, and to be transfigured into immortal glory.  Heaven at present is out of sight, but in due time, as snow melts and discovers what it lay upon, so will this visible creation fade away before those greater splendours which are behind it, and on which at present it depends.  In that day shadows will retire, and the substance show itself."

John Henry Newman 

"The Lord is my light and my salvation –
     whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the refuge of my life –
     of whom shall I be afraid?

I believe still that I will see the goodness of the Lord
     in the land of the living!
Wait for the Lord;
    be strong, and let your heart take courage;
Yes, wait upon the Lord."

Psalm 27

Stocks came in with another overnight attempt at rallying higher.

And once again it faded away during the daylight trading, and stocks were lower.

The Dollar rallied back to 99 and the VIX was higher.

So it was clearly 'risk off' most likely about concerns with the Ukraine, although there is some influence from the Fed meeting and likely 25 bp rate increase this week.

What was curious is that gold and silver both diverged significantly from their risk off partner assets.

Maybe it was in sympathy with commodities in general, and maybe it was something else.

I did see the miners taking it on the chin especially, although there was a significant easing up on the downward pressure in the late afternoon.

I have marked the 50% Fibonacci retracement level on the chart for gold.   You may take note of it. 

This is where the price closed today, after flirting with it previously.

Let's remember what all is occurring this week, including the FOMC meeting Wednesday and a stock option expiration on Friday.

I have pretty much stopped watching the news, and even bubblevision.

I think that all is not as it seems, in a number of areas, where that which cannot be sustained has been extended again and again by lies and various deceptions.

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

Tacitus

Nominations are being entertained for the position(s) of designated scapegoat.

Have a pleasant evening.