Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Second Lows Are In - Non-Farm Payrolls Next Week

 

"Proclaim the truth and do not be silent in fear.  We have had enough pressure to be silent.  Cry out with a thousand voices.  The world is rotten because of silence. 

You know that every evil is founded in the love of self.   Self-love is a fog that takes away the light of reason, which sustains itself by the light of faith.  One is not lost without the other.  

Love transforms us into what we love.  Out of darkness is born the light.  Be who God meant you to be, and you will set the world on fire." 

Catherine of Siena

 

"Non pas cette pauvreté facile, intéressante et complice, qui fait l’aumône à l’hypocrisie du monde, mais la pauvreté difficile, révoltante et scandaleuse, qu’il faut secourir sans aucun espoir de gloire et qui n’a rien à donner en échange.  La fortune dont la pratique séculaire est de faire tourner sa roue dans les ordures.

C’est ce qui permet à Clotilde d’aller chez lui, sans exposer à la boue d’un luxe mondain ses guenilles de vagabonde et « pèlerine du Saint Tombeau ».

De loin en loin, elle vient jeter dans l’âme du profond artiste un peu de sa paix, de sa grandeur mystérieuse, puis elle retourne à sa solitude immense, au milieu des rues pleines de peuple.

Il n’y a qu’une tristesse, lui a-t-elle dit, la dernière fois, c’est de n’être pas de saints."

Léon Bloy, La femme pauvre

 

And there goes April. 

Non-Farm Payrolls next week. 

Stocks swooned to set those second lows without much doubt now. 

Gold and silver rallied, but were neatly knocked back down into the close. 

The Dollar fell from its recent lofty heights, but still remains fairly lofty all things considered, mostly the Yen and the Euro.

A bounce in the major stock indices at this point is customary, perhaps after some more dithering around.

And let's hope it succeeds at making a higher high.

 But if not, we'll always have Paris. 

Have a pleasant weekend. 

 

 Rally that Fails as Hallmark of Major Market Dislocations 

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Without Shame or Honor - Hitmen

 

“The most tragic thing in the world is a man of genius who is not a man of honor." 

George Bernard Shaw

 

"We may make ourselves popular by telling our fellow citizens that they have made Discoveries, conceived Inventions, and made Improvements; We may boast that we are the chosen people; we may even thank God that we are not like other men.  But after all it will be but flattery, and the delusion, the self deceit of the Pharisee."

John Adams, Letter to John Taylor,  29 July 1814

 

“Melancholia is the beginning and a part of mania.  The development of a mania is really a worsening of the disease.  A period of lewdness and shamelessness exists with the worst type of manic delirium.”

Aretaeus of Cappadocia

 

"Time and again we hope for better leaders, but all too often those hopes are dashed.  The reason is that power causes people to lose the kindness and modesty that got them elected, or they never possessed those sterling qualities in the first place.  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, Humankind: A Hopeful History

 

“The real conflict is the inner conflict.  Beyond armies of occupation and the  the sacrifice of many victims 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 ourselves are defeated in our innermost personal selves?”

Maximilian Kolbe

Stocks had a number of ways to demonstrate that they have put in a decent bottom from this recent flirtation with lower lows.

The action today was not one of them.  

A gap open and sprint higher that flopped into the close reeked of artificiality.

Gold and silver did manage a bounce from the expiration lows, and went out nearer to the highs of the day.

But to extend that in the face of titanic monetary events is key.

The Dollar continued its march higher, taking on the 103 handle and then some.

Or should we more correctly say that this is not Dollar strength so much as Yen and Euro weakness?

And is this Dollar strength more like the receding of the ocean, prior to some greater seismic event?

The strong Dollar has had its impact already, shaving several whole points off GDP in a yawning trade imbalance, fostered by a stronger dollar.

A strong Dollar favors imports, discourages exports, and encourages hot money of finance to seek acquisitions abroad.  

Save yourself from the madness, if you will.

And you may be grateful yet, if you do so moderate your passions, while remaining standing safely and faithfully, on higher ground.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Children of Wrath - The Truth Will Be There Yet

 

"With a monetary expansion intended to help cure a credit bubble crisis that is not accompanied by significant financial market reform, systemic rebalancing, and government programs to cure and correct past abuses of the productive economy through financial engineering, the hot money given by the Fed and Treasury to the banking system will not flow into the real economy, but instead will seek high beta returns in financial assets. 

The monetary stimulus of the Fed and the Treasury to help the economy is similar to relief aid sent to a suffering Third World country.  It is intercepted and seized by a despotic regime and allocated to its local warlords, with very little going to help the people.

Those who have taken a huge share of the last three bubbles would like to stop the bubble now, keep their gains, and return to a system of fiscal restraint with light taxation on their windfall of assets.   So why does this not just simply happen?  Because the political risks become enormous. 

It is difficult to reduce a population of free men into debt slaves, without risking a significant reaction. Therefore, it seems most likely that the government and the Fed will try to 'muddle through' for the time being, and look for an exogenous event [such as a war] to break the stalemate." 

Jesse, October 2009 

 

"Even a purely moral act that has no hope of any immediate and visible political effect can gradually and indirectly, over time, gain in political significance." 

Václav Havel, Letter to Alexander Dubček, August 1969

 

"Thus we see how the neoliberal utopia tends to embody itself in the reality of a kind of infernal machine, whose necessity imposes itself even upon the rulers.  Like the Marxism of an earlier time, with which, in this regard, it has much in common, this utopia evokes powerful belief - the free trade faith - not only among those who live off it, such as financiers, the owners and managers of large corporations, etc., but also among those, such as high-level government officials and politicians, who derive their justification for existing from it. 

For they sanctify the power of markets in the name of economic efficiency, which requires the elimination of administrative or political barriers capable of inconveniencing the owners of capital in their individual quest for the maximisation of individual profit, which has been turned into a model of rationality.  

They want independent central banks.  And they preach the subordination of nation-states to the requirements of economic freedom for the masters of the economy, with the suppression of any regulation of any market, beginning with the labour market, the prohibition of deficits and inflation, the general privatisation of public services, and the reduction of public and social expenses." 

Pierre Bourdieu, L’essence du néolibéralisme

 

“I think that when the lies are all told and forgot the truth will be there yet.  It don't move about from place to place and it don't change from time to time.  You cant corrupt it any more than you can salt salt.”

Cormac McCarthy, No Country for Old Men

 

Stocks were in bounce mode today, risk on, the wash in the wash n' rinse cycle. 

The Dollar, fueled by euro and yen weakness, moved higher on the DXY index to just under 103.

Gold and silver lost some further ground.

Some tech behemoths like 'Meta' reported after the bell.

Bully will try to defend their numbers as 'less worse than expected.'

The oligarchs think that they have the children of wrath firmly in hand. 

Let's see what they're up to next.

Have a pleasant evening.

 

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Liquidation - Who Could Have Seen It Coming

 

"Cannot I say, as truly at least of human laws, that where mystery begins, justice ends?"

Edmund Burke


“In a room where people unanimously maintain a conspiracy of silence, one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot.”

Czesław Miłosz


"The world of finance is a mysterious world in which, incredible as the fact may appear, evaporation precedes liquidation.  First the capital evaporates, and then the company goes into liquidation."

Joseph Conrad


“Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.”

Terry Pratchett

Stocks flipped over and dropped down to test the prior lows.

After the bell Alphabet and Microsoft reported earnings, and further roiled the volatility of the NDX.

VIX and the Dollar rose sharply.

The Dollar is now sporting a 102 handle on the DXY index.

The Dollar strength is essentially the inverse of weakness in the Euro, Pound, Yen and Loonie.

Gold bounced up a little while silver fell a bit lower.

We had a minor option expiration for the precious metals on the Comex today, more significant for silver than gold.

The miners were caught up in the equity selling for the most part.

The NDX has set a second low.

The SP 500 is on the edge of confirming.

 Let's see what happens.

Nothing is certain here.   But the risk is pronounced.

But all in all, it's a more peaceful view from higher ground.

Have a pleasant evening.