Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Where are the Snows of Yesteryear - Götterdämmerung

 

"¿Qué fue entonces del rico y de su poderío
de la vanaglorïa, de su orgulloso brío?
Todo ya es pasado y corrió como río;
de todo su pensar fincó él mucho frío."

Pedro López de Ayala, Ubi sunt


"Beauty is but a flower
Which wrinkles will devour;
Brightness falls from the air;
Queens have died young and fair;
Dust hath close' d Helen's eye.
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us.

Thomas Nashe


"Et Jehanne, la bonne Lorraine,
Qu'Anglois bruslerent à Rouen;
Où sont-ilz, Vierge souveraine?
Mais où sont les neiges d'antan."

François Villon,  Ballade des dames du temps jadis


"Wir sind aus solchem Zeug wie das zu Träumen...
Und drei sind Eins: ein Mensch, ein Ding, ein Traum."

H. von Hofmannsthal


物の哀れ


"For what does it profit a man, to gain the whole world, but lose his soul?"

Mark 8:36


Stocks managed to find a footing and hold an advance higher, going out near those highs of the day. 

Gold and silver were off a bit, despite the Dollar falling quite a bit down into the 103 handle.

The VIX fell back down to its 50 day moving average.

The underpinnings of the economic recovery are as full of holes as the bubbles in equities.

There will be a stock option expiration on Friday.

We have raised a mighty edifice, that overshadows the globe.

Surely we shall endure.  

For are we not wonders, the paragon of history, exceptional?

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Witnessing

 

"The new generation has to hear what the older generation refuses to tell it.  Hatred can be nurtured anywhere, idealism can be perverted into sadism anywhere.  The inferno could erupt anew anywhere. The history of man is the history of crimes, and history can repeat.  So information is a defense.  We can build, we must build, a defense against repetition.  Hitler and Stalin are waiting for us to forget, because this is what makes possible the resurrection of these two monsters."

Simon Wiesenthal


"This is what a society looks like when the glue that holds it together starts to dissolve. This is the way ordinary citizens react when they learn that the structure beneath them is crumbling. And this is the thrill that pulses through the veins of the well-to-do when they discover that there is no longer any limit on their power to accumulate." 

Thomas Frank, Rendezvous with Oblivion

 

“It is my purpose, as one who lived and acted in these days, first to show how easily the tragedy of the Second World War could have been prevented; how the malice of the wicked was reinforced by the weakness of the virtuous.” 

Winston S. Churchill, The Gathering Storm

 

"I know nothing that I may say can influence you.  You have no souls to be influenced.   You are spineless, flaccid things.  You are lick-spittles and panderers, the creatures of the Plutocracy.  You talk verbosely in antiquated terminology of your love of liberty, and all the while you wear the scarlet livery of the Iron Heel.”

Jack London, The Iron Heel

Stocks just cannot seem to gain a footing and hold a rally together.

Gold and silver rallied today and went out near their highs.

The Dollar declined a bit from its recent impressive highs.

VIX declined, which was a bit counter-intuitive to the weakness in stocks.

Perhaps it signals a more fruitful environment for bully to finally shake off this malaise.

Stock option expiration on this Friday the 20^th may help the wiseguys focus..

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Bounce - Keep On Trying 'Til I Reach the Highest Ground

 

"Inequality is a euphemism, a kind of shorthand, for all of the things that have gone to make the lives of the rich so much more delicious, year on year, for the last three decades.  And also for the things that have made the lives of working people so wretched and so precarious in that same time. 

Inequality is about the way in which speculators, and even criminals, get a helping hand from Uncle Sam, while the Vietnam Vet down the street from you loses his house." 

Thomas Frank


"The world is ours, we are its lords, and ours it shall remain.  As for the host of labor, it has been in the dirt since history began, and I read history aright.  And in the dirt it shall remain so long as I and mine and those that come after us have the power.  There is the word.  It is the king of words— Power.  Not God, not Mammon, but Power.”

Jack London, The Iron Heel


"Narcissists are unstable and go through repeated cycles of self-destruction, with other people usually paying the heft of the price.   Narcissists tend to be divisive, vindictive, confrontational, aggressive, hate-filled, raging, incoherent, judgment-impaired, and irrational." 

Sam Vaknin

 

"What is good?  All that heightens the feeling of power in a man, the will to power, power itself.   What is bad?   All that is born of weakness.  What is happiness?  The feeling that power is growing, that resistance is overcome.  Not contentment, but more power; not peace at all, but war; not virtue, but efficiency. 

A thriving upper class accepts with a good conscience the sacrifice of untold human beings, who, for its sake, must be reduced and lowered to incomplete human beings, to functionaries, to instruments.  

The first principle of our humanism is that the weak and the failures shall perish.   And one should help them to perish. What is more harmful than any vice?  Christian love."

Friedrich Nietzsche, The Antichrist 

 

Stocks finally found a footing and managed to book a decent bounce off of what we can now call the second low.

Stocks can reset the CrashTrak chart with a close higher than the current  'second high.' 

The chart below just shows where they stand today.

The Dollar and the VIX both fell.

Gold fell a bit, but silver managed to construct a decent bounce.

Cash may be the higher ground in these stormy markets for the time being.

Next week could be interesting.

At that time many will turn away from the faith, and will betray and hate each other.
And false prophets will appear, and deceive many.
Because of the increase in wickedness, the love of most will grow cold. 
But those who stand firm to the end will be saved. 

Have a pleasant weekend.

 

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Bubble Deflating in Asset Liquidation

 

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

Matthew 23:38


"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


"The Lord requires you to act justly, and to love kindness and mercy, and to walk humbly with your God."

Micah 6:8


"What is good?  All that increases the feeling of power, the will to power, power itself.  What is bad?  All that is weakness.  What is happiness?  The feeling that power is growing, that resistance is overcome.  Not contentment, but more power; not peace at all, but war; not virtue, but efficiency. 

'The weak and the flawed shall perish' is the first principle of our charity.  And one should help them to perish.  What is more harmful than any vice?  Christian love."

Nietzsche, The Antichrist


"Love does not make you weak, because it is the source of all strength— but it makes you see the nothingness of the illusory strength on which you depended before you knew it.

The only real tragedy, In the end, is not to be a saint."

Léon Bloy

Stocks dove to a new low today, but managed to find some footing and bounce back in the afternoon.

Volatility remains pronounced, as shown by the elevated VIX.

Gold and silver fell as the Dollar rocketed another 97 basis points higher on the DXY.

It is not clear if stocks have put in a bottom or not.

This shows the characteristics of asset liquidation at this point.

A bounce tomorrow would be constructive.

Watch out if they do not bounce though, for a 'blue' or gloomy Monday, followed by a black Tuesday capitulation if they still cannot bring themselves out of this slump.

Have a pleasant evening.