Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Slowly, Then All At Once - Customary Payroll Shenanigans

 

“When fascism came into power, most people were unprepared, both theoretically and practically.  They were unable to believe that man could exhibit such propensities for evil, such lust for power, such disregard for the rights of the weak, or such yearning for submission.   Only a few had been aware of the rumbling of the volcano preceding the outbreak.”

Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom


“Human nature being what it is, small loopholes are likely to be exploited until they become big ones, and big ones until they turn into financial disasters.”

Seth Klarman


"Fascism begins the moment a ruling class, fearing the people may use their political democracy to gain economic democracy, begins to destroy political democracy in order to retain its power of exploitation and special privilege."

Thomas Clement Douglas


"I am not so optimistic that this reform is possible, because there has in fact been a soft coup d'etat in the US, which now exists in a state of crony corporatism that wields enormous influence over the media and within the government.

Let's be clear about this, the oligarchs are flush with victory, and feel that they are firmly in control, able to subvert and direct any popular movement to the support of their own fascist ends and unslakable will to power.

This is the contempt in which they hold the majority of American people and the political process: the common people are easily led fools, and everyone else who is smart enough to know better has their price. And they would beggar every middle class voter in the US before they will voluntarily give up one dime of their ill gotten gains.

But my model says that the oligarchs will continue to press their advantages, being flushed with victory, until they provoke a strong reaction that frightens everyone, like a wake up call, and the tide then turns to genuine reform." 

Simon Johnson, The Quiet Coup


The Non-Farm Payrolls report came in much stronger than expected, which seemed to lock in the next Fed interest rate benchmark action at 75 basis points.

In what seems to be a new daily event, stocks spent the morning with losses and managed to go out with gains in the quiet trading of the afternoon. 

Such markets do not inspire calm confidence, lacking all conviction, and seem extraordinarily vulnerable to data shocks and exogenous events. 

Gold and silver were marginally.

The Dollar fell back a bit.

The VIX fell further towards its key moving average support.

In surprising news, the former PM of Japan, Shinzo Abe, was brutally assassinated in public during a campaign speech. 

Such are the times.

Stock market option expiration next Friday.

Physical inventories of gold in Hong Kong are rather low.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Paper Chase - Jobs Number: Desperately Seeking Goldilocks

 

"We looked into the abyss if the gold price rose further.  A further rise would have taken down one or several trading houses, which might have taken down all the rest in their wake.  Therefore at any price, at any cost, the central banks had to quell the gold price, manage it.  It was very difficult to get the gold price under control but we have now succeeded.  The US Fed was very active in getting the gold price down.  So was the U.K."

Eddie George, Bank of England, From Reg Howe v. BIS, JPM et al.


"Nor can private counterparties restrict supplies of gold, another commodity whose derivatives are often traded over-the-counter, where central banks stand ready to lease gold in increasing quantities should the price rise."

Alan Greenspan, Congressional Testimony, July 24, 1998

Stocks managed to stage a relief rally and hold the gains into the close.

The Dollar chopped sideways around the high 106 handle.

Gold and silver managed a bounce off the deep low of yesterday.

Non-Farm Payrolls tomorrow morning can move the markets based on perceptions of the performance of the economy and its effect on the Fed's decisions.

As we can see from the Comptroller of the Currency chart below, derivative bets on precious metals held by US banks exploded in notional value.

What could go wrong?

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - All Creatures Great and Small

 

"The salvation of this human world lies nowhere else than in the human heart, in the human power to reflect, in human modesty, and in human responsibility. 

Without a global revolution in the sphere of human consciousness, nothing will emerge for the better in the sphere of our Being as humans, and the catastrophe toward which this world is headed, whether it be ecological, social, demographic, or a general breakdown of civilization, will be unavoidable. 

We are still under the sway of the destructive and thoroughly vain belief that man is the pinnacle of creation and not just a part of it, and that therefore everything is permitted to him. People are manipulated in ways that are infinitely more subtle and refined than the brutal methods used in the post-totalitarian societies. We still close our eyes to the growing social, ethnic, and cultural conflicts in the world.  We are still destroying the planet that was entrusted to us.

The salvation of this human world lies nowhere else than in the human heart, in the human power to reflect, in human modesty, and in human responsibility.  In other words, we still don’t know how to put morality ahead of politics, science, and economics. 

I feel that the dormant goodwill in people needs to be stirred.   People need to hear that it makes sense to behave decently or to help others, to place common interests above their own, to respect the elementary rules of human coexistence. 

We are still incapable of understanding that the only genuine core of all our actions – if they are to be moral – is responsibility.  Responsibility to something higher than my family, my country, my firm, my success. Responsibility to the order of Being [spirit], where all our actions are indelibly recorded and where, and only where, they will be properly judged.

Truth and love will overcome lies and hatred.”

Václav Havel

"The souls of the just are in the hands of God, where torment can never touch them.  To the faithless they appear to die, their passing like a tragedy, their leaving a desolation.  They are at peace. If they experienced hardship, their hope was rich with eternal life; passing was their affliction, but eternal will be their blessing. 

They who trust Him will understand the truth, those who are faithful will live in love with Him forever. Grace and mercy await those whom the Lord has chosen."

Wisdom 4:1-9

Stocks slumped again today, but once again managed to come back to even or green into the close.

Just another facet of the Fed's finance-friendly stimulus program one might say.

Gold and silver were slammed again, with silver coming back to unchanged.

Gold not so much.

Physical gold stocks in Hong Kong are very slim again.   

Better call Powell.

By the way, Jay, how is that internal investigation of massive insider trading by Fed governors going?

I am flat again waiting to see how things go.   I thought there might be a bounce, to set up a wash and rinse on the news.  

What time's the next wash and rinse?

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Europe Agonistes - In the Garden of the Beast

 

"Seek the Lord, all you humble of the land,
who have observed his law;
Seek justice, seek humility;
And perhaps you will be sheltered
on the day of the Lord’s justice.

This was the triumphal city, high and mighty,
Saying to herself, ‘I am the one, and none dare stand beside me.’
How desolate now has she become, a place fit only for wild beasts.
Those who pass by her scoff, and shake their heads at her ruin."

Zephaniah 2:3-15


"It is interesting to contrast the complacency of the career diplomats, at that time most often Americans of privilege, and their preoccupation with obtaining full payment of the German bonds for their wealthy domestic constituents and the banks, with the agony of the German people as they slowly sunk into the abyss.   The lone voices that were raised in protest were suppressed, ridiculed, marginalized, and ignored even in America.

This is a fine example of serial policy error in the service of privilege and the status quo.  To many amoral minds, including especially the capitalists of the free world, Hitler's rise to power was just another business opportunity, and the plight of his victims a crisis not to be wasted, a source of great profit.  And not all those who benefited were censured and punished.  Some families rose to greater prominence and power, even in America, on a pile of European corpses."

Jesse, Review: In the Garden of Beasts, 26 September 2011


"The real danger comes from encouraging or inadvertently tolerating inflation and its close cousin of extreme speculation and risk taking, in effect standing by while bubbles and excesses threaten financial markets."

Paul Volcker


"For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind."

Hosea 8:7


“I'm not crazy about reality, but it's still the only place to get a decent meal.”

Groucho Marx

Stocks were sold hard in the overnight and at the opening of trade in New York.

And then as the day progressed the campaign to turn stocks and rally wore on, with the major indices unchanged or in the green at the close, led by the bubblemeisters in tech.

Like a dog returns to its vomit.

Gold and silver were slammed, hard.  

The euro was sold to a 20 year low, and as a result the DXY index of which the euro is the major component, soared to the 106+ handle.

I came in short from the weekend, expecting some selling to carry into the opening, and covered those shorts in the first thirty minutes.

I did take some initial, lightly held trading positions in the usual suspects later in the day during what felt like capitulation for at least the short term.  It may be rough to hold, much less build upon.

Let's see how the wash and rinse cycles progress into the Non-Farm Payrolls report on Friday.

The powers-that-be seem determined to wage a proxy war for economic power, to the last impoverished European.

How can they not?  This is how they use everyone, even if needed their own.

“He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.”

Samuel Johnson

And having forsaken the image of God, they lose themselves in darkness, become it, and call its endless death and desolation winning.

Have a pleasant evening.