Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - And They All Lived Together in a Little Crooked House

 

"The suspicions that the system is rigged in favor of the largest banks and their elites, so they play by their own set of rules to the disfavor of the taxpayers who funded their bailout, are true.  It really happened.  These suspicions are valid.”

Neil Barofsky, TARP Inspector General


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

Tacitus


"The problem of the last three decades is not the 'vicissitudes of the marketplace,' but rather deliberate actions by the government to redistribute income from the rest of us to the one percent. This pattern of government action shows up in all areas of government policy."

Dean Baker


"Most of them became wealthy by being well connected and crooked. And they are creating a society in which they can commit hugely damaging economic crimes with impunity, and in which only children of the wealthy have the opportunity to become successful. That’s what I have a problem with. And I think most people agree with me."

Charles Ferguson, Predator Nation


"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."

Friedrich Nietzsche, The Antichrist

There will be a stock index option expiration on Friday.

Stocks fell again today, in the continuing ebb and flow of the Wall Street wash and rinse.

Gold and silver moved lower.

The Dollar is reaching for a high not of the 108 handle.

Or perhaps it might be better to think of it as the failings of the euro, for the obvious geo-political reasons.

Have a pleasant evening.

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.