Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Vultures and Corruption - A Fairly Impressive Failure For Stocks to Rally

 

"As a country becomes industrialized, its governance and corruption challenges do not disappear. They simply morph and become more sophisticated: Transfer of a briefcase stashed with cash is less frequent.

Instead, subtler forms of capture and 'legal corruption' exist: an expectation of a future job for a regulator in a lobbying firm, or a campaign contribution with strings attached. In many countries this may be legal, even if unethical. In industrialized nations undue influence is often legally exercised by powerful private interests, which in turn influence the nation's regulations, policies and laws."

Daniel Kaufmann, Corruption And The Global Financial Crisis, Forbes, 27 January 2009

And they said to him, 'Where will this happen, Lord?'  And He said to them, 'Where death is, there will be a gathering of vultures.'”

Luke 17:37

"A credibility trap is a condition wherein the financial, political and informational functions of a society have been compromised by corruption and fraud, so that the leadership cannot effectively reform, or even honestly address, the problems of that system without impairing and implicating, at least incidentally, a broad swath of the power structure, including themselves. 

The status quo tolerates the corruption and the fraud because they have profited at least indirectly from it, and would like to continue to do so. Even the impulse to reform within the power structure is susceptible to various forms of soft blackmail and coercion by the system that maintains and rewards.

And so a failed policy and its support system become self-sustaining, long after it is seen by objective observers to have failed. In its failure it is counterproductive, and an impediment to recovery in the real economy.  The continuity of the structural hierarchy must therefore be maintained at all costs, even to the point of becoming a painfully obvious, organized hypocrisy."

Jesse,  What Is a Credibility Trap, 18 September 2014

 

Stocks made a serious attempt to rally off that deep low from yesterday.

And for the first half of the day they were doing fairly well.

But alas, a rally was not meant to be, and in the afternoon the stock rally failed impressively.

Gold and silver also attempted to rally off their oversold condition, but they too could not hold their gains, although gold did finish a bit higher.

The VIX rose.

The Dollar edged higher into the 114 handle.

In news after the bell sixteen Banks were fined $1.1 Billion for failing to maintain records of communications between their employees.  

The usual excuses were being made, yada yada.  But collusion between employees to break the law is a commonplace temptation that requires the Banks to maintain records of those communications.

Stock are at a 'must hold' point here on the charts, and a further decline from here may destabilize things further.

Needless to say, the markets are one event away from a panic.  

But that's how it is when journeying through experiments in lawlessnes.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Who Could Have Seen It Coming? - Comex Gold Option Expiration Tomorrow

 

"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.


"What is offensive is that they lie, and worship their own lying."

Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment


"It is in the gold lending market that the central banks of the world lend out their gold holdings to commercial bullion banks, where the physical gold is sold and shipped out, and where the central banks then claim to hold interest-earning ‘gold deposits’ with the bullion banks.   These gold-deposits (which are merely a claim on a bullion bank) then mostly roll over short-term, passed around indefinitely between the clubby LBMA cartel of bullion banks, in a totally opaque behind the scenes network.

The physical gold bars lent out are long gone to Switzerland and the Far East, and the central banks then deceptively claim that they still hold the gold on their balance sheets when in fact all they have is a liability to the bullion banks. In the middle of this market sits the Bank of England, offering gold custody and storage to other central banks (in the vaults under the Bank of England headquarters in London) and offering gold accounts to the bullion banks concerned."

Ronan Manly, French central bank and JP Morgan team up to boost Gold Lending


The Dollar jumped to take the 114 handle today, off the weakness in the Euro, Yen, Pound et al. 

This record Dollar strength poses serious earnings risks for dollar-based companies with international exposure.

Gold was hammered down to a multi-year low, along with silver.

Tomorrow is a fairly important Comex option expiration for gold, for the October contract. 

What a surprise.

The physical inventories in Hong Kong Comex warehouses remained very thin.   

Bonds are getting clocked by the rising interest rates, although the shorter term bills can be held to maturity.

Gold from the ETF selling may be some assistance, in addition to the usual Bank shenanigans.

Stocks were lower once again, with the SP flirting with the important CrashTrak prior low.

I don't think we have seen capitulation in the equity markets yet.

Or from the gold and silver cartels in NY and London either.

What is the old market saying, Sell Rosh Hashanah and buy Yom Kippur.

But the high ground seems to be a reasonable good position for waiting, as indicated many times here previously. 

Or perhaps even more appropriate for this year,  Sell in May and go away.

The atonement for the Wall Street financial assets bubble compels the Fed to continue to feed our children's future to the Moloch of the money men.

But in this as always, remember what is truly important.

"The most important problem in the world today is your soul, for that is what the struggle is about."

Fulton J. Sheen

There are the three great gifts of His tender mercy. 

 Repentance - forgiveness - thankfulness.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - This Is Our Calling - Retesting the Lows

 

"God beholds you.  He calls you by your name.  He sees you and understands you as He made you.  He knows what is in you, all your peculiar feelings and thoughts, your dispositions and likings, your strengths and your weaknesses.  He views you in your day of rejoicing and in your day of sorrow.

He encompasses you round and bears you in His arms.  He notes your very countenance, whether smiling or in tears.  He looks tenderly upon you.  He hears your voice, the beating of your heart, and your very breathing. 

You do not love yourself better than He loves you.  You cannot shrink from pain more than He dislikes your bearing it; and if He puts it on you, it is as you would put it on yourself, if you would be wise, for a greater good afterwards.

Therefore I will trust Him. Whatever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him; in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him. If I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him.  He does nothing in vain. He knows what He is about.

Let us feel what we really are— sinners attempting great things.  Let us simply obey God's will, whatever may come.  He can turn all things to our eternal good. The more we do, the more shall we trust in Christ; and that surely is no morose doctrine, that leads us to soothe our selfish restlessness, and forget our fears, in the vision of the Incarnate Son of God."

John Henry Newman

"In the Incarnation the whole human race recovers the dignity of the image of God. Thereafter, any attack, even on the least of men, is an attack on Christ, who took on the form of man, and in his own Person restored the image of God in all.   Through our relationship with the Incarnation, we recover our true humanity, and at the same time are delivered from that perverse individualism which is the consequence of sin, and recover our solidarity with all mankind."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.”

Matthew 11:30

The hawkish Fed, economic troubles in Europe and the UK, and a fresh appreciation of risk, triggered heavy selling in the equity and commodity markets. 

The VIX rose sharply as one might expect on a 'risk off' day.

A look at the stock index charts, especially the SP 500 futures, shows that we retested the prior second low intraday.

If we break further past that low and stick a close or two down that way, things could get interesting, quickly.

Gold and silver were hammered by a much stronger dollar, which shot to just shy of the 113 handle.

This is the highest that the DX index has been since the dot com bubble bust.

There will be a lot of Fed speakers gadding about next week, apparently things to say.

Let's see if they say anything that soothes the nerves of investors, especially in light of the mess in the UK and the potential contagion effects.

Or not. 

It might matter which way the winds of insider trading are blowing, especially out of Washington and NY.

Lord, pierce our hardened hearts, enlighten our minds, heal our blindness, and break the self-imposed chains of pride and self-deception, so that we may choose life through repentance, forgiveness, and life.

Have a pleasant weekend.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Hard Time Killin' Floor Blues - Tottering To the End of the 3rd Quarter

 

“Through pride we are ever deceiving ourselves.  But deep down below the surface of the average conscience a still, small voice says to us, something is out of tune."

Carl Jung

"I was being called to surrender the very citadel of my self.  I was completely in the dark.  I did not really know what repentance was or what I was required to repent of.  It was indeed the turning point of my life.  God had brought me to my knees and made me acknowledge my own nothingness, and out of that knowledge I had been reborn.  I was no longer the centre of my life and therefore I could see God in everything."

Bede Griffiths

"Call me dark, but what I see here is a toxic relationship between deregulation, underpriced risk, and exorbitant, inefficient pay scales that contribute to the growth of inequality, not to mention the shampoo economy (bubble, bust, repeat)."

Jared Bernstein, A Striking Picture of Pay and Deregulation in Finance

"Do you not know that to whom you give yourselves as servants, his servants you become, whether of a corruption unto death, or of a righteousness unto life?"

Rom 6:16

“Each day we are becoming a creature of splendid glory, or one of unthinkable horror.”

C. S. Lewis

 

We have experienced another enormous asset bubble, fueled by the Banks and their functionaries, for the purpose of further enriching the already fabulously wealthy.

Now it seems the time to tighten the belts of the hapless public, and for the people to surrender their paltry gains and livelihoods and futures to the Molochs of the financial system. 

Stocks floundered once again, searching for a foothold and a bottom.

Gold and silver moved sideways in what looks like a short term trading range.

Bullion continues to flow quietly from West to East.

The Dollar, la douleur du monde, is holding on to 111 handle.

There will be a precious metals option expiration next week.

What are we to do in the face of such relentless power.  What else is like it? Who can stand against the darkness of this world?

One way or another, through force and fraud, all must bend the knee it seems, and accept their mark.

Lord, pierce our hardened hearts, enlighten our minds, heal our blindness, and break the self-made chains of our pride and self-deception, so that we may choose life through repentance, forgiveness, and life. 

"And we have come to know and to trust the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God in them."   1 John 4:16-17 

Have a pleasant evening.