Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Whom Do You Serve - Bear Market Rally Deluxe

 

"Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. ‘Teacher,’ he said, ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?’  And Jesus said to him, ‘What is written in the law?  What do you read there?’ And the lawyer answered, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself.’  And Jesus said to him, ‘You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.’

But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbour?’

"As you know, this passage above is the introduction to one of the greatest and most memorable of the parables from our Lord's own lips, the story of The Good Samaritan.  

Our Lord did not offer us an exemption from sin if we call on His name, but forgiveness, if that request is offered in true repentance, a recognition of our faults, and faith, and an active response to His command to 'go and sin no more.' 

It might be better to have been born without any knowledge of His word and His commandments, than to hear His words and then hypocritically parade in them and His sacraments, with intricate invocations of His holy name on your lips, as a call to hatefulness, pride, division, self-justification, and oppression.

I am speaking now, more directly, to those who embrace hatred and spread thoughts of violence and repression, often in the name of God, giving scandal to His faithful on earth.

 I am speaking to those who stoke the fires of hatefulness, and violent words, gossip and name calling, insults and hardness towards their brothers and sisters in this world, while cynically asking, Who is my neighbor?  Surely not them.

We are a generation made drunk with power, and a perverse individualism that has been foretold for increasingly dark times.  Examine your own actions and thoughts and behaviors first.   For you will not be called upon to answer for what others do, but what you have done. 

May God have mercy on any who provide provocation and false teachings to others, and scandalous examples to their brothers and sisters, children and grandchildren, especially because of their willful selfishness, stubborn greed, and foolish pride.  And you know who you are, if you are not already completely dead to the life of the Spirit."

Jesse, 19 January 2015

The markets decided it was time to rally this morning, and used a lightly worse than expected PMI number as a rationale to expect a Fed pause after the next rate increase.

Gold and silver rallied hard and never looked back.

Let's see how long this lasts.   Perhaps it will.

Or perhaps it will just be another cycle in the ongoing wealth transfer, the markets' wash and rinse.

There will be a Non-Farm Payrolls report on Friday that may move the markets one way or another.

Have a pleasant evening.

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Risky Business - Stocks Set New Low to End the 3rd Quarter

 

“The Scriptures are shallow enough for a babe to come and drink without fear of drowning and deep enough for a theologian to swim in without ever touching the bottom.  Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ."

Let them not flatter themselves if they think they have Scripture authority for their assertions, since the devil himself quoted Scripture, and the essence of the Scriptures is not the letter, but the meaning. Otherwise, if we follow the letter, we too can concoct a new dogma and assert that such persons as wear shoes and have two coats must not be received into the Church.

"The privileges of a few do not make common law.  To sin is human, to lay snares is diabolical.   They fill their houses through the plunder and losses of others, so that the saying of the philosophers may be fulfilled, 'Every rich man is unjust, or the heir of an unjust one.'"

St. Jerome


"The blessed John the Evangelist lived in Ephesus until extreme old age.  His disciples could barely carry him to church and he could not muster the voice to speak many words.   During individual gatherings he usually said nothing but, 'Little children, love one another.'   The disciples and brothers in attendance, annoyed because they always heard the same words, finally said, 'Teacher, why do you always say this?'  He replied with a line worthy of John: 'Because it is the Lord's commandment, and if it alone is kept, it is sufficient.'"

St. Jerome, Commentary on Galatians, 4th century, based on the commentaries of Origen of Alexandria

Stocks set a new low on the CrashTrak chart, and the lowest low since the initial pandemic lockdown stock collapse.

Gold was flat and silver was slightly higher.

The Dollar was unchanged.

VIX was unchanged but still elevated in the 30's.

Bully has to find a bottom here soon and get stocks turned around or the winds of October may blow a hurricane.

Have a pleasant weekend.

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Wanton Hearts - Reaping the Whirlwind

 

"Be not deceived, for God is not mocked.  Whatever a man sows, so shall he reap."

Galatians 6:7

“Then the rich man said, ‘I beg you, Father Abraham, send Lazarus to my father’s house. For I have five brothers for him to warn, so that they also will not come to this place of desolation and torment.’ But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets.  Let them listen to them.’

But the rich man again said, ‘No, Father Abraham, but if someone from the dead comes back and speaks to them, they will repent.’ And Abraham said, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, neither will they listen if someone tells them who has risen from the dead.’”

Luke 16:27-31

"And they treat the wounds of my people falsely saying peace, peace, where there is no peace."

Jeremiah 8:11

“'You that are cursed, depart from me into the eternal darkness prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.'

Then they will answer, 'Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?' Then he answered, 'Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’”

Matthew 25:40-46

"A true opium of the people is the belief in nothingness after death, the huge solace, the huge comfort of thinking that for our betrayals, our greed, our cowardice, our murders, we are not going to be judged.”

Czeslaw Milosz

Apparently the Bank of England's grand gesture to stabilize the gilt markets did not have sufficient carry over to help out equities.

Stocks slumped, fairly hard.

The Dollar dropped, just barely hanging on to the 112 handle.

Gold finished flat.

Silver lost ground in sympathy with stocks.

VIX rose.

Stocks are hanging on to a must hold support level.

Bank of America issued a rare downgrade of tech darling Apple.

More and more tech companies are instituting capex cuts and hiring freezes.

The sabotage of a key Russian natural gas pipeline to Europe is a shocking escalation in the proxy war in the Ukraine.

The madness serves none but itself.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Our Broken Hearts

 

The Penitence of Peter

"Only the man who has had to face despair is really convinced that he needs mercy.  Those who do not want mercy never seek it.  It is better to find God on the threshold of despair than to risk our lives in a complacency that has never felt the need of forgiveness."

Thomas Merton

"To enter heaven is to become more human than you ever succeeded in being on earth; to enter hell, is to be banished from humanity. What is cast (or casts itself) into hell is not a man: it is 'remains.' To be a complete man means to have the passions obedient to the will and the will offered to God: to have been a man – to be an ex-man or 'damned ghost' – would presumably mean to consist of a will utterly centered in its self and passions utterly uncontrolled by the will.

The real problem is not why some pious, humble, believing people suffer, but why some do not. Everyone has noticed how hard it is to turn to God when everything is going well for us. We 'have all we want' is a terrible saying when 'all' does not include God. We find God an interruption.

You can have no greater sign of confirmed pride than when you think you are humble enough.

Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world. No doubt pain as God's megaphone is a terrible instrument; it may lead to final and unrepented rebellion. But it gives the only opportunity the bad man can have for amendment. it removes the veil; it plants the flag of truth within the fortress of the rebel soul.

Mental pain is less dramatic than physical pain, but it is more common and also more hard to bear. The frequent attempt to conceal mental pain increases the burden: it is easier to say 'My tooth is aching' than to say 'My heart is broken'.

Pain provides an opportunity for heroism; the opportunity is seized with surprising frequency. But if suffering is good, ought it not to be pursued rather than avoided? I answer that suffering is not good in itself. What is good in any painful experience is, for the sufferer, his submission to the will of God, and, for the spectators, the compassion aroused and the acts of mercy to which it leads.

I have seen great beauty of spirit in some who were great sufferers. I have seen men, for the most part, grow better not worse with advancing years, and I have seen the last illness produce treasures of fortitude and meekness from most unpromising subjects.”

C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

“Man has places in his heart which do not yet exist— and into them enters suffering, in order that they may have life.”

Léon Bloy

"Suffering is a means by which God saves us, afflicting us so we do not lapse into vain self-sufficiency, a pride and a perverse individualism that gathers us blindly into ourselves, and separates us from His own creation. 

To suffer is how we grow in humility, and conform ourselves to do what He commands, rather than as we may will.  Prayer is how we sustain ourselves in times of both suffering and joy, with humility in this life, as we resort not only to ourselves or to the world, but to all things with God. 

And so we find comfort in His will, and the conversations that we keep with His many tender mercies. The world can not see this, and in not seeing does not understand.   To the world we are fools.  

His consolations and comforts are hidden, delivered to us in quiet moments, heart to heart. And so He gathers us together to Himself, and keeps us safe, and slowly takes us from this world and the dark powers therein, that search endlessly for souls to make their own, and to devour. "

Jesse, 15 May 2018

 

The Bank of England came to the rescue of the gilts market this morning, pledging to buy 'an unlimited amount' of bonds.

While this was obviously just kicking the can down the road as they say, on the premise of easing pressures of dislocation and disorder in their markets, traders nevertheless chose to take it a sign of more general central bank intervention.

And so stocks rallied sharply and held their gains into the close.

Gold and silver were smacked down hard in the overnight, as gut punch to the new holders of futures contracts from the recent option expiration. 

But with their expiry manipulation done, gold and silver rocketed higher.

The Dollar fell sharply off the signal to the markets by the BoE and the new appetite for riskier assets..   It was very overbought.

Bully managed to take stocks off the danger of breaking down through the important second low.

Let's see if they can keep it up.

Have a pleasant evening.