Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Plus ça change - Stock Index Expiration Tomorrow

 

"This is how we know who are the children of God and who are the children of the Satan: anyone who does not do what is good is not God’s child, nor is anyone who does not love their neighbor."

1 John 3:10

"If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing."

1 Corinthians 13:1-3

"‘Woe to you, you hypocrites.  You scrupulously observe the details, but neglect the more important spirit of His commandments – justice, mercy and faithfulness.  You carefully perform the rituals, but inside you are full of greed and self-indulgence.  On the outside you appear righteous, but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.  You snakes, you brood of vipers.'"

Matt 23: 23-33

"Let all mankind recognize My unfathomable mercy.  It is a sign for the end times.  He who refuses to pass through the door of My mercy must pass through the door of My justice. "

Maria Faustyna Kowalska

"I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, for I have five brothers.  Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’  But Abraham said, ‘Moses and the prophets have warned them.  Your brothers can read what they wrote.’ 

The rich man replied, ‘No, Father Abraham! But if someone is sent to them from the dead, then they will repent of their sins and turn to God.’  But Abraham said, ‘If they won’t listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be persuaded, even if someone rises from the dead.’”

Luke 16:27-31

 

Who do you love?   It is whom that you serve.

Yet another wide ranging day for US equities, with a rally attempt failing and falling out into the red.

Gold was lower, silver was higher.

The Dollar was flat.

The VIX fell.

Must be an option expiration coming up tomorrow.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - No Absent God - Stock Option Expiration on Friday

 

"Every century is like every other, and to those who live in it seems worse than all times before it.   The Church is ever ailing, and lingers on in weakness.  Religion seems ever expiring, schisms dominant, the light of Truth dim, its adherents scattered.   The cause of Christ is ever in its last agony, as though it were but a question of time whether it fails finally this day or another."

John Henry Newman

"Sorrow can do one of two things to us. It can make us hard, bitter, resentful, rebellious against God.   Or it can make us kinder, softer, more sympathetic  It can despoil us of our faith; or it can root faith ever deeper.   It all depends how we think of God. If we think of him as distant and detached we may well despair; but if we think of him as intimately connected with life, as having his hand on the helm, we too will be sure that the best is yet to be and the years will never kill our hope."

William Barclay, Commentary on Luke 2:36-40

“Do not let your hearts be troubled.  You trust in God.  Trust also in me."

John 14:1

"People who know nothing of God and whose lives are centered on themselves, imagine that they can only find themselves by asserting their own desires and ambitions and appetites in a struggle with the rest of the world.  They try to become real by imposing themselves on other people, by appropriating for themselves some share of the limited supply of created goods and thus emphasizing the difference between themselves and the other men who have less than they, or nothing at all."

Thomas Merton

“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 familial interconnection with all mankind."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"Do not be afraid little flock, for your Father is pleased to give you His kingdom."

Luke 12:32

 

Another day of the same old, same old.

Stocks slumped.

The Dollar rallied on higher yields.

The VIX rose slightly.

Gold and silver were sold.

Wash - rinse - repeat.

There will be a stock index option expiration on Friday.

In all this back and forth, a firm footing on higher ground seems the place to be. 

I think this is going to continue until at least after the midterm elections.

Have a pleasant evening.

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Corruption's Self-Inflicted Wounds

 

"Everywhere Rome was failing in her duties as mistress of the civilised world.  Her own internal degeneracy was faithfully reflected in the abnegation of her imperial duties.  When in any country the small-farmer class is being squeezed off the land; when its labourers are slaves or serfs; when huge tracts are kept waste to minister to pleasure; when the shibboleth of art is on every man's lips, but ideas of true beauty in very few men's souls; when the business-sharper is the greatest man in the city, and lords it even in the law courts; when class-magistrates, bidding for high office, deal out justice according to the rank of the criminal; when exchanges are turned into great gambling-houses, and senators and men of title are the chief gamblers; when, in short, 'corruption is universal, when there is increasing audacity, increasing greed, increasing fraud, increasing impurity, and these are fed by increasing indulgence and ostentation; when a considerable number of trials in the courts of law bring out the fact that the country in general is now regarded as a prey, upon which any number of vultures, scenting it from afar, may safely light and securely gorge themselves; when the foul tribe is amply replenished by its congeners at home, and foreign invaders find any number of men, bearing good names, ready to assist them in robberies far more cruel and sweeping than those of the footpad or burglar'—when such is the tone of society, and such the idols before which it bends, a nation must be fast going down hill.

A more repulsive picture can hardly be imagined. A mob, a moneyed class, and an aristocracy almost equally worthless, hating each other, and hated by the rest of the world; Italians bitterly jealous of Romans, and only in better plight than the provinces beyond the sea; more miserable than either, swarms of slaves beginning to brood over revenge as a solace to their sufferings; the land going out of cultivation; native industry swamped by slave-grown imports; the population decreasing; the army degenerating; wars waged as a speculation, but only against the weak; provinces subjected to organized pillage; in the metropolis childish superstition, whole sale luxury, and monstrous vice. The hour for reform was surely come.  Who was to be the man?"

A.H. Beesley, The Gracchi Marius and Sulla, 1921


As you may recall the Gracchi brothers were Roman reformers in the second century BC, about seven hundred or more years before the fall of Rome itself.

Speaking about the 'fall of Rome', it has been my experience that the many theories and interpretations about the Fall of Rome say more about the cultural context and disposition of the historian advancing them than about the actual cause of the decline and fall of the empire itself. 

And the same goes for economics.

Stocks had another ranging day, but managed to finish in the green, in party by a 'good report' from index darling Netflix.

The Dollar was flat.

Gold and silver finished unchanged.

They seem to be held down here on support.  

VIX continued its gradual fall from the recent peak.

We are expecting to receive a hard frost here tonight, so the young man is gathering both the ripe and unripe from the garden.  

The leaves have not yet changed color on the trees here yet to any appreciable degree.   Perhaps this hard frost will help things along.

Have a pleasant evening.

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - In the Garden of Moloch

 

"I warn you about these things, my brothers and sisters, even though I understand that you already have heard them.   But I am watchful for you ahead of time, being wary of those wild beasts in human form.  Not only should you not court such people, if possible you should not even associate with them.  Instead pray for them that they might somehow repent, though even this seems difficult.  But the Lord has authority over them."

Ignatius of Antioch, Letters To the Smyrnaeans


"Capitalism is at risk of failing today not because we are running out of innovations, or because markets are failing to inspire private actions, but because we’ve lost sight of the operational failings of unfettered gluttony."

Jeffrey Sachs


"Ayn Rand's 'philosophy' is nearly perfect in its immorality, which makes the size of her audience all the more ominous and symptomatic as we enter a curious new phase in our society.   Moral values are in flux.   The muddy depths are being stirred by new monsters and witches from the deep.   Trolls walk the American night.  Caesars are stirring in the Forum."

Gore Vidal, Comment, Esquire, July 1961


"At first the love of money, and then of power, began to prevail, and became, as it were, the source of every evil.  For greed subverted honesty, integrity, and other honorable principles, and, instead encouraged pride, inhumanity, contempt for religion, and general corruption.  Ambition prompted many to become deceitful; to keep one thing concealed in the heart, and another on the tongue; to consider friendships and disagreements, not by their true worth, but according to their monetary value; and to bear a false face than an honest heart.

These vices at first advanced but slowly, and were sometimes restrained by correction; but afterward, when their infection had spread like a plague, the state was entirely changed, and the government, from being the most equitable and praiseworthy, became aggressively greedy and unsustainable."

Sallust, The Conspiracy of Catiline



It was rally time today, as London set the tone by adopting a more 'responsible' fiscal plan, scrapping the PM's tax cuts. 

If you are wondering what that had to do with US equities, you have not been following the commentary.

Wash - rinse - repeat. 

The Dollar fell over a buck today.  

Gold rallied and then fell through the day, for no particular reason either.

Let's see what happens when earnings start coming out, and the myth of the Fed's pivot is once again dispelled.

Have a pleasant evening.