Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Mind the Gap

 

"Pride hardens the heart against repentance."

John Henry Newman, Conversion of St. Paul


"They do not see the image of Almighty God before them, and ask themselves what He wishes.  And, for the same reason that they do not please Him, they succeed in pleasing themselves.  Hence, they become both self-satisfied and self-sufficient; – they think they know just what they ought to do, and that they do it all; and in consequence they are very well content with themselves, and rate their merit very high, and have no fear at all of any future scrutiny into their conduct."

John Henry Newman, The Religion of the Pharisees


"The problem Newman addresses here is with those believers who have grown in the faith, and may exhibit many of its gifts, but stop there without bearing the kind of fruit of which they are capable.   And why do they do this?   Simply because they never grow to fully love Him and His, more than they love their own fears, desires, and selves. 

They always hold some better portion of themselves back and in reserve. They love God as they think that they must only in order to avoid punishment and to be comfortable, while being blinded to their own sinful shortcomings, never fully growing into the love which is the substance and the salvation of their true selves.  They are imbued with the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy and spiritual pride.  And it is the road to a dwindling of the spiritual life, and a gradual erosion of faith as a vital element of our every action."

Jesse, 5 April 2017

The gap to which the header refers is not the infamous gap between what a people think their leaders do in the world, and what they actually have done, and what they are planning to do.  

It is the gap that looms below the price levels here on the SP 500 chart.  And it is a gap that is likely to be filled, sooner or later.

Stocks slumped.

The Dollar chopped sideways.

The VIX rose.

Silver managed to hold a rally higher, while gold attempted to rally but did not hold on.

Tomorrow is an option expiration for the precious metals on the Comex.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

Malign forces are at work in the world.  This is always the case as we see throughout history.

But their force and influence waxes and wanes in the hearts of men.  

People forget, and so sometimes foolishness is allowed to prevail.

Try to remain standing in the madness.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Unbalanced Rebalancing

 

“There is only one kind of shock worse than the totally unexpected: the expected for which one has refused to prepare.”

Mary Renault, The Charioteer


"The dictatorship, and the whole process of its coming into being, was above all diverting. It provided an excuse not to think for people who did not want to think anyway. I do not speak of your ‘little men,’ your baker and so on; I speak of my colleagues and myself, learned men, mind you. Most of us did not want to think about fundamental things and never had. There was no need to.

Milton Mayer, They Thought They Were Free: The Germans 1933-1945


"It seems that under the overwhelming impact of rising power, humans are deprived of their inner independence and, more or less consciously, give up establishing an autonomous position toward the emerging circumstances.

The fact that the foolish person is often stubborn must not blind us to the fact that he is not independent. In conversation with him, one virtually feels that one is dealing not at all with him as a person, but with slogans, catchwords, and the like that have taken possession of him.

He is under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in his very being. Having thus become a mindless tool, the foolish person will also be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil. This is where the danger of diabolical misuse lurks, for it is this that can once and for all destroy human beings.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers From Prison

If today was the fourth Friday in June then this must have been thee annual rebalancing of the Russell 2000.

And so about 40% of the daily volume in equities came in the last five minutes of trading.

Gold and the dollar finished higher, while silver slumped a little with stocks.

VIX remains comparatively complacent.

Next Tuesday the 27th will be a precious metals futures option expiration on the Comex.

Have a pleasant weekend.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Oathbreakers and Faithless Shepherds

 

Thomas More:  When a man takes an oath, Meg, he's holding his own self in his own hands.  Like water.  And if he opens his fingers then— he needn't hope to find himself again.

Robert Bolt, A Man For All Seasons

"The wealthy, not only by private fraud but also by common laws, do every day pluck and snatch away from the people some part of their daily living.  I perceive nothing but a certain conspiracy of rich men in procuring their own commodities under the name and authority of the commonwealth.  They invent and devise all means and crafts, first how to keep safely without fear of losing that which they have unjustly gathered together, and next how to hire and abuse the work and labor of the people for as little money and effort as possible."

Thomas More, Utopia

"You who make wicked judgements, who write oppressive laws to deprive the needy of justice, and to rob the poor of their rights, that widows may be your victims, and that you may make the orphans your prey— what will you do on the day of reckoning, when the consequences come from afar?   To whom will you run for protection, and where will you hide your riches?"

Isaiah 10:1-3

"No one can serve two masters, for he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one, and despise the other.   You cannot serve both God and your possessions."

Matt 6:24

Margaret Roper:  Haven't you done as much as God can reasonably want?
Thomas More:  Well, finally— it isn't a matter of reason.  Finally, it's a matter of love.

Robert Bolt, A Man For All Seasons

 

Stocks managed to put together a bounce today after the steep sell off from earlier this week.

That in turn was the consequence of a parabolic move higher which was targeting the very large short position in the SP 500.

The capital allocation system in the US has been co-opted, and broken.  

This will end badly.   And the jokers running the show do not care.  At all.

Gold and silver took a hit in the futures but recovered much of it in the miners.

The Dollar recovered what it gave up yesterday.

VIX continues to drift lower.

The oligarchs and their servants lie, to everyone and each other.

And they have come to admire their lies, for none do it better, or more boldly.

Dancing on the edge of a volcano.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - C'est la mode du temps, cherie, c'est la mode

 

"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

"America is caught in a confidence or credibility trap, in which the changes, investigations, and reforms necessary to restore trust to an economy or market are rendered unlikely because doing so would expose a pervasive corruption that the principals fear would destroy the careers of politicians and business people who may have permitted and even appeared to facilitate the control fraud that caused the financial crisis in the first place."

Jesse, America Trapped in a Massive Coverup of Control Fraud and Corruption, 22 January 2011


"As many as a dozen members of Congress and their aides took part in insider trading based on foreknowledge of market moving information on Capitol Hill, disgraced Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff told CNBC in an interview.  Legal analysts say that Wall Street insider trading laws do not apply to Congress.   As an open and public institution, the legal assumption has long been that any member of the public can have access to information about how Congress works.  In practice, though, that's simply not true, as powerful members of Congress come into contact daily with market-moving tidbits.  That gap between the law and the reality has made Capitol Hill a virtual free-fire zone for insider trading."

Eamon Javers, Congress Members Took Part in Insider Trading, 11 Nov 2011

"But it is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon him not understanding it."

Upton Sinclair, The Moneychangers

"The abuse of buying and selling votes crept in and money began to play an important part in determining elections.  Later on, this process of corruption spread to the law courts.  And then to the army, and finally the Republic was subjected to the rule of emperors."

Plutarch, The Roman Republic


Fed Chairman Jerome Powell is providing testimony this week to the US Congress.

Today he made the markets cringe by reasserting that the Fed is seriously about reducing inflation.

Gold and silver were smashed early in the morning, but gained quite a bit of that as the day wore on.

VIX declined.

Markets remain wobbly and will be sensitive to a negative exogenous event.

Have a pleasant evening.