Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - His Living Garden

 

"As the father has loved me, so I have loved you.  Abide in my love.   If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my father's commandments, and abide in his love.  These things I have told you, that my joy may be in you, and your joy may be complete.  This is my commandment: love one another, as I have loved you.   Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down their life for their friends.  And you are my friends, if you do as I have commanded you."

John 15:9-14

“Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man.  It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest.   Greed may drive men into competition if there is not enough to go round; but the proud man, even when he has got more than he can possibly want, will try to get still more just to assert his power.  Nearly all those evils in the world which people put down to greed or selfishness are really far more the result of pride.”

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

"Here we may reign secure, and in my choice To reign is worth ambition though in Hell: Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heaven."

John Milton, Paradise Lost

"We live in a world where love itself is condemned.  People call it weakness, something to grow out of.  Some are saying: 'let each one become as strong as he can, and let the weak perish.'  The neo-paganism [of the Nazis] may well cast-off love but, in spite of everything, history teaches us that we shall be the victors over this.  Do not yield to hatred.  We are here in a dark tunnel, but we have to go on.  At the end, an eternal light is shining for us.  We shall not forsake love."

Titus Brandsma, Dachau, 26 July 1942

"Love does not make you weak, because it is the source of all strength.  But it makes you see the nothingness of the illusory strength on which you depended before you knew it."

Léon Bloy

The action today was little more than a wash-and-rinse prelude to the Fed's interest rate meeting and announcement tomorrow.

Watch out for secondary effects from Jay Powell's press conference after the decision announcement.

Stocks dropped and then pulled back to finished just slightly lower.

VIX waffled, finishing nearly unchanged.

Gold and silver did a dip.

The Street squeezed out the Instacart IPO today.  

My eye is recovering slowly.  I still cannot drive which is inconvenient.  But the worst of it is past, and the important bits are all in place and settled down.

Tender mercies.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Time to Come Home - FOMC Rate Decision on Wednesday

 

"Anger and fury are abominations, yet a sinner holds them close in his heart.  The vengeful will face the Lord’s justice, for he has a strict account of their sins.  Forgive your neighbor the wrong he has done, and then your sins will be forgiven when you pray."

Sirach 27:30-28:1

"If I speak in the tongues of angels and of men, but I do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.   And if I can prophesy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so that I can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.   If I give away everything I own, and if I give over my body in order to boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.   Love is patient, love is kind, it is not envious.  Love does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not selfish, it is not easily angered or resentful.  It is not glad of injustice, but rejoices in the truth."

1 Corinthians 13:1-7

"Worldly pride is easier for us to perceive.  We see it clearly in the self-proclaimed elite of our time.   But less obvious perhaps is the spiritual form of pride, that reduces us into an insidiously distorted order of things. Spiritual pride blinds us to our own faults.  But even worse, it leads us to magnify and fix ourselves upon the faults of others.

In doing so we seek to magnify our own imagined achievements, and at the same time dismiss our bad treatment and low regard for others. There is no person who is spiritually proud whose heart will serve as a home for the Holy Spirit, the spirit of humility, and mercy, and of love. They are too full of the law, and harsh judgement, and the trappings and ornaments of worldly observance, and of themselves.

Spiritual pride leads to a lingering spiritual death. It turns the living being into a living tomb, all bright and polished on the outside, proudly ornamented with scrupulous attention to detail, and ostentatious adherence to the letter of the law— but inside full of corruption, and festering foulness. This is all too common among those whose love is directed to the rituals and the forms of religion, but wanting nothing to do with the human realities of it, the acts of mercy to others which are the second great commandment.  It is a sickening romance with the self, unto death."

Jesse, Being Human, 20 August 2017

O Lord, pierce our hardened hearts, enlighten our blindness, and break the chains of our pride and self-deception, so that we may choose the fullness of life in your loving and sacred heart.

Stocks ended largely flat today, after the usual up and down wash and rinse cycle.

The Dollar was a bit lower.

Gold and silver rallied, and finished near the highs.

There will be an FOMC rate decision this Wednesday afternoon.

Have a pleasant evening.

US Dollar Very Long Term Chart - La Douleur du Monde

 

The US Mega-Banks and SWIFT money transfer system for the world's reserve currency are Financial Dreadnoughts in time of currency war.

 Le privilège stratégique

 

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - And the Love of Most Will Grow Cold

 

"I urge you, brothers and sisters, to be wary of those who cause divisions and undermine the faithful, in opposition to the teaching that you have learned.   Avoid such people, who do not serve our Lord, but their own appetites.  And by clever words and flattery they deceive the hearts of the innocent and naive."

Romans 16:17-18

"Nor will love be seen coming from the hearts of those who are fallen into wickedness: they are the fruit of hate, deceit, greed, fear, pride, possession, and aggression.  And they will not only forsake love by washing their hands of it, they will eventually come to condemn it, and persecute it— and thereby condemn themselves.

For the people of God love is the touchstone of faith, the way to know if what we believe is with Him, or from something else; if we are walking with Him, or with something else; if the one who speaks is speaking for Him, or for something else; if we are keeping Him in our hearts, or something else; if we love Him, or ourselves, or something else.

Love does not speak with hate or fear or derision, but with the fullness of existence which is joy and mercy. Love is ridiculed and trampled upon by that which is in opposition to His creation.  When you are in doubt or confusion about what is true and what is false, look for the light of love.  This is the hallmark of the spirit in the world.

Love is not what we do, but how we do what we do.  Love is found in the most ordinary things, not in grand gestures and elaborate mannerisms.   It resides in small daily acts of kindness and fellowship, done lovingly and with care, for His sake.  It is how we carry our cross, not in front of a cheering crowd, but in the quiet moments, and the little things, while walking with Him.

The hardened heart judges others, while ignoring its own sins, thinking itself good.  Love is mercy, as it shows us our commonality with our fellow humanity as a weak and sinful creature.  We do not need to hate and reject the world, and despise and subdue His creation.  Creation is a gift from God, to which we bring our own good use and order in His name.  And if we are wise, with our reverent humility and wonder.  We can work with His gifts lovingly, and not abuse them from an excess of greed.  It is not the world itself that is a source of evil, but the willfulness of our hearts, hardened by pride.

Only love is creative and productive.  Only love is accepting and uplifting, able to bring all things forward to His plan and make them new.  Love consecrates, while sin desecrates and destroys in its lust for possession and the will to power."

Jesse, Love is the Refuge of the Way, 24 June 2017

"Love does not make you weak, because it is the source of all strength— but it makes you see the nothingness of the illusory strength on which you depended before you knew it."

Léon Bloy

And so we had a triple witch option expiration today.

Stocks were slammed.

Wash, rinse repeat.

Gold and silver soared, although they pulled back some into the close.

As we have seen before, the mischief of heavy selling was done in the days before expiration, particularly in the mining sector where stock options are more of a factor.

The VIX rose sharply.

The Dollar chopped sideways.  It is at a relative higher end of its recent trading range.

They have no shame.

Have a pleasant weekend.