Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - A Gathering of Vultures

 

"The historical evidence is overwhelming.  Many societies have done well for a while – until powerful people get out of hand.  This is an easy pattern to see at a distance and in other cultures.   It is typically much harder to recognize when your own society now has an elite less subject to effective constraints and more able to exert power in an abusive fashion.   And given the long history of strong institutions in the United States, it appears particularly difficult for some people to acknowledge that we have serious governance issues that need to be addressed.

We had strong institutions for a long time in this country — including effective checks on the power of bankers.  Many people remember that history and still hold its image in their mind’s eye as they look at modern Wall Street.  It’s time to wake up.  In recent decades we abandoned the governance mechanisms that previously served us well.  Global megabanks have obtained excessive and inappropriate power – the power to take a great deal of risk, with cash for their executives on the upside and huge damage for the rest of us on the downside."

Simon Johnson, Jamie Dimon and the Fall of Nations, May 31,2012

"Give strength to the hands that are tired
      and to knees that tremble with weakness.
Tell all who are discouraged,
      'Be strong. Do not be afraid.
      God is coming to your rescue,
      coming to chastise the oppressor.'”

Isaiah 35:3-4

"For they sanctify the power of markets in the name of economic efficiency, which requires the elimination of administrative or political barriers capable of inconveniencing the owners of capital in their individual quest for the maximisation of individual profit, which has been turned into a model of rationality.  And they preach the subordination of nation-states to the requirements of economic freedom for the masters of the economy, with the suppression of any regulation of any market, beginning with the labour market, the prohibition of deficits and inflation, the general privatisation of public services, and the reduction of public and social expenses."

Pierre Bourdieu, L’essence du néolibéralisme

"Until this moment I think I never gauged the cruelty or recklessness of some conservative economists, politicians and their masters. They have created a wreckage of financial devices and led us on the edge of a societal precipice.  Have they not done enough?  Have they no sense of decency left at long last?

Must they now attempt to define the poor as those who by their nature prefer cheap and shoddy goods, and a lower standard of life, and who are therefore are separate but equal with the wealthy who are genetically compelled (entitled?) to require the finer things in life?  The words of Robert Welch to lowlifes like McCarthy and Cohn still fit after all these years, to those lacking the basic integrity of the schoolyard, who thrive on and generate conflict, and who will say or do almost anything in their pursuit of the will to power."

Jesse, Economists Discover 'Separate But Equal', 20 May 2008

"They asked, 'Where will this happen, Lord?' And Jesus said, 'Where death is, there a gathering of vultures will be.'”

Luke 17:37


Stocks managed to bounce back today after last week's rough declines.

Gold and silver were higher.

The Dollar was higher.

VIX fell.

The news to watch this week will be the CPI on Wednesday, and the PPI on Thursday.

There seems to be a consensus that the Fed will be making their 'pivot' official, and offer up a rate cut at their next meeting this month.

The debate is whether it will be 25 or 50 bp.

If it is 50 I would expect it to be due to the proximity of the Presidential election, so they will cut big once and then stand aside until after that event.

But let's see what happens.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - From the Wilderness

 

"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

"Spiritual pride blinds us to our own faults. But even worse, it leads us to magnify and fix ourselves upon the faults of others.  We become full of the law, and harsh judgement, and the trappings and ornaments of worldly observance, and finally, ourselves.  It is a sickening romance with the self, unto death."

Jesse, On Being Human, 20 August 2017

"Holiness consists simply in doing God's will, and being just what God wants us to be. Our Lord does not look so much at the greatness of our actions, or even at their difficulty, but at the love with which we do them. Without love deeds, even the greatest, count as nothing. Our Lord's love shines forth as much in the simplest of souls as it does in the most highly gifted, as long as there is no refusal of His grace."

Thérèse Martin de Lisieux

"Then the devil took him to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world, and their extravagance and splendour. ‘All this I will give you,’ he said, ‘if you will fall down and worship me.’ And Jesus said, ‘Begone, Satan. For it is written: “Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.”’ Then the devil left, and angels came and ministered to him."

Matthew 4:8-11

"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 familiarity with all mankind."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

"And because of the increase in wickedness, the love of most will grow cold. But those who endure to the end will be saved The gospel of the kingdom of God will be proclaimed throughout the world, as a testimony to all nations. And then the end will come."

Matthew 24:11-14


The numbers for the Non-Farm Payrolls report were remarkably in-line with expectations.

But the revisions lower in the prior months cast a pall on the outlook.

Still, its just a question of the magnitude of the Fed's next interest rate decision not the direction, which is lower.

Stocks sold off hard, and went out near the lows.

Gold and silver were sold.

The Dollar rose slightly.

VIX is wandering around.

Let's see if next week brings any clarity.  Today looked like the usual technical trading gambits we see on event days such as this.

How far have we fallen from the ideals embodied in the oaths our leaders and public officials take to uphold the Constitution.

Have a pleasant weekend.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - J'attendrai

 

"This elite-generated social control maintains the status quo because the status quo benefits and validates those who created and sit atop it.  People rise to prominence when they parrot the orthodoxy rather than critically analyze it.  Intellectual regurgitation is prized over independent thought.  Voices of the dispossessed, different, and un(formally)educated are neglected regardless of their morality, import, and validity.

Real change in politics or society cannot occur under the orthodoxy because if it did, it would threaten the legitimacy of the professional class and all of the systems that helped them achieve their status...

Even Alan Greenspan admits that neoclassical economics has flaws in theory and practice, yet it continues to be the dominant model at universities and in society.  The faulty belief in the uber-rational, self-interested homo economicus probably persists mainly because it is a projection of the people who inhabit the privileged class.

Corporate externalization of costs are absorbed by society and forgotten when heralding the successes of industrialists and capitalists.  Resource extraction and environmental degradation, which are part and parcel of production, consumption, and consequently, economic growth, are downplayed or ignored."

Kristine Mattis, The Cult of the Professional Class, CounterPunch, 2016


The markets are waiting to see the Non-Farm Payrolls number tomorrow.

And so must we.

With an eye on the horizon of geopolitical events.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Dying from Their Lack of Humility

 

"We must always take sides.  Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.  Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented."

Elie Wiesel

"She was steadfast when stability was unknown, and honorable in an age which had forgotten what honor was; she was a rock of convictions in a time when men believed in nothing and scoffed at all things. She was of a dauntless courage when hope and courage had perished in the hearts of her nation.”

Mark Twain, Joan of Arc

"What theology, history and common sense have taught me is that the civilizations which allow the gap to widen between the ideal to which they claim and the realizations which they propose of it, these civilizations are dying of their hypocrisy.“

Henri-Irénée Marrou, France ma patrie, Le Monde, 5 avril 1956

"Few men are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society.  Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence.  Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change the world which yields most painfully to change.  I believe that in this generation those with the courage to enter the conflict will find themselves with companions in every corner of the world."

Robert F. Kennedy, Day of Affirmation, Cape Town, South Africa, 6 June 1966

“It may well be that we will have to repent in this generation.  Not merely for the vitriolic words and the violent actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence and indifference of the good people."

Martin Luther King, Convocation, Illinois Wesleyan University, 1966

"God does not demand that every man attain to what is theoretically highest and best.  It is better to be a good street sweeper than a bad writer, better to be a good bartender than a bad doctor, and the repentant thief who died with Jesus on Calvary was far more perfect than the holy ones who had Him nailed to the cross. 

The dying thief had, perhaps, disobeyed the will of God in many things: but in the most important event of his life he listened and obeyed.  The Pharisees had kept the law to the letter and had spent their lives in the pursuit of a most scrupulous perfection.  But they were so intent upon perfection as an abstraction that when God manifested His will and His perfection in a concrete and definite way, they had no choice but to reject it.”

Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island, 1955

"The days are coming when men will go mad, and when they meet a man who has kept his senses, will rise up against him, saying, 'You are mad, because you are not like us.' And I saw the snares that the enemy spreads out over the world and I said, groaning, 'What can get us through such snares?' And then I heard a voice saying to me, 'Humility.'”

Anthony the Great, Abbot of Colzim Egypt, and saint, 251-356

The markets are pricing in the expectation of a Fed policy pivot, signaled by a rate cut at their next meeting in September.

The question is whether the cut will be 25 or 50 basis points.

Stocks ranged, finishing just a little lower.

Gold and silver were just slammed in the early trading, with a determined move to run the stops of the speculative traders.

The prices quickly recovered in the aftermath of this blatant trading gambit.

All eyes are turning to the Non-Farm Payrolls report on Friday, in the hopes that this may illuminate the Fed's future rate decisions.

This is an artificial market—  a construct.

It lack's stability.

Have a pleasant evening.