Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Sharp Operators and Shady Deals

 

"Satan has been in the Heaven of Heavens and in the abyss of Hell, and surveyed all that lies between them, and in that whole immensity has found only one thing that interests Satan.  Satan’s monomaniac concern with himself and his supposed rights and wrongs is a necessity of the Satanic predicament.

Certainly, he has no choice.  He has chosen to have no choice.  He has wished to ‘be himself’, and to be in himself and for himself, and his wish has been granted.  The Hell he carries with him is, in one sense, a Hell of infinite boredom.  To admire Satan, then, is to give one’s vote not only for a world of misery, but also for a world of lies and propaganda, of wishful thinking, of incessant autobiography."

C. S. Lewis, A Preface to Paradise Lost, 1942

"There is probably no greater threat to the faithful than that of the sanctifying of success by worldly measures."

Jesse, Sanctifying Greed, 6 June 2023

"Old moral and traditional barriers to status break down and Americans look for standards of excellence among the circles above them, in terms of which to model themselves and judge their self-esteem.   A society that is in its higher circles and on its middle levels widely believed to be a network of smart rackets does not produce men with an inner moral sense; a society that is merely expedient does not produce men of conscience.  A society that narrows the meaning of ‘success’ to the big money and in its terms condemns failure as the chief vice, raising money to the plane of absolute value, will produce the sharp operator and the shady deal."

C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite, April 1956

"The foolish ask nothing better than not to have to understand anything, and they even used to get together and try not to understand, because the last thing of which a person is capable is to be malicious and foolish all by themselves. Without understanding, they form spontaneously into herds, not according to any particular affinities but in obedience to the petty ideology, which swallowed up the whole of their small lives, allotted them by birth or chance. They would far rather kill than have to think."

George Bernanos, Under the Sun of Satan, 1926


Stocks were slumping again today.

VIX marked time.

The Dollar ticked up.

Gold rallied sharply higher up to key overhead resistance.

Silver moved sideways.

CPI data coming out tomorrow.

It may impinge on the Fed rate decision later this month.

Lies are becoming the norm, without consequence or shame.

What does it profit a man, to gain the whole world—  but for some beachfront real estate, a fleeting moment of fame, or insubstantial digits in an account?

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Violent Carelessness of Insatiable Greed

 

"Over the last thirty years, the United States has been taken over by an amoral financial oligarchy, and the American dream of opportunity, education, and upward mobility is now largely confined to the top few percent of the population. Federal policy is increasingly dictated by the wealthy, by the financial sector, and by powerful industries. These policies are implemented and praised by these groups’ willing servants, namely the increasingly bought-and-paid-for leadership of America’s political parties, academia, [mainstream media], and lobbying industry.

If allowed to continue, this process will turn the United States into a declining, unfair society with an impoverished, angry, uneducated population under the control of a small, ultrawealthy elite. Such a society would be not only immoral but also eventually unstable, dangerously ripe for religious and political extremism."

Charles Ferguson, Predator Nation, June 2012

“I think that the depth of Satan's pride is difficult for humans to understand, and therefore it is easy to fall into this error and partake of it, thinking, all the while, that we are instead doing something great and beautiful.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov, 1880

"During the intense pressures of Gethsemane and the cross, the disciples did things they never thought they would do. They had no idea how cruel and hateful the world around them would be to their Lord. But only Jesus knew the full extent of the temptation they would face. In the pressure of the moment the heart does surprising things.  Guard your heart. Listen now to the Lord’s gentle warning. You, too, are capable of forsaking Jesus, just as the first disciples did."

Henry Blackaby, The Unthinkable, 1998

Stocks slumped today, and failed to recover even into the close.

They were incredibly short term overextended.

Gold and silver rallied sharply after the Non-Farm Payrolls and Option Expiration smackdowns.

Wash - rinse -repeat.

Bitcoin backed off further from its attempted takedown of $100,000.

VIX ticked upward slightly but there was no real fear in the markets today.

The billionaires are attempting to terraform the American political landscape to make their oligarchy more comfortable.  

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Awful Silence of God

 

"The vast majority of the race, whether savage or civilized, are secretly kind-hearted and shrink from inflicting pain, but in the presence of the aggressive and pitiless minority, they don't dare to assert themselves.”

Mark Twain, The Mysterious Stranger

"Therefore they shall eat the bitter fruit of their ways, and be gutted by their own schemes.  For the foolish turn away from me—to death. For fools are destroyed by their pride and self-satisfaction.”

Proverbs 1:31-3

"Power will achieve its murderous potential. It simply waits for an excuse, an event of some sort, an assassination, a massacre in a neighboring country, an attempted coup, a famine, or a natural disaster, to justify the beginning of murder en masse."

R. J. Rummel, Death By Government: Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1900, 1994

"Let us ever bear in mind this divine truth, — the more secret God's hand is, the more powerful — the more silent, the more awful."

John Henry Newman


Stocks rallied to new all time highs.

VIX fell to a near term low.

Gold and silver were hit with selling as befits a Non-Farm Payrolls event, although they managed to bounce back a bit.

I am struck by the stillness, the calm before the storm, the towering pride of evil, the silence before the awful will of God.

Have a pleasant weekend.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - What Shelter from the Mania?

 

“The 20th century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance: The growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy."

Alex Carey, Taking the Risk Out of Democracy: Corporate Propaganda, 1997

"How did we get into this mess in the first place?  As in the 1920s, the current 'disturbance' started with a 'mania.'  But manias always have a cause.   If you investigate individually the manias that the market has so dubbed over the years, in every case, it was expansive monetary policy that generated the boom in an asset.   The particular asset varied from one boom to another.   But the basic underlying propagator was too-easy monetary policy and too-low interest rates."

Brian M Carney, Bernanke Is Fighting the Last War, Oct. 18, 2008

"We may make ourselves popular by telling our fellow citizens that they have made Discoveries, conceived Inventions, and made Improvements.  We may boast that we are the chosen people; we may even thank God that we are not like other men.  But after all it will be but flattery, and the delusion, the self deceit of the Pharisee."

John Adams, Letter to John Taylor, 29 July 1814

"We are entering a speculative mania now. Hysteria and passions are running high with greed and entitlement. When the reckoning comes, the insiders and moneyed interests will be blaming the small speculators.  They always do.  But they are at the heart of it, urging on the speculation, and steadily weakening the safeguards and regulations at every turn so that they can extend their outsized misappropriation of the nation's wealth."

Jesse, Mania, 26 January 2021

"It is equally beyond doubt, that every speculative mania which has run its course of folly and disaster in this country has derived its original impulse from cheap money."

The Economist, 1858

“In reading the History of Nations, we find that, like individuals, they have their whims and their peculiarities, their seasons of excitement and recklessness, when they care not what they do. We find that whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object and go mad in its pursuit; that millions of people become simultaneously impressed with one delusion, and run after it, till their attention is caught by some new folly more captivating than the first.”

Charles Mackay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, 1841

"The period of financial distress is a gradual decline after the peak of a speculative bubble that precedes the final and massive panic and crash, driven by the insiders having exited but the sucker outsiders hanging on hoping for a revivial, but finally giving up in the final collapse."

Charles Kindelberger, Manias, Panics, and Crashes, 1978

"In a community where the primary concern is making money, one of the necessary rules is to live and let live.  To speak out against madness may be to ruin those who have succumbed to it.   So the wise in Wall Street are nearly always silent. The foolish thus have the field to themselves.  None rebukes them."

John Kenneth Galbraith, The Great Crash of 1929


Tomorrow will be the Non-Farm Payrolls report for November.  

And given that the risk markets are highly dependent on liquidity supplied by the Fed, its importance is greatly amplified.

So let's see how it goes.

The Dollar fell, losing the 106 handle.  It's a bit surprising given the economic and political turmoil in Europe.  The euro is the largest influence on the DXY index.

VIX marked time at a recent low.

Stocks tried to rally but foundered, with the futures falling even further from unchanged after the close.

Gold and silver were suitable hit the day before the Payrolls, although silver managed to take back all of its losses from the open, finishing unchanged.

But as this latest episode of the Fed's meddling to support its increasingly parasitical banking system winds down, we see the aftermath of the bubble approaching once again.

And the neo-cons, the warhawks in Washington, are gorging themselves with abandon one what the financial system fails to consume of the real economy.

Where can one find a safe shelter from his hysteria, this willful mania?

Not in Bitcoin, of that I am almost sure.

And not in the self-serving strategic blundering of the likes of Blinken, Sullivan, and Biden.   They are at the heart of decay and corruption in the bare bones of the Empire.

And almost assuredly not from act two of Don Trumpolini.   It will be different, but not likely better.

One must look to history, to see what assets have endured the storms of human greed and foolishness, of broken promises and betrayals.

And stand, to remain standing, despite the lawless winds that blow through the land.

Have a pleasant evening.