Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - They Worship Wealth and Power, Precedent and the Law Be Damned

 

"But perhaps the most stunning piece of news we're getting in the wake of the MF Global collapse is in the clients of the firm who managed to get away scot-free, with no freezing of accounts or capital -- particularly the accounts of the mega-cap independent oil company Koch Industries, run by the politically active Koch brothers.

A recent report in Reuters has described the billions of dollars of client accounts that were withdrawn from MF Global in the last few weeks before their collapse, including 8 accounts from Koch industries engaged in oil trade that were transferred to Mizuho Securities after years of a steady and profitable relationship with MF. The Reuters piece concentrates on the possibilities of legal "clawback" of client money if the bankruptcy does not allow remaining client accounts to be made whole.

The Reuters piece misses the point.

Both the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange were charged with overseeing MF Global, their clearing member. If we are to believe them, they had no idea of any difficulties within the firm before customer accounts went missing just a few days before the collapse. But someone clearly knew of the cratering positions and imminent collapse of MF Global, as billions of dollars of accounts were "coincidentally" withdrawn. And what do the Koch brothers say was the reason for these withdrawals? There's been no comment."

Daniel Dicker, MF Global and the Koch Brothers: Friends to the End, Huffington Post, Nov. 11, 2011

“It could be argued that we are now in the midst of a coup d’état in slow motion. Democracy is weakening; few people would disagree. Corporatism is strengthening; you only have to look around you. Yet none of us has chosen this route for our society, in spite of which our elites quite happily continue down it. Certainly corporatism is creating a conformist society. It is a modern form of feudalism.”

John Ralston Saul, The Unconscious Civilization, 1995

"The Ivy League-derived orthodoxy of the professional, educated class saturates all areas of American society.  Alternative voices and viewpoints are ostracized through a number of means.  If you do not possess the expertise and stamp of approval as authorized by the academic infrastructure, your ideas are often dismissed out of hand, however profound and substantive.  If you posses the authorization to speak, but step outside of the boundaries of permissible thought (and action), your voice will remain virtually meaningless, or worse, maligned.  While scholarship, research, writing, and practices outside of orthodox parameters exist at universities and in other professions, the work of these professionals does not generally penetrate the paradigms of larger society, nor does it affect large-scale public policies."

Kristine Mattis, The Cult of the Professional Class, April 4, 2016

"The American economy increasingly serves only a narrow part of society, and America's national politics has failed to put the country back on track through honest, open, and transparent problem solving.  Too many of America's elites-among the super-rich, the CEOs, and many of my colleagues in academia-have abandoned a commitment to social responsibility.  They chase wealth and power, the rest of society be damned."

Jeffrey Sachs, The Price of Civilization, October 4, 2011


As a reminder, tomorrow is a stock option expiration.

Stocks attempted to continue their rallied, but failed.   And the major indices went out on the lows.

Gold and silver were rallying, but lost ground into the late afternoon trade.

But gold has held on to its breakout from the big symmetrical triangle.   It needs to punch up through the overhead resistance on the charts to confirm it.

Stocks are continuing a trend of lower highs and lower lows.

This is not constructive to the bullish case being touted by the Wall Street talking heads to the spokesmodels head-bobbing agreement.

People tend to hear and forget what is going on, preferring to lose themselves in the slogans and passions of the moment.

It is like we have the situational awareness of goldfish.

Well, so much the better for the privileged few.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Even If Someone Who Has Risen From the Dead

 

"You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to serve your father’s desires.   He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him.  When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies."

John 8:43-44

"It is not possible to found a lasting power upon injustice, lies, and treachery.  These may, perhaps, succeed at first, and limp along on hope for awhile with a flourishing appearance.  But time betrays their weakness, and they eventually fall into ruin of their own designs."

Demosthenes, Bartleby, 1917

"What is offensive is that they lie, and worship their own lying."

Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishmen, December 1866

"'No man can serve two masters. He will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and mammon.' The Pharisees, who were money loving and covetous, heard all these things and sneered at him. And Jesus said, 'You justify yourselves in the sight of others, but God knows your hearts.'"

Luke 16:13-14

“Then the rich man said, ‘I beg you, Father Abraham, send Lazarus to my father’s house. For I have five brothers for him to warn, so that they also will not come to this place of desolation and torment.’ But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets. Let them listen to them.’

But the rich man again said, ‘No, Father Abraham, but if someone from the dead comes back and speaks to them, they will repent.’ And Abraham said, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, neither will they listen if someone tells them who has risen from the dead!’”

Luke 16:27-31

"Cromwell:  Sir Richard is appointed Attorney General for Wales.
Thomas More:  For Wales. Why Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world— but for Wales?"

Robert Bolt, A Man For All Seasons


As you may have heard the CPI number for US consumer inflation came in dovish this morning.

Stocks rallied like is was 1999.   Or 1929.

JP Morgan led the banking sector higher with record trading profits.

What a surprise.

Bitcoin took back 100,000.

There will be a stock option expiration on Friday.

VIX fell down smashing into its moving averages.

Gold and silver rallied.

The Dollar came back to unchanged from its early morning losses.

More gold leaked out of the Comex Hong Kong warehouses.

Biden is going to give his farewell speech tonight. 

Donny is going to be inaugurated in the near future.

Declarations of a cease fire in Gaza cheered the spokesmodels.

They were just bubbly this afternoon.

The outgoing crew, Blinken, Biden, and Sullivan, have been giving their farewell interviews and speeches this week.  No doubt prepping for their next lives in the private and academic sector.

Professional deceivers and delusionists, one and all. 

Are you not entertained?

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - And That's the Name of That Tune

 

“There are times when wisdom cannot be found in the chambers of parliament or the halls of academia but at the unpretentious setting of the kitchen table.”

E.A. Bucchianeri

Just charts tonight.

A large amount of physical gold left the Comex registered Hong Kong vaults, taking down the total ounces to a new low. China tends to be a physical market. That sucking sound is gold bullion flowing from West to East, not to return at these prices. 

There will be an option expiration on Friday.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Cycle of Force and Fraud

 

"One of the most important barometers of the world's financial health could be sending false signals. In a development that has implications for borrowers everywhere, from Russian oil producers to homeowners in Detroit, bankers and traders are expressing concerns that the London inter-bank offered rate, known as Libor, is becoming unreliable. [See below: It was subsequently shown to be fraudulent.]

Libor plays a crucial role in the global financial system.  Calculated every morning in London from information supplied by banks all over the world, it's a measure of the average interest rate at which banks make short-term loans to one another.  Libor provides a key indicator of their health, rising when banks are in trouble. Its influence extends far beyond banking:  The interest rates on trillions of dollars in corporate debt, home mortgages and financial contracts reset according to Libor.

In recent months, the financial crisis sparked by subprime-mortgage problems has jolted banks and sent Libor sharply upward.  The growing suspicions about Libor's veracity suggest that banks' troubles could be worse than they're willing to admit."

Carrick Mollenkamp, Bankers Cast Doubt On Key Rate Amid Crisis, Wall Street Journal, April 16,2008

"I've been hesitant to write about the LIBOR scandal because what I want to say goes so much further.  We now know that Barclays and other major global banks have been manipulating the calculation of LIBOR through the quotation data they provided to the British Bankers Association.  What I suspect is that this is not a flaw but a feature of modern financial markets.  And if it was happening in LIBOR for between 5 and 15 years, then the business model has been profitably replicated to many other quotation-based reference prices.

Price discovery is not a sexy function of markets, but it is critical to the efficient allocation of scarce capital and resources, and to the preservation of the long term wealth of investors and the economy as a whole.  If price discovery is compromised by manipulation, then we will all be gradually impoverished and the economy will be imbalanced and unstable."

London Banker, Lies, Damn Lies, and LIBOR, 10 July 2012

"The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has been negligent in failing to terminate the obvious manipulation ongoing in silver.  Furthermore, the agency may be complicit in this manipulation. Worse, it has lied to the public and elected officials.  This all goes back to the time when Bear Stearns was taken over by JPMorgan in March of 2008.

It is well known that Bear Stearns went under as a result of a sudden loss of liquidity amidst a run by creditors and customers.  What is not well known is that those problems were greatly exacerbated by a $2 billion margin call on silver and gold short positions from the end of December 2007 to March 2008.  I believe the silver and gold margin calls were at the heart of Bear Stearns’ failure.

We know now (from CFTC correspondence to lawmakers in 2008) that JPMorgan took over Bear Stearns’ giant silver and gold short positions on the COMEX.  Up until that time, we did not know that Bear Stearns was the concentrated silver and gold short.  Using Commitment of Traders Report (COT) data, Bear Stearns had a COMEX silver short position of no less than 35,000 net contracts and a COMEX gold short position of no less than 60,000 net contracts from the end of December 2007 to their takeover by JPMorgan two and a half months later. 

From December 31, 2007 to mid-March 2008, the price of silver rose by $6 (from $15 to $21) and the price of gold rose from $850 to over $1000.  Based upon the number of contracts held short by Bear Stearns and the price movement at that time, that resulted in margin calls of $2 billion.  I would contend that was the real reason for Bear Stearns’ demise."

Ted Butler, Illegalities, May 25, 2012

"The key to a general reform has been and still is campaign finance reform and a reduction of lobbying payments and campaign contributions as soft bribes to Congress. As the banks cannot regulate and reform themselves, at least according to John Mack's recent advice to the American people, so the Congress and the federal government seem incapable of reforming and managing themselves. If one does it, takes liberties with the law, then they all want to do it to a greater or lesser degree; and in some ways they must if they are to be competitive, if the administration of justice creates the opportunity for selective exceptions, the weakening of regulation.

And too many are yearning for a strong leader, someone who will tell them what to do.  A great man, who will exercise authority with a directness and little or no discussion.  Someone who will 'put things right.' The primary question seems to be less policy than fashion, whether to wear brown shirts or black, and whether torchlight is too retro."

Jesse, A Partnership Between Wall Street and Government Until the System Collapses, 19 November 2009

And the wash and rinse continues.

I came in prepped for the post Non-Farm Payrolls kickback wash cycle.

Gold and silver were slammed this morning.  

The Dollar gained a little in a mostly sideways chop.

VIX fell.

Stocks fell sharply but managed to take back their losses into the afternoon close.

Keep an eye on the option expirations and the upcoming CPI and PPI numbers.

Wouldn't it have been nice if, instead of throwing away hundredsof billions of dollars in corrupt adventures in proxy wars, theft, and murder en masse overseas, we had spent a portion of that money on hardening the US infrastructure, including the water systems, public transportation, energy independence and the electric grid? 

“The worst crimes were dared by a few, willed by more, and tolerated by all.”

Tacitus

This is why nations, and empires, fail.

Have a pleasant evening.

Related: Corruption as an Element of the Financial Crisis, Le Cafe, February 2009