Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - So That the Thoughts of Many Hearts May Be Revealed

 

"The child’s father and mother were amazed at what was said about him; and Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, 'Behold, this child is destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel, as a sign that will be opposed.  And a sword will pierce your heart, so that the thoughts of many may be revealed.”

Luke 2:33-35

"When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said, 'Woman, behold, your son.'  Then he said to his disciple, 'Behold, your mother.'  And from that moment the disciple took her into his home."

John 19:26-27

"When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them.  And Mary treasured up all these things, and pondered them in her heart."

Luke 2:17-19

"And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed in the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head."

Revelation 12:1


It was a relatively quiet day of trading, with stocks finishing nearly unchanged.

VIX was slightly lower.

The Dollar bounced back to the 100 handle.

Gold and silver moved a bit higher.

There will be a stock option expiration on Thursday.

The hidden volatility beneath the surface of the markets is almost compelling.

The Treasury is doing its best to pour oil on troubled waters, until they can hopefully announce a deal with Russia over Ukraine, and take everyone's minds off the tariffs fiasco.

I spent much of the day getting ready for the kids and their little ones who will be coming over for an Easter egg hunt and dinner on Sunday.

Daisy and I abide.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - When the 'Truth' If Found To Be Lies

 

“Political language – and with variations this is true of all political parties – is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”

George Orwell, Politics and the English Language, 1946

"By October 1918, the city of Washington, D.C. became a breeding ground for the highly contagious H1N1 strain of the flu. As civilian cases multiplied, local health officials initiated bans on public gatherings in order to quell the spread of infections. Across the city, public schools and universities closed their doors. The infection caused life expectancy in the U.S. to drop by twelve years in 1918."

Sarah Fling, White House History: Spanish Influenza in the President's Neighborhood, October 2019

"While Wilson is usually commemorated as the US president who proclaimed that the US’s entry into the First World War was to make the world 'safe for democracy', he was ironically more inclined towards consolidating power by authoritarian means domestically.

When the US entered the First World War in 1917, Wilson immediately moved towards controlling the flow of information.  He began by issuing executive orders legalising the seizure of radio stations by federal and military authorities and establishing the Committee on Public Information (CPI).  Altogether, the suppression of information was immense.  

Most authorities used the influenza’s spread as a justification for the continued usage of widespread censorship.  The US’s slide into authoritarianism was only stopped once Wilson suffered a severe stroke in 1919, growing resistance within the federal government mounted against continued police actions."

Francis Shin, The 1918 Pandemic and the US Slide Towards Authoritarianism, La Gazette de la Paix, Geneva, April 2020

"The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly and with unflagging attention.  It must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over.  Here, as so often in this world, persistence is the first and most important requirement for success."

Adolf Hitler Mein Kampf, Vol 1, Chap VI, 1925

“See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda.”

George W. Bush, Speech, Greece, N.Y., May 24, 2005


 Stocks tried to rally from early this morning, starting with the futures overnnight.

By the end of the day they gave those up, and hung on for just small losses from a gap up open.

Gold and silver were under a bit of pressure, with silver doing a little better on a ranging day.

The VIX continued to fall.

All is well.

I am not watching the bond market closely but keeping enough on an eye on it to watch for signs of problems that will appear long before they show up in equities.

The bond bros tend to be the adults in the room.   And they will let you know how well a new policy in politics or economics is being received.

It is relatively easier to paint the tape on equities than the global bonds market.

The Dollar is firmly planted on the 99 handle.  Low in the short term, but longer term its in no apparent trouble - yet.

This is Holy Week.  The markets will be closed on Good Friday.

There will be a stock market option expiration on Thursday. 

The back and forth and the increasingly outrageous whoppers being told by public figures and their own corrupt actions is very bad.  It contributes to an atmosphere of lawlessness,

More to my concern, it tends to drain the light of love out of people, leaving hardened hearts that are ironically more vulnerable to the dark forces of evil.  

Believe what you will, but try to love the truth in all that you do.  If you love the truth with a faithful heart, you may come out of this all right.  And that is what really matters, because it is what makes and keeps us human and not beasts.

"The most important problem in the world today is your soul, for that is what the struggle is about."     Fulton J. Sheen

You do not have a soul.   You are a soul.  

You do not belong to this world.  You are just passing through.

Have a pleasant evening.

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - These Violent Delights Have Violent Ends

 

“If you shut up truth and bury it under the ground, it will but grow, and gather to itself such explosive power that the day it bursts through it will blow up everything in its way.”

Émile Zola, as quoted in Dreyfus: His Life and Letters, 1937

"These violent delights have violent ends
And in their triumph die, like fire and powder,
Which, as they kiss, consume."

William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, 1597

“He will choose you, disarm you with his words, and control you with his presence. He will delight you with his wit and his plans. He will smile and deceive you, and he will scare you with his eyes. And when he is through with you, and he will be through with you, he will desert you, and take with him your innocence and your pride."

Robert D. Hare, Without Conscience, 1993

"That the rate of interest will be lower when commerce languishes and when there is little demand for money, than when the energies of commerce are in full play and there is an active demand for money, is indisputable; but 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

"For those who are determined to be rich fall into temptations and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful passions which drown them in ruin and destruction. For the love of money is the root of all evil, after which some have coveted, and have lost their faith and pierced themselves through with many sorrows."

1 Timothy 6:9-10


The volatility in these markets is just a taste of things to come.

Stocks managed another bounce back rally.

If they did not have some 'encouragement' from the Exchange Stabilization Fund I would be surprised.

A Fed head made it clear today that they are on board with further subsidies for the one percent.

Gold rallied to an all time high, with silver extending its recovery from its earlier shellacking.

The lawlessness of this Administration and defiance of the Constitution and rule of law is not surprising, but the way in which few in government do or say anything is.

This will end in tears.

The Dollar slipped off the 100 handle.

The interview with Netanyahu and Trump earlier this week was almost unbearable in its darkness.

"You cannot play with the animal in you without becoming wholly animal, play with falsehood without forfeiting your right to truth, play with cruelty without losing your sensitivity of mind.

God does not die on the day when we cease to believe in a personal deity.  But we die on the day when our lives cease to be illumined by the steady radiance, renewed daily, of a wonder the source of which is beyond all reason."

Dag Hammarskjöld, Markings, 1963

Hammarskjöld was a good man, a man of peace.   

All this is causing the rest of the world to lose patience, along with confidence.

Next week is Holy Week.

There will be a stock option expiration on Thursday.

The markets will be closed on Good Friday. 

My posting may be sparse.  We'll see what happens.

Have a pleasant evening. 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Tragic Snare of Exceptionalism

 

"I contend that we are the finest race in the world and that the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race.  Why should we not form a secret society with but one object — for the making the Anglo-Saxon race but one Empire."

Cecil John Rhodes, Confession of Faith, 1877

“Remember what risks the nations of Europe ran, not so many centuries ago of being overwhelmed by the Turks, and how ridiculous such an idea now is.  The more civilised so-called Caucasian races have beaten the Turkish hollow in the struggle for existence.  Looking to the world at no very distant date, what an endless number of the lower races will have been eliminated by the higher civilised races throughout the world.”

Charles Darwin, Letter to William Graham, July 3, 1881

"The essential characteristic of a good and healthy ruling elite is that it views itself not as a function of the monarchy or the commonwealth, but as its very meaning and highest justification, and that it therefore accepts with a good conscience the sacrifice of untold human beings who, for its sake, must be suppressed and reduced to imperfect slaves and instruments. Its fundamental belief must be precisely that society is not allowed to exist for its own sake, but only as a foundation and scaffolding by which a select class of beings may be able to elevate themselves to their higher duties, and in general to a higher existence."

Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, 1886

"American preeminence is based on the fact that it is the only country with the military, diplomatic, political and economic assets to be a decisive player in any conflict in whatever part of the world it chooses to involve itself.   If America wants stability, it will have to create it.  We are in for abnormal times.  Our best hope for safety in such times, as in difficult times past, is in American strength and will — the strength and will to lead a unipolar world, unashamedly laying down the rules of world order and being prepared to enforce them."

Charles Krauthammer, The Unipolar Moment, Foreign Affairs, 1990

"Advanced forms of biological warfare that can 'target' specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool. This is merely a glimpse of the possibilities inherent in the process of transformation, not a precise prediction. Whatever the shape and direction of this revolution in military affairs, the implications for continued American military preeminence will be profound.The process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor."

The Project For a New American Century, Rebuilding America's Defenses, 1997

"Every single empire in its official discourse has said that it is not like all the others, that its circumstances are special, that it has a mission to enlighten, civilize, bring order and democracy, and that it uses force only as a last resort.  And, sadder still, there always is a chorus of willing intellectuals to say calming words about benign or altruistic empires, as if one shouldn't trust the evidence of one's eyes watching the destruction and the misery and death brought by the latest mission civilizatrice."

Edward W. Said, Orientalism (1978)


Stocks gave back a significant portion of the snap back relief rally that Trump triggered with his well-timed announcement on his twitter platform, Truth Social.

Rallies in bear markets and stiff declines tend to be violent, especially when they represent the concerted effort by a number of powerful insiders and their official enablers to 'strafe the lifeboats' of those trying to hedge their portfolios, and additionally those who are speculating to the short side.

But this is nothing new.  But it seems new to a whole new crop of punters, who don't have the experience or the knowledge of history of how these things go.

Wall Street feeds on them like sharks, while cajoling them with diversions, and false praise.

Gold and silver rallied again, as the Dollar plummeted.

It is said that it was the weakness in the bond market that caused Trump to blink.

I suspect it was the collective leaning on his neck by his gaggle of billionaire backers, who saw they kingdom starting to shudder.

VIX of course rose.

This type of violent, whipsaw action is fairly typical of bear markets.  It is.  I have traded through a number of them now.   There is nothing new in this, except perhaps that the rules and regulations have been significantly eroded by the moneyed interests over the past thirty years. 

My best advice for most 'investors' is to take some solid long term positions in safe havens with reasonable returns, and stay away from the locus of the conflagration.

And for those who are professionals, who are fewer than they think, you don't need any advice from me, except to place at risk only 'cool money' and don't let greed draw you into leveraged one way positions.

But, no one listens really.  I talked myself blue in the face in the tech bubble crash of 2001-2002 trying to inform people.  And there is no warning a people determined to be rich, especially if they think they are exceptional in any way.

Just like politics.  When any people think they are special, select, elite, of a purer blood or divine grant than the rest of humanity from whom they set themselves apart, it always ends in tragedy, ruin, and murder.

I will never forget when in 2013 President Obama urged the nation to rise to the occasion to go to war once again in Syria because we are exceptional,' Russia's Putin gave this response:

“It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation.  We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal.”

He may have been 'talking his book.'  He may have just been speaking falsely.  Hillary Clinton saw him as the great evil in the world.

The White House dismissed this as 'irrelevant.'  Senators and Representatives from both parties poured out their diverting emptiness and lack of moral depth while fattening themselves on the fruits of their corruption.

Wisdom comes from many places, but cannot pierce the dark of hardened hearts.

The madness serves none but itself.  

Have a pleasant evening.