Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Death, Madness, and Other Foolishness

 

“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

"The inability to identify with others was unquestionably the most important psychological condition for the fact that something like Auschwitz could have occurred in the midst of more or less civilised and innocent people. The silence under the terror was only its consequence. The coldness of the societal mindset, the isolated competitor, was the precondition, as indifference to the fate of others, for the fact that only very few people reacted. The torturers know this, and they put it to test ever anew.

Only those who unreflectingly vented their hate and aggression upon them are guilty. One must labor against this lack of reflection, must dissuade people from striking outward without reflecting upon themselves. The only education that has any sense at all is an education toward critical self-reflection."

Theodor Adorno, Education After Auschwitz, 18 April 1966

"Zilu spent the night at Stone Gate. The next morning, the gatekeeper asked him, 'Where have you come from?' Zilu answered, 'From the house of Confucius.'

'Isn’t he the one who knows that what he does is impossible and yet persists anyway?'”

E. Slingerland, Confucius: Analects, 2003


"Foolishness is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice.  One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force.  Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own downfall in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease.

Against such foolishness we are defenseless.   Neither protests nor the use of force accomplish anything here; reasons fall on deaf ears; facts that contradict one’s prejudgment simply need not be believed — in such moments the foolish person even becomes critical — and when facts are irrefutable, they are just pushed aside as inconsequential, as incidental. In all this the foolish person, in contrast to the malicious one, is utterly self-satisfied and, being easily irritated, becomes dangerous by going on the attack.

For that reason, greater caution is called for dealing with a foolish person than with a malicious one.  Never again will we try to persuade the foolish person with reason, for it is senseless and dangerous.   If we want to know how to get the better of foolishness, we must seek to understand its nature.  This much is certain, that it is in essence not an intellectual defect but a human one.   There are human beings who are of remarkably agile intellect yet foolish, and others who are intellectually quite dull yet anything but foolish.

The fact that the foolish person is often stubborn must not blind us to the fact that he is not independent.  In conversation with him, one virtually feels that one is dealing not at all with a person, but with slogans, catchwords and the like that have taken possession of him.   He is under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in his very being.  Having thus become a mindless tool, the foolish person will also be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil.  This is where the danger of diabolical misuse lurks, for it is this that can once and for all destroy human beings."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, executed on April 9, 1945

 

The selloff in risk assets continued today.

Stocks took another leg on what appears to be a rather stiff correction, and went out with only a little bounce to show for the afternoon effort.  

Bitcoin was smacked down below 80,000.   The chart does not look very promising.

Gold and silver were also smacked down later in the day.

The Dollar chopped a little higher but failed to regain the 104 handle.

The character of the American political scene is eerily reminiscent of 20th century of authoritarianism, as the purveyors of oligarchy become increasingly audacious.

Let's see what happens there.

Don't listen to their words; watch what it is that they do. 

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - There Is a Better Way

 

"You shall not oppress or afflict strangers or foreigners in your land, for you were once foreigners residing in the land of Egypt.  You shall not oppress or deprive any widow or orphan.  If ever you wrong them and they cry out to me, I will surely listen to their cry.  My righteous anger will rise up, and I will visit you with destruction."

Exodus 22:21-23

"Go and learn the meaning of the word, 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.'"

Matthew 9:13

"Then they will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?’  And He will say to them, ‘Truly, what you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’ And the heartless will go to everlasting desolation.”

Matthew 25:44-46

"For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also."

James 2:26

"Your fasting only leads to quarrels and fights and lashing out with vicious blows. Such fasting as you currently practice will not make your voice heard on high. Is this the type of fast that pleases me, a day for a man to humble himself, to bow his head like a reed and lie in sackcloth and ashes? Is this what you call a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord?

Is this not, rather, the fast that I choose: releasing those bound unjustly, untying the thongs of the yoke; setting free the oppressed, breaking off every yoke?  Is it not sharing your bread with the hungry, bringing the afflicted and the homeless into your house; clothing the naked when you see them, and not turning your back on your own flesh?

Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your wound shall quickly be healed.  Your vindication shall go before you, and the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.  Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer, you shall cry for help, and he will say: 'Here I am!'   If you remove the yoke from among you, the accusing finger, and malicious speech; if you lavish your food on the hungry and satisfy the afflicted; then your light shall rise in the darkness, and your gloom shall become like midday."

Isaiah 58:4-10

“Each day we are becoming a creature of splendid glory, or one of unthinkable horror.”

C. S. Lewis


 And so we had another Non-Farm Payrolls event.

The Dollar continued its decline, slipping off the 104 handle.

Gold and silver rallied sharply.

And were then stepped on and pushed back to unchanged after the European close of trading.

Stocks declined quite a bit on the news, but were taken back up to nearly unchanged, again as the rest of the world went home for the weekend.

The mispricing of risk will be difficult to sustain.

The inventory of physical gold bullion in Hong Kong remains razor thin. 

We are only beginning to see the consequences of our lawlessness and casual disregard for virtue.

Lord, help us to understand that it is not only the afflicted who are in danger, but those of us who comfortably look on and at best do nothing, and at worst spread controversy, fear, mistrust and hatred.  

Pierce our hardened hearts, enlighten our blindness, and break the chains of our pride and self-deception, so that we may choose to have life with you.  

Have a pleasant weekend.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Blind and the Damned

 

"'To fight against an equal is risky; against a higher-up, insane; against someone beneath you, degrading,' Seneca wrote in De Ira.  He gave the example of Cato, that Stoic nonpareil who, when spat upon in public by an adversary, merely wiped his face and returned a good-natured quip.  If one could not turn a blind eye, one could at least forgive, knowing that all human beings are prone to do wrong.

Seneca had made the bargain that many good men have made when agreeing to aid bad regimes. On the one hand, their presence strengthens the regime and helps it endure. But their moral influence may also improve the regime's behavior or save the lives of its enemies. For many, this has been a bargain worth making, even if it has cost them—as it may have cost Seneca—their immortal soul.

The Rome he has been trained to serve, the Rome of Augustus and Germanicus, was gone. In its place stood Neropolis, ruled by a megalomaniac brat.”

James Romm, Dying Every Day: Seneca at the Court of Nero

"Hell for all eternity, for so little in exchange. It is true in many respects he assumed the role of the charlatan, yet how apropos, considering his willingness to follow the Father of Lies and deception.

The lofty mind of man can be imprisoned by the artifices of its own making.  If there are damned souls in Hell, it is because men blind themselves.”

E.A. Bucchianeri, Faust: My Soul Be Damned for the World

"Caesar was swimming in blood, Rome and the whole pagan world was mad. But those who had had enough of transgression and madness, those who were trampled upon, those whose lives were misery and oppression, all the weighed down, all the sad, all the unfortunate, came to hear the wonderful tidings of God, who out of love for men had given Himself to be crucified and redeem their sins. When they found a God whom they could love, they had found that which the society of the time could not give any one — happiness and love.

And Peter understood that neither Nero, nor all his legions, could overcome the living truth — that they could not overwhelm it with tears or blood, and that now its victory was beginning.  He understood with equal force why the Lord had turned him back on the road. That city of pride, of crime, of wickedness, and of a lust for power, was beginning to be His city."

Henryk Sienkiewicz, Quo Vadis, 1905


Stocks remain quite edgy with regard to a looming recession in the US, and the burgeoning trade war sparked by Trump's new policy on tariffs.

The two major indices I track all approached the key red line of support, but setting lower intraday lows n the process.

The Non-Farm Payrolls report, along with any new geopolitical trade and military developments, may move the markets one way or another. 

Gold and silver marked time along with the Dollar.

VIX rose again.

I am glad to report that my eyes are in reasonably good shape, as God wills.

Have a pleasant evening.

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - That Day the Shadows Will Retire

 

"Those among the rich who are not, in the rigorous sense, damned, can understand poverty, because they are poor themselves, after a fashion; they cannot understand destitution.

Capable of giving alms, perhaps, but incapable of stripping themselves bare, they will be moved, to the sound of beautiful music, at Jesus’s sufferings, but His Cross, the reality of His Cross, will horrify them. They want it all out of gold, bathed in light, costly and of little weight; pleasant to see, hanging from a woman’s beautiful throat."

Léon Bloy

"I am telling you, if there is a God, when I get to heaven I'm not stopping to be interviewed.  I am heading straight in.  I have earned my place in heaven.  It's not even close."

Matt Vasilogambros, Bloomberg: I Have Earned My Place in Heaven, The Atlantic, April 14, 2014

"These are suitable feelings towards this attractive but deceitful world. To those who live by faith, every thing they see speaks of that future world; the very glories of nature, the sun, moon, and stars, and the richness and the beauty of the earth, are as types and figures witnessing and teaching the invisible things of God.   All that we see is destined one day to burst forth into a heavenly bloom, and to be transfigured into immortal glory.  Heaven at present is out of sight, but in due time, as snow melts and discovers what it lay upon, so will this visible creation fade away before those greater splendours which are behind it, and on which at present it depends.

In that day shadows will retire, and the substance show itself."

John Henry Newman, The Greatness and Littleness of Human Life, Plain and Parochial Sermons, IV, XIV

Ashes. Ashes!
We all fall down.

Nursery Rhyme

 

The US Dollar DX index took a swan dive today.

Stocks chopped around, managing to muddle through to a modest gain.

VIX fell slightly.

Most things like silver and bitcoin that run contrary to the US Dollar enjoyed rallies.

But not gold.  It's a special case.

There is just not enough of it to go around.  And they are robbing Peter to pay Paul.

How this ends up I don't know.

Power attracts the corruptible, and brings out the very worst in most people.

The administration is trying to manage the stock market reactions to their wackiness.  

You may wish to consider defensive measures for your portfolio in case they don't succeed. 

But let's see what happens.

Have a pleasant evening.