Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Their Perfect Possession - Comex Expiration

 

“Once they’re in power, narcissists consolidate their position by firing everyone who challenges them. In their place rise a plague of toadies, opportunists, and enablers equally guided by self-interest and short on scruples. So you end up with these individualistic cultures with no teamwork and low integrity.

True narcissists are self-serving and lack integrity. They believe they’re superior and thus not subject to the same rules and norms. Studies show they’re more likely to act dishonestly to achieve their ends. They know they’re lying, and it doesn’t bother them. They don’t feel shame. These people aren’t going to change."

Charles A. O’Reilly, as quoted in How Narcissistic Leaders Destroy from Within, Stanford Business School, April 30, 2020

“The greatest evil is not done now in sordid dens of crime. It is not even done in concentration camps and labor camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered in clear, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices by quiet men, with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks, who do not need to raise their voice.

The surest road to Hell is the gradual one — the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts."

C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, 1942

"Love does not make you weak, because it is the source of all strength— but it makes you see the nothingness of the illusory strength on which you depended before you knew it."

Léon Bloy

"Nor will love be seen coming from the hearts of those who are fallen into wickedness: they are the fruit of hate, deceit, greed, fear, pride, possession, and aggression. And they will not only forsake love by washing their hands of it, they will eventually come to condemn it, and persecute it— and thereby condemn themselves."

Jesse, Love is the Refuge of the Way, 24 June 2017

"We live in a world where love itself is condemned.  People call it weakness, something to grow out of. Some are saying: 'let each one become as strong as he can, and let the weak perish.'  The neo-paganism [of the Nazis] may well cast-off love but, in spite of everything, history teaches us that we shall be the victors over this.  Do not yield to hatred.  We are here in a dark tunnel, but we have to go on.  At the end, an eternal light is shining for us.  We shall not forsake love."

Titus Brandsma, Statement, Dachau, 26 July 1942

"The demon's target is not the possessed; it is us the observers.. everyone in this house. I think the point is to make us despair..to reject our humanity: to see ourselves as ultimately bestial, vile and putrescent; without dignity; ugly; unworthy."

William Peter Blatty, The Exorcist, May 1971


It was risk on today.

Stocks rallied, gapping up at the open, and going out near the highs.

The VIX fell.

The Dollar rallied a bit to take back the 104 handle.

Gold and silver suffered some further weakness.

There will be an April futures contract option expiration for precious metals on the Comex on Wednesday the 26^th.

We should be ashamed of what we are becoming.  

It puzzles us that there are many ardent believers in what is the worst in us, yielding to hate, anger, and greed.

How easily it is for the proud to fall, gradually into the abyss, according to that infernal plan.

We shall see the gradual downfall of nations to the unthinkable, one by one after another.

Repentance, forgiveness, thankfulness.   These are our three great gifts.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - They Lie and Worship Their Own Lying

 

"To be a sophisticate in the 21st century requires the ability to shut one's eyes and one's mind to anything that one does not want to see or think about. The more glaring that the contradiction between what is said and what is done becomes, the harder it is to remain sophisticated. The tragedy is that the only alternative, that of becoming an independent thinker, is looked upon as more terrifying than to go on pretending to be deaf, dumb and blind."

Bill Buckler, The Privateer, 2012

"Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all."

Edmund Burke

“What they were doing was unconstitutional.  Sometimes I worry that people take the oath of office or the oath to the Constitution, and it’s just a set of words that mean nothing.  They really don’t feel in their heart the weight of those words.  They [federal agents deployed by Trump] came out in this phalanx, running, and then they plowed into a bunch of protesters in the intersection of the street and knocked them over. 

They came out to fight.  I took a couple steps back, straightened up, and then just stood my ground right there, arms down by my side.  They are thugs and goons.  I couldn’t recognize anything tactically that they were attempting to do that was even remotely related to crowd control.  It looked to me like a gang of guys with sticks.  I’m not a redwood tree.  I’m an overweight 53-year-old man.”

Christopher David, Navy veteran and peaceful protester, Portland, Oregon, July 2020

"You are of your father the devil, and your will is to fulfill your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks from his own character— for he is a liar and the father of lies."

John 8:44


Another typical stock option triple witch expiration today.

Gold and silver were slammed hard in the opening hour.

Stocks slumped, but were brought back to life into the close.   Nearly unchanged.

The Dollar ticked higher a bit.

VIX declined.

Robbery, rape and murder en masse are the marks of those who worship power above all.

Need little, want less, love more.  For those who abide in love abide in God, and God in them.

Have a pleasant weekend.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Wrath of the Lamb - Option Expiration

 

“Prepare for great battles. Know that you are now on a great stage where all heaven and earth are watching you. Fight like a knight, so that He can reward you. Do not be unduly fearful, because you are not alone.

Before I come as a just Judge, I will first open wide the door of My mercy. Those who refuse to pass through the door of My mercy must pass through the door of My justice.”

Maria Faustina Kowalska, Divine Mercy in My Soul

"Despite knowing of God, they refused to honor him as God, or give Him thanks. As a result, they became vain in their thinking, and their uncomprehending hearts became hardened."

Romans 1:21

“Evil when we are in its power is not felt as evil, but as a necessity, or even a duty. Sin is not a distance, it is a turning of our gaze in the wrong direction. Human beings are so made that the ones who do the crushing feel nothing; it is the person crushed who feels what is happening. Unless one has placed oneself on the side of the oppressed, to feel with them, one cannot understand. Power is as pitiless to the man who possesses it, or thinks he does, as it is to its victims; the latter it crushes, the former it intoxicates. The truth is, no one really possesses it."

Simone Weil, War and the Iliad, 1939

"All the world marveled at this, and gave their allegiance to the Beast. And they worshiped the dragon for giving such power to him. as they also worshiped the Beast. 'Who is as great as the Beast?' they exclaimed. 'And who is able to resist him?' And the Beast was allowed to commit great blasphemies against God, and to exercise its authority for forty-two months."

Revelation 13:3-5

"When a society fails to restrain the worst behaviours of those who prey on others through the abuse of power or money, their example brings out the worst in a much larger subset of the population. This is why romantic notions about markets and societies without law and transparent regulation are so harmful. They turn the power of the markets and the laws over to the least scrupulous and self-controlled in a society. This is why any social system without checks and balances, without transparency and restraints, will eventually deteriorate into a dysfunctional system of self-interest and looting."

Jesse, Without Empathy or Remorse, 13 August 2016

"The kings of the earth, the nobles, the military officers, the rich, the powerful, and every slave and free person hid themselves in caves and among mountain crags.  They cried out to the mountains and the rocks, 'Fall on us and hide us from the face of the one who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb, because the great day of their judgement has come, and who can stand against it?”

Revelation 6:15-17

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

Fulton J. Sheen


I have an appointment at 4:45 so no commentary tonight, just charts.  

There will be a stock option expiration tomorrow. 

March is a triple witch occasion as I recall.

And a cautionary word, about the things that matter the most.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Lords of Madness, Bribery and Blackmail

 

“Americans had built themselves a world of speculative pipe dreams. That world was inhabited, not by people who had to be convinced, but by people who sought excuses for believing.”

John Kenneth Galbraith, The New Industrial State, 1967

“Just as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be with the coming of the Son of Man. People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given away in marriage, up until the very day that Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came, and swept them all away. And they said to him, 'Where will this happen, Lord?' And He said to them, 'Where death is, there a gathering of vultures will be.'”

Luke 17:26-27, 37

"One reason we rush so quickly to the vulgar satisfactions of judgment, and love to revel in our righteous outrage, is that it spares us from the impotent pain of empathy, and the harder, messier work of understanding.  These are people who have been vigilantly on the lookout for something to be offended by, and found it.

Quite a lot of what passes itself off as dialogue about our society consists of people trying to justify their own (selfish) choices.  Let me propose that if your beliefs or convictions matter more to you than people—if they require you to act as though you were a worse person than you are—you may have lost perspective."

Timothy Kreider, We Learn Nothing, June 2012

"‘Woe to you, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside, but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. On the outside you appear righteous, but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness. You snakes, you brood of vipers.'"

Matthew 23:23-33

"Financial Predators, on the other hand, are usually narcissistic and audacious criminals. They regularly have an extreme sense of entitlement coupled with high self-efficacy. Many of them have a charismatic quality and are preternaturally persuasive. Financial Predators are commonly shameless and quite adept serial liars. They perceive themselves having near unlimited guile and resourcefulness to extricate themselves out of any compromising situations."

Russ Alan Prince, Unmasking Financial Predators, Forbes 2017

"There are so many ways of escaping from that which one fears, and not the least of these is hatred.”

Philip Kerr, Berlin Noir


The American oligarchy of money and power is becoming increasingly audacious.

By audacious is meant that it operates more openly, more brazenly, and more lawlessly, using force and fraud, bribery and blackmail, to achieve its own selfish objectives.

They are able to bend US foreign and domestic policy of the country to their will in ways that seem almost baffling and self-destructive to the casual, non-partisan observer.   

These are the ways of the madness possessing the minds of those who serve it.

Stocks rolled higher today since the Fed did not do or say anything untoward to spoil the party.

VIX of course fell.

Gold soared as the reality of the opera buffa in the halls of power and money is increasingly exposed for the farce without a sustainable foundation that it is becoming.

Silver took it on the chin for whatever reason, probably related to the goon squad of financial interests that run the US markets and the lack of international challengers in the markets that gold seems to energize.

This is going to end badly.   And they do not care.

I have had an abiding feeling that an object lesson in consequence is forthcoming.  How we will react to it will determine our near term future.

Many other nations have stood in such situations before, and not so long ago that we cannot remember.

Have a pleasant evening.