Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Vain and the Inglorious

“Two men went to the Temple to pray. One was a Pharisee, and the other was a despised tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘I thank you, God, that I am not a sinner like everyone else. For I don’t cheat, I don’t sin, and I don’t commit adultery. I’m certainly not like that tax collector! I fast twice a week, and I give you a tenth of my income.’

But the tax collector stood at a distance and dared not even lift his eyes to heaven as he prayed. Instead, he beat his chest in sorrow, saying, ‘O God, be merciful to me, for I am a sinner.’

I tell you, this sinner, not the Pharisee, returned home saved in the eyes of God.”

Luke 18:10-14


“A true opium of the people is the belief in nothingness after death, the huge solace, the huge comfort of thinking that for our betrayals, our greed, our cowardice, and our murders, we are not going to be judged.”

Czesław Miłosz

Stocks were mixed today, with big tech attempting to rally while the broader markets were sluggish.

Traders were impressed with the print on new jobs added in a report from ADP this morning. I had thought that ADP was obtaining their numbers from actual data from their payroll services business. Instead I find from reading this article that it has become more of an educated guess in the manner of the BLS imaginary jobs report.

Although VIX volatility (risk) indicator moved higher, gold and silver moved lower in an inverse correlation to the dollar.

I am liking silver here. I will like it quite a bit more if it can hold 17 and rally back from there after this Payrolls and FOMC nonsense is past us.

I hear India has been buying gold again, as a portion of the general phenomenon of Asia buying the hardest, least counterparty contingent currencies known throughout history.

The Beltway Bandits have gone barking mad. Hypocrisy and deception are their meat and potatoes. Of course I think everyone can now see it, but it has been a long time coming. This is what happens when fraud becomes fashionable.

I was so disgusted with the new 'healthcare' proposal from Ryan and the GOP house that I really could not say much yesterday except 'justice is coming.'

Justice is coming. That is an interesting phrase. How we react to it says something about ourselves to ourselves, in how we interpret it. What is just, and who will it affect?

And that may be the most useful thing of all.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Bonfire of the Banalities

“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


And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it towards some overwhelming question,
To say: 'I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all'—

T. S. Eliot, The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock


"Those among the rich who are not, in the rigorous sense, damned, can understand poverty, because they are poor themselves, after a fashion; but 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 the self-denial 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

Justice is coming.

Have a pleasant evening.

NAV Premiums of Certain Precious Metal Funds and Trusts - Front Running

For those of you who wondered why there was such concentrated selling in the mining stocks a few weeks ago, perhaps this latest bear raid on the precious metals provides an adequate explanation.

See the second chart below.

As a reminder, Non-Farm Payrolls this week, and the FOMC the next.

A Reading For a Rainy Afternoon - Deliver Me, O God

For friends in troubled times:

“Every century is like every other, and to those who live in it seems worse than all times before it.

God alone knows the day and the hour when what will at length be, that which He is ever threatening; meanwhile, thus much of comfort do we gain from what has been hitherto, not to despond, not to be dismayed, not to be anxious, at the troubles which encompass us. They have ever been; they ever shall be; they are our portion.

We are slow to master the great truth that even now Christ is, as it were, walking among us, and by His hand, or eye, or voice, bidding us to follow Him.  We do not understand that His call is a thing that takes place now.  We think it took place in the Apostles' days, but we do not believe in it; we do not look for it in our own case.

God's presence is not discerned at the time when it is upon us, but afterwards, when we look back upon what is gone and over.  The world seems to go on as usual. There is nothing of heaven in the face of society, in the news of the day.

And yet the ever-blessed Spirit of God is there, ten times more glorious, more powerful than when He trod the earth in our flesh.

God beholds you.  He calls you by your name.  He sees you and understands you as He made you.  He knows what is in you, all your peculiar feelings and thoughts, your dispositions and likings, your strengths and your weaknesses.  He views you in your day of rejoicing and in your day of sorrow. He sympathizes in your hopes and your temptations.  He interests Himself in all your anxieties and remembrances, all the risings and fallings of your spirit.

He encompasses you round and bears you in His arms.  He notes your very countenance, whether smiling or in tears. He looks tenderly upon you. He hears your voice, the beating of your heart, and your very breathing.  You do not love yourself better than He loves you.  You cannot shrink from pain more than He dislikes your bearing it; and if He puts it on you, it is as you would put it on yourself, if you would be wise, for a greater good afterwards.

There is an inward world, which none see but those who belong to it. There is an inward world into which they enter who come to Christ, though to men in general they seem as before. If they drank of Christ's cup it is not with them as in time past. They came for a blessing, and they have found a work.

To their surprise, as time goes on, they find that their lot is changed. They find that in one shape or another adversity happens to them. If they refuse to afflict themselves, God afflicts them.

Why did you taste of His heavenly feast, but that it might work in you—why did you kneel beneath His hand, but that He might leave on you the print of His wounds?

God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission— I may never know it in this life but I shall be told it in the next.

I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for naught.

I shall do good, I shall do His work. I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place while not intending it if I do but keep His commandments.

Therefore I will trust Him. Whatever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him; in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him. If I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him.

He does nothing in vain. He knows what He is about.

He may take away my friends. He may throw me among strangers. He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide my future from me— still He knows what He is about.

Let us feel what we really are— sinners attempting great things. Let us simply obey God's will, whatever may come. He can turn all things to our eternal good. Easter day is preceded by the forty days of Lent, to show us that they only who sow in tears shall reap in joy.

Contemplate then yourself, not as yourself, but as you are in the Eternal God. Fall down in astonishment at the glories which are around you and in you, poured to and fro in such a wonderful way that you are dissolved into the Kingdom of God.

The more we do, the more shall we trust in Christ; and that surely is no morose doctrine, that leads us to soothe our selfish restlessness, and forget our fears, in the vision of the Incarnate Son of God.

May the Lord support us all the day long, till the shades lengthen, and the evening comes, and the busy world is hushed, and the fever of life is over, and our work is done.

Then in His mercy may He give us safe lodging, and a holy rest, and peace at last.”

John Henry Newman

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Wind in the Wires Made a Tattle-tale Sound

"The wind in the wires made a tattle-tale sound
And a wave broke over the railing,
And every man knew, as the captain did too,
T'was the witch of November come stealing.
The dawn came late and the breakfast had to wait,
When the gales of November came slashing.
When afternoon came it was freezing rain
In the face of a hurricane west wind.

When suppertime came, the old cook came on deck saying
'Fellas, it's too rough to feed you.'
At seven pm a main hatchway caved in, he said
'Fellas, it's been good to know you.'
The captain wired in he had water coming in
And the good ship and crew was in peril.
And later that night when his lights went out of sight
Came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald."

Gordon Lightfoot, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

Stocks were off a bit for most of the day as traders continued to 'digest' the recent run up in equity prices that culminated in the SNAP IPO.

As a reminder, there will be a Non-Farm Payrolls report this Friday for the month of February.  The next week the markets fully expect the FOMC to raise interest rates 25 bp.

All things considered, we are now in the eighth year of this very labored 'market recovery.'

As you may recall, we had asset bubbles in stocks and housing that burst in 2000 and 2008 respectively.

So we are probably within a year or two at most from a stiff correction in financial asset prices. My estimate would be Oct-Nov of this year barring a 'trigger event' that sets things in motion earlier.

I know I have been a bit hard on the Democratic leadership of late.  And they deserve every bit of it and then some. What a bunch of scheming jokers.

If it seems that I am giving less attention to the Republicans I am, but it is not because I think that they are better. As I have said previously they are probably too far gone for reform, having sold themselves to Big Money quite a while ago.

Given the political people with whom we are dealing in general and their credibility, I think evidence and facts presented up front are required from all of them.  These anonymous leaks to the media are not credible in many if not most cases.  And the media bias and willingness to mislead is getting completely out of hand.

Our leaders on both sides of the aisle look and act like a bunch of spoiled children and juvenile delinquents. And it is counter-productive and downright embarrassing.

Perhaps things will get sorted out in the next financial crisis.

I am not hopeful.

It may be just the right time for gold and silver, that carry little counterparty risk if held in physical form.

Have a pleasant evening.