SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Dog Days of Summer

These are very lazy, almost languid, markets as the hot weather of Summer has the denizens of the canyons of New York out frolicking in the Hamptons or wherever.

Our local town, which is on a long established commuter rail line into the City, is almost like a ghost town.

But the A-Team will be coming back to the markets next week, after the three day Labor Day weekend.

And they will see an equity market well levitated up to some fairly lofty levels, based on expectations of easing in Europe, and continuing soft money policy out of the Fed. With light volumes, because while Wall Street is thriving, Main Street is barely surviving. Ah, the new normal.

If the massive Alibaba IPO was not coming up in the latter part of September, I would expect the wiseguys to dump this market for about five percent. But there are so few retail buyers in there to be knocked about, they will probably have to home in on the institutions. Otherwise it is a matter of professional courtesy for the Banks not to skin the funds, or at least the bigger ones. Or perhaps not.

I think we have a good shot at going back down to the trendline anyway, in a classic wash and rinse at least once more before the Forty Thieves show up to peddle Alibaba's riches.  They will want to bring it out into a rising market and honestly, how much further do you think the market can go from here?

Incident risk remains highly elevated. This is a 'sponge cake' market, with liquidity possessing a half-life of microseconds. This market has a Panic button wired to a pile of dynamite, and the Yellen Fed is pouring gasoline over it every day.

Have a pleasant evening.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Statism is Relativism With Reference Only To Itself

"If relativism signifies contempt for fixed categories and those who claim to be the bearers of objective immortal truth, then there is nothing more relativistic than Fascist attitudes and activity.

From the fact that all ideologies are of equal value, we Fascists conclude that we have the right to create our own ideology and to enforce it with all the energy of which we are capable. ”

Benito Mussolini, Diuturna

That philosophy described by Benito is fiat with a capital 'F.'  

In a fascist or more properly statist regime, the state is above all else.  All values, including money, are whatever we say that they are, to the extent that the state can back them up with whatever amount of fraud and force that are required.  Everything that a tyrant or tyrant state does is legal, because they hold their power as the ultimate source of the law, without the appeal to reasonableness or recourse to equanimity.

This is directly opposed to the principle of a higher justice that is embodied in the rule of law.   There can be no real independent justice if there is no value transcending human power.  If there is no standard of truth, then all ideas are equally meaningless and without inherent value unless backed by power and the will to decree 'let it be done.'  

A trillion dollars may be represented by market tested legal debt, by a finite store of gold, a single platinum coin, or the stalk of a rotting turnip, if we say that it is so.  All of these ideas are equally true says the sophist, and all value is arbitrary, to be decided by the will of the state.

This is the very blueprint for abuse from the extremes of both the left and the right, the statists of the Socio-Political Continuum who see power as the greatest good, whether their perspective is from the left or the right.

The great American innovation was to claim that certain values are self-evident, true without contingency to a counterparty, because they have been endowed as a part of nature by a transcendent power.   They may have made sometimes strong distinctions between human religions and that transcendent power, but the acknowledgement of the subordination of the law to certain higher values is unmistakable.  And because those values did not come from the state, they are 'inalienable' even by the state.

Yes, we can argue about the implications, dimensions and definitions of rights and freedoms.  But we can never cynically dismiss them as did the statists of the 20th century, most of whom also by necessity adopted a state religion, from state atheism to a vague neo-pagan mythology of the blood or some other state sponsored belief that was a tool of their official will.

I know this should be obvious, but it is remarkable how easily people can forget the basis for the great American experiment and the principles that inspired it.  It is the philosophical notion of the legal restraint of power and accountability of government to its source in the people themselves endowed with values and privileged by a power above the state.

Now, one can certainly argue how those standards will be incorporated into the law, and what those standards ought to be in practice.  But it is undeniable that there must be non-arbitrary standards, and that the law is not in any way sufficient to itself.  This is no form of legalism or a religion of the law. 

 

The law itself is answerable to those standards of authority granted by the consent of the governed with the bounds of recognizing that which exists transcendently.

"If there's no God and no life beyond the grave, doesn't that mean that men will be allowed to do whatever they want?'  

'Didn't you know that already?' he said and laughed again. 'An intelligent man can do anything he likes as long as he's clever enough to get away with it."

Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

And once again, I am not saying that there ought to be a gold standard per se. Not at all. There are many ways to set standards and maintain them, with gold having many of the key characteristics of a good external standard.  And so it can inform us by its historical example.

 

All things can be turned to evil, even inherently good things.  Our system is capable of corrupting almost anything including the word of God itself, and our own Constitution if we allow it.   Our hypocrisy knows few bounds, and our law has too often descended into a mere ritual of legality with little enough reference to justice.

But those things that are transcendent of human power and our pride at least remind us that we are doing evil, and that we are not sufficient unto ourselves as the arbiters of the universe. 

But I will go so far to say that virtually every would-be statist who wishes to set themselves up as an authority by fiat will almost certainly find gold to be troublesome, an impediment, and something to be feared and if possible, controlled.  

Like private conscience, and a belief in a power greater than the power of the state, gold whispers in the silence to us, that something is terribly wrong.

It was a quiet option expiration on the Comex today.  More on that tomorrow.

Have a pleasant evening.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Two Markets - First SP 500 Close Over 2000

"Now listen to the first three aims of the corporatist movement in Germany, Italy and France during the 1920s. These were developed by the people who went on to become part of the Fascist experience:

1. shift power directly to economic and social interest groups;
2. push entrepreneurial initiative in areas normally reserved for public bodies;
3. obliterate the boundaries between public and private interest -- that is, challenge the very idea of the public interest.

This sounds like the official program of most contemporary Western governments.”

John Ralston Saul, The Unconscious Civilization

Wall Street was mighty pleased that the cash SP 500 market managed to squeeze out a close over 2,000 for the first time ever.  Huzzah.  As you can see from the chart, the SP futures markets did not stick a close over that magic wash and rinse number.

There was intraday commentary about the two markets that exist in the US today. One market is for the wealthy and powerful, who often act with privileged information, in secret, and selective enforcement of law.  And there is another market for everyone else.

If you are a wealthy insider, you are allowed to see the 'real' market prices.  And if you are not, you get to see the market which they wish you to see.  This has been designed into the system.  This is not some theory. This is what exists today.   There are more twists and turns to this, with asymmetric access to information becoming institutionalized. But this is a nice example.

And if you wish to know which class of citizen you are, then chances are extremely high that you are drinking from the fountain reserved for 'other' whether you realize it or not.  Just be thankful for what they may give you.  As a scam it is so simple that it is almost perfect: brazen, blatant, effective.

Yes we can.

Have a pleasant evening.

A Tale of Two Markets: One for Wealthy Insiders, And Another For the Rest of Us

"We run carelessly to the precipice after we have put up a façade to prevent ourselves from seeing it.”

Blaise Pascal
 

Here is a brief excerpt from an article today by the amazing team of Pam and Russ Martens at Wall Street On Parade titled, Are U.S. Markets Liquid and Deep or Rigged and Broken? I suggest you read the entire article when you have the opportunity as this is just a snippet.

"...the SEC which oversees stock exchanges has allowed both the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq to create a bifurcated market. The unsophisticated investor is given trading data on which to base trading decisions on a slow data feed called the Securities Information Processor or SIP. The SIP is not only slow in getting the data to the technology-challenged investor, but it has limited data.

For the rich and powerful on Wall Street who can afford massive fees, there is another data feed offered by the exchanges called the Direct Feed. The Direct Feed data, which has far more useful information, arrives in the hands of High Frequency Traders and Wall Street’s proprietary traders ahead of the arrival of the SIP data. This allows the Direct Feed users to buy a stock on the cheap and sell the stock back to the SIP user at a higher price...

The New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq, which also have a mandated regulatory role to ensure that their markets are fair and non-discriminatory, have allowed the two-tiered market to exist because they are collecting hundreds of millions of dollars a year selling the SIP to the dumb money and the Direct Feed to the smart money..."

For someone that is not drinking the daily dose of electronic kool aid from the mainstream media, this is a systemic, institutionalized control fraud that inevitably leads to a financial crisis.   And a close survey of the markets today might lead one to observe, 'My God.  These lunatics are going to do it again.'

That is what it is in plain words.   That is what the price discovery of the US, which controls the reserve currency of the world and sets many of its key prices, is based upon.   This is not some rogue trader, or anomalous abuse.  This is fraud that is deeply woven into the very fabric of the system, and is widely tolerated with a self-serving wink and a nod.

For example, the privately held London Metals Exchange was dismissed as a defendant in the aluminum price fixing case today because it is immune from US prosecution as 'an organ of the UK government.'  That is quite an admission, and some organ.   Droit du seigneur.  Reminds one of the motive for dismissal insinuated by the Barrick motion in the Blanchard gold manipulation suit.

What is it going to take to wake people up?  What markets are left that have not been exposed as deeply rigged at their core?

A big part of the rest of the world isn't buying it anymore. And that is taking us into some very deep, dark, and uncharted waters. 

Gold Daily And Silver Weekly Charts - Comex September Options Expiration Tomorrow

Just another day on Hamburger Hill.

Been down so long, it looks like up to me.

 

Shanghai Silver Inventories Fall 24% In One Week

 

Would never know about such things happening with silver bullion in the real world if you are just watching Madame Tussauds-on-the-Hudson, also known as the Comex Keno Parlor and Bullion Bucket Shop.

 

Have a pleasant evening.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Sittin' On Top of the World

"On desperate seas long wont to roam,
Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
To the glory that was Greece,
And the grandeur that was Rome."

Edgar Allen Poe, To Helen

I think we are getting close to the end of this wash cycle. I'd expect a sideways chop for a while, barring false flags and other events unexpected.

VIX shows we are back to relative complacency. Big change from the bottom of the rinse cycle, isn't it? Can't be too skeptical or cynical these days.

It certainly looks like the Imperium Anglo-americae will last for at least one thousand years.

Have a pleasant evening.