SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts

"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who murder your prophets, and persecute those whom God has sent as messengers to you. How often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her young under her wings. But you would not let me.

As you have willed, your house is now yours— but will be made desolate.”

 

The 'Yellen put' kicked in about where it might have been expected.

 

Winning....

 

Have a pleasant evening.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - The Tyranny of Round Numbers, Functionaries, and Factotums

 

“Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future too.”

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Gold is being stalled here at 1200 and silver at 17.  These have no real significance except that they are 'headline numbers.'  

 

But since the Comex price discovery mechanism is now a bucket shop, the punters may enjoy playing around these headline levels, especially since we are coming into an option expiration.  Who the heck that isn't an insider is still bellying up to buck the tiger at that twisted faro table on the Hudson?

 

I think we may be nearing an extreme in bearish metal sentiment because the shills and trolls for the funds are throwing out some ridiculously scatological 'analysis' on gold again.  Well, water finds its level, and not only hope floats.  This is why we can't have nice things.

 

Speaking of the scatological, someone shared a study with me showing that an increase in interest rates is almost necessary to insure the continued good financial health of JP Morgan in the near term. This zero interest rate policy is putting a serious squeeze on their officially subsidized  vigorish.

And the Fed, having fostered yet another bubble in financial assets, and yes it is a bubble, need to give themselves some room to cut rates to 'fix it' once it fails as it most likely will again.  There is a purpose to their 'wash and rinse' of the real economy, as more useful assets are transferred to the top.

So I do think we will have a lot of happy talk about recovery from very serious people, the Fed drones who have gotten into some fairly nice sinecures by going along with the financial flow for most of their careers.  Insiders don't talk badly about the mistakes and follies of other insiders.

 

They won't be talking about the inferior and unlivable part time jobs that people are actually getting, the stagnant real median wage that is strangling organic demand, or the enormous concentrations of capital that they fostered which is increasingly enabling enormously abusive monopolies that will most likely take a generation of struggle to root out and overturn.

 

Keep an eye on China, and Russia.  They have some big cards to play this year, and it will be interesting to see what they throw down.  Not that they are any better, not under the rule of oligarchs as well.   But history always seems to have a turn when least expected.

 

The glory that was Greece, the grandeur that was Rome.   Ubi sunt?

Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?

Tell me, if you know.

Who marked off its dimensions?

Who stretched a measuring line across it?

On what were its footings set,

or who laid its cornerstone –

while the morning stars sang together

and the angels shouted with joy?

 Have a pleasant evening.

 

 

 

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - The Downward Spiral of Dumbness

The Comex is a bucket shop, but the question remains how much of a bucket shop have the major equity exchanges become in the hands of the High Frequency Teasers?

So far the decline may be a bit exhilarating for the largely clueless 'buy and hold' crowd, but as shown in the SP 500 cash chart below it has dropped to familiar territory around the 100 DMA.

The stock market has been known to find the energy to shift from rinse cycle to a spin dry around here, and then run up again for another wash in the wash-rinse=spin cycle that is the new capital allocation system in the great NY Laundromat, second only to the bucket shop in sheer brazen manipulation.

So let's see if it holds here, or the Yellen put kicks in at the next stop on the cycle, at the 200 DMA.

The game here is to keep pumping the Banks with plenty of cash, allowing it to be used by the one percent to basically buy everything up on the cheap, turning the remainder of the country into serfs.

Anti-trust? What's that? The only thing not to trust in is the rule of law.  Knock down all the laws, and then when the cold winds of private tyranny blow across the lands, what then will stop them? 

The Banks must be restrained, and the financial system reformed, with balance restored to the economy, before there can be any sustainable recovery.

 

Have a pleasant evening.

 

 

 

 

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Comex Option Expiration on Thursday

Gold and silver managed to hold their own today with gold showing a bit more lift perhaps.

There will be an option expiration on the Comex this Thursday the 26th for the April contract. As you may recall, April will be an 'active' contract for gold unlike March.

I have not looked at the composition of the options holdings lately, or the commitments of traders as well. There are others that do this much better, and I would rather look at their thoughts on this. Ted Butler does a very good job of keeping tabs on silver.

But at the end of the day, I have come to the conclusion that the Comex is a bucket shop now, basically a betting parlor without a fundamental linkage to the underlying commodities that form the basis of its bets.

I see it giving way to the great changes in world currencies. As I forecast several years ago, there is a strong movement to include the Chinese yuan in the composition of the SDR. Now, this would not mean all that much, unless the SDR was intended to take on more significance than it has today.

And of course there is talk that with the yuan there will be some element of gold included in the SDR as well.

We are not close yet to a resolution. The currency war is just getting hotter, as the forces of the New American Century still seek to impose their own order of things on the world, and counterforces with their own agendas oppose them.

And so here we are, between the cracks, trying to seek safety, and stay out of the way of the opposing forces of the will to power, and elephantine greed.

Have a pleasant evening.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Hope and Redemption

 

Thanks for the kind words from those who were concerned by my absence yesterday. It really was not all that much.

The family came down, one by one it seemed, with a 36 hour virus that was almost like a concentrated, flu-like illness.

The aches and chills, and inability to eat, or to hold on to any nourishment taken even in liquid form, were trying to say the least. There are certain foods that I had on Sunday afternoon that I should not like to see or taste again for quite some time. Ouch, and when I laugh now my ribs really hurt!

But at least we still have a warm home filled with warm hearts that care for one another. My goddaughter and I were the last to become ill on late Sunday afternoon, and by then my wife and son were already past the worst of it. I was attentive to both of them, because my wife in particular is recovering from thoracic surgery and I was concerned with her health and comfort. But that ability to share, that loving comfort, is a real joy and a genuine gift and consolation, because this sort of physical illness passes quickly enough.

There are those whose illness is a sickness unto death, the hell of being unable to love and to be loved. They are deep wells of alternating despair, rage, and fear, that bubble over like a boiling geyser of dark emotions.

How terrible it must be-- suffering, without hope or redemption. I cannot imagine anything worse.

Remember the poor during this season, but also those who suffer the worst poverty of all, that is, the inability to love. There are worst things that the temporary inability to accept and retain nourishment, although it may not seems that way when it is upon us.

Hope and redemption. These are the great gifts of Easter. The tomb is empty, and death is overthrown, and we are the heirs to eternal life. How can anyone ask for more?

Have a pleasant evening.

 

 

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - That Was The Week That Was

"Over a protracted period of good times, capitalist economies tend to move from a financial structure dominated by hedge finance units to a structure in which there is large weight to units engaged in speculative and Ponzi finance. Furthermore, if an economy with a sizeable body of speculative financial units is in an inflationary state, and the authorities attempt to exorcise inflation by monetary constraint, then speculative units will become Ponzi units and the net worth of previously Ponzi units will quickly evaporate. Consequently, units with cash flow shortfalls will be forced to try to make position by selling out position. This is likely to lead to a collapse of asset values."

Hyman Minsky, The Financial Instability Hypothesis

Gold and silver had a very positive day today, running up to their short term overhead resistance intraday, and holding most of those gains.

There was intraday commentary on gold and silver here.

The moves next week will be much more meaningful than this short term run up off a very oversold condition.

I am ready for anything, given that the character of the bucket shop has not been improved.

 

I have included the economic calendar for next week.  There will be the *third* revision to 4Q GDP which, unless it is markedly revised lower to give some headroom for the next 1Q estimate, will likely be a trip to the snoratorium.

 

The macroeconomics and global situation are much more significant, even if the domestic trade and commentary barely gives it an exceptional nod or acknowledgement.

 

Remember me in your prayers, as I remember you.

 

Have a pleasant weekend.