Just Charts on an Autumn Afternoon - As Time Goes By

I was out with the queen for most of the day, cruising out to the Pennsylvania Dutch markets west of where we live, so it is just charts tonight.   I believe that I have previously mentioned her own Amish heritage in Lancaster on her father's side.

As I mentioned yesterday, I think the post-election stock move is running out of steam.

The metals were hit today, about as consciously and deliberately as we have seen this year.  You can attribute much of this week's move in the metals to the dollar crosses, and I have been including the DX charts as usual.  But today was very conscious market action, slamming the metals and the miners down to support ahead of next week.

Next week will be a stock option expiration, and the week after the Comex metals option expiry.

December is a big month for the metals.

I am working very hard not to judge Trump's presidency yet by the putative Cabinet appointments that are being thrown about.

Have a pleasant weekend.

Just Charts - Deny and Defy - Les Feuilles Mortes

It was an absolutely beautiful late Autumn day here,  crisp and sunny.

And I could not resist the temptation to be outside working on productive things in the yard.  It gets dark so early now it is good to use all the daylight that we have.

The deny and defy rally looks to be just about over.   Huge divergences today.

It is almost as if the financiers are playing out the script they had agreed upon before the election.

Financials and healthcare are leading the way up on hopes of a friendlier regulatory climate.  The sectors that might be affected by a major fiscal stimulus in US infrastructure are feeling the love.

But the market seems very schizophrenic about the future.

Let's see how things go from here.

Have a pleasant evening.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Deny and Defy - The Newer of Two Evils

"The even larger problem is that there is a kind of chronic complacency that has been rotting American liberalism for years, a hubris that tells Democrats they need do nothing different, they need deliver nothing really to anyone – except their friends on the Google jet and those nice people at Goldman.

The rest of us are treated as though we have nowhere else to go and no role to play except to vote enthusiastically on the grounds that these Democrats are the 'last thing standing' between us and the end of the world.

It is a liberalism of the rich, it has failed the middle class, and now it has failed on its own terms of electability."

Thomas Frank, Liberals Put Trump In the White House


"Those powerful few who use public and private resources to twiddle the markets in the short term, and quite a few other data metrics as well, are giving their brethren who were caught offsides by last night's election a chance to square up and get ready.  That's what they do.

They bought the SP 500 futures for stocks, and sold paper gold and silver for the metals.

And they wished to send all the rest of us a message— vote all you like, but we are still in control."

Jesse, Credibility Trap:  Deny and Defy


“There are too many things we do not wish to know about ourselves.”

James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time

Audacious!

There was intraday commentary on the huge swing in gold from last night to this afternoon here.

There was also some commentary about the surprising sweep for Trump in the elections last night here.

The swing in the US dollar was equally impressive as you can see in the first chart below.

And of course, I have updated my tracking chart of the Imperial Presidents. lol

In keeping with custom,  the new President should have roughly 100 days grace in his new position to show his hand. We should be watching his key appointments to the cabinet and agencies very, very carefully.

As you may recall, Obama tipped his hand back in 2008 in the first month or so, and did not even make it to 100 days before it was fairly clear what he was all about:  serving Wall Street and the Banks.

I sincerely hope Trump does not work out to be the same. If he disappoints his supporters, I doubt that they will take it nearly as well as the Obama base that just shrugged and took the latest betrayal by the Wall St Democrats in stride. Until yesterday perhaps.

In other words, if the plutocrats let this surprising election win of the presidency and both houses go to their head and do the wrong things in their selfish pride, there will be hell to pay.

I disliked both of the major party candidates almost equally, despite the ardent 'lesser of two evils' argument being promoted once again by the punditry of the status quo.

I chose a third way for myself strictly as an act of conscience.   But I suspect quite a few people looked at the situation, and rather than picking the lesser of two evils, they settled this time for the newer.

Along with many other commentators, I have characterized last night's election surprise as Son of Brexit.

There will be more of this sort of dislocating change in the status quo coming.  Keep an eye on Europe.

The woods decay, the woods decay and fall,
The vapours weep their burthen to the ground,
Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath,
And after many a summer dies the swan.

Alfred Lord Tennyson, Tithonus

As for gold and silver, I think we saw the impulse to treat them as safe havens fairly clearly last night, no matter what price shaping with the overnight trading that the pigmen may perform.  In the short term they are surely able to foster confidence in their shenanigans with our markets and money.

But as we saw clearly in the election surprises this year, after many a Summer dies the swan.

The delivery reports were a non-entity, and the warehouses were a bit of a snooze, with Hong Kong standing out a bit with another big slug of bullion going walkabout.

Have a pleasant evening.

Related: Thomas Frank, Donald Trump Is Moving To the White House and Liberals Put Him There

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Pop Go the Weasels

The swing in the stock futures markets from last night to the close today was huge, almost unprecedented in recent memory.

I suspect that stocks have marked their range in this, and after the giddy euphoria of the short squeeze and confidence building exercise has worn off we might see them start to discount the risks a little more astutely.

But that is an observation for another, future day.

Have a pleasant evening.

Credibility Trap: Deny and Defy

In the overnight action, prices have marked out where they will be going.

As for today, those powerful few who use public and private resources to twiddle the markets in the short term, and quite a few other data metrics as well, are giving their brethren who were caught offsides by last night's election a chance to square up and get ready.  That's what they do.

They bought the SP 500 futures for stocks, and sold paper gold and silver for the metals.

And they wished to send all the rest of us a message—  vote all you like, but we are still in control.

Being an insider means never having to say you are sorry, or mistaken.   You do not have to, being a true ubermensch and a member of the right sort, from the right schools and with the right connections in the masterful power elite.

You cannot be wrong, ipso facto, because you rule by virtue a claim to a natural worthiness and superiority.  To admit error is to deny yourself as you wish others to perceive you to be.  And you become ever more deeply mired in frauds of every kind.

That is the credibility trap.

However, let us not mistake this bravado from the Wall Street globalisation project and the system of calculated inequality for what it really is.

They were wrong on the election,  they are wrong on money, and they have been wrong on the economy for far too long.

They have been  compounding their errors as they go, almost compulsively down a selfishly dangerous path, because it benefits them and their patrons financially, and they do not know what else to do without admitting that they were wrong.

We have seen worse, even in my short lifetime, and certainly in that of our parents and grandparents.

This is the point where you find your 'inner man,' to borrow a time worn phrase, and carry on because it is your obligation and your calling to do so.

And for those with a comedic or cynical bent, the next four years will most likely be a treasure trove of material on the borders of absurdity.

That is my take on this.  And being just a man, with all that implies, I could be wrong.

And It Is— Shazam!

"And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?"

W. B. Yeats


"For they sow the wind, and shall reap the whirlwind."

Hosea 8:7

Hillary has conceded by phone, and The Donald has accepted.

Let the recriminations from the political establishment begin.

Blame Bernie, blame Assange, blame the Russians, blame the electorate, blame everyone except for themselves, because they can do no wrong. It is what entitles them to rule.

That is the credibility trap.