Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Audacious Oligarchy

 

"This disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and the powerful, and to despise, or, at least, to neglect persons of poor and mean condition, though necessary both to establish and to maintain the distinction of ranks and the order of society, is, at the same time, the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments."

Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, 1759


"But the complaint is damning because what James alleges is not especially complex and does not require much imagination or financial numeracy.  The figures are all right there in filings and documents, rather than lost in the miasma of vagueness and mob-boss talk Trump often uses in other venues.  Either the documents say what James says they do and Trump was juking the stats, or they don’t and he’s been unfairly maligned.

At the very least the claims accord with lots of existing evidence, uncovered by WNYC, ProPublica, and other news organizations.  They match up with rumors that have swirled around Trump for years, and with the disdain with which many actual New York real-estate titans treat the Trump Organization.  And they also fit in with what we know about Trump’s dealings in other ventures, like the fraudulent 'Trump University' or the Trump Foundation, the self-dealing so-called charity that James forced to shut down in a 2019 settlement.

The schemes alleged are so remarkable because they don’t involve tricks like filing false documents. Trump wasn’t doctoring the numbers on forms; he was just brazenly telling different things to different people and assuming that he wouldn’t get caught, and that if he did, he could settle (as he tried to do with James this month) or bluff his way through or it make it go away with a countersuit.  For a long time, he was right.  Any prosecutor with the will and the manpower could have connected the dots on parts of this alleged fraud long ago.

The parallels between this alleged approach and Trump’s presidency are easy to see.  I have written that Trump ran his campaign and administration the way he did his businesses, but it is also the case that he ran his business like he did his administration: by saying whatever he needed to say at any given moment, not sweating contradictions, and overall treating reality not as a fixed thing but as something malleable and contingent, to be warped according to his needs at any given moment.

If James is successful, those conditions could be a fatal blow to the Trump Organization, effectively ending its run as a family business and a going concern in New York. Whether that will happen, of course, is up to a judge and not up to her, and Trump will have his chance to respond. He is likely to do so with blustering brazenness and flagrant misrepresentations, and given his past record, that just might work."

David Graham, The Atlantic, It's Fraud All the Way Down


"We are coming apart as a society, and inequality is right at the core of that. When the 90 percent are getting worse off and they’re trying to figure out what happened, they’re not people like me who get to spend four or five hours a day studying these things and then writing about them — they’re people who have to make a living and get through life. And they’re going to be swayed by demagogues and filled with fear about the other, rather than bringing us together."

David Cay Johnston,  Inequality's Looming Disaster, May 2014


“Crime, once exposed, has no refuge but in audacity.”

Tacitus


More bread, more circuses.

Are you not entertained? 

At least distracted?

The Fed raised 75 bp today as expected, but it was the projections of future increases that threw the risk markets for a loop.

I have highlighted them in the daily economic data report that I posted below.

The Dollar rocketed higher on the expectations of higher rates, sinking a close on the 111 handle.  Wow.

This is the highest that index DXY has been since 2000.

Gold and silver finished slightly higher, most likely diverging from stocks on a 'flight to safety.'

Interestingly the VIX finished relatively flat.

I have often wondered if the large number of gold and silver contracts that certain banks post on the COMEX clearing reports for 'customers' include the funds and ETNs for which they have custodial responsibilities.

Let's see what the rest of the week brings.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Principalities and Powers - FOMC Tomorrow

 

"All your ways may be straight in your own eyes,
    but it is the Lord who weighs our hearts.
To do what is right and just
    is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice.
Haughty eyes and a proud heart—
    the lamp of the wicked will fail.
Trying to get rich by lying
    is like chasing a bubble over deadly snares."

Proverbs 21:2-6


“It has been more profitable for us to bind together in the wrong direction than to be alone in the right one.  Those who have followed the assertive idiot rather than the introspective wise person have passed us some of their genes.  Psychopaths rally followers.”

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan


"Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’  No, father Abraham,’ the rich man said, ‘but if someone from the dead appears to them, they will repent.’

And Abraham said, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not change and repent, even if someone were to rise from the dead.’”

Luke 16:28-31


"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places."

Ephesians 6:12

Stocks slumped again today in advance of the FOMC rate decision tomorrow.

The Dollar strengthened on rumors of a hawkish meeting and press conference.

Gold and silver declined a bit.

I suspect that the Fed will raise 75 bp tomorrow.

As for any further hawkish words from Powell, we'll just have to see.

It smells like a sell the rumor buy the news type of scenario but it is hard to forecast the vagaries of the rapacious minds of our modern imperial moneymen

"'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away."

Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ozymandias

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Pazzo d'amore - FOMC Rate Decision on Wednesday

 

"Listen to this, you who trample on the needy and ruin those who are oppressed in the world.  You say to yourselves, 'When will the New Moon Festival be over so that we can sell more grain?  When will the day of rest—a holy day, be over so that we can sell more wheat?  We can shrink the size of the bushel baskets, increase the cost, and cheat with dishonest scales.  We can buy the poor with money and the needy for a pair of sandals.  We can sell the husks mixed in with the wheat.'

The Lord has sworn an oath by Jacob’s pride:  'I will never forget anything that they have done.'”

Amos 8:4-7


"You lifted Your eyes from this offense which had to be, and You fixed it solely on the beauty of Your creature, for if You had set Your primary focus on that offense You would have forgotten the love which You had in creating humanity. This sin was nothing hidden from You, but You fixed Your love on us, because You are nothing other than a fire of love, madly loving what You have made.

"If I consider Your great council, eternal Trinity, I see that in Your light You saw the dignity and nobility of the human race. Just as love constrained You to draw us out from You, so that same love constrained You to buy us back, seeing we were lost.

You united Yourself with us, descending from the great height of Your Godhead even to the lowliness of the mud of our humanity, because the lowliness of my understanding was not able to comprehend nor to consider  Your grandeur. In order that with my littleness, I might be able to see Your greatness, You made Yourself a little one, enclosing the greatness of Your Godhead in the I littleness of our humanity.  And so You have manifested Yourself to us in the Word, Your only begotten Son.  So I have known You, abyss of charity, in myself in this Word God's love is a radical, extravagant love.

Cahterine of Siena


"Let all mankind recognize My unfathomable mercy.  It is a sign for the end times.   Bring to me all devout and faithful souls, and immerse them in the ocean of My mercy.   He who refuses to pass through the door of My mercy must pass through the door of My justice. "

Maria Faustyna Kowalska


“No one lights a lamp and then covers it with a bowl or hides it under a bed.  A lamp is placed on a stand, where its light can be seen by all who enter the house. For all that is secret will eventually be brought into the open, and everything that is concealed will be brought to light and made known. So pay attention to how you hear. To those who listen to my teaching, more understanding will be given. But for those who are not listening, even what they think they understand will be taken away from them.”

Luke 8:16-18

We had some post option expiration shenanigans today, as well as positioning ahead of the FOMC meeting and decision this Wednesday.

There is a precious metals options expiration next week on the 27^th.

Stocks slumped and then rallied back to finish in the green.

Pretty much the same deal with gold and silver which finished close ot unchanged.

There was some more pronounced downward pressure then rallying back in the miners.

VIX dropped.

The Dollar declined a bit.

Have a pleasant evening.

Mes Amis du Café - Where They Are Visiting From Lately

 

I get some basic stats from my Google platform 'for free' and occasionally give it a look. 

It is interesting to see how the country composition changes over time.

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Arsenal of Hypocrisy - Know Whom You Serve

 

“When the healthy pursuit of self-interest and self-realization turns into self-absorption, other people can lose their intrinsic value in our eyes and become mere means to the fulfillment of our needs and desires.”

P. M. Forni, Choosing Civility

"I told you once that I was searching for the nature of evil.  I think I've come close to defining it: a lack of empathy. It's the one characteristic that connects all the defendants.  A genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow man.  Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy."

G. M. Gilbert, Nuremberg Diary

"This is how we know who are the children of God and who are the children of the Satan: anyone who does not do what is good is not God’s child, nor is anyone who does not love their neighbor."

1 John 3:10

"The great masquerade of evil has played havoc with all our ethical concepts.  For evil to appear disguised as light, charity, historical necessity, or social justice is quite bewildering to anyone brought up on our traditional ethical concepts, while for the Christian who bases his life on the Bible, it merely confirms the fundamental wickedness of evil."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ten Years After, 1943

"They which play with the devil’s rattles will be brought by degrees to wield his sword."

Thomas Fuller, The Profane State, 1642

"Help me, Lord, that my eyes may see all with mercy, so that I may never suspect or judge from appearances, but look deeper for what is good and beautiful in others' souls, and then come to their aid.  He who refuses to pass through the door of My mercy must pass through the door of My justice. "

Maria Faustyna Kowalska

Markets were diving this morning, in the kind of kabuki theater we have come to expect on major stock option expiration events.

This is why we can't have nice things.

Stocks managed to gain back most of their intraday losses..

VIX rose sharply and then dropped back down.

Gold and silver were just hammered in the futures, but again, managed to take back their early declines and finished in the green.

The Dollar chopped sideways.

All eyes will be on the Federal Reserve meeting on Wednesday September 21st.

Serve whom you will.   But know whom it is that you serve.

“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.”

C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

Have a pleasant weekend.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Our Lady of Sorrows - Quad Witch Expiration Tomorrow

 

"The child’s father and mother were amazed at what was said about him; and Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, 'Behold, this child is destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed, and a sword will pierce your own soul, so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.”

Luke 2:33-35


"When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said, 'Woman, behold, your son.'  Then he said to his disciple, 'Behold, your mother.'  And from that moment the disciple took her into his home."

John 19:26-27


"When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them.  And Mary treasured up all these things, and pondered them in her heart."

Luke 2:17-19


"And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed in the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head."

Revelation 12:1


“Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to sift all of you like wheat.  But I have prayed that your own faith may not fail.  And once you have returned to faith, you must strengthen your brothers.”

Luke 22:31-32

The Dollar and VIX chopped sideways and were essentially unchanged.

The spokesmodels were talking up 'King Dollar' with pom-poms flashing.  Sis boom bah.

Stocks declined quite a bit but came back from the selling pressure in the last half hour.

Gold and silver were slammed.

What a surprise.

Tomorrow must be a major stock option expiration and rebalancing, aka a 'quad witch.'

Lawless, with little to no consequences.

Fedex withdrew their 2023 earnings forecast in an early announcement after the bell and was knocked down 11%.  Ouch.

Have a pleasant evening.