"It is crudely general to suggest collective responsibility for the German populace. It is, however, fair to suggest that those who continued to defend the idea of Germanhood publicly as the war went on—when this had become synonymous with barbarity—were in fact renouncing their humanity for the sake of individual survival and peace of mind."
Panayiotis Demopoulos, Götterdämmerung: Suicide Music
Stock were largely unchanged after a fluttering day on very light volumes.
No major central bank announced a new stimulus initiative today, so stocks will have to wait for the Apple results tomorrow for an excuse to do something perhaps.
New housing sales came in very light for September.
Perhaps the trend towards higher prices against stagnant wages for most potential homebuyers has something to do with that.
Notice how nicely the bubble in median housing prices tracks the expansion of the Fed's balance sheet.
If only that stimulus was directed at median wages. But that would empower the 99%.
Gold and silver were hit by paper contract selling this morning and the US dollar caught a bid higher.
The only delivery action in The Bucket Shop was another house to house account delivery of gold from Nova Scotia to JPM.
Someone who owned gold bullion in the Nova warehouse put it up for delivery. I wonder who that could be.
The IMF seemed to relent on the hardline Anglo-American position and indicated this morning that there might be room in the next SDR recast for the Chinese remnimbi.
As I have mentioned before the wiseguys are trading commodities like currencies or stocks, almost fearlessly so. And most likely in some indirect support or assurances of the dollar supremacy.
I suspect this will end badly, as most of these cockeyed policy initiatives cooked up in the thin intellectual air of the central Banks most willful bureaucracies tend to do.
And they always seem to find some cat's paw to become the patsy for the results, if required.
"Forward, the Light Brigade!"
Was there a man dismayed?
Not though the soldier knew
Someone had blundered.
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the Valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
Stocks were off to the races this morning with the sixth Chinese rate cut this year. This is of course in addition to the recent suggestion by Draghi of the ECB that they intend to do something in December.
Techs were leading the way higher on the back of the results turned in by Alphabet and Amazon.
The central banks are declaring their willingness to print money and pursue accommodative policies until business picks up momentum.
They may beat this policy error business into the ground.
I doubt they will be satisfied until they have caused another financial crisis.
Gold could not seem to rally today, although silver caught a little upside action, and stocks in general were going crazy to the upside, particularly in the futures after the bell thanks to the tech giants Aphabet (Google) and Amazon.
Although it may seem counter-intuitive that stocks were rallying hard on expectations of ECB stimulus and gold was not, in fact it makes sense because the Euro currency was hit rather hard by this, and King Dollar is essentially the reserve of the euro.
And I am sure you remember what a stronger dollar does to the price of gold, expressed in dollars.
The retracement scenario is still very active.
Yes, in the longer term a stronger dollar is bad for the 'real US economy.'
And in the short term, they do not care. Time to cash in and make some more money off paper asset bubbles.
US equities were off to the races this morning on remarks from Mario Draghi of the ECB that suggested that they would be considering various types of stimulus for a weak euro economy at their December meeting.
After the bell, Amazon and Alphabet, the stock formerly known as Google, reported better than expected numbers, and the tech futures did a moon shot as you can see from the chart below.
Gold and silver were hit by some fairly deliberate selling between 9 and 10 AM Eastern US time as you can see.
After that, it was largely a sideways move with a slight upward drift.
Things are still playing out pretty much as I had expected, and I continue to wait for this to play itself out, and make the pattern apparent.
The Bucket Shop continues to be in a general gold lockdown in the warehouses. The bullion banks Nova Scotia and JPM swapped a little gold amongst their house accounts.
A little silver managed to slip out of the warehouses, and some additional bullion went up into the deliverable (registered) category.
Gold continues to move from West to East. The speculators and gamblers using other people's money continue to increase the leverage on their declining stores of bullion.
How do you think that this will end?
I have some thoughts, but only know for sure that it will.
Thank you for the well wishes on the test results. They were good as far as these things may go when you are playing for time. But then again, we really all are. I must say she still makes the most of what she has in doing good for others, and making our house a real home. And keeping this fellow in line.
"All these gave out of their excess; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to give.” Luke 21:4
The ECB is meeting and will come out with their decision tomorrow.
There was intraday commentary about backstopping the wealthy gamblers with public money here.
Have a pleasant evening.
There Will Come Soft Rains By Sara Teasdale
There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;
And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white,
Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;
And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.
Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
If mankind perished utterly;
And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.
Stocks were on a see-saw today, but finally gave up their attempts to go higher, and slipped to the lows of the day into the close.
VIX ticked up a bit in the last hour of trade. I had been watching it carefully, at least for the time that I was in my office and not gallivanting around with the most precious jewel.
On the charts we see a retracement from a short term top, at least so far.
Let's see if stocks will give it up here and continue to roll over, or if the street can gather its forces and push them higher. Selling volume is still rather light. But so is organic buying. This looks to be algo-driven, and without much commitment except to short term profits.
After the bell American Express missed its numbers.
Valeant was getting monkey-hammered today on a report from a bearish analyst that they have been using distribution pharmacies in order to book sales, with the meme 'the Enron of pharma' making the rounds.
Not to be deterred by his losses today, Bill Ackman stepped up and supposedly bought 2 million more shares.
Let us pray for those whose hearts are hardened against His grace and loving kindness by greed, fear, and pride, and the seductive illusion and crushing isolation of evil.
We pray that we all may experience the three great gifts of our Lord's suffering and triumph: repentance, forgiveness, and thankfulness. And in so doing, may we obtain abundant life, and with it the peace that surpasses all understanding.
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