Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Hidden in Plain Sight - The Interests of Empire

 

"We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies.  Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow."

Lord Palmerston, speech, House of Commons, 1 March 1848

"On Tuesday following the [1987] crash, with the futures market indicating a significantly lower open, Alan Greenspan and the Fed came in buying SP 500 futures in order to turn the markets around. And it worked. And it continued, with the Fed supporting the equity markets with jawboning, persuasion, and occasionally direct intervention, so that by the end of the year all was well with the markets. On the advice of his financial advisors, President Reagan formed The Working Group on Financial Markets (colloquially referred to as the Plunge Protection Team) was created by Executive Order 12631, signed on March 18, 1988. And thus came the era of bubble-nomics."

Jesse, All Is Well: 1987 and It's Consequences, October 19, 2017

The Working Group On Financial Markets consists of:

• The Secretary of the Treasury, or his or her designee (as Chairperson of the Working Group);
• The Chairperson of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, or his or her designee;
• The Chairperson of the Securities and Exchange Commission, or his or her designee; and
• The Chairperson of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, or his or her designee.

Wikipedia, Working Group on Financial Markets

Washington: The Trump administration is arranging a phone call on Monday with top regulators to discuss financial markets amid a rout on Wall Street. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will host the call with the president's Working Group on Financial Markets, known colloquially as the 'Plunge Protection team.'

Jason Lange, 'Plunge Protection Team' to convene amid Wall Street rout, Reuters, December 24, 2018

"We looked into the abyss if the gold price rose further. A further rise would have taken down one or several trading houses, which might have taken down all the rest in their wake. Therefore at any price, at any cost, the central banks had to quell the gold price, manage it. It was very difficult to get the gold price under control but we have now succeeded. The US Fed was very active in getting the gold price down. So was the U.K."

Edward George, Governor Bank of England 1993-2003, from Reg Howe v. BIS, JPM et al.


Stocks were in rally risk on mode today, with the big cap tech bubbles leading the way.  The broader market was just so-so.

 

VIX has fallen now to the area which, like a low barometer reading, suggests some stormy weather may be heading our way.

 

Gold and silver rallied higher, but were pressed a bit into the close.

 

Tomorrow is an option expiration for precious metals futures on the Comex.

 

Shenanigans are usually expected, either tomorrow or the day after.   Or both.

 

Bear in mind that the wiseguys not only see what each other are doing, and will signal their intentions in various ways to the lesser denizens of the pits, but they also are able to see in the aggregate what you are holding in your hand.

 

It does matter.  And that's why they don't let you see it, but pay well for their own ability to watch the order flows and reconstruct relative positions.

 

Yeah, it's not fair.   That's the point.  And its very confusing to 'bull market geniuses'.

 

So let's see how the next couple of days go.  I think a drop in stocks is in the wind, as well as a gut check for the precious metals.

 

But timing these sorts of things for those who are playing the game according to 'the rules'.

 

Empires and the powerful do not have friends, or allies, or favorites.   

 

Those who worship money and power have abiding interests of their own.  And you are not one of them.

 

But there is One who loves you, as you would love yourself, if you were wise..

 

Have a pleasant evening. 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Their Perfect Possession - Comex Expiration

 

“Once they’re in power, narcissists consolidate their position by firing everyone who challenges them. In their place rise a plague of toadies, opportunists, and enablers equally guided by self-interest and short on scruples. So you end up with these individualistic cultures with no teamwork and low integrity.

True narcissists are self-serving and lack integrity. They believe they’re superior and thus not subject to the same rules and norms. Studies show they’re more likely to act dishonestly to achieve their ends. They know they’re lying, and it doesn’t bother them. They don’t feel shame. These people aren’t going to change."

Charles A. O’Reilly, as quoted in How Narcissistic Leaders Destroy from Within, Stanford Business School, April 30, 2020

“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.

The surest road to Hell is the gradual one — the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts."

C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, 1942

"Love does not make you weak, because it is the source of all strength— but it makes you see the nothingness of the illusory strength on which you depended before you knew it."

Léon Bloy

"Nor will love be seen coming from the hearts of those who are fallen into wickedness: they are the fruit of hate, deceit, greed, fear, pride, possession, and aggression. And they will not only forsake love by washing their hands of it, they will eventually come to condemn it, and persecute it— and thereby condemn themselves."

Jesse, Love is the Refuge of the Way, 24 June 2017

"We live in a world where love itself is condemned.  People call it weakness, something to grow out of. Some are saying: 'let each one become as strong as he can, and let the weak perish.'  The neo-paganism [of the Nazis] may well cast-off love but, in spite of everything, history teaches us that we shall be the victors over this.  Do not yield to hatred.  We are here in a dark tunnel, but we have to go on.  At the end, an eternal light is shining for us.  We shall not forsake love."

Titus Brandsma, Statement, Dachau, 26 July 1942

"The demon's target is not the possessed; it is us the observers.. everyone in this house. I think the point is to make us despair..to reject our humanity: to see ourselves as ultimately bestial, vile and putrescent; without dignity; ugly; unworthy."

William Peter Blatty, The Exorcist, May 1971


It was risk on today.

Stocks rallied, gapping up at the open, and going out near the highs.

The VIX fell.

The Dollar rallied a bit to take back the 104 handle.

Gold and silver suffered some further weakness.

There will be an April futures contract option expiration for precious metals on the Comex on Wednesday the 26^th.

We should be ashamed of what we are becoming.  

It puzzles us that there are many ardent believers in what is the worst in us, yielding to hate, anger, and greed.

How easily it is for the proud to fall, gradually into the abyss, according to that infernal plan.

We shall see the gradual downfall of nations to the unthinkable, one by one after another.

Repentance, forgiveness, thankfulness.   These are our three great gifts.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - CME Discontinuing a Number of Gold Contracts

 

I was out and about most of the day.

Just charts tonight.

I will note that there was no update on the physical gold in CME associated warehouses in Hong Kong.

You may have seen the notice that CME is discontinuing a number of gold contracts including their gold kilo contracts.

Effective immediately, Commodity Exchange, Inc. (“COMEX” or “Exchange”) delisted the Gold Kilo Futures, London Spot Gold Futures, London Silver Spot Futures, and Cleared OTC London Gold Forwards (collateral margin) contracts...  As a result of the delisting, information regarding the Contracts has been deleted from the CME Group website.

Are they no longer able to keep up with the offtake of gold there?

This strategic retreat is one way to avoid the soft default of a 'failure to deliver.'

Curiouser and curiouser.

Have a pleasant evening.

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - More Corrupt than Courageous: The Silence of the Lambs

 

"Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Constitution of the United States, Amendment I

"Representative institutions no longer represent voters.  Instead, they have been short-circuited, steadily corrupted by an institutionalized system of bribery that renders them responsive to powerful interest groups whose constituencies are the major corporations and wealthiest Americans.  The courts, in turn, when they are not increasingly handmaidens of corporate power, are consistently deferential to the claims of national security."

Sheldon Wolin, Democracy Incorporated: Inverted Totalitarianism, April 2008

"Intellectual freedom is essential — freedom to obtain and distribute information, freedom for open-minded and unfearing debate and freedom from pressure by officialdom and prejudices. Such freedom of thought is the only guarantee against an infection of people by mass myths, which, in the hands of treacherous hypocrites and demagogues, can be transformed into bloody dictatorship."

Andrei Sakharov, Reflections on Progress, Peaceful Coexistence, and Intellectual Freedom, July 22, 1968

"The schools would fail through their silence, the Church through its forgiveness, and the home through the denial and silence of the parents.  The new generation has to hear what the older generation refuses to tell it."

Simon Wiesenthal, Introduction: The Sunflower, Paris, 1969

"When I was suddenly catapulted into the leadership of the bus protest in Montgomery, Alabama, a few years ago, I felt we would be supported by the white church. I felt that the white ministers, priests and rabbis of the South would be among our strongest allies. Instead, some have been outright opponents, refusing to understand the freedom movement and misrepresenting its leaders; all too many others have been more cautious than courageous and have remained silent behind the anesthetizing security of stained glass windows."

Martin Luther King, Letter from a Birmingham Jail, August 1963

"There is nothing so threatening to systemic evil as those willing to stand against it regardless of the consequences. It’s unbelievable— or we’re supposed to think it is— that a president was murdered by our own government agencies because he was seeking a more stable peace than relying on nuclear weapons. It’s unspeakable. Our collective denial of the obvious, in the setting up of Oswald and his transparent silencing by Ruby, made possible the Dallas cover-up. The success of the cover-up was the indispensable foundation for the subsequent murders of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, and Robert Kennedy by the same forces at work in our government—and in ourselves. The unspeakable is not far away."

James Douglass, JFK and the Unspeakable, Maryknoll, 2008


I always thought that there would be a strong movement for the suppression of speech in the aftermath of these market bubbles, and the rising tyranny of a powerful few that would impose on the freedoms of the many, with increasing force and fraud.

The only example in my own memory that occurs is the McCarthy era, in which the threat of being labeled a 'communist' terrified otherwise people of conscience into silence in the face of the abuse of power and the Constitution.

But I never saw it coming as it is upon us now, wrapped in the guise of civility and the 'cancel culture'  wrapped around the iron heel of big Money.  The irony and shamelessness of its hypocrisy is astonishing. 

 Stocks did their usual pop and flop again today, as Wall Street breathlessly awaiting the Nvidia numbers after the bell.   They hope to be able to keep the tech bubble alive with AI.

The Dollar drifted higher.

Gold and silver were slammed hard, as the expected follow up to the recent Comex option expiration.

But they managed to come back and provide a decent showing as the shenanigans were only for the morning's entertainment.

I am pretty convinced we have been shocked into accepting, in silence, the outrageous assault on freedoms that form the basis of the American republic in favor of a wealthy few.

Have a pleasant evening.

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Tender Mercies

 

"We pray for the big things, and forget to give thanks for the ordinary, small (and yet really not so small) blessings.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"We must live in sunshine, even when we sorrow; we must live in God's presence, we must not shut ourselves up in our own hearts, even when we are reckoning up our past sins. As many as are our sins, His grace is greater.  He counts our sins, and, as He counts, so can He forgive; for that reckoning, great though it be, comes to an end; but His mercies fail not, and His Son's merits are infinite."

John Henry Newman, Present Blewwings, Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol 5, Sermon 19

“Man has places in his heart which do not yet exist, and into them enters suffering, in order that they may have life.”

Léon Bloy, The Pilgrim of the Absolute

"There are times when we fall to our knees and thank God for all His blessings and tender mercies.

And there are other times when we arrogantly refuse to bend or bow, and to defer to anything but ourselves, in complacent pride.  And then God brings us to our knees, to remind us of who we are, and how to be grateful for what we have been given.

Please remember to feed the least of His creatures, the birds and animals, and of course His children.  It is our duty and joy and freedom to lessen the troubles of others, out of acceptance and thankfulness for His love, of those who are unworthy, like us."

Jesse, Loving Kindness and Tender Mercies, 27 November 2024

"Let no man pull you so low as to hate him."

Martin Luther King, A Knock at Midnight, 11 February 1962

"Show me your ways, O Lord,
       and instruct me on your paths.
  Lead me in your truth, and teach me:
       for you are the God of my salvation; and I wait for you all the day.
  Remember, O Lord, your tender mercies and loving kindness,
       as they have always been of old."

Psalm 25:4-6


As previously mentioned, several times, today was a futures contract option expiration for  precious metals on the Comex.

And as is customary, the metals were slammed down hard, if for no other reason to skin those who trade their option markets.

The Dollar fell.

Bitcoin finally teetered and fell off its support.  It did come back a little bit, but is still off its recent trading range.

At some point this could begin a cascade decline as those who are leveraging up on BTC with debt start having to liquidate their holdings.  It's hard to say.

Stocks were clocked again in continuation selling.

That did not help BTC at all because it is a risk asset.

Stocks fell to must hold support and bounced back a bit, but it was not a robust finish.

The geopolitical risks are still screaming out loud, even though Trump seems to be backing off the Deep State's fetish of provoking Russia. 

Let's see how the rest of the week goes.

As you know those happy few who ended up holding new contracts in the metals futures will often get a followup gut check to make sure their hands are strong.

The injustice of the US financial system is endemic, making it rotten to the core.  I don't see anything that is going to make it better anytime soon.

The oligarchs have the Dollar and its support systems firmly in hand. 

Truly, only God is good.   And they have nothing to do with Him, serving the darkness in themselves.

Have a pleasant evening.