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 - The Modern Prometheus - Another Comex Options Expiration

 

"By the late 1970s, after fifteen years in the business, Bob Hare knew what he was looking for when it came to psychopaths.  They exhibit a cluster of distinctive personality traits, the most significant of which is an utter lack of conscience.  They also have huge egos, short tempers, and an appetite for excitement -- a dangerous mix.  

'A lot of white-collar criminals are psychopaths,' says Bob Hare. 'But they flourish because the characteristics that define the disorder are actually valued.  When they get caught, what happens?  A slap on the wrist, a six-month ban from trading, and don't give us the $100 million back.  I've always looked at white-collar crime as being as bad or worse than some of the physically violent crimes that are committed.'"

Robert Hercz, Psychopaths Among Us


"A shocking crime was committed on the unscrupulous initiative of few individuals, with the blessing of more, and amid the passive acquiescence of all."

Tacitus


"Many of the characteristics displayed by psychopaths are closely associated with a profound lack of empathy and inability to construct a mental and emotional 'facsimile' of another person.  They seem completely unable to 'get into the skin' of others, except in a purely intellectual sense.  They are completely indifferent to the rights and suffering of family and strangers alike.  If they do maintain ties, it is only because they see family members as possessions."

Robert D. Hare, The Charming Psychopath


Stocks managed to oscillate today, not quite sure what to do with their recent outsized gains from last Friday.

Gold and silver were hit lower, in honor of the metals futures options expiration on the Comex.

What a surprise.

The Dollar moved lower slipping off the 104 handle.

I suspect that a cadre of the initiated would like to keep the equity markets moving higher.

The better to eat you with, my dear.

Europe has banned the imports of Russian gold.   A symbolic gesture at best.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Go Go Godzilla - Metals Options Expiration Monday

 

""Psychopaths often come across as arrogant, shameless braggarts—self-assured, opinionated, domineering, and cocky.  They love to have power and control over others and seem unable to believe that other people have valid opinions different from theirs.  What makes psychopaths different from all others is the remarkable ease with which they lie, the pervasiveness of their deception, and the callousness with which they carry it out.

Wherever you find money, prestige and power you will find them.   We are far more likely to lose our life savings to an oily-tongued swindler than our lives to a steely-eyed killer."

Robert D. Hare, Without Conscience


"Maintaining silence about a dirty truth is another way of lying, a common practice in high places."

Michael Parenti


"The market ideology is now the new form of imperial power and many of us, without any critical reflection, have signed onto that and organized our lives in that way so we do not have any time, energy or capacity for the things that are rightly important to us."

Walter Brueggemann

Fear can turn to greed in a second, and concerns just melt away n the passion to gamble and not miss out.

The markets *finally* got together and gave us an impressive bear market rally that they were able to take out near the highs.

If all goes well this weekend then we *might* be able to see them extend the gains next week.

All bully has to do is take out that second high on the charts.  

And as you might expect the risk averse plays retreated somewhat, such as the Dollar, gold and silver.  

Gold and silver took a sharp hit this morning, no doubt with a nod to their Comex option expiration on Monday.

And the meme today was wow, look at that Consumer sentiment number and its implications for inflation expectations.

And besides, the recession is already here and its not so bad, right?   

Why, it's practically over already.

Don't ask why, time to buy.

I seem to recall that they said the same thing a couple of weeks ago.  

Wash, rinse, repeat.

Earnings season dead ahead.

Have a pleasant weekend.

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - What a Surprise - The Endless Wash and Rinse

 

"It seemed as though the markets thought that there would be a weak jobs number tomorrow, which would put a chill on the Fed's zeal of rate increases.  

Or it could just be a bulltrap, yet another means of skinning the speculators."

Jesse, 2 June 2022


"Over the last thirty years, the United States has been taken over by an amoral financial oligarchy, and the American dream of opportunity, education, and upward mobility is now largely confined to the top few percent of the population. Federal policy is increasingly dictated by the wealthy, by the financial sector, and by powerful (though sometimes badly mismanaged) industries such as telecommunications, health care, automobiles, and energy. These policies are implemented and praised by these groups’ willing servants, namely the increasingly bought-and-paid-for leadership of America’s political parties, academia, and lobbying industry.

If allowed to continue, this process will turn the United States into a declining, unfair society with an impoverished, angry, uneducated population under the control of a small, ultrawealthy elite. Such a society would be not only immoral but also eventually unstable, dangerously ripe for religious and political extremism.

Thus far, both political parties have been remarkably clever and effective in concealing this new reality. In fact, the two parties have formed an innovative kind of cartel—an arrangement I have termed America’s political duopoly, which I analyze in detail below.  Both parties lie about the fact that they have each sold out to the financial sector and the wealthy.  So far both have largely gotten away with the lie, helped in part by the enormous amount of money now spent on deceptive, manipulative political advertising."

Charles Ferguson, Predator Nation, May 21, 2013


"Why are people so reluctant to believe that sociopaths and narcissists can use the power of the pen to prey on people? Because they are well spoken and organized? We would contend that these are the most dangerous of the emotionally warped with a need to acquire, dominate and control, because they are smarter and more calculating than the impulse murderers, burglars, rapists, thieves, and pedophiles.

There is a need for economic law and enforcement as there is a need for the less cerebral, hairy knuckled criminal law and enforcement. The notion that people become naturally good, rational and well-adjusted because they are wearing a suit is ludicrous, especially to anyone who has worked with many of those who move in the upper echelons of money and power.

Some of the scariest people we have ever met were articulate and pathologically driven borderline psychopaths with a need to acquire political and economic power. It is the focus of their illness that makes them powerful. They are not distracted by the diffusion of emotional responses that color most people's actions. They have a need, and the will to satisfy it, no matter what it takes.

There will always be those at the extremes who need to 'take it to the limit,' with a well stocked foreign retreat in case things get ugly. But for most of us, restoring a sense of justice and order and putting the nation back into some kind of working balance will be high on the priority list, if not for ourselves, then for our families."

Jesse, Predator Class, 26 December 2008


A bulltrap it was indeed.

Whipsaw city.

A little of the old wash and rinse.

What a surprise.

I played it as a trap and it worked out fairly well.  It was worth a go.

So, in honor of the Non-Farm Payrolls report gold and silver were smashed.

Stocks declined.

The dollar strengthened.

And Wall Street insiders win again.  Hi ho.

I made some modifications to the CrashTrak model in the data for 1929. I tightened up the timeframes to bring it more into line with a 'crash' as a singular event, and not the ensuing depression that resulted from the numerous policy errors by the Republican government and the Fed.

The 1929 event was about three months in duration, and the 1987 was about two months.

Given the amount of government and Fed intervention in markets which became policy after 1987 I think we can be flexible about our current timeframes however.

A crash in slow motion?

Let's keep an eye on that second high and the principle of lower highs and lower lows.

I am also including a analysis of the 1987 crash that I did in 2004 for my old Geocities blog.

Have a pleasant weekend.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Stormy Day in the Metaverse

 

"The market ideology is now the new form of imperial power and many of us, without any critical reflection, have signed onto that and organized our lives in that way so we do not have any time, energy or capacity for the things that are rightly important to us."

Walter Brueggemann

"The enormous gap between what US leaders do in the world and what Americans think their leaders are doing is one of the great propaganda accomplishments of the dominant political mythology."

Michael Parenti

"Congress and the Senate were empty pretenses, farces.  Public questions were gravely debated and passed upon according to the old forms, while in reality all that was done was to give the stamp of constitutional procedure to the mandates of the Oligarchy."

Jack London, The Iron Heel


"Psychopaths often come across as arrogant, shameless braggarts—self-assured, opinionated, domineering, and cocky. They love to have power and control over others and seem unable to believe that other people have valid opinions different from theirs. What makes psychopaths different from all others is the remarkable ease with which they lie, the pervasiveness of their deception, and the callousness with which they carry it out.

Wherever you find money, prestige and power you will find them.  We are far more likely to lose our life savings to an oily-tongued swindler than our lives to a steely-eyed killer."

Robert D. Hare, Without Conscience


Stocks were in rally mode, risk on this morning.

But alas, there appears to be a flaw in the bullish scenario.

Stocks reversed and gave up not only all of their morning gains, but fell out of bed, and went out on the lows.

We should not be watching where stocks go next, and if we set a lower low or not.

Gold and silver were monkey-hammered in the risk on exuberance this morning.

Gold managed to take back quite a bit of its early losses by the close of day.

Silver not so much.

The Dollar bounced a little higher on the flight to safety amid expectations of higher rates. 

What will they think of next?

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - What Time's the Next Black Swan? - Down to Key Support

 

"The period of financial distress is a gradual decline after the peak of a speculative bubble that precedes the final and massive panic and crash, driven by the insiders having exited but the sucker outsiders hanging on hoping for a revival, but finally giving up in the final collapse."

Charles Kindleberger


"They run all away, and cry, 'the devil take the hindmost'."

Beaumont and Fletcher, Philaster, or Love Lies a-Bleeding


“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.  This is apparent from a social pathology: psychopaths rally followers.”

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan
 

"Through a set of economic policies designed to bail out and subsidize failed and often tainted corporate enterprises, while actively promoting a false sense of confidence to support those policies, the public has become exposed, by those very people entrusted to protect them, to dangerously high levels of hidden counterparty risks. 

The cautionary functions of the media, the political class, and the regulatory bodies have been routinely directed, distorted, and even silenced for the benefit of a highly compromised and increasingly self-serving elite.  And this corruption has begun feeding on its own momentum, resulting in increasingly blatant examples of deception, distortion, and outright theft.  This is crony capitalism, and its deadly credibility trap." 

Jesse, April 2012

 

Stocks retraced the bounce from yesterday, but managed to hold at key support levels.

We may be one exogenous event away from a significant market dislocation.

Precipitous declines of 10+% are always lower probability events, but sometimes the tails are little fatter than at other times.

Gold and silver bounced.  Silver in particular was impressive since it diverged from stocks. 

The VIX fell.  

There is not panic selling yet.   I suspect the specs are buying the dips.

I came in short from last night and got a little shorter on the early bounce.   I trimmed back a bit for the weekend. 

If the major stock indices break below further key supports with the right kind of tension on the tape I will try to start calculating just what kind of decline we may be facing.  

The Fed is active in the markets.   But even they have a limited ability to respond to a significant event.

Stock index option expiration next Thursday.

As next week is Holy Week I will be posting but it may be late or abbreviated.

Have a pleasant weekend.