For The Times They Are A-Changin'

'Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.

A great change is at hand, and our task, our obligation, is to make that revolution, that change, peaceful and constructive for all. Those who do nothing are inviting shame as well as violence.

The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men who can dream of things that never were and ask, why not?

History is a relentless master. It has no present, only the past rushing into the future. To try to hold fast is to be swept aside.'

John F. Kennedy


'Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it. Because cynics don't learn anything.

Cynicism is a self-imposed blindness, a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us. Cynics always say no. But saying yes begins things.'

Stephen Colbert


'All successful revolutions are the kicking in of a rotten door.'

John Kenneth Galbraith


'This generation has a rendezvous with destiny.'

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

For good or ill, after a long period of abuse and a testing of the extremities of power and the people's willingness to accept them, the only inevitability is change.  Always.

History is not a given, it is not given to us. It is what we are, what we have been given, and what we make of it.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Twenty Lords a-Twerking

The Lords of the Markets were determined to see stocks back up today, and the metals pushed much lower.

Alas, they tried their best, but rude reality intervened, with stocks finishing weakly with a heroic effort to take them off the lows, once again in the afternoon, and the metals resisted numerous attempts to fall on the selling of their cousins, the many synthetic derivatives spewed forth from the bowels of the bullion banks.

There was intraday commentary here in which I take you through what the current chart formation, the rounded bottom or cup and handle, and what they may imply.   And I hope you appreciate the effort I am making at seriousness, eschewing the many, many bad puns that the term 'rounded bottom' suggests to creative, but all too worldly, mind.

Although I do not address it, silver is following a similar pattern, on a much longer time frame since I track it on a weekly chart.  No matter who leads, they will likely go together hand in hand to whatever outcomes the markets may hold in the shorter term.

The US Dollar moved lower again today.  The Lady Yellen will be appearing before that raucous and rowdy group of ne'er-do-wells, idlers, and sharpers in the Congress tomorrow.  She has all my sympathy, as I would have for all patsies for the more ruthless criminal class.

Let's see what happens.

Have a pleasant evening.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Funny Markets, Ugly Insiders

"The world's humor, in its best and greatest sense, is perhaps the highest product of our civilization. Its basis lies in the deeper contrasts offered by life itself: the strange incongruity between our aspiration and our achievement, the eager and fretful anxieties of today that fade into nothingness tomorrow, the burning pain and the sharp sorrow that are softened in the gentle retrospect of time, till as we look back upon the course that has been traversed, we pass in view the panorama of our lives, as people in old age may recall, with mingled tears and smiles, the angry quarrels of their childhood.

And here, in its larger aspect, humor is blended with pathos till the two are one, and represent, as they have in every age, the mingled heritage of tears and laughter that is our lot on earth."

Stephen Leacock

Stocks continued to wobble today, swooning lower on the poor economic both at home and abroad.  Although the happy talk about The Recovery™ that resonates particularly from the Democratic establishment is a bit disorienting to those with a firmer grip on reality outside the Beltway.

Tomorrow Janet Yellen will face the Congress, and tonight the nation will face some of the grimmer possibilities in the Presidential race with the much awaited first real primary election in New Hampshire.  I don't think they will be choosing delegates with 'coin flips.'

As Jean Racine put it so aptly, “Life is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel.”

Or perhaps much more succinctly as my fellow engineer Glenn put it so many years ago, 'Life imitates high school.'

Have a pleasant evening.

Gold: A Closer Look At The Potential 'Cup and Handle'

Here are the possible outcomes for the current 'rounded bottom' for spot gold.

If it has a retracement that successfully returns to set a new high for this leg of the market we will have a successful handle and the formation is activated.

However, it is also possible that there will be little to no retracement, and that gold will pause, backing and filling its recent gains, and then break out higher.  This would be just a rounded bottom, with a similar measuring objective but a slightly lower probability and a greater risk of a later correction as weak hands are shaken out, most likely in March.

Or it could just break down from here.  Gold is a very manipulated market, because it has been traded like a virtual currency lately, rather than a commodity money.

The commodity aspect of this market is going to wreak havoc at some point if this continues unabated, because unlike the Dollar the Federal Reserve does not own a gold printing press.  Although the banking system has been doing yeoman work in ginning up synthetic gold through their highly leveraged derivatives.

The astute will notice that I have essentially listed most of the possible outcomes here.  How could I not?  The trick is not to use a system to predict the exact outcome well ahead of time.   That is a good way to go broke, unless you are just selling the information to others.

No, never has an aphorism been more true that that of Walter Bagehot's, that 'life is a school of probability.'

Most want to hear exactly what will happen, and not only that but exactly when, maybe with a few days leeway.

No one knows that sort of thing, and if they did, they would not sell it to you.   There are those who have made about twenty or more tremendous predictions for a bottom in gold over the last 24 months, and one day they may be right.

And the apologists and trolls for the status quo in a corrupted market have made an equal number of more calls for gold's doom, and have done so even as it ran initially from $250 to $1850.  And quite of few of them were broken by that run, and were even whipsawed, and so nurture an abiding discontent for gold and silver, as if these venerable metals take any notice of it.

There is nothing wrong with talking about this sort of thing, and pushing back and forth on opinions, some informed and many others not.  But it is a dangerous business to actually put your money to work on this sort of basis, because you may find yourself exhausted both emotionally and financially when and if the market actually shows its hand.  And it will.

No, our job is to assess the inputs and lay of the land, understanding what is determining the price, and the various supplies and demands and what drives them, and then to learn what to watch for and to properly assess the probabilities.  And of course that is just the beginning because one has to learn discipline and money management, and the tuition for that course in life learning is rather high.

So let us continue to allow the market, and especially the analysis of the underlying stock of gold inventories and mining production, and the ebbs and flows of the currency war, the times being what they are, to inform us.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Flight to Safety, the Cup's Rim Is In

Gold spiked higher towards $1200 today on market troubles and a weaker dollar I might add.

It seems like the currency war is going through one of its hot spells.

Silver even managed to chalk up a decent gain, and is forming a little 'bowl' formation of its own on the weekly chart no less.

Gold is now quite technically overbought in the short term.  Let's see if we get a retracement or some other sort of action.  In the short term anything is possible.

I know I am not saying so much this year.  Perhaps that is just because the time for talking, for letting people know what was going on, was last year's business.

If you have listened to what the markets have been saying, if you have seen things with open eyes, then you ought to be mostly set, as best as you can.

And if you did not listen then, and kept running to see what the trolls and apologists were saying, looking for diversion and excitement, why would you listen to anything of substance now?   You will always find an excuse, always do what you have been doing all along, until you cannot.

Have a pleasant evening.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Banking Troubles Worry Stocks

US equities hits new lows today, but managed to bounce back on some technical dip buying and short covering in the afternoon.

If they are going to put in a bottom, there are going to need some help from Europe where the bank stocks in particular look like they have been run through a threshing machine, several times.

Deutsche Bank is appearing very troubled, and Barclays trading was halted for a time today.

Have a pleasant evening.