Charts at the Market Close - Things You May Not Want To Hear, But May Wish To Know

This year I think that I am going to be publishing all of the charts in one posting, rather than splitting them up between stocks and metals.

Today was a lazier trading day than the numbers might have indicated. It was easy to lift stocks today, in other words.

There was little of note in the Comex reports from the last day of 2016.

I was looking over some old charts over the weekend, and I think that the direction of the gold and silver markets in the first couple of months will be quite telling for the rest of 2017.

The key level will be for the metals to break out above their 'election night' highs when the markets realized that Trump had won.

This atmosphere and tone of the markets reminds me of the period during which the big cup and handle retraced 50 percent or thereabouts in gold, and then took off on a steady run to its all time high.  Remember that?

Still, without the breakout, we have nothing but what we have, which is a sideways chop.

A long time reader sent me this link to this live updating chart that compares the metals prices on the dollar and yuan markets.

Another honored patron introduced me today to the twitter feed of Harald Malmgren, a former presidential adviser to JFK, LBJ, Nixon Ford, US Senate Finance.

I thought quite a few things that he said about stocks and other matters were quite to the point.

Some of Harald Malmgren's tweets from earlier today in descending order by time:

His [Ben Bernanke] continuing denial that QE wrought damage suggests it is he who cannot handle the truth.

Correlation of 1 across all asset classes combined with high leverage & narrow exits means catastrophically fast implosion, sooner or later.

Gold a really big subject. I'll save my thoughts on gold for another day.

What i am trying to point out is that markets and even the Fed are acting on unreliable,overoptimistic official data (aka fake news).

World trade contracting,growth stalling, but CNBC advertisers, Bloomberg customers & political leaders don't want downbeat news. Market illusions.

BEA uses own unique, low deflator (never CPI) to get higher inflation adjusted GDP growth rate, higher consumer spending, hiding feeble real growth.

Most jobs data cherry picked, manipulated, guessed. Declining payroll tax deductions published every day ignored. Job gains illusion.

Occasional glimpses of real economic news reminds how misleading is WH economic recovery spin and its adoption in the form of MSM fake news.

Financial leverage higher now than 2008, systemic risk greater, most jobs created part time, median income down, debt multiple, wealth gap bigger, etc.

On that we seem to agree. A phony recovery reliant on contrived fake data transmitted as fake news, now becoming "post truth".

At this stage of my life you get my views unadulterated with hidden ambitions.

What more can I say after that?

Have a pleasant evening.

The Great Temptation of Confusion and Complexity and the Rise of the Will to Power

"It seems that under the overwhelming impact of rising power, humans are deprived of their inner independence and, more or less consciously, give up establishing an autonomous position toward the emerging circumstances.

The fact that the stupid person is often stubborn must not blind us to the fact that he is not independent. In conversation with him, one virtually feels that one is dealing not at all with him as a person, but with slogans, catchwords, and the like that have taken possession of him.

He is under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in his very being. Having thus become a mindless tool, the stupid person will also be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil. This is where the danger of diabolical misuse lurks, for it is this that can once and for all destroy human beings.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers From Prison


"Now that I look back, I realize that a life predicated on being obedient and taking orders is a very comfortable life indeed.  Living in such a way reduces to a minimum one's need to think...  I may have made an error in judgement— but one thing is beyond dispute: the man was able to work his way up to leader of a people of almost 80 million.  His success alone proved that I should subordinate myself to him."

Adolph Eichmann, as quoted by Hannah Arendt in Eichmann in Jerusalem: The Banality of Evil


“In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true... Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow.

The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness...

The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.”

Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism


"He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man."

Samuel Johnson

Never relinquish your ability to love, to love others and to love the truth, whether it be from fatigue, or confusion, careerism or expediency.  For in that simple act of the will to love we maintain a critical linkage to our humanity. 

 

The real capitulation of a people to the will to power occurs, not in the mob as one might think, for by then it is an almost forgone conclusion.  The guardians of the public conscience are in the professional class, for they are the enablers of a moral voice and caution. They possess a platform and provide an example, and therefore bear a heavier than normal responsibility for speaking for the truth, early on and often, and not against one group or another as they prefer, because that makes them merely hypocrites. To lie is to lie, to deceive is to deceive, no matter the reasons.
 
No, they must uphold a certain character, against the types of behaviour that are clearly beyond the acceptable moral choices of those in authority.

To be truly human is not being able to simply ignore injustice, deprivation, and cruelty. Such indifference is the opposite of the awareness of others as fellow human beings and caring about them— which is the essence of love.

How the Democratic Party Failed By Repudiating Their Legacy as 'The Party of the People'

As the Democrats and their acolytes in the media pivot towards hysteria against 'the others' to explain their failures, let us not forget what has happened over the past thirty years, culminating in the stunning election of 2016.

This is a relatively short video, and heart of it starts around minute twenty after a discussion of the history, motives, and rationales by which the Democrats took the final steps in repudiating the legacy of The New Deal to embrace neo-liberalism.

The Democratic leadership consciously chose to identify with people they considered to be more like themselves, an elitist professional class. In a very real sense they followed the money and the prestige, and the Clintons were their leaders. The personal economic rewards that they reaped from this are very well documented.

The party covered their credentialism and 'ruling class' aspirations by covering it with a program of identity politics courting, with words more than substantial economic action, minorities with emotional appeals to ethnic identity, and occasionally fear-mongering. The Republicans played the witting foils in this, choosing to continue to embrace big money, but with a different twist towards oligarchy, covering their own greed with equally emotional appeals to 'traditional values.' In this they began to resemble corporate competitors ruled by a similar profit motive but with different branding.

The result has been an historical increase in income disparity, and a shift in power towards a policy bias that favors private war profits, global economic power agendas, and the shifting of almost all income growth to the financial class who continually abuse justice with virtual impunity.

You may wish to start the video around the twenty minute mark to hear how things progressed in the 1990's. If you have the time you can listen to the entire video to hear more of the history of how this change began in the 1970's.

Charts For the End of the Year - Bring Down the Curtain, The Farce Is Over

"Baissez le rideau, la farce est jouée."

Rabelais

Ended, for at least this year.

Gold and silver gave back a little of yesterday's rally.

The Comex warehouse report showed another 1.7 million ounces of silver leaving the 'registered' category. The report is shown below.

I think this year was finally have seen the smoking gun in precious metals manipulation. It is the confirmation, in their own words as revealed in the Deutsche Bank court documents, of traders using the 'Dr. Evil' strategy of selling large numbers of contracts in quiet hours to take the price down artificially for their own cross trading purposes.

As if anyone who understands and watches the markets did not already know this.  If they deny it now, then they are either a hypocrite or a willful simpleton.   I will let them self-identify.

But make no mistake about it, we have the smoking gun, and the lawsuits are flowing heavily. Although you would hardly know it from the mainstream financial media.

And there is worse, and far more revelations, to come.

I hope you all have a very happy and prosperous New Year.

Please do not forget God's little ones during this cold weather.

"May the Lord bless you and keep you.  May He let his face shine on you, and be gracious towards you.  May the Lord look kindly upon you, and grant you peace."

Numbers 6:24-26

Precious Metal Deliveries For 2017 Begin Quietly - Big Drawdown in 'Registered For Delivery' Silver

Although the silver did not 'go anywhere,' the registered (for delivery) category of silver dropped by almost 8 million ounces in one day.

There are now about 28.4 million ounces registered for delivery on the exchange, which is low compared to recent levels approaching the 50 million level.

Charts at the Close of Trade on a Blustery Winter Afternoon

"It would not be an overstatement that demonetisation announced by the Prime Minister of India on November 8th might have been one of the largest self-inflicted macroeconomic shocks on a country in the absence of a short term crisis.

Given the sheer size - the decision to withdraw 85% of the cash in circulation has thrown India into disarray.   Such a large and unexpected policy change naturally carries with it a large collateral damage at least in the short run."

Areendam Chanda, Notes And Anecdotes on Demonetisation


"Plunderers of the world, when nothing remains on the lands to which they have laid waste by wanton thievery, they search out across the seas. The wealth of another region excites their greed; and if it is weak, their lust for power as well.

Nothing from the rising to the setting of the sun is enough for them. Among all others only they are compelled to attack the poor as well as the rich. Robbery, rape, and slaughter they falsely call empire— and where they make a desert, they call it peace."

Tacitus

There is a major snowstorm moving on the northeastern United States that is centered now on Massachusetts and is moving up the coast as a classic nor'easter.   I hear that they are expecting several feet of snow from this.

Luckily for us, the weather here is too warm for snow, but certainly cold and raw enough to discourage any thought of working outside, although feeding the birds, God's little ones, is a high priority.

There are more storms coming.  Many of them have been caused by the greed and arrogance of people who lie so often to other people and their friends that they lose touch with common reality.

And so they may be shocked when the consequences of their actions come home to roost.  They will say, 'no one could have seen this coming,' and what is worse, some of them may actually think they believe it.

Gold and silver had a bit of a rally today, off a deeply oversold short term condition.  Bloomberg TV was quick to challenge that, and show a longer term chart of gold in an intact downtrend.

Funny they did not mention silver at all.   I would suggest that if we do rally from here that we have a confirmation of a massive cup and handle formation that is only visible on the weekly chart.  And it is one that is also nested within an even bigger formation that can only be seen on the long term monthly charts.  Silver is reflecting more of the natural market action than gold.

But that is a big if, although many of the usual suspects will be quick to pounce on anything positive to generate breathless excitement without waiting for confirmation.

Things will be more impressive and exciting when gold and silver start moving limit up, with triple digit and triple dollar moves to the upside overnight, as the precious metal manipulation pools begin to fall apart.   History suggests that they must, and eventually that they will.

Of course one cannot rule out some sort of official reaction bordering on the madness of the bureaucrats, as we have been seeing with Mr. Modi in India and his crackpot demonitisation actions.

Violence begets violence.  And frightened people who are caught badly enough in a credibility trap will be tempted by extremities, after first depersonalizing those whose differences are a nuisance, and then an embarrassment, and finally a perceived challenge to power.  The deplorables, the parasites, the other.

Let us remember that violence is rarely justifiable on another human being except in the most obvious acts of self-defense.  That is not to say that violence doesn't happen, because it does every day.

We are such sophisticated barbarians that there are schools of thought, among them the neo-cons in foreign relations and the neo-liberals in economic policies, that see violence of whatever sort as a first choice to another people's failure to submit to their grandiose schemes of power.

Hubris warps vision, and the policies that proceed from the heights of arrogance have often produced cold-bloodedly horrific results, to which the parties are blinded, at least for a time.

Because a group is well-dressed, and covers their barbarous hearts with the trappings of culture, does not mean that they are 'civilised.'   Their murders are merely more calculating and efficient— grotesquely passionless.

And finally, let us remember each other in our prayers, so that we will not allow our love to grow cold, if there should be an increase in wickedness.   Although we all do what we must do, this holding on to our own hearts and souls is the only transaction that in the very long run really matters.

If you love the Lord, truly as He loves you, then you cannot be afraid.

Have a pleasant evening.