Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - As Time Goes By

"For I behold the heavens, the works of your fingers: the moon and the stars which you have made. What is man that you are mindful of him? or the Son of Man that you dwell with him?  You have made us a little less than the angels, and you have crowned Him with glory and honour, And have set Him over all the works of your hands."

Psalm 8:3-5


“Narcissistic personality disorder is named for Narcissus, from Greek mythology, who fell in love with his own reflection. Freud used the term to describe persons who were self-absorbed, and psychoanalysts have focused on the narcissist's need to bolster his or her self-esteem through grandiose fantasy, exaggerated ambition, exhibitionism, and feelings of entitlement.”

Donald W. Black, DSM-5 Guidebook

Stocks continued their sideways trade, except for the big cap techs which lead the NDX to new highs.

The rally has narrowed considerably, and is being driven by less than ten stocks which have an overweight influence on the indices.

And as the stock indices go higher, they attract more money into them through index funds.

The ending will be swift, and sudden.

Gold and silver remain quiet, although silver has been showing some serious ability to rebound back towards the 17 handle.

Washington and New York are focused almost exclusively on themselves now, and their intramural political power struggles.

And their hysteria with their own issues is almost boundless, while the country languishes.

Trump seems determined to sabotage himself. Yes, he has 'enemies'. But his biggest enemy is himself.

When this goes into the ditch, no one will have seen it coming.

That is because they can only see the rest of us and the world through their own reflections, darkly, if at all.

Lord have mercy on us.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - No Worries

As a reminder there will be a stock option expiration this week.

There will be a Comex precious metals options expiration next week.

The commodities were rallying a bit today on a lower dollar and higher oil.

The SP managed to stick a cash close over 2400.

No worries in the markets. As long as the volumes are low and the news is less than a punch in the face.

Have a pleasant evening.

US Gold Reserves and the Adjusted Monetary Base

Here is the value of the US Gold Reserves in Dollars based on the market price versus the St. Louis Fed's Adjusted Monetary Base.

This chart is from goldchartsrus.com.

Gold and Silver Technical Charts

Gold and silver are short term oversold, and *may* be putting in a bottom here, at least for the short term.   The technical measures are shown on the first two charts.

Silver has been underperforming gold on this latest move later.  But that is typically what an asset with a higher beta does.   It underperforms on the dips, and overperforms on the rallies.

Gold and the SP 500 have turned in a similar performance year-to-date as shown on the third chart.

The gold/silver ratio is high as you can see on the fourth chart, but it seems to have been trending higher for some time now as gold and silver have been in a corrective pattern.

If a precious metal rally returns, that should change as silver obtains greater traction to the upside.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Plutocracy - Moral Hazard Deluxe

"Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men's views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of somebody, are afraid of something.

They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.

The government, which was designed for the people, has got into the hands of bosses and their employers, the special interests. An invisible empire has been set up above the forms of democracy."

Woodrow Wilson, The New Freedom, 1913


"The state within a state is hiding mostly in plain sight. The pressure to conform to an authority figure or peer group can cause people to behave in shocking ways.

It is not too much to say that Wall Street may be the ultimate owner of the Deep State and its strategies, if for no other reason than that it has the money to reward government operatives with a second career that is lucrative beyond the dreams of avarice— certainly beyond the dreams of a salaried government employee.

The corridor between Manhattan and Washington is a well-trodden highway for the personalities we have all gotten to know in the period since the massive deregulation of Wall Street."

Mike Lofgren, Anatomy of the Deep State


Mounting a campaign against plutocracy makes as much sense to the typical Washington liberal as would circulating a petition against gravity. What our modernized liberal leaders offer is not confrontation but a kind of therapy for those flattened by the free-market hurricane: they counsel us to accept the inevitability of the situation.

Thomas Frank, Rendezvous With Oblivion, 1 September 2006


“There are two ways to be fooled.  One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.”

Søren Kierkegaard

Next week we will be having the stock options expiration for May.

Stocks limped weakly throughout the day, with big cap tech providing the brightest spot. Since they are now the core of the bubble, it is only fitting.

Gold and silver continued to chop sideways.

Have a pleasant weekend.