Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Repairer of Reputations

Mr. Wilde, The Repairer of Reputations

"A growing economy with related worries about increases in future inflation would typically produce rising yields on longer-term notes and bonds, not declining yields. A dramatic flattening in the yield curve is seen as a red flag for an economic slowdown, sagging inflation and as a potential precursor to the onset of recession. None of that would be consistent with the Federal Reserve continuing to tighten interest rates – which it is expected to do again in December."

Pam and Russ Martens, Does Jay Powell Hear the Alarm Bells From a Flattening of the Yield Curve<


“The ambition of Caesar and of Napoleon pales before that which could not rest until it had seized the minds of men and controlled even their unborn thoughts.”

Robert W. Chambers, The King In Yellow: Repairer of Reputations

We *almost* had a correction in the US equity markets today.  Imagine that!

However, crisis was averted as determined buying of the SP 500 futures stepped in this afternoon after the European traders went home to their schatzies.

There was a definite whiff of concern in the air this morning, as indicated by the VIX which sparked up quite sharply, and then fell down again as the calming liquidity flowed over the financial asset markets.

The flattening yield curve in Treasuries is setting off alarm bells, and well it might.

But what do the exceptional have to worry about, as long as they are winning.   Even if their winning is the most insidious of delusions, and their ascension to the throne of endless power a hallucination.

Gold had a bit of a rally today, following on gains, as silver slumped a bit.  It was the beginning of a 'flight to safety' that got squelched.

We'll know when a real flight to safety catches hold, because the continued efforts of the Street to pump up stock prices is going to leave a lot of empty support levels underneath.

Hence, as I have said, in attempting to prevent a 3% correction they are going to set up something stiffer, in the neighborhood of 10%.

And it is not because they are stupid, or foolish.  They just don't give a damn.

Take your pick of geopolitical or domestic events that could trigger such a sharp decline .  The stage is set.

Have a pleasant evening.

Mainstream Journalists and the Talking Points for the DNC and Hillary

When the truth is toxic to the powerful we see the credibility trap in action.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Court of the Dragon

Blake, Great Dragon and Woman Clothed in the Sun

"The whore and gambler, by the state
Licensed, build that nation’s fate.
The harlot’s cry from street to street
Shall weave old England’s winding-sheet.
The winner’s shout, the loser’s curse,
Dance before dead England’s hearse.

Every night and every morn
Some to misery are born,
Every morn and every night
Some are born to sweet delight.
Some are born to sweet delight,
Some are born to endless night.

We are led to believe a lie
When we see not through the eye,
Which was born in a night to perish in a night,
When the soul slept in beams of light.

God appears, and God is light,
To those poor souls who dwell in night;
But does a human form display
To those who dwell in realms of day."

William Blake, Auguries of Innocence

US equity prices are being driven now by classic bubble action. Stocks are being bought, not with regard to any fundamentals for the most part, but for the sheer momentum of ever rising prices by speculators.

It should be noted that any stock that breaks the mirage with a negative earnings report is soundly thrashed, most of the time.   And for those who beat earnings, too often it is due to stock buybacks and accounting magic.

Having created this asset bubble, for the third time, in conjunction with the financiers and Wall Street, the Fed is deathly afraid of anything that will break the mirage and put the banking system at risk.  Their focus is not on the public.  If it was, they would be engaging in serious reform and a broader distribution of gains.  But when it suits them they forget about their broad regulatory powers, including those it fought to have after the last bubble and bust.

And so we are seeing, like a dog returns to its vomit, the Banks starting to take up the kinds of highly leveraged risks that brought the global economy to the brink in the unwinding of the housing bubble in 2008.

Surely they must care. Surely they must have a caution for the damage that they will cause to untold thousands of innocents.  And if not the money men, then those who are sworn to restrain their greed must surely take a stand for the innocent common people.

As John Kenneth Galbraith observed in his masterwork, The Great Crash of 1929, 'The sense of responsibility in the financial community for the community as a whole is not small. It is nearly nil.'

And you can include the political and corporate media elite in that observation as well.  It's a club, and you aren't in it.  And it is becoming increasingly unashamed and rapacious.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The King In Yellow

"Love is not easy; it is not our natural state. It seems weak and foolish, and is despicable to the fallen of this world and the next, who by the declaration of their hearts and minds say non serviam, I will not serve."

Jesse, Love Is the Refuge of the Way

Stocks bubbled sideways today, digesting the recent gains, and treading water as additional earnings and economic news comes out.

I have made no secret of it, that the US equity markets seem very fully valued at this point, and are overdue for a stiff correction in the neighborhood of ten percent. That they have not even had a 3 percent correction in quite some time is a testimony to the amount of hot money and speculative froth underpinning them.

Peak hubris. We're there on a number of fronts, socially, financially, and politically. I have not seen anything like this since the tech stock bubble. The housing bubble was much broader and deeper, and much more profound in the levels of its corruption. This one seems more like an 'echo bubble.'   In all three instances the primary actors were the Wall Street financiers, the Banks, and the Fed.

The amount of potentially destabilizing situations geopolitically are daunting, almost breath-taking. I won't bother to list them here, but things in Asia, the Middle East, and Europe are showing signs of heaving the landscape out of place. Domestically things in the US are much more tense under the surface than anything I can remember in many years. The elite are doubling down on their winnings with a kind of race to the oncoming wall of bad karma.

And yet, it is all overlaid with a very devil-may-care mindset, bolstered by the most pernicious type of pride in a culture of death.   All one has to do is to consider the recent choice of leaders from the mainstream political parties:  Lady Macbeth and the narcissist Duc l'Orange.

Gold and silver continue to wind sideways. Bitcoin is an absolute speculative bubble, no doubt about it. It is a kind of tulipmania.

Politically both US parties are betrothed to big money special interests. The Republicans are unabashed and almost feral in their service to Mammon, to the point of being repulsive. The Democrats seek to cover their moral nakedness with the kind of hypocrisy that is the special provenance of the fallen. And fallen is about the best word I can think to describe them. Both of their houses are falling.

There are parallel situations to this in all of the developed countries. The best lack all conviction, and the worst are driven by passionate intensity.

So what is one to do? Perseverance seems to be the order of the day, as it has been so many times in the past. We have seen much worse, even in the past century, as anyone who studies history will know.  Things now may be bad.  In the last century there were madness and horrors.

As we used to commonly say a long time ago, 'keep the faith,' especially in an era of faithlessness and general apostasy. This is our command and our cross—
uphold the light of love in a darkening world.

Have a pleasant evening.