Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - FOMC

Today was a strong performance for the metals.

The February contracts for gold and silver have started changing hands. The details reports are below.

The stocks continued to show some weakness possibly due to rotation and profit taking.

Facebook missed some key metrics which helped to dampen the FANG gang.

Non-Farm Payrolls on Friday.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Tremors

Stocks continued selling off overnight in the Asian and European markets, and US stocks followed the course scraping another layer of foam off the prices.

Volume today was 20% greater than the 20 day moving average. So this sell off had a little force behind it, which is not usual of late.

The VIX is now back to a fairly high level by current standards.

However, there was no 'flight to safety' and little panic in the air.  The US Dollar lost its gains from yesterday, and gold did not catch a bid.

The FOMC will be announcing their rate decision tomorrow. I may be out of pocket in the afternoon and the close of trade tomorrow, and will probably either not post, or put out something late if things get interesting.

Trrumpolini will be giving his State of the Union Address tonight.

There will be a Non-Farm Payrolls Report on Friday.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Wild Ones - Into the Void

The Wild Ones: Natural Born Value Killers

"Intolerance is the most socially acceptable form of egotism, for it permits us to assume superiority without personal boasting."

Sydney J. Harris

Stocks were slumping today, taking a break from their recent parabolic rally higher, with a record setting lack of meaningful corrections.

The precipitant was word that AAPL is cutting back on its manufacturing forecasts for the iPhone X.

The equity market is frothy to say the least. It could still keep melting up higher. But at some point, some trigger event is going to precipitate a 5 to 10 percent correction at a minimum. And the frothier the market gets, the less significant this trigger event needs to be.

Gold and silver were off a bit today, as a side effect of a bounce in the US Dollar, which took back what it had lost on Friday past. The Dollar was deeply oversold on a short term basis.

Although I suspect it was largely technical, the rally *could* have been helped by a higher yield in US interest rates.

As previously noted, Chairman Yellen will be at her last FOMC meeting this week. Their rate decision will be given on Wednesday.

The Fed is raising rates, not to combat inflation, but to get off its market-distorting zero bound enough to give it some room to cut rates again when its latest financial asset paper bubble subsides and collapses in on itself.

The aptly named Fortune magazine named JP Morgan as its 'Most Admired Bank.' The magazine apparently has a penchant for serial felons under delayed prosecutions and fines.

Jamie Dimon, JPM CEO, took the opportunity to say that he will be staying on at the helm of JPM for another five years.

There will be a Non-Farm Payrolls report for January on Friday.

The Donald will be giving his first State of the Union address tomorrow.  He is expected to tout the great American progress as demonstrated by the stock market bubbles and low unemployment rates, if you ignore all the unemployed and underemployed. The low Labor Participation Rate tells the tale of the forgotten.

He is also expected to lay out some sort of plan for infrastructure development.  There was some excitement last night when a plan was leaked that called for nationalizing the US cellular network for the deployment of 5G.

That seemed improbable, since this is a government that cannot even bring itself to defend a no-brainer for the public good like net-neutrality.

I think we are seeing a symptom of battered electorate syndrome, where the battered keep hoping that their abusers will suddenly change and become what they had hoped that those in power would be.  Just give them one more chance and they will change.

Well, it seemed improbable and it was.  And I fear that Trumpolini's infrastructure plan will be a rotten egg behind a snappy headline.  Follow the money.  This guy has a three card monte patter of misdirection and the short con.

People who are alienated, and think themselves victims in their selfishness and egotism, often admire the tough guy who breaks social conventions.  They identify with his anger, and defiance of social conventions and shows of poor in a willingness to punch the weaker and the subordinate in the face.

“Narcissists have poor self-esteem, but they are typically very successful. They feel entitled; they’re self-important; they crave admiration and lack empathy. They are also exploitative and envious. The malignant types never forget a slight."

Janet Tavakoli

You can be reassured that the Koch Brothers are not napping, and are planning to rollout $400 million to support a public relations campaign to defend the GOP against an expected Democratic dominance in the mid-term elections.  Thank you Citizens United.

And because of the increase in wickedness, the love of most will grow cold.

And it is, and they are.

Have a pleasant evening.

Administration Disavows Any Plans For National Cellular Infrastructure Amid Blowback From Industry and FCC

I had a strong doubt that such a vision of a public information infrastructure would be legitimate. It is being dismissed by White House officials as an 'outdated' proposal from the National Security Council (NSC) that drew a swift negative reaction from the telecoms industry and FCC Chairman Ajit Pai.

How can we expect such a visionary project from a government that places something so basic to the public good as net neutrality in the waste bin?

There will likely be a proposal for a national infrastructure of roads and bridges, which I expect to be largely an underfunded headline grabber that throws the burden of the realization of it on states and local governments.

This excerpt below is an update on the national cellular network story from ZeroHedge which you can read here.

Update: Several senior White House officials told Recode Monday that the Trump administration has no plans to build a "nationalized" US 5G network. The presentation, compiled by an unnamed senior NSC aide, was merely a dated proposal that will probably never see the light of day, the officials said.

The administration sources also pointed out that the FCC has a much larger role in setting broadband policy, and Ajit Pai, the current FCC chairman, has said he opposes the nationalization idea.

The NSC, they said, is only one component of a much larger decision-making process on the part of the federal government to set broadband policy. Its say is not final on these matters — and its memo does not appear to have gained traction with other tech-focused arms of the White House, according to multiple sources within the Trump administration.

A spokesman for the NSC, meanwhile, did not respond to an email seeking comment Monday.