Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Leaven of the Pharisees

If you could see me now, you wouldn't shed a tear,
Though you may not understand, I am no longer there.
Beyond the gates of pearl, I have walked on golden streets,
I have touched the walls of jasper, and dipped my foot in crystal seas.
The beauty is past words, and nothing could compare,
I have even seen your mansion, and someday I'll meet you there.

Patsy Stambaugh Deskins

Gold caught a bit of a bid today on Dollar weakness.  Silver finished a bit lower.

Stocks were mixed with tech showing weakness on results that have been a bit disappointing given the hype for their growth.

Bucking that trend was amazon, which was up a little over 6 percent after the bell.

Tomorrow will be a Non-Farm Payrolls report.  I suspect that the FOMC-NFP this week has been holding back the precious metals a bit.  I would not be surprised to see the recent rally continue again next week.

But the Dollar is oversold, and the markets seem to lack all conviction, drifting higher on hot money and shallow greed.

Because of the increase in wickedness the love of most will grow cold.  And many of the faithful will dry up and fall away.  Beware the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy, self-love, and pride.

In the end, the only real tragedy is not to be among the saints.

Have a pleasant evening.

**

David Cay Johnston: Dirty Secrets of the Kleptocracy - The Perils of American Inequality

"This disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and the powerful, and to despise, or, at least, to neglect persons of poor and mean condition, though necessary both to establish and to maintain the distinction of ranks and the order of society, is, at the same time, the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments."

Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, 1759

Bernie Sanders on the State of the Union

"No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the greater part of the members are poor and miserable. It is but equity, besides, that they who feed, cloath and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labour as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed and lodged."

Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations