Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Mindful of His Mercy

"I proclaim the power of God,
You do marvels for your servants;
Though you scatter the proud-hearted
And destroy the might of princes.

To the hungry you give food,
send the rich away empty.
In your mercy you are mindful
of the people you have chosen.

In your love you now fulfill
What you promised to your people.
I will praise you, Lord, my saviour,
Everlasting is your mercy."

Canticle of Mary

Stocks were flat to lower today ahead of the Non-Farm Payrolls Report tomorrow.

The Trump Administration placed 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum from Canada, Mexico, and the EU.

And as these entities are answering with tariffs of their own in kind, then the markets have suddenly become aware of the deterioration of the international trade status quo.

Problems and injuries with 'autonomous driving' continue to be reported.   I might suggest that until something is done to significantly upgrade the crazy and deteriorating patchwork of roads in the US, that fully autonomous driving is a potential benefit without substance, and likely to be an expensive failure.

And until something is done to root out the institutionalized corruption and purposeful policy errors in the economy, that there will be no sustainable recovery.  It will exist only in wishful thinking and frauds.

Gold, silver, and the Dollar were largely unchanged.

The economic data this morning showed that personal spending is expanding at 0.6% while personal income is only growing at 0.3%. It will be tough to make that up in volume, especially with most of the income growth continuing to flow almost exclusively to the top one percent.

Luke Gromen had an interesting observation about US corporate profits. I include it in the first chart below.

Tomorrow is the Non-Farm Payrolls report.

Even in the midst of these unknowns, God has once again impressed upon this unworthy and foolish servant the tender mercies and compassionate judgement of His economy, founded and enduring in joy.  Thanking Him always, for giving what we need, rather than what we may desire.

The tomb is empty, and death is overthrown, and we are the heirs to eternal life.

Need little, want less, love more.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Never Mind, Risk Back On

"It was miraculous.  It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue, and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice.  Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all.  It merely required no character."

Joseph Heller, Catch 22


"You are of your father the devil, and your will is to fulfill your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks from his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies."

John 8:44


"You are a den of vipers and thieves. I have determined to rout you out, and by the Eternal, (bringing his fist down on the table) I will rout you out."

Andrew Jackson

All the fears that drove the markets yesterday were forgotten today.  This is how it is these days in the United States of Amnesia.   We shun the light, and hold our lies close to our hearts.  If you do not like the truth today, just wait—  we will have a new and different set of truths tomorrow.

Since the economic data missed this morning a bit, the fretting about interest rates went off the table. As did all those deep concerns about Quitaly, and geo-political risks, and the rise of populism, and all the rest of those burning issues that drove the traders just yesterday.

Non-Farm Payrolls on Friday.

Are we not exceptional? Are you not entertained?

Need little, want less, love more.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Safe Harbors - Running Before the Storms

"We should ban banks from risk-taking because society is going to pay the price... It was obvious that their profits were simply cash borrowed from destiny with some random payback time."

Nassim Nicholas Taleb


"The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act makes the most important legislative changes to the structure of the U.S. financial system since the 1930s.  Financial services firms will be authorized to conduct a wide range of financial activities, allowing them freedom to innovate in the new economy.

The Act repeals provisions of the Glass-Steagall Act that, since the Great Depression, have restricted affiliations between banks and securities firms. It also amends the Bank Holding Company Act to remove restrictions on affiliations between banks and insurance companies. It grants banks significant new authority to conduct most newly authorized activities through financial subsidiaries.

Removal of barriers to competition will enhance the stability of our financial services system. Financial services firms will be able to diversify their product offerings and thus their sources of revenue. They will also be better equipped to compete in global financial markets."

William Jefferson Clinton, November 12, 1999

There was a highly observable 'flight to safety' today in the markets, in response to fears for the political and financial stability of Italy.

The US dollar was again sharply higher, and US debt saw its yields decrease in response to safe haven buying.

Gold and silver were largely unchanged in the face of the soaring dollar.

There are a number of sources of potential geo-political instability in the world. The Australian housing bubble is capable of taking down a Bank or two given the bubble in housing debt valuations. Canada is also riding a housing bubble in several of its major cities. And the US is once more vulnerable to a cascade of counter-party failures which, need we say it, no one could possibly see coming.

But for now the focus is on Europe and on Italy, which had dared to form a populist government which was taken down by the President.

This holiday-shortened week is packed with economic data releases.

There will be a Non-Farm Payrolls Report on Friday

Need little, want less, love more.

Have a pleasant evening.

Memorial Day 2018

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower


“The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.”

G.K. Chesterton


"When the rich wage war, it is the poor who die."

Jean-Paul Sartre


“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war.

We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow, this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.

The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.

It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us: that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion, that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, November 19, 1863