Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Pop and Flop - ECB Tomorrow

Stocks made an attempt to rally today, an effort that largely faded to nothing in the afternoon.

The dip buyers lack conviction and are quick to take profits.

No doubt that this is a side effect of the increased uncertainty, and therefore risk, in geopolitics and the economy.

Gold and silver went sideways despite a stronger Dollar.

Trumpolini had a fairly interesting squabble with Pelosi and Schumer in the Oval Office on live television today.   It reminded me of one of those kinds of family gatherings where the unconventional uncle puts the whole room into a tizzy.   I was just glad he never left the edge of the seat that he was perched so precariously on.  Now that would have been something to remember.

The ECB will be meeting tomorrow and is expected to make some sort of announcement about interest rates.

Please remember to feed the birds and His lesser creatures in this cold and barren winter weather.

I am going to be making a batch of winter melon soup à la chinoise this week. I was out gathering the essential ingredients from my friendly neighborhood Asian grocery store this afternoon. And of course I picked up a number of other essentials including a wonderful 'special lunch' and some dim sum.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Is Paris Burning? - The Fire in the Minds of Men

"The central bank gold lending market, centered in London, is probably the most secretive financial market in the world, with very little known about its transactions and market structure.  The gold lending market’s opacity is further supported by regulators who protect the secrecy of the central banks, and mainstream financial news agencies whose editorial policies seem to forbid any market investigations, in-depth or otherwise.

It is in the gold lending market that the central banks of the world lend out their gold holdings to commercial bullion banks, where the physical gold is sold and shipped out, and where the central banks then claim to hold interest-earning ‘gold deposits’ with the bullion banks.  These gold-deposits (which are merely a claim on a bullion bank) then mostly roll over short-term, passed around indefinitely between the clubby LBMA cartel of bullion banks, in a totally opaque behind the scenes network.

The physical gold bars lent out are long gone to Switzerland and the Far East, and the central banks then deceptively claim that they still hold the gold on their balance sheets when in fact all they have is a liability to the bullion banks.  In the middle of this market sits the Bank of England, offering gold custody and storage to other central banks (in the vaults under the Bank of England headquarters in London) and offering gold accounts to the bullion banks concerned..."

Ronan Manly, French central bank and JP Morgan team up to boost Gold Lending


"We looked into the abyss if the gold price rose further. A further rise would have taken down one or several trading houses, which might have taken down all the rest in their wake.

Therefore at any price, at any cost, the central banks had to quell the gold price, manage it. It was very difficult to get the gold price under control but we have now succeeded. The US Fed was very active in getting the gold price down. So was the U.K."

Eddie George, Governor Bank of England, in a conversation with the CEO of Lonmin, September 1999


"What is most offensive is not their lying— one can always forgive lying— lying can be a delightful thing, for it leads to truth. What is offensive is that they lie, and worship their own lying."

Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

Stocks caught a little bounce today.

It cheered up the spokesmodels, and gave the commentariat a chance to run banal pieces like 'Is Volatility the New Normal?'

Let's see if it will stick.

Gold and silver gave back a little of their recent gains.

The shell game that has been extending the current gold pool is running thin.

When this latest attempt to shape economic reality with hot money and words blows up, as it surely will, the resultant concussions will catch many by surprise.

But realistically,  how can anyone in a position of authority see it coming, when their eyes are averted and their ears are closed?

“There are three things all wise men fear: the sea in storm, a night with no moon, and the anger of a gentle man. Words can light fires in the minds of men. Words can wring tears from the hardest hearts.”

Patrick Rothfuss

Have a pleasant evening.

Killard House School is a co-educational Controlled School providing for children and young people with additional special educational needs. These include Moderate Learning Difficulties, Autistic Spectrum Disorder and associated Emotional barriers.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - No Capitulation Yet

“The worst continued to worsen. What looked one day like the end proved on the next day to have been only the beginning. Nothing could have been more ingeniously designed to maximize the suffering, and also to insure that as few people as possible escape the common misfortune. The fortunate speculator who had funds to answer the first margin call presently got another and equally urgent one, and if he met that there would still be another.

In the end all the money he had was extracted from him and lost. The man with the smart money, who was safely out of the market when the first crash came, naturally went back in to pick up bargains. The bargains then suffered a ruinous fall. Even the man who waited for volume of trading to return to normal and saw Wall Street become as placid as a produce market, and who then bought common stocks would see their value drop to a third or a fourth of the purchase price in the next 24 months. The Coolidge bull market was a remarkable phenomenon. The ruthlessness of its liquidation was, in its own way, equally remarkable.”

John Kenneth Galbraith, The Great Crash of 1929

Stocks went back down to test the lows.

Market manipulation just doesn't stick like it used to.

Gold and silver moved higher as the Dollar weakened.

Goldman continued to take contracts for gold on the Comex.

Next week is going to let us know if Santa is coming to town.

Have a pleasant weekend.

What Do China and Goldman Sachs Have in Common?

Gold is not only flowing from West to East.

It is also flowing into the house account at Goldman Sachs.  Or at least the paper claims for it in New York.

Below is the monthly report showing the large amounts of physical gold which have been steadily flowing through the Shanghai markets into strong hands in China.

Few commentators are talking about this.

What is less familiar, and what I have not read about much, is the very large amount of gold that Goldman Sachs has been taking delivery on the Comex this month.

Attached are a few of the clearing reports below.

Notice that the big takers are the house account at Goldman, and some presumably large customer at JPM.

What's up with that?