Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Building Pressures, Gathering Storms - Chips Falling

"The human mind, except when guided by extraordinary genius, cannot surmount the established conclusions amid which it has been reared.”

Winston S. Churchill, The Gathering Storm


“Before mass leaders seize the power to fit reality to their lies, their propaganda is marked by its extreme contempt for facts as such, for in their opinion fact depends entirely on the power of man who can fabricate it.”

Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism


“Privilege is not knowing that you're hurting others and not listening when they tell you. Facts are threatening to those invested in fraud.”

DaShanne Stokes

Stocks were wobbling around again today. Since they have already retraced 50% of their big decline as shown on the futures charts below, a consolidation and decision point is natural.

There is no clear chart formation to reliably forecast the dirction of the next move. Several exogenous factors weigh on this.

The first is of course the simmering China-US trade war. A breakdown in talks would most likely cause equities to break to the downside, especially if it involves the activation of more tariffs.

The global economy is struggling, and this impacts and includes the US. Anything like a fresh trade war, or an unmanaged 'dirty' Brexit, might schock traders negatively.

Secondly, the Fed is still a major factor, although the likelihood of two more rate increases this year to 3.00$ has been greatly discounted in the futures markets.

There will be an FOMC meeting next week, and the markets will be watching what the Fed does, and especially what they say about their outlook for the rest of the year. I think there is a good possibility of a 25 bp increase, with hints of a more data-oritened, vigilant outook for a second. Unless something unexpected happens I suspect that a third rate increase this year looks unlikely.

It should be easily understood that macro events like China trae and Brexit may impact the Fed's future decisions. Their bias to raising further from the zero bound is there, but they need 'cover' from the economic data to continue to engage it.

Perhaps more imporantly, although less headline inspiring, will be the continuing unwinding of their balance sheet.

Gold continues to mark its place, tied up in the whole 'wating' mode in the markets. At this point silver is following, yet to be unleashed.

After the bell Intel beat earnings estimates but posted a clear miss on revenues. Since earnings are much easier to gimmick up in the short run vis accounting strategies, the big revenue miss had quite the negative impact on the stock which had been rallying into the close on expecations of a bigger beat.

Both the Democratic and Trumpolini proposals to end the government budgetary shutdown were defeated in the Senate. One has to wonder how ugly the next 'debt ceiling' discussions will be.

Need little, want less, love more. For those who abide in love abide in God, and God in them.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Wobbly

"Some wonder if it did fail, or did QE do exactly what its proponents wanted it to?  That is drive massive wealth to very small connected circle.  Some wonder if that wasn't the real goal all along and the crisis was a good excuse to implement their policies."

Harald Malmgren


"The public needs no further proof of the Fed’s inability to supervise the global banks than the fact that, at a time when it had dozens of its own inspectors sitting inside the banks, the banks were able to create toxic waste dumps of subprime debt and derivatives that blew up the U.S. financial system, the housing market, and the U.S. economy in 2008 while also taking down 100-year old Wall Street institutions.  If that’s not incompetence, we don’t know what is."

Pam Martens, Wall Street On Parade


"The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want."

Psalm 23:1

Stocks wanted to go down today, and sank quite a bit after the initial open.

However, once again stocks were able to shake off their lows into the afternoon trade and finish with modest gains into the close.

Gold finiashed off a bit even as the dollar drifted slightly lower.

The fear and hate mongering business seems to be on the increase.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Théâtre de l'Absurde - Tales from Two Dimensional Davos Men

Estragon:  We always find something, eh Didi, to give us the impression we exist?

Vladimir:  Yes, yes, we're magicians...

Estragon: Who believes him?

Vladimir: Everybody. It's the only version they know."

Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot


The world needs a new generation of policymakers who don’t hobnob with billionaire speculators and who understand workers’ concerns. Unfortunately, the change will not come smoothly."

Andy Xie


"At the root of America's economic crisis lies a moral crisis: the decline of civic virtue among America's political and economic elite. A society of markets, laws, and elections is not enough if the rich and powerful fail to behave with respect, honesty, and compassion toward the rest of society and toward the world."

Jeffrey Sachs


"Wealth, in even the most improbable cases, manages to convey the aspect of intelligence. Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding. In a community where the primary concern is making money, one of the necessary rules is to live and let live. To speak out against madness may be to ruin those who have succumbed to it. So the wise in Wall Street are nearly always silent. The foolish thus have the field to themselves. None rebukes them.

People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage. Intellectual myopia, often called stupidity, is no doubt a reason. But the privileged also feel that their privileges, however egregious they may seem to others, are a solemn, basic, God-given right."

John Kenneth Galbraith

Stocks were in selloff mode from the overnight, as the rumors about trade deals that lifted the markets late last week had grown stale.

The economic news was not helping, either domestically or from overseas.

Some late afternoon rumor calibration from Larry Kudlow had stocks coming off their lows of the day, but still closing with some less than inconsequentials losses.

Gold and silver finished higher as the Dollar managed to close nearly unchanged after a dipsy doodle day.

The news of the day from Davos was almost unbelievably scripted and vacuous behind the headlines, while at the same time mildly nauseating.   Much like so many modern reality TV shows.

Speaking of which, McConnell has agreed to bring some of the Democratic 'kick the can' proposals over opening the government for a few weeks to a floor vote in the Senate.  They will also vote on Trumpolini's compromise proposal.

Need little, want less, love more.  For those who abide in love abide in God, and God in them.

Have a pleasant evening.

Snakes in Suits and Their Enablers - The Love of Most Will Grow Cold

"A confident, aggressive delivery style - often larded with jargon, clichés, and flowery phrases - makes up for the lack of substance and sincerity in their interactions with others ... they are masters of impression management; their insight into the psyche of others combined with a superficial - but convincing - verbal fluency allows them to change their personas skillfully as it suits the situation and their game plan.

They are known for their ability to don many masks, change 'who they are' depending upon the person with whom they are interacting, and make themselves appear likable to their intended victim."

Paul Babiak and Robert Hare, Snakes in Suits


"All my life I have been fighting against the spirit of narrowness and violence, arrogance, intolerance in its absolute, merciless consistency.  I have also worked to overcome this spirit with its evil consequences, such as nationalism in excess, racial persecution, and materialism.  In regards to this, the National Socialists are correct in killing me.  I have striven to make its consequences milder for its victims and to prepare the way for a change. In that, my conscience drove me – and in the end, that is a man's duty."

Helmuth James Graf von Moltke, Lawyer Executed in Plötzensee Prison on 23 January 1945


"Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Minister Executed in Flossenbürg Camp on 9 April 1945


'We cannot hope to affect the conscience of the world when our own conscience is asleep.'

Carl von Ossietzky,  Journalist Died in Berlin-Pankow under Gestapo custody, 4 May 1938


"Only people can be truly ugly, because they have free will to separate themselves from this [creation's] song of praise.  It often seems they will drown out this hymn with cannon thunder, curses, and blasphemy.  But I have realized they will not succeed. And so I want to throw myself on the side of the victor.”

Sophie Scholl, Student Executed in Munich by guillotine, 22 February 1943


"This elite-generated social control maintains the status quo because the status quo benefits and validates those who created and sit atop it. People rise to prominence when they parrot the orthodoxy rather than critically analyze it.  Intellectual regurgitation is prized over independent thought.  Voices of the dispossessed, different, and un(formally)educated are neglected regardless of their morality, import, and validity. Real change in politics or society cannot occur under the orthodoxy because if it did, it would threaten the legitimacy of the professional class and all of the systems that helped them achieve their status."

Kristine Mattis, The Cult of the Professional Class


"What is more disturbing to our peace of mind than the unconditional loyalty of members of totalitarian movements, and the popular support of totalitarian regimes, is the unquestionable attraction these movements exert on the elite, and not only on the mob elements in society. It would be rash indeed to discount, because of artistic vagaries or scholarly naivete, the terrifying roster of distinguished men whom totalitarianism can count among its sympathizers, fellow-travelers, and inscribed party members.

Politically speaking, tribal nationalism always insists that its own people is surrounded by 'a world of enemies,' 'one against all,' that a fundamental difference exists between this people and all others. It claims its people to be unique, individual, incompatible with all others, and denies theoretically the very possibility of a common mankind lonjg before it is used to destroy the humanity, of man."

Hannah Arendt, Origins of Totalitarianism


"Mounting a campaign against plutocracy makes as much sense to the typical Washington liberal as would circulating a petition against gravity.  What our modernized liberal leaders offer is not confrontation but a kind of therapy for those flattened by the free-market hurricane: they counsel us to accept the inevitability of the situation."

Thomas Frank, Rendezvous With Oblivion


“There is a lack of critical assessment of the past.  But you have to understand that the current ruling elite is actually the old ruling elite.  So they are incapable of a self-critical approach to the past.”

Ryszard Kapuściński, Writing About Suffering


“Every time we witness an injustice and do not act, we train our character to be passive in its presence and thereby eventually lose all ability to defend ourselves and those we love.  In a modern economy it is impossible to seal oneself off from injustice. If we have brains or courage, then we are blessed and called on not to frit these qualities away, standing agape at the ideas of others, winning pissing contests, improving the efficiencies of the neocorporate state, or immersing ourselves in obscuranta, but rather to prove the vigor of our talents against the strongest opponents of love we can find."

Julian Assange, Witnessing

The Nazis did not come to power on the backs of their brutish stormtroopers alone. No, their rise to power was with the active participation of the educated and professional classes: the lawyers, doctors, financiers, teachers, and businessmen, who sought to use that abusive power for their own benefits and careers, and were then consumed in the madness that followed.

The devotion to pride, and the love of self, provokes at first the pettest of actions, and then anger, and self-deceiving lies, and sickly sweet opiate of self-righteous outrage in our society.   It provides an esacape from thought, from the grey areas, from the obligations of conscience, and from the fear of being human.

So the harsh words and narrow judgements of the worldly and those driven mad by worldly desire are to be expected for those who do not participate in their narrative.

But it is the falling off the faithful, and the petty slights and silent betrayals of friends, that stings the conscious hearts most deeply.

One sees this and ask themselves, 'Lord, who then can stand?'   But what they are really asking is, Lord, how long can I remain standing?'


In the faithful there is a love of love itself, still smoldering in their hearts, and its effects on their life and on their actions are unmistakable.

Even though sorely tempted, they remain apart from the anger and the madness, and abide with thei light that calls them.

The night approaches, and it is almost time to come home.  So we must allow ourselves to become lost in the dark.