Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Plus c'est la Même Chose - Stock Option Expiration on Friday

“It has been more profitable for us to bind together in the wrong direction than to be alone in the right one. Those who have followed the assertive idiot rather than the introspective wise person have passed us some of their genes. This is apparent from a social pathology: psychopaths rally followers.”

Nassim Taleb


“Many politicians are tantalizing storytellers, as they mix facts with fiction, grab our emotion and tell things, they want us to believe. Their factoids are unremittingly reiterated, take a life on their own and in the end become the very truth… until the bubble bursts."

Erik Pevernagie


“He is an emancipated thinker, who is not afraid to write foolish things.”

Anton Chekhov

Yes, but what about the emancipated thinker who has emancipated themselves from the facts, and freed their words from the constraints of reality?  Their foolishness should therefore know few bound, and prove to be rather sensational.

There seems to be quite a bit of that going around these days, especially among the elite, and all the best people.   But as Schopenhauer noted, those who write foolishly, presumably for fools, will be assured of a large audience.   And so it pays, and thrives, don't you know?

The US stock bulls were snorting out of their pens this morning, with their noses pointed up towards that stubborn overhead resistance, with a mind towards breaking through and over it.

And for a time today they did.   But alas, their efforts fell a bit short as their enthusiasm subsided into judicious profit taking by the robotic speculators and their manservants on Wall Street.

But tomorrow is another day.   There will be an option expiration on Friday for US stocks that is of some significance.

The Dollar slumped a bit lower still, but gold and silver rallied a bit higher, with gold pushing up against an overheard resistance of its own.

 The US joined the rest of the world in grounding the Boeing 737 Max series. This had a significant impact on Boeing, a few suppliers, and some airlines like SouthWest whose fleets are heavily weighted towards that vehicle.

 The UK Parliament is falling all over itself in dealing with the Brexit situation.  The deadline continues drawing closer.

I watched the movie about the Brexit vote starring Benedict Cumberbatch, and thought it was rather good, although I have no idea how true to history that it was.

The young man is on his way to London now, to spend his Spring break with his lady love who is finishing her studies there.

I asked him to keep me apprised of his impressions of the mood on the ground.  Although as I remember, I was there with the queen when John Major staged his coup against the Lady Thatcher. And one noted it little enough except on the evening television and in the newspaper headlines.

Brexit may prove to become a more comprehensive experience.

And there is little doubt that we here on this side of the pond  are in store for a comprehensive experience or two, consequence-wise, of our own.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Repentance, Forgiveness, Thankfulness

"The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears,
   And delivers them out of their trials.
The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart,
   And saves those who have a repentant spirit."

Psalm 34


"For if you forgive others when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  But if you do not forgive others, your Father will not forgive you."

Mark 6:15

Stocks attempted to continue their big rally from yesterday, but faded into the close.

Gold and silver got some motion higher as the Dollar continued to slump lower.

British PM Theresa May lost another Brexit deal vote by a wide margin in Parliament.

Stock option expiry for March on Friday.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Risk On: In the Key of Incoherent - Stock Option Expiration on Friday

"It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their own selfish purposes.

There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses."

Andrew Jackson

The retail sales number for January came in much better than expected.

No one paid much attention to the downward revision to the prior months horrible numbers.

And so safe havens were abandoned and stocks went on a tear.

Marshall Auerback thinks that The Global Economy Is a Time Bomb Waiting to Explode

Party like its 1929.

Gold, silver, and the Dollar were all lower.

Who cares about 'the barbarous relic?' The central banks, that's who.

Jan Nieuwenhuijs notes on twitter that "the central bank of India (RBI) added 6.5 tonnes of gold to its international reserves in January, taking its total holdings to 607 tons. India is set to become the 10th largest holder of the metal worldwide, displacing the Netherlands."

There will be a stock market expiration for March on Friday. As I recall this is a consequential expiry.

Perhaps we have a wash and rinse in the making. The skeptical side of me looks at the slowing global economy and says, 'yeah, most likely.'

But in the short run the porcine crowd will have its way in the system that they have bought and corrupted to suit their needs.

Have a pleasant evening.

Ghoulardi's Shock Theater from the 1960's in northeastern Ohio.

Regulatory Capture: The Banks and the System That They Have Corrupted

"But the impotence one feels today— an impotence we should never consider permanent— does not excuse one from remaining true to oneself, nor does it excuse capitulation to the enemy, what ever mask he may wear.  Not the one facing us across the frontier or the battle lines, which is not so much our enemy as our brothers’ enemy, but the one that calls itself our protector and makes us its slaves.  The worst betrayal will always be to subordinate ourselves to this Apparatus, and to trample underfoot, in its service, all human values in ourselves and in others."

Simone Weil


"And in some ways, it creates this false illusion that there are people out there looking out for the interest of taxpayers, the checks and balances that are built into the system are operational, when in fact they're not.  And what you're going to see and what we are seeing is it'll be a breakdown of those governmental institutions.  And you'll see governments that continue to have policies that feed the interests of -- and I don't want to get clichéd, but the one percent or the .1 percent -- to the detriment of everyone else...

If TARP saved our financial system from driving off a cliff back in 2008, absent meaningful reform, we are still driving on the same winding mountain road, but this time in a faster car... I think it's inevitable. I mean, I don't think how you can look at all the incentives that were in place going up to 2008 and see that in many ways they've only gotten worse and come to any other conclusion."

Neil Barofsky


"Written by Carmen Segarra, the petite lawyer turned bank examiner turned whistleblower turned one-woman swat team, the 340-page tome takes the reader along on her gut-wrenching workdays for an entire seven months inside one of the most powerful and corrupted watchdogs of the powerful and corrupted players on Wall Street – the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

The days were literally gut-wrenching. Segarra reports that after months of being alternately gas-lighted and bullied at the New York Fed to whip her into the ranks of the corrupted, she had to go to a gastroenterologist and learned her stomach lining was gone.

She soldiered through her painful stomach ailments and secretly tape-recorded 46 hours of conversations between New York Fed officials and Goldman Sachs. After being fired for refusing to soften her examination opinion on Goldman Sachs, Segarra released the tapes to ProPublica and the radio program This American Life and the story went viral from there...

In a nutshell, the whoring works like this. There are huge financial incentives to go along, get along, and keep your mouth shut about fraud. The financial incentives encompass both the salary, pension and benefits at the New York Fed as well as the high-paying job waiting for you at a Wall Street bank or Wall Street law firm if you show you are a team player.

If the Democratic leadership of the House Financial Services Committee is smart, it will reopen the Senate’s aborted inquiry into the New York Fed’s labyrinthine conflicts of interest in supervising Wall Street and make removing that supervisory role a core component of the Democrat’s 2020 platform. Senator Bernie Sanders’ platform can certainly be expected to continue the accurate battle cry that 'the business model of Wall Street is fraud.'"

Pam Martens, Wall Street on Parade

This is a good example of both regulatory capture and the credibility trap that co-opts those who benefits from the system as it is, even if it is by turning a blind eye and saying nothing, going along to get along, taking the 'bullet or the bribe.'

Never assume that because a person, such as media analyst or reporter, is highly paid that they are somehow beyond the temptation to violate their trust.  Quite the contrary.   They do not believe that change can come because they have anaesthetized their integrity as a matter of convenience.  And when called upon, they will support and defend and excuse the system as it is, at first by their inaction, and then by their willing cooperation.

The corruption takes a person one seemingly innocuous decision and event at a time.  their separate their fingers, one by one, until they finally let their souls slip through and fall— and they belong to the darkness of this world.  And at the end of the day, for what?   A little more money, the patina of prestige and superiority, access to power?

Who then can stand against the world, when power and money are assumed and created out of nothing, and distributed in an unjust, interconnected system of favors and services, without duty and without honor?

And so those captured in this system excuse and accept their own part in it, for their personal benefit and professional ego and advancement, that heady feeling of sophistication and acceptance by the worldly.

It's an old story  It is so old that at times it seems as if distant, just a story from another time— a fable.   But it is real.  It is the very fundamental core of this reality.  It is the continuing struggle.

It is, in the end, the only thing that matters, the only triumph or personal tragedy.  It is the only consequence that you will dwell upon, when the husk is stripped bare, and you yourself face the only certainty in this world alone, and as your truly are.