Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Plus C'est la Même Chose - Another Precious Metals Options Expiration

"There are invisible rulers who control the destinies of millions.  It is not generally realized to what extent the words and actions of our most influential public men are dictated by shrewd persons operating behind the scenes.

The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society.  Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country."

Edward L. Bernays, Propaganda


"It's not just America. The whole world has sort of turned muddy. By and large, the world is increasingly run by ignoramuses, wackos and psychotics.  This was long before Donald Trump. But we've got more crazy people running the world now than ever.

I thought once Hillary called those people 'deplorables' it was all over. She was dead from that moment. She lost millions of votes on that by criticizing people who were considering an alternative to her.

I don't think that Robert Mueller is all there.  I more than think; I know more.  The bottom line is they had the investigation.  If I were the press, I would start writing about what the Democrats need to do. And if I were the Democrats, I'd start talking about what they are going to do to make America a better place for most people. 

I think it's the one reason a guy like Donald Trump ran. They understood where he was coming from. That Trump is just a blowhard. They laughed at him. They knew Trump doesn't know what he's talking about. But Trump wasn't the same old big smile and a lot of good words. The Democrats have been going around saying, 'We're for the people, we're for the little guy.'  And all they do is run to Wall Street for money. And the one guy that didn't, Sanders, was sabotaged by the Democratic National Committee.

If I were the Democrats I would stop worrying about Donald Trump and start talking to the American people about jobs and health care.

What did these hacked messages from the DNC say, anyway? It was about cutting off money for Sanders.  Everything that was leaked showed that the Democratic Party was working against the one guy who wasn't running on campaign funds from the big corporations."

Seymour Hersh

And now for the Corporatist Captiol News...

“The speed of communications is wondrous to behold. It is also true that speed can multiply the distribution of information that we know to be untrue.”

Edward R. Murrow


“Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on, or by imbeciles who really mean it.”

Laurence J. Peter


"We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed."

2 Corinthians 4:8-9

Gold was hit today as expected for the options expiration, and the large open interest and short position held by the Banks.

The Dollar pretty much moved sideways.

Stocks were iffy, again as expected given the over-enthusiasm and lowballing of risks in the market yesterday.

Wash and rinse.

At some point this year I think they are going to plunge, and it could be pretty breath-taking in its scope.

There are not many favorable things to say about the economic news, and financial news reporting today, or any news or politicians or very important people for that matter, so I won't say much at all.   Power corrupts because it attracts corruptible people.

I mean, what can you say when your news is being delivered by Rita Skeeter, Effie Trinket, and the most biggest internet news aggregator site is run by a corporatist Baghdad Bob.

Well, there you are.   Seems like a good day for corporal works of mercy and prayer.

We *might* see gold get hit again, once or twice tomorrow and Monday. And we have an FOMC meeting next week, at which they are widely expected to cut their benchmark rate by 25 basis points.

I came in with a pretty good stock index short I put on very late yesterday, and took it off intraday when it looked like stocks had dropped as much as they would, given the usual afternoon stick save.  That was a nod to the likely hit on my gold position.

I may be looking to add to an existing gold position sometime next week, assuming that the antics become exhausted, and the Banks have taken their gains.

And not because they don't want more;  they want it all, and would take it if they could get away with it.  There are still some limits to what they can do.

I am adding an update of the three major twists on the current chart formation in gold that looks like a 'consolidation pattern.'  The patterns are all still active, but I like the symmetrical triangle best.

Let's see if any of this holds up.

As bad as things may sometimes seem, we have the loving forgiveness of God. What more can we ask? What more do we need?

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Love Is Moving - High Optimism and the Reckless Disregard for Risk

"Look to the Lord and Fear Not"

"Empires in decline tend to behave badly.  Indeed, whether British, French or Russian, the twilight years of imperialism often brought brutal repression of subjects abroad, the suppression of civil liberties at home and general varieties of brutality toward foreigners, be they refugees or migrants.

Aggressive wars abroad pollute the domestic political discourse and breed hypernationalism, racism and xenophobia.  The 18 or so years of war following the 9/11 attacks have seen this ostensible republic sink to new lows of behavior.

Aggressive wars of choice have ushered in rampant torture, atrocities in Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison, indefinite detention at Guantanamo Bay, extraordinary rendition, drone assassinations, warrantless wiretapping, mass surveillance of the citizenry...

It’s all connected.  The empire — all empires — eventually come home."

Maj. Danny Sjursen, An American Tragedy: Empire at Home and Abroad


"Should you know any one who has made you feel that there was a higher life than this daily one, and a brighter world than that you see; or encouraged you, or sobered you, or opened a way to the inquiring, or soothed the perplexed; if what he has said or done has ever made you feel well inclined towards him; remember such a one in time to come, though you hear him not, and pray for him, that in all things he may know God's will, and at all times he may be ready to fulfill it."

John Henry Newman, A Parting of Friends

'Optimism' sparked the equity markets today, and they ran to new highs.

VIX has dropped to the area where we might begin to take caution.

The US Dollar finished mostly unchanged.

Gold and silver advanced a little higher.

The large speculative gold interest is getting gut punched a bit ahead of the option expiration on the Comex.

It struck me today that, if in the unlikely and almost unthinkable event, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump could have a child, it could be Boris Johnson.

Love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - A Litany In Time of Plague - Comex Option Expiration on Thursday

"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"

"As I turn 75, there’s no simpler way to put it than this: I’m an old man on a new planet — and, in case it isn’t instantly obvious, that’s not good news on either score...

And I find myself looking at a world that, had you described it to me in the worst moments of the Vietnam War years when I was regularly in the streets protesting, I would never have believed possible.  I probably would have thought you stark raving mad.  Here I am in an America not just with all the weirdness of Donald Trump, but with a media that feeds on his every bizarre word, tweet, and act as if nothing else were happening on the face of the Earth.  If only...

If you had told me that, in the next century, we would be fighting unending wars from Afghanistan to Somalia and beyond I would have been shocked. If you had added that, though even veterans of those wars largely believe they shouldn’t have been fought, just about no one would be out in the streets protesting, I would have thought you were nuts."

Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch


"The Babylonian starlight brought
A fabulous, formless darkness in;
Odour of blood when Christ was slain
Made all platonic tolerance vain,
And vain all Doric discipline."

William Butler Yeats


"The reason is partly because of a glitch in human cognition known as the just world hypothesis or just world fallacy, which causes us to assume that if bad things are happening to someone, it’s because that person deserves it.  Blaming the victim is more psychologically comfortable than seeing that we live in an unjust world where we could very easily become victim ourselves someday, and we select for that comfort over rational analysis.

Like other cognitive biases, this one fundamentally boils down to our annoying psychological tendency to select for cognitive ease over cognitive discomfort.  It feels more psychologically comfortable to interpret new information in a way that confirms our preexisting opinions, so we get confirmation bias.

It feels psychologically comfortable to assume something is true after hearing it repeated many times, so we get the illusory truth effect.  It feels more psychologically comfortable to believe we live in a fair world where people get what they deserve than to believe we’re in a chaotic world where many of the most materially prosperous people are also the most depraved and sociopathic, and that we could be next in line to be victimized by them, so we get the just world fallacy."

Caitlin Johnstone, The Just World Fallacy: Why People Bash Assange and Defend Power


“The so-called paradox of freedom is the argument that freedom in the sense of absence of any constraining control must lead to very great restraint, since it makes the bully free to enslave the meek.  The idea is, in a slightly different form, and with very different tendency, clearly expressed in Plato.

Less well known is the paradox of tolerance:  unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance.  If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them."

Karl Popper


"And some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak.  We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak."

Martin Luther King, A Time to Break the Silence, April 1967


"What does it profit a man, to gain the whole world, but lose his soul?"

Mark 8:36

Stocks were on a tear today, on the reduced perception of risk in the recent budget deal between the two US parties at the higher levels, and the news out around 2 PM that trade talks with China are 'back on.'

I do believe that US stocks are heading to another blow off top. Timing such a thing is always problematic, and it is not good to try and front run such a thing. One only ends up exhausting themselves, their resolve and their capital.

Gold took another shot today. In part it is because of the continuing strength in the Dollar, of perhaps better stated, the intentional weakening in the Euro, which is by far its major trading cross currency.

But silver held in quite well. Silver is not traded so much as a currency, but is generally at least a 50% industrial commodity.

But perhaps more importantly gold is heading into its August contract option expiration, and the reports show that speculators are very long the contract, and the Banks are quite short, with a very large open interest.

So we may most likely continue to see antics in the price of gold, including the days after as the Banks continue to try and knock down the weaker hands in the speculative longs.

I wish that I could believe that almost all people are basically good and rational most of the time, and that it is only some unfortunate error in judgement, some quirk in human psychology, that causes them to not just tolerate, but to wholeheartedly embrace  genuine evil.

I think at various times more people than we might care to admit can fall into a persistent and stubborn tendency to give themselves over to what in retrospect might be objectively called evil.

These modern psychological fallacies are often convenient ways used to enable and excuse what can only be described as a lack of empathy for others.  Such a pathological lack of compassion is commonly born in an overwhelming self-absorption and greed.  They seek to gain the world for their own sake, for themselves.

In pursuing themselves as the greatest good, they make a conscious decision to dehumanize themselves.  They choose to discard what they perceive to be a source of weakness and pain, and an insult to their pride in being exceptional.  They seek redemption in themselves and the power of the herd.

They allow themselves to become beasts, not all at once, but by one by one decision at a time.  They finally give themselves over to a imbalance so great as to be madness.  And in choosing themselves and the power of the beast they lose themselves and, if you will, their souls.

Non serviam.  And the madness will serve none but itself.

We tend to look back on history, as an interesting story, but that we stand apart from it. We are different, and unlike those who have gone before.

And when it comes to stories of good and evil, well, those are quaint notions for some, but certainly not for us.   Our insulation is our pride, and nihilism, and belief in the indifference nothingness, without any particular interest or judgement.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Government Of, By and For the Felonious Few - Comex Options Expiration

“When you live under such an oligarchy, there is always some crisis or the other that takes priority over boring stuff such as healthcare and pollution.  If the nation is facing external invasion or diabolical subversion, who has the time to worry about overcrowded hospitals and polluted rivers?   By manufacturing a never-ending stream of crises, a corrupt oligarchy can prolong its rule indefinitely.”

Yuval Noah Harari


"And I begin to realize that in every chapter of Shortest Way Home—indeed, almost on every page—there is an expression of the same underlying idea, which is that you can substitute experience with problem-solving skills, and approximate perspective, ideology, even morality with sheer intelligence and boldness.

This closely resembles the arrogance of tech billionaires who believe that although they have neither the knowledge nor the experience nor the wisdom, they can solve the world’s problems anyway, because, well, because look how successful they’ve been at everything else.

You almost want to cheer them on. Until you realize that they are dead wrong, that if they want to help solve the world’s problems they had better stop sucking all the oxygen and money out of the room and start paying taxes and letting there be a return to a balance of power."

Dan Simon, Mayor Pete’s autobiography says it all


"But there is a sort of 'Ok guys, you're mad, but how are you going to stop me' mentality at the top."

Robert Johnson, Audacious Oligarchy

The Internal Temp Setting in my Subaru Forester Is Aspirational, Not Actual

Despite the line of storms that went through last night, leaving Dolly shaking and hyperventilating, the much expected break in the weather really did not arrive as expected. Today was less scorching, yes, but the humidity is still enough to rehydrate the Dead Sea Scrolls and make them as pliable as tissue.

And expectations that the markets would do anything today were also not fulfilled.

If you were actively trading this market today, you *might* wish to consider calling Gambler's Anonymous.

Unless of course you are being paid to do that sort of thing by some big faceless, evil Bank, in which case you should reconsider all the life decisions that brought you to this point.

Well hope beats eternal, and a 'cold front' is expected to come through and rip shit on our peaceful village later today, but bringing us weather in the 80 degree range, which is a vast improvement over the 106° actual temperatures we enjoyed over the weekend.

We will also be enjoying another Comex precious metals option expiration this week on the 25^th.

The markets may be in this dog days, summer trading doldrums like trance until the Fed meeting next week.  Unless Trumpolini splashes the tranquility of the lazy days with some out of left field tweet.

People seem prepared for the ascension of Boris Johnson to be the next UK PM.   It does give us some comfort that we are not the only ones with a barely qualified yob at the helm.

There were sightings and photos of a very large shark, swimming in the shallow waters off the Hamptons this weekend.   Luckily none of the vacationing elite were attacked, surely out of professional courtesy.

I read today, and posted a link to an article over at Wall Street On Parade that suggests that perhaps Mr. Jeffrey Epstein's mysterious financial concern may have received a secret Federal Reserve bailout. I don't know why this might shock us. After all, it seems to be the customary way of dealing with unreformed and unrepentant serial felons.

It does our hearts warm to see how our oligarchy can shamelessly take care of their own, while brutalizing the average taxpayers and solid citizens, while shaming them for their misery.  After all, it's what sociopaths do.

Have a pleasant evening.