Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Bailout Boys - Banks Kick Off 2Q Earnings Season

 

"Whenever I groan within myself and think how hard it is to keep writing about love in these times of tension and strife which may, at any moment, become for us all a time of terror, I think to myself: what else is the world interested in?  What else do we all want, each one of us, except to love and be loved, in our families, in our work, in all our relationships?

God is Love.  Love casts out fear.  Even the most ardent, seeking to change the world, to overturn the tables of the money changers, is trying to make a world where it is easier for people to love, to stand in that relationship to each other. There can never be enough of it." 

Dorothy Day 

 

“To whom will the sublime beauty of a sunset or a Ninth Symphony of Beethoven reveal itself, but to one who approaches it reverently and unlocks their heart to it?  To whom will the mystery that lies in life and manifests itself in every plant reveal itself in its full splendor, but to one who contemplates it reverently?  

But those who see in it only a means of subsistence or of earning money, that is, something that can be used or employed, will not discover the meaning, structure, and significance of the world in its beauty and hidden dignity.” 

Dietrich von Hildebrand, The Art of Living

A high side CPI print and a weak 30 year treasury auction had US debt yields rising.

And with interest rate concerns came the inevitable weakness in cyclical recovery stocks, and a minor flight over to the 'growth' modern story stocks in big tech.

Gold managed to hold a gain, in what we might dare suspect was and to its inflationary resilience?

Silver fell down lower because of its industrial components most likely.

Jay Powell will be testifying to the Congress tomorrow.

The Fed Has Changed From a Central Bank to a Bailout Kingpin

There will be a stock option expiration on Friday.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - In the Shadows

 

"Extremist ideologies are again growing around us, and we hesitate to describe them in their own language, for fear of provoking them to pursue their aims.  Reading von Hildebrand reminds us that there is only one sure remedy against an ideology of hate, and that is to expose it to public criticism and to affirm what it denies.

The ardent faith that inspired von Hildebrand is not easily recovered in our skeptical times. But through his love of truth and his brave opposition to a public culture of deception, he bore witness to values that we still share. " 

Roger Scruton, foreward to My Battle Against Hitler

“Love is not concerned with a person’s accomplishments, it is a response to a person’s being:  This is why a typical word of love is to say: I love you, because you are as you are. 

Love typically gives rise to responsiveness regarding the beauty of a very specific individual taken as a whole rather than for values taken individually.   Happiness is love’s outcome, never its motive.  Where someone is loved they are an end in themselves, and certainly not a means toward something else. 

It is therefore of love’s essence, wherever it is found, that the loved one seem precious, beautiful, and worthy of love." 

Dietrich von Hildebrand, The Art of Living 

 

"He immunized and protected us from the philosophical waves that swept across Germany in those days.   Whoever understood von Hildebrand was saved.  Despite the many factors at work, I think one can rightly say that history might have been quite different had there been more professors like him."

Paul Stöcklein, student of von Hildebrand at the University of Munich

 

"That damned Hildebrand is the greatest obstacle for National Socialism in Austria.  No one causes more harm."

Franz von Papen

"If God permits evils such as Bolshevism and National Socialism, then of course, as St. Paul says, it is to test us; it is precisely our struggle against evil that God wills, even when we suffer external defeat."

Dietrich von Hildebrand,  My Battle Against Hitler: Faith, Truth, and Defiance in the Shadow of The Third Reich 

 

It is certainly an irony of history that so many without some external and independent moral grounding to save them will flee the devils of the left by embracing the devils of the right and vice versa, lurching from one to another, with a high moral hypocrisy, even into the abyss. 

Truly at times in history, perhaps such as our own, the increase in wickedness and cynical selfishness will provoke the love of most to grow cold.  But even then, and especially then, we have the moral imperative to stand our ground, even to the end, and be saved in saving others while serving that which we have been given that is lasting.

Stocks managed to rally into the close on another summer trading day.

Gold was down a little, silver was up.

The dollar largely chopped sideways after rising a little bit.

It seems that the miners were taking a bit of a hit in selling in the afternoon.

There will be an option expiration on Friday.

Have a pleasant evening.

 

 

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Rinse Cycle Complete

 

"Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction." 

Erich Fromm

 

"Poor and content is rich, and rich enough,
But riches fineless is as poor as winter
To him that ever fears he shall be poor."

William Shakespeare, Othello 

"Greed, I say, is a great flood; it is a whirlpool that sucks a person down, a constant yearning, always seeking a hold, continually in movement." 

Siddhārtha Gautama

 

“The real conflict is the inner conflict.  Beyond armies of occupation and the catacombs of extermination camps, there are two irreconcilable enemies in the depth of every soul: good and evil, sin and love.  And what use are the victories on the battlefield if we are ourselves are defeated in our innermost selves?” 

Maximilian Kolbe

 

When the precious metals get their big run, remember that the game is still afoot, and the field is not yet won.   

For what does it profit a man...

Stocks rebounded sharply today.

Gold and silver also rallied sharply.

The Dollar drifted lower all afternoon, but managed to hold on to the 92 handle.

These jokers are running the market through wash and rinse cycles like it is a laundromat.

Stock option expiration next week.

Have a pleasant weekend.

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Great Moneto - Markets Wobble in the Wash and Rinse Cycle

 

"It would convert the Treasury of the United States into a manufactory of paper money.  It makes the House of Representatives and the Senate, or the caucus of the party which happens to be in the majority, the absolute dictator of the financial and business affairs of this country.  This scheme surpasses all the centralism and all the Caesarism that were ever charged upon the Republican party in the wildest days of the war or in the events growing out of the war." 

James A Garfield, Speaking on the Greenback Party Monetary Proposal, April 1880 

 

Stocks were loopy again today, for whatever reason one may wish or care to assign.

Silver and the Dollar declined a bit in value.

Gold managed to finish essentially unchanged. 

I still think that this is second half positioning (a kinder word for churning) by the well supplied and under-regulated financial interests that dominate Wall Street.

But let's keep our eyes open for any 'trigger events' even though this is an unlikely time of the year for major trend changes to the downside.

With thunderstorms running in its advance, the storm Elsa is going to be rolling over the NY metro area in the early morning hours tomorrow.

Have a pleasant evening.