Stocks and Precious Metals Charts- Tail Risks - Inflation But Is It Transitory

 

"Price discovery is not a sexy function of markets, but it is critical to the efficient allocation of scarce capital and resources, and to the preservation of the long term wealth of investors and the economy as a whole. If price discovery is compromised by manipulation, then we will all be gradually impoverished and the economy will be imbalanced and unstable."

London Banker, Lies, Damn Lies, and Libor 

 

“Anything that has more upside than downside from random events (or certain shocks) is antifragile; the reverse is fragile.” 

Nassim Taleb, Antifragile 

 

"Then the kings of the earth, their nobles and their commanders, the rich, the powerful, and every one of their willing slaves and free men, hid in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains.  And they cried to the mountains and the rocks, 'Fall on us, and hide us from the face of the one who sits on the throne, and from the righteous anger of the Lamb.'" 

 Rev 6:15-16  

 

Coyle: I want to tell you my secret now. I see dead people.
Malcolm: Dead people like, in graves? In coffins?
 Coyle: Walking around like regular people. They don't see each other. They only see what they want to see. They don't know they're dead.

Stocks were off today rather uniformly, ahead of the stock option expiration.

The Dollar moved back higher.

Also moving a bit higher were gold and silver.

Even though the tail and event risks seem pronounced now, the higher probability is that we seething break, if it does, in August or September.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Places in the Heart

 

"My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going.  I do not see the road ahead of me.  I cannot know for certain where it will end.  Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following Your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.

But I believe that the desire to please You does in fact please You. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that, if I do this, You will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. 

Therefore I will trust You always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for You are ever with me, and You will never leave me to face my perils alone. Amen."

Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude 

 

"'I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, for I have five brothers.  Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’ 

Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’ No, father Abraham,’ the rich man said, ‘but if someone from the dead appears to them, they will repent.’ 

And Abraham said, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not change and repent, even if someone were to rise from the dead.’” 

Luke 16:27-31

 

“Man has places in his heart which do not yet exist— and into them enters suffering, in order that they may have life.” 

Léon Bloy

 

So it was then, and so it is now. 

Stocks were mixed today, with the tech heavy NDX once again stretching up towards 15,000 and then falling back. 

Gold and silver rallied, and managed to hold their gains.

The Dollar dropped, giving back most of its recent gains.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

There will be a stock option expiration on Friday.  

Comex option expirations next week, most notably for silver.

Google seems to be tinkering with their blogger platform which I use.

I have now lost ability to update the MATIÈRES À RÉFLEXION.

And you may have noticed the lack of a photo montage in the header for this blog lately.

As people complain these missteps seem to get sorted.   It is downstream from HTML code I use to create the blog itself, or upstream depending on one's perspective, so there is not much that I can do.     

It is a bit annoying, but the price for the service is still right.  lol

Have a pleasant evening.

 

 

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.