Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - And the Love of Most Will Grow Cold - Quad Witch Expiration

 

“It appeared that the whole world was one elaborate system, opposed to justice and kindness, and set to making cruelty and pain.  Their frail human nature was subjected to a strain greater than it was made for; the fires of greed had been lighted in their hearts, and fanned to a white heat that melted every principle and every law.”

Upton Sinclair, Oil


“A laissez-faire economic theory is maintained in an industrial era through the ignorant belief that the general welfare is best served by placing the least possible political restraints upon economic activity.  The history of the past hundred years is a refutation of the theory; but it is still maintained, or is dying a too lingering death."

Reinhold Niebuhr, Moral Man and Immoral Society, 1932


"For wherever your treasure is, there also your heart will be."

Matthew 6:21


t never really gets old, does it?  Evil that is.  It just keeps coming back, with different names and faces.  But the basic proposition remains surprisingly simple and the same. 

You cheat, you win, you cash in, and there are no consequences. 

Perhaps a stance supporting little to no regulation in the markets and in life in general might be reconsidered when one sees the abuses to which powerful insiders, aka 'market forces,' may engage. 

Some might say that history shows that this is the very reason why men and women combine to create a least some semblance of the rule of law, and not the rule of money and power.

Today was a quadruple stock option expiration in US markets. 

Stocks tried hard, but failed to hold a solid rally off the oversold condition from yesterday.

There may be more work to be done on the downside.

Gold and silver gave back some of yesterday's gains.

The Dollar rallied.

So all in all, a reversal wash and rinse for the quad option expiration.

Three day weekend.

See you on Tuesday.

Have a pleasant weekend.

 

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Buddha's Palm Descending - Toro de Fuego

 

"Our share of these great good times was zero, folks.  The upper ten percent of the population, by which we mean our country's financiers and managers and professionals, consumed the entire thing.  To be a young person in America these days is to understand instinctively the downward slope that so many of us are on."

Thomas Frank, 6 April 2017


"When the modern corporation acquires power over markets, power in the community, power over the state and power over belief, it is a political instrument, different in degree but not in kind from the state itself.  To hold otherwise — to deny the political character of the modern corporation — is not merely to avoid the reality.  It is to disguise the reality.  The victims of that disguise are those we instruct in error."

John Kenneth Galbraith


"Hot money seeks out the conscious mispricing of risk.  Capital, in the form of both money and personal talent, increasingly flows into malinvestment and the gaming of markets.   The productive economy languishes, left wanting for the lack of creative resources and attention.  The bubble rises to unsustainable valuations— and fails, and a nation's capital is consumed. 

The next five years are not about winning, but surviving."

Jesse, The Men Who Sold the World, 5 August 2019


“Reality denied comes back to haunt.”

Philip K. Dick, Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said

 

Today was not constructive for the bullish case.

But tomorrow is another day.

And another stock index option expiration.

The Dollar fell off its perch.

Gold and silver soared.

We are heading into a three day weekend.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Survey Says - Option Expiration on Friday

 

"Let me end my talk by abusing slightly my status as an official representative of the Federal Reserve.  I would like to say to Milton [Friedman] and Anna [Schwarz]:  Regarding the Great Depression.  You're right, we did it.  We're very sorry.  But thanks to you, we won't do it again."

Ben S. Bernanke, On Milton Friedman's Ninetieth Birthday, November 8, 2002


"I write to you from a disgraced profession. Economic theory, as widely taught since the 1980s, failed miserably to understand the forces behind the financial crisis. Concepts including rational expectations, market discipline, and the efficient markets hypothesis led economists to argue that speculation would stabilize prices, that sellers would act to protect their reputations, that caveat emptor could be relied on, and that widespread fraud therefore could not occur.  Not all economists believed this, but most did."

James K. Galbraith


“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding [or even seeing] it.”

Upton Sinclair


"Nothing is so unworthy of a civilized nation as allowing itself to be governed without opposition by an irresponsible clique that has yielded to base instinct."

Sophie Scholl

The Fed decided to take the easy 75 that the bond market smoothed the way for them today.

Stocks took it positively after a few starts and stops, and managed to come off their oversold condition.

Tomorrow's market action will be much more telling as we roll into another option expiration.

After a day of more shenanigans, gold and silver found their footing and bolted higher.

So we had a sell the rumor and buy the news event.

Let's see how the rest of the week goes.

Have a pleasant evening.