Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Wash Cycle - Bear Market Rally or Bull Trap

 

"These violent delights have violent ends.
And in their triumph die, like fire and powder."

William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet


“The disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and the powerful, and to despise, or, at least to neglect, persons of poor and mean condition is the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments.”

Adam Smith


"The heart of the problem is that because of the credibility trap, we have never had a proper public discussion on what went wrong with the policies of the US.  The apathy of the people enables this. There are plenty of staged discussions in the media, where two paid talking heads and a moderator who carefully stages the parameters and definition of the 'discussion' shout slogans past one another that play to the emotions of their deeply polarized and propagandized constituencies.

Since we have not yet been able to speak frankly and openly about the massive fraud and abundant soft and overt corruption of the political and professional class, there can be no meaningful reform. Until one admits they have a problem and are able to face it, they cannot begin to address it.

So like any other type of hopeless addict, the US and much of its client states in the West will most likely have to finally hit rock bottom before they can begin to face their addiction to deceit and corruption, money and power.  This will be difficult because so many of those who control the platforms for the conversation about corruption are also those hands are dirty with it, either by participation or acquiescence.  It is the same phenomenon that compels a country to remain in protracted, winless wars long beyond any rational expectation of 'victory.'

Jesse, Moving Beyond Corporatism and Corruption, 10 April 2015

 

Bear market rally or bull trap?

And for the eternal optimists and market strategists a bottom followed by a long recovery rally.   LOL

I'd guess a bull trap because the pundits were out talking about time to put your cash to work again.

Have a pleasant evening.

CrashTrak Update With Preliminary Targets

 

Needless to say this is highly speculative and dependent on the formation remaining active.

As I have previously noted this feels more like a long, grinding bear market than a 'crash.'

Ultimate bottoms may be much lower depending on how the Fed and especially the government react.

The tone was set in 1987 for massive intervention to rescue the financial system, if not the public.  

The policy has continued and strengthened in the last three bubble and busts.

Or it may not continue on like this at all.  

But for now it is 'in the pipe, 5 by 5.'

 

 

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.