Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Another Stock Option Expiration Boogie Woogie

 

"When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a scholar of the law tested him by asking, 'Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?'  And Jesus said to him, 'You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.  This is the greatest and the first commandment.  The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.'”

Matthew 22:34-40

"If anyone says, 'I love God,' but hates his neighbor, he is a liar; for whoever does not love a neighbor whom they have seen cannot love God whom they have not seen."

1 John 4:20

"'For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.'  Then they will answer, 'Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?'  Then he will answer, 'Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it for one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.'”

Matthew 25:42-45

“Then the rich man said, ‘I beg you, Father Abraham, send Lazarus to my father’s house.  For I have five brothers for him to warn, so that they also will not come to this place of desolation and torment.’  But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets. Let them listen to them.’

But the rich man again said, ‘No, Father Abraham, but if someone from the dead comes back and speaks to them, they will repent.’  And Abraham said, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, neither will they listen if someone tells them who has risen from the dead!’”

Luke 16:27-31

Stocks took a dive today, going out near the lows.

The VIX edged higher.

The US Dollar rallied higher, and took back the 108 handle.

Gold and silver were thumped.

Next Thursday the 25^th is a precious metal option expiration on the Comex.

Have a pleasant weekend.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Cult of Mammon - Old as Babylon and Evil as Sin

 

"McKinsey advised Purdue how to avoid FDA and pharmacy restrictions. They later advised Purdue on how to enter the market for opioid rescue and treatment medications, because McKinsey knew that people were overdosing and dying and getting sick from OxyContin.  So, McKinsey's fingers are all over this.   It's exactly that, profit at all costs.

McKinsey consultants were about the business of advising their clients on how to make as much money as possible from this deadly epidemic.  It shows a callousness that really is beyond the pale.   The fact that they knew — I mean, they knew how dangerous these opioids were, that they went so far as to try to propose to Purdue how it could pay insurance companies rebates for every patient who O.D.ed on OxyContin is gross.  It's disturbing."

Maura Healey, A Powerful Corporate Consulting Firm Helped to Create the Opioid Crisis

"In their heavily self-biased opinion, if they want something, by rights it should be their's.  So, nothing if not opportunistic, they take from public and private coffers alike whatever they think they can get away with.  And given their grandiose sense of self, they're inclined to believe they can get away with most anything."

Leon F. Seltzer

"Market Fundamentalism has its own economic orthodoxy that, for the most part, is unquestioningly accepted.  It is an idolatrous religion, because it makes a god out of the Market.  It puts money above all else.  This religion has its own high priests, those economic advisors, corporate executives, and government officials who make the rules and oversee the functioning of the economic system as a whole.  It has its own saints, people who have attained the success that the system promises."

Sharon Delgado, Shaking the Gates of Hell

"As everything in what used to be called creation becomes a commodity, human beings begin to look at one another, and at themselves, in a funny way, and they see price tags."

Harvey Cox, The Market As God

"Those who are at present so eager to be reconciled with the world at any price must take care not to be reconciled with it under this particular aspect: as the nest of The Unspeakable.  This is what too few are willing to see."

Thomas Merton

"It was as though in those last minutes he was summing up the lesson that this long course in human wickedness had taught us: the lesson of the fearsome word and thought defying banality of evil.”

Hannah Arendt

"You put away the light, yourselves; you first pluck out both your own eyes, yourselves; and after that other men’s too, so that the blind may lead the blind, until you both fall into the pit.”

Thomas More, The Sadness of Christ


This prevalence of self-deception and disregard for truth and ethical considerationss amongst the world's elite is nothing new.  It is the old and cyclical ascendancy of Mammon, which seems to rise in every 'gilded age,'  

It infects the whole of society, and is marked by the rising prominence of disordered minds and hardened hearts, who are drawn into shameless servitude to Moloch and the darkness of this world.

And with the darkness comes madness, and the madness serves none but itself.

Even among the faithful, the taint of the gospel of prosperity has caused the love of many hearts to draw inwards, lose their way, and grow cold with worldly pride and selfishness.

Do not be deceived, for God is not mocked.  Whatever a man sows, so shall he reap.

Today was highlighted by economic weakness and uncertainty in Europe and especially in the UK.

As such the Dollar, the douleur du monde, moved sharply higher by comparison and of course the design and weighting of the DX index.

Stocks managed to turn their usual morning slump around and finished a little higher in the green.

Gold and silver were whipped lower again.

Some of the miners were starting to show a little resilience by the afternoon.

Friday will be a stock index option expiration.

Next week on the 25th there will be option expirations for the metals on the Comex.

I watched the HBO documentary, Four Hours at the Capitol, today. 

It was well done and informative.  Well worth watching if you can.

The madness serves none but itself.

Have a pleasant evening.

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Alarrmmm! - Das Fed

 

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.  Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron."

General Dwight Eisenhower

“In principle the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of starvation. The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects and its object is not the victory over either Eurasia or East Asia, but to keep the very structure of society intact.”

George Orwell, 1984

"It has become a mathematical certainty that Hitler is leading the German people into the abyss.  Hitler cannot win the war; he can only prolong it.  The guilt of Hitler and his minions goes beyond all measure.  Retribution comes closer and closer.  But what are the German people doing?  They will not see and will not listen.  Blindly they follow their seducers into ruin.  Victory at any price! is inscribed on their banner.  'I will fight to the last man,' says Hitler— but in the meantime the war has already been lost."

The White Rose, Fifth Leaflet, Munich 1943

"They made us all train for this day.  'To be fearless and proud and alone. To need no one, just sacrifice. All for the Fatherland.'  Oh God, all just empty words.  It's not the way they said it was, is it?  I just want someone to be with.  The only thing I feel is afraid. "

Leutnant Werner, Das Boot

"Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph."

Haile Selassie

Stocks popped and flopped today, but managing to claw back some of their intraday losses.

The metals and miners were mugged again, all in the scheme of things, customary for a stock option expiration week.

The Dollar gained marginally.

The FOMC minutes cheered the risk markets for a short time today, with the lack of hawkish unanimity amongs the participants.

RIP Wolfgang Petersen, director of the classic war movie Das Boot. 

Perhaps we can look forward to a real life financial version of this, Das Fed.

Have a pleasant evening.