Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - As Night Follows Day, Rinse Follows Wash

 

"The ultimate purpose of crime is to establish an endless empire. It seeks a state of complete insecurity and anarchy, founded upon the tainted ideals of a world thought doomed to annihilation.  When humanity, subjugated by the terror of crime, has been driven mad by fear and horror, and when chaos has become the supreme law, then the time for the empire of lawlessness will have come."

Friedrich Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse, 1933


"At that time many will turn away from the faith, and will betray and hate each other. And false prophets will appear, and deceive many. And because of the increase in wickedness, the love of most will grow cold. But those who stand firm to the end will be saved. And the gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world, as a testimony to all nations. And then the end will come."

Matthew 24:10-14


"We run carelessly to the precipice, after we have put up a façade to prevent ourselves from seeing it.”

Blaise Pascal


"With tears in my eyes I tell you now that some may be lost, forever.  For their desires are the god that they worship.  They boast with pride about things of which they should be ashamed.  They think only about the privileges and glories of this world."

Philippians 3:19-20


"The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?  The Lord is the refuge of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?"

Psalm 27:1


John Henry Newman was the vicar at St. Mary the Virgin Church at Oxford from 1828-1843.  The pulpit he used there is pictured above.

I visited a few times many years ago when I was traveling frequently for work, much of it overseas. 

I was surprised that the motto of Oxford, Dominus Illuminatio Mea (the Lord is my Light) was apparently embroidered on each of the kneelers without any sort of a covering.

What an extravagance!   I made up a pattern like it on paper and had my talented sister-in-law stitch one up to be framed my study at home, which I still have to this day.

Well, stocks were shocked, shocked by the slightly stronger than expected Payrolls Report this morning.

And so they jumped off a bridge in their dismay.

The Dollar soared and gold fell. 

Silver just keeps kicking ass and taking names.  It eats beta for breakfast.

But as the day wore on, and the rest of the world went home, those clever boys from Wall Street brought in the laundry from the rinse cycle, and had a pleasant time taking their winnings home for the day.

So stocks finished close to unchanged as did gold and the Dollar.

Silver is just off in a rally of its own.

Let's see what fresh antics the next week will bring for our entertainment.

Have a pleasant weekend.

PS.  I was so moved by this memory of Oxford that I am making English muffin pizzas for dinner.  Thomas' of course.

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Winter Is Coming - Non-Farm Payrolls Tomorrow

 

“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


"Christmas is more than a time of joy and gift-giving and receiving presents.  It is a time to recall our blessings and to gain strength in the grace and bosom of our families.

And above all it is a time to remember that greatest, almost incomprehensible gift in all history, how our Lord made himself as us, and as we are of him, and came to us in the flesh, the incarnation of selfless love.

And thereby those of us who are no longer present in body at the Christmas hearth may still be there in spirit with us, as we will some day be with them. Not bound up in crippling self-pity, not immobilized by faceless fear, not fleeting as a merely morose remembrance, but to be there vitally in our lives as our good angels, reminding us that the Christmas spirit is to be found in 'active usefulness, perseverance, cheerful discharge of duty, kindness and forbearance.' This is how we may not only honor and cherish their memory, but actually live again in love with them.

What greater gift could we possibly desire to receive, than the ability to do good, to persevere in love, and to thereby live in the love of those for whom we care and who care for us, always? That gift is there, if only we will not shut the door of our hearts, and be open to it. It is not always easy, because love is too often clumsy, and turns back on us when we serve it out of selfish expectations. But if we serve it in its true Christmas spirit, for the right reasons, then it will light a fire in our hearts.

In the end this is the only real tragedy, when out of fear mostly, or pride, or feelings of disappointment we harden our hearts, and destroy our selves while thinking to preserve them, pinned to boards like dead specimens in our own dark rooms of selfishness, unrecalled at the hearths of even friends and family.

Christmas is a time of life, remembrance, forgiveness, tolerance, and love. And so may God bless us, everyone.

Jesse, 16 December 2015

A dovish view towards the actions of the Fed next year prevailed in markets again today.

The Dollar fell sharply.

Gold and silver rallied quite significantly, going out on the highs.

Stocks themselves traded a bit weakly, although the VIX continued to drop, giving up the 20 handle.

I suspect concerns will be for a recession and the impact on earnings.

But let's see how the Payrolls report comes out tomorrow.

Outliers will move the markets, which remain volatile and highly manipulated

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Risk Weighted Lies - Powell's Sweet Nothings

 

"What scares the banks is any criticism that goes beyond claims of greed or fraud or even incompetence, and instead questions the system itself. The sanctity and perfection of the system and its right to ‘regulate’ itself, is what they are totally committed to protect. The system is what gives them their status and wealth.  Question that and you threaten them where they are vulnerable.

It seems to me therefore that it is high time we questioned not just the probity, or even the solvency of the big global banks but their very intellectual foundation. The financial elite have spent all this last year rewriting history so that blame for the banking crisis has been turned away from them and laid instead at the door of ‘people’ and then entire nations who ‘took’ on debts they coudn’t afford.

It was not a break down in an otherwise fine system which caused this crisis but that it was a result and consequence of a system which is an utter failure at doing what it prides itself most on being able to do – managing risk. Not just a onetime failure but a systemic failure which presents an on-going danger to the rest of us."

Golem XIV, Risk Weighted Lies, 28 February 2012


"We looked into the abyss if the gold price rose further. A further rise would have taken down one or several trading houses, which might have taken down all the rest in their wake. Therefore at any price, at any cost, the central banks had to quell the gold price, manage it."

Eddie George, Governor Bank of England, Reg Howe v. BIS, JPM et al.


"Unless derivatives contracts are collateralized or guaranteed, their ultimate value also depends on the creditworthiness of the counter-parties to them.

But before a contract is settled, the counter-parties record profits and losses – often huge in amount – in their current earnings statements without so much as a penny changing hands. Reported earnings on derivatives are often wildly overstated. That’s because today’s earnings are in a significant way based on estimates whose inaccuracy may not be exposed for many years.

The errors usually reflect the human tendency to take an optimistic view of one’s commitments. But the parties to derivatives also have enormous incentives to cheat in accounting for them. Those who trade derivatives are usually paid, in whole or part, on “earnings” calculated by mark-to-market accounting. But often there is no real market, and “mark-to-model” is utilized. This substitution can bring on large-scale mischief.

In extreme cases, mark-to-model degenerates into what I would call mark-to-myth.  I can assure you that the marking errors in the derivatives business have not been symmetrical. Almost invariably, they have favored either the trader who was eyeing a multi-million dollar bonus or the CEO who wanted to report impressive “earnings” (or both). The bonuses were paid, and the CEO profited from his options. Only much later did shareholders learn that the reported earnings were a sham."

Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, 2002


I have to leave early today for an appointment, so I will post the charts as they are, and square things up tomorrow. 

Chairman Powell in a speech and interview today made dovish sounds when the markets were postured for hawkishness.

And so the wash and rinse begins again.

The oligarchy is audacious.

Gold and silver and stocks rallied hard.  

The Dollar slumped.

Non-Farm Payrolls report.

Shenanigans are abounding.

Have a pleasant evening.