Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - It's a Livin' Thing

Albrecht Dürer, St. Jerome In His Study

"Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all."

Edmund Burke


“And in the Incarnation the whole human race recovers the dignity of the image of God. Henceforth any attack, even on the least of men, is an attack on Christ, who took the form of man, and in his own Person restored the image of God in all that bears a human form.

Through fellowship and communion with the Incarnate Lord, we recover our true humanity, and at the same time we are delivered from that perverse individualism which is the consequence of sin, and retrieve our solidarity with the whole human race.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship


"For what does it profit a man, to gain the whole world, but lose his soul?"

Mark 8:36

Stocks were off a bit today, while the precious metals remained steady.

The markets were perturbed a bit by the geopolitical events, as well as some new domestic disappointments with the triumph of corporatism in the form of tax relief at the expense of the working and middle class.

President The Donald has apparently figured out that the GOP Tax Reform proposal was going to provide extravagant benefits to his wealthy colleagues, while placing the burden for this most squarely on the middle class, not to the mention the weak and the poor through cutbacks to basic healthcare.

And even he blanched at this, although one might question his lack of understand of the basic tenets of US taxes, since he considers himself an expert in even the more arcane areas of this system.

But what excuse could there be for the House GOP and their fellows in the political establishment, on both sides of the aisle, who know exactly what it is they are doing, to whom and for what, over and over again.  They are playing a game at which they imagine themselves to be masters, that ironically enough they do not understand at all.   And therein lies the tragedy, and they bid you join them.

And because of the increase in wickedness, the love of many will grow cold.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Nobody Wins Unless Everybody Wins

"Even in a time of elephantine vanity and greed, one never has to look far to see the campfires of gentle people. Lacking any other purpose in life, it would be good enough to live for their sake."

Garrison Keillor, The Prairie Home Companion

I spent much of the afternoon picking up my in-laws from Ohio from their cruise up the East coast. So I missed some of the antics, in New York and Washington.

They were on a 'fall foliage' cruise that left a couple of weeks ago from Port Liberty, but this year the leaves are turning late. If they are falling here it has been from a recent lack of rain. And they tell me that they did not see the leaves turning color on the cruise until they reached Quebec. Even in Maine, in the coastal cities at least, autumn's paintbrush has not yet been unleashed.

We loved to visit Quebec City. We used to drive up there by car every other year or so. The city is beautiful and the people are cordial and most often kind. And the drive up to Montreal was always a nice one particularly in the autumn. We often stopped for an overnight at Lake George.

I have literally never been to Maine. Their cruise stopped in Portland, Rockland, and Bar Harbor. They had a nice time at each place, and again, the people and the atmosphere is wonderful. And apparently the price and quality of the lobsters is equally impressive. For that I miss my days as a computer science student in Boston.

When I was a little boy I kept my 'treasures' in a small cedar box with Bar Harbor Maine on it. It was a souvenir from my parent's honeymoon. The queen and I had intended to take a long drive that way after retirement, but it never really worked out that way. As Thomas à Kempis noted long ago, man proposes, but God disposes.

Stocks were rising today, but I won't call it a rally so much as a quiet rising in a quiet market. Gold and silver also caught a bid and managed to creep back towards the resistance levels from which they were recently turned back.

I have been thinking of how gold and silver might react if there were a seasonal downturn in the stock markets, perhaps in reaction to some catalyzing event. I think it will depend on the cause and nature of the decline. This presupposes of course that there will be a decline. I am sure we are comfortable with forecasts of permanent prosperity.

Blaise Pascal observed that “All of humanity's problems stem from a man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Someone should have that made into a plaque, and place it prominently on Donald Trump's desk.  Or perhaps at his bedside, or wherever it is he decides to put his fingers to the keyboard.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - One More Silver Dollar

"Now is our chance to choose the right side. God is holding back to give us that chance. It won't last forever.
Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither."

C. S. Lewis

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Wooly Bully

“Politicians were mostly people who'd had too little morals and ethics to stay lawyers.”

George R.R. Martin


“The main problem in any democracy is that crowd-pleasers are generally brainless swine who can go out on a stage and whip their supporters into an orgiastic frenzy— then go back to the office and sell every one of the poor bastards down the tube for a nickel apiece.”

Hunter S. Thompson


"This idea that you can't be an honest man and a Washington politician is a myth, a crock made up by sellouts and careerist hacks who don't stand for anything and are impatient with people who do. It's possible to do this job with honor and dignity."

Matt Taibbi

It was a less risk prone day in the markets, with the trading light because of the Bank and Bond holiday in honor of Christopher Columbus.

Bully seems to be engaging in some retrospection just ahead of earnings.

I have put a special, shorter version of the gold chart up first in the charts below. Look at the recent trading bottoms we have formed in the price of gold in the past year. I have circled them for your viewing pleasure. Do you see anything that might appear to represent some commonality?  What a coincidence!

Ideology, as expressed in glib phrases, is one of the great impediments to independent thinking and, thereby, often valuable knowledge. You know, things like, 'markets are by their nature efficient because of their size and diversity of participants'  or 'the denizens of Wall Street are rational and honest businessmen that have been corrupted by government.'

Some remnants of a hurricane blew through our area this afternoon, bringing us some much needed rain.

Have a pleasant evening.

Uno, dos, one two tres quatro...

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Not With a Bang But a Whimper - Dedicated to the One I Love

"When swept out of its normal channel, life scatters into innumerable streams.  It is difficult to foresee which it will take in its treacherous and winding course.  Where today it flows in shallows, like a rivulet over sandbanks, so shallow that the shoals are visible, tomorrow it may flow richly and fully."

Mikhail Sholokhov, And Quiet Flows the Don


“For the bullshitter, however, all bets are off: he is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false.   His eye is not on the facts at all, as the eyes of the honest man and of the liar are, except insofar as they may be pertinent to his interest in getting away with what he says.   He does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly.   He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose.”

Harry Frankfurt, On Bullshit


"This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper."

T. S. Eliot, The Hollow Men

As you have probably heard the Non-Farm Payrolls report was a mixed bag. There was a seasonally adjusted net loss of jobs, which was certainly unexpected.

But miraculously, the unemployment rate dropped, and the wages increased much more than expected.

Now how about that for a counter-intuitive set of data.

The markets were not sure what to make of it. They have of late been asked to digest quite a bit of what Harry Truman called bushwa. 

We produce so much bushwa now that we are exporting the stuff, in the form of financial assets and obligations.  We have even selected its high priests and exceptionally gifted practitioners as our organizers and leaders.

We are the hollow men, the hope only of empty men, hearts and heads filled with straw.

For Thine is the Kingdom, the power and the glory.

Have a pleasant weekend.