My friend Catherine Fitts came over for supper once and brought me a bag of buttons she used to hand out as Assistant Secretary of Housing: NO WHINING. I suggest Congress' best use of tax dollars right now would be to buy 175 million NO WHINING buttons & hand one to every other person in the US of A. Are y'all sick of whiners whining about how they didn't get this or that or how put upon they are because somebody somewhere in the Universe looks down on 'em? Ought to say the same thing to 'em my wife Susan used to say to our seven kids: "Is it bleeding or is the bone sticking out? If not, go back and play." 21 August 2016 probably was the day when stocks turned down. They failed today twice at the unchanged line, then sank, sank, sank beneath the waves, deeper & deeper all day -- glurg! Was today a government holiday? Wonder why no Nice Government Men stepped in at 3:30 to jack up the market? Probably their coffee break. On disappointing earnings news the Dow rolled downhill 113.82 (0.63%) to 17,982.45. Owch! Hurts morale it couldn't hold on above 18,000. S&P500 tumbled 10.92 (0.52%) to 2,091.48. By the way that little down-tweak today sufficed to break that rising wedge's bottom boundary on the Dow & S&P500 charts. Portentous, that. I missed catching y'all up on Crony Capitalism in Operation. Goldman Sachs came out day before yesterday, the last of the big five to report, & announced much lower earnings. What happened? Why in the Crazy Crap Shoot that is today's stock market, Goldman stock rose, along with the bank stocks index ($BKX). Sure, makes sense to me. Today though that BKX hit its 200 day moving average, which I surmise from the way the BKX shrunk back was made of Kryptonite. Another reason to suspect stocks have turned down. At the same time, the Gold:BKX spread turned up. (It's a fraction, remember, with Gold on top and BKX on bottom. Further BKX falls, higher the fraction climbs.) Also neglected to mention a few days ago Goldman paid the yankee government $5 billion to cure its wrongdoing in the mortgage bubble debacle that launched the 2008 financial crisis. It sure pays for capitalists to have cronies in Washington. D'y'all notice that hyperactive Obama "Justice" department jes' never could get motivated to send any HUMAN PERSON to jail, let alone bankers? Corporations, which have no body to jail and no soul ot damn, are lashed with "civil fines" that claw back a pitiable pittance of what they stole by fraud. And no hot breath of a prosecutor ever fogs the necks of CEOs & their ilk. It's nice to have cronies running the "Justice" system. In all fairness, 'twould have been the exact same outcome if the other crony party had been in power. From Credit Mobilier to the Whiskey Ring to Teapot Dome to the 1980s S&L Crisis, Republican hogs are just as adept at sticking their snoots in the trough as Democratic ones. Wild day in markets, thanks again to the stabilizing influence of central banks. ECB's head felon, Mario Draghi, held a press conference announcing the ECB's interest rate intentions. ECB did nothing, kept interest rates low. No new "stimulus" measures were announced. Whenever I see that word "stimulus" it reminds me of somebody wanting to dose a passed out drunk with whiskey as a "stimulant." Their stimulants won't work any better for the economy central banks have made puking drunk with debt. I don't know what folks in currency markets expected, but the US dollar index tanked from 94.6+ about 5:00 a.m. right down to 93.92 just before 9:00 a.m., then even a little faster bounced up to 94.70 by 11:00. However, it ended the day up only 11 basis points (0.12%) at 94.58. That brought it up enough to touch, but not hold, the 20 DMA at 94.67. Y'all look, http://schrts.co/OkJ5UT Every one of those big range days (all but one big losses) with blue arrows were caused by central bank announcements. Dollar index is stalking the lip of a volcano, & if it gets lower than 93 - 92.50 will fall over into the molten lava. Situation won't clear until the dollar index either closes above 95.20 or below 92.50. Think on the market proverb: double bottoms hold, triple bottoms don't. This is the dollar index' third touch below 94. Silver fell only 4.5¢ (0.3%) to 1708.6¢ while gold fell $4.20 (0.3%) to $1,249, but those closes don't near about tell the story of the havoc central banking wreaked in metals markets today. Silver advanced and reached 1771.5¢ (or 1778¢, according to whom you believe) about 11:a.m. About 12:00 (Eastern) it plunged within an hour to 1675¢, then turned and climbed above 1700¢, finishing at 1708.6¢. Chart's here, http://schrts.co/CqZ2b5 Who do you listen to? On the Comex chart today marked a key reversal's first half: trade into new high territory with a lower close. However, that doesn't show on the end of day chart, which closed higher. Volume last three days has been huge, and hugest today. Yet the RSI is way overbought, as is are the MACD and Rate of Change. I mention in passing that today fulfilled my 1765¢ target based on a breakout from the trading channel. Gold chart is right here, http://schrts.co/ZWY4A4 Gold likewise bounced up and down. About the same times it fell from a $1,272.40 high to a $1,244.40 low. Challenging that last high at $1,264.70 & failing looks puny to poisoned. Gold's indicators have fallen way behind silver's. RSI is stuck in mid-range, barely positive. MACD is barely positive. Rate of Change the picture of sloth. All you can say is, Gold's just hanging on. As with silver, so gold's Comex chart shows a key reversal's first half, but not the End of Day chart. Ratio fell again today, from 73.154 to 73.101. Not much, but fell. Reached my first target at 72.50 yesterday. Seems a lot to ask for, more gold & silver gains immediately, without any rest. On 21 April 1836 General Sam Houston, a Tennessean, leading an army larded with Tennesseans, defeated Mexican General Santa Anna at the Battle of San Jacinto in a fight that lasted only 18 minutes. The Texians captured Santa Anna next day, and later he signed a peace treaty withdrawing the Mexican army. In effect, the Battle of San Jacinto established Texas' independence.
Argentum et aurum comparanda sunt —
Silver and gold must be bought.
— Franklin Sanders, The Moneychanger
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