21 September 2017

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Ubi Sunt? Not With a Bang, But a Whimper


“Love does not make you weak, because it is the source of all strength, but it makes you see the nothingness of the illusory strength on which you depended before you knew it.”

Léon Bloy

Stocks were a little wobbly today, although the VIX continued to be at quite low levels for this year at least.

The economic news is mixed, as usual.

The dollar gave a little of yesterday's sharp rally higher back today. The rally itself was more technical than anything else, given the long decline that it has already seen. Certainly any notions of a hawkish Fed raising rates with enough fortitude to make a difference in the dollar is sheer fantasy.

The Fed may have one more rate increase in them for this year, but they are already on thin ice given the weak recovery and lingering lack of organic growth. The reasons are so obvious one really hates to keep repeating them. The economists certainly know them, but they are reluctant to discuss the Emperor's nakedness.  Alas, they are too often a craven careerist lot as a whole.  But such are the times.

As my Greek attorney put it just today, "Hillary just wants to tweak the status quo because it works well for her and her donors Bernie wanted to change the status quo, so he was a threat to everyone but the public."

Indeed. The credibility trap is alive and well, and crippling the impulse and efforts to reform.

Have a pleasant evening.




And where is the magnificence now, the glory that was Greece, the grandeur that was Rome.  And where is the Emperor Nero now, immortal god and lord of the world, but a memory, returned to the earth as the dirt and dust.    Perhaps he is to be found as a piece of dirt beneath the fingernails of some little child, to be plucked out and discarded, with a 'tut tut'  from a doting mother.

The mighty rise and are fallen, but the word and the spirit endure.