Financial Markets

This Isn’t The End For The Financial Markets – The Truth Is That This Is Just The Beginning Of The Chaos…

If you are surprised by what is happening in the financial world right now, you probably haven’t been paying much attention.  Stock prices were obscenely high and many investors were massively overleveraged.  The Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted by more than 1,000 points on Monday, and stock prices are still obscenely high and many investors are still massively overleveraged.  During the days ahead, we are going to see some wild ups and some wild downs, and this tragedy is going to take some time to fully play out.  But without a doubt, we have got a major problem on our hands.

After the chaos that we witnessed on Friday, I wasn’t sure that we would see even more carnage on Monday, but that is precisely what transpired…

The Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 1,033.99 points, or 2.6%, to close at 38,703.27. The S&P 500 fell 3%, ending at 5,186.33. Both averages notched their worst daily losses since September 2022.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite shed 3.43%, finishing at 16,200.08.

At one point the Nasdaq was down more than 1,000 points.

That is the first time in history that has ever happened.

If you can believe it, there was a time early on Monday when tech companies had collectively lost close to a trillion dollars in market capitalization.

Tech stocks bounced back a bit the rest of the day, but the “Magnificent 7” are still collectively down about 3 trillion dollars from their all-time record high market capitalizations.

That is a lot of money.

Over the last three trading sessions, the Dow, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq have all gotten absolutely hammered…

The Dow fell 5.24% over the last three trading days, turning in its worst three-day loss since Jun. 14, 2022, when it tumbled 5.91% in three days.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite dropped 7.95% in the period. This marked the Nasdaq’s biggest three-day fall since Jun.13, 2022, when it tanked 10.57% in a three-day period.

The S&P 500 lost 6.08% in three days for its sharpest pullback in that span since Jun.14, 2022, when it shed 7.03%.

But in Japan things have been even worse.

On Monday, the Japanese experienced a stock market crash of epic proportions…

In Asia overnight, Japan stocks confirmed a bear market as Asia-Pacific investors had their first chance to react to the sour jobs figures in the U.S. from Friday. The 12.4% loss on the Nikkei, which closed at 31,458.42, was the worst day for the index since the “Black Monday” of 1987 hit Wall Street. The loss of 4,451.28 points on the index was also the largest in terms of points in its entire history.

The good news is that we are due for a dead cat bounce.

As I write this article, Japanese stocks are bouncing back in a major way, and the same thing could happen to U.S. stocks when the markets open here.

So why is this happening?

Some are blaming the bad economic news that we have been getting and inaction by the Federal Reserve.

Others are suggesting that what we are witnessing “is the result of investors having to untangle complicated, heavily leveraged trades”…

But economists say the stock slide is not a surefire sign that a recession is ahead. The current sell-off, they say, is the result of investors having to untangle complicated, heavily leveraged trades that have artificially boosted stock values.

The truth is that a lot of factors are at play.

But after several years of one way traffic, a lot of people are quite shocked by how rapidly stock prices have started to move in the other direction…

“Investors have gotten so used to the stock market only going one way that now people are suddenly realizing, ‘Oh, stocks can also go down?’ ” said Torsten Sløk, chief economist at Apollo Global Management. “This is a situation where one weak data point – Friday’s jobs numbers – brought the bears out of hibernation.”

For a long time, the Federal Reserve and other global central banks were artificially propping up the financial markets.

Now that artificial support has been withdrawn, and many are having difficulty “adjusting to the end of easy money globally”…

“This is not the recession train; it’s just a good old-fashioned market panic,” said Joe Brusuelas, principal and chief economist for RSM US. “This is not a D.C.-inspired event, about a slowing job market or the Fed being behind the curve. It’s about a larger regime change, where investors are adjusting to the end of easy money globally.”

Of course the Fed could choose to intervene at any time.

At this moment there is growing optimism that the Fed will come riding to the rescue with an emergency rate cut.

In fact, many bond traders are placing very large bets that this is about to happen…

Bond traders are piling into bets that the US economy is on the verge of deteriorating so quickly that the Federal Reserve will need to start easing monetary policy aggressively — potentially before their next scheduled meeting — to head off a recession.

I wouldn’t recommend holding your breath waiting for that to take place.

The Dow would probably have to fall to at least 35,000 before the Fed would even consider an emergency rate cut.

But I do believe that one will probably be coming at their next scheduled meeting.

Of course a rate cut isn’t exactly going to save us from what is eventually coming.

As James Howard Kunstler has aptly noted, “everything that can break is breaking”…

The wait is over. Everything that can break is breaking: stock markets, bond markets, the galaxy of derivatives — bets on this and that, which will never be honored. Banks are next. Gold and silver are hanging in there for dear life just now, because they’re actually worth something.

This doesn’t mean that every day is going to be a down day for the financial markets.

During bull markets, the waters are calm and stock prices tend to rise slowly and steadily.

During bear markets, the waters get very choppy and there are wild ups and downs.

So if the Dow jumps hundreds of points in a single day, don’t think that the crisis is over.  A huge swing either way is a bad sign.

Also, please understand that we are not even close to the center of the storm yet.

What we are experiencing right now is just early turbulence.  The real pain is not likely to arrive for quite some time.

Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com. He has also written seven other books that are available on Amazon.com including “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s  books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

Is Something Starting To Break? Stocks Plummet And Bonds Go Nuts As Economic Data Disappoints

Are the financial markets headed for trouble?  There was quite a bit of panic on Wall Street on Thursday after more bad economic numbers were released.  But honestly I simply do not understand why the financial markets responded with such surprise.  By now it should be apparent to everyone that we have a “Weekend at Bernie’s economy” that is being propped up by unprecedented levels of government spending.  If we actually tried to live within our means, we would immediately plunge into a depression.  Our politicians definitely do not want that, and so about every one hundred days they are adding another trillion dollars to the national debt, and the vast majority of that borrowed money goes directly into the veins of the corpse that we call the U.S. economy.

But even though we are absolutely flooding the system with cash stolen from future generations of Americans, economic performance has been extremely anemic.

On Thursday, the government reported that the U.S. economy grew at a 1.6 percent annualized rate during the first quarter of this year…

Gross domestic product, the broadest measure of goods and services produced across the economy, grew by 1.6% on an annualized basis in the three-month period from January through March, the Commerce Department said in its first reading of the data on Thursday.

That is much lower than the 2.4% increase forecast by LSEG economists and marks a sharp slowdown from the 3.4% pace seen during the fourth quarter. It is the slowest pace of growth in two years.

“This was a worst of both worlds report — slower than expected growth, higher than expected inflation,” said David Donabedian, chief investment officer of CIBC Private Wealth US. “The biggest setback is the acceleration in core inflation, and in particular, the services sector rising above a 5% annual rate.”

Even if the GDP numbers were accurate, and I don’t believe that they are, that would still be absolutely terrible.

At this point, some pundits are using the term “slowdown” to describe what is happening to the economy…

Some analysts believe Thursday’s weaker-than-expected report signals the start of a broader slowdown in the economy.

Personally, I am entirely convinced that if honest numbers were being used they would indicate that GDP growth is negative.

But in any event, pretty much everyone agrees that we are heading in the wrong direction.

In response to this bad economic news, stock prices plummeted.

At one point on Thursday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down more than 600 points, and it closed the day down 375 points…

Stocks tumbled Thursday after the latest U.S. economic data showed a sharp slowdown in growth and pointed to persistent inflation.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average slid 375.12 points, or 0.98%, to close at 38,085.80, weighed down by steep declines in Caterpillar and IBM. The S&P 500 dropped 0.46% to finish the session at 5,048.42, and the Nasdaq Composite lost 0.64% to 15,611.76.

Not too long ago, the Dow was flirting with 40,000.

Since that time, it has lost nearly 2,000 points.

Will this “slide” eventually turn into an avalanche?

What is happening in the bond market is of even greater concern.

The release of the GDP numbers caused U.S. Treasury yields to go completely nuts…

U.S. Treasury yields rose on Thursday after the first-quarter GDP report showed slowing growth and rising consumer prices.

The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield climbed 4.8 basis points to 4.702%, while the rate on the 2-year Treasury gained 6.1 basis points to 4.998%. At their session highs, the yields on both notes hit their highest levels since November.

Let’s keep a close eye on this.

If Treasury yields start swinging too wildly, that is going to have enormous implications for those that trade derivatives.

Shifting gears, we have also just learned that the median price of a home in the U.S. has just hit another brand new record high…

It is more expensive than ever to buy a home in the U.S., according to a new report from the real estate company Redfin.

The median home price hit a record $383,725 during the four-week period ending April 21. That’s up 5.2 percent from a year ago, Redfin found, one of the largest leaps in home prices since October 2022.

Sadly, home ownership is now out of reach for a very large chunk of the population.

If you can believe it, Redfin says that the median monthly housing payment has risen “to a record $2,843”…

The median monthly housing payment also jumped to a record $2,843, up 13 percent from the same period last year.

Chen Zhao, the economic research lead at Redfin, said prospective buyers should “accept that this year is probably not the time to find a dream deal.”

Who can afford a mortgage payment of $2,843 a month?

That is insane.

Home ownership has never been more unaffordable than it is right now, and young adults that are just starting out are being hit the hardest.

Earlier today, I just had to laugh when I came across an article entitled “So you may never own a home. Here’s why maybe that’s … a good thing?”

To me, that sounds eerily similar to “you will own nothing and be happy”.

That particular article is directed at young adults in Canada, but millions of young adults in the U.S. are also wondering if they will be renting for life.

Yes, there are some advantages to renting, but you aren’t building any equity.

And I think that is what the wizards on Wall Street would like to see.

I think that they envision a future in which they own almost all of the homes and the vast majority of us are renters.

The good news, if you want to call it that, is that I don’t think that things will ever get that far.

Our entire system has started to come apart at the seams, and it won’t be too long before it completely crashes.

A lot of the “wealth” that we see on Wall Street is just a mirage.

For the moment, stock prices are absurdly high because there are people out there that are willing to pay those prices.

But when conditions take a dramatic turn for the worse, the buyers will all disappear and so will the absurdly high stock prices.

So enjoy the last days of the bubble while you still can, because the clock is ticking…

Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s extremely controversial new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com. He has also written seven other books that are available on Amazon.com including “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  You can connect with Michael on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, and sharing his articles on your own social media accounts is definitely a great help.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

Are We On The Verge Of A Massive Stock Market Crash?

Is time finally running out for “the bubble to end all bubbles”?  Over the past year, we have seen stock prices rise to levels that are completely and utterly absurd, and many have pointed out that we are currently in the largest stock market bubble in the entire history of our nation.  Of course this bubble will end the way that all of our other stock market bubbles eventually ended, and recent market activity has a lot of people wondering if the time for that is drawing near.  Signs of trouble have been percolating on Wall Street for weeks, and on Monday we finally witnessed an eruption of full-blown fear.  The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 725 points, and that represented the worst day for the index since last October.  But one really bad day is not a crisis, and even though many individual stocks have already plunged into bear market territory, we have a long, long way to go before people start using the word “crash”.  In fact, I don’t think that anyone should even think of using the word “crash” until the Dow drops below 30,000.

But without a doubt, a crash is inevitably coming.

Whether it happens this month, next month or next year, stock prices will plummet from these ridiculously inflated levels.

As for the plunge that happened on Monday, many are blaming it on fears about the “Delta variant”…

“It’s a bit of an overreaction, but when you have a market that’s at record highs, that’s had the kind of run we’ve had, with virtually no pullback, it becomes extremely vulnerable to any sort of bad news,” said Randy Frederick, vice president of trading & derivatives at Charles Schwab. “It was just a matter of what that tipping point was, and it seems we finally reached that this morning” with worries about the delta variant.

To me, there are other issues that are of much greater concern, but apparently this is what is spooking investors this week.

According to CNBC, the number of newly confirmed COVID cases per week has more than doubled over the past month…

Covid cases have rebounded in the U.S. this month, with the delta variant spreading among the unvaccinated. The U.S. is averaging nearly 26,000 new cases a day in the last seven days through Sunday, up from a seven-day average of around 11,000 cases a day a month ago, according to CDC data. Cases were already flaring up around the world because of the delta variant.

Now that the market has started to fall, some experts are warning that the drop could be quite substantial.

For example, one Morgan Stanley strategist believes that we could eventually see a “correction” of 10 to 20 percent…

“The market appears ready to take on a more defensive character as we experience a meaningful deceleration in earnings and economic growth,” Morgan Stanley chief U.S. equity strategist Mike Wilson said in a note Monday. “Market breadth has been deteriorating for months and is just another confirmation of the mid-cycle transition, in our view. It usually ends with a material (10-20%) index level correction.”

Actually, if that is the worst that happens we will be quite fortunate.

In recent days, the mood on Wall Street has shifted dramatically.  In fact, the CNN Fear & Greed Index is now sitting at 16 which is considered to be in the “extreme fear” range, and the VIX has been soaring.

As our friends at Zero Hedge have pointed out, the last time we witnessed this much fear on Wall Street the S&P 500 was absolutely plummeting…

With the S&P 500 around 3.5% off its record highs, we note that fear has exploded. The last time fear was this high, the S&P was down 40%!…

We shall watch and see what happens this time around.

Zero Hedge has also pointed out that Goldman Sachs has been aggressively selling off billions of dollars worth of stocks recently…

What is even more remarkable is just how much Goldman has harvested so far in 2021: as shown below, having started with a $20BN equity portfolio which has enjoyed a $5BN increase in market prices, Goldman dumped a whopping $5.5 billion of its equity assets so far (excluding a modest $1.5BN in purchases) or more than a quarter of its entire portfolio as of Dec 31.

This is not normal for Goldman Sachs.

In fact, you have to go all the way back to just before the financial crisis of 2008 to find another time when they did such a thing…

The last time Goldman was “aggressively” selling into a “supportive” market? Well, we have to go back all the way to 2007 and 2008 when Goldman was busy creating the very CDOs which its prop desk would then “aggressively” short.

We all remember how prophetic that particular move turned out to be…

That is “interesting” to say the least.

But as big financial institutions such as Goldman Sachs are dumping stocks, talking heads on television continue to assure all of us that a wonderful new era of great prosperity is just ahead.  Just check out what Bill Ackman told CNBC on Monday…

Billionaire investor Bill Ackman said Monday that the spread of the delta variant doesn’t pose a significant threat to the economic reopening, and he sees interest rates rising on the back of the big comeback.

“I hope what it does is that it motivates anyone who doesn’t get the vaccine to get the vaccine. I don’t think it’s going to change behavior to a great extent,” Ackman said in a interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” “You are going to see a massive, my view, economic boom. … We are going to have an extremely strong economy coming in the fall.”

Wouldn’t it be nice if he was right?

I would love to see a “massive” economic boom.

Unfortunately, I don’t believe that is going to happen.  In fact, I believe that we are rapidly approaching some of the most difficult economic times that we have ever seen.

The laws of economics cannot be ignored forever.  The federal government is now 28 trillion dollars in debt, we are in the midst of the greatest corporate debt binge of all time, and U.S. consumers continue to go into debt as if tomorrow will never arrive.

But tomorrow always arrives eventually, and our “tomorrow” is going to be a day of reckoning that is going to be far more painful than most people would dare to imagine.

***It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael Snyder and my brand new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book I have written five others that are available on Amazon.com including  “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, “Get Prepared Now”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. (#CommissionsEarned)  By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe.  I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.  I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.  During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.

You Might Want To Check On Your “Investments”, Because The Financial Markets Are Starting To Go Haywire

Is the party almost over?  Volatility has returned to Wall Street in a major way, and certain investors are getting absolutely crushed.  On Wednesday, a trillion dollars in paper wealth had been wiped out during the trading session at one point, but those losses were later pared back as cryptocurrencies rallied.  On social media, there has been a lot of weeping and wailing due to the huge financial losses that some people have experienced this week.  But if you think that these losses are bad, just wait until you see what is coming later.

In the old days, investors would carefully select the companies that they were going to invest in.  The key was to identify companies that had something of great value to add to society and that were being run very well.  In those days, strict adherence to the fundamentals would often bring great rewards.  Just ask Warren Buffett.

But these days our financial markets are little more than giant casinos.  Companies that lose giant mountains of money year after year are supposedly worth billions of dollars, and “assets” that have no inherent value whatsoever are endlessly gobbled up by drug-fueled “investors” that are looking for a way to get rich quick.

This speculative environment has driven the price of Bitcoin to absolutely insane heights in recent months, but now it is starting to fall.  After hitting a record high of $64,829 in the middle of April, Bitcoin fell to almost $30,000 on Wednesday before bouncing back a bit…

Bitcoin plunged 30% to near $30,000 at one point on Wednesday, continuing a major sell-off in the cryptocurrency markets that began a week ago.

But don’t feel too bad for Bitcoin investors just yet.  Bitcoin is still up more than 30 percent so far this year, and overall it is up close to 300 percent over the past 12 months.

Other cryptocurrencies that have also soared in recent months took a huge bath on Wednesday…

Other cryptocurrencies also plunged on Wednesday. Ether, the digital currency that powers the Ethereum blockchain, was down more than 22% at $2,620.97, according to Coin Metrics. Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency that started as a joke and has been talked up by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, fell 25% to less than 36 cents. Both had substantially larger losses earlier in the session.

Dogecoin is the poster child for the wild speculation that I so often deride on my websites.  It was started as a joke, it is a useless waste of digital space, and it has no inherent value whatsoever.

But at this moment the market cap for Dogecoin is still over 40 billion dollars.

I really wish that I would have started up a cryptocurrency called “Chickencoin” when this craze was first getting started.  It would probably be worth 100 billion dollars by now.

Sadly, at this point the opportunity to get rick quick has passed, because the bubble is starting to burst.  On Tuesday, China set off a wave of panic when a major announcement about the use of cryptos in the country hit the news wires…

The China Internet Finance Association said it will not allow the country’s financial institutions to partake in any business related to cryptocurrency due to the volatile nature of the digital coins, according to a Chinese media report Tuesday that was spotted earlier by Coindesk. This decision isn’t new. China took a similar stance back in 2017, which also resulted in a massive Bitcoin selloff.

The newest crypto investors are the ones that are being hit the hardest.  Many of them got in near the top of the bubble and now they are paying a great price for it…

New entrants to crypto are especially running for the exits, according to a note from Glassnode Insights. About 23% of crypto wallets are now at a loss, and 1.1 million of the addresses have spent all coins they held during this correction.

Needless to say, this is taking an enormous emotional toll on many people.  On Reddit, some users were even posting the telephone numbers for suicide hotlines…

People on Reddit trading boards described losing their shirts and some people even posted telephone numbers for a suicide help line in case the losses led to hopeless feelings.

Some investors have gotten rich by investing in cryptos, but others are literally losing everything.  On Wednesday, those that had made huge leveraged bets that cryptos would keep rising got absolutely monkey-hammered…

As of Wednesday afternoon in New York, about $9 billion of liquidations of leveraged bets had taken place in the previous 24 hours, according to data provider Bybt. The majority were of long positions in which traders bet on an increase in the price of bitcoin or another cryptocurrency. Such liquidations take place when the market moves against a trader who isn’t able to exit from the trade or post enough additional funds to meet the exchange’s margin requirements.

For the moment, the losses on the stock market seem quite tame by comparison.  The Dow has declined for six of the last eight trading sessions, and it was down another 164 points on Wednesday…

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 164.62 points, or 0.5%, Wednesday, paring an earlier drop of as much as 587 points, as investors broadly retreated from riskier assets. The index has fallen in six of the past eight sessions.

But there is a whole lot more chaos going on under the surface.  As Zero Hedge has pointed out, “in the past 7 sessions, stocks have suffered 3 of the largest bouts of concentrated selling pressure in history”.

Insiders and wealthy investors have been bailing out of stocks at a staggering pace recently, and many believe that this summer will be a very troubled time for stock investors.

But whether it happens sooner or later, it is inevitable that the stock market bubble will burst as well.

The Ponzi scheme that we call “our financial system” is destined to fail, and that should be obvious to everyone at this point.

Unfortunately, many self-deluded “investors” will stay in the game until it is far too late, and they will lose everything as a result.

***Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael Snyder and my brand new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book, I have written four others that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned)  By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe.  I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.  I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook, Twitter and Parler, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.  During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.

U.S. Financial Markets Have Become A Giant Mirage Built On A Foundation Of Fraud

Would you pay more than 100 million dollars for a single deli in rural New Jersey that had less than $36,000 in sales during the last two years combined?  I know that sounds like a completely ridiculous question, but the stock market apparently thinks that deli is worth that much.  On Thursday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above 34,000 for the first time in history, and investors all over the country cheered.  But this financial bubble is not real.  It is a giant mirage that is built on a foundation of fraud.  Investors have lost all touch with reality, and in this sort of euphoric environment a small deli in rural New Jersey can literally be valued at more than 100 million dollars…

The Paulsboro, New Jersey-based Your Hometown Deli is the sole location for Hometown International, which has an eye-popping market value despite totaling $35,748 in sales in the last two years combined, according to securities filings.

“Someone pointed us to Hometown International (HWIN), which owns a single deli in rural New Jersey … HWIN reached a market cap of $113 million on February 8. The largest shareholder is also the CEO/CFO/Treasurer and a Director, who also happens to be the wrestling coach of the high school next door to the deli. The pastrami must be amazing,” Einhorn said in a letter to clients published Thursday.

For young people getting ready to graduate from high school and go to college, don’t waste your time.

Just open up a small deli and go public.

Soon you will be a multi-millionaire.

Alternatively, you could start a fake cryptocurrency as a joke and watch it become worth billions of dollars.

To me, what is happening with “Dogecoin” is completely and utterly insane…

The digital currency Dogecoin surged by more than 85 percent so far this week in thrilling scenes for fans of the bizarre coin. Launched in 2013 and created by Jackson Palmer and Billy Markus as a joke, the cryptocurrency has never seen the highs of rival coins like bitcoin, which is currently worth $63,531.49. But a growing fanbase has helped kickstart the meme coins value, and today has seen the prices skyrocket.

Looking at it objectively, I don’t know why any rational investor would ever put one red cent into Dogecoin.

But in 2021, rational investors are being left in the dust, and those that foolishly rush in are getting filthy rich.

I know that it may be hard to believe, but at this point Dogecoin has a market cap that is greater than 22 billion dollars…

According to CoinDesk, Dogecoin has surged by 49.96 percent in 24 hours to $0.171956, as of 9.02pm on April 15.

In GBP, Dogecoin stands at £0.124731.

The market cap for Dogecoin is currently $22.19 billion in USD and £16.10 billion in GBP.

Someday Dogecoin will be worthless, but for now this “meme currency” is shocking the world.

Speaking of ridiculous valuations, Coinbase just went public, and it is currently valued at more than 85 billion dollars…

Coinbase was briefly valued at as much as $100 billion in its Nasdaq debut Wednesday, a landmark event for the cryptocurrency industry. The stock closed at $328.28 per share, valuing Coinbase at $85.8 billion on a fully diluted basis.

Don’t you wish that you would have been the one to launch Coinbase?

Of course all of these absurd valuations are just temporary.

This bubble will inevitably pop, and those that did not sell at the top of the market will be kicking themselves.

In the financial markets, enormous fortunes are being won and lost all the time, but none of this is real.

What is real are the riots that are happening in our streets on a nightly basis.  Last night, rioters “waved a pig’s head” at police officers in Minnesota…

DAUNTE Wright protesters waved a pig’s head at cops as chaos again erupted in Brooklyn Center, with hundreds storming the police station.

Demonstrators came out for the fourth night in a row since Wright, 20, was fatally shot by police officer Kim Potter during a traffic stop on Sunday.

Sadly, instead of trying to calm the violence BLM leaders are actually arguing that rioting and looting are legitimate forms of political expression…

A prominent activist who supports the Black Lives Matter movement has appeared to support violent protests, arguing that rioting and looting are ‘a legitimate, politically-informed response to state violence’.

Bree Newsome, 35, made the passionate remarks in a series of tweets this week, arguing that police are not limited to non-violence, and that a violent response to injustice can be appropriate and justified.

And do you want to know what else is real?

As I discussed a couple days ago, social decay is transforming city streets all over America into drug-infested wastelands…

Homeless men lie on the sidewalk while others wearing blankets and rags loiter on a street strewn with garbage, feces, and drug paraphernalia along the notorious Kensington Avenue drag in Philadelphia.

Video posted online on March 10 shows people living out of suitcases on the sidewalks in the area adjacent to the entrance to the Somerset train station along the Market-Frankford train line while others openly brandish needles.

Cardboard boxes with trash bags stacked on top of them lie feet away from the entrances to various pawn shops, check-cashing stores, delis, and bodegas.

The financial bubble that we are experiencing right now will go away, but the problems on our streets are not going away.

In fact, they are only going to get worse in the months and years ahead.

But if you don’t want to believe this, go ahead and pour your life savings into Hometown International or Dogecoin and see what happens.

You only make money in the markets if you get out in time, and time is quickly running out for those that have put their faith in this financial bubble.

***Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael Snyder and my brand new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book, I have written four others that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned)  By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe.  I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.  I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook, Twitter and Parler, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.  During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.

Has The Great Shaking Of The Financial Markets Finally Begun?

A whole host of prominent voices have been warning that volatility and chaos would be returning to Wall Street, and that is precisely what has happened.  But is this just a temporary blip, or has the great shaking of the financial markets finally begun?  Many stock market investors are very much hoping for the former, because the pain is already becoming quite severe.  The Nasdaq has fallen more than 5 percent this week, and it is headed for its second consecutive weekly loss.  But the bond market has actually been making even bigger news.  On Thursday, the yield on 10-year U.S. Treasuries actually exceeded 1.6% at one point, and that was the highest level that we have seen in quite a long time.  Some pundits are calling what just took place a “flash crash”, but it certainly appears that yields could move even higher in the days ahead.

Throughout the COVID pandemic, stock prices have just gone higher and higher, but everyone knew that the party would end eventually.

Have we now reached that point?  The numbers tell us that Thursday was the single worst day for stocks so far in 2021…

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 559.85 points, or 1.8%, to 31,402.01, slipping from a record high. The S&P 500 lost 2.5% to 3,829.34 in its worst day since Jan. 27. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite slid 3.5% to 13,119.43, posting its biggest sell-off since Oct. 28. Alphabet, Facebook, and Apple all fell more than 3%, while Tesla dropped 8.1%. Microsoft shed 2%.

We are being told that the biggest reason why stocks were falling so much was because of “a full on rout in the bond market”…

It’s “just a full on rout in the bond market. So that filters into everything else,” said Evercore ISI strategist Dennis DeBusschere. “It looks like we just had a flash move in bonds. With a puke move that drove [10-year] yields to 1.6%… We just have to wait for some form of equilibrium in bonds.”

Considering how much our money supply has been rising, there was simply no way that bond yields could stay where they were.  It was just a matter of time before inflation fears scared investors, and finally on Thursday the rush for the exits became a stampede…

“It is all about bond yields today,” said Ryan Detrick, chief market strategist for LPL Financial. “There was a flash spike in the 10-year yield and that upset the apple cart, as higher yields are spooking the stock market. Could there be more inflation coming than what most think?”

I can answer Detrick’s question in one word.

Yes.

Eventually, we are going to see inflation rise to levels that most people never dreamed would be possible in the United States.

Meanwhile, the real economy continues to rapidly deteriorate all around us.

One day after Fry’s Electronics announced that it would be going out of business, Best Buy revealed that it will be letting 5,000 workers go…

Best Buy said Thursday that it laid off 5,000 workers this month and is planning to close more stores this year as more consumers buy electronics online.

The news comes at a time when big chains face growing competition from Amazon and other sites that sell items like TVs and laptops. Fry’s Electronics said Wednesday that it would abruptly close all of its stores overnight, ending nearly four-decades in business.

I have always had a soft spot for Best Buy, and so this made me quite sad.

So many iconic businesses are crumbling, and America will never be the same.

Of course one of the primary reasons why so many traditional retailers are failing is because online shopping has surged during this pandemic.  But as online shopping becomes increasingly dominant, it has created an epidemic of package thefts…

Forty-three percent of Americans shopping online experienced package theft last year, up from 36 percent in 2019, according to a recent market research study. Of that 43 percent, almost two-thirds reported packages having been stolen more than once. The New York Police Department does not keep data to that level of specificity, I was told, and the most recent figures available for the city estimated that 90,000 packages had disappeared every day in 2019.

90,000 packages a day?

The number really shocked me.

That means that on average at least 90,000 crimes are committed in just one of our major cities every single day.

If things are that bad in New York, what would the number for the entire nation be?

Everywhere you look, the social decay that is eating away at our society like cancer is getting worse and worse.  At one time you could trust that most Americans were law abiding citizens that would consistently try to do the right thing, but those days are long gone.

And as economic conditions get even bleaker, that is just going to feed even more crime, civil unrest and social decay.

In the short-term, a very large proportion of the U.S. population is counting on the federal government to bail them out…

Almost one-third, or 29%, of U.S. adults are counting on another round of government relief to get by, and another 24% say they need it but doubt it will happen, a new CNBC + Acorns Invest in You survey conducted by SurveyMonkey found.

People of color are more likely to be relying on the relief, especially Black women. Half of Black Americans and 40% of Hispanics said they were counting on it, while 57% of Black women said the same. Additionally, 24% of Blacks and Hispanics need it but don’t think it will come to fruition.

All the way back when the first round of “stimulus payments” was being proposed, I warned that we were opening up Pandora’s Box.

I warned that the American people would be demanding more payments in the future, and they will reward politicians that are able to deliver those payments at the ballot box.

Of course by borrowing and spending trillions of dollars that we do not have, we are destroying the reserve currency of the world and we are setting the stage for horrific inflation in the future.

In fact, the inflation that is already here is now causing a tremendous amount of instability in the financial markets.

But the “great shaking” is not here quite yet.  What we are experiencing now are early warning signs, and hopefully people are paying attention.

***Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael Snyder and my brand new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book, I have written four others that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned)  By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe.  I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.  I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook, Twitter and Parler, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.  During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.

Someone Please Tell Powell, Yellen And Biden That We Are Going To Need A Lot More “Weimar Money”…

Volatility has returned to Wall Street, and it appears that our absolutely epic stock market bubble may be in serious trouble.  The S&P 500 closed down for the fifth trading session in a row on Monday, and that represents the longest losing streak that we have seen since last February.  Investors are starting to get quite nervous, because for most of the past year stock prices have gone in just one direction.  Even as the real economy has imploded all around us, there has been tremendous euphoria on Wall Street as stock prices have surged to dizzying heights.  If stock prices were allowed to crash, that would definitely not be good for the national mood at all.

So what is the solution?

This stock market bubble was originally created by unprecedented intervention by the Federal Reserve and by extremely wild borrowing and spending by the U.S. government, and in order to keep the bubble going we are going to need a lot more of the same.

So someone needs to tell Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell that it is time to go “full Weimar” so that we can prop up this bubble for as long as humanly possible.

For a while there in 2020, the Fed’s balance sheet was increasing at a nearly vertical pace, but in recent months it has only been going up at an exponential rate…

If the Fed wants to keep stock prices at their current levels, Powell and his minions need to fire up the engines again.

Meanwhile, the federal government has work to do as well.  If our politicians in Washington really want stock prices to remain ridiculously high, they need to send more checks to the American people as soon as possible.

The effects of the last round of checks is already starting to wear off, and retail investors need more “stimulus money” to fritter away in their Robinhood accounts.

The good news for Wall Street is that Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has reiterated her call for a large stimulus package, and Joe Biden has said that he is ready to sign one into law.

Of course at this point poor old Joe signs anything that his handlers put on his desk.

We haven’t added another trillion dollars to the national debt in a few months, and investors are quite eager to see our grand total cross the 28 trillion dollar mark.  Most of them believe that more stimulus money will mean higher stock prices, but more stimulus money will also cause our money supply to grow even larger.

Since the start of the pandemic, M1 has been growing at a rate that would put the Weimar Republic to shame…

When I look at that chart, I feel like I am going to throw up.

But the only way to “save Wall Street” is to throw more giant mountains of money on to the fire.  If we don’t go “full Weimar”, stock prices might crash to reasonable levels, and investors would be absolutely horrified.

And we are already starting to see warning signs.  Just look at what happened to Tesla on Monday…

Shares of Tesla closed down 8.55% on Monday, as investors betting on a pandemic comeback rotated out of Big Tech and piled into cyclical stocks.

It’s Tesla’s biggest drop since Sept. 23, 2020, when it closed down 10.34%.

Do you want to be responsible for Tesla investors losing hundreds of billions of dollars in paper profits?

If not, then you need to support more printing, more borrowing and more spending.

Of course I am being facetious in this article.

By going down the road of hyperinflation, we are systematically destroying the value of the reserve currency of the world, we are piling up trillions of dollars of debt that future generations would never possibly be able to repay, and we are setting the stage for the inevitable meltdown of our current financial system.

In other words, we are literally committing national suicide.

Following World War I, they did the exact same thing in Germany.

The Weimar Republic created money like there was no tomorrow, and at first it fueled a tremendous speculative boom.  Just a couple days ago, Michael Burry posted about this on his Twitter account…

“Speculation alone, while adding nothing to Germany’s wealth, became one of its largest activities. The fever to join in turning a quick mark infected nearly all classes..Everyone from the elevator operator up was playing the market.”

But that bubble didn’t last, did it?

Germany plunged into a horrific economic depression that shocked the entire world.  Eventually, people were running around with wheelbarrows full of cash to pay for things, but nobody wanted the money because it was so worthless.

And of course the collapse of the Weimar Republic set the stage for World War II.

So why do we refuse to learn from history?

Sadly, it isn’t just the U.S. that is going down a hyperinflationary path.  Governments all over the globe have been printing, borrowing and spending money at unprecedented levels, and now the ratio of the world’s debt to GDP has reached a staggering 356 percent…

The world’s debt-to-GDP ratio rose to 356% in 2020, a new report from the Institute of International Finance finds, up 35 percentage points from where it stood in 2019, as countries saw their economies shrink and issued an ocean of debt to stay afloat.

We all know how this story ends.

It ends with an absolutely nightmarish global economic collapse.

I have been sounding the alarm for years, and many others have as well.

Unfortunately, those warnings have gone unheeded.

Even though our forefathers handed us the keys to the greatest economic machine the world had ever seen, in our insatiable greed we always had to have more.

We just kept borrowing and spending, and many of us assumed that our self-destructive behavior would never actually catch up with us.

Disaster didn’t strike when our national debt hit 10 trillion dollars, and it didn’t strike when it hit 20 trillion dollars either.

To a lot of Americans, it seemed like we could keep this charade going indefinitely.

But now we are facing a day of reckoning, and the price for going “full Weimar” is going to be very bitter indeed.

***Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael Snyder and my brand new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book, I have written four others that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned)  By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe.  I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.  I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook, Twitter and Parler, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.  During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.

Experts Are Warning That A U.S. Stock Market Crash Is Very Likely In The Months Ahead

Stock prices are not going to stay this high.  Everyone can see that we are in a stock market bubble that does not have any parallel in all of U.S. history, and everyone can see that the end of that bubble is approaching.  The only debate is about how fast and how far the eventual fall will be.  For the first time ever, the ratio of U.S. stock prices to U.S. GDP has reached 200 percent.  In other words, the total value of U.S. stocks is now twice as high as the value of all U.S. economic output for an entire year.  To get an idea of how crazy this is, just check out this chart.  Historically, the ratio of U.S. stock prices to U.S. GDP is normally under 100 percent, and so if all stock prices were cut in half U.S. stocks would still be overvalued.  That is how extreme this bubble has become.

Other key valuation measures also indicate that stock prices have gotten wildly out of balance.  The following example comes from a Motley Fool article entitled “Here’s Why You Should Expect a 20% Stock Market Crash in 2021”…

Looking back 150 years, the S&P 500 has averaged a Shiller P/E of 16.78. Admittedly, the Shiller P/E ratio has been a lot higher over the past 25 years. The advent of the internet has broken down information barriers for retail investors, and historically low lending rates for more than a decade have fueled borrowing and lit a fire under growth stocks.

But as of Feb. 3, the Shiller P/E for the S&P 500 was knocking on the door of 35 — more than double the long-term average. To put this figure into some context, there have only been five periods in history where the Shiller P/E ratio topped 30 and stayed there during a bull market run. Two of these events — the Great Depression and dot-com bubble — led to some of the biggest pullbacks ever witnessed in equities. Two other events (not counting the current move) occurred within the past three years, delivering declines of 20% and 34%, respectively, in the S&P 500.

Basically what this is saying is that if stock prices fell by half, the Shiller P/E for the S&P 500 would still be above the long-term average.

So if the market only falls by 20 percent this year as that Motley Fool article is suggesting, we should consider ourselves to be extremely fortunate.

We have never seen anything like this before.  The bubble that we are in now absolutely dwarfs the epic stock market bubbles of 1929 and 2000.  Stock market mania has gripped the entire nation, and all sorts of people have been getting rich, at least on paper.

But many Wall Street veterans that have been watching all of this transpire have become extremely concerned.  The following comes from a Forbes article entitled “Is The Stock Market About To Crash?”…

‘Very, very concerning’ echoes of the 90s dot-com bubble are being heard loud and clear by nervous market experts. A 12-year-old bull market; SPAC mania; IPOs that more than double on the first trading day; an army of amateur traders and GameStop mania. It certainly feels like irrational exuberance–and it triggers alarms for those who remember the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s. “The parallels we have today are historically very, very concerning,” notes Jim Stack, president of Whitefish, Montana’s InvesTech Research and Stack Financial Management. “The current froth is the icing on the cake, and when you look through it, you see a lot of other underlying issues.”

In this sort of environment, videos by kids on YouTube showing people how to make a million dollars by day trading stocks get hundreds of thousands of views.

If you have been able to make a lot of money by playing the stock market, good for you.

Just make sure that you get out in time.

Every other stock market bubble in U.S. history has ended badly, and as John Hussman recently noted, this is our generation’s moment of peak financial insanity…

Nothing so animates a speculative herd as a parabolic price advance in an asset detached from any standard of value. I am convinced that future generations will use the present moment to define the concept of a reckless speculative extreme, in the same way our generation uses “1929” and “2000.”

So just how far does Hussman think the market could ultimately fall?

Well, he believes that stock prices would have to drop 65 to 70 percent just to get back to historical norms…

Understand how extreme current valuations have become. In order to simply touch run-of-the-mill historical valuation norms, the S&P 500 would have to lose somewhere in the range of 65-70% over the completion of this cycle.

Stock prices always, always, always get back to their historical averages eventually.

It is just a matter of time.

However, we should hope that a stock market crash can be put off for as long as possible, because a truly catastrophic stock market crash would cause far more economic pain than we have experienced so far.

Our system simply would not be able to handle a decline of 50 percent or more in stock prices.  It would essentially mean the end of our financial system as we know it today, and that is something that nobody should want.

The good news is that I do not expect a stock market crash within the next 30 days unless some sort of major “trigger event” comes along.

Stocks may go down, but for the moment I expect at least a short-term period of relative stability.

But that short-term period of relative stability will not last very long at all, and I fully expect 2021 as a whole to be a very, very painful year.

***Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael Snyder and my brand new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book, I have written four others that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned)  By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe.  I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.  I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook, Twitter and Parler, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.  During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.

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