Stock Market Crash 2015: The Dow Has Already Plummeted 2200 Points From The Peak

Crack The Sky - Public DomainThose that watched their stocks steadily increase in value for years are now seeing all of that “wealth” disappear at a staggering pace.  The only way you actually make money in the stock market is if you get out in time, and many Americans are discovering that all or most of their gains have already been wiped out.  At this point, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has dipped below where it was at the end of the 2013 calendar year.  That means that nearly two years of gains have already been obliterated.  On Friday, the Dow was down another 272 points, and it is now down more than 2200 points from the peak of the market back in May.  For months, I have been detailing how things were setting up for this kind of financial crash in textbook fashion, and now events are playing out just as I warned.  But this is just the beginning – what is coming next is going to shock the world.

We have already seen the 8th largest and 10th largest single day stock market crashes in all of U.S. history happen within the past few weeks.  In fact, it was actually the very first time that we have ever seen the Dow fall by more than 500 points on consecutive trading days.

On August 25th, I warned that there would be some huge rebound days where we would see lots of “panic buying”, and on August 26th we witnessed the 3rd largest single day stock market increase in all of U.S. history.

Headlines all over America trumpeted the “fact” that the stock market had “recovered”, but the mainstream media failed to mention that the only two better days for the stock market were right in the middle of the stock market crash of 2008.

In this article, I explained that this is exactly the type of market behavior that we expect to see during a full-blown market meltdown.  There are going to be even more violent swings in the market in the weeks ahead, but the general direction will be down.

Friday was definitely another down day.  The following is how Zero Hedge summarized the carnage…

  • Dow Industrials lowest weekly close since April 2014
  • Dow Transports lowest weekly close since May 2014
  • S&P 500 lowest weekly close since Oct 2014’s Bullard lows
  • Nikkei dumped over 7% this week – worst week since April 2014
  • Utilities collapsed 5.1% this week – worst week since March 2009
  • Financials lowest weekly close since Oct 2014’s Bullard lows
  • Biotechs lowest weekly close since Feb 2015
  • Investment Grade Corporate Bond Spreads worst since June 2013
  • Treasury Curve (2s30s) flattened 6bps today – biggest drop in 2 weeks.
  • JPY strengthened 2.4% on week against the USD – strongest week since August 2013 (up 4.5% in 3 weeks) – major carry unwind!

I wish I could tell you that things are going to get better, but I can’t do that.  There are some giant financial bubbles that are starting to unwind, and this process is going to take time to fully unfold.

And this is truly a global phenomenon.  Chinese stocks have been crashing horribly, Japanese stocks just had their worst week in over a year, Canada and much of South America are plunging into recession, and Europe is probably in worse shape than everyone else if you look at the fundamentals.

Even though U.S. stocks have already fallen substantially, the truth is that they easily have much farther to fall.  Yale economics professor Robert Shiller believes that we could actually soon see the Dow plunge all the way to 11,000

In what amounts to an ominous message for Wall Street, Robert Shiller, a Yale economics professor and author of Irrational Exuberance, doled out some serious bear talk this morning.

Shiller told CNBC Thursday morning that “this is a dangerous time” for the stock market.

Shiller, who has a reputation for calling market tops, warned that the Dow Jones industrial average, which closed Wednesday at 16,351, could fall as low as 11,000, a potential drop of more than 30% from current levels.

At the moment, the Dow is sitting just above 16,000, which is an exceedingly important psychological level.

If the Dow breaks below 16,000 and stays there for a few days, it is quite likely that full-blown panic will set in.

And once we see the Dow dip below 15,000, people will be going insane.

Another key indicator to watch is the VIX (the CBOE Volatility Index).  If you are not familiar with the VIX, here is  a pretty good definition from Investopedia

The ticker symbol for the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) Volatility Index, which shows the market’s expectation of 30-day volatility. It is constructed using the implied volatilities of a wide range of S&P 500 index options. This volatility is meant to be forward looking and is calculated from both calls and puts. The VIX is a widely used measure of market risk and is often referred to as the “investor fear gauge.”

Right now it is sitting at 27.80.  If the VIX rises above 40 and stays there, that will be a major red flag.

We have entered “the danger zone“, and events are going to start moving very rapidly now.  If you have been listening to the warnings, you are going to understand why things are happening and you are going to know what to do.

Unfortunately, most people are going to have that “deer in the headlights” look because they will not understand what is happening and they will be frozen by fear.

Stay tuned to this website and to End Of The American Dream because things are about to get very weird and I will do my best to explain them as the coming weeks and months play out.

So what do you think the rest of September will bring?

Please feel free to join the discussion by posting a comment below…

September 2015 Sure Started Off With Quite A Bang, Eh?

Bang Explosion - Public DomainAfter enduring their worst August in 17 years, U.S. stocks are off to their worst start to a September in 13 years.  Just yesterday, I declared that we would be entering the “danger zone” this month, and it didn’t take long for the action to begin.  Historically, this month is the worst month of the year for stocks, and most of the biggest stock market crashes throughout our history have come in the fall.  On Tuesday, the Dow plunged another 469 points, and it is now down more than 10 percent from the peak of the market back in May.  That means that we have officially entered “correction” territory.  Asian stocks also crashed hard on Tuesday, so did European stocks, and the price of oil plummeted about 8 percent.  For a long time, there have been a lot of people out there that have been warning that a financial crisis would happen in the second half of 2015, and they are being proven right.  It is actually happening.

Of course there will be plenty of ups and downs still to come.  I cannot emphasize enough that we should fully expect waves of panic selling and waves of panic buying.  This always happens during any market crash.

For instance, just consider what happened when the tech bubble crashed.  The following analysis comes from Graham Summers

In a six month period, investors moved stocks down 19%, up 8%, then down 27%, then up 21%, then down 22%, then up 34%, then down 17%, then up 16%, then down 28%, then up 16%, and finally down 17%. Only at that point did stocks break their trendline for the bubble (the blue line) and it became obvious that the bubble had burst.

My point with all of this is that even when the bubble was both very specific AND obvious, the collapse was neither quick nor clean. There were several large 20%+ crashes, but overall, it was a roller coaster with jarring rallies that gradually wore its way down.

It was a full-blown market collapse, and yet there were moments when the market absolutely skyrocketed.

The same thing happened in 2008.  In fact, the best two days in stock market history were right in the middle of the last financial crisis.

So don’t be fooled by what happens on any one particular day.  Huge up days and huge down days are both red flags.

If the market is going to recover any time soon, what we need are nice quiet days without much volatility.  Unfortunately, that is not likely to happen any time soon because a tremendous amount of damage has already been done and some massive imbalances have already developed.  I like how Richard Smith put it recently…

Serious damage has been done to the financial markets in the past two weeks – very serious. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

No one should be kidding themselves that what’s happened in the past two weeks is just a little late summer blip – building up some energy to rally into the fall and winter. I’m not saying it couldn’t happen but it isn’t the odds play.

Everywhere I look, technical damage has been done – and it’s like nothing we’ve seen since 2008.

Yes, the mainstream media is telling everyone that they shouldn’t panic and that everything will be just fine, but those that study the charts for a living know what is really happening.  For months, I have been telling you over and over that things were setting up in textbook fashion for another financial crisis, and other experts have been seeing the exact same things that I have been seeing.  For example, just consider what Louise Yamada told CNBC

Looking at a chart of the S&P 500, Louise Yamada noted that momentum has been declining for four months, which by her work, is a “classic” sell signal.

“This is suggesting to me that we are looking at a bear market,” said Yamada said Tuesday on CNBC’s “Futures Now.” Yamada noted that the last two times the market saw a similar shift in momentum were in January 2008 and June 2000.

Right now, a lot of people are very confused about what to do.  Those that told them to buy stocks in the first place are telling them to buy even more stocks.  And of course the mainstream media is telling them that everything is going to be just wonderful after this “correction” runs its course.  But at the same time a lot of people have a gut feeling that things are about to get really bad.

Personally, I think that what John Hussman shared in his recent newsletter contains a lot of wisdom…

“If you’re taking more equity risk than you can actually tolerate if the market goes south, setting your portfolio right isn’t a market call – it’s just sound financial planning. It’s only fun to be reckless if you also turn out to be lucky. Market conditions are now more hostile than at any time since the 2007 peak. If you want to be speculating, and you can tolerate the outcome, then you’re not taking too much equity risk in the first place. But it’s one or the other. Can you tolerate a 40-55% market loss over the next 18 months or so? If not, take this opportunity to set things right. That’s not the worst-case scenario under present conditions; it’s actually the run-of-the-mill historical expectation.”

I also want to point out that we are now less than two weeks away from the end of the Shemitah year.

If you are still not familiar with the concept of the Shemitah year, please see my previous article entitled “The Shemitah: The Biblical Pattern Which Indicates That A Financial Collapse May Be Coming In 2015“.

Even though the stock market crashed in September 2001 at the end of a Shemitah year, and in September 2008 at the end of another Shemitah year, and it is crashing again in September 2015, somehow there are still people out there that do not think that this is real.

Well, I am here to tell you that this is very real.  But if you won’t listen to me, perhaps you will consider the findings of Israeli mathematician Thomas Pound.  The following comes from an outstanding piece that was just published by WND

After a friend told him about the seven-year Sabbatical cycle to the stock market, Pound again set out to see if the theory held up under statistical scrutiny.

Applying the same ANOVA test to the Shemitah cycle, Pound’s research revealed that the sabbatical years were the only group of years in which the market cycle averages consistent significant losses since 1871.

He also found that, in Shemitah years, the difference in loss was greater than that noted in professor Shiller’s decennial cycle.

“Statistically, it appears that the calendar years in which the Sabbatical year ends are worse than the other six years, and that difference is significant based on the data I have,” Pound told Breaking Israel News.

Look, I know that this may not fit with how you currently view the world.

The truth is that a whole bunch of weird stuff is about to happen that may not fit with how you currently view the world.

But if you honestly want to discover the truth, then you have got to go wherever the evidence ultimately leads you.

So what do you think about all of this?  Please feel free to join the discussion by posting a comment below…

In The Month Of September 2015 We Officially Enter The Danger Zone

Earth Globe Planet Sky World - Public DomainIs September 2015 going to be one of the most important months in modern American history?  When I issued my first ever “red alert” for the last six months of 2015 back in June, I was particularly concerned with the months of September through December, and not just for economic reasons.  All of the intel that I have received is absolutely screaming that big trouble is ahead.  So enjoy these last few days of relative peace and quiet.  I mean that sincerely.  In fact, that is exactly what I have been doing – over the past week I have not posted many articles because I was spending time with family, friends and preparing for the national call to prayer on September 18th and 19th.   But now as we enter the chaotic month of September 2015 I have a feeling that there is going to be plenty for me to write about.

At this time last month, I declared that we were entering “the pivotal month of August 2015“, and that is exactly what it turned out to be.  August was the worst month overall for stocks in three years, and it was the worst month of August for U.S. financial markets in 17 years.

Throughout history, there have only been 11 times when the S&P 500 has declined by more than five percent during the month of August.  When that has happened, the stock market has almost always fallen in September as well

September is the only month in which the S&P 500 fell more frequently than it rose. What’s more, in the 11 times that the S&P 500 fell by more than 5 percent in August, it declined in 80 percent of the subsequent Septembers, and fell an average of nearly 4 percent.

Last week, there was a rally after the initial crash.  I warned that this would happen in advance, and we have seen a similar pattern play out during almost every market collapse throughout history.  The following comes from John Hussman

As I noted early this year (see A Better Lesson than “This Time Is Different”), market crashes “have tended to unfold after the market has already lost 10-14% and the recovery from that low fails.” Prior pre-crash bounces have generally been in the 6-7% range, which is what we observed last week, so I certainly don’t see that bounce as having removed any of our concerns. We remain extremely alert to the prospect for much more extended market losses.

So how far could stocks eventually fall?

Hussman is projecting that we could ultimately see the market decline by more than 50 percent

We fully expect a 40-55% market loss over the completion of the present market cycle. Such a loss would only bring valuations to levels that have been historically run-of-the-mill.

One thing that could accelerate stock market losses this time around is the fact that people have been borrowing lots and lots of money to buy stocks.  That works when the stock market just keeps going up, but once the market turns the margin calls can lead to panic selling on a massive scale.  The following comes from a recent piece by Wolf Richter in which he describes some of the chaos that we have already been witnessing…

Energy stocks and bonds crashed, even those of some large companies like Chesapeake. Some have reached zero. All kinds of other stocks and bonds have gotten eviscerated over the past few months, even tech darlings like Twitter or biotech giant Biogen. Portfolios with a focus on the wrong momentum stocks took a very serious hit.

And margin calls went out. The Journal:

Some lenders, including Bank of America Corp., are issuing margin calls to clients after the global market drubbing of the past week, forcing investors to choose between either putting up more money or selling some of the securities underlying the loans.

Other banks too sent out margin calls, including U.S. Trust, Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo, according to the Journal. With margin calls mucking up the scenario, spooked investors are trying to lower their leverage before they’re forced to, and the boom in securities-based lending appears to be over. And the wealth units of the banks that gorged on these loans are likely to see their profits dented.

If that continues, a much crummier thing happens: margin balances reverse. And the last two times they did after a majestic record-breaking spike, the stock market crashed.

For some more technical reasons why another wave to the downside is coming, see an excellent article entitled “RED ALERT for 2nd CRASH DOWNWAVE…” by Clive P. Maund that you can find right here.

In addition to the chaos in the financial world, we are also witnessing a convergence of events during the month of September that is pretty much unprecedented.  I know that I have never seen anything quite like it in my lifetime.

Recently, I put together a list of 33 events that we know will happen next month, and you can find that list right here.  Instead of repeating the entire article, I just want to highlight a few items from the list…

September 13 – The last day of the Shemitah year.  During the last two Shemitah cycles, we witnessed record-breaking stock market crashes on the very last day of the Shemitah year (Elul 29 on the Biblical calendar).  For example, if you go back to September 17th, 2001 (which was Elul 29 on the Biblical calendar), we witnessed the greatest one day stock market crash in all of U.S. history up until that time.  The Dow plunged 684 points, and it was a record that held for exactly seven years until the end of the next Shemitah cycle.  On September 29th, 2008 (which was also Elul 29 on the Biblical calendar), the Dow plummeted 777 points, which still today remains the greatest one day stock market crash of all time in the United States.  Now we are in another Shemitah year.  It began in the fall of 2014, and it ends on September 13th, 2015.

September 15 – The 70th session of the UN General Assembly begins on this date.  It has been widely reported that France plans to introduce a resolution which will give formal UN Security Council recognition to a Palestinian state shortly after the new session begins.  Up until now, the U.S. has always been the one blocking such a resolution, but Barack Obama has already indicated that things may be different this time around.  It would be extremely difficult to overstate the significance of this.

September 25 to September 27 – The United Nations launches a brand new “universal agenda” for humanity known as “the 2030 Agenda“.

September 28 – This is the date for the last of the four blood moons that fall on Biblical festival dates during 2014 and 2015.  This blood moon will be a “supermoon” and it will be clearly visible from the city of Jerusalem.

If you don’t know what a “supermoon” is, the following is a pretty good summary of what we should expect to see

On the night of 27 to 28 September, the Moon is closest to us at 2.46am, only an hour before it’s full. As a result, this supermoon will appear 14 percent bigger in the sky than the Moon at its most distant and smallest, and it should be 30 percent brighter. The Moon will certainly look unusually big and brilliant around 2am. But at 2.07am you’ll see a small chunk being nibbled out of its brilliant disc by the Earth’s shadow. Sinking deeper and deeper into the darkness, the Moon is totally eclipsed by 3.11am. It remains completely in the shadow of the Earth until 4.23am, when the full Moon gradually begins to emerge.

There has been lots and lots of speculation about other events that could take place during the month of September, but as of right now I cannot prove that any of them will actually happen.

But that doesn’t mean that I’m not watching.

If it sounds ominous to you when I say that we are “entering the danger zone” during the month of September, that is good, because that is precisely the tone that I am attempting to convey.

When things start completely falling apart in this nation, millions upon millions of Americans will complain that nobody warned them in advance about what was coming.

Well, I am warning you right now.

Get ready.

CNN Tells Americans That The Stock Market Is Not Going To Crash

CNN Newsroom - Photo by Doug WaldronOn Wednesday we witnessed the third largest single day point gain for the Dow Jones Industrial Average ever.  That sounds like great news until you realize that the two largest were in October 2008 – right in the middle of the last financial crisis.  This is a perfect example of what I wrote about yesterday.  Every time the market crashes, there are huge up days, huge down days and giant waves of market momentum.  Even though the Dow was up 619 points on Wednesday, overall we are still down more than 2,000 points from the peak of the market.  During the weeks and months to come, we are going to see many more wild market swings, but the overall direction of the market will be down.

Sadly, the mainstream media is still peddling the lie that everything is going to be just fine.  So millions upon and millions of Americans are just going to sit there while their investments get wiped out.  In the six trading days leading up to Wednesday, Americans lost a staggering 2.1 trillion dollars as stocks plunged, and the truth is that this nightmare is only just beginning.

Early on Wednesday morning, CNN published an article entitled “Why U.S. stocks aren’t headed for a crash“.  I had to laugh when I saw that headline.  If CNN is going to make this kind of a claim, they better have something very solid to base it on.  But instead, these are the five reasons we were given for why the stock market is not going to collapse…

1. “The U.S. economy isn’t on the verge of a recession.”

This is exactly what all of the “experts” told us back in 2007 and 2008 too.  In America today, the homeownership rate is at a 48 year low, 46 million Americans go to food banks, and economic growth has slowed to a standstill (and that is if you actually buy the highly manipulated official numbers).  The truth, of course, is that things continue to progressively get worse as our long-term economic decline continues to unfold.  For much more on this, please see my previous article entitled “12 Ways The Economy Is Already In Worse Shape Than It Was During The Depths Of The Last Recession“.

2. “China’s effect on U.S. is limited.”

Really? Go to just about any major retail store and start reading labels.  You will likely find far more things that were “made in China” than you will American-made products.  The global economy is more interconnected than ever before, and the Chinese stock market is the second largest on the entire planet.  Of course what is happening in China is going to affect us.

3. “American businesses are doing pretty well (outside of energy).”

Actually, they were doing pretty well for a while, but now things are turning.  Many large corporations are reporting declining orders, declining revenues and declining profits.  Unsold inventories are beginning to pile up and the pace of layoffs is starting to increase.  All of the things that we would expect to see just prior to another recession are happening.

4. “The Federal Reserve sounds cautious.”

This is laughable.  Ultimately, it isn’t going to matter much at all whether the Federal Reserve barely raises rates or not.  The era of “central bank omnipotence” is at an end.  Just look at what is happening over in Europe.  All of the quantitative easing that the ECB has been doing has not kept their markets from crashing in recent days.  Those that believe that the Federal Reserve can somehow miraculously keep the stock market from crashing this time around are going to end up deeply, deeply disappointed.

5. “Stock prices aren’t crazy high anymore.”

There is some truth to this last point.  Instead of stock prices being really, really, really crazy now they are just really, really crazy.  But as I have pointed out in many previous articles, the technical indicators are very clearly telling us that U.S. stocks still have a long, long way to go down.

But let’s hope that CNN is actually right – at least in the short-term.

Let’s hope that markets settle down and that things stabilize for at least a few weeks.

In order for that to happen, markets need to become a lot less volatile than they are right now.  The rollercoaster ride that we have been on in recent days has been extraordinary

The Dow traveled another 1,600 points during Tuesday’s trading session, adding to the 4,900 points the index traveled in down and up moves on Monday.

Markets tend to go up slowly and steadily when things are calm, and they tend to go down rapidly when things are volatile.

If you are rooting for a return of the bull market, you should be hoping for nice, boring trading days where the Dow goes up by about 100 points or so.  Wild swings like we have seen on Friday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday are very strong indicators that we have entered a bear market.

What we have been witnessing over the past week is almost unprecedented.  Just check out this piece of analysis from Bloomberg

By one metric, investors would have to go back 75 years to find the last time the S&P 500’s losses were this abrupt.

Bespoke Investment Group observed that the S&P 500 has closed more than four standard deviations below its 50-day moving average for the third consecutive session. That’s only the second time this has happened in the history of the index.

Of course after such a dramatic plunge it was inevitable that we were going to have a “bounce back day” where there was lots of panic buying.  Initially it looked like it would be Tuesday, but it turned out to be Wednesday instead.

But if you think that the big gain on Wednesday somehow means that the crisis is “over”, you are going to be sorely mistaken.

Personally, I am hoping that we at least see a bit of a pause in the action, but there is absolutely no guarantee that we will even get that.

As the markets have been flying around, more and more Americans are becoming curious about the potential for a full-blown stock market crash.  The following comes from Business Insider

This one’s pretty easy: according to Google search trends, more Americans are searching for “stock market crash” now that at any point since the last crash.

Right now, search traffic for the term “stock market crash” is hitting about 70% of the most volume this term has ever gotten through Google search.

And so while this data doesn’t convey absolute search volume for the term, we do know that Americans appear to be looking for information about a stock market crash at the highest level in about 7 years.

Very interesting.

In addition, Americans are also becoming more pessimistic about the overall economy.  According to Gallup, the level of confidence that Americans have about the future performance of the U.S. economy is the lowest that it has been in about a year.

And remember – it isn’t just U.S. markets that are starting to go crazy.  All over the planet stocks are crashing and recessions are starting.  In fact, I can’t remember a time when there has been this much economic chaos erupting all over the world all at once.

So can the U.S. resist the overall trend and pull out of this market crash?

Please feel free to share what you think by posting a comment below…

During Every Market Crash There Are Big Ups, Big Downs And Giant Waves Of Momentum

Tsunami Tidal Wave - Public DomainThis is exactly the type of market behavior that we would expect to see during the early stages of a major financial crisis.  In every major market downturn throughout history there were big ups, big downs and giant waves of momentum, and this time around will not be any different.  As I have explained repeatedly, markets tend to go up when things are calm, and they tend to go down when things get really choppy.  During a market meltdown, we fully expect to see days when the stock market absolutely soars.  Waves of panic selling are often followed by waves of panic buying.  As you will see below, six of the ten best single day gains for the Dow Jones Industrial Average happened during the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009.  So don’t be fooled for a moment by a very positive day for stocks like we are seeing on Tuesday.  It is all part of the dance.

At one point on Tuesday, the Dow was up over 400 points, and many of the talking heads on television were proclaiming that the stock market had “recovered”.  This is something that I predicted would happen yesterday

And if stocks go up tomorrow (which they probably should), all of those same “experts” will be proclaiming that the “correction” is over and that everything is now fine.

No, everything is not “fine” now.  The extreme volatility that we are witnessing just tells us that more trouble is coming.  Early on Tuesday the market was “burning up energy” as short-term investors sought to “buy the dip”.  But now that wave of panic buying is subsiding and the Dow is only up 240 points as I write this.

Overall, the Dow is still down more than 2,200 points from the peak of the market.  Even though I specifically warned that a market crash was coming, I didn’t expect the Dow to be down this far in late August.  Even after the “rally” we witnessed today, we are still way ahead of schedule.

The truth is that what we have seen so far is just the warm up act.

The main event will unfold during the months of September through December, and right now most people could not even conceive of the things that we are going to see in 2016.

But all along, there are going to be days when stocks fly higher.  As I mentioned above, many of the “best days” in stock market history occurred right in the middle of the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009.  This is a point that Jim Quinn has made very eloquently…

Six of the ten largest point gains in the history of the stock market occurred between September 2008 and March 2009. That’s right. During one of the greatest market collapses in history, the market soared by 5% to 11% in one day, six times. Here are the data points:

2008-10-13: +936.42

2008-10-28: +889.35

2008-11-13: +552.59

2009-03-23: +497.48

2008-11-21: +494.13

2008-09-30: +485.21

Do you think these factoids will be shared with the public today on the stock bubble networks? Not a chance.

And all of the technical indicators are still screaming that U.S. stocks have a long, long way to fall.  For example, just check out this chart.  The long-term analysis has not changed one bit.

Often, it is the short-term news that drives markets on any particular day.  Tuesday began with another massive stock selloff in Asia

The Shanghai Composite, China’s main stock exchange, fell 7.6% on Tuesday – after losing 8.5% on what state media have called China’s “Black Monday”.

It was the worst fall since 2007 and caused sharp drops in markets in the US and Europe

Tokyo’s Nikkei index had a volatile day, closing 4% lower.

In another desperate attempt to stop the bleeding, the Chinese decided to cut interest rates

The People’s Bank of China has lowered its interest rate for the fifth time since November. The one-year lending has been reduced by 25 basis points to 4.6 percent; the one-year deposit rate has been cut by 25 basis points to 1.75 percent. The change comes into force on Wednesday.

This reduction in interest rates was cheered by investors all over the planet, and as a result there was a wave of panic buying in Europe and in the United States.

But none of the short-term activity changes the fact that global financial markets are absolutely primed for a giant crash.  I like how Bill Fleckenstein put it during a recent interview with King World News

I have no idea how this is going to play out, other than I know we are headed considerably lower. The fact that so few seem to understand what the actual problem is makes me even more confident about that point. It would seem that everyone is using the easy answer and blaming China, but that was just the catalyst. The market has been trading in a heavy sideways fashion for some time, expectations are way higher than can be met, the technical action has now deteriorated, and bad news actually matters at the same time that speculation has run rampant. As I have stated many times (and also noted the reasons why), you couldn’t create a more crash-prone environment if you specifically set out to do so.

What we can’t account for are “black swan events” which could greatly accelerate this financial crisis.

A war in the Middle East, a major natural disaster or a terror attack involving weapons of mass destruction are all examples of the kinds of things that could turn this market crash into full-blown market implosion.

As we move into the critical month of September 2015, I think that it is safe to say that we should all be ready to expect the unexpected.  Our world is becoming increasingly unstable, and I am extremely concerned about the period of time that we are heading into.

The nice, comfortable period of relative stability that we have been experiencing for the past few years has come to an end.  I hope that you have enjoyed the good times while you still had them.

Now we are moving into a time of tremendous chaos and rapidly shifting conditions, and it is imperative that we all work very hard to get prepared for it while we still can.