Stock Market

Why Are So Many Americans Stockpiling Guns, Silver And Food Right Now?

We were told that 2021 would be the year when everything starts to get back to normal.  But that hasn’t exactly been the case, has it?  It has been just over a month, and there is still chaos everywhere.  We have seen a wild riot at the U.S. Capitol, civil unrest has been erupting in major cities from coast to coast, millions of people have filed for unemployment benefits, a president was impeached, and a crazy ride on Wall Street made “GameStop” a national phenomenon.  That would normally be enough for an entire year, but we are still in the first week of February.

All throughout history there have been critical turning points when events have greatly accelerated, and it appears that we have reached one of those turning points.

In fact, this may be turn out to be the biggest turning point of them all.

Millions upon millions of Americans can sense that big trouble is ahead.  For many, it is like a “gut feeling” that they just can’t shake.

Just a few days ago, my wife met a woman from the west coast that just moved here.  This woman and her husband were desperate to leave California, and they felt very strongly that they should move somewhere safe.

What makes her story remarkable is the fact that my wife and I have heard similar stories from others countless times over the past 12 months.

Our nation is being shaken in thousands of different ways, and so many of us can feel that things are building up to some sort of a grand crescendo.

So that is why so many Americans are stockpiling guns, silver and food right now.

They want to be ready for what is ahead.

2020 was a record year for U.S. gun purchases, but instead of slowing down in January, gun sales went even higher…

According to the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check (NCIS) data, 4.3 million firearm background checks were initiated in January. That’s the highest number on record, and up over 300,000 in comparison to December 2020. Three of the top 10 highest weeks are now from January 2021.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation’s adjusted background check figure of 2 million, reached by subtracting out background code permit checks and permit rechecks and checks on active concealed carry permits, was a jump from its adjusted figure of 1.1 million in January 2020.

One of the biggest reasons why people feel a need to be armed right now is because crime rates have been absolutely skyrocketing.

In particular, murder rates in our major cities rose by an average of 30 percent last year…

Murder rates in nearly three dozen American cities exploded in 2020, rising 30 percent over the previous year, resulting in 1,200 more deaths from murder last year when compared to 2019, according to a new study examining possible connections between crime, the coronavirus pandemic and protests against police brutality.

‘Homicide rates were higher during every month of 2020 relative to rates from the previous year. That said, rates increased significantly in June, well after the pandemic began, coinciding with the death of George Floyd and the mass protests that followed,’ states a report from the National Commission of COVID-19 and Criminal Justice (NCCCJ), titled Pandemic, Social unrest and Crime in US Cities.

We have never seen an increase of that magnitude from one year to the next, and the brutality of some of these murders has been off the charts.

For example, the recent murder of two women in California deeply shocked people all over the nation…

A brother of up-and-coming rapper Uzzy Marcus was arrested in California following an eight-hour standoff with police and charged with murdering two women, whose lifeless bodies were captured in an Instagram Live video.

Raymond Weber, 29, was taken into custody by police in Vacaville at around 8.30am on Saturday and was then booked into the Solano County Jail on two counts of first-degree murder and multiple other felonies, including domestic assault.

In addition to the straight up crime we have been witnessing, endless political violence has also made some of our largest cities almost unlivable at this point.

I honestly do not know why anyone would want to live in downtown Portland or downtown Seattle now.  Of course conditions are not much better in the core areas of many of our other major metropolitan areas.

Meanwhile, our economy continues to be greatly shaken and recent volatility in the financial markets caused a massive run on physical silver…

U.S. bullion broker Apmex warned of delays in processing silver transactions because of surging volumes.

Other U.S. dealers, including JM Bullion and SD Bullion, warned customers of shipping delays of five to 10 days. Everett Millman at Gainesville Coins in Florida said they were expecting shipping delays, perhaps until perhaps mid-March, for some products like Silver Eagles and Silver Maples.

Things have calmed down a bit after the craziness of the past few days, but people are going to continue voraciously buying silver.

Precious metals have been a safe haven all throughout human history, and that is especially true during highly inflationary times.

And as I have written about extensively, we are moving into very highly inflationary times.

In addition to gold and silver, Americans have also been feverishly stockpiling food…

Wise Company estimated in 2018 that Americans were buying between $400 million and $450 million worth of emergency food supplies per year. And, while Wise declined to release any specific revenue figures, Eriksson tells CNBC Make It that the company saw its food sales surge by “probably five or six times” in 2020 amid the pandemic.

In the long run, I would argue that food is more important than guns or silver, because you can’t eat guns or silver when you are hungry.

And yes, things will eventually get that bad.

Most people don’t understand the specifics of what is coming, but what they do know is that they have a gnawing feeling deep inside that they can’t shake that really bad things are on the horizon.

I would strongly encourage you to use this current period of relative stability to get prepared for the very uncertain times that are ahead of us.

Everything that can be shaken will be shaken, and our society will soon be turned completely upside down.

***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.

The Exact Same Thing That Is Happening To GameStop Is Eventually Going To Happen To The Stock Market As A Whole

A stock is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it at a particular moment in time.  Sadly, this is a lesson that many GameStop traders are learning right now.  Just a few days ago, GameStop had surged above $300 a share and a lot of investors that had gotten caught up in the frenzy thought that they were suddenly rich.  But you only make money in the stock market when you get out.  Those that sold at the peak of the bubble were extremely fortunate, but most GameStop investors are determined to hold on to the bitter end, and the end will definitely be quite bitter indeed.

I think that it is great that a horde of retail investors want to punish the short sellers, but GameStop is definitely not a long-term investment.

In fact, the fair value for a share of GameStop stock is probably less than a dollar.

So it was quite bizarre that “the Reddit army” was able to push the price of the stock to more than $300 a share.  Ultimately, any really determined group of investors can temporarily pump up the price of any stock, but in order for it to stay elevated there must be buyers that are willing to purchase the stock at that level day after day.

Everyone knew that GameStop was going to come back down, and that has happened in dramatic fashion during the last two trading sessions…

Shares of GameStop sank further on Tuesday, with shares of the volatile retail-trader favorite sliding 60% to finish at $90 per share.

The tumble follows a more than 30% drop during the regular market session Monday after finishing at $325 per share on Friday. That brings the two-day loss to 72%.

For the sake of GameStop investors, I hope that the stock bounces back a bit on Wednesday, but it is just a matter of time before it returns to a level that is much closer to fair value.

Some investors such as Dave Portnoy got really excited about what Reddit traders were trying to do, and he got in at the very top of the bubble.  Now that several of those stocks have cratered, Portnoy has lost approximately 700,000 dollars…

After the bell, Portnoy provided an update on his AMC, NOC, and NAKD positions. He said he bought them at the “absolute high” and sold them at the “exact bottom.” In total, he said losses amounted to $700k, something we noted earlier.

That has got to hurt.

Others have also seen the value of their stock holdings drop in precipitous fashion.

For example, Keith Gill saw the value of his holdings in GameStop drop by 13 million dollars on Tuesday alone…

Keith Gill — who goes by DeepF——Value on Reddit and Roaring Kitty on YouTube — says he suffered a loss north of $13 million on Tuesday alone from his GameStop bet, but he’s still not selling.

He’s the man who helped inspire the epic short squeeze in GameStop last week that sent shockwaves through Wall Street. Through YouTube videos and Reddit posts, Gill attracted an army of day traders who cheered each other on and piled into the brick-and-mortar video game stock and call options, creating a massive short squeeze as the shares jumped 400% last week alone.

I know that he says that he is doing this to make a point, but I have a feeling that someday he is going to look back and kick himself for not selling when he had the chance.

Golden opportunities come along very rarely in life for most people, and when they do it is important to take advantage of them.

Of course one of the big reasons why GameStop crashed was because Robinhood had restricted trading in that stock, and now that the stock has crashed Robinhood is rolling back the limitations…

Robinhood on Tuesday rolled back more of its trading limitations, now allowing clients to buy up to 100 shares of GameStop.

GameStop climbed off the lows as the Robinhood changes were announced.

Speaking of Robinhood, this whole episode has exposed the fact that they were never actually “looking out for the little guy” at all.  The following comes from Senator Josh Hawley…

Enter Robinhood—as in, steal from the rich. Robinhood was the trading platform for the little guy. No fees, no hassle. It was Big Tech, once again, allegedly democratizing another sphere of American life captured by elite control. But like the tech platforms, Robinhood wasn’t really about its users. Its bread was buttered by selling the data on users’ trades to the big players—the elite guys, like Citadel—to give them inside tips on where retail investors were sending their money. And the Citadel guys, in turn, pay off their regulators—like treasury secretary Janet Yellen—in their years away from government for favors when they’re back in power.

What a crooked system we have, but our politicians will never have enough courage to actually try to change it.

And of course the so-called “guardians of democracy” in the mainstream media relentlessly defend our extremely corrupt system.

Sadly, it is just a matter of time before the entire house of cards comes crashing down for good.

The talking heads on television are preaching to us about the dangers of “the GameStop bubble”, but the truth is that our entire stock market has become one gigantic bubble.

As I keep reminding my readers, if the market were to drop by 50 percent tomorrow, it would still be way overvalued.

Price to earnings ratios always return to their historical averages eventually, and it will be no different in our case.

Of course we should hope that the eventual crash can be put off for as long as possible, because the collapse of the stock bubble will severely hurt millions of people financially.

But as sure as you are reading this, it will happen.

So I really don’t want to hear any more babbling from the sanctimonious idiots in the financial community that are trying to tell us that GameStop investors “had it coming”.

Yes, everyone could see that the GameStop saga was not going to end well, but everyone should also be able to see that things are not going to end well for the market as a whole.

If you can make some money in the short-term by playing the stock market, that is great.

But as our friends at Zero Hedge like to say, “on a long enough timeline the survival rate for everyone drops to zero”.

***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.

Guess Which Side The Corporate Media Is Taking In The GameStop Story…

You would think that a plucky group of Internet rebels standing up to a bunch of notorious hedge funds and short sellers would be a story that even the mainstream media should be able to get right, but apparently that is not the case.  As you will see below, the corporate-controlled media is attempting to convince all of us that the hedge funds and the short sellers are actually “the good guys” and that the “Reddit army” that is taking them on is a bunch of dangerous insurrectionists that are a threat to the entire system.  Of course I suppose that it shouldn’t be a surprise that the corporate-controlled media is standing up for the establishment, because the establishment showers them with millions of advertising dollars.  But it really has been disgusting to watch them totally sell out like this.  If you listen to the mainstream media long enough, you would be tempted to believe that we now live in a “Bizarro World” in which everything that was once evil is now good and everything that was once good is now evil.

Just within the past few days, the New York Times has called the “Reddit army” a “rebellion”, Investing Daily has referred to it as an “insurrection”, and NBC News has used the word “insurgency” to describe it.

But first prize actually goes to the Washington Post.  They had the gall to run a story entitled “The good guys in the GameStop story? It’s the hedge funds and short sellers”…

The Gamestop speculators are not merely in a frenzy about one stock. Their goal is to destroy the traders who link stock prices to fair value. To suggest a political analogy, they are not just blindly devoted to their candidate; they deny the legitimacy of the opposition party. They are not just acting within the system; they want to overthrow the system. It’s as though — just imagine — a rabble gripped by conspiracy theories were to attack the rules of democracy itself. The name “Gamestop” is apt.

Are you kidding me?

What is next?  Is the Post going to come out with a story about how Luke Skywalker was evil because he wanted to overthrow the established order that Darth Vader and the Emperor had instituted across the galaxy?

The official slogan of the Washington Post is “Democracy Dies In Darkness”, and that is quite ironic because they have totally gone over to the dark side.  In the same article that I just quoted above, the Post laughably asserted that “a market without short sellers” would be like “a political system without investigative journalists”…

What about short sellers? These are specialists who research stocks that might go down, sometimes because bosses are illegally covering up bad news about their companies. When short sellers identify a case of fraud or similar, they borrow and sell the stock, hoping to buy it back at a lower price later. Again, there is nothing evil about this. To the contrary, it’s a way of keeping prices honest. A market without short sellers is like a political system without investigative journalists.

Yes, let us take a moment of silence right now to acknowledge all of the wonderful contributions that short sellers have made to our society.

It really has been amazing to watch the lengths that some in the mainstream media will go to in an attempt to demonize the retail traders that have banded together to go after the short sellers.  On CNN’s website, Chris Cillizza did his best to try to turn the “woke mob” against the Reddit traders by linking them with Trump.  The following comes from his article entitled “How Trumpism explains the GameStop stock surge”…

The point is that there is no real point beyond showing up the pros — proving to them that they aren’t as smart as they think they are and that they don’t have the ability to control everything.

Which, again, has its roots in Trumpism. The entire notion of Trump’s candidacy and presidency was to stick it to the elites. And then, well, uh, there wasn’t really a plan beyond that. The screwjob was the point.

Others have gone even farther.  To me, it was extremely offensive when former SEC Commissioner Laura Unger compared the short squeeze on Wall Street to the rioting at the U.S. Capitol.

Of course whenever something happens that the establishment really doesn’t like, it is just a matter of time before they start blaming Russia.

The other night, Jimmy Kimmel suggested that “maybe even some Russian disrupters” were at least partially responsible for the chaos on Wall Street, and MarketWatch actually published an article entitled “The GameStop saga is a road map for the Kremlin and other enemies of America”.

Ever since the 2016 election, Russia has become the ultimate boogeyman.

If something major goes wrong, Russia has to be blamed for it somehow.

President Trump at least attempted to keep our relations with Russia fairly stable while he was in office, but now that he is gone I have a feeling that U.S. relations with Russia are going to completely fall apart.

But that is a topic for another article.

Getting back to the topic at hand, the short sellers only have themselves to blame for what happened.  The number of GameStop shares that had been sold short was greater than the number of GameStop shares that actually existed, and that was a golden invitation for anyone that wanted to attempt a massive short squeeze.

If it wasn’t the Reddit army, it was probably going to be someone else.

What a year this has been already.

On the first Wednesday of 2021, there was a massive riot at the U.S. Capitol.

On the second Wednesday of 2021, President Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives.

On the third Wednesday of 2021, Joe Biden was inaugurated.

On the fourth Wednesday of 2021, the GameStop short squeeze made headlines all over the globe.

So will something historic happen this Wednesday?

We shall see, but without a doubt the chaos that we have witnessed so far is just the very start of our troubles.

Everywhere you look, people are extremely angry.

And everywhere you look, our system is being greatly shaken.

Most Americans are sick and tired of the corruption and injustice that they see all around them, and they know that our “leaders” aren’t going to do anything about it.

People are increasingly taking matters into their own hands, and the Reddit army is thrilled that the hedge funds and the short sellers can finally feel their fury.

But fury is not going to fix our system.

At this point, nothing will.

***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.

Is ‘The Reddit Army’ On The Verge Of Creating The Most Epic Silver Short Squeeze In U.S. History?

In all of the years that I have written about precious metals, I have never seen anything like this.  The corporate media is breathlessly reporting that “the Reddit Army” plans to do to silver what it did to GameStop, and this has caused a frenzy of buying and a severe shortage of physical silver at dealers all across the United States.  If things are this crazy already, what is going to happen when the short squeeze actually begins?  For now, “the Reddit Army” is still primarily focused on GameStop and other stocks that major hedge funds have been relentlessly short selling, and in recent days members of that army have actually been purchasing billboard ads to celebrate their success…

The billboards show a unified support for the investors who have driven up the price of GameStop – which was at $2.57 at its lowest point last year – to over $483 a share.

“$GME GO BRRR” read a digital billboard in New York City, with brrr referring to the sound a money-printing machine makes.

The West Coast similarly joined in, with an airplane flying over Santa Monica reading “WE ARE ALL GAMESTOP WALLSTREETBETS.”

I expect that GameStop and other stocks that have been specifically targeted will continue to be the primary focus for “the Reddit Army” during this upcoming week.

But there continues to be quite a bit of discussion on r/WallStreetBets about the potential for a silver short squeeze.  The following is one example…

Silver Bullion Market is one of the most manipulated on earth. Any short squeeze in silver paper shorts would be EPIC. We know billion banks are manipulating gold and silver to cover real inflation.

Both the industrial case and monetary case, debt printing has never been more favorable for the No. 1 inflation hedge Silver.

Inflation adjusted Silver should be at 1000$ instead of 25$. Link to post removed by mods.

Why not squeeze $SLV to real physical price.

Think about the Gainz. If you don’t care about the gains, think about the banks like JP MORGAN you’d be destroying along the way.

And even though there hasn’t been much action yet, anticipation about what could be coming has pushed the price of silver up quite a bit since Thursday…

Silver has risen nearly 15% since Thursday, when posts began circulating on Reddit urging retail investors to buy silver mining stocks and iShares Silver Trust, an exchange traded fund (ETF) backed by physical silver bars, in a GameStop-style squeeze.

Demand has been even more intense for physical bars and coins.

On Sunday, several major silver dealer websites warned of delays in processing orders…

Retail sites were overwhelmed with demand for silver bars and coins on Sunday, suggesting the Reddit-inspired frenzy that roiled commodities markets last week is spilling over into physical assets.

Sites from Money Metals and SD Bullion to JM Bullion and Apmex, the Walmart of precious metals products in North America, said they were unable to process orders until Asian markets open because of unprecedented demand for silver.

There have been runs on physical silver before, but I don’t remember ever seeing anything of this nature.

Just check out what the CEO of SD Bullion just wrote…

In the 24 hours proceeding Friday market close, SD Bullion sold nearly 10x the number of silver ounces that we normally would sell in an entire weekend leading to Sunday market open.

In a normal market, we normally can find at least one supplier/source willing to sell some ounces over the weekend if we exceed our long position (the number of ounces we predict we will sell over the weekend).

However, everyone we talk to is afraid of a gap up at Sunday night market open.

This is about ready to get really interesting as there was very little inventory left from suppliers/mints going into Friday close.

Our direct AP supplier informed us after close on Friday that the “US Mint will be on allocation for the remainder of Type 1” (Current Silver Eagle Design).

Our sales for the month of January exceeded any one month last year during the heart of the pandemic. It was an all-time record month in our company history. 

The higher the price of silver shoots up, the more severe the supply crunch is likely to become.

Of course the truth is that manipulation by the big banks has kept the price of silver much lower than it should have been for many years.

If the ratio of the price of silver to the price of gold were to simply return to historical norms, the price of silver would be well over 100 dollars an ounce.

And unlike gold, silver is a very important commercial commodity that is used in a whole host of high tech products.  This is something that James Rickards pointed out in one of his recent articles…

Silver is a commodity used in many industrial processes, including water purification, tableware, solar panels, electrical contacts, X-Ray film, mirrors and medical instruments. It’s the best electrical conductor of any metal. It is also used in automobile emission control equipment. All of these industrial and scientific applications qualify silver as a commodity input.

It is fun to invest in stocks like GameStop, but the fundamentals for such companies are not good at all.

On the other hand, the long-term fundamentals for silver are exceedingly good.  Whether the price of silver surges in the short-term or not, in the long-term it must go much higher.

Large financial institutions have been working very hard to keep the price of silver depressed, but as Egon von Greyerz has pointed out, in the end they will inevitably lose this battle…

The silver market is one of the most toxic of all. Heavily manipulated and with bullion banks now being 100 million oz of silver short on Comex and with no liquidity in London, as Alasdair Macleod has pointed out.

Still, even if not in the next week or two, silver will win this game in the medium- and long-term as the dosage of paper silver shorts is much too big to survive a short squeeze.

I really do hope that the Reddit Army commits to a silver short squeeze.

But whether it really happens or not, the price of silver will keep going up.

Many investors don’t realize that silver actually outperformed the stock market in 2020.  It was up more than 47 percent for the year, and the hyperinflationary policies of our leaders will make 2021 another good year.

Throughout human history, precious metals have been a hedge against inflation, and today is no different.

Hopefully the Reddit Army will decide to get on the bandwagon, because what they have accomplished so far is absolutely breathtaking.

***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.

Now Reddit Investors Are Talking About Targeting Silver, And That Could Change EVERYTHING

For decades, the big fish on Wall Street have been able to do virtually anything that they want, but now the small fish are fighting back and it has been a beautiful thing to watch.  Finally it is payback time, and the losses have been absolutely staggering.  In fact, Reuters is reporting that short sellers have lost more than 70 BILLION dollars so far this year.  But nobody should be crying for the short sellers.  As Charles Payne pointed out during an epic rant on Fox Business, the short sellers have ruthlessly crushed countless businesses over the years, and they did so without showing any mercy whatsoever.

So now the big hedge funds want mercy themselves?

It’s not likely to happen.

After sending GameStop, AMC and other beleaguered stocks into the stratosphere, now investors on Reddit are talking about going after a really huge whale.

The silver market is perfectly primed for an epic short squeeze, and a coordinated assault by retail investors could make it happen.

The following is an excerpt from the post on the “WallStreetBets” Reddit subgroup that everyone is talking about…

The silver futures market has oscillated between having roughly 100-1 and 500-1 ratio of paper traded silver to physical silver, but lets call it 250-1 for now. This means that for every 250 ounces in open interest in the futures market, only 1 actually gets delivered. Most traders would rather settle with cash rather than take delivery of thousands of ounces of silver and have to figure out to store and transport it in the future.

The people naked shorting silver via the futures markets are a couple of large banks and making them pay dearly for their over leveraged naked shorts would be incredible. It’s not Melvin capital on the other side of this trade, its JP Morgan. Time to get some payback for the bailouts and manipulation they’ve done for decades (look up silver manipulation fines that JPM has paid over the years).

The way the squeeze could occur is by forcing a much higher percentage of the futures contracts to actually deliver physical silver. There is very little silver in the COMEX vaults or available to actually be use to deliver, and if they have to start buying en masse on the open market they will drive the price massively higher. There is no way to magically create more physical silver in the world that is ready to be delivered. With a stock you can eventually just issue more shares if the price rises too much, but this simply isn’t the case here. The futures market is kind of the wild west of the financial world. Real commodities are being traded, and if you are short, you literally have to deliver thousands of ounces of silver per contract if the holder on the other side demands it. If you remember oil going negative back in May, that was possible because futures are allowed to trade to their true value. They aren’t halted and that’s what will make this so fun when the true squeeze happens.

That post has already been upvoted more than 9,400 times, and it appears that a consensus is building that this is going to be the next big thing after the raid on GameStop short sellers is done.

On Thursday, the price of gold was up 4.5 percent in anticipation that something might happen, and much of that price movement was apparently caused by short sellers that feverishly rushed to close their positions…

“After watching GameStop (NYSE:GME) and other shorts getting blasted, rumours that silver could be targeted has traders preemptively covering shorts just in case,” said Tai Wong, a trader at investment bank BMO in New York.

As Eric King has pointed out, if Reddit investors really do decide to go all-in on silver, they could do some serious damage…

“Chris, I just calculated the last 4 trading days in GameStop (GME) in dollar terms and it totals $82.3 billion. I think annual silver production is roughly 1 billion ounces and at current prices that would total about $25 billion. That means yesterday’s trading volume in GameStop of $29.9 billion would have purchased more than the entire annual silver mine production! And the last 4 trading days in GameStop ($82.3 billion in dollar terms) would have purchased more than a staggering 3-times the entire annual global silver mine production! This type of buying would obviously create one hell of a violent short squeeze in the silver market.”

Of course the other side doesn’t exactly play fair.

On Thursday, Robinhood and other trading platforms suddenly restricted trading in some of the key stocks that retail investors have been targeting…

Shares of AMC Entertainment Holdings, BlackBerry Ltd., Bed Bath & Beyond Inc., Express Inc., GameStop Corp., Koss Corp., Naked Brand Group and Nokia Corp. have been restricted to “position closing only,” Robinhood said in a blog post.

The decision means traders cannot initiate new positions in shares of those companies and can only sell existing holdings. The company also raised margin requirements for certain securities.

There are allegations that Robinhood and other trading platforms were persuaded to shut down trading in those stocks by the big fish on Wall Street, but Robinhood and the other trading platforms are denying this.

And Robinhood is also denying that it forced some users to suddenly dump their shares in GameStop and other key stocks…

No, Robinhood tells The Verge, it didn’t sell off full shares of GameStop, AMC, and other buzzy stocks without permission from its traders.

That contradicts the stories of twelve people who spoke with The Verge, saying that the app unexpectedly sold off their holdings in some of these companies. Quite a number of Robinhood users expressed their surprise on social media today that the app was selling off their stakes, and we tracked down a dozen of them. These traders didn’t believe they had prompted the sales, and they said they weren’t aware of anything on their account that would have automatically triggered them.

Hopefully authorities will investigate and get to the bottom of what actually happened.

At this point, Robinhood has already been slapped with two lawsuits because of what took place on Thursday…

Two Robinhood users filed separate lawsuits against the brokerage app Thursday after it and other apps restricted trading of certain securities.

The first lawsuit filed in the Southern District Court of New York alleges that Robinhood “purposefully, willingly, and knowingly” restricted certain securities transactions, including GameStop. The other filed in the Northern District Court of Illinois alleges that the app manipulated its platform.

And it is being reported that the House and the Senate will both be holding hearings on the matter…

The U.S. House Financial Services and Senate Banking committees said on Thursday they will hold hearings on the stock market after users of investment apps faced trading limits following the “Reddit rally” that put a charge into GameStop and other volatile stocks that were touted in online forums.

“We must deal with the hedge funds whose unethical conduct directly led to the recent market volatility and we must examine the market in general and how it has been manipulated by hedge funds and their financial partners to benefit themselves while others pay the price,” said Representative Maxine Waters, a Democrat who heads the House panel.

After everything that just went down, I don’t know how Robinhood is going to survive.

There are also rumors of a “liquidity crisis” at Robinhood, but the company insists that those rumors are simply not true.

Meanwhile, the firm has “tapped at least several hundred million dollars” in emergency credit in recent days…

Robinhood Markets, the trading app that’s popular with investors behind this month’s wildest stock swings, has drawn down some of its bank credit lines to ensure it has enough cash to clear trades, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

The firm, according to one of the people, has tapped at least several hundred million dollars, a significant amount of money for a firm that was valued at about $12 billion a few months ago. Robinhood’s lenders include JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Representatives for Robinhood and those banks declined to comment.

I have a feeling that this story is not going to end well for Robinhood.

But for the retail investors that are changing the course of history, this is truly an amazing time.

Finally, the small fish are standing up for themselves and are fighting back against the big fish, and the big fish have good reason to be quite scared.

***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.

Revenge: An Internet Mob Is Turning The Stock Market Into “A Video Game”, And The Establishment Is Freaking Out

Retail investors have banded together to turn over the tables on Wall Street, and it has created a wild frenzy that is making headlines all over the globe.  Unprecedented short squeezes have pushed the share prices of GameStop, AMC, Macy’s and BlackBerry to insane heights, and prominent voices in the financial world are complaining that trading in those stocks has become completely divorced from the fundamentals.  In fact, these young retail investors are actually being accused of turning the market into “a video game”.  Infamous investor Michael Burry, who made crazy amounts of money betting against the housing market during the last financial crisis, even had the gall to claim that recent trading in GameStop was “unnatural, insane, and dangerous”.

Of course Burry is right, but the truth is that the entire market has been transformed into a giant casino and has been “unnatural, insane, and dangerous” for a very long time.

If the entire market fell 50 percent tomorrow, stock prices would still be overpriced.

So it is more than just a little bit hypocritical for the Wall Street establishment to be complaining about GameStop when they have been gaming the system for years.

Ultimately, GameStop is not a good long-term investment.  Most people download video games these days, and so a brick and mortar retail chain that sells physical copies of video games shouldn’t be attractive to anyone.

GameStop lost money last year, and they will lose money again this year.

But a group on Reddit known as “WallStreetBets” noticed that some big hedge funds had taken ridiculously large short positions against GameStop, and they sensed an opportunity.  They realized that if they all started to buy GameStop all at once, it would likely create a short squeeze of epic proportions.

And that is precisely what has happened.

A year ago, a single share of GameStop was going for about four dollars.

At the beginning of the month, GameStop was sitting at $17.25.

On Wednesday, it closed at $347.51.

In addition to making huge profits, the investors on “WallStreetBets” also wanted to get revenge on the big hedge funds for all the evil things they have done in the past.

Every great story needs a great enemy, and in this case the great enemy is a hedge fund called Melvin Capital…

Melvin Capital, the $12.5 billion hedge fund founded by Gabriel Plotkin, was one of the main targets of the Reddit campaign, after an SEC filing revealed that the fund had a large short position in GameStop.

‘By the end of the week (Or even the end of the day), Plotkin is going to have less than a college student 50k in debt who works part time at starbucks,’ one Reddit user wrote on Wednesday morning.

Nobody knows for sure how much money Melvin Capital has lost, but it appears to be in the billions…

CNBC could not confirm the amount of losses Melvin Capital took on the short position. Citadel and Point72 have infused close to $3 billion into Gabe Plotkin’s hedge fund to shore up its finances. On Wednesday’s “Squawk Box,” Sorkin said Plotkin told him that speculation about a bankruptcy filing is false.

Melvin Capital has supposedly closed all of their short positions in GameStop now, but not everyone is buying that claim.

In any event, the crowd on WallStreetBets intends to continue to drive up the prices of GameStop, AMC, Macy’s and Blackberry for the foreseeable future.

Eventually, each of those mini-bubbles will collapse, but for now the big short sellers are squealing in pain.

Needless to say, the large hedge funds have been reaching out to their “friends” for help, and the SEC just released a statement which indicated that they are watching developments closely…

We are aware of and actively monitoring the on-going market volatility in the options and equities markets and, consistent with our mission to protect investors and maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets, we are working with our fellow regulators to assess the situation and review the activities of regulated entities, financial intermediaries, and other market participants.

And White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters just a few hours ago that the White House is “monitoring” the situation.

But what is there to “monitor”?

All is fair in love and investing, and the retail investors of “WallStreetBets” caught some big hedge funds with their pants down and punished them for it.

After everything that big hedge funds have gotten away with over the years, many would argue that a little bit of revenge was definitely in order.

But Wall Street has never seen anything like this before.

Retail investors are supposed to be small fish that get eaten alive by the bigger fish, but now technology has changed the rules of the game…

The way people trade stocks has been upended by the rise of no-fee apps like Robinhood. That technology has democratized investing, giving armchair investors far removed from traditional banks free access to sophisticated trading instruments, like options.

You could pay an analyst to tell you what stocks to buy, or you could create a Reddit account and follow forums like WallStreetBets. Millions of young people are opting for the latter, which is partly why the sudden surges in GameStop and AMC have caught Wall Street veterans by surprise.

Nobody should shed a tear for the short sellers.

They have made obscene amounts of money over the years by manipulating the markets and by preying on weak companies.

Now an Internet mob is preying on them, and many that are involved believe that revenge is a dish best served cold.

If you can’t handle the pain, don’t play the game.

In the end, this entire farce of a market is going to utterly collapse anyway.  So the truth is that very few are going to get out of this thing unscathed.

Since the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009, investors have seen their portfolios increase in value by trillions of dollars, but this bubble only exists because of unprecedented manipulation by the Federal Reserve and others.

Now a relatively small group of retail investors is manipulating stock prices to punish a couple of hedge funds and everyone is in an uproar over it?

What a joke.

Our financial markets are fraudulent, and they have been for many years.

Nobody should be accusing retail investors of turning the stock market into “a video game”, because the Federal Reserve already did that a long time ago.

***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.

The Secret To The Stock Market: Just Buy Tech Companies That Are Losing Money And Watch Profits Rain From The Sky

For those that can’t detect sarcasm, I am not actually sharing “investment advice” in this article.  Rather, I am pointing out how absurd our financial markets have become at this point.  While the real economy is mired in the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s, the stock market just keeps soaring to record high after record high.  If the underlying profits that these corporations were generating actually justified the extremely high stock prices that we have been witnessing, then I wouldn’t have anything to complain about.  Sadly, the truth is that many of the companies that are seeing their stocks soar into the stratosphere are not making any money at all.

I know that this may sound bizarre to many of you that do not follow the markets on a regular basis, but this is what is actually happening.

In fact, Goldman Sachs actually has something called a “Non-Profitable Technology Index”, and it has been rising at an exponential rate during this pandemic…

Of course in order to be a part of the “non-profitable technology index” you have got to be losing money.

So as you can see, if you want to make big money in the stock market just buy tech companies that are losing boatloads of money and wait for the profits to rain from the sky.

At this point, the stock market has become such a rigged game that literally anyone can succeed.  Just ask this guy…

“I see a stock going up and I buy it.”

Wow.

That is brilliant.

And that will work as long as stocks only keep going one way.

When the COVID pandemic started hitting the U.S. really hard, the powers that be decided that they were going to do whatever it took to support the stock market.

The Federal Reserve literally poured trillions of dollars into the financial system, and as a result the ratio of the Fed’s balance sheet to U.S. GDP is at an all-time record high.

Our politicians in Washington kept passing stimulus package after stimulus package, and as a result the ratio of the U.S. budget deficit to U.S. GDP is at an all-time record high.

We are literally destroying our currency and we have placed ourselves on the hyperinflation highway, but very few of our leaders in Washington seem too concerned about what is happening.

So the stock market bubble will continue to expand and people will continue to mindlessly make money until one day a big enough trigger event comes along to burst the bubble once and for all.

And without a doubt, what we are in right now is an epic bubble.  According to CNBC, the trailing price to earnings ratio of the median stock “has never been higher”…

Right now, it’s hard to deny that on the whole, stocks are rich relative to past earnings and forecast earnings. The trailing price/earnings ratio of the median U.S. stock, tracked by Ned Davis Research, has never been higher.

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

Earlier today, we learned that chocolate giant Godiva will be closing every single one of their stores in North America…

It was sweet while it lasted.

Belgian chocolatier Godiva will sell or close all 128 of its North American shops within the next few months, the company said this week.

Out on the west coast, many small businesses have decided to “go underground” in a desperate attempt to survive…

Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer has charged dozens of businesses with violations, including car washes, tobacco shops, beauty supply stores, massage parlors, nail salons, pet groomers, and an Egyptian artifact store.

The owners of one Bay area massage business made the decision to reopen underground after 93 days on no income, telling Cal Matters that it came down to either paying “the fine or we can’t pay our mortgage.”

But why should anyone even try to run a small business at this point?

After all, can’t we all make enormous profits just by buying the stocks of tech companies that are losing millions of dollars every year?

Not even during the “dotcom boom” did we ever witness euphoria like this.

The more absurd the business model, the more investors seem to like it.

And investors really seem to like it when a company is endlessly hemorrhaging money with seemingly no hope of ever becoming profitable.

For now, investing like an idiot works because everyone is winning.

Of course someday the party will come to a very abrupt end.

But for now the madness continues, and most investors definitely do not want to be awakened from their stupor.

At the same time, the World Economic Forum is preparing the rest of us for a dismal economic future in which we eat worms, live in “tiny houses”, and are forced to carefully follow the new “green rules” for a sustainable environment.

The standard of living is going down for most of us, but thanks to rising stock prices the rich are now richer than ever.

This rapidly expanding gap between the wealthy and the poor is creating an enormous amount of tension in our society, and it is just a matter of time before all of that tension explodes in frightening and unpredictable ways.

***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.

The Worse Things Get, The More The Stock Market Likes It

No matter how bad things become, stock prices just keep going up and up and up.  In 2020, we experienced the worst public health crisis in 100 years, the U.S. economy was plunged into the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s, Americans filed more than 70 million claims for unemployment benefits, and civil unrest raged in major cities all across the United States.  Meanwhile, we witnessed the greatest stock market rally in American history.  No matter what happened, nothing could seem to dampen the wild euphoria on Wall Street.

To start 2021, many believed that we had finally reached a point when bad news would finally start driving stock prices down.  Yesterday, I wrote about how some experts were warning that stock prices could fall substantially if Democrats gained control of the U.S. Senate after the runoff elections in Georgia.  Well, in the short-term those experts were proven wrong.  In fact, the Dow Jones Industrial Average actually rose 437 points on Wednesday.

Of course the bigger news on Wednesday was the utter chaos that we witnessed at the U.S. Capitol in Washington.  Doors and windows were smashed, members of Congress had to be evacuated, and protesters freely roamed through the halls and offices.  You would think that something like that would definitely send stock prices plunging, but instead the Dow ended the day up 437 points.

Even though we have just come through the worst year in recent memory, and even though our system of government is in disarray, stock prices hit an all-time record high on Wednesday.

One explanation for this is that investors consider the chaos in Washington to just be “temporary”…

“Although the takeover of the Capitol is shocking, it’s widely perceived to be temporary and contained in scope, at least in the immediate term,” says Yung-Yu Ma, chief investment strategist and managing director at BMO Wealth Management.

“This is going to be dealt with pretty swiftly and won’t have lasting repercussions in terms of disruptions to the government,” Ma added. “It won’t change the trajectory of a Biden presidency in the coming weeks.”

We shall see what happens, but a lot of people out there are not so optimistic that the governmental shaking that we have been witnessing will pass so easily.

Moving forward, investors appear to be salivating at the prospect that a Biden administration will mean that more stimulus money is on the way…

“I think there’s an expectation … that there’s going to be a lot more spending,” Jason Trennert, chairman of Strategas, said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Wednesday. “If the Democrats were to pick up two seats, there’s no question in my mind that later this year there would be a sense that more spending is needed.”

Goldman Sachs expects another big stimulus package to the tune of $600 billion in the near term if Democrats prevail and take the Senate.

Why not make it $600 trillion?

Every dollar that we borrow and spend just makes our long-term problems even worse, and so why not get the process over with?

As I discussed the other day, the trillions of dollars that have already been pumped into our system over the past 12 months by the Federal Reserve and by our politicians in Washington have fundamentally changed the trajectory of our future.  The money supply is rising at an exponential rate, and we are now on a hyperinflationary path.

Sadly, under a Biden administration there will be no going back.  Instead, the accelerator will be pushed even further toward the floor.

But it isn’t just our financial system that is in grave danger.

Our system of government is also in grave danger as well.

Our culture is in grave danger too.

In fact, our entire society is in grave danger.

There is no future for our country if we stay on the path that we are currently on.  We are engaging in self-destructive behavior in thousands of different ways, and even though there have been endless warnings, we are so addicted to our self-destructive behavior that we just can’t help ourselves.

At this point, it is difficult to imagine how anyone can possibly be optimistic about the future of our nation.

But apparently stock market investors disagree, because they just keep pushing stock prices higher and higher.

It shall be very interesting to watch how high they can go before the system finally implodes.

***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.

+ More