Why Is The Federal Reserve Hiking Interest Rates?

What In The World Is The Federal Reserve Thinking???

You don’t use up all of your ammunition before the battle even begins.  The U.S. economy has not even officially entered recession territory yet, although many experts are definitely anticipating one in 2020.  When that recession arrives, the Federal Reserve is going to want as much ammunition to fight it as possible.  So I was horrified to learn that the Federal Reserve announced on Wednesday that interest rates are being slashed once again.  We have now had three interest rate cuts in 2019 as the Federal Reserve desperately attempts to revive the stalling U.S. economy.  But what are they going to do during the next recession when they have already pushed interest rates all the way to the floor and they can’t push them any lower?  In addition, in recent days the Federal Reserve has decided to absolutely flood the financial system with new money in a desperate attempt to stabilize the repo market.  In essence, the Federal Reserve has launched a massive new round of quantitative easing even before a major crisis has erupted on Wall Street.  I can understand trying to be proactive, but in reality quantitative easing is an extreme emergency measure that should only be used in the most desperate of situations.  If the Fed is creating this much new money now, what are they going to do once things really get bad?  Are we destined to become the next Venezuela?

For a long time, the Federal Reserve has insisted that the U.S. economy is in good shape.  If that is true, there is no way in the world that the Fed should be cutting interest rates.  But that is exactly what happened on Wednesday…

In a vote widely anticipated by financial markets, the central bank’s Federal Open Market Committee lowered its benchmark funds rate by 25 basis points to a range of 1.5% to 1.75%. The rate sets what banks charge each other for overnight lending but is also tied to most forms of revolving consumer debt.

It was the third cut this year as part of what Fed Chairman Jerome Powell has characterized as a “midcycle adjustment” in a maturing economic expansion.

With rates now so close to zero, there isn’t going to be much that the Fed can do in that regard once the next recession strikes.

According to Fed Chair Jerome Powell, this latest rate cut was done for “insurance” purposes…

Powell said lowering the rate again was ‘insurance’, or protection needed because ‘weakness in global growth and trade developments have weighed on the economy and posed ongoing risks’.

If the U.S. economy doesn’t plunge into a deep recession next year, Powell and the other bureaucrats at the Fed will probably be applauded for these moves.

But if we do experience a significant economic downturn, they will be caught with their pants down.

Yes, the U.S. economy is definitely slowing down, but this week we learned that it still grew at an annual rate of 1.9 percent last quarter.

1.9 percent is not good at all, and if honest numbers were being used it would show that our economy is actually contracting.  But at least things are relatively stable for the moment, and as long as things are relatively stable the Federal Reserve should not be resorting to emergency measures.

Of course Wall Street was absolutely thrilled that the Fed cut rates again, and news of the rate cut pushed the S&P 500 to yet another all-time record high…

Stocks advanced Wednesday after the Federal Reserve cut interest rates for the third time this year, propelling the Standard & Poor’s 500 to a fresh record.

The S&P 500 index added 9.88 points, or 0.3%, to close at 3046.77. The Dow Jones industrial average climbed 115.27 points, or 0.4%, to end at 27,186.69. The Nasdaq added 27.12 points, or 0.3%, at 8,303.98.

And without a doubt, this rate cut is good for consumers.  Rates on mortgages, auto loans and credit cards will go down, and that will save average Americans a lot of money…

These Fed interest rate cuts are starting to add up, lowering costs for many Americans who use credit cards or take out loans while squeezing savers.

The Federal Reserve lowered its benchmark interest rate Wednesday by a quarter percentage point for the third time in the past three months. The move is likely to further trim borrowing costs on credit cards, home equity lines, adjustable-rate mortgages and auto loans.

But this is yet another example of the short-term thinking that is plaguing our society.

When the next recession arrives, the Fed will be able to cut rates a handful of times, and then that will be the end of it.

The Fed should have also held off on buying more bonds until we really needed it as well.  Even though a new financial crisis has not even started yet, the Fed has been creating money like crazy and their balance sheet has ballooned “by about $100 billion over the past month”…

The Fed has been buying bonds again, but officials insist it is an effort to stabilize the funds rate within the target range rather than a resurrection of QE. Still, the central bank balance sheet has expanded by about $100 billion over the past month and is back above the $4 trillion mark, $3.6 trillion of which is in Treasurys and mortage-backed securities.

So if the Fed is being this crazy now, what are they going to do when a real financial crisis erupts?

Perhaps they should just get it over with and create trillions of dollars right now and turn us into the Weimar Republic already.

Because that is where all of this craziness is eventually going to take us.  Our dollar is eventually going to be absolutely worthless and we will become the next Venezuela.

I have always been highly critical of the Federal Reserve, but at least in other eras those running the Fed were at least mildly competent.

But now it appears that incompetence is running wild over at the Federal Reserve, and we will all pay a great price for their mistakes in the not too distant future.

About the Author: I am a voice crying out for change in a society that generally seems content to stay asleep.  My name is Michael Snyder and I am the publisher of 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 have written four books 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 those books you help to support my work.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but due to government regulations I can only allow this to happen if this “About the Author” section is included with each article.  In order to comply with those government regulations, I need to tell you that the controversial opinions in this article are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the websites where my work is republished.  This article may contain opinions on political matters, but it is not intended to promote the candidacy of any particular political candidate.  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.  Those responding to this article by making comments are solely responsible for their viewpoints, and those viewpoints do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of Michael Snyder or the operators of the websites where my work is republished.  I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.

Is The Federal Reserve Actually TRYING To Cause A Stock Market Crash?

The Federal Reserve has decided not to come to the rescue this time.  All of the economic numbers tell us that the economy is slowing down, and on Wednesday Fed Chair Jerome Powell even admitted that economic conditions are “softening”, but the Federal Reserve raised interest rates anyway.  As one top economist put it, raising rates as we head into an economic downturn is “economic malpractice”.  They know that higher rates will slow down the economy even more, but it isn’t as if the Fed was divided on this move.  In fact, it was a unanimous vote to raise rates.  They clearly have an agenda, and that agenda is definitely not about helping the American people.

Early on Wednesday, Wall Street seemed to believe that the Federal Reserve would do the right thing, and the Dow was up nearly 400 points.  But then the announcement came, and the market began sinking dramatically.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 720 points in just two hours, and the Dow ended the day down a total of 351 points.  This is the lowest that the Dow has been all year, 60 percent of the stocks listed on the S&P 500 are in bear market territory, and at this point approximately four trillion dollars of stock market wealth has been wiped out.

We haven’t seen anything like this since the last financial crisis.  This is officially the worst quarter for the stock market since the fourth quarter of 2008, and it is the worst December that Wall Street has experienced since 1931.

It is insanity to raise interest rates when stocks are already crashing, but the Federal Reserve did it anyway.

They knew what kind of reaction this would cause on Wall Street and in other global markets, but that didn’t stop them.  The financial world is in utter turmoil, and this move by the Fed has definitely added fuel to the fire.

Could it be possible that they actually want a stock market crash?

Some are suggesting that the reason why the vote was unanimous was because they wanted to send a “strong signal” to President Trump.  He has been extremely critical of the Federal Reserve in recent weeks, and this could be a way for the Fed to show Trump who is really in charge.

They are calling this “the Trump economy”, but that is simply not true.  And when Barack Obama was in the White House, it wasn’t “the Obama economy” either.  Ultimately, it is the Federal Reserve that is running the economy, and they fiercely guard their independence and their authority.

President Trump knows that the only way that he is going to win in 2020 is if the economy is doing well, and he also understands that higher interest rates will slow the economy down.

So essentially the Federal Reserve has a tremendous amount of political power in their hands.

During the Obama era, the Fed pushed interest rates all the way to the floor and kept them there for many years.

But now the Federal Reserve has raised interest rates seven times since Donald Trump took office, and four of those rate hikes have been under current Fed Chair Jerome Powell.

Needless to say, it certainly doesn’t take a lot of imagination to figure out how Donald Trump is feeling about Powell at this moment.

Meanwhile, we continue to get more indications that the U.S. economy is heading for difficult times.  Just consider the following news about FedEx…

FedEx shares are plunging after what Morgan Stanley called a “jarring” cut to its annual forecasts, suggesting global growth is slowing far more than most expect – in fact, the bank hinted at the possibility of a “severe recession” unfolding – and prompting expectations of an “uber-dovish hike” by the Fed.

The global logistics bellwether slashed its outlook just three months after raising the view, reflecting an unexpected and abrupt change in the company’s view of the global economy amid rising trade tensions between the U.S. and China. Not only were the cuts were deeper than the Street expected according to Morgan Stanley analyst Ravi Shanker, but everyone is pointing to the following comment from the press release: “Global trade has slowed in recent months and leading indicators point to ongoing deceleration in global trade near-term.”

To see the term “severe recession” used in such a context is more than just a little bit alarming.

The last time the U.S. economy went through a recession, millions of Americans lost their jobs and we saw a wave of mortgage defaults unlike anything we had ever seen before in modern American history.

Are we about to go through something similar?

Earlier today, a CNN article also used the term “recession”, and it discussed the fact that investors now want big corporations to focus on paying down their debts instead of buying back shares of stock…

Fears of an economic slowdown — or even recession — have turned a spotlight on the debt that businesses piled up during the past decade, when borrowing costs were historically low.

For the first time since the Great Recession, investors want companies to prioritize paying down debt rather than investing in the future or share buybacks and dividends, according to a Bank of America Merrill Lynch survey of global fund managers.

But stock buybacks are one of the only things that has been propping up the stock market.  The only way for the bubble to continue is for corporations to go into dizzying amounts of debt in order to fund massive stock buybacks, because the Federal Reserve clearly does not intend to support the markets right now.

At least for the short-term, the Federal Reserve could have calmed the markets and encouraged economic activity by leaving interest rates alone.

In the end, they decided not to do that, and that makes one wonder what they are really trying to achieve.

Get Prepared NowAbout the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally-syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is the author of four books including Get Prepared Now, The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters.  His articles are originally published on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News.  From there, his articles are republished on dozens of other prominent websites.  If you would like to republish his articles, please feel free to do so.  The more people that see this information the better, and we need to wake more people up while there is still time.

Top Economist: “If The Fed Raises Interest Rates Tomorrow They Should All Be Fired For Economic Malpractice”

The Federal Reserve is responsible for creating the stock market boom that we have witnessed in recent years.  Are they now also setting the stage for a stock market bust?  After hitting an all-time high earlier this year, the Dow has plunged more than 3,000 points from the peak of the market, and it would appear that it would be extremely irresponsible for the Fed to raise interest rates in such a chaotic environment.  In addition, evidence continues to mount that the U.S. economy is slowing down, and everyone knows that raising interest rates tends to depress economic activity.  So it would seem that it would not be logical for the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates at this time.  In fact, economist Stephen Moore told Fox Business that if the Fed raises interest rates “they should all be fired for economic malpractice”…

“The Fed has been way too tight. They made a major blunder three months ago with raising the rates. It’s caused a deflation in commodity prices. And I will say this, David, if the Fed raises interest rates tomorrow they should all be fired for economic malpractice.”

If the Federal Reserve raises interest rates and indicates that more rate hikes are coming in 2019, it is quite likely that the markets will throw another huge temper tantrum.

But as Jim Cramer has noted, if the Federal Reserve make the right choice and leaves rates where they currently are, we could potentially see a significant market rally…

“Today was a dress rehearsal for the kind of rally we can get if the Fed does the right thing tomorrow and repudiates the idea that we need a series of rate hikes in 2019, not just one more tomorrow,” Cramer said Tuesday. “If we get the Fed on board, expect more positive action like we had this morning before the market gave up much of its gains.”

Unfortunately, there is a factor that is complicating things.

In recent weeks, President Trump has been extremely critical of the Federal Reserve and Fed Chair Jerome Powell.  If the Fed decides to leave interest rates where they are, that could be interpreted as them giving Trump exactly what he wants, and it is likely that they do not want to be viewed as siding with Trump.

This is yet another reason why we need to end the Fed.  The Fed has become just another player in the game of politics, and the truth is that the Federal Reserve is a deeply un-American institution.  Our founders intended for us to have a free market capitalist system, but instead we have an unelected panel of central planners setting our interest rates and running our economy.

Since the Federal Reserve was created in 1913, there have been 18 major economic downturns, and now we are heading into another one.  Central banking manipulation endlessly causes boom and bust cycles, and hopefully this time around the American people will finally decide that enough is enough.

As losses on Wall Street mount, hedge funds are starting to go down like dominoes, and that is going to cause huge problems for some of our largest financial institutions.  For example, we just found out that Citigroup could potentially lose 180 million dollars due to bad loans that it made to a prominent Asian hedge fund…

It’s not just hedge funds that are blowing up left and right: so are the banks that are lending them money.

Citigroup is facing losses of up to $180 million on loans made to an unnamed Asian hedge fund which saw major losses on its FX trades Bloomberg reports citing a person briefed on the matter. The hedge fund and Citi “are in discussions on the positions and how they should be valued” which is usually a bad sign as when it comes to FX the mark to market is, at least, instantaneous. Bloomberg adds that the situation is fluid and the eventual losses may end up being smaller depending on how the trades are unwound.

We haven’t seen anything like this in 10 years, and if the Fed raises interest rates this new financial crisis could begin to escalate quite rapidly.

At this point, even former Fed chair Alan Greenspan is urging investors to “run for cover”…

The former Federal Reserve chairman who famously warned more than two decades ago about “irrational exuberance” in the stock market doesn’t see equity prices going any higher than they are now.

“It would be very surprising to see it sort of stabilize here, and then take off,” Greenspan said in an interview with CNN anchor Julia Chatterley.

He added that markets could still go up further — but warned investors that the correction would be painful: “At the end of that run, run for cover.”

The markets were calmer on Tuesday because everyone was kind of waiting to see what the Fed would do on Wednesday.

The decision should be obvious, but unfortunately things are never that simple.

We live in very uncertain times, and the shaking of our financial system has begun.

Get Prepared NowAbout the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally-syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is the author of four books including Get Prepared Now, The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters.  His articles are originally published on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News.  From there, his articles are republished on dozens of other prominent websites.  If you would like to republish his articles, please feel free to do so.  The more people that see this information the better, and we need to wake more people up while there is still time.

Teetering On The Brink Of Disaster: 14 Of 19 Bear Market Signals Have Now Been Triggered

October 2018 is turning out to be a lot like October 2008.  The S&P 500 has now fallen for 12 of the last 14 trading days, and it is on pace for its worst October since the last financial crisis.  But the U.S. is actually in much better shape than the rest of the world at this point.  Even though they have fallen precipitously in recent days, U.S. stocks are still up 3 percent for the year overall.  On the other hand, global stocks (excluding the U.S.) are now down more than 10 percent for the year, and they are down more than 15 percent from the peak of the market in January.  All it is going to take is a couple more really bad trading sessions to push global stocks into bear market territory.

And even though U.S. stocks are still outperforming the rest of the world, many are anticipating that the U.S. is definitely heading for a bear market as well.

According to Bank of America, 14 out of their 19 “bear market indicators” have now been triggered…

“Expect a long bout of volatility,” Bank of America strategists led by Savita Subramanian wrote in a report published on Sunday.

Bank of America keeps a running tally of “signposts” that signal looming bear market. The bad news is that 14 of these 19 indicators, or 74%, have been triggered. Two more were toppled earlier this month: the VIX volatility index (VIX) climbed above 20 and a growing number of Americans expect stocks to go up.

Of course not all 19 indicators need to be triggered in order for a bear market to happen.  These indicators are simply signposts, and what they are telling us is that big trouble could be brewing for the financial markets.

And Tuesday was certainly another chaotic day for Wall Street.  The Russell 2000 experienced another extremely disappointing day, and it is now officially red for the year…

Small-cap stocks erased all of their gains for the year on Tuesday, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average at one point was not be too far behind.

The Russell 2000, composed of publicly traded companies with a market capitalization between $300 million and about $2 billion, shed 0.8 percent on Tuesday, putting it into the red for 2018, down 0.6 percent.

The number of stocks that are at 52-week lows far outnumbers those that are at 52-week highs, but a handful of big name stocks has been keeping the market from plummeting too dramatically.

In the short-term, we should expect some more wild swings up and down, but meanwhile we continue to receive more troubling news about the real economy.

For example, we recently learned that existing home sales were down once again last month…

The metric of interest today is existing home sales. The reading came in at 5.15m units, which was well below the estimated 5.3m units and 4.1% below year ago levels. As the chart below shows, existing home sales have been falling all year long, and year-over-year growth rates have been mostly negative since September, 2017.

And auto sales are way down all over the country…

A growing number of auto dealers around the country is seeing a noticeable drop in retail sales and customer traffic in showrooms, raising the possibility that a long-anticipated slowdown in auto sales has arrived.

“We are definitely seeing business pull back,” said Scott Adams, the owner of a Toyota dealership in Lee’s Summit, Missouri, just outside Kansas City. “September was off some, but this month our car sales are down 12 percent and our truck sales are down 23 percent.”

These things would not be happening if the economy was in good shape.

Every time the Federal Reserve goes through an interest rate hiking cycle it causes big problems for the economy, and this is something that President Trump alluded to during an interview with the Wall Street Journal…

In an interview Tuesday with The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Trump acknowledged the independence the Fed has long enjoyed in setting economic policy, while also making clear he was intentionally sending a direct message to Mr. Powell that he wanted lower interest rates.

“Every time we do something great, he raises the interest rates,” Mr. Trump said, adding that Mr. Powell “almost looks like he’s happy raising interest rates.” The president declined to elaborate, and a spokeswoman for the Fed declined to comment.

No matter what President Trump does, disaster is inevitable if the Federal Reserve continues to raise rates.  The Federal Reserve has far more control over the economy than Trump does, and that is why many of his supporters are hoping that Trump adopts Ron Paul’s “End the Fed” message for the 2020 presidential campaign.

Speaking of the Federal Reserve, former Fed chair Paul Volcker is saying that the U.S. is facing “a hell of a mess”…

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, who has reached legend status in the world of central banking, isn’t optimistic about current conditions.

When Volcker looks around now, he sees “a hell of a mess in every direction,” including a lack of basic respect for government institutions, a current Fed that seems to be following a completely arbitrary benchmark and a “swamp” in Washington run by plutocrats.

Without a doubt, it is most definitely true that we are facing “a hell of a mess”, but most Americans are entirely clueless about what is coming.

In the aftermath of the 2008 crisis, the economy stabilized and global central banks were able to inflate the biggest financial bubble in human history.

Once this bubble bursts, there won’t be a similar “recovery” this time around.

Along with the rest of the world, the U.S. is headed for an unprecedented period of chaos and pain.  We should be thankful for each day of relative stability that we are still able to enjoy, because time is rapidly running out.

About the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is publisher of The Most Important News and the author of four books including The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters.

The Last Days Warrior Summit is the premier online event of 2018 for Christians, Conservatives and Patriots.  It is a premium members-only international event that will empower and equip you with the knowledge and tools that you need as global events begin to escalate dramatically.  The speaker list includes Michael Snyder, Mike Adams, Dave Daubenmire, Ray Gano, Dr. Daniel Daves, Gary Kah, Justus Knight, Doug Krieger, Lyn Leahz, Laura Maxwell and many more. Full summit access will begin on October 25th, and if you would like to register for this unprecedented event you can do so right here.

The Dow Has Fallen Nearly 1,500 Points From The Peak Of The Market, And Many Believe This “October Panic” Is Just Beginning…

We haven’t had an October like this in a very long time.  The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down another 327 points on Thursday, and overall the Dow is now down close to 1,500 points from the peak of the market.  Unlike much of the rest of the world, it is still too early to say that the U.S. is facing a new “financial crisis”, but if stocks continue to plunge like this one won’t be too far away.  And as you will see below, many believe that what we have seen so far is just the start of a huge wave of selling.  Of course it would be extremely convenient for Democrats if stocks did crash, because it would give them a much better chance of doing well in the midterm elections.  This is the most heated midterm election season that I can ever remember, and what U.S. voters choose to do at the polls in November is going to have very serious implications for the immediate future of our country.

After a very brief rally earlier in the week, stocks have been getting hammered again.  The S&P 500 has now fallen for 9 out of the last 11 trading sessions, and homebuilder stocks have now fallen for 19 of the last 22 trading sessions.  It was a “sea of red” on Thursday, and some of the stocks that are widely considered to be “economic bellwethers” were among those that got hit the hardest…

Several stocks seen as economic bellwethers fell sharply in the U.S., including United Rentals and Textron, which dropped at least 11 percent each. Snap-on and Caterpillar, meanwhile, fell 9.6 percent and 3.9 percent, respectively.

Hopefully we will see another bounce on Friday, but at this moment it looks like things could go either way.

But no matter what happens on Friday, many are convinced that the worst is yet to come, and here are some of the reasons…

China

Chinese stocks have fallen 12 percent so far this month, and overall they are down 26 percent over the last 12 months.

That means that China is now well into a bear market.

And history tells us that when Chinese stocks fall 10 percent or more within 30 days, that is usually very bad news for U.S. stocks.  The following comes from CNBC…

But a study by CNBC using analytics tool Kensho found that U.S. stocks are more often weaker when the declines in Chinese stocks are large. Over the past 10 years, when Shanghai stocks fell 10 percent or more in a 30-day period, the U.S. stock market was up only about 30 percent of the time, and the U.S. indexes all averaged significant declines.

For instance, the S&P 500 on average fell 4.8 percent when China was down 10 percent or more, and the Nasdaq was even worse with a loss of 5.3 percent.

The Chinese just had the worst quarter for economic growth since the first quarter of 2009, and many believe that is a huge sign of trouble for the global economy as a whole.

The Federal Reserve

In recent weeks I have been hammering the Federal Reserve over and over again, and they definitely deserve it.

The Fed is raising interest rates way too rapidly, and this is going to kill the economy and at some point it will inevitably cause a horrifying market crash.

And I am far from alone in criticizing the Fed.  For instance, just consider what CNBC’s Jim Cramer said about the Fed on Thursday…

Stocks tanked on Thursday because people are finally realizing that the Federal Reserve has the power to hurt stocks and slow the economy, CNBC’s Jim Cramer said after the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell more than 300 points.

“This is one of those moments where it’s dawning on people that maybe all the assurances that we don’t need to be afraid of the Fed are being proven to be totally bogus,” the “Mad Money” host said.

Every Fed rate hiking cycle since 1957 has ended in either a recession or a market crash, and this one won’t be any different.

Forced Selling

In this day and age, when markets start to plunge things can get out of hand very quickly thanks to all of the computer trading that starts to happen.

This is something that Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon says his firm is watching very closely…

Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon said Thursday that he believes part of October’s steep stock sell-off was the result of programmatic trading.

“There’s no question when you look at last week, some of the selling is the result of programmatic selling because as volatility goes up, some of these algorithms force people to sell,” Solomon told CNBC’s Wilfred Frost. “Market structure can, at times, contribute to volatility and one of the things that we’re spending a bunch of time thinking about at the firm is how changes in market structure over the course of the last 10 years will affect market activity.”

One key level to watch in the coming days is 25,000 on the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

That is a very important psychological level, and if this downturn successfully breaks through that barrier we could very quickly move toward 24,000 thanks to programmatic selling.

This current bull market has lasted for much longer than it should have, but now it appears that the bubble may have burst.

And once the bears take control, things could get bad for a very long time.  The following comes from investing expert Egon von Greyerz…

It now looks like the secular bull market in stocks is turning into a secular bear market that could last for several years if not decades. The stock market acts as a sentiment indicator for what happens in the real economy. No indicator is perfect and stock market moves will be exaggerated in both directions. It is now likely that the world is starting an economic downturn of epic proportions.

During previous market downturns over the past 10 years, there was still a lot of optimism on Wall Street.

But these days it seems like “doom and gloom” is the dominant theme in trading circles, and it won’t take too much to turn that “doom and gloom” into “fear and panic” as everyone races for the exits as quickly as they can…

About the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is publisher of The Most Important News and the author of four books including The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters.

The Last Days Warrior Summit is the premier online event of 2018 for Christians, Conservatives and Patriots.  It is a premium-members only international event that will empower and equip you with the knowledge and tools that you need as global events begin to escalate dramatically.  The speaker list includes Michael Snyder, Mike Adams, Dave Daubenmire, Ray Gano, Dr. Daniel Daves, Gary Kah, Justus Knight, Doug Krieger, Lyn Leahz, Laura Maxwell and many more. Full summit access will begin on October 25th, and if you would like to register for this unprecedented event you can do so right here.

Is The Federal Reserve Trying To Sabotage Trump? Stocks Fall Again As Investors Are Rattled By Fed Comments

Could it be possible that the Federal Reserve is attempting to influence the outcome of the upcoming midterm elections?  Just weeks before Americans will go to the polls, the Fed has been making headline after headline with talk about interest rate hikes.  And they very well understand that interest rate hikes will rattle investors and slow down the economy.  In fact, every Fed rate hiking cycle since 1957 has ended in either a stock market crash or a recession.  So could the Federal Reserve be doing this on purpose in order to sabotage Donald Trump and the Republicans?  Nobody is really asking this question, but perhaps we should be.

For a while there it looked like a good rally was cooking on Wall Street, but then news about future Federal Reserve interest rate hikes sent stocks tumbling on Wednesday…

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell Wednesday in volatile trading after a summary of the Federal Reserve’s most-recent meeting showed the central bank was leaning toward more rate hikes moving forward.

The 30-stock index dropped 91.74 points to 25,706.68 as sharp losses in IBM offset strong gains in Goldman Sachs. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite closed just below the flatline at 2,809.21 and 7,642.70, respectively.

And the Federal Reserve is also being identified as the reason why Asian stocks tumbled overnight…

Stocks in Asia were broadly lower on Thursday morning, as a Fed report hints at more rate hikes ahead.

The Greater China markets were in largely negative territory in early trade. The Shanghai composite dropped by 1.53 percent while the Shenzhen composite fell by 1.914 percent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index also traded slightly lower.

As I have explained many times, nobody has more control over the economy than the Federal Reserve does, and nobody has more influence over the financial markets than the Federal Reserve does either.

If the American people truly understood the Federal Reserve, there would be “End the Fed” protests in every city in America tomorrow morning.

What is troubling investors so greatly at the moment is the fact that the Fed minutes that were just released clearly indicate that more interest rate hikes are coming in future months…

Federal Reserve officials remain convinced that continuing to gradually increase interest rates is the best formula to preserve a steady economy, according to minutes released Wednesday of the central bank’s most recent policy meeting.

That may not please President Donald Trump, who has been vocal in his criticism of the central bank’s actions.

President Trump has been criticizing the Fed recently because he understands that many Americans vote based on how their pocketbooks are doing.  If the economy is doing well, his re-election chances go up, but if the economy tanks there is a very good chance that he could lose in 2020.

And if stock prices really start to tumble over the next few weeks, that would really help Democrats in the upcoming mid-term elections.

Of course it isn’t just President Trump that has been criticizing the Fed lately.  In fact, CNBC’s Jim Cramer is literally “begging” the Federal Reserve to slow down the pace of future interest rate hikes…

“I’m not saying the Fed’s gone crazy. I’m not saying they need to stop tightening because it’s bad for the stock market. I don’t care about that. I’m simply begging [Fed Chair] Jerome Powell and the rest of the Open Market Committee to take things one rate hike at a time,” he said. “Because from what I’ve seen so far this earnings season, it might make sense to put next year’s three planned rate hikes on hold until we know if the nascent strength is dissipating before our very eyes.”

Jim Cramer can see what all of the rest of us can also see.  U.S. economic activity appears to be slowing down substantially, and major volatility has returned to the financial markets.

If the Dow Jones Industrial Average suddenly falls a couple of thousand points, it is entirely possible that the Federal Reserve could change course.

But once again, we must consider the possibility that they actually want to cause chaos in order to harm Donald Trump politically.

At one time such a notion would have been unthinkable, but we have entered a time when lots of things that were once unthinkable have become reality.

Today, we have news anchors calling the president of the United States all kinds of things on the air, we have leading members of the opposition party openly calling for violence, and we have conservatives and progressives literally fighting each other in the streets.

The elite are desperate to get rid of Donald Trump, and without a doubt the Federal Reserve’s recent actions have been bad for the President.  That doesn’t necessarily mean that malice is involved, but we cannot entirely rule out that possibility either.

But if the Fed really does want to alter the results of the upcoming midterm elections, they have got some work to do.  According to the latest map from Real Clear Politics, it appears likely that the Republicans will keep their Senate majority and may even expand it.

And even though it looks like the Democrats will definitely make gains in the House, a late Republican surge has altered the landscape.  It is not the most likely result, but there is now a possibility that Republicans could also retain control of the House, and that would be absolutely disastrous for the Democratic Party.

Let us not forget, however, that things can change dramatically in politics in just a few days.

With just a few weeks to go before the 2016 election it looked like Hillary Clinton would win by a landslide, and we all saw what happened.

One major event could change everything, and without a doubt this is going to be one of the most interesting midterm election cycles in ages.

About the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is publisher of The Most Important News and the author of four books including The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters.

The Last Days Warrior Summit is the premier online event of 2018 for Christians, Conservatives and Patriots.  It is a premium-members only international event that will empower and equip you with the knowledge and tools that you need as global events begin to escalate dramatically.  The speaker list includes Michael Snyder, Mike Adams, Dave Daubenmire, Ray Gano, Dr. Daniel Daves, Gary Kah, Justus Knight, Doug Krieger, Lyn Leahz, Laura Maxwell and many more. Full summit access will begin on October 25th, and if you would like to register for this unprecedented event you can do so right here.

We Witnessed The 3rd Largest Point Crash In Stock Market History On The Same Day That The 3rd Most Powerful Hurricane To Ever Hit The U.S. Made Landfall

If you don’t believe in “coincidences”, what are we supposed to make of this?  On Wednesday, the 3rd most powerful hurricane to ever hit the United States made landfall in the Florida panhandle.  Entire communities were absolutely shredded as Hurricane Michael came ashore with sustained winds of 155 miles per hour.  You can find the entire article that I just posted about this massive storm right here.  In this article, I am going to focus on what just happened on Wall Street.  At the exact same time that Hurricane Michael was causing chaos in the Southeast, an October stock market crash was causing havoc in the Northeast.  The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 831 points, which was the 3rd largest single day point crash in stock market history.  Of course it isn’t as if we hadn’t been repeatedly warned that this was coming, and the truth is that it looks like this is only the start of the financial shaking.

In fact, international financial markets are in a state of chaos as I write this article.  Asian markets are a sea of red, and at this moment Dow futures are way down.

So it appears likely that Wednesday’s nightmare may extend into Thursday as well.

But before we look ahead too much, let’s talk about the utter carnage that we just witnessed.

According to Bloomberg, the 500 wealthiest people in the world lost 99 billion dollars on Wednesday…

Plunging global markets lopped $99 billion from the fortunes of the world’s 500 wealthiest people on Wednesday, the year’s second-steepest one-day drop for the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos lost $9.1 billion, the most of anyone on the index, as shares of the online retailer fell the most in more than two years. The plunge lowered Bezos’s net worth to $145.2 billion, its lowest since July.

Can you imagine losing that much money on a single day?

The Dow Jones Industrial Average has now fallen for four out of the last five trading sessions, and for the month as a whole all three of the major indexes are way down…

Stocks have fallen sharply this month. For October, the S&P 500 and the Dow are down more than 4.4 percent and 3.3 percent, respectively. The Nasdaq, meanwhile, has lost more than 7.5 percent.

Tech stocks are being hit particularly hard.  In fact, tech stocks just had their worst day in more than seven years…

Technology stocks got clobbered on Wednesday, suffering their worst day in more than seven years, as concerns over rising interest rates punished the overall market, particularly shares of companies that have been the best performers.

The S&P 500 Information Technology Index closed at $1,220.62, down 4.8 percent, marking the biggest decline since August 18, 2011, when the index dropped 5.3 percent. All 65 members of the index fell.

At this point, 330 out of the 505 stocks that make up the S&P 500 are already more than 10 percent below their 52-week highs.

That means that about two-thirds of all S&P 500 stocks are officially in correction territory.

And 140 of those stocks are already down more than 20 percent from their 52-week highs, and that means that they are officially in bear market territory.

So why is this happening?

Many of the “experts” are pointing to the dramatic rise in interest rates…

Nervousness had been building for days on Wall Street. The catalyst was the recent spike in the yield on a closely watched government bond to a seven-year high.

The 10-year Treasury note — whose key rate impacts the pricing on things ranging from fixed-rate mortgages to stocks to virtually every financial asset on the planet — recently climbed above 3.25 percent for the first time since May 2011. And when you add the threat of higher borrowing costs on things like houses and cars and corporate debt to the economic obstacles caused by the U.S. trade war with China, all it takes is a whiff of weakness to set a major sell-off in motion.

A week ago, I warned my readers that rapidly rising rates could spark a market sell-off, and now it is happening with a ferocity that is absolutely breathtaking.

Needless to say, President Trump was not thrilled by the market crash on Wednesday, and he is pointing the blame at the Federal Reserve…

President Donald Trump slammed the Federal Reserve as “going loco” for its interest-rate increases this year in comments hours after the worst U.S. stock market sell-off since February.

Trump said in a telephone interview on Fox News late Wednesday night the market plunge wasn’t because of his trade conflict with China: “That wasn’t it. The problem I have is with the Fed,” he said. “The Fed is going wild. They’re raising interest rates and it’s ridiculous.”

“That’s not the problem,” he said of the trade standoff. “The problem in my opinion is the fed,” he added. “The fed is going loco.”

I love it.

I absolutely love it.

Could it be possible that we will soon see supporters chant “end the Fed” at Trump rallies?

No president has ever openly criticized the Federal Reserve like this, and I greatly applaud Trump for doing so.

And he is precisely correct – the Federal Reserve is the problem.

Nobody has more power over the performance of the U.S. economy than the Federal Reserve does, and the only way that our long-term economic and financial problems will ever be fixed is if the Federal Reserve is shut down.

So I hope that President Trump’s feud with the Federal Reserve gets as heated as possible.  I hope that the Federal Reserve becomes a central issue during the 2020 presidential election, and I hope that every Trump supporter in the entire country will urge Trump to make a promise to shut down the Federal Reserve.

The Federal Reserve is a deeply insidious system that has turned America into a nation of debt slaves, and it is definitely time to end that sick and twisted debt-based system and return this nation to a solid financial foundation.

About the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is publisher of The Most Important News and the author of four books including The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters.

The Last Days Warrior Summit is the premier online event of 2018 for Christians, Conservatives and Patriots.  It is a premium-members only international event that will empower and equip you with the knowledge and tools that you need as global events begin to escalate dramatically.  The speaker list includes Michael Snyder, Mike Adams, Dave Daubenmire, Ray Gano, Dr. Daniel Daves, Gary Kah, Justus Knight, Doug Krieger, Lyn Leahz, Laura Maxwell and many more. Full summit access will begin on October 25th, and if you would like to register for this unprecedented event you can do so right here.

Ron Paul Is Warning That A 50% Stock Market Decline Is Coming – And That There Is No Way To Stop It

Is Ron Paul about to be proven right once again?  For a very long time, Ron Paul has been one of my political heroes.  His willingness to stand up for true constitutional values and to keep saying “no” to the Washington establishment over and over again won the hearts of millions of American voters, and I wish that there had been enough of us to send him to the White House either in 2008 or in 2012.  To this day, I still wish that we could make his classic work entitled “End The Fed” required reading in every high school classroom in America.  He was one of the few members of Congress that actually understood economics, and it is very sad that he has now retired from politics.  With the enormous mess that Washington D.C. has become, we sure could use a lot more statesmen like him right now.

But even though he has retired from politics, Ron Paul is still speaking out about the most important issues of the day.  And what he recently told CNBC is extremely ominous.

The following comes from a CNBC article entitled “Ron Paul: US is barreling towards a stock market drop of 50% or more, and there’s no way to prevent it”…

According to the former Republican Congressman from Texas, the recent jump in Treasury bond yields suggest the U.S. is barreling towards a potential recession and market meltdown at a faster and faster pace.

And, he sees no way to prevent it.

Of course lots of such predictions are flying around these days.

In fact, at this point even the IMF is warning of a “second Great Depression”.

So when it actually takes place it won’t be much of a surprise.  However, I do believe that many will be surprised by the ferocity of the coming crash.  According to Ron Paul, stock prices could end up falling by up to 50 percent…

Paul is a vocal Libertarian known for an ardent grassroots fanbase that propelled him to multiple presidential runs, as well as his grim warnings about the economy. Yet he has been warning investors for years that an epic drop of 50 percent or more will eventually hit the stock market. He predicted the February correction, but not in size and scope.

Actually, stock prices need to fall by at least 50 percent in order for stock valuations to get close to their long-term averages.

In the end, if stocks only fall by 50 percent we will be extremely fortunate.  Stock valuations always, always, always return to their long-term averages eventually, and usually they fall below those averages during a period of adjustment.

And the mood on Wall Street has definitely changed.  The euphoria that we once witnessed is now gone, and instead it has been replaced by a gnawing sense that a really big downturn is coming.  In his most recent piece, John Hussman compared it to the fading out of a pop song…

In recent days, the combination of extreme valuations and unfavorable market internals has been joined by acute dispersion in daily trading data that often occurs within a few days of pre-collapse peaks in the market. My opinion is that the music has already quietly faded out like the end of a pop song, in a wholly uneventful way, and that even a surprise push to further highs would be marginal.

And he concluded his most recent piece with this very chilling statement…

For now, and until market conditions shift, there’s an open trap door under the equity market, and it’s a very long way down.

The end of last week was very bad for the markets, and so Monday and Tuesday will be key.

If stock prices continue to fall, this could be the beginning of a race for the exits.

But if stock prices rebound a bit, it means that we could have some more time.

And keep an eye on junk bonds.  They crashed really hard just before the financial crisis of 2008, and they are starting to slip here in October 2018.

A full-blown junk bond panic would definitely be a very clear sign that a major market crash is imminent.

As I write this, all of the markets in Asia are down.  Chinese stocks have fallen almost 3 percent, and that is very troubling news.

But whether a massive crisis erupts right now or not, the truth is that there is no way that we are going to avoid the consequences of our actions.

At this moment we are in the terminal phase of the biggest debt bubble in human history.  In fact, total indebtedness in the United States has increased by more than 2 trillion dollars over the past 12 months…

In total, indebtedness of consumers, corporations, and all governments has grown by $2.04 trillion over the past four quarters. And they’re going to be paying higher interest rates on this ballooning debt. In other words, debt service costs are going to rise substantially.

All of this debt has fueled a short-term bubble of relative “prosperity”, but meanwhile all of our long-term problems just continue to get worse.

There is no possible way that our debt bubble can continue to grow much faster than the overall economy indefinitely.  In fact, we have already been defying the laws of economics for way too long.

Eventually all debt bubbles burst, and when this one bursts we are going to experience economic pain on a scale that America has never seen before.

About the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is publisher of The Most Important News and the author of four books including The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters.

The Last Days Warrior Summit is the premier online event of 2018 for Christians, Conservatives and Patriots.  It is a premium-members only international event that will empower and equip you with the knowledge and tools that you need as global events begin to escalate dramatically.  The speaker list includes Michael Snyder, Mike Adams, Dave Daubenmire, Ray Gano, Dr. Daniel Daves, Gary Kah, Justus Knight, Doug Krieger, Lyn Leahz, Laura Maxwell and many more. Full summit access will begin on October 25th, and if you would like to register for this unprecedented event you can do so right here.

+ More