Showing posts with label economics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label economics. Show all posts

Is September 2015 going to be one of the most important months in modern American history? When I issued my first ever “red alert” for the last six months of 2015 back in June, I was particularly concerned with the months of September through December, and not just for economic reasons.  All of the Intel that I have received is absolutely screaming that big trouble is ahead.  So enjoy these last few days of relative peace and quiet.  I mean that sincerely.  In fact, that is exactly what I have been doing – over the past week I have not posted many articles because I was spending time with family, friends and preparing for the national call to prayer on September 18th and 19th.   But now as we enter the chaotic month of September 2015 I have a feeling that there is going to be plenty for me to write about.
At this time last month, I declared that we were entering “the pivotal month of August 2015“, and that is exactly what it turned out to be.  August was the worst month overall for stocks in three years, and it was the worst month of August for U.S. financial markets in 17 years.
Throughout history, there have only been 11 times when the S&P 500 has declined by more than five percent during the month of August.  When that has happened, the stock market has almost always fallen in September as well…
September is the only month in which the S&P 500 fell more frequently than it rose. What’s more, in the 11 times that the S&P 500 fell by more than 5 percent in August, it declined in 80 percent of the subsequent Septembers, and fell an average of nearly 4 percent.
Last week, there was a rally after the initial crash.  I warned that this would happen in advance, and we have seen a similar pattern play out during almost every market collapse throughout history.  The following comes from John Hussman…
As I noted early this year (see A Better Lesson than “This Time Is Different”), market crashes “have tended to unfold after the market has already lost 10-14% and the recovery from that low fails.” Prior pre-crash bounces have generally been in the 6-7% range, which is what we observed last week, so I certainly don’t see that bounce as having removed any of our concerns. We remain extremely alert to the prospect for much more extended market losses.
So how far could stocks eventually fall? Hussmann is projecting that we could ultimately see the market decline by more than 50 percent…
We fully expect a 40-55% market loss over the completion of the present market cycle. Such a loss would only bring valuations to levels that have been historically run-of-the-mill.
One thing that could accelerate stock market losses this time around is the fact that people have been borrowing lots and lots of money to buy stocks.  That works when the stock market just keeps going up, but once the market turns the margin calls can lead to panic selling on a massive scale.  The following comes from a recent piece by Wolf Richter in which he describes some of the chaos that we have already been witnessing…
Energy stocks and bonds crashed, even those of some large companies like Chesapeake. Some have reached zero. All kinds of other stocks and bonds have gotten eviscerated over the past few months, even tech darlings like Twitter or biotech giant Biogen. Portfolios with a focus on the wrong momentum stocks took a very serious hit. And margin calls went out. The Journal: Some lenders, including Bank of America Corp., are issuing margin calls to clients after the global market drubbing of the past week, forcing investors to choose between either putting up more money or selling some of the securities underlying the loans. Other banks too sent out margin calls, including U.S. Trust, Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo, according to the Journal. With margin calls mucking up the scenario, spooked investors are trying to lower their leverage before they’re forced to, and the boom in securities-based lending appears to be over. And the wealth units of the banks that gorged on these loans are likely to see their profits dented. If that continues, a much crummier thing happens: margin balances reverse. And the last two times they did after a majestic record-breaking spike, the stock market crashed.

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


Friday’s American stock market provided further evidence of instability in the nation’s economy, and even as financiers fear a possible fiscal disaster in September, there has been little coverage among U.S. media.
But the state-run media of Russia is warning of what it calls America’s “economic apocalypse.”
The Russian news service Sputnik, an agency launched by Russia’s state-owned Rossiya Segodnya in 2014 to “target global audiences with its non-mainstream take on world events,” predicts doom for the American economy next month.
In a recent article, Sputnik cites several economists warning of catastrophe.
It continues: “Most of the experts agree that all the optimistic data like record earnings on Wall Street and a surging dollar is just disguising fundamental cracks, and the collapse of historic proportions will happen within few months, starting in the U.S.
“No wonder such forecasts, and there are dozens, from professional economists leave U.S. and the world dizzy and shivering in fear and helplessness, just what one would probably feel if the actual apocalypse was coming.”
September 2015 has become the focal point of warnings and speculation because of a strange confluence of events.
These include:
  • The seven-year, biblical Shemitah cycle ends Sept. 13
  • The European Organization for Nuclear Research begins a controversial experiment
  • Pope Francis arrives at the White House on Sept. 23 and will make an unprecedented address to a joint session of Congress the next day
  • The fourth and last “blood moon” in the tetrad occurs on Sept. 28, on the biblical Feast of Tabernacles

With temporal, spiritual and economic events lining up for next month, some pastors are urging Christians to be prepared, warning they cannot rely on most American media outlets to report the truth.
Carl Gallups, a pastor, former law-enforcement officer and author of the upcoming book “Be Thou Prepared,” observes: “With the onslaught of predicted ominous events scheduled to occur in or around September of this year, as well as the actual scheduled events possessing possible prophetic overtones, a lot of people certainly are tuned in to the end of this year with a laser focus. Sadly, it sometimes seems the Russian media is more reliable and eclectic in its reporting than is the American media. Given the fact that the United States media often seems loathe to report on anything biblical or Christian in nature, unless it is excoriating or marginalizing them, this should not surprise us.”

Gallups says the Russian media’s focus on September may reflect a political and even religious agenda. After all, he notes, “Russia and Putin have made a big deal lately about the infusion of ‘Christian influence’ in Putin’s ‘new’ Russian culture.
“As to the reliability of Russia’s speculation that something catastrophic is going to happen in America this fall, and particularly this September, I suppose their conjectures are [as] good as any. I doubt that they have any special prophetic insight into these matters. Unless they have some sort of covert plans to attempt to be a part of a ‘self-fulfilling prophecy.’ I certainly would not put that past them at all.”
Pastor Mark Biltz of El Shaddai Ministries, the discoverer of the “blood moons” phenomenon and the author of “Blood Moons: Decoding the Imminent Heavenly Signs,” lambastes the American press for ignoring what he believes are critically important developments.
“In reading these articles, I find the common denominator to all of them is that the American media is clueless,” he told WND.

Click here to see the Full Report
Sunrise Globe Earth Planet Space - Public Domain


We witnessed something truly historic happen on Friday.  The Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted 530 points, and that followed a 358 point crashon Thursday.  When you add those two days together, the total two day stock market crash that we just witnessed comes to a grand total of 888 points, which is larger than any one day stock market crash in U.S. history.  It is also interesting to note that this 888 point crash comes in the 8th month of our calendar.  Perhaps that is just a coincidence, and perhaps it is not.  It just struck me as being noteworthy.  This is the first time that the Dow has dropped by more than 300 points on two consecutive days since November 2008, and we all remember what was happening back then.  Overall, this was the worst week for the Dow in four years, and there have only been five other months throughout historywhen the Dow has fallen by more than a thousand points (the most recent being October 2008).  Of course we still have six more trading days left in August, so there is plenty of time remaining for even more carnage.
By itself, the 530 point plunge on Friday was the ninth worst stock market crash in all of U.S. history.  The following list of the top eight comes from Wikipedia…
#1 2008-09-29 −777.68
#2 2008-10-15 −733.08
#3 2001-09-17 −684.81
#4 2008-12-01 −679.95
#5 2008-10-09 −678.91
#6 2011-08-08 −634.76
#7 2000-04-14 −617.77
#8 1997-10-27 −554.26
Another very interesting thing to note is that the largest stock market crash in U.S. history took place on the very last day of the Shemitah year of 2008, and now we are less than a month away from the end of this current Shemitah year.
It is funny how these strange “coincidences” keep happening.
The financial carnage that we witnessed on Friday was truly global in scope.  On a percentage basis, Chinese stocks crashed even more than U.S. stocks did.  Japanese stocks also crashed, so did stock markets all over Europe, and emerging market currencies all over the planet got absolutely destroyed.
The following is how Zero Hedge summarized what went down…
  • China’s worst week since July – closes at 5 month lows
  • Global Stocks’ worst week since May 2012
  • US Stocks’ worst week in 4 years
  • VIX’s biggest weekly rise ever
  • Crude’s longest losing streak in 29 years
  • Gold’s best week since January
  • 5Y TSY Yield’s biggest absolute drop in 2 years
Even though I specifically warned that this would happen, and have been explaining why it would happen on my website in excruciating detail for months, the truth is that I didn’t expect stocks to start crashing this quickly or this ferociously.

Click here to see the Full Report
New York Stock Exchange - Photo from Wikimedia Commons
What has been happening on Wall Street the past few days has been nothing short of stunning.  On Thursday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted 358 points.  It was the largest single day decline in a year and a half, and investors are starting to panic.  Overall, the Dow is now down more than 1300 points from the peak of the market.  Just yesterday, I wrote about all of the experts that are warning about a stock market crash in 2015, and after today I am sure that a lot more people will start jumping on the bandwagon.  In particular, tech stocks are getting absolutely hammered lately.  The Nasdaq has fallen close to 3.5% over the past two days alone, and it has dropped below its 200-day moving average.  The Russell 2000 (a small-cap stock market index) is also now trading below its 200-day moving average.  What all of this means is that the stock market crash of 2015 has already begun.  The only question left to answer at this point is how bad it will ultimately turn out to be.
When stocks were booming, tech stocks were leading the way up.
But now that the market has turned, tech stocks are starting to lead the way down…
The Dow and the S&P 500 are negative for the year. The so-called “FANG” stocks – Facebook, Apple, Netflix, and Google – were some of the biggest losers, and helped send the Nasdaq more than 2% lower. Biotechs also suffered big losses; the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF fell 4% to a three-month low. The Vix, which gauges market expectations for near-term shifts in the S&P 500, surged more than 21%.
And Twitter is absolutely imploding.  It has fallen below its IPO price, and at this point it is now down 65 percent from the peak.
Of course it was inevitable that Twitter and these tech stocks would start falling eventually.  I specifically warned my readers about Twitter’s stock price nearly two years ago.  I hope people listened to what I was saying and got out in time.
This current market crash is happening in the context of a full-blown global financial meltdown.  Stock markets all over the planet are collapsing, and currencies are being devalued left and right.  The following comes from a recent piece by Wolf Richter…
Hot money is already fleeing emerging markets. Higher rates in the US will drain more capital out of countries that need it the most. It will pressure emerging market currencies and further increase the likelihood of a debt crisis in countries whose governments, banks, and corporations borrow in a currency other than their own.
This scenario would be bad enough for the emerging economies. But now China has devalued the yuan to stimulate its exports and thus its economy at the expense of others. And one thing has become clear on Wednesday: these struggling economies that compete with China are going to protect their exports against Chinese encroachment.
Hence a currency war.
Two more major shots in the currency war were fired on Thursday by Kazakhstan and Vietnam…
Hit by sharp declines in crude prices, the oil-producing nation of Kazakhstan introduced a freely floating exchange rate for the tenge, which subsequently lost more than a quarter of its value.
The State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) devalued the dong (VND) by 1 percent against the dollar on Wednesday—its third adjustment so far this year—and simultaneously widened the trading band to 3 percent from 2 percent previously, the second increase in six days.
A quarter of its value?
Now that is a devaluation.

Manhattan Stock Market Crash In 2015 - Public Domain
Is the stock market going to crash by the end of 2015?  Of course stock market crashes are already happening in 23 different nations around the planet, but most Americans don’t really care about those markets.  The truth is that what matters to people in this country is the health of their own stock portfolios and retirement accounts.  There are a lot of people out there that are very afraid of what could happen if the money that they have worked so hard to save gets wiped out in a sudden financial collapse.  And right now there is an unprecedented amount of buzz about the potential for a giant stock market crash by the end of this calendar year.  In fact, I don’t think that I have ever seen more experts come out with bold predictions that a stock market crash will happen within a very specific period of time.
The following is a sampling of some of the experts that have made very bold proclamations about the rest of this year over the past few weeks.  Many of these individuals are putting their credibility on the line by proclaiming that a stock market crash is just around the corner…

-Tom McClellan says that we are heading for an “ugly decline” and that there will be “nothing good for bulls for the rest of the year”…
Tom McClellan loves doing what financial advisers tell you not to do. He tries to time the financial markets — to the exact day, if his charts align just right.
At the moment, they are telling him to be bullish on the stock market for all of his trading time frames, including those that trade every few days, weeks and months. But bulls should be ready to flee, as soon as this week.
That’s because McClellan said his timing models suggest “THE” top in stocks will be hit some time between Aug. 20 and Aug. 26. He expects “nothing good for the bulls for the rest of the year,” he said in a phone interview with MarketWatch.
McClellan doesn’t have a strong view on how far stocks could fall, just that it will probably be an “ugly decline” lasting into early 2016.

-Harry Dent recently stated that we are just “weeks away” from a “global financial collapse“.


-Larry Edelson insists that he is “100% confident” that a global financial crisis will be triggered “within the next few months”…

“On October 7, 2015, the first economic supercycle since 1929 will trigger a global financial crisis of epic proportions. It will bring Europe, Japan and the United States to their knees, sending nearly one billion human beings on a roller-coaster ride through hell for the next five years. A ride like no generation has ever seen. I am 100% confident it will hit within the next few months.”

-Jeff Berwick, the editor of the Dollar Vigilante, says that there is “enough going on in September to have me incredibly curious and concerned about what’s going to happen“.


-Even the mainstream media is issuing ominous warnings now.  Just a few days ago, one of the most important newspapers in the entire world published a major story about the coming crisis under this headline: “Doomsday clock for global market crash strikes one minute to midnight as central banks lose control“.

-The Bank for International Settlements and the IMF have jumped on the prediction bandwagon as well.  The following comes from a recent piece by Brandon Smith…


Globe Earth World Planet Ominous - Public DomainYou can stop waiting for a global financial crisis to happen.  The truth is that one is happening right now.  All over the world, stock markets are already crashing.  Most of these stock market crashes are occurring in nations that are known as “emerging markets”.  In recent years, developing countries in Asia, South America and Africa loaded up on lots of cheap loans that were denominated in U.S. dollars.  But now that the U.S. dollar has been surging, those borrowers are finding that it takes much more of their own local currencies to service those loans.  At the same time, prices are crashing for many of the commodities that those countries export.  The exact same kind of double whammy caused the Latin American debt crisis of the 1980s and the Asian financial crisis of the 1990s.
As you read this article, almost every single stock market in the world is down significantly from a record high that was set either earlier this year or late in 2014.  But even though stocks have been sliding in the western world, they haven’t completely collapsed just yet.
In much of the developing world, it is a very different story.  Emerging market currencies are crashing hard, recessions are starting, and equity prices are getting absolutely hammered.
Posted below is a list that I put together of 23 nations around the world where stock market crashes are already happening.  To see the stock market chart for each country, just click the link…
2. Brazil
3. Egypt
4. China
7. Turkey
8. Chile
10. Peru
11. Bulgaria
12. Greece
13. Poland
14. Serbia
15. Slovenia
16. Ukraine
17. Ghana
18. Kenya
19. Morocco
20. Nigeria
21. Singapore
22. Taiwan
23. Thailand
Of course this is just the beginning.  The western world is going to feel this kind of pain as well very soon.  I want to share with you an excerpt from an article that just appeared in the Telegraph entitled “Doomsday clock for global market crash strikes one minute to midnight as central banks lose control“.  You see, the Telegraph is not just one of the most important newspapers in the UK – it is truly one of the most important newspapers in the entire world.  When it speaks on financial matters, millions of people listen very carefully.  So for the Telegraph to declare that the countdown to a “global market crash” is “one minute to midnight” is a very, very big deal…Click here and see the Full report