Category Archives: Financial markets

The “Stock Market Crash Of 2018” Is Rapidly Transforming Into “The Financial Crisis Of 2019”, by Michael Snyder

Nothing goes up forever, and when stock markets stop going up, it often means the economy will go down, too. From Michael Snyder at theeconomiccollapseblog.com:

Stock markets are crashing all over the world, we are seeing extremely violent “flash crashes” in the forex marketplace, economic conditions are slowing down all over the globe, and fear is causing many investors to become extremely trigger happy.  The stock market crash of 2018 wiped out approximately 12 trillion dollars in global stock market wealth, but things were supposed to calm down once we got into 2019.  But clearly that is not happening.  After Apple announced that their sales during the first quarter are going to be much, much lower than previously anticipated, Apple’s stock price started shooting down like a rocket and by the end of the session on Wednesday the company had lost 75 billion dollars in market capitalization.  Meanwhile, “flash crashes” caused some of the most violent swings that we have ever seen in the foreign exchange markets…

It took seven minutes for the yen to surge through levels that have held through almost a decade.

In those wild minutes from about 9:30 a.m. Sydney, the yen jumped almost 8 percent against the Australian dollar to its strongest since 2009, and surged 10 percent versus the Turkish lira. The Japanese currency rose at least 1 percent versus all its Group-of-10 peers, bursting through the 72 per Aussie level that has held through a trade war, a stock rout, Italy’s budget dispute and Federal Reserve rate hikes.

This is the kind of chaos that we only see during a financial crisis.

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2019 From A Fourth Turning Perspective, by Jim Quinn

Jim Quinn adds depth to the pessimistic point of view. From Quinn at theburningplatform.com:

“An impasse over the federal budget reaches a stalemate. The president and Congress both refuse to back down, triggering a near-total government shutdown. The president declares emergency powers. Congress rescinds his authority. Dollar and bond prices plummet. The president threatens to stop Social Security checks. Congress refuses to raise the debt ceiling. Default looms. Wall Street panics.” – The Fourth Turning – Strauss & Howe

Image result for budget impasse trump schumer

Strauss and Howe wrote their book in 1996. They were not trying to be prophets of doom, but observers of history able to connect events through human life cycles of 80 or so years. Using critical thinking skills and identifying the most likely triggers for crisis: debt, civic decay, and global disorder, they were able to anticipate scenarios which could drive the next crisis, which they warned would arrive in the mid-2000 decade. The scenario described above is fairly close to the current situation, driven by the showdown between Trump and the Democrats regarding the border wall.

It has not reached the stage where all hell breaks loose, but if it extends until the end of January and food stamp money is not distributed to 40 million people (mostly in urban ghettos) all bets are off. The likelihood of this scenario is small, but there are numerous potential triggers which could still make 2019 go down in history as a year to remember.

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iPhone Sales Croak, China’s Economy Deteriorating Faster than Expected, Apple Warns. Shares Plunge, by Wolf Richter

Apple is running into trouble in China, and the US stock market bellwether is now down over 35 percent from its recent all-time high. From Wolf Richter at wolfstreet.com:

“We did not foresee the magnitude of the economic deceleration.” Oh dude, starting the year out on the right foot.

On Wednesday after the market closed, Apple released a letter to shareholders in which it said that revenues are going to be a lot worse in the quarter ended December 29 than its guidance two months ago, that iPhone revenues have dropped year-over-year, that China’s economic problems are deeper than expected, and that iPhone revenues are hurting elsewhere too. This confirms a series of revenue warnings from Apple suppliers.

Shares plunged 7.5% after hours to $146. If shares close at this level on Thursday, it would be the lowest close since November 7, 2017. Shares have plunged 38% in three months. Wow, this was quick:

In its “Letter from Tim Cook,” Apple slashed its revenue guidance by 6% to 10% from its prior guidance two months ago, to about $84 billion in the quarter, down from its previous guidance of $89 billion to $93 billion.

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Which Side Are You On? by James Howard Kunstler

America’s corrupt economy and way of life are headed for a crack-up, regardless of anything President Trump may or may not do, but the mainstream media is blissfully oblivious. From James Howard Kunstler at kunstler.com:

You had to love the narrative that the financial media put over about the 1000-plus point zoom in the DJIA on Wednesday: that pension funds were “rebalancing” their portfolios. It dredged up the image of a drowning man at the bottom of the deep blue sea with an anchor in one hand and an anvil in the other, switching hands.

Thursday’s last minute 900-point turnaround was another marvelous stunt to behold. Somebody gave the drowned man a pair of swim fins to kick himself furiously to the surface for a gulp of air. The truth, of course, is that pension funds are sunk, however you balance their investment loads while they’re underwater. They over-bought stocks out of sheer desperation during ten years of near-ZIRP bond yields, and started rotating back into bonds as they crept above the ZIRP handle, and now with bond yields retreating, they’re loading up again on still-overpriced stocks that pretend to be “bargains.” Everybody knows that this will not end well for pension funds. Glug Glug.

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Apple Lost $11 Billion Buying Back Its Own Stock In 2018, by Tyler Durden

At least Apple used its own money to speculate on its stock. A lot of companies borrow money to buy their own stock. Like Apple, many of them have bought stock are prices far higher than current prices. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

There’s a funny thing about buybacks: when stocks are rising (and are therefore more expensive), companies have zero doubts  about repurchasing their own stock, especially if said purchase is funded with cheap debt. Of course, by repurchasing their stock, the price goes even higher making management’s equity-linked comp more valuable, which explains why management teams usually have no misgivings about allocating capital to this most simplistic of corporate uses of funds. However, when stocks fall, companies tend to clam down on buybacks due to fears that the drop may continue, forcing the CFO or Treasurer to explain his actions to the CEO or the board, and why they risked losses on capital (as well as getting a pink slip) instead of investing in “safer” corporate strategies like M&A, R&D or capex.

The irony, of course, is that companies should not be buying back stocks when the stock is rising (as that’s when it is more expensive), and accelerate repurchases when it is dumping. And yet, that virtually never happens in reality as management teams, like most investors and algos, tend to chase momentum and direction. Meanwhile, confused by underlying pricing mechanics, management – which is singlehandedly responsible for the levitation in the stock price with its buybacks – then watches its stock price tumble even more one stock repurchases are halted.

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The Donald’s 60% Gone – But No Cigar for CNN, by David Stockman

The Trump rally has been 60 percent reversed. Will the Russiagate farce ever end? From David Stockman at antiwar.com:

At Friday’s close fully 60% of the Trump Bump in the S&P 500 has been liquidated. And we have some nice round numbers to show for it.

The broad market index stood at 2140 just hours before the shocking 2016 election results were reported, and rose by 800 points from there to 2940 on September 21, 2018. That was a gain of 37% on top of the already massively inflated stock market than extant.

It was also Peak Trump. During the last 40 trading days 475 S&P points have gone missing in a relative heartbeat, and there’s miles to go before it’s over.

And that’s also why the Donald’s sojourn in the Oval Office is heading for its sell-by date as well. It has been only the Trump Bump and the misleadingly happy jobs data attendant to the waning days of a failed, octogenarian business cycle that has kept him afloat with his enthusiastic base in the hinterlands and the grudging GOP establishment in the Imperial City.

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$1.3 Trillion “Leveraged Loan” Boom Comes Unglued, by Wolf Richter

Leveraged loans are closely related to junk bonds, and its not a good sign when either market is coming “unglued.” From Wolf Richter at wolfstreet.com:

The Fed has warned about them, and investors fear a run-on-the-fund. 

The $1.3 trillion “leveraged loan” boom is coming unglued: Not because the junk-rated, highly leveraged, cash-flow-negative companies that issued these loans are massively defaulting – they’re not yet – but because investors are fleeing these instruments that had been super-hot for years, until October. They’re fleeing from loan mutual funds that hold these loans because they want to grab the “first-mover advantage” in an illiquid market; they want to be the first out the door before they get caught in a run-on-the-fund – with potentially catastrophic consequences for their cherished money.

These investors yanked a net of $3 billion out of US loan mutual funds and $300 million out of exchange-traded loan funds during the week ended December 19, in total $3.3 billion, the biggest outflow on record, according to Lipper. In the prior week, investors had yanked out $2.5 billion, which at the time had also been a record. It was the fifth week in a row of net outflows exceeding $1 billion, also a record.

Since the week ended October 31, the week all this started, the net outflow has reached $11.3 billion.

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