We Just Witnessed The Greatest One Day Global Stock Market Loss In World History - Michael Snyder THE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE BLOG

We Just Witnessed The Greatest One Day Global Stock Market Loss In World History

Posted: 26 Jun 2016 Michael Snyder  THE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE BLOG

More stock market wealth was lost on Friday than on any other day in world history.  As you will see below, global investors lost two trillion dollars on the day following the Brexit vote.  And remember, this is on top of the trillions that global investors have already lost over the past 12 months.

It is important to understand that the Brexit vote was not the beginning of a new crisis – it has simply accelerated a global financial crisis that started last year and that was already in the process of unfolding.  As I noted on Friday, we have been waiting for “the next Lehman Brothers moment” that would really unleash fear and panic globally, and now we have it.  The next six months should be absolutely fascinating to watch.

According to CNBC, the total amount of money lost on global stock markets on Friday surpassed anything that we had ever seen before, and that includes the darkest days of the financial crisis of 2008…

Worldwide markets hemorrhaged more than $2 trillion in paper wealth on Friday, according to data from S&P Global, the worst on record. For context, that figure eclipsed the whipsaw trading sessions of the 2008 financial crisis, according to S&P analyst Howard Silverblatt.
The prior one day sell-off record was $1.9 trillion back in September of 2008, Silverblatt noted. According to S&P’s Broad Market Index, combined market capitalization is currently worth nearly $42 trillion.

And of course many of the wealthiest individuals on the planet got absolutely hammered.  According to Bloomberg, the 400 richest people in the world lost a total of $127.4 billion dollars on Friday…

The world’s 400 richest people lost $127.4 billion Friday as global equity markets reeled from the news that British voters elected to leave the European Union. The billionaires lost 3.2 percent of their total net worth, bringing the combined sum to $3.9 trillion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The biggest decline belonged to Europe’s richest person, Amancio Ortega, who lost more than $6 billion, while nine others dropped more than $1 billion, including Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor, the wealthiest person in the U.K.

Could you imagine losing a billion dollars on a single day?

I am sure that Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos are not shivering in their boots quite yet, but what if the markets keep on bleeding like they did in 2008?

On the other hand, globalist magnate George Soros made a ton of money on Friday because he had positioned himself for a Brexit ahead of time.  The following comes from the London Independent…

The billionaire who predicted Brexit would bring about “Black Friday” and a crisis for the finances of ordinary people appears to have profited hugely from the UK’s surprise exit from the EU.
George Soros is widely known as the man who “broke” the Bank of England in 1992, when he bet against the pound and made a reported £1.5bn.
Although the exact amount Mr Soros has gained after Brexit is not known, public filings show he doubled his bets earlier this year that stocks would fall.

So what will happen on Monday when the markets reopen?

Personally, I don’t think that it will be as bad as Friday.

But I could be wrong.

In early trading, Dow futures, S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq futures are all down…

Dow futures fell by 90 points in early trading, while S&P 500 futures slipped 11 points, and NASDAQ futures dipped 24 points. Gold futures rose, in a reflection of sustained demand for safe-haven assets.

And at this moment, the British pound is getting absolutely crushed.  It is down to 1.33, and I would expect to see it fall a lot lower in the weeks and months to come.

Why?

Well, the truth is that now that the British people have voted to leave the EU, the globalists have to make it as painful as possible on them in order to send a warning to other nations that may consider leaving.  I think that a recent article by W. Ben Hunt explained this very well…

What’s next? From a game theory perspective, the EU and ECB need to crush the UK. It’s like the Greek debt negotiations … it was never about Greece, it was always about sending a signal that dissent and departure will not be tolerated to the countries that matter to the survival of the Eurozone (France, Italy, maybe Spain). Now they (and by “they” I mean the status quo politicians throughout the EU, not just Germany) are going to send that same signal to the same countries by hurting the UK any way they can, creating a Narrative that it’s economic death to leave the EU, much less the Eurozone. It’s not spite. It’s purely rational. It’s the smart move.

The elite need a crisis now in order to show everyone that globalism is the answer and not the problem.  If the British people were allowed to thrive once they walked away, that would only encourage more countries to go down the exact same path.  This is something that the elite are determined to avoid.

The Brexit vote has barely sunk in, and Bank of America and Goldman Sachs are already projecting a recession for the United Kingdom.  Sadly, I believe that this is what we will see happen.

But it won’t just be the British that suffer.

On Friday, European banking stocks had their worst day ever.  In particular, Deutsche Bank fell an astounding 17.49 percent to an all-time record closing low of 14.72.  I have warned repeatedly about the implosion of Deutsche Bank, and this crisis could be the catalyst for it.
In addition, I have repeatedly warned about the slow-motion meltdown that is happening in Japan.  On Friday, Japanese stocks lost 1286 points, and the yen surged in the exact opposite direction that the government is trying to send it…

Tokyo, we have a problem.
Last week, market tumult stemming from the U.K.’s vote to quit the European Union drove the British pound to its weakest levels in three decades.
Yet it also sent investors flocking to traditional safe haven assets like the U.S. dollar, gold and the yen, the latter surging against every major currency as the results of Brexit became clear: Dollar/yen spiked from a Thursdayhigh near 107 to a two-year low near 99.

Just like in 2008, there will be days when global markets will be green.  When that happens, it will not mean that the crisis is over.

If you follow my work closely, then you know that it is imperative to look at the bigger picture.  Over the past 12 months, there have been some very nice market rallies around the world, but investors have still lost trillions of dollars overall.

What happens on any one particular day is not the story.  Rather, the key is to focus on the long-term trends.

And without a doubt, this Brexit vote could be “the tipping point” that greatly accelerates our ongoing woes…

“Brexit is the biggest global monetary shock since 2008,” said David Beckworth, a scholar at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, in a blog post on Friday. “This could be the tipping point that turns the existing global slowdown of 2016 into a global recession.”

We were already dealing with a new global economic crisis without the Brexit vote.  But what this does is it introduces an element of panic and fear that had been missing up until this current time.

And markets do not like panic and fear very much.  In general, markets tend to go up when things are calm and predictable, and they tend to go down when chaos reigns.

Unfortunately, I believe that we are going to see quite a bit more chaos for the rest of 2016, and the trillions that were lost on Friday may turn out to be just the tip of the iceberg.

George Soros Is Preparing For Economic Collapse – Does He Know Something That You Don’t? - Michael Snyder THE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE BLOG

George Soros Is Preparing For Economic Collapse – Does He Know Something That You Don’t? Posted: 09 Jun 2016   Michael Snyder  THE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE BLOG Why is George Soros selling stocks, buying gold and making “a series of big, bearish investments”?  If things stay relatively stable like they are right now, these moves will likely cost George Soros a tremendous amount of money.  But if a major financial crisis is imminent, he stands to make obscene returns.  So does George Soros know something that the rest of us do not?  Could it be possible that he has spent too much time reading websites such as The Economic Collapse Blog?  What are we to make of all of this? The recent trading moves that Soros has made are so big and so bearish that they have even gotten the attention of the Wall Street Journal… Worried about the outlook for the global economy and concerned that large market shifts may be at hand, the billionaire hedge-fund founder and philanthropist recently directed a series of big, bearish investments, according to people close to the matter. Soros Fund Management LLC, which manages $30 billion for Mr. Soros and his family, sold stocks and bought gold and shares of gold miners, anticipating weakness in various markets. Investors often view gold as a haven during times of turmoil. Hmmm – it sounds suspiciously like George Soros and Michael Snyder are on the exact same page as far as what is about to happen to the global economy. You know that it is very late in the game when that starts happening… One thing that George Soros is particularly concerned about that I haven’t been talking a lot about yet is the upcoming Brexit vote.  If the United Kingdom leaves the EU (and hopefully they will), the short-term consequences for the European economy could potentially be absolutely catastrophic… Mr. Soros also argues that there remains a good chance the European Union will collapse under the weight of the migration crisis, continuing challenges in Greece and a potential exit by the United Kingdom from the EU. “If Britain leaves, it could unleash a general exodus, and the disintegration of the European Union will become practically unavoidable,” he said. The Brexit vote will be held two weeks from today on June 23rd, and we shall be watching to see what happens. But Soros is not just concerned about a potential Brexit.  The economic slowdown in China also has him very worried, and so he has directed his firm to make extremely bearish wagers. According to the Wall Street Journal, the last time Soros made these kinds of bearish moves was back in 2007, and it resulted in more than a billion dollars of gains for his company. Of course Soros is not alone in his bearish outlook.  In fact, Goldman Sachs has just warned that “there may be significant risk to the downside for the market”… Goldman Sachs is getting nervous about stocks. In a note to clients, equity strategist Christian Mueller-Glissmann outlined the firm’s fears that there may be significant risk to the downside for the market. Ultimately, George Soros and Goldman Sachs are looking at the same economic data that I share with my readers on a daily basis. As I have been documenting for months, almost every single economic indicator that you can possibly think of says that we are heading into a recession. For instance, just today I was sent a piece by Mike Shedlock that showed that federal and state tax receipts are really slowing down just like they did just prior to the last two recessions… US federal personal tax receipts receipts are falling fast. So is the Evercore ISI State Tax Survey. The last two times the survey plunged this much, the US was already in recession. Is it different this time? And online job postings on LinkedIn have now been falling precipitously since February after 73 months in a row of growth… After 73 consecutive months of year-over-year growth, online jobs postings have been in decline since February. May was by far the worst month since January 2009, down 285k from April and down 552k from a year ago. Last week, the government issued the worst jobs report in nearly six years, and the energy industry continues to bleed good paying middle class jobs at a staggering rate.  The following comes from oilprice.com… That may seem counterintuitive in an industry that has been rapidly shedding workers, with more than 350,000 people laid off in the oil and gas industry worldwide. Texas is one place feeling the pain. Around 99,000 direct and indirect jobs in the Lone Star state have been eliminated since prices collapsed two years ago, or about one third of the entire industry. In April alone there were about 6,300 people in oil and gas and supporting services that were handed pink slips. Employment in Texas’ oil sector is close to levels not seen since the aftermath of the financial crisis in 2009. “We’re still losing big chunks of jobs with each passing month,” Karr Ingham, an Amarillo-based economist, told The Houston Chronicle. At this point it is so obvious that we have entered a new economic downturn that I don’t know how anyone can possibly deny it any longer. Unfortunately, the reality of what is happening has not sunk in with the general population yet. Just like 2008, people are feverishly racking up huge credit card balances even though we stand on the precipice of a major financial crisis… American taxpayers are quick to criticize the federal government for its ever-increasing national debt, but a new study released Wednesday found taxpayers are also saddled with debt, and are likely to end 2016 with a record high $1 trillion in outstanding balances. Wallethub, a site that recommends credit cards based on consumers’ needs, said that will be the highest amount of credit card debt on record, surpassing even the years during and before the Great Recession. The site said the record high was in 2008, when people owed $984.2 billion on their credit cards. Will we ever learn? This has got to be one of the worst possible times to be going into credit card debt. Sadly, the “dumb money” will continue to act dumb and the “smart money” (such as George Soros) will continue to quietly position themselves to take advantage of the crisis that is already starting to unfold. We can’t change what is happening to the economy, but we do have control over the choices that we make. So I urge you to please make your choices wisely. *About the author: Michael Snyder is the founder and publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog. Michael’s controversial new book about Bible prophecy entitled “The Rapture Verdict” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.*

Stock Market Crash 2016: This Is The Worst Start To A Year For Stocks Ever - Michael Snyder THE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE blog

Stock Market Crash 2016: This Is The Worst Start To A Year For Stocks Ever Posted: 07 Jan 2016   Michael Snyder  THE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE blog We have never had a year start the way that 2016 has started.  In the U.S., the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 have both posted their worst four-day starts to a year ever.  Canadian stocks are now down 21 percent since September, and it has been an absolute bloodbath in Europe over the past four days.  Of course the primary catalyst for all of this is what has been going on in China.  There has been an emergency suspension of trading in China two times within the past four days, and nobody is quite certain what is going to happen next.  Eventually this wave of panic selling will settle down, but that won’t mean that this crisis will be over.  In fact, what is coming is going to be much worse than what we have already seen. On Thursday I was doing a show with some friends, and we were amazed that stocks just seemed to keep falling and falling and falling.  The Dow closed down 392 points, and the NASDAQ got absolutely slammed.  At this point, the Dow and the NASDAQ are both officially in “correction territory”, and some of the talking heads on television are warning that this could be the beginning of a “bear market”.  But of course some of the other “experts” are insisting that this is just a temporary bump in the road. But what everyone can agree on is that we have never seen a start to a year like this one.  The following comes from CNN… The global market freakout of 2016 just got worse. The latest scare came on Thursday as China’s stock market crashed 7% overnight and crude oil plummeted to the lowest level in more than 12 years. The Dow dropped 392 points on Thursday. The S&P 500 fell 2.4%, while the Nasdaq tumbled 3%. The wave of selling has knocked the Dow down 911 points, or more than 5% so far this year. That’s the worst four-day percentage loss to start a year on record, according to FactSet stats that go back to 1897. When CNN starts sounding like The Economic Collapse Blog, you know that things are really bad.  I particularly like their use of the phrase “global market freakout”.  I might have to borrow that one. Even some of the biggest and most trusted stocks are plummeting.  For instance, Apple dropped to $96.45 on Thursday.  It is now down a total of 28 percent since hitting a record high of more than 134 dollars a share back in April. So that means that if someone put all of their retirement money into Apple stock last April (which may have seemed like a really good idea at that time), by now more than one-fourth of that money is gone. For months, I have been warning that the exact same patterns that we witnessed just prior to the great stock market crash of 2008 were happening again.  To me, the parallels between 2008 and 2015/2016 were just uncanny.  And now other very prominent names are making similar comparisons.  According to the Washington Post, George Soros says that the way this new crisis is unfolding “reminds me of the crisis we had in 2008″… Influential investor George Soros said that China had a “major adjustment problem” on its hands. “I would say it amounts to a crisis,” he told an economic forum in Sri Lanka, according to Bloomberg News. “When I look at the financial markets, there is a serious challenge which reminds me of the crisis we had in 2008.” Don’t get me wrong – I am certainly not a supporter of George Soros.  My point is that we are starting to hear a lot of really ominous talk from a lot of different directions.  All over the world, people are starting to understand that the next great financial crisis is already here. As I write this tonight, I just feel quite a bit of sadness.  A lot of hard working people are going to lose a lot of money this year, and that includes people that I know personally.  I wish that my voice had been clearer and louder.  I wish that I could have done more to get people to understand what was coming.  I wish that my warnings could have made more of a difference. I just think about how I would feel if everything that I had worked for all my life was suddenly wiped out.  And that is what is going to end up happening to some of these people.  When you lose everything, it can be absolutely debilitating. You only make money in the markets if you get out in time.  And unfortunately, most of the general population will be like deer in the headlights and won’t know which way to move. There will be up days for the markets in our near future.  But don’t be fooled by them.  It is important to remember that some of the greatest up days in U.S. stock market history were right in the middle of the stock market crash of 2008.  So don’t let a rally fool you into thinking that the crisis is over. The financial crisis that began in the second half of 2015 is now accelerating, and everything that we have witnessed over the past few days is just a natural extension of what has already been happening. Personally, I am just really looking forward to this weekend when I will hopefully get caught up on some rest.  Plus, my Washington Redskins will be hosting a playoff game on Sunday, and if they find a way to win that game that will put me in a particularly positive mood. It is good to enjoy these simple pleasures while we still can.  Unprecedented chaos is coming this year, and we are all going to need strength and courage for what is ahead.