The Financial Apocalypse Accelerates As Middle East Stocks Crash To Begin The Week - Michael Snyder THE ECONOMIC BLOG

The Financial Apocalypse Accelerates As Middle East Stocks Crash To Begin The Week Posted: 17 Jan 2016  Michael Snyder   THE ECONOMIC BLOG It looks like it is going to be another chaotic week for global financial markets.  On Sunday, news that Iran plans to dramatically ramp up oil production sent stocks plunging all across the Middle East.  Stocks in Kuwait were down 3.1 percent, stocks in Saudi Arabia plummeted 5.4 percent, and stocks in Qatar experienced a mammoth 7 percent decline.  And of course all of this comes in the context of a much larger long-term decline for Middle Eastern stocks.   At this point, Saudi Arabian stocks are down more than 50 percent from their 2014 highs.  Needless to say, a lot of very wealthy people in Saudi Arabia are getting very nervous.  Could you imagine waking up someday and realizing that more than half of your fortune had been wiped out?  Things aren’t that bad in the U.S. quite yet, but it looks like another rough week could be ahead.  The Dow, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq are all down at least 12 percent from their 52-week highs, and the Russell 2000 is already in bear market territory.  Hopefully this week will not be as bad as last week, but events are starting to move very rapidly now. Much of the chaos around the globe is being driven by the price of oil.  At the end of last week the price of oil dipped below 30 dollars a barrel, and now Iran has announced plans “to add 1 million barrels to its daily crude production”… Iran could get more than five times as much cash from oil sales by year-end as the lifting of economic sanctions frees the OPEC member to boost crude exports and attract foreign investment needed to rebuild its energy industry. The Persian Gulf nation will be able to access all of its revenue from crude sales after the U.S. and five other global powers removed sanctions on Saturday in return for Iran’s curbing its nuclear program. The fifth-biggest producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries had been receiving only $700 million of each month’s oil earnings under an interim agreement, with the rest blocked in foreign bank accounts.   Iran is striving to add 1 million barrels to its daily crude production and exports this year amid a global supply glut that has pushed prices 22 percent lower this month. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what this is going to do to the price of oil. The price of oil has already fallen more than 20 percent so far in 2016, and overall it has declined by more than 70 percent since late 2014. When the price of oil first started to fall, a lot of people out there were proclaiming that it would be really good for the U.S. economy.  But I said just the opposite.  And of course since that time we have seen an endless parade of debt downgrades, bankruptcies and job losses.  130,000 good paying energy jobs were lost in the United States in 2015 alone because of this collapse, and things just continue to get even worse.   At this point, some are even calling for the federal government to intervene.  For example, the following is an excerpt from a CNN article that was just posted entitled “Is it time to bail out the U.S. oil industry?“… America’s once-booming oil industry is suddenly in deep financial trouble. The epic crash in oil prices has wiped out tens of thousands of jobs, caused dozens of bankruptcies and spooked global financial markets. The fallout is already being felt in oil-rich states like Texas, Oklahoma and North Dakota, where home foreclosure rates are spiking and economic growth is slowing. Now there are calls in at least some corners for the federal government to come to the rescue. Is it just me, or is all of this really starting to sound a lot like 2008? And of course it isn’t just the U.S. that is facing troubles.  The global financial crisis that began during the second half of 2015 is rapidly accelerating, and chaos is erupting all over the planet.  The following summary of what we have been seeing in recent days comes from Doug Noland… The world has changed significantly – perhaps profoundly – over recent weeks. The Shanghai Composite has dropped 17.4% over the past month (Shenzhen down 21%). Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index was down 8.2% over the past month, with Hang Seng Financials sinking 11.9%. WTI crude is down 26% since December 15th. Over this period, the GSCI Commodities Index sank 12.2%. The Mexican peso has declined almost 7% in a month, the Russian ruble 10% and the South African rand 12%. A Friday headline from the Financial Times: “Emerging market stocks retreat to lowest since 09.” Trouble at the “Periphery” has definitely taken a troubling turn for the worse. Hope that things were on an uptrend has confronted the reality that things are rapidly getting much worse. This week saw the Shanghai Composite sink 9.0%. Major equities indexes were hit 8.0% in Russia and 5.0% in Brazil (Petrobras down 9%). Financial stocks and levered corporations have been under pressure round the globe. The Russian ruble sank 4.0% this week, increasing y-t-d losses versus the dollar to 7.1%. The Mexican peso declined another 1.8% this week. The Polish zloty slid 2.8% on an S&P downgrade (“Tumbles Most Since 2011”). The South African rand declined 3.0% (down 7.9% y-t-d). The yen added 0.2% this week, increasing 2016 gains to 3.0%. With the yen up almost 4% versus the dollar over the past month, so-called yen “carry trades” are turning increasingly problematic. Closer to home, the crisis in Puerto Rico continues to spiral out of control.  The following is an excerpt from a letter that Treasury Secretary Jack Lew sent to Congress on Friday… Although there are many ways this crisis could escalate further, it is clear that Puerto Rico is already in the midst of an economic collapse… Puerto Rico is already in default. It is shifting funds from one creditor to pay another and has stopped payment altogether on several of its debts. As predicted, creditors are filing lawsuits. The Government Development Bank, which provides critical banking and fiscal services to the central government, only avoided depleting its liquidity by halting lending activity and sweeping in additional deposits from other Puerto Rico governmental entities. A large debt payment of $400 million is due on May 1, and a broader set of payments are due at the end of June. It isn’t Michael Snyder from The Economic Collapse Blog that is saying that Puerto Rico is “in the midst of an economic collapse”. That is the Secretary of the U.S. Treasury that is saying it. Those that have been eagerly anticipating a financial apocalypse are going to get what they have been waiting for. Right now we are about halfway through January, and this is the worst start to a year for stocks ever.  The Dow is down a total of 1,437 points since the beginning of 2016, and more than 15 trillion dollars of stock market wealth has been wiped out globally since last June. Unfortunately, there are still a lot of people out there that are in denial. There are a lot of people that still believe that this is just a temporary bump in the road and that things will return to “normal” very soon. They don’t understand that this is just the beginning.  What we have seen so far is just the warm up act, and much, much worse is yet to come.

4 Harbingers Of Stock Market Doom That Foreshadowed The 2008 Crash Are Flashing Red Again - Michael Snyder THE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE blog

4 Harbingers Of Stock Market Doom That Foreshadowed The 2008 Crash Are Flashing Red Again

Posted: 11 Nov 2015 04:27 PM PST  Michael Snyder  THE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE blog

So many of the exact same patterns that we witnessed just before the stock market crash of 2008 are playing out once again right before our eyes.  Most of the time, a stock market crash doesn’t just come out of nowhere.  Normally there are specific leading indicators that we can look for that will tell us if major trouble is on the horizon. 

One of these leading indicators is the junk bond market.  Right now, a closely watched high yield bond ETF known as JNK is sitting at 35.77.  If it falls below 35, that will be a major red flag, and it will be the first time that it has done so since 2009.  As you can see from this chart, JNK started crashing in June and July of 2008 – well before equities started crashing later that year.  A crash in junk bonds almost always precedes a major crash in stocks, and so this is something that I am watching carefully.

And there is a reason why junk bonds are crashing.  In 2015 we have seen the most corporate bond downgrades since the last financial crisis, and corporate debt defaults are absolutely skyrocketing.  The following comes from a recent piece by Porter Stansberry…

So far this year, nearly 300 U.S. corporations have seen their bonds downgraded. That’s the most downgrades per year since the financial crisis of 2008-2009. The year isn’t over yet. Neither are the downgrades. More worrisome, the 12-month default rate on high-yield corporate debt has doubled this year. This suggests we are well into the next major debt-default cycle.

Another thing that I am watching closely is the price of oil.

A massive crash in the price of oil preceded the stock market crash of 2008, and over the past year we have seen another dramatic crash in the price of oil.

Many had been expecting the price of oil to bounce back, but instead we are seeing new downward momentum.  In fact, according to Business Insider the price of U.S. oil briefly dipped below $43 a barrel on Wednesday…

Crude oil was down nearly 3% in morning trade on Wednesday.
West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures in New York dropped to as low as $42.97 per barrel. Futures touched a $42-handle in the last week of October, but last traded near those levels for a considerable period in August.

Another thing that I am watching is the ongoing crash of other industrial commodities.  This is something that also preceded the stock market crash of 2008, and it is a clear sign that global economic activity is really slowing down.

Prices for industrial commodities such as aluminum, tin, iron ore and coal are all crashing.  But the commodity that has me most alarmed personally is copper.

Economists commonly refer to it as “Dr. Copper”, and there is a very good reason for that.  Looking back over history, the price of copper often makes a significant move in one direction or the other before the overall economy does.  And the price of copper almost always starts declining before stocks do.

As I write this, the price of copper has fallen to $2.21, and it is already lower than at any point since the last financial crisis.  To get a better perspective regarding what I am talking about, just check out this chart.  This is one signal that is absolutely screaming that a major financial crisis is imminent.

One more harbinger of financial doom on the horizon is the surging U.S. dollar.  The U.S. dollar surged just before the financial crisis of 2008, and now it is happening again.

Most Americans don’t understand this, but the truth is that a rising U.S. dollar puts an incredible amount of stress on emerging markets all around the globe.  Since the last financial crisis, many of these emerging markets have been on a massive debt binge, and much of that debt was denominated in U.S. dollars.  Now that the dollar has increased in value, emerging market borrowers are finding that it takes much more of their own local currencies to service and pay back those debts.  Defaults are rapidly rising, and emerging market economies all over the world (such as Brazil) have already plunged into recession.

If the Fed does follow through with an interest rate hike in December, that is going to make things even worse.  The U.S. dollar will surge even more, and emerging markets will be in even more trouble.

At the same time that the dollar is getting stronger, the euro is getting weaker.  An article that was posted by CNBC on Wednesday went so far as to state that “it is now looking like the euro reaching parity with the greenback is all but guaranteed”…

The prospect of the Fed hiking interest rates in December has pushed the dollar higher, and it is now looking like the euro reaching parity with the greenback is all but guaranteed.
Strategists, however, disagree on how quickly that will happen and how much more the dollar can appreciate in the near term. That depends, they say, on the Fed, and how fast it will raise interest rates in a world where other central banks are moving in the opposite direction toward easier policy.
Goldman Sachs analysts this week reiterated that they expect euro parity with the dollar by year-end though other strategists expect the decline in the common currency against the dollar to take longer.

Let’s see, who has been warning that this would happen for more than a year?  Here are just a few examples…

July 19th: “For a long time, I have been repeating my prediction that the euro would fall to parity with the U.S. dollar.”

June 28th: “As I have warned repeatedly, the euro is heading for parity with the U.S. dollar, and at some point it will drop below parity.”

May 25th: “As I have warned so many times before, the euro is headed for parity with the U.S. dollar, and then it is going to go below parity.”

In August 2014, just a little bit over a year ago, the EUR/USD was sitting above 1.30.  At that time very few people out there would have ever imagined we would be talking about parity just a little more than a year later.

This is just the beginning of a time of great financial volatility.  The things that we are going to witness in the months and years to come are going to be absolutely unprecedented.  A massive global debt super-cycle is coming to an end, and the pain that this is going to mean for the global economy is almost too great to put into words.

Former Reagan Administration Official David Stockman Warns That Financial Disaster Is Dead Ahead - Michael Snyder

Former Reagan Administration Official Warns That Financial Disaster Is Dead Ahead

Posted: 04 Nov 2015 Michael Snyder  THE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE Blog

Why won’t the American people listen to the warnings?  David Stockman was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1977 to 1981, and he served as the Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan from 1981 to 1985.  These days, he is running a website called “Contra Corner” which I highly recommend that you check out.  Stockman believes that a global “debt super-cycle” that has been building for decades is now bursting, and he is convinced that the consequences for the U.S. and for the rest of the planet will be absolutely catastrophic.

His findings are very consistent with what I have been writing about on The Economic Collapse Blog, and if Stockman is correct the times ahead of us are going to be exceedingly painful.

But right now, most people don’t seem to be in the mood to listen to these types of warnings.  Even though there is a mountain of evidence that the global economy has already plunged into recession, U.S. stocks had a great month in October, and so most Americans seem to think that the crisis has passed.

Of course the truth is that the stock market is not an accurate barometer of the economy and it never has been.  Back in 2008, almost everything else started to go downhill before stocks did, and the same thing is happening once again.  In a recent article, Stockman explained that stocks are surging to absolutely ridiculous levels even though corporate earnings are actually way down…

At this point, 75% of S&P 500 companies have reported Q3 results, and earnings are coming in at $93.80 per share on an LTM basis. That happens to be7.4% below the peak $106 per share reported last September, and means that the market today is valuing these shrinking profits at a spritely 22.49X PE ratio.

 And, yes, there is a reason for two-digit precision. It seems that in the 4th quarter of 2007 LTM earnings came in at 22.19X the S&P 500 index price. We know what happened next!

Why do so many refuse to see the parallels?

This crisis is unfolding so similarly to 2008, and yet most of the “experts” are willingly blind.
Much of the stock buying that has been happening in 2015 has been fueled by stock buybacks and by M&A (merger and acquisitions).  Many firms have even been going into debt to buy back their own stocks, but now sources of financing are starting to dry up.  This year we have already seen the most corporate debt downgrades since 2009, and big financial institutions are now becoming much more hesitant to loan giant stacks of cash to these large corporations at super low interest rates.

So it is very, very difficult to see how the equity markets are going to move much higher than they are right now.

Meanwhile, the global economy is starting to unravel right in front of our eyes.  In his recent piece, Stockman discussed some of these data points…

In the last two days we posted the latest data on two crucial markers of global economic direction——-export shipments from Korea and export orders coming into the high performance machinery factories of Germany.

In a word, they were abysmal, and smoking gun evidence that the suzerains of Beijing have not stopped the implosion in China, and that their latest paddy wagon forays—–arresting the head of China’s third largest bank and hand-cuffing several hedge fund managers including the purported “Warren Buffett” of China—-are signs not of stabilization, but sheer desperation.

So it is not surprising that Korea’s October exports—–the first such data from anywhere in the world—were down by a whopping 16% from last year, and have now been down for 10 straight months. Needless to say, China is the number one destination for Korean exports.

 Likewise, German export orders plummeted by 18% in September, and this was no one month blip.

For many more recent statistics just like these, please see my previous article entitled “18 Numbers That Scream That A Crippling Global Recession Has Arrived“.

If the global economy really was doing “just fine” as Barack Obama and others suggest, then why is the largest shipping line in the world eliminating jobs and scaling back capacity?…

A.P. Moeller-Maersk A/S is scaling back capacity and cutting jobs in the world’s largest shipping line to adapt to a drop in demand.

The Danish company, which last month lowered its profit forecast for 2015 citing a gloomier outlook for the global shipping market, will shed 4,000 jobs in its Maersk Line unit as part of a program to “simplify the organization,” it said in an e-mailed statement on Wednesday.

And why are some of the biggest banks in the western world laying off tens of thousands of workers?…

Standard Chartered Plc became the third European bank in less than two weeks to announce sweeping job cuts, bringing the total planned reductions to more than 30,000, or almost one in seven positions.

 The London-based firm said Tuesday it will eliminate 15,000 jobs, or 17 percent of its workforce, as soaring bad loans in emerging markets hurt earnings. Deutsche Bank AG, based in Frankfurt, last week announced plans for 11,000 job cuts, while Credit Suisse Group AG said it would trim as many as 5,600 employees.

And if things are so great in the United States, why is Target suddenly closing stores?

The truth, of course, is that things are not great.  Global GDP expressed in U.S. dollars is down 3.4 percent so far this year, and total global trade has plummeted 8.4 percent.

We have entered a major global economic slowdown, and like usual, equity markets will be the last to get the memo.

But when they finally do react, that is likely going to greatly accelerate our problems.  Just like we saw in 2008, when there is fear and panic in the financial markets that tends to cause the flow of credit to freeze up.  And that is something that we simply cannot afford, because the flow of credit has become the lifeblood of the global economy.
So no, “the crisis” is not “over”.

Rather, the truth is that “the crisis” is just beginning, and it will soon be making front page headlines all over the planet.

Michael Snyder: America Doesn't Want to Listen to Prophets - Jessilyn Justice, CHARISMA NEWS

Michael Snyder: America Doesn't Want 

to Listen to Prophets

10/23/2015 JESSILYN JUSTICE  charisma news

Michael Snyder is sure an economic collapse is coming, but he says his theories aren't based on random guess work. Rather, he says he is listening to the prophets.  

"The Scriptures say in the end times this is what we are to expect, that we are going to be moving toward this one world religious system," Snyder tells Jim Bakker. "So we need to be aware, no matter who is telling us something, we've got to make sure it lines up with the Word of God." 

Snyder says prophets are crying out to America, but the country is not heeding their warnings.  

Based on the biblical pattern, Snyder is predicting what will happen not just in the natural, but the supernatural. Take a look. 

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Expert That Correctly Predicted Market Moves In July, August And September Says Stocks Will Crash In November - Michael Snyder

Expert That Correctly Predicted Market Moves In July, August And September Says Stocks Will Crash In November

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Expert That Correctly Predicted Market Moves In July, August And September Says Stocks Will Crash In November Posted: 21 Oct 2015  Michael Snyder When someone is right over and over and over, eventually people start paying attention.  Personally, I have learned to tune out the “forecasts” of most “economic experts” out there.  As an attorney, I was trained to be skeptical, and I have found that most forecasts about what the financial markets are going to do are not worth the paper they are printed on.  However, once in a while something comes along that really gets my attention.  Over the past few days, I have seen a number of references to the remarkable forecasts of Bo Polny of Gold 2020 Forecast. In recent months he has correctly predicted that U.S. stocks would begin to drop in July, that there would be a huge plunge in August and that that the month of September would be rather uneventful.  Now he is saying that he expects “November to be a complete meltdown on the U.S. and world markets”.  Just because he has been right in the past does not guarantee that he will be correct this time around, but lots of people (like me) are starting to pay attention. So how does Polny come to his conclusions?  Well, he uses something that most of us hated when we were in school – mathematics.  The following comes from the Daily Sheeple… Cyclical analyst Bo Polny of Gold 2020 Forecast utilizes advanced mathematical formulas and years of cyclical analysis to make forecasts about global stock markets. In late July he noted that U.S. stock markets had hit a top and that investors should prepare for a rapid down-move in the Dow Jones and other indexes. As we now know, that prediction has come to pass. But while many on Wall Street panicked, Polny noted that the crash was not yet imminent and that the month of September would be relatively calm, with no major moves up or down forecast to occur. Once again, his analysis proved accurate. I want to stress that I do not know if he will be right this time around.  When trying to forecast the future of the markets, there are thousands of moving pieces, and many of them cannot be accounted for easily.  But without a doubt the markets are perfectly primed for a major crash, so it would not surprise me in the least if he did turn out to be correct. And as I mentioned above, Polny does have a solid track record of accuracy… ***** Bo’s model appears to have an impressive track record of accurate predictions, including the following: Price of gold reaching $1900 in 2011 China’s stock market peak in April 2015 Hong Kong market peak on April 29 2015 U.S. stock market drop beginning in July 2015 Sharp drop in the stop market in August 2015 U.S. stock market uneventful in September 2015 ***** If Polny is right again this time, next month will be the most significant month for global financial markets since the crash of 2008.  Here is more from Z3News… ***** In an interview with Future Money Trends on October 17 2015, he made the following comments: “Now we are expecting the next leg down on the U.S. and world markets on the dollar. What we are forecasting now is the lows of August are all going to break. They could break in the month of October yet, but we believe they will break no problem into November. We expect November to be a complete meltdown on the U.S. and world markets.” He also posted the following statements on his website: “If you thought the crash of August 2015 was bad; November 2015 is expected to usher in the START of the US Stock, Dollar, and Treasuries Market MELTDOWN!!!” “The end of this year ushers in the start of an Economic Meltdown that is to last years! The U.S. Dollar, Treasuries, and Stock Market bomb is set to blow in November 2015!” ***** Polny is projecting that stocks could ultimately fall by as much as 70 percent by the time it is all said and done.  You can watch a full interview where he discusses these things right here. Meanwhile, early signs of the kind of trouble that Polny is warning about continue to pop up. On Wednesday, the stock price of one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world absolutely crashed after a report came out claiming that it was in danger of suffering the same fate as Enron… Hedge fund darling Valeant Pharmaceuticals is getting hammered after short-selling-firm Citron Research published a report comparing it to Enron. The Canadian drug company’s stock was last down about 25% at around $110. It had fallen as low as $88.50. The stock has been popular among hedge funds. It ranked No. 10 on Goldman Sachs’ stocks that “matter most” to hedge funds list for the second quarter. According to Goldman, 32 funds had the stock as one of their top-10 stock holdings. And this week we learned that construction machinery giant Caterpillar has now reported global sales declines for 34 consecutive months.  The following comes from Zero Hedge… Most cats bounce at least once when they die, but not this one: after CAT posted its first annual drop in retail sales in December of 2012, it has failed to see a rise in retail sales even once. In fact, since then Caterpillar has seen 34 consecutive months of declining global sales, and 11 consecutive months of double digit declines! Those that assume that everything is going to be “just fine” now that we have gotten past September are going to be dead wrong. Whether it happens in November or not, the kind of chaotic financial collapse that Bo Polny is warning about will happen. And of course factors that he is unable to account for such as war, terror attacks and major natural disasters could greatly accelerate things. Once again, I don’t know if everything that Bo Polny is saying is going to turn out to be 100% accurate or not.  I am just reporting what he is saying.  But it is true that what he is forecasting fits very well with what I have been warning my readers about for months and months. A day of reckoning is most definitely coming for global financial markets. Will it happen in November? Stay tuned… Michael Snyder

The Stock Markets of the 10 Largest Global Economies Are All Crashing - Michael Snyder (The Economic Collapse Blog)

Since the peak of the market earlier this year, the Dow is down almost three times as much as that 777-point crash back in 2008. (Reuters)

The Stock Markets of the 10 Largest Global Economies Are All Crashing

9/28/2015 MICHAEL SNYDER  charisma news

You would think that the simultaneous crashing of all of the largest stock markets around the world would be very big news. But so far, mainstream media in the United States are treating it like it isn't really a big deal.

Over the last 60 days, we have witnessed the most significant global stock market decline since fall 2008, and yet most people still seem to think that this is just a temporary "bump in the road" and that the bull market will soon resume. Hopefully they are right.

When the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted 777 points on Sept. 29, 2008, everyone freaked out, and rightly so. But a stock market crash doesn't have to be limited to a single day. Since the peak of the market earlier this year, the Dow is down almost three times as much as that 777-point crash back in 2008.

Over the last 60 days, we have seen the eighth-largest and 10th-largest single-day stock market crash in U.S. history on a point basis. You would think that this would be enough to wake people up, but most Americans still don't seem very alarmed. And of course what has happened to U.S. stocks so far is quite mild compared to what has been going on in the rest of the world.

Right now, stock market wealth is being wiped out all over the planet, and none of the largest global economies have been exempt from this. The following is a summary of what we have seen in recent days:

1. The United States—The Dow Jones Industrial Average is down more than 2,000 points since the peak of the market. Last month we saw stocks decline by more than 500 points on consecutive trading days for the first time ever, and there has not been this much turmoil in U.S. markets since fall 2008.

2. China—The Shanghai Composite Index has plummeted nearly 40 percent since hitting a peak earlier this year. The Chinese economy is steadily slowing down, and we just learned that China's manufacturing index has hit a 78-month low.

3. Japan—The Nikkei has experienced extremely violent moves recently, and it is now down more than 3000 points from the peak that was hit earlier in 2015. The Japanese economy and the Japanese financial system are both basket cases at this point, and it isn't going to take much to push Japan into a full-blown financial collapse.

4. Germany—Almost one-fourth of the value of German stocks has already been wiped out, and this crash threatens to get much worse. The Volkswagen emissions scandal is making headlines all over the globe, and don't forget to watch for massive trouble at Germany's biggest bank.

5. The United Kingdom—British stocks are down about 16 percent from the peak of the market, and the U.K. economy is definitely on shaky ground.

6. France—French stocks have declined nearly 18 percent, and it has become exceedingly apparent that France is on the exact same path that Greece has already gone down.

7. Brazil—Brazil is the epicenter of the South American financial crisis of 2015. Stocks in Brazil have plunged more than 12,000 points since the peak, and the nation has already officially entered a new recession.

8. Italy—Watch Italy. Italian stocks are already down 15 percent. Look for the Italian economy to make very big headlines in the months ahead.

9. India—Stocks in India have now dropped close to 4,000 points, and analysts are deeply concerned about this major exporting nation as global trade continues to contract.

10. Russia—Even though the price of oil has crashed, Russia is actually doing better than almost everyone else on this list. Russian stocks have fallen by about 10 percent so far, and if the price of oil stays this low, the Russian financial system will continue to suffer.

What we are witnessing now is the continuation of a cycle of financial downturns that has happened every seven years. The following is a summary of how this cycle has played out over the past 50 years:

• It started in 1966 with a 20 percent stock market crash.
• Seven years later, the market lost another 45 percent (1973-74).
• Seven years later was the beginning of the "hard recession" (1980).
• Seven years later was the Black Monday crash of 1987.
• Seven years later was the bond market crash of 1994.
• Seven years later was 9/11 and the 2001 tech bubble collapse.
• Seven years later was the 2008 global financial collapse.
• 2015: What's next?

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A lot of people were expecting something "big" to happen on Sept. 14, and were disappointed when nothing happened.

But the truth is that it has never been about looking at any one particular day. Over the past 60 days, we have seen extraordinary things happen all over the planet, and yet some people are not even paying attention because their preconceived notions of how events should play out did not come to pass.

And this is just the beginning. We haven't even gotten to the great derivatives crisis that is coming. All of these things are going to take time to fully unfold.

A lot of people who write about "economic collapse" talk about it like it will be some type of "event" that will happen on a day or a week and then we will recover.

Well, that is not what it's going to be like.

You need to be ready to endure a very, very long crisis. The suffering that is coming to this nation is beyond what most of us could even imagine.

Even now we are seeing early signs of it. For instance, the mayor of Los Angeles says that the growth of homelessness in his city has gotten so bad that it is now "an emergency":

On Tuesday, Los Angeles officials announced the city's homelessness problem has become an emergency, and proposed allotting $100 million to help shelter the city's massive and growing indigent population.

LA Mayor Eric Garcetti also issued a directive on Monday evening for the city to free up $13 million to help house the estimated 26,000 people who are living on the city's streets.

According to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, the number of encampments and people living in vehicles has increased by 85 percent over the last two years alone.

And in recent years we have seen poverty absolutely explode all over the nation. The "bread lines" of the Great Depression have been replaced with EBT cards, and there is a possibility that a government shutdown in October could "suspend or delay food stamp payments":

A government shutdown Oct. 1 could immediately suspend or delay food stamp payments to some of the 46 million Americans who receive the food aid.

The Agriculture Department said Tuesday that it will stop providing benefits at the beginning of October if Congress does not pass legislation to keep government agencies open.

"If Congress does not act to avert a lapse in appropriations, then USDA will not have the funding necessary for SNAP benefits in October and will be forced to stop providing benefits within the first several days of October," said Catherine Cochran, a spokeswoman for USDA. "Once that occurs, families won't be able to use these benefits at grocery stores to buy the food their families need."

In the U.S. alone, there are tens of millions of people that could not survive without the help of the federal government, and more people are falling out of the middle class every single day.

Our economy is already falling apart all around us, and now another great financial crisis has begun.

When will the "nothing is happening" crowd finally wake up?

Hopefully it will be before they are sitting out on the street begging for spare change to feed their family.

Michael T. Snyder is the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog and author of The Beginning of the End.

For a limited time, we are extending our celebration of the 40th anniversary of Charisma. As a special offer, you can get 40 issues of Charisma magazine for only $40!

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Why It's Prudent to Prepare for the 'Blood Moons Financial Collapse'

(© iStoclkphoto/leonard_c; ffolas)

Why It's Prudent to Prepare for the 'Blood Moons Financial Collapse'

 9/23/2015 JAY PERONI  charisma news

With the potential for a blood moons financial collapse this fall, you are probably concerned about preparing yourself for it—and preparing your finances in particular. It is quite interesting when we examine the past to see some of the potential outcomes that could occur this year.

Scholars have observed a pattern of economic crashes that have occurred with regularity. Recent financial cycles have worked on a seven-year cycle:

• It started in 1966 with a 20 percent stock market crash.
• Seven years later, the market lost another 45 percent (1973-74).
• Seven years later was the beginning of the "hard recession" (1980).
• Seven years later was the Black Monday crash of 1987.
• Seven years later was the bond market crash of 1994.
• Seven years later was 9/11 and the 2001 tech bubble collapse.
• Seven years later was the 2008 global financial collapse.
• 2015: What's next?

These cycles have brought us a wide variety of unique economic events: the Arab oil embargo, the Savings & Loan crisis, Black Monday, the 1994 bond massacre, the 2001 NASDAQ crash and the 2008 financial collapse. But what is similar is that each financial crisis occurred following a seven-year pattern.

Because of these unique seven-year cycles, many have been anticipating that we could face another major economic crash based on the pattern. That brings us to 2015. What could happen?

Seven-Year Market Cycles

In addition to these seven-year cycles, there are extra elements that make this cycle even more extraordinary. This seven-year cycle lines up with the seven- and 49-year cycles of land rest and jubilee debt forgiveness that God commanded the Israelites to follow.

The jubilee year is the year at the end of seven cycles of shmita, which are sabbatical years. This is a special focus on the impact on the ownership and management of land in Israel. Jubilee deals primarily with land, property and property rights. According to Leviticus, slaves and prisoners would be freed, debts would be forgiven, and the mercies of God would manifest.

If this cycle holds true again in 2015, investors could see one of the worst markets they have ever seen—worse than the Great Depression and the financial collapse of 2008.

But even if you don't believe anything about the blood moons financial collapse of 2015, it does present an excellent opportunity to prepare your investment portfolio for greater volatility.

After all, the stock market has been up for seven years in a row now, and at some point, we're likely to see a reversal, maybe even a very serious one.

Turn Your Heart Toward God

When faced with a crisis, the normal response is often fear and worry. However, Scripture teaches us, "Cast your burden on the Lord, and He will sustain you; He will never allow the righteous to be moved" (Ps. 55:22). Do this each time you feel fearful or worried.

4 Financial Strategies to Prepare for a Blood Moons Collapse

I have put together five financial strategies to help you prepare for a potential collapse. Here are the strategies:

1. Sell your investments and go to cash. Cash is the ultimate safe haven. Though it doesn't pay much in the way of interest these days, it doesn't lose value. During a time when the financial markets are in turmoil and falling relentlessly, simply not losing any money can look like a brilliant investment. And it really is, because the first rule of investing is to not lose any money.

Going to cash is fairly easy to do in a taxable investment account. The biggest complication will be the tax liability that will result from selling winning positions. But since capital gains taxes are limited to 20 percent, the tax liability may look like a small price to pay to avoid a 50 percent decline in stock prices as a result of a major fall.

2. Use inverse ETFs. It's actually possible to make money from a declining market. You can do this using an inverse exchange-traded fund. Also known as a short ETF, it's an ETF that is arranged by including certain derivatives that profit from the decline of the underlying securities or index. This is similar to shorting individual stocks, except that you are spreading the risk among various securities. A big advantage to this type of shorting is that you don't need to open up a margin account in order to do it.

There are various types of inverse ETFs, including some that focus on common indexes, as well as those that are tied to specific market sectors. There are also inverse ETFs that go two or even three times short the market (with your profit greater than the corresponding drop in security values).

Some examples of inverse ETFs include:

• ProShares Short S&P 500 (SH): This is an inverse ETF designed to go 1 X the opposite of the S&P 500. For example, if the S&P goes down 1 percent, this, in theory, should go up 1 percent.
• ProShares Ultra Short S&P 500 (SDS): This is an inverse ETF designed to go 2 X the opposite of the S&P 500. For example, if the S&P goes down 1 percent, this in theory should go up 2 percent.
• Direxion Daily S&P 500 Bear 3X Shares Fund (SPXS): This is an inverse ETF designed to go 3 X the opposite of the S&P 500. For example, if the S&P goes down 1 percent, this in theory should go up 3 percent.

This is a highly risky strategy in the current market, since there is a pronounced upside bias across the board. You don't want to go to inverse ETFs unless we're in an obvious bear market. This would be the kind of market that's being driven lower by pronounced outside forces that are unlikely to relent. The events of the blood moons' prophecy would certainly qualify for this.

3. Buy put options. Another strategy is to buy "put options." A put option is an option where you buy an option contract that gives you the right—but not the obligation—to sell a specific amount of a stock at a certain price in a certain timeframe. The value of the put rises as the price of the underlying stock drops.

As an example, let's say that you buy a put, giving you the right to sell 100 shares of ABC Corp at $50, expiring June 15, at a premium of $5 per share. If the price of the stock falls to $30, you can purchase 100 shares for $3,000, then sell them to the option writer for $50 per share, or $5,000. Your net profit on the transaction will be $2,000, minus the $500 premium paid for the put contract, or a net gain of $1,500.

This can work against you too. In the event that the value of the stock is at $60 by the expiration date, you will simply allow the contract to expire. But in the process, you will forfeit the $5-per-share premium that you paid to purchase the contract. You will be out $500.
 

4. Buy counter-cyclical investments. This is probably the best strategy if you believe that circumstances will go from bad to worse. Gold, silver and platinum represent a play against the value of the dollar more than anything else. They tend to rise when stability is threatened, which undermines the value of the dollar.

Expect the Worst, Pray for the Best

It is very difficult to predict the precise dates for an economic collapse. However, much of the data suggests we could see this play out in September or October of this year. This doesn't mean a collapse couldn't happen sooner or later; it could be months or years away.

Keep in mind every financial decision involves some element of risk. When considering any strategy, always evaluate your risks. What is the best that could happen? What is the worst that could happen?

Failing to prepare today may increase the magnitude of your suffering in the future. It is better to prepare five years too early than to be even five minutes too late. Draw closer to God, pray hard and make sure you have a solid financial game plan. 

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Jay Peroni, CFP®, is a faith-based financial adviser and author of Blood Moons on Wall Street, The Faith-Based Millionaire and The Faith-Based Investor. Whether he is conducting a webinar, hosting a seminar across the country or teaching as an adjunct professor, Jay is focused on helping investors make better investment decisions without sacrificing their faith and values.

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Jay Peroni offers some market revelations on how you can invest your money wisely at peroni.charismamag.com.

For a limited time, we are extending our celebration of the 40th anniversary of Charisma. As a special offer, you can get 40 issues of Charisma magazine for only $40!

NEW - Life in the Spirit is your Spirit-filled teaching guide. Encounter the Holy Spirit, hear God speak to you, and enjoy timeless teachings on love, mercy and forgiveness.LEARN MORE!

Why I Have No Fear of Economic Collapse - Michael Snyder

The inevitable stock market crash is nothing to fear if you're in the right place with God. (Flickr/Creative Commons)

Why I Have No Fear of Economic Collapse

 9/21/2015 MICHAEL SNYDER  charisma news

I am not afraid of an economic collapse. Coming from someone that runs "The Economic Collapse Blog", I am sure that sounds like a very odd statement. But it is true. I have no fear of economic collapse, even though I am fully convinced that the hardest times that any of us have ever experienced are ahead.

I spend countless hours in front of my computer immersed in deeply disturbing information, and yet I sleep more soundly at night than I ever have before. In fact, my wife and I seek to live in a constant state of "shalom," which is the Hebrew word for peace. So how is this possible? How can "the economic collapse guy" not be absolutely overwhelmed by fear, depression and paranoia?

Unlike so many who write about these things, I believe that preparation for what is ahead goes far beyond the physical. So I am constantly stressing the need for mental, emotional and especially spiritual preparation. Personally, I have absolutely no idea how atheists are going to make it through what is coming.

They don't understand why they are here, they don't understand why history is unfolding the way it is, and they have absolutely no hope for the future beyond this life. If you greatly fear death and you can't stand to lose the possessions that you have accumulated, the years ahead are going to be exceedingly difficult for you.

My relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ gives my life meaning and purpose. He took the broken pieces of my life and turned them into a beautiful thing, and He can do the same for you.

I also strongly advocate physical preparation for the hard years that are coming. My wife and I work very hard to store up food and supplies. The funny thing is that there are Christians out there that actually accuse me of being "anti-faith" for doing these things. Apparently they believe that we should all just sit around watching television while we wait for God to do everything for us.

But that isn't how it works. In the Bible, we see that exercising faith almost always involves action. Noah, Joseph and others acted in faith based on the warnings that they had received, and they were commended for it.

Are we acting on the warnings that we have received? For much more on this subject, please see my previous article entitled "Is It 'Anti-Faith' to Prepare for the Coming Economic Collapse?"

Knowledge and preparation help to eliminate fear. If you understand what is happening, and you know why it is happening, and you have prepared for what is happening, it makes the challenges that are ahead of you easier to tackle.

When you were in school, who got the most freaked out by quizzes and tests?

It was those that were not prepared for them of course.

In the years ahead, a lot of people are going to be jumping off of buildings, jumping in front of trains and so on. Others will plunge into a dark hole of depression and despair that they will never come back from.

The vast majority of those people will have never listened to the warnings and will have done nothing to get prepared.

Those who accuse me and others like me of "spreading fear" have got it completely backwards.

We are not "spreading fear" at all. We are spreading hope. There is hope in understanding what is happening and there is hope in getting prepared.

The preparations that are being made right now all over the nation are going to save countless numbers of lives. Those who are mocking preppers and that are telling everyone that everything is going to be just fine are going to deeply regret doing so someday.

Although I will admit that sometimes preppers are prone to a "bunker mentality", and that is not the right approach.

Now is not the time to dig a hole and try to hide from the world.

You were born for such a time as this. It is when times are the darkest that the greatest heroes are needed. Personally, my wife and I believe that the greatest move of God the world has ever seen is coming, and we very much want to be part of it.

Yes, the years ahead are going to be extremely challenging. In fact, I don't think that any of us can truly grasp the horror that is coming because we don't really have any frame of reference for it.

It is kind of like trying to explain to someone that was blind from birth what a tree looks like. You can spend hours describing the tree, but unless you have some sort of frame of reference, the understanding simply is not going to be there.

Sometimes I try to sit down and write about what is ahead of us, but I find that words fail me. For example, I recently did a piece entitled "The Last Days of Normal Life in America" that was very popular, but the truth is that it was woefully inadequate because I don't really have a good frame of reference for what we are about to face. I don't know that too many people out there actually do.

As "watchmen on the wall," those of us who are trying to warn this nation are just trying to do the best we can with what we have.

And we aren't just sitting behind our computers "cursing the darkness" either.

A few of my fellow "watchmen" have joined with me to try to do something special. Nathan Leal, Benjamin Baruch, Lyn Leahz and I have organized a nationwide call to prayer and repentance on the weekend of Sept. 18-20. It is going to be held at the Sandpoint Events Center in Sandpoint, Idaho, and we already know of people coming in from nine different states and Canada for this event.

In addition, similar gatherings are being organized all around the nation, and thousands that cannot attend an event in person are going to be able to participate by watching the livestream on Lyn Leahz's 69,000-subscriber YouTube channel.

In the end, there is a limit to what each one of us can do individually, but if we work together we can collectively make a great difference.

Now is not a time for fear. Perfect love casts out fear. This is a time for the Remnant to rise up and to spread a message of hope even in the midst of all the chaos and darkness that is coming.

Yes, the times ahead are going to be more chaotic that any of us could probably imagine right now. But let us reject all fear, depression and despair, and let us endeavor to become people of great faith, great hope and great love.

Michael T. Snyder is the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog and author of The Beginning of the End.

For a limited time, we are extending our celebration of the 40th anniversary of Charisma. As a special offer, you can get 40 issues of Charisma magazine for only $40!

NEW - Life in the Spirit is your Spirit-filled teaching guide. Encounter the Holy Spirit, hear God speak to you, and enjoy timeless teachings on love, mercy and forgiveness.LEARN MORE!