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PostPosted: 12/18/18 10:57 am • # 1 
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...maybe a serious recession, IMO.


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PostPosted: 12/18/18 2:59 pm • # 2 
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I've been telling Americans since July that they're in a recession. It's just now that the lights are coming on.


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PostPosted: 12/18/18 5:53 pm • # 3 
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jimwilliam wrote:
I've been telling Americans since July that they're in a recession. It's just now that the lights are coming on.


I expect quite a few lights will be going out.


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PostPosted: 12/18/18 5:55 pm • # 4 
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We just pulled our irons out of the fire again. We'll be looking at the tax sales in the new year.


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PostPosted: 12/18/18 6:02 pm • # 5 
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oskar576 wrote:
...maybe a serious recession, IMO.


i agree, oskar, but what made you say that?


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PostPosted: 12/18/18 6:05 pm • # 6 
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macroscopic wrote:
oskar576 wrote:
...maybe a serious recession, IMO.


i agree, oskar, but what made you say that?


Trade wars, Brexit, nationalism, xenophobia, unwillingness to regulate... lotsa of reasons all converging.


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PostPosted: 12/19/18 11:04 am • # 7 
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macroscopic wrote:
oskar576 wrote:
...maybe a serious recession, IMO.


i agree, oskar, but what made you say that?




They wouldn't necessarily go out all over the country. But, if Rob Ford and the Unions don't stop shooting at each other they could go out down the east coast. It's Ontario's fault for electing Grabem's idiot brother from another mother.


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PostPosted: 12/20/18 9:45 am • # 8 
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Clear, concise, SCARY! ~ :eek ~ Sooz

This growing imbalance in the Trump economy is a terrifying sign we’re heading towards a major crash
Robert Reich - COMMENTARY / 20 Dec 2018 at 09:38 ET

The problem with the Fed hiking rates now is that Trump has already stressed the paychecks of most Americans. The rate hike will make matters worse.

Most Americans are still living in the shadow of the Great Recession that started in December 2007 and officially ended in June 2009. More Americans have jobs, but their pay has barely risen when adjusted for inflation.

Many are worse off due to the escalating costs of housing, healthcare, and education. And the value of whatever assets they own is less than in 2007.

Trump has added to their burden by undermining the Affordable Care Act, rolling back overtime pay, hobbling labor organizing, reducing taxes on corporations and the wealthy but not on most workers, allowing states to cut Medicaid, and imposing tariffs that increase the prices of many goods.

All of which suggests we’re careening toward the same sort of crash we had in 2008, and possibly as bad as 1929.

Clear away the financial rubble from those two former crashes and you’d see they both followed upon widening imbalances between the capacity of most people to buy, and what they as workers could produce.

Each of these imbalances finally tipped the economy over.

The same imbalance has been growing again. The richest 1 percent of Americans now takes home about 20 percent of total income, and owns over 40 percent of the nation’s wealth. These are close to the peaks of 1928 and 2007.

The underlying problem isn’t that Americans have been living beyond their means. It’s that their means haven’t been keeping up with the growing economy. Most gains have gone to the top.

But the rich only spend a small fraction of what they earn. The economy depends on the spending of middle and working class families.

By the first quarter of this year, household debt was at a record high of $13.2 trillion. Almost 80 percent of Americans are now living paycheck to paycheck.

The last time household debt was nearly this high was just before the Great Recession. Between 1983 and 2007, household debt soared while most economic gains went to the top.

If the majority of households had taken home a larger share of national income, they wouldn’t have needed to go so deeply into debt.

Similarly, between 1913 and 1928, the ratio of personal debt to the total national economy nearly doubled.

After the 1929 crash, the government invented new ways to boost the wages of most Americans – Social Security, unemployment insurance, overtime pay, a minimum wage, the requirement that employers bargain with labor unions, and, finally, a full-employment program called World War II.

By contrast, after the 2007 crash the government bailed out the banks and pumped enough money into the economy to contain the slide. But apart from the Affordable Care Act, nothing was done to address the underlying problem of stagnant wages.

Without wage growth, most American workers can’t continue to buy. They’re in the same sort of debt trap that preceded the 2008 and 1929 crashes. Auto and home sales already are declining.

The Fed’s rate hike will only worsen this.

Ten years after the start of the Great Recession, it’s important to understand that the root of the collapse wasn’t a banking crisis. It was the growing imbalance between consumer spending and total output – brought on by stagnant wages and widening inequality.

That imbalance is back. Watch your wallets.

This article was originally published at RobertReich.org.

https://www.rawstory.com/2018/12/growing-imbalance-trump-economy-terrifying-sign-heading-towards-major-crash/


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PostPosted: 12/20/18 9:49 am • # 9 
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IMO, Mr. Reich is over-simplifying.


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PostPosted: 12/24/18 11:04 am • # 10 
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Is the Great Pumpkin still bragging about the economy?


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PostPosted: 12/24/18 1:33 pm • # 11 
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FTR: the DiC is blaming the Fed ~ and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin's phone calls [while vacationing at a luxury resort in sunny Cabo] seems to have been the powder keg for today's dive ~ :eek ~ Sooz

Dow dives 653 points to below 22,000, S&P 500 enters bear market -- worst Christmas Eve ever
Michael Sheetz and John Melloy / CNBC / 54 mins ago

U.S. stocks plunged on Monday in their worst Christmas Eve trading ever, as the S&P 500 entered a bear market.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped by 653 points Monday in volatile trading, falling below 22,000. The Dow sank more than 2 percent, then recovered nearly all of the day’s losses, before again falling more than 2 percent. The S&P 500 fell 2.7 percent, slipping into a bear market as it fell 20.06 percent from recent highs. Wall Street traditionally considers a drop of 20 percent or more from recent highs to be a bear market. The Nasdaq Composite Index slid 2.2 percent.

Markets responded to turmoil in Washington. Multiple reports said President Donald Trump is discussing how to remove Jerome Powell from his position as chairman of the Federal Reserve. That discussion, as well as the recent market volatility, spurred Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to call the leaders of the six largest U.S. banks over the weekend. Additionally, Defense Secretary James Mattis announced he would step down at the end of February, saying his views do not align with the president’s.

Trump resumed his attack on the Fed on Monday, tweeting that the central bank is “the only problem” with the U.S. economy.

“They don’t have a feel for the Market,” Trump said in the tweet.

All 11 sectors of the S&P 500 are now negative for December, the fourth quarter and the full year.

Last week the Dow lost 1,655 points, or 6.8 percent. That was the Dow’s worst week of trading since October 2008 during the financial crisis. The S&P 500 also lost 7 percent for the week. The Nasdaq Composite is now 22 percent below its record reached in August and is in a bear market.

Stocks temporarily climbed off their lows after billionaire hedge fund manager David Tepper told CNBC that he’s buying some stocks following the market’s move lower. CNBC’s Scott Wapner says that Tepper told him that “it’s still a tough market,” so you’ve “got to be careful about your exposure.”

“The key question is whether the market of stellar returns is going to a market of slow or stalling returns,” Quincy Krosby, chief market strategist at Prudential Financial, told CNBC.

“This is a market selling off as if it believes that we are headed in to a stall. Exacerbating that is the thesis that the Federal Reserve’s policies are leading us to a hard landing, rather than a soft landing,” Krosby said.

Last Wednesday, the Federal Reserve raised its benchmark interest rate for a fourth time this year and Chairman Jerome Powell signaled the central bank would continue to unwind its balance sheet at the current pace. The two monetary tightening actions are driving the stock market declines, traders say.

There was a report late Friday that President Donald Trump was discussing the possibility of firing Powell, a move that could undermine confidence in the U.S. financial system. Other media outlets later confirmed those reports, but Mnuchin sought to from those reports this weekend. A senior Treasury official acknowledged that the reports about Trump’s discussion of firing Powell was part of the catalyst for Mnuchin’s call but not the sole reason.

Mnuchin tweeted that he spoke with the president. Mnuchin declared that Trump said he never suggested firing Powell and doesn’t believe he has the right to do so.

Mnuchin held calls on Sunday with the heads of the six largest U.S. banks in order to reassure nervous investors that the financial markets and economy were functioning properly.

“The banks all confirmed ample liquidity is available for lending to consumer and business markets,” the statement from the Treasury said.

“We continue to see strong economic growth in the U.S. economy with robust activity from consumers and business,” said Mnuchin added in the statement on Sunday. A senior Treasury official told CNBC on Monday that the purpose of Mnuchin’s call and statement was to take a “prudent, preemptive measure” after last week’s market volatility.

Wall Street is processing Mnuchin’s call, which seems “to raise more questions than answers,” Raymond James analyst Ed Mills said in a note. Mills thinks it is unclear why the Treasury secretary hosted the call, “as no one had seemed to raise any concerns related to these issues of which Mnuchin is seeking to reassure the market,” Mills said.

December is typically a buoyant month for stocks. Yet both the Dow and S&P 500 are down more than 14 percent this month -- on track for their worst December performances since the Great Depression in 1931.

Oppenheimer equity analyst John Stoltzfus said in a note Monday that “putting the recent equity market declines into historical context lessens their sting.” The three catalysts which pushed the market lower in 2015 and 2016 -- China, the Federal Reserve, and oil -- are roiling “the market yet again in 2018,” Stoltzfus said.

“I think there’s a massive gap between sentiment and fundamentals” for the market, Blackstone investment strategist Joe Zidle said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

“If the market closes down for the year, which looks likely … it will only be the 13th time that we’ve seen a full year decline since 1960,” Zidle said. Of those 13 full year declines in the past 58 years, seven occurred before or during a recession.

“The markets are saying there’s a greater than 50 percent chance we enter a recession and fundamentals don’t support it and fundamentals win,” Zidle said.

Also weighing on investor confidence is a government shutdown that on through at least Thursday.

Both the Dow and the S&P 500 are now in the red for 2018 by more than 10 percent. Some traders have suggested that the market has gotten to the point where a short-term bounce could occur, if only for technical reasons. Seasonally, this is usually a positive, or at least benign, time for the markets.

The next worst Christmas Eve for the Dow and S&P 500 was in 1985, when both indexes fell a little over 0.6 percent.

The NYSE closes early on Monday at 1 p.m. ET. The exchange is closed on Tuesday for Christmas day. Wednesday through Friday are normal trading days.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/dow-dives-653-points-to-below-22000-sandp-500-enters-bear-market-worst-christmas-eve-ever/ar-BBRmC0r?li=BBnb7Kz


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PostPosted: 12/24/18 6:32 pm • # 12 
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we are 1% off a bear market in the DJIA,
we are in a bear market in the SP500, NASD, and W5000.

and the crisis is deepening.


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PostPosted: 12/24/18 7:38 pm • # 13 
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It was coming anyway but the Great Pumpkin tipped it all over with his foolishness and he'll hang for it (metamorphically).


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PostPosted: 12/25/18 12:30 pm • # 14 
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he is incapable of acknowledging failure, so i predict this will become one.


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PostPosted: 12/27/18 7:29 am • # 15 
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Speaking of "bumpy rides" ... while Monday's losses were the "largest ever", apparently yesterday was also a record "largest ever" day in gains ~ :ey ~ Sooz

Stocks Recover All Christmas Eve Plunge Losses
By Alex Veiga / December 26, 2018 4:31 pm

U.S. stocks surged Wednesday, recovering all their losses from a Christmas Eve plunge and placing the market on track for its best day in nine months.

Gains in technology companies, retailers, health care and internet stocks drove the broad rally, which gave the benchmark S&P 500 index some breathing room after it slid Monday to just shy of what Wall Street calls a bear market — a 20 percent fall from an index’s peak.

Energy stocks also rebounded as the price of U.S. crude oil notched its biggest one-day gain in more than two years.

Trading volume was lighter than usual following the Christmas holiday. Markets in Europe, Hong Kong and Australia were closed.

“Today simply can only be really chalked up to a reflex rally after having been oversold,” said Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist for CFRA. “The real question is do we have follow-through for the rest of this week.”

The S&P 500 index rose 80 points, or 3.4 percent, to 2,431 of 3:24 p.m. Eastern Time. The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 731 points, or 3.4 percent, to 22,524. The tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 265 points, or 4.3 percent, to 6,458. The Russell 2000 index of smaller-company stocks picked up 45 points, or 3.6 percent, 1,312.

Wednesday’s gains pulled the S&P 500 back somewhat from the brink of a bear market, where it finished after a shortened trading session Monday. That would mark the end to the longest bull market for stocks in modern history after nearly 10 years.

Stocks fell sharply Monday after President Donald Trump lashed out at the central bank. Administration officials had spent the weekend trying to assure financial markets that Fed chairman Jerome Powell’s job was safe. On Tuesday, Trump reiterated his view that the Federal Reserve is raising interest rates too fast, but called the independent agency’s rate hikes a “form of safety” for an economy doing well.

On Wednesday, Kevin Hassett, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, weighed in, saying Powell is in no danger of being fired, The Wall Street Journal reported.

“The market is trying to find an equilibrium between earnings, revenue growth and the economy, but when you have an onslaught of headlines that just manifest uncertainty from Washington, it just feeds negative sentiment,” said Quincy Krosby, chief market strategist at Prudential Financial.

The market’s sharp downturn since October intensified this month, erasing all of its 2018 gains and nudging the S&P 500 closer to its worst year since 2008. Despite Wednesday’s rally, stocks are on track for their worst December since 1931, during the depths of the Great Depression.

“This is a market that’s heavily oversold, and typically you expect a strong bounce following that,” Krosby said. “Oil prices have just moved quite markedly. And retail is having a very strong holiday season.”

The lackluster finish to 2018 comes as most economists expect growth to slow in 2019, though not by enough to slide into a full-blown recession. Many economic barometers still look encouraging. Unemployment is at 3.7 percent, the lowest since 1969. Inflation is tame. Pay growth has picked up. Consumers boosted their spending this holiday season.

Even so, traders have been jittery this autumn over signs that the global economy is slowing, the escalating U.S. trade dispute with China and another interest rate increase by the Fed. Many investors are growing worried that corporate profits — which drive stock market gains — are poised to weaken.

Some of what Wall Street sees coming out of the White House has added to the market’s uncertainty, specifically the president’s attacks on the Fed and remarks about the ongoing trade conflict with China.

The president could help restore some stability to the market if he “gives his thumbs a vacation,” Stovall said.

“Tweet things that are more constructive in terms of working out an agreement with Democrats and with China. And then just remain silent as it relates to the Fed,” Stovall said.

Technology stocks accounted for much of Monday’s early bounce. Adobe rose 6.1 percent to $217.71. Payment processors Visa and Mastercard also headed higher. Visa added 4.3 percent to $126.99, while Mastercard gained 4.2 percent to $182.05.

Big retailers were among the gainers. Amazon climbed 6.9 percent to $1,436.47. Kohl’s gained 8.3 percent to $64.75. Nordstrom picked up 4.2 percent to $46.06.

Homebuilders mostly rebounded after an early slide following a report indicating that annual U.S. home price growth slowed in October. PulteGroup climbed 2.2 percent to $25.22.

Benchmark U.S. crude climbed 8.7 percent to settle at $46.22 a barrel in New York. Brent crude, used to price international oils, gained 7.9 percent to $54.47 a barrel in London.

The pickup in oil prices helped boost energy stocks. Marathon Petroleum rose 4.8 percent to $56.93.

Bond prices fell. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 2.79 percent from 2.75 percent late Monday.

The dollar strengthened to 111.36 yen from 110.41 yen on Monday. The euro weakened to $1.1351 from $1.1404.

Gold edged up 0.1 percent to $1,273 an ounce and silver gained 2 percent to $15.12 an ounce. Copper gained 1.5 percent to $2.70 a pound.

The partial U.S. government shutdown that started Saturday is unlikely to hurt the economy much, although it may deprive the financial markets of data about international trade and gross domestic product. The Bureau of Economic Analysis said Wednesday that it’s required to suspend all operations until Congress approves funding, which means that the government might not release its fourth-quarter report on gross domestic product as scheduled for January 30.

In other trading Wednesday, South Korea’s Kospi gave up 1.3 percent, while Japan’s Nikkei 225 index, which plunged 5 percent on Tuesday, picked up 0.9 percent. Shares fell in Taiwan, Singapore and Indonesia, but rose in Thailand.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/stocks-christmas-eve-drop-recovery


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PostPosted: 12/27/18 7:44 am • # 16 
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This happens all the time - so predictable, have seen it repeated numerous times through the years.. The market sets lows, and people think now is good time to gab up stocks, then they go up and people make a quick buck. If I had money to spare I would have bought stocks at the low as this time it was ripe for the taking, and I felt a sure thing. Although, it is also why I have never invested in the market outright - it is at the whim and mercy of too many people who behave like sheep.


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PostPosted: 12/27/18 8:55 am • # 17 
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Markets are going up and down faster than a toilet seat at a coed dorm party. Happy we got back out of it.


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PostPosted: 02/13/19 4:05 pm • # 18 
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Folks are beginning to fall behind in their payments in the US. Due to the shurtdown or is it the start of the next recession?


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