Despite a pair of great earnings reports after the bell Wednesday - Netflix and eBay - stocks sold off dramatically on Thursday, starting even before the opening bell, as futures pointed to a grim opening.
When trading began, the Dow slumped an immediate 135 points, while the S&P and NASDAQ took on deep losses. The negative condition persisted throughout the day, actually getting worse in the afternoon.
While stocks have already begun the year on a less-than-enthusiastic note, today's drops were the worse seen since last August and quite possibly are foretelling of further declines to come.
Commentators in the financial media mostly failed to comprehend the causes for today's collapse in equities, which were, in no particular order, the Chinese banking system becoming unglued, Turkey's economy falling apart at the seams, heightened tensions in the Ukraine, fear over terrorist attacks at the Olympics in Soshi, Russia, continuing civil war in Syria and 1.37 million people dropping off of the Emergency Unemployment Compensation roles.
Let's examine this last bit of news first, because it is so US-centric and is a troubling sign of the ongoing impotence of the federal government. Recall, the noises out of Washington, DC, earlier this month about restoring the aid to the people whose 99 weeks of unemployment were ending. Democrats were screaming "unfair," and that we need to help these people, as the money for these continuing unemployment benefits was eliminated by the widely-hailed budget "deal" that passed through congress in December.
Recall, also, that pension and benefits for military retirees and disabled vets was also slashed by that budget and roundly criticized by congress-people on the left and the right. The cuts were said to be "unpatriotic", and many vowed to restore them. A month has gone by and those cuts are still in place. Veterans are getting the shaft, and now, the long-term unemployed, without the media (controlled by the government) raising as much as an eyebrow over these issues, proving, without any shadow of a doubt, that the politicians in Washington have not only lost all sense of justice, decency or propriety, but they are also quickly losing their ability to make coherent policy.
What politicians in Washington, DC, have accomplished, however, is the uncanny ability to lie ruthlessly about anything at all, and to now lose what little support remained from the people of the United States. With the approval rating of congress already at multi-generational lows, it's about to go even lower. People should have been in the streets already, but their voices have been silenced by the Federal Reserve, together with the false statistics about the "improving economy" bantered about the past four to five years.
What will be lost next by the politicians is their ability to rule. They have lost all credibility and the consent of the people has long since been quietly withdrawn by many. The federal government, either by design or incompetence, has been failing and is about to fail completely. Without somebody stepping up to right the ship - and don't count on it - the ship of state, already rudderless and with torn sails, has begun to sink. Special interests to which the politicians have catered, have blown a hole in the hull, and it's not readily repairable. The United States is rapidly devolving into a fascist, welfare/police state, and, making matters worse and more worrisome, this is only the beginning.
Other than the United States collapsing in a major hurry, the rest of the world doesn't look much rosier. If nobody gets killed at the Olympics - if they even go off as planned - it will be nothing short of a miracle.
The other major events of the day were the widespread devaluation in the value of the Turkish Lira and a bank failure in China, also just beginning.
Turkey's currency fell three percent against the dollar, the most of any currency outside of Argentina (already a basket case, down 14% just today), despite intervention by the central bank, which was reportedly in the process of unloading $3 billion in foreign reserves.
In China, the evolving shadow banking crisis just went from bad to worse as it was reported today that some rural credit unions have been unable to pay back depositors for over a year. This would, in most countries, have been major news, prompting a flight of money from banks (bank run), but the circumspect Chinese media suppresses most of this kind of information from the outside world. In a nutshell, China's dubious "boom" economy may be going bust, or, realistically, may already be well down the path of self-immolation.
Taking just these few "newsy" items into perspective, it just might be time to return to "clinging to their guns and bibles," for more than just a few Americans. As for the rest of the world, well, their guns have largely already been confiscated and bibles don't offer much protection. Pitchforks and torches, anyone? God save them.
Others may be taking some time to polish up the gold and silver, which were the main winners on the day, along with the 10-year note, which fell to 2.80, the lowest yield in roughly two months.
As if that wasn't enough, teen idol, Justin Beiber, was arrested last night for DUI. Oh, the horror!... and, no, we're not linking to that story.
DOW 16,197.35, -175.99 (-1.07%)
NASDAQ 4,218.87, -24.13 (-0.57%)
S&P 1,828.46, -16.40 (-0.89%)
10-Yr Note 99.56, +1.25 (+1.27%) Yield: 2.80%
NASDAQ Volume 2.00 Bil
NYSE Volume 3.91 Bil
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 1829-3918
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ New highs - New lows: 196-62
WTI crude oil: 97.32, +0.59
Gold: 1,262.30. +23.70
Silver: 20.01, +0.171
Corn: 429.00, +2.75
Showing posts with label bank failures. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bank failures. Show all posts
Thursday, January 23, 2014
Monday, February 21, 2011
Unhappy President's Day?
Just because the markets in the US are closed, doesn't mean there's no economic news from the rest of the world, and there's plenty.
Due to violence in Lybia, where President Moammar Gadhafi - via a videotaped message by his son - vows to fight the insurrection against his 42 years of tyranny, "until the last man standing," oil prices have gone ballistic, with WTI (crude oil on the NYMEX) has shot through $90/barrel and is fast approaching $100.
Americans may awaken from their three-day weekend with sticker shock when they go to fill up their cars, vans and SUVs with petrol.
Elsewhere, precious metals have also taken notice that the global situation has become extremely unstable. Gold is pricing right now at $1,406.70, up a whopping $18.10 just today. But the real story is silver, which spiked on Friday, but is putting that move to shame taday with a nearly 5% move higher, to $33.88, up $1.58! That's quite a rocket ship, there and it's more than just short covering. US investors will likely send both gold and silver higher as congress takes a week off, just prior to the most important vote of the new congress: whether or not to raise the debt ceiling.
Analysts on top of the situation feel the government needs to act by March 4th in order to avert a federal government shutdown, which leaves the congress just five days - after they return from their vacation - to work out their differences, and there are many.
One option is to raise the ceiling gradually, enough to fund the government for another month, and revisit the issue again, and, if necessary, again and again. This could be the kind of circus we get from our "leaders" - an endless game of chicken and "gotcha" while the Republic burns.
Nero would be proud.
Make note to grab as much cash out of your bank account as possible within the next two weeks. There could be fireworks dead ahead, and I'm not talking about the 4th of July variety. If the government does shut down, there could be a bank holiday right on its heels, and even without a work stoppage in Washington, the number of bank failures in the US is already up to 22 and we're not even through February yet. Four more went down on Friday; two in California and two more in Georgia, the bank failure capitol.
There were 157 bank failures nationwide in 2010, 140 in 2009 and 25 in 2008. Smaller banks have suffered the most, but the biggest - the ones bailed out by the US taxpayer - are still not immune.
Due to violence in Lybia, where President Moammar Gadhafi - via a videotaped message by his son - vows to fight the insurrection against his 42 years of tyranny, "until the last man standing," oil prices have gone ballistic, with WTI (crude oil on the NYMEX) has shot through $90/barrel and is fast approaching $100.
Americans may awaken from their three-day weekend with sticker shock when they go to fill up their cars, vans and SUVs with petrol.
Elsewhere, precious metals have also taken notice that the global situation has become extremely unstable. Gold is pricing right now at $1,406.70, up a whopping $18.10 just today. But the real story is silver, which spiked on Friday, but is putting that move to shame taday with a nearly 5% move higher, to $33.88, up $1.58! That's quite a rocket ship, there and it's more than just short covering. US investors will likely send both gold and silver higher as congress takes a week off, just prior to the most important vote of the new congress: whether or not to raise the debt ceiling.
Analysts on top of the situation feel the government needs to act by March 4th in order to avert a federal government shutdown, which leaves the congress just five days - after they return from their vacation - to work out their differences, and there are many.
One option is to raise the ceiling gradually, enough to fund the government for another month, and revisit the issue again, and, if necessary, again and again. This could be the kind of circus we get from our "leaders" - an endless game of chicken and "gotcha" while the Republic burns.
Nero would be proud.
Make note to grab as much cash out of your bank account as possible within the next two weeks. There could be fireworks dead ahead, and I'm not talking about the 4th of July variety. If the government does shut down, there could be a bank holiday right on its heels, and even without a work stoppage in Washington, the number of bank failures in the US is already up to 22 and we're not even through February yet. Four more went down on Friday; two in California and two more in Georgia, the bank failure capitol.
There were 157 bank failures nationwide in 2010, 140 in 2009 and 25 in 2008. Smaller banks have suffered the most, but the biggest - the ones bailed out by the US taxpayer - are still not immune.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Prepare For More Calamity
The President, Congress and the Federal Reserve finally got together on a unified theory of economics and apparently it is to borrow as much money from anywhere as possible, manipulate markets as much as possible, lie as fervently as possible and hope for the best.
With the "tax deal" done after-hours on Monday, the President bent to the will of the Republicans and sent the Bush tax cuts into permanent status (he says two years, but they'll never raise taxes again), extended unemployment insurance for another 13 months, meaning if you can manage to get laid off now, you're in for a three-year vacation, and to top it off, cut the social security withholding from 6.2% to 4.2%, a whopping 32% tax haircut.
All of this was done after the Tea Party Republicans were ushered into office on a "fiscal responsibility" platform just a month ago. It will be interesting to watch what happens when these newly-minted congress-critters actually are sworn in next month, because, if they're serious, they shouldn't stand for what amounts to a loss of about a trillion dollars in revenue to the feds.
Wall Street responded as it usually does to free money or lower tax regimes, it rallied right out of the gate. But late in he day, something odd happened. The markets suddenly rolled over and headed south, just like commodities - especially oil, gold and silver - did earlier in the session.
By the end of the day, the central planners in Washington and on Wall Street had a real mess on their hands: nobody trading stocks, bonds selling off, forcing yields higher (the Fed and the Govt. will go bust if this happens) and commodities being manipulated lower.
The insider crooks and their political lackeys have pushed the envelope over the proverbial cliff and now face what appears to be a disaster beyond even their control. Rising interest rates will destroy the Fed's balance sheet (QE was designed to do the opposite), absolutely plunge housing into another price collapse worse than what we've already witnessed and bankrupt just about every bank in the nation, to say nothing of the collateral damage done to the rest of the world.
As I've mentioned before on this blog, a deflationary depression may be one of those elements of financial nature that one cannot stop. It's going to happen no matter what. Lives will be lost, careers shattered, banks closed and general malaise will rule for an extended period. The morons running the Ponzi scheme in the financial markets and with tax policy will have to leave the country or face angry mobs who have nothing else to lose.
Pretty picture? Thank yourself for not taking action sooner, or not understanding what's happening or for trusting our government (yes, the one that hasn't done anything of any good for the average working-class person in the last ten years). These people and the coerced media represent the worst parasites in the world. They've ruined the global economy for their own enrichment. It's now every man and woman for his/herself.
I've hinted at this kind of statement in the past, but never actually put it in words: it's now time for Americans to take a stand. Stop paying taxes. Stop working. Stop buying. Just stop the government and the media in their tracks, force the politicians from office and arrest the heads of the largest financial institutions. They are all criminals and traitors and do not represent anything American, by any stretch of the imagination.
Dow 11,359.16, -3.03 (0.03%)
NASDAQ 2,598.49, +3.57 (0.14%)
S&P 500 1,223.75, +0.63 (0.05%)
NYSE Composite 7,739.64, -1.05 (0.01%)
Advancers narrowly edged decliners, 3397-3094. There were, due to the ramp up through most of the session, 783 new highs, and just 49 new lows. Volume, due to the bi-directionality (like that word?) of the market was strong.
NASDAQ Volume 1,925,702,500
NYSE Volume 6,967,751,000
The front end oil contract on the NYMEX was over $90/barrel early on, but reversed course and closed with a 69 cent loss, at $88.69. Gold and silver were both hammered mercilessly after the close in New York, by the Fed and their cohorts, JP Morgan, with gold losing $22.60, to $1401.10, while silver was absolutely blasted, losing $1.43, to $28.65 (buy, buy. buy!).
Here's one guy who gets it. The powers that be, both in Washington and Wall Street, cannot contain this much longer. Their schemes are too complex and will eventually implode back upon them either in a massive stock market crash (very high probability), a bond collapse (high probability), hyper-inflation (some probability) or the death-knell of the deflationary depression (high probability, but great for those on the mid-to-lower rungs of the ladder, as it implies debt forgiveness, lower carrying costs and a pretty basic reset).
The past two years have not been a picnic, but the coming three-to-four years seem to be flashing warning signals already. The worst - since there hasn't been any real pain yet - is still to come, and, by the looks of what occurred today, is about to get really serious.
Hold precious metals, keep as much cash on hand and out of banks as possible, hoard food and fuel and pray you and your kids don't get hit by stray bullets. When the shooting starts, it's not likely to end quickly. The guess is who fires the first shot, who gets it in the head and, not if, but now, when.
With the "tax deal" done after-hours on Monday, the President bent to the will of the Republicans and sent the Bush tax cuts into permanent status (he says two years, but they'll never raise taxes again), extended unemployment insurance for another 13 months, meaning if you can manage to get laid off now, you're in for a three-year vacation, and to top it off, cut the social security withholding from 6.2% to 4.2%, a whopping 32% tax haircut.
All of this was done after the Tea Party Republicans were ushered into office on a "fiscal responsibility" platform just a month ago. It will be interesting to watch what happens when these newly-minted congress-critters actually are sworn in next month, because, if they're serious, they shouldn't stand for what amounts to a loss of about a trillion dollars in revenue to the feds.
Wall Street responded as it usually does to free money or lower tax regimes, it rallied right out of the gate. But late in he day, something odd happened. The markets suddenly rolled over and headed south, just like commodities - especially oil, gold and silver - did earlier in the session.
By the end of the day, the central planners in Washington and on Wall Street had a real mess on their hands: nobody trading stocks, bonds selling off, forcing yields higher (the Fed and the Govt. will go bust if this happens) and commodities being manipulated lower.
The insider crooks and their political lackeys have pushed the envelope over the proverbial cliff and now face what appears to be a disaster beyond even their control. Rising interest rates will destroy the Fed's balance sheet (QE was designed to do the opposite), absolutely plunge housing into another price collapse worse than what we've already witnessed and bankrupt just about every bank in the nation, to say nothing of the collateral damage done to the rest of the world.
As I've mentioned before on this blog, a deflationary depression may be one of those elements of financial nature that one cannot stop. It's going to happen no matter what. Lives will be lost, careers shattered, banks closed and general malaise will rule for an extended period. The morons running the Ponzi scheme in the financial markets and with tax policy will have to leave the country or face angry mobs who have nothing else to lose.
Pretty picture? Thank yourself for not taking action sooner, or not understanding what's happening or for trusting our government (yes, the one that hasn't done anything of any good for the average working-class person in the last ten years). These people and the coerced media represent the worst parasites in the world. They've ruined the global economy for their own enrichment. It's now every man and woman for his/herself.
I've hinted at this kind of statement in the past, but never actually put it in words: it's now time for Americans to take a stand. Stop paying taxes. Stop working. Stop buying. Just stop the government and the media in their tracks, force the politicians from office and arrest the heads of the largest financial institutions. They are all criminals and traitors and do not represent anything American, by any stretch of the imagination.
Dow 11,359.16, -3.03 (0.03%)
NASDAQ 2,598.49, +3.57 (0.14%)
S&P 500 1,223.75, +0.63 (0.05%)
NYSE Composite 7,739.64, -1.05 (0.01%)
Advancers narrowly edged decliners, 3397-3094. There were, due to the ramp up through most of the session, 783 new highs, and just 49 new lows. Volume, due to the bi-directionality (like that word?) of the market was strong.
NASDAQ Volume 1,925,702,500
NYSE Volume 6,967,751,000
The front end oil contract on the NYMEX was over $90/barrel early on, but reversed course and closed with a 69 cent loss, at $88.69. Gold and silver were both hammered mercilessly after the close in New York, by the Fed and their cohorts, JP Morgan, with gold losing $22.60, to $1401.10, while silver was absolutely blasted, losing $1.43, to $28.65 (buy, buy. buy!).
Here's one guy who gets it. The powers that be, both in Washington and Wall Street, cannot contain this much longer. Their schemes are too complex and will eventually implode back upon them either in a massive stock market crash (very high probability), a bond collapse (high probability), hyper-inflation (some probability) or the death-knell of the deflationary depression (high probability, but great for those on the mid-to-lower rungs of the ladder, as it implies debt forgiveness, lower carrying costs and a pretty basic reset).
The past two years have not been a picnic, but the coming three-to-four years seem to be flashing warning signals already. The worst - since there hasn't been any real pain yet - is still to come, and, by the looks of what occurred today, is about to get really serious.
Hold precious metals, keep as much cash on hand and out of banks as possible, hoard food and fuel and pray you and your kids don't get hit by stray bullets. When the shooting starts, it's not likely to end quickly. The guess is who fires the first shot, who gets it in the head and, not if, but now, when.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Stocks in Hold 'em Mode
There haven't been many slower trading days than today in the past 2-3 years, and stocks suffered from a near-total lack of interest on the session.
Maybe it's just a sign of the times, but everybody seems to be waiting for some reliable data points upon which to trade. Either that, or the markets are just stuck with a bad case of cabin fever, with traders itching to stretch out and move, though the weather isn't going to permit it any time soon.
As for reliable data points, there were two news releases, though neither could be considered reliable or tradable.
The National Association for Business Economics (NABE) predicted that the economy would grow by just over 3% in 2010 and 2011. They further detail that job growth would soon return for US business, offering predictions of average job growth of 50,000 per month in the 1st quarter of 2010 and 103,000 per month for the remainder of the year.
Those figures nearly match the ones released by the Obama administration just a week or two ago.
On Friday, the FDIC announced that four more banks had failed, bringing the total number of bank failures this year to 20. There were 140 bank closures in 2009, and the prediction is for 200 to go under in 2010.
Taken together, there's a real concern that the economic crisis that nearly crumbled the financial system in 2008 is still not fully functioning, though it is working well enough for business economists to make semi-rosy predictions. Predictions, like opinions, however, are not unique and the numbers tossed out by the NABE might be nothing more than educated guesses rather than appropriate measures of risk in the system and the realities of the day.
Dull markets are usually not playable, but, unless there's some movement to the upside, the bears may be emboldened by what appears to be widespread weakness across a wide swath of industries. The political standstill in Washington certainly isn't helping bulls any, either.
Dow 10,383.38, -18.97 (0.18%)
NASDAQ 2,242.03. -1.84 (0.08%)
S&P 500 1,108.01, -1.16 (0.10%)
NYSE Composite 7,078.53, -4.72 (0.07%)
Advancing issues beat decliners by a small margin, 3326-3179. There were 366 new highs and 31 new lows. Volume, as previously stated, was anemic.
NYSE Volume 4,244,704,000
NASDAQ Volume 1,818,306,000
Commodities were mixed, with oil up 39 cents, to $80.16, gold down $9.00, at $1,113.10, and silver off 18 cents, to $16.26. This persistent low-volume pattern might be a regular feature of trading until there's sufficient evidence to elicit moves one way or the other. Considering the prevailing economic and political landscape, there could be little movement in either direction for some time.
Maybe it's just a sign of the times, but everybody seems to be waiting for some reliable data points upon which to trade. Either that, or the markets are just stuck with a bad case of cabin fever, with traders itching to stretch out and move, though the weather isn't going to permit it any time soon.
As for reliable data points, there were two news releases, though neither could be considered reliable or tradable.
The National Association for Business Economics (NABE) predicted that the economy would grow by just over 3% in 2010 and 2011. They further detail that job growth would soon return for US business, offering predictions of average job growth of 50,000 per month in the 1st quarter of 2010 and 103,000 per month for the remainder of the year.
Those figures nearly match the ones released by the Obama administration just a week or two ago.
On Friday, the FDIC announced that four more banks had failed, bringing the total number of bank failures this year to 20. There were 140 bank closures in 2009, and the prediction is for 200 to go under in 2010.
Taken together, there's a real concern that the economic crisis that nearly crumbled the financial system in 2008 is still not fully functioning, though it is working well enough for business economists to make semi-rosy predictions. Predictions, like opinions, however, are not unique and the numbers tossed out by the NABE might be nothing more than educated guesses rather than appropriate measures of risk in the system and the realities of the day.
Dull markets are usually not playable, but, unless there's some movement to the upside, the bears may be emboldened by what appears to be widespread weakness across a wide swath of industries. The political standstill in Washington certainly isn't helping bulls any, either.
Dow 10,383.38, -18.97 (0.18%)
NASDAQ 2,242.03. -1.84 (0.08%)
S&P 500 1,108.01, -1.16 (0.10%)
NYSE Composite 7,078.53, -4.72 (0.07%)
Advancing issues beat decliners by a small margin, 3326-3179. There were 366 new highs and 31 new lows. Volume, as previously stated, was anemic.
NYSE Volume 4,244,704,000
NASDAQ Volume 1,818,306,000
Commodities were mixed, with oil up 39 cents, to $80.16, gold down $9.00, at $1,113.10, and silver off 18 cents, to $16.26. This persistent low-volume pattern might be a regular feature of trading until there's sufficient evidence to elicit moves one way or the other. Considering the prevailing economic and political landscape, there could be little movement in either direction for some time.
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