This is starting to get really bad. By now, you have probably heard that the stock market crashed again on Wednesday. The carnage was immense, and the big names on Wall Street are deeply concerned about what will happen next. But this wasn’t supposed to happen. After falling for six weeks in a row, this was supposed to be the week when stock prices finally bounced back. Needless to say, that isn’t what we are witnessing. In fact, we just witnessed the worst day for the Dow since the early days of the COVID pandemic…
The Dow shed 1,164.52 points, or 3.57%, to 31,490.07, or the average’s biggest decline since June 2020. The S&P 500 traded 4.04% lower to 3,923.68, also the worst drop since 2020. The Nasdaq Composite slipped 4.73% to 11,418.15, which is the largest fall in the tech-heavy index since May 5. The selling was broad and intense on Wall Street with just eight members of the S&P 500 in the green.
If the Dow breaks below the all-important 30,000 psychological barrier, this steady slide in stock prices could quickly evolve into a full-blown avalanche.
There is already a tremendous amount of fear on Wall Street, and at this point it won’t take much of a push to set off a colossal wave of panic.
On Wednesday, disappointing results from two of our largest retailers were being blamed for the renewed wave of selling. Target “reported a stunning 52% drop in profit for the first quarter”, and Walmart stock “had its worst day in 35 years” after reporting numbers that were well below expectations.
It turns out that U.S. consumers have a lot less discretionary income to spend at retailers these days because they are having to spend so much more on basics such as food and gasoline. And we are being warned that all retailers are likely to suffer as long as this highly inflationary environment persists…
“Any company that relies on households and discretionary purchases will likely suffer this quarter because a lot of discretionary income has been funneled to food and energy prices,” said Jack Ablin, founding partner of Cresset Capital.
There is only so much money to go around, and as I explained a few days ago, this inflationary spiral is systematically destroying our standard of living.
If prices stay at their current levels, the average U.S. household will spend approximately $5,000 a year just on gasoline…
U.S. households are now spending the equivalent of $5,000 a year on gasoline, up from $2,800 a year ago, according to Yardeni Research.
Of course gasoline prices are not going to stay at their current levels.
They just keep going higher and higher and higher.
In fact, the average price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States has now hit a brand new record high for nine days in a row…
Wednesday was the 9th straight day that gas prices hit an all-time record high!
9 DAYS IN A ROW–
The price at the pump is now $4.56 per a gallon of regular gas.
Diesel also hit a new record. The price of diesel is now at $5.57 per gallon.
But if you think that $4.56 is bad, just wait until we get to the end of the summer.
JPMorgan is warning that the average price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States could hit 6 bucks just a few months from now…
The average price for gasoline in California hit $6 a gallon Tuesday for the first time — and analysts at JPMorgan are warning that price could be the national average before the end of the summer.
The startling forecast comes as US gas prices have surged to record highs in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, casting a shadow over the economy.
“There is a real risk the price could reach $6+ a gallon by August,” Natasha Kaneva, head of global oil and commodities research at JPMorgan, told CNN in an email on Tuesday.
In a desperate attempt to get the inflationary spiral that they created under control, the Federal Reserve has started to recklessly raise interest rates.
Of course this is going to cause the housing market to crash, and we just got even more evidence that this is already starting to happen…
Homebuyer demand for mortgages tumbled last week as the average interest rate on the most popular U.S. home loan hovered near a 13-year high, a sign the red-hot housing market may be starting to cool off, according to new data from the Mortgage Bankers Association.
Mortgage applications to purchase a home dropped 12% on a weekly basis and are down 15% compared with the same week one year ago.
The housing bubble will not survive without low interest rates.
Neither will the stock market bubble.
But Fed Chair Jerome Powell doesn’t seem to care.
He is so spooked by inflation that he can’t seem to see any of our other rapidly growing problems. In fact, he is now telling us that his institution may need “to consider moving more aggressively” in the months ahead…
Fed Chair Jerome Powell told a Wall Street Journal conference that the U.S. central bank will “have to consider moving more aggressively” if inflation that is running at a four-decade high fails to ease after earlier rate hikes.
In other words, Powell is openly admitting that the Fed may raise rates at an even faster pace by the end of this calendar year.
Oh boy.
The only reason why stock prices ever got so ridiculously high is because the Fed kept interest rates way too low for way too long, and because the Fed kept pumping trillions of fresh dollars into the system.
Now the Fed is taking away the punch bowl and is aggressively raising interest rates.
This is inevitably going to cause the bubble that they created to completely and utterly implode.
So if you want to know who to blame for the coming financial crisis, just look at the Federal Reserve.
Those that follow my work on a regular basis know that I have been a severe critic of the Fed for a very long time.
They got us into this mess, and now everyone is hoping that they can get us out of it.
You can put your faith in them if you want, but meanwhile I would highly advise that you brace yourself for the giant crash that has now started to happen.
***It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***
