Posted on 01/19/2016 10:27:02 AM PST by RetiredArmy
Welcome To The New Normal: The Dow Crashes Another 390 Points And Wal-Mart Closes 269 Stores
Did you know that 15 trillion dollars of global stock market wealth has been wiped out since last June? The worldwide financial crisis that began in the middle of last year is starting to spin wildly out of control. On Friday, the Dow plunged another 390 points, and it is now down a total of 1,437 points since the beginning of this calendar year. Never before in U.S. history have stocks ever started a year this badly. The same thing can be said in Europe, where stocks have now officially entered bear market territory. As I discussed yesterday, the economic slowdown and financial unraveling that we are witnessing are truly global in scope. Banks are failing all over the continent, and I expect major European banks to start making some huge headlines not too long from now. And of course let us not forget about China. On Friday the Shanghai Composite declined another 3.6 percent, and overall it is now down more than 20 percent from its December high. Much of this chaos has been driven by the continuing crash of the price of oil. As I write this article, it has dipped below 30 dollars a barrel, and many of the big banks are projecting that it still has much farther to fall.
The other night, Barack Obama got up in front of the American people and proclaimed that anyone that was saying that the economy was not recovering was peddling fiction. Well, if the U.S. economy is doing so great, then why in the world has Wal-Mart decided to shut down 269 stores?
Walmart (WMT) will close 269 stores around the world in a strategic move to focus more on its supercenters and e-commerce business, the company said Friday.
The closures include 154 U.S. locations, encompassing Walmart’s entire fleet of 102 ‘Express’ format stores, its smallest stores that have been in pilot testing since 2011. Some supercenters, Sam’s Club locations and Neighborhood Markets will also close, plus 115 stores in Latin American markets. The closures were decided based on financial performance and how well the locations fit with Walmart’s broader strategy, says Greg Hitt, a company spokesman.
We have grown accustomed to other major retailers shutting down stores, but this is Wal-Mart.
Wal-Mart doesn’t retreat. For decades, Wal-Mart has been on a relentless march forward. They have been an unstoppable juggernaut that has expanded extremely aggressively and that has ruthlessly crushed the competition.
I was absolutely stunned when I saw that they were going to close down 269 stores. If you want to know if your local store is in danger, you can view the full list right here.
Overall, 10,000 Wal-Mart employees will be affected. I could understand closing down a few underperforming stores, but if the U.S. economy truly is in great shape then it wouldn’t make any sense at all to shut down hundreds of stores.
What in the name of Sam Walton is going on out there?
The truth, of course, is that the U.S. economy is in great danger. We have now entered the next great crisis, but most communities around the country never even recovered from the last one. In fact, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that a whopping 93 percent of all counties in the United States “have failed to fully recover†from the last recession:
More than six years after the economic expansion began, 93% of counties in the U.S. have failed to fully recover from the blow they suffered during the recession.
Nationwide, 214 counties, or 7% of 3,069, had recovered last year to prerecession levels on four indicators: total employment, the unemployment rate, size of the economy and home values, a study from the National Association of Counties released Tuesday found.
The next few weeks are going to be very interesting to watch. The economic fundamentals continue to deteriorate, and the financial markets are finally starting to catch up with economic reality.
As the collapse on Wall Street accelerates, we are going to increasingly see panic selling and forced liquidations. In the past, it was mostly humans that had their hands on the controls during market crashes, but today the machines are making more of the decisions than ever before. The following comes from CNBC:
The new market age is decidedly different: Rather than that seething cacophony, aggressive corrections like the current ones are directed by a faceless metronome of computer-generated orders, triggering irresistible momentum and trillions in losses.
Amid it all, market veterans are left to ponder when the script will flip and market direction will turn not by newfound optimism among traders in the pits, but rather by algorithms that generate “buy†rather than “sell†signals.
“It feels like sell program after sell program,†said Michael Cohn, chief market strategist at Atlantis Asset Management, a boutique firm in New York. “It seems to happen first thing in the morning, and then however the market transpires during the day is how they close it. If it looks like it’s coming back, they’ll take it at the end. If if looks like it’s heading lower, they’ll slam it at the end of the day.â€
Earlier today, an article authored by Michael Pento entitled“A recession worse than 2008 is coming†was posted on CNBC. Here is a short excerpt:
But a recession has occurred in the U.S. about every five years, on average, since the end of WWII; and it has been seven years since the last one — we are overdue.
Most importantly, the average market drop during the peak to trough of the last 6 recessions has been 37 percent. That would take the S&P 500 down to 1,300; if this next recession were to be just of the average variety.
But this one will be worse.
If stocks do drop a total of 37 percent, that would just bring them back to levels that would be considered “normal†or “average†by historical standards. There is certainly the possibility that they could fall much farther than that.
And of course the markets are so incredibly fragile at this point that any sort of a “trigger event†could cause a collapse of epic proportions.
All it is going to take is a major disaster or emergency of some sort.
Do you have a feeling that something really bad is about to happen? This is something that I have been hearing from people that I respect, and I would like to know if it is a phenomenon that is more widespread. If you have been feeling something like this, please feel free to share it with us by posting a comment below.
Article reposted with permission from The Economic Collapse Blog, the opinions and views shared do not necessarily reflect the views of Sons of Liberty Media.
But on the bright side it makes the snail crawl "recovery" look a lot better.
The WalMart in my neighborhood that is closing is one of the grocery-store only ones (do they call them Neighborhood WalMart?).
It used to be a standard WalMart. They closed it when they opened a Giant WalMart across town. Then they tore down the original one and planted this grocery store one there.
We have wondered for the last two years how they have stayed in business. I love shopping there at times. There are only two or three customers in the store. Any time you drive by you can see never more than 10 cars in the lot.
Nobody around here is surprised this one is on the list.
Brawndo! It's got electrolytes!
We only just got a new Walmart near us; but they are going
to close it soon! Now, we have to drive to town. Boo!
Now there’s a leading indicator for ya.
Walmart Express stores were Walmart's answer to those on the left who said they were neglecting "urban" consumers.
They were small stores located in urban neighborhoods that competed with Dollar General type stores.
It is/was a failed experiment. A friend of mine who works in Walmart management said that "shrinkage" in those stores was off the chart.
It’s hard to have an objective discussion about Wal-Mart, isn’t it?
Bring up Wal-Mart...like a moth to a flame.
Probably the same. There was one in Liberty NC. There is a whole lot of nothing in Liberty.
It’s not only the Express stores they’re closing. Some are super centers. There are 4 closures in my city, and I know that 2 of them are Express stores, one is a supercenter...the one closest to me is the supercenter, and I’m not familiar with the 4th one as it’s in a suburb I don’t tend to visit.
There are several more within my state which are closing, but 4 in my city alone. That’s going to impact a LOT of jobs and really make it difficult for some to live here. Many big paying jobs are gone, too.
I see oil as an indicator. Oil is down because world demand is going to crater as the world’s restart the global recession.
Buy ammo.
One of the questions in the OP is, why are they closing so many strores?
I dunno but I’ve been watching their stock fall for a lot of years. The employee attitudes are horrible in many cases, and they’ve pretty much priced ME out of the market. I can do much better shopping elsewhere, and do.
One of the stores closing is just a few blocks from where I live, and it does a thriving business! There are a couple of strip malls in the same area which depended on the busy customer base coming and going from that store so I’m sure that this closing will greatly impact them as well. A new building JUST went up, and I don’t think they’ve even opened the doors to the new stores that have rented space there, yet. OUCH!
ANd nobody here is earning $15/hr at any of these walmarts. And even if they did, walmart needs to be selling MORE goods, not closing stores.
They must be in financial hawk that’s not gone public yet. They went down hill after ole Sam died.
WalMart, with the help ($ in back pockets) of local politicians, threatened to expand their established store to a superstore, thus pushing out a thriving local market a mile away.
Then they opened a neighborhood market in the location.
I like the small WMart, closer to home and not as much congestion at the pharmacy.
Hope it stays open.
The main store never became a superstore although it was approved by the same crooked politicians.
In the immortal words of Peter Sellers:
"Not any more"
I’m looking for the link to the closing stores . they opened a Walmart market near me.
I agree. WM has plenty of competition on the low end from Dollar General and similar stores.
Seriously?
Computer generated selling was blamed for the 1987 crash which is now almost 30 years in the past. This article loses a lot of credibility simply by virtue of trying to portray computer driven selling as something that just happened.
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