Free Republic

A cooling trend sparked by rising mortgage rates continued to chill Southern California’s housing market, with home prices and sales dropping at a time when they typically are on the rise. Home prices dipped from May to June for the first time since 2010. Sales fell from May levels for the first time since 2013. Despite the cool down, experts say a market crash still appears unlikely. “We’re still in what we call in the industry ‘a slight seller’s market,’ ” said Geoffrey Tackney, broker and co-owner of GMT Real Estate in Garden Grove. “We’re entering a neutral market, but...

Hacker socially engineered customer support employee to obtain millions of names and emails, demanded extortion payment Mobile stock trading platform Robinhood (NASDAQ: HOOD) on Monday fessed up to a security breach that exposed names and email addresses for millions of users and “extensive account details” for what appeared to be very specific targets. The Menlo Park., Calif-based company, which claims that about 13 million users trade stocks ETFs, and cryptocurrencies using its mobile app, said the breach happened on November 3 when a hacker stole names, email addresses, dates of birth, zip codes and additional personal information from its customer...

Despite recent hedge fund disasters and almost every economic indicator pointing to a potential stock crash, Biden’s administration has completely ignored a potential equities bubble.Since March 2020, $5.9 trillion in so-called relief spending authorized by Congress, as well as $3.3 trillion in quantitative easing from the Federal Reserve, has been pumped into the U.S. economy. America’s pandemic response resulted in 22 million jobs lost in a matter of months, and we still have 10 million fewer jobs than before March of last year. The fiscal and economic repercussions of going from stronger than expected job and wage growth in January...

Trading in shares of debt-laden China Evergrande was suspended on Monday after it missed a key bond interest payment last week, its second offshore debt obligation in a week, with market watchers jittery as the group’s troubles unravel. Shares of its unit Evergrande Property Services Group were also suspended, according to the Hong Kong stock exchange. With liabilities equal to 2% of China’s GDP, Evergrande has sparked concerns its woes could spread through the financial system and reverberate around the world, though worries have eased somewhat after the central bank vowed to protect homebuyers’ interests.

Stock investors might need to look out below. An esoteric financial markets indicator just registered a warning signal that historically augured in double-digit falls in the S&P 500, the index tracked by the SPDR S&P 500 (SPY) exchange-traded fund. The metric in question is the Marshallian K., which measures the liquidity in the economy. Recently, the liquidity started contracting... “[T]he Marshallian K. now shows liquidity not only deteriorating but actually contracting,” states a recent report from financial company Leuthold Group. That conclusion might surprise many people who look at the Federal Reserve’s money-printing program, which started during the financial crisis...

President Trump asserted on Saturday there would be dire economic consequences should he lose the 2020 presidential race, leaning into his reelection slogan "Keep America Great." “The Trump Economy is setting records, and has a long way up to go....However, if anyone but me takes over in 2020 (I know the competition very well), there will be a Market Crash the likes of which has not been seen before! KEEP AMERICA GREAT,” he tweeted.

You are not exempt my children from the harvest just because your priorities collide with My kingdom Rules and regulations(that is The Harvest first) for it is all about Salvation of the lost now for my time has come and soon I shall be with you for a sweeping up of all My sheep. So for those too busy as Martha and have not chosen the best as Mary, Truly your reward shall be diminished from those that have forsaken all to tend my sheep in the pasture of light I have supplied(that is My spirit upon the earth) for...

The Dow Jones opened down over 1,000 points Monday to the consternation of most investors — but to the likely political benefit of one Donald J. Trump. Those once again predicting we’ve reached “peak Trump” may need to reevaluate that position if the market continues to slide. Trump is the type of candidate who will only benefit in a period of economic uncertainty, or even calamity. Trump’s whole campaign pitch is that he is the billionaire businessman who will save America from the rapacious special interests, greedy investors and “cunning” foreign actors that have combined to sell America’s middle class...

Months ago I saw a rumor that some crooked billionaires had worked out a scheme to profit from a stock market crash. At the time I thought it must be just an urban legend. No one could be so stupid as to try to crash the stock market, particularly while the nation is at war. Now I’m not so sure it’s just an urban legend. Ron Paul and other hucksters are advertising that we should follow their advice to avoid the economic debacle they claim is coming. Someone needs to tell these dopes that if they succeed in causing an...

Commentary: Black-swan crisis warning for now through mid-April. SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. — Global risks are accelerating. This is our fourth major poll update of industry leaders: A critical review of their warnings from early last year when we first predicted a 87% risk of a crash: Bernanke’s Fed saw an “unsustainable bubble” ... Gross: “credit supernova” ... Gundlach: “kaboom ahead” ... Ellis: “Don’t own bonds” ... Shilling: “shocker” ... Roubini: “Prepare for perfect storm” ... Shiller: “Irrational exuberance is back” ... Schiff: “Doubling down” on “doomsday” prediction ... InvestmentNews’ warning 90,000 advisers: “tick, tick ... boom!”

Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine isn’t pulling any punches with his quotes as the frontman dropped some heavy thoughts on fans during a recent show in Singapore During the August 7 performance, the heavy metal singer/guitarist went on a rant telling audience members, "Back in my country, my president is trying to pass a gun ban so he's staging all of these murders,” The Huffington Post reported.

Those who think that we're going to "muddle through" have another think coming... China’s export growth collapsed and imports and new yuan loans trailed estimates in July, reports today showed. Outbound shipments increased 1 percent from a year earlier and imports rose 4.7 percent, the customs bureau said. The growth in July exports compared with the 8 percent median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey and 11.3 percent in June. Analysts estimated a 7 percent gain in imports after a 6.3 percent increase in June. [snip]

I’ve been warning for weeks now that the Fed would disappoint with its September meeting. And boy did it. As I forecast, the Fed didn’t announce QE 3. In fact, it didn’t announce any new policy of note. Instead it is simply reshuffling its holdings to focus more on the long end of the bond markets. On top of this, the Fed announced it will only be moving roughly $400 billion of its portfolio around. This is the smallest major intervention the Fed has announced since it began implementing QE in 2009 (QE 1 was $1.25 trillion while QE 2 was...

"Guys this is probably the craziest I have seen it down here ever." Here it is, memorialized for the generations and away from the now openly ridiculous disinformation propaganda of the mainstream media, just what a full market meltdown panic sounds like: straight from the epicenter, the S&P 500 pits. Luckily open ouctry still exists, if at least for shock value.

Someone put on a bearish position in the S&P 500 just 10 minutes before the market took a dive Thursday, suggesting the market swoon was less a mistake and more the result of some traders exiting a carry trade, hedging, or outright speculating. In any event, the much discussed "fat fingered" trader might not exist.What's clear is that once some computers hit triggers to sell, that selling pressure triggered other computers to sell and within minutes the rout was on. It also happened at a time of day when margin calls would have snowballed. Data from Interactive Brokers shows 48,000...

{snip} The following Senators voted YEA on Cloture and stand for election this November. AK:Murkowski (R) AR:Lincoln (D) CA:Boxer (D) CT:Dodd (D) GA:Isakson (R) HI:Inouye (D) IN:Bayh (D) MD:Mikulski (D) NC:Burr (R) YEA ND:Dorgan (D) YEA NH:Gregg (R) YEA (Retiring - to a Goldman affiliate!) NV:Reid (D) YEA NY:Schumer (D) YEA (Wall Street's Chief Whore) OK:Coburn (R) YEA OR:Wyden (D) YEA UT:Bennett (R) YEA VT:Leahy (D) YEA WA:Murray (D) YEA Ignore the actual confirmation vote. Some of the clowns in the Senate, like Babs Boxer, tried to obfuscate reality by voting for Cloture and then voting "Nay" on the final...

The "For Sale" signs are just starting to sprout, but already experts worry that this spring home-buying season in the United States will be even grimmer than the last. Despite tentative signs of recovery in hard-hit areas like California and Florida, the broader housing market is far from hitting bottom, economists said. Across much of America, prices are likely to keep falling through 2010. So the March-to-June season, when most homes are bought and sold, will be bad this year - perhaps the worst since the market began to spiral down in 2006. Across the nation, 19 million houses and...

The US and advanced economies’ financial system is now headed towards a near-term systemic financial meltdown as day after day stock markets are in free fall, money markets have shut down while their spreads are skyrocketing, and credit spreads are surging through the roof. There is now the beginning of a generalized run on the banking system of these economies; a collapse of the shadow banking system, i.e. those non-banks (broker dealers, non-bank mortgage lenders, SIV and conduits, hedge funds, money market funds, private equity firms) that, like banks, borrow short and liquid, are highly leveraged and lend and invest...

Global credit system suffers cardiac arrest on US crash By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard Last Updated: 11:59pm BST 17/09/2008 Have your say Read comments The global credit system almost grinds to a halt as yields on US Treasury bills reach zero for the first time since the Great Depression, writes Ambrose Evans-Pritchard The global credit system came close to total seizure yesterday. Key parts of the derivatives market shut down and a panic flight to safety depressed the yield on three-month US Treasury bills to almost zero for the first since the Great Depression in 1934. The closely-watched TED-spread measuring stress in...