Free Republic

You would think that with the FTX scandal still brewing and investors missing billions of dollars from their supposedly secured crypto accounts, Securities and Exchange Commission chair Gary Gensler would have so much on his plate, he wouldn’t have time to muck around in our capital markets, which are working just fine. But sources tell me Gensler is doing just that — preparing to unveil plans for the biggest changes in about two decades to the way stocks are routed from buyers to sellers. If Gensler’s timing holds, he will announce (possibly this week) an open meeting for mid-December that...

On Thursday, (11-10-22) the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that consumer prices, as measured by the consumer price index (CPI), inflated at an annual rate of 7.7 percent in October. Investors went bananas on this apparent pullback in the headline CPI. The stock market responded with one of its biggest single day rallies in history. The S&P 500 jumped over 5.5 percent. The NASDAQ jumped over 7.3 percent. Of greater note, the yield on the 10-Year Treasury note dropped to just 3.81 percent – its lowest yield in over a month. So, is raging consumer price inflation no longer a...

Federal officials working on the government response to Covid-19 made well-timed financial trades when the pandemic began—both as the markets plunged and as they rallied—a Wall Street Journal investigation found. In January 2020, the U.S. public was largely unaware of the threat posed by the virus spreading in China, but health officials were on high alert and girding for a crisis. A deputy to top health official Anthony Fauci reported 10 sales of mutual funds and stocks totaling between $157,000 and $480,000 that month. Collectively, officials at another health agency, Health and Human Services, reported 60% more sales of stocks...

Amid the gloom, one trade looms so unusually pessimistic that it is hard to process because the world would likely need to end, or come close to it, for it to prove profitable. The trade is predicated on the Cboe Volatility Index, or VIX, hitting 150 by March, a level that has never before been realized. In recent sessions, an investor bought 50,000 VIX March $150 call options, paying about 19 cents per contract. The trade is so large, and so unusual, that it was almost certainly made by a wealthy investor worried about a massive stock market decline, perhaps...

The global debt market is orders of magnitude larger than the stock market, and debt instruments across the globe have nearly reached the breaking point due to the Fed’s steady increase in interest rates this year (combined with seemingly endless money printing and other disastrous fiscal policies). Because bond values have an inverse relationship with interest rates, as interest rates go up, the value of bonds and other debt instruments already issued goes down. With each Fed rate increase, bond values are cratering, leaving debt investors holding substantial losses and leading to a collapse in the number of potential buyers...

"Why does Switzerland suddenly have a financial institution needing $3 billion in cheap (3.33%) overnight funding from the US Fed. This was the first time the Fed sent dollars to the Swiss National Bank this year, and the first time the Fed used the swap line in size (besides a token amount to the ECB every now and then)!" Credit Suisse is bankrupt. They tried to save it until they ran out of USD, now the Fed is trying to save them...luckily the Fed cannot run out of USD... and so it goes.

The S&P 500 fell as much as 1.9% on Friday, bringing its rout in the week past 4.5%. The index already closed below the closely watched level of 3,800 this week, leaving the June bear-market low of 3,666 as the next line of support on technical charts. The UK government unveiled a sweeping tax-cut plan that crashed the pound and the nation’s bonds as investors fretted over the stimulative effects with inflation running rampant. That soured an already tart mood for risk assets around the world. The S&P 500 plunged 1.7% as of 10:09 a.m. in New York, and traders...

ock futures dropped on Tuesday morning after an August inflation report came in hotter than expected. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures sank 406 points, or about 1.3%. S&P 500 futures fell 1.7% and Nasdaq 100 futures slid 2.3%. The August consumer price index report showed a higher-than-expected reading for inflation. Headline inflation rose 0.1% month over month, even with falling gas prices. Core inflation rose 0.6% month over month. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been expecting a decline of 0.1% for overall inflation, with a rise of 0.3% for core inflation.

Michael Burry, the hedge fund investor made famous in the 2015 film “The Big Short,” suggested Wednesday that a long-feared stock market crash is already underway. Burry, who predicted more than a year ago that stocks were headed for “the mother of all crashes,” delivered his latest warning alongside a graph showing the S&P 500’s sharp decline since hitting an all-time peak in January. “And yet I keep getting asked ‘wen crash?’” Burry said in a now-deleted tweet captured by the @BurryArchive Twitter account.

A recession? Don’t tell that to the stock market. The major averages ended positive for the week. That came after the best month for the S&P 500 (^GSPC) since November 2020. Granted, the Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) is still 20% down year-to-date, and the S&P 500 is 13% in the red. But the recent rally in the markets has some investors wondering if we're watching a turning point, and if it's safe to buy. In continuation of our series “What to do in a bear market,” Yahoo Finance asked the experts.

The stock market rally may be very close to being over. There have been a number of repeatable patterns taking place in the market this year. The dollar is surging again and is likely to see stocks lower as a result. The bear market rally may be ending as stocks get ready to dump again. The patterns in the market seem to be on a repeat cycle from a technical and fundamental standpoint. The recent move lower in rates may have only been temporary, and now that they are on the rise, it may lead to the dollar breaking out....

We’ve just seen huge market volatility. This week promises more given it’s month and quarter end with key positioning, portfolio reallocation, and short squeezes all in play. On top of that, the news continues to underline the central thesis: that the ‘one size fits all/one world for all’ neoliberal/liberal/’new normal’ system is collapsing. Red v Blue Friday’s US Supreme Court overruling of Roe v Wade was a shock despite having been flagged in an unprecedented leak. It was leading news on Bloomberg and the Financial Times because it exposes US fault-lines. Overturning a near-50 year constitutional precedent means we have...

Inflation is dominating the news as prices hit 40-year highs. While the price of everyday goods, including food and energy, is the most widely cited type of inflation, other forms exist across the broader economic system. In this Markets in a Minute from New York Life Investments, Visual Capitalist’s Dorothy Neufeld charts three types of inflation and the macroeconomic factors that influence each type. 1. Monetary InflationMonetary inflation occurs when the U.S. money supply increases over time. This represents both physical and digital money circulating in the economy including cash, checking accounts, and money market mutual funds. The U.S. central...

People are reportedly lining up for hours in China to obtain money from their bank accounts in China. The large cities of Henan, Shanghai, and Dandong are three cities where the lines are long.After years of COVID mandates and a government that the average Chinese down deep doesn’t trust, the people of China are scared that they will not be able to retrieve their life savings. In some cities, people are standing in line for hours to receive their money from their bank.Recently, freezing depositors’ accounts by four rural banks in Henan has become a hot topic on social media....

An “economic hurricane” is coming. That ominous warning comes from Jamie Dimon, CEO of J.P. Morgan Chase. “I said there were storm clouds. But I’m going to change it. It’s a hurricane. Right now it’s kind of sunny, things are doing fine, and everyone thinks the Fed can handle it. That hurricane is right out there down the road coming our way. We don’t know if it’s a minor one or Superstorm Sandy. You better brace yourself.” Of course, he isn’t the only CEO feeling this way. The most recent CEO Confidence Index suggests that most leaders are concerned about...

Wholesale prices accelerated again in May as inflation tightened its stranglehold on the U.S. economy, adding to the financial pressure on millions of Americans.The Labor Department said Tuesday that its producer price index, which measures inflation at the wholesale level before it reaches consumers, climbed 10.8% in May from the previous year. On a monthly basis, prices grew by 0.8%. Although that was slightly lower than the 10.9% forecast from Refinitiv economists, the reading – near a record-high of 11.5% notched in March – suggests that inflationary pressures in the economy remain strong.Core inflation at the wholesale level, which excludes...

Until recently, many strategists had assumed central banks would prefer to live with rising inflation rather than put economic growth at risk. Events in the last few days are causing them to rethink that. “More hawkish central banks last week reminded us that inflation is their prime concern, while activity/growth and markets are lesser considerations,” say Barclays strategists including Matthew Joyce. It’s such concerns that are behind the latest selloff in equities, both in Europe and beyond. Joyce and his colleagues say plunging consumer confidence may indicate a direct impact on growth from the inflation situation, and recommend keeping an...

US equity futures have opened down hard in quiet Sunday night trading with Nasdaq the hardest hit, down 1.5%. This move leaves the S&P down over 6% in the last 3 days… …and once again nearing the ‘bear market’ Maginot Line…

Stocks dropped on Friday morning after a highly anticipated inflation report showed a faster-than-expected rise in prices. The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 755 points, or 2.3%. The S&P 500 fell 2.5%, while Nasdaq Composite sank nearly 3%. The May consumer price index report came in at its highest level since 1981, putting pressure on the stock market. The report showed prices rising 8.6% year over year, and 6% when excluding food and energy prices. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones were expecting year over year increases of 8.3% for the main index and 5.9% for the core index. "It's confirming...

We have got a critical situation. I really think we have a problem for the next six months. … [O]nce it gets to these parabolic states, markets can move and they can spike quite a lot.’ — Jeremy Weir, Trafigura That’s Jeremy Weir, who heads up Trafigura, one of the world’s largest commodity traders, sounding the alarm bell at the FT Global Boardroom conference on Tuesday, according to the Financial Times. He’s the latest bigwig to raise an alert over the potential for global economic turmoil as the Russia-Ukraine war stokes energy-market volatility. JPMorgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon...