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The Nasdaq officially dipped into bear territory on Thursday.
The tech-heavy index rallied off its interday lows to close just a rounding error away from official bear status — for now. The Nasdaq has lost nearly 20% of its value in just four months. Reuters called it “the latest sign that the bull market that began in the depths of the financial crisis a decade ago could be coming to an end.”
As expected, the Federal Reserve nudged interest rates up another 25 basis points to 2.5% during its December meeting this week. It also scaled back its projected hikes in 2019 from three to two.
Peter Schiff said Jerome Powell and company just stuck a fork in the stock market.
China and Japan dumped more US Treasuries in October, even as the federal government continued to run up its debt.
Chinese holdings of US Treasuries dropped for the fifth straight month, sinking to the lowest level since May 2017, according to data recently released by the Treasury Department. The total amount of US debt held by China fell from $1.15 trillion to 1.14 trillion. Over the past year, the Chinese have shed $50 billion in US debt.
The mainstream is starting to get a little bit nervous. As we reported yesterday, a CNBC interview with DoubleLine Capital founder Jeffrey Gundlach got the mainstream talking about the possibility of a bear market. There is also increasing concern about a looming recession. In a recent New York Times survey, almost half of the 134 CEOs polled said they thought the country could be in a recession by the end of the year.
Peter Schiff has been warning about a recession for months. In October, he said the recession that’s coming is going to be brutal. On Monday, Peter appeared on Fox Business with Lisa Kennedy to talk about the coming crisis and its political ramifications.
Last week, officials broke ground for construction of the country’s first state gold depository in Texas. The creation of the Texas Bullion Depository represents a power-shift away from the federal government, provides a mechanism for the state to establish a higher level of economic independence, and sets the foundation to undermine the Federal Reserve’s monopoly on money.
This is shaping up to be a December to remember.
Wall Street is on pace for its worst December since 1980.
The mainstream has finally uttered the B-word.
I mean bear. As in bear market.
DoubleLine Capital founder Jeffrey Gundlach sparked mainstream talk of bears on Monday when he asserted that we have indeed entered a bear market during an interview on CNBC.
Stocks continued to get pummeled and pundits continue to claim there’s nothing to worry about. They say the economy is fundamentally strong. But is it? Really?
Peter Schiff doesn’t think so.
How much gold does China really have?
The short answer is we don’t really know.
Officially, the Chinese central bank’s reserves stand at 1,842.6 tons. But the People’s Bank of China has not announced an increase in its gold hoard since October 2016. But it has almost certainly added gold to its reserves since then. Just how much is anybody’s guess.