Black Friday was a black and blue Friday as US stock markets saw their sharpest declines since April 2020.
The selloff was spurred by a new COVID variant and fear of new lockdowns. The markets recovered on Monday, but the sudden stock dip was telling.
The tale of GameStop has much more to say about the current state of investing.”
The central idea in the classic Mel Brooks comedy “The Producers” is that unscrupulous Broadway impresarios could succeed fabulously by creating a play so uniquely awful that it would close on its first day. Their idea was to oversubscribe shares to investors, to the point where hundreds of percentages of ownership could be claimed. But if the show failed spectacularly, there would be no proceeds to fight over, all the investors would accept that their shares were worthless, and no one would know that they had been conned. The producers could pocket the excess money. The only way they could fail would be by producing a hit.
It’s like Dawn of the Dead on Wall Street. Zombies are everywhere.
Even as stocks continue to push to new highs, the number of money-losing companies listed on US stock markets has ballooned to levels not seen since the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s.
According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, nearly 40% of US-listed companies are losing money.
The Dow Jones was down over 280 points yesterday, marking the third straight day of declines. Sudden pessimism about a trade deal has tanked stocks. In his latest podcast, Peter Schiff talked about it.
Typically, December is a strong month for stocks with the so-called “Santa Claus rally.” Peter said maybe the Grinch is going to steal that rally this year.
Last Tuesday, the S&P 500 made a record high as markets anticipated another Fed rate cut. Some analysts say the big risk is that we’re seeing a boost in asset prices but no real uptick in the actual economy. Peter Schiff appeared on RT Boom Bust to talk about it. He said investors buying onto all of this Wall Street hype are in for a painful awakening.
Wednesday was another ugly day on Wall Street.
Stocks tanked, wiping out gains for the year in both the Dow Jones and S&P 500 Index. The Dow fell 608 points and the S&P 500 shed 3%. The Nasdaq plunged 329 points and lapsed into a correction territory. It was the largest daily decline on Wall Street since 2011.
In his most recent podcast, Peter Schiff asked a key question: will the Federal Reserve swoop in and change the nature of the game?