March 2025 DDD

[divs4ever]

well two words might explain the current stock market ( except in Australia *)

irrational exuberance or alternatively T.I.N.A. ( there is no alternative )

bonds are facing possible official rate cuts ( i think the Fed will bluff not cut , but i am the minority ) and reduced buying from foreign investors

private equity/credit has a reputation of being illiquid , when YOU need the cash immediately

and there is always your bank which MIGHT open Monday

those who DON'T love stocks ( but have money to park ) should start digging a hole in the garage for your new gold/silver safe , because regulations could grab your cache at any time they deem fit ( and can find it )

* Australia may be facing a 'healthy retrace' ( or worse )

i am think a MAJOR DISTRACTION very soon , but i have been wrong before

 

[ducati916]

Last week and next week:




Look at the volume in the Financials:






Last Week




And for next week:





jog on
duc

 

[ducati916]

From Bespoke:

​

​ ​ ​ ​ It's been a nasty period for the US stock market since late February. As the chart below shows, the S&P went from overbought to extreme oversold in just eight trading days recently. ​ ​ ​ While the major indices aren't that far off their all-time highs, the average stock is in a pretty big drawdown. In the Russell 3,000 that encompasses large-caps, mid-caps, and small-caps, the average stock was 30.8% below its 52-week high as of yesterday. Health Care, Energy, Technology, and Consumer Discretionary stocks are all down an average of 33% or more from their highs. ​ ​ ​ Just like things can't stay overbought forever, they don't stay oversold forever, either. This weekend we're scouring our Chart Scanner and Trend Analyzertools to look for opportunities that may have been hit excessively hard recently. In this week's Bespoke Report newsletter available to All Access subscribers (join now for just $1), we provided a list of the most oversold stocks in the S&P 500 right now. Subscribers find these lists helpful when looking for new stock ideas. ​ ​ ​

From JC;

There's never a dull moment in the market. It's always something. The mixed messages are a feature, not a bug. That's just how it's always been. So it's our job to weigh all the evidence and make the best decisions we can make, knowing full well that we have incomplete information. Today I want to talk about 2 theories that may or may not be playing out, but it's something I'm thinking about. First, is this thing about investor sentiment. How is it possible that individual investors in America are the most bearish they've been since the bottom of the last bear market back in 2022?

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I think it's because of what they own. They're not in China, which is making new 3-year highs. They're not in Germany, or Europe, which are hitting new all-time highs. They're in mega-cap US growth stocks. And when you do the math, these "Mag7" stocks have been responsible for 100% of the correction in the Nasdaq. These investors could have owned almost anything else, and been outperforming these indexes, and likely not be so pessimistic. I think the historic bearish sentiment is driven by individual excessively overweight a half dozen stocks. This is probably a big part of it, because I can't imagine what else would drive them to be so sad and upset about the current market environment. We'll see how this theory plays out, and if sentiment improves if/when these stocks start to bounce. Here's another theory. Why is the U.S. so dramatically underperforming other parts of the world? Why did develop markets outside the U.S. just have their best week in stock market history, relative to the S&P500? The U.S. Dollar having its worst week in years is probably helping to drive this rotation:

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I think this U.S. Dollar selloff has been SO dramatic, that it's accelerated this rotation into international stocks to the point where U.S. stocks, particularly the Large-cap Growth areas, are being used as a source of funds for this rotation. It's not so much that the stock market wants a higher dollar or lower dollar, higher rates or lower rates. It really comes down to the rate of acceleration. In other words, how fast are these assets moving? When Bonds and Forex markets are moving violently, that spills into equity markets. Think about it. The bond market is $130 Trillion. The Forex Markets are valued in the Quadrillions. I don't even know how many zeroes and commas are in a Quadrillion. That's how big these markets are. The U.S. stock market is a tiny little $55 Trillion, a fraction of the others. So expect stocks to be bullied by those bigger markets. Not just now, but always. This is especially the case when they're moving faster than normal. And that's exactly what I believe has been happening. To a certain extent, the Dollar getting destroyed, has cause this rotation to happen much faster, and so some of these big U.S. stocks are being used as a source of funds. That's what I've been thinking about anyway. Thinking is underrated. If you have a job that involves thinking, then you should probably spend, at least part of, your day thinking. And so, as someone who needs to make important decisions every day, I try to spend a lot of time walking, running, and simultaneously thinking. This is what I'm thinking about. I don't know what the market is going to do next. It can rip higher to Dow 50,000, S&P 7000 and Nasdaq Composite to 25,000. That can definitely happen. Some of this selling in the U.S. can also expand, and the new lows lists start to get longer. We can enter into a bear market, and maybe even that recession they've been promising us all these years. Who knows? I laid out my base case this week and what I think is happening moving forward. You can check that out here and what we're doing about it. And we like to joke around and have fun with it on the blog, on our Morning show, and on Social Media. But on a serious note - it's so important to understand that we don't actually know what the market is going to do next. The good news, however, is that no one else does either. Not Warren Buffett, not David Tepper, not Jose Canseco. And certainly not me. But despite all of that, our efforts are obviously working. We designed Breakout Multiplier to take all of the research we provide at Allstarcharts, and put on trades with a very specific intent of multiplying the returns on these opportunities. More than half the trades we put on over the past 6 months have at least doubled in value. I've been doing this for over 2 decades. I've met with more traders and investors over the years than almost anyone else on the planet. I can assure you, from the bottom of my heart, I have never seen a system like Breakout Multiplier be this good, this consistent, and with a process that is this repeatable. On Friday alone, we had 2 trades double.

jog on
duc

 

[ducati916]

Wall Street is talking about stagflation, a combination of stagnant growth and elevated inflation. The real risk is not just that stagflation could arrive, but that the usual policy tools to fight it won't be in play. The big picture: The president and his advisers have been blasé about the risk of a growth slump or new inflation spike, believing that it's necessary to jolt the economy into a better long-term condition. The Fed will be constrained in responding to any economic weakening with rate cuts because inflation has already been well above its target for four straight years. That all means the usual Washington cavalry may not arrive at the first sign of economic trouble. State of play: Global investors are becoming wary of the possibility that President Trump will eventually follow through on his pledge of large, across-the-board tariffs on many of the largest U.S. trading partners. That has fueled an 8% drop in the S&P 500 since Feb. 19. Trade wars amount to a negative supply shock, simultaneously reducing growth prospects and increasing price pressures. Google searches for the term "stagflation" are among the highest they've ever been, per Google Trends, surpassed only in three episodes (2008, 2022, and briefly last year). Between the lines: Usually, if the economy starts to worsen, help from the government — fiscal stimulus action and interest rate cuts from the Fed — can be counted on to buffer the impact. But Trump administration officials appear willing to tolerate some economic dislocation as the price of their sweeping policy agenda. What they're saying: Trump, asked about recession risk yesterday in a Fox interview, acknowledged a "period of transition" from his policies. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent referred to a period of "detox" for the economy as it is weaned from public spending. "[C]ould we be seeing that this economy that we inherited starting to roll a bit? Sure," he said Friday on CNBC. Reality check: If the economy really does start to deteriorate in a meaningful way, it would be unsurprising if we saw a pivot from the White House. Stock market crashes and spikes in unemployment have a way of getting any president's attention. Trump economic advisers in early March 2020 dismissed the need for fiscal action to deal with the pandemic fallout; the president would sign a $2.2 trillion relief act at the end of that very month. Stagflation is always challenging for a central bank, as the "stag" part and the "flation" part point policy in opposite directions. But that is doubly so at this moment, when inflation has already been running hot for years. In discussing how the Fed will respond to tariff-induced disruption, chair Jerome Powell said Friday that "you want to remember the current context, which is we, we came off of very high inflation, and we haven't fully returned to 2% on [a] sustainable basis." The bottom line: The risk is not that Washington won't respond at all if stagflation rears its head. It's that the response will be slower and more restrained than we've become accustomed to.

From JC;

We're only in the market to make money. Let's not forget that. We're not journalists who have to tell stories about things that may or may not be happening. We're not Economists trying to identify the next recession. We don't care about your stories, and we care even less about your economy. As far as I'm concerned, recessions are a choice for a lot of people. I try to make sure that I fall in that category. One way we do that is to weigh all the evidence and decide if this is a bull market or a bear market. And the reason why this is important is for one simple reason: To decide how we want to be spending our time. Today is Monday. What should I be doing today? That's the question I want to answer. In other words, should I be spending my time looking for stocks to buy, or should I be spending my time looking for stocks to sell? That's really what this is all about. You can see exactly what we've been doing and how we're approaching markets here. But moving forward, what are some of the signs we're looking for that would suggest that a more cautious approach to markets is better. What does a bear market look like? I laid out two big themes I'm thinking about right now here. But in addition to that, I want to nail down something we know for certain: During bear markets, or any kind of correction, the prices of stocks need to fall. That's just a fact. There's no other way around it. So if we know that to be true, then we want to allocate some of our time counting how many stocks are actually falling in price. After some of the selling pressure last week in U.S. stocks, we can see that there were actually fewer stocks on the NYSE hitting new 3-month lows than there were over the past few months.

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And when you look shorter-term, you'll notice the same thing. Here are the list of stocks on the NYSE hitting new 1-month lows. Again, fewer stocks did that last week than at prior spikes over the past few months:

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This can change of course. We could absolutely see an expansion in stocks hitting new lows. That's the great thing about the market. I don't actually know what the market is going to do next. And contrary to popular belief, no one else does either. In fact, deep down inside, I'm actually a permabear. Despite the fact that we've been all over this bull market over the past several years, the best thing that could happen to me and my family is a massive market crash that wipes most investors out. That would give us a great opportunity to buy stocks cheap, likely get some real estate at a discount, and add a ton to our children's college funds. I think about this sort of thing all the time. But it's important to understand that I don't have any control over it. I don't get a vote. All I can do is play the cards that we're dealt, and do the best I can to continue to accumulate wealth to be able to provide a better life for my family. What I do is the only thing I can control. And over the years, I've learned that traders and investors all over the world appreciate my perspective and the color we bring to the table. I honestly do not care if Gold goes to 5000 or 500. Bitcoin can go to a million, or zero. It doesn't matter to me at all. I'm too old to care. I just want to make money from the whole thing. So if you're like me, and that's your goal, then you can check out our Premium Research and see for yourself why so many investors, both professionals and DIY Traders come to us, over so many other options they have to choose from. We're really proud of the work we do around here, and I'm not afraid to share that. Our unbiased approach to markets is refreshing for most people.

Anyone who thinks President Trump's mesmerizing hold over the GOP will slip if his poll numbers slide is missing one of his biggest innovations in American politics:

• The creation of a cash-flush political operation that has raked in around a half-billion dollars — about the same amount the GOP's House and Senate campaign arms spent during the entirety of the last midterm campaign, Axios' Alex Isenstadt writes.

Why it matters: It's unheard of for a president not running for reelection to raise that kind of money. But the cash is just one piece of a bigger power play that's arguably the most powerful, well-funded political apparatus ever.

• The day after Election Day, Trump — at a time most presidents-elect are scrambling to get their transitions rolling — started calling major donors to start building an enforcement machine for his agenda.
• "Right now, there's a huge price to pay by crossing Donald Trump," said Republican strategist Corry Bliss, who formerly led the Congressional Leadership Fund super PAC. "When you combine a 92% approval rating among Republican voters with unlimited money, that equals: 'Yes, sir.'"

Zoom in: Two Trump-aligned outside groups, MAGA Inc. and Securing American Greatness, are poised to play big in 2026, including by helping Republicans expand their congressional majorities. The groups also have another focus: Reward Republicans who support Trump — and punish those who don't.

• Elon Musk has his own super PAC, America PAC, which he can use to target Republicans who cross Trump.

The big picture: Trump lacked a well-funded political operation after the 2016 election, hampering his ability to put pressure on Republicans who waffled over backing his agenda and to support or oppose candidates of his choosing. Trump advisers say that won't be the case this time.

• Now, combine Trump's super PACs with Musk's resources, then toss in Musk's control of X plus Trump's control of Truth Social. Any GOP skeptics or critics could instantly face a dangerous primary challenge — and unending waves of critical messaging.

​

Elon Musk and White House chief of staff Susie Wiles leave the Oval Office with President Trump on Friday. Photo: Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images
How it works: Chris LaCivita and pollster Tony Fabrizio, who held top roles in Trump's '24 campaign, are spearheading the effort.

• MAGA Inc. and Securing American Greatness are closely aligned with the White House political team, which is led by chief of staff Susie Wiles and deputy chief of staff James Blair. The groups were founded during the campaign by Taylor Budowich, now a White House deputy chief of staff.
• Trump's team hasn't dipped into its war chest yet, but it's prepared to. It cut ads aimed at pressuring Republican senators to confirm Pete Hegseth, Trump's then-nominee for secretary of Defense. But once it became clear Hegseth had the support he needed, the ads were sidelined.

Behind the scenes: Two weekends ago, Trump hosted a dinner for major contributors at Mar-a-Lago. Minimum cost of entrance: $1 million. The dinner was attended by Republican mega-donor Miriam Adelson, who spent more than $100 million to bolster Trump last year.

• Trump had to woo donors during the 2024 campaign. But now many are flocking to him in hopes of winning access.

Some Democrats are starting to publicly second-guess the party's stances on transgender rights and DEI programs — positions they've long embraced on principle, but now see as potential political liabilities, Axios' Alex Thompson and Erin Doherty write.

• Why it matters: The issues are creating a divide among some of the most powerful people in the party, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom and a few others widely seen as potential 2028 candidates for president.

Newsom sent ripples through the party last week during a podcast interview with MAGA influencer Charlie Kirk. Echoing a GOP talking point, Newsom said he believed transgender women and girls playing in women's sports was "deeply unfair."

Zoom in: The remark by Newsom, a former San Francisco mayor and longtime supporter of LGBTQ causes, stung many progressives as a betrayal.

• The backdrop for the debate is how Vice President Harris struggled last year to respond as Republicans spent tens of millions on ads bashing transgender women and girls in sports, and declaring that "Kamala is for they/them, Donald Trump is for you."

Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, a 2028 presidential contender who's openly gay, removed his pronouns from his profile on X in recent months, according to the Internet Archive.

• Rahm Emanuel, former Chicago mayor and U.S. ambassador to Japan, told Axios: "Some kids in the classroom are debating which pronouns apply, and the rest of the class doesn't know what a pronoun is. That's a crisis."

Europe:

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​

​

​ Moving With the Herd​ Shibboleths are shattering in Europe. In the last week, it’s abandoned assumptions about its defense and how it runs fiscal policy that had endured for a lifetime. Amid that drama, the European Central Bank cut target rates by 25 basis points and announced that its monetary policy had become “meaningfully less restrictive.” If this sounds boring compared to the other volcanic European shifts, that’s because it is. But there’s still a change. The ECB’s own confrontation with Europe’s shifting tectonic plates will come soon. Previously, the ECB had said that policy was “restrictive,” so this was a shift. But it wasn’t so much a change of direction as what President Christine Lagarde called an “evolution.” If it’s less restrictive, then it’s closer to the point where the ECB can stop cutting rates. As it’s still restrictive, however, the bias remains toward cuts. That’s reflected in market expectations, which see more cuts but now project the target rate to be 2.0% by year-end: The question is what happens next. Barring political mishaps over the next two weeks, German fiscal policy is about to get as loose as it’s been in generations, while the European Union is thrashing out massive new investment in defense. The EU must also contemplate the likely imminent imposition of tariffs by the US. This would be directly negative for growth, while retaliation would put upward pressure on inflation. With the exception of one abstention, this decision was unanimous. The euro-zone economy is weak, the defense spending and tariffs are still matters of conjecture, and it made total sense to cut. But as my Bloomberg colleagues swiftly pointed out, the next meeting in April will be different, and conflict is very likely. Should they respond to loose fiscal policy with tighter money? Already, Isabel Schnabel, regarded as one of the most hawkish members of the ECB’s governing council, has set out her stall in Handelsblatt. It’s not clear where r* — the neutral rate of interest that is neither contractionary nor expansive — is at any one time, but the hawks can argue that the big splurge of spending ahead is bound to move it upward. That means fewer cuts. Another variable is the bond market, which sets longer-term rates. Germany’s new fiscal dawn has brought the yield on the 10-year German bund up by 50 basis points in a week, as traders attempt to discount the extra borrowing. This tightens financial conditions. But there’s little or no fear that this will be a German “Liz Truss incident.” When Britain’ s former prime minister shocked the market with a radical new fiscal policy, a bond market revolt soon forced her to abandon tax cuts and resign. Bund yields are far lower than gilt yields were then, though at their highest since the outbreak of the euro-zone debt crisis in 2010: However, the last 15 years, which for a time featured negative nominal rates, are regarded as an anomaly. Bund yields at historically normal levels could be treated as a sign that the extraordinary conditions are over. The market has effectively been telling the German government that it’s free to borrow more if it likes. There’s a widespread belief that Germany has been too frugal for its own good and that it will be a better bet to repay debt if it borrows more. Indeed, there’s also a way in which the structure of the euro zone endowed Germany with an exorbitant privilege that it refused to use until now. That term refers to the advantage that the US gains from the dollar’s reserve currency status. Similarly, the euro zone meant that when investors wanted to buy bonds in Europe, bunds were plainly safer than anyone else, and so Germany could borrow at a lower rate. While each country’s bonds had been in a sense risk-free in their local currency, the creation of the euro made Germany’s debt safer. With Germany borrowing more, the risk must be that other European borrowers will be crowded out. Special Europe-wide bonds to raise money for defense would also be safer and tend to force other euro-zone members to pay more for their debt. At present, the spreads over bunds at which other European bonds trade are quite narrow — although the rise in French spreads is disquieting: Now that Germany intends to exercise its privilege, and Europe intends to start borrowing for defense in its own right, the risk is that some euro-zone countries are going to find it much more expensive to borrow. The ECB has to start thinking what it will do about that, too. ​ ​ ​ Fork in the Road​ Is the US really sliding into a recession? Such fears have plainly taken hold in recent weeks, and February’s jobs report was the latest test to come back from the lab. It at least suggests the patient doesn’t have much to worry about. That won’t mean that we can ignore worrying signs that cause genuine concern, such as softening consumer confidence, mass federal job layoffs, economic policy uncertainty, and rising inflation expectations. But the report suggests that the infections that might lead to a recession diagnosis remain at the latency stage, even if all the main measures are gently trending in the wrong direction: The biggest market concern is about the chance of a recession. Unemployment tends to rise slowly and then surge. The Sahm Rule, named for Bloomberg Opinion colleague Claudia Sahm, holds that when the unemployment rate is more than a half percentage point above its low for the previous year, a recession ensues. That threshold was triggered last year, contributing to a scare. Now, it suggests little reason to worry: A revision of the Sahm Rule by BCA Research’s Dhaval Joshi (dubbed the Joshi Rule) looks at the three-month moving average of the unemployment rate of “job losers not on temporary layoff,” or “bad” unemployment. When it rises by 0.2% from its low during the previous 12 months, it means a recession is coming. This measure, as Joshi shows, has eased even more dramatically: This helps explain why markets generally responded with muted relief to the jobs numbers. But there were warning signs in more long-term unemployed people, fewer federal workers, and an increase in those working part-time for economic reasons. People working multiple jobs reached a record of nearly 8.9 million. But overall, nonfarm payrolls were up 151,000 in February following a downward revision to the prior month, continuing a “Goldilocks” trend in which jobs rise, but not too fast: The headline fell short of estimates, but that could be attributed to weather disruptions, and to job cuts from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. Negligible revisions for the previous two months were also reassuring. But the numbers didn’t reverse the growing concern in recent weeks about a recession. This is how the forecast by Bloomberg’s World Interest Rate Probabilities, derived from futures, has moved since Jan. 2: The change in interest rate expectations is unmissable. However, the latest jobs report seemed to arrest the trend: For rates to fall this much, the Fed will need to be be convinced that employment faces a significant deterioration. Oxford Economics’ Nancy Vanden Houten argues that this report wasn’t enough to move the Fed off the sidelines. Glenmede Research’s Jason Pride adds: Given uncertainties regarding trade policy, June may be a live meeting for them to consider restarting the rate-cut process if they judge a material impact on aggregate demand. The base case is now ~3 rate cuts this year, but those expectations may be volatile until the size and scope of trade policy come into greater focus. The impending fork in the road for the Fed makes for an interesting watch. Bank of America’s Shruti Mishra argues the disappointing household survey and solid wage growth are consistent with mild stagflation. With inflation already above target, however, Mishra argues that the Fed won’t cut further — although markets may worry about the risk that if it’s too slow to act, that may exacerbate the eventual downturn.

So from China:



Now I don't speak any Chinese, but apparently it is China announcing tariffs against the US in retaliation. Probably need some more research on this.


I have heard a number of analysts and investors suggest that Treasury Secretary Bessent and the Trump Administration are attempting to “front load economic pain like Reagan did” in 1980-82. While this sounds good on paper, it ignores critical context of how much higher US debt/GDP is now v. for Reagan (120% v. 30%, with 7% deficit/GDP, not 2%.)

This means there was effectively no amount of pain that Reagan could trigger that would credibly threaten the US government with a debt spiral (and via the USD as reserve currency, the world). But at 120% debt/GDP, triggering a US (and global) sovereign debt spiral would not take much “pain” at all.

It suggests the volatility of the last few weeks in stocks, bonds, BTC, and currencies will likely persist if “front-loading the pain” is the game plan.

The way to avoid this outcome, either before or after a debt spiral has been triggered, is a significant devaluation of US debt/GDP (perhaps via gold revaluation as has been bantered about of late?)


Look at the 10yr



And USD



A weak USD internalises the effects of inflation via tariffs. If China is also commencing retaliatory tariffs, that inflation will be even higher. Which makes falling 10yr rates curious. More just a run to safety from a collapsing stock market?

Add this to the mix:



Full:https://mishtalk.com/economics/trump-and-secretary-of-treasury-bessent-discuss-the-detox-recession/

So dangerous. Once you trigger a recession and it won't be mild, you lose control when the debt is this astronomical. Deficits will explode in a recession, your tax revenue, market dependant, collapses. Your debt/GDP goes higher, not lower. The risk is a debt crisis that spirals out of control.

jog on
duc

 

[ducati916]

Today was one of the worst days for the stock market of the last few years, and the Tech-heavy Nasdaq has fallen a similar amount in the last 13 trading days (-12.4%) that it fell in the first 13 trading days of the COVID Crash back in 2020. The sell-off since the 2/19 high has been driven by the stocks that did the best in the first couple months following last November's election. Below we've broken the Russell 1,000 into deciles based on stock performance from Election Day on 11/5/24 through the close on 2/19. Each bar shows the average percentage change of the stocks in each decile since 2/19. As shown, the 100 stocks that did the best from Election Day 2024 through 2/19 are down an average of 19.7% since then. The 100 stocks that did the worst from Election Day 2024 through 2/19 are down an average of just 1.4%. What we've seen over the last three weeks is simply a wholesale reversal of the original move following Trump's victory.

​

Below is a list of the 20 Russell 1,000 stocks that did best from Election Day through 2/19. These stocks are down an average of 27.6% since then.

​

jog on
duc

 

[divs4ever]

ROFLMAO

the US has been in recession for probably two years or more , remember when Yellen had to snatch at a new definition of recession .. that means you are in too deep not to notice

assuming the US was already in recession ( because 'recession' is a 6 month lagging indicator .. actually longer because the eraser-heads have to calculate the previous growth/shrinkage and find the courage to inform you . )

the word they are trying to avoid is DEPRESSION .. you know lines up the street at charities for food and hot drinks , homeless people in cars and tents and cardboard boxes , food rationing ( stamps ) all the great sights in Blue-administered cities ... high crime rates as well ( and awash with 'petty theft ' not that i call $950 'petty ')

 

[ducati916]

Twenty-five years ago, the fun of the Dot Com boom came to an end. Roughly beginning in December 1994 with the release of the first internet browser, Netscape, the Nasdaq would go on to rally just under 600% through the closing high set on March 10, 2000. After that high, the index declined with persistent losses as it didn't find a bottom until over two and a half years later in October 2002. By then, the index was down 77.8% from its high, and it wasn't until 2015 that the Nasdaq eventually reclaimed those prior highs. Fast forward to today, even though the Nasdaq has once again pulled back from its most recent highs, the index is now up 250% since that Dot Com peak and is up almost 1,500% since the 2002 low.



A quarter century later, the Nasdaq is once again in the midst of a new technical revolution with the emergence of AI. Additionally, while on March 10, 2000, the Nasdaq hadn't quite started to roll over, today it is in a significant drawdown having fallen 13% from the December 16 high. In the chart below, we show the drawdowns in the Nasdaq in the year after the 2000 high versus the current drawdown so far since the December peak. As shown, the pullback off of the Dot Com high was much more rapid that what has been seen lately. For the comparable number of trading days, the Nasdaq was already closing in on a 40% decline in 2000 versus only a 13% drop currently. Additionally, this latest drop has seen the Nasdaq actually trade sideways for about a month before things really started to fall off a cliff in the past couple of weeks.



While the move off of the recent high doesn't exactly line up with the Dot Com era, using a different starting point shows a much greater correlation. Below we show the performance of the Nasdaq in the three and five years following the releases of Netscape and ChatGPT. As shown, the two lines have tracked one another remarkably well including this latest pullback.






jog on
duc

 

[DannyB0000]

ROFLMAO

the US has been in recession for probably two years or more , remember when Yellen had to snatch at a new definition of recession .. that means you are in too deep not to notice

assuming the US was already in recession ( because 'recession' is a 6 month lagging indicator .. actually longer because the eraser-heads have to calculate the previous growth/shrinkage and find the courage to inform you . )

the word they are trying to avoid is DEPRESSION .. you know lines up the street at charities for food and hot drinks , homeless people in cars and tents and cardboard boxes , food rationing ( stamps ) all the great sights in Blue-administered cities ... high crime rates as well ( and awash with 'petty theft ' not that i call $950 'petty ')

If the Americans gets stagflation like what happened in the 70's, it took interest rates to be hiked to 21.5% in 1981 to put the stagflation genie back in the bottle. In that scenario, we would get a mother of all Stockmarket crash and another great depression, so far 1929 is the mother of all crash. I'm betting now the US will get a deep recession because of the trade war. I have moved all of my super back to cash, you're welcome to stay invested if you like but I'm not going to risk my retirement money on the Stockmarket now.

 

[ducati916]

If the Americans gets stagflation like what happened in the 70's, it took interest rates to be hiked to 21.5% in 1981 to put the stagflation genie back in the bottle. In that scenario, we would get a mother of all Stockmarket crash and another great depression, so far 1929 is the mother of all crash. I'm betting now the US will get a deep recession because of the trade war. I have moved all of my super back to cash, you're welcome to stay invested if you like but I'm not going to risk my retirement money on the Stockmarket now.

So if we just understand what Trump wants, from what Trump has said:

1. Trump and Bessent NEED lower 10yr rates. For 2 primary reasons: (i) to lower Main St borrowing costs, mortgages etc and (ii) to allow Bessent to Term out the new debt that needs to be issued to cover the $7 Trillion rollover.

2. Trump wants to keep his tax cuts. The idea was that tariffs would fund the continuance of the tax cuts via raising the lost potential revenue. Tariffs are supposed to drive a stronger USD which shifts an inflationary tax on exporters to the US. What has actually happened is that the USD has crashed.

3. Why did it crash? Because in an attempt to control trade deficits, Trump issued IEEPA, which controls capital flows. Essentially Trump wants foreign investors NOT to buy US stocks. In fact sell US stocks and take their capital home. This seems to have happened or is in the process of happening as some $5 Trillion needs to come out of the market. I saw a headline that US markets are down about $4 Trillion to date. So another trillion of foreign money to go and whatever liquidations will still occur.

4. Now of course lower stock prices = lower tax revenues = higher deficits = higher debt issue = higher interest costs = debt spiral.

5. Cutting GDP via government spending DOGE etc., = higher debt/GDP = higher likelihood of debt defaults = Fed will need to monetise or we do see a rerun of the 1930's on steroids. No way does the Fed not step in. When is the question.

6. If we lose another $2 Trillion +/- in market cap, we will be getting close.

7. Higher interest rates cannot fix this market. Debt restructuring (very high inflation) is the answer.

Bear markets bring great opportunity. I have traded the 2000, 2008, 2020 bears. We have seen some BTD players get steamrollered over the past few days.

The key is: a strong opinion, lightly held. I stay market neutral. I can be a bull or bear in a heartbeat.

Fundamentally, the economy, markets and currencies are terrible. But, nonetheless, markets will fluctuate and there is plenty of money to be made.

jog on
duc

 

[divs4ever]

I can be a bull or bear in a heartbeat.

so can i , but my ISP can also be like a snail crawling over shattered glass )( like today i have had to piggy-back using the phone [3G/4G ] as hot-spot because of NBN slowdowns/drop-outs )

so bearish is safer for me

will the Trump strategy succeed ?

it is all brave moves , but then doing nothing was terminal

 

[ducati916]

so can i , but my ISP can also be like a snail crawling over shattered glass )( like today i have had to piggy-back using the phone [3G/4G ] as hot-spot because of NBN slowdowns/drop-outs )

so bearish is safer for me

will the Trump strategy succeed ?

it is all brave moves , but then doing nothing was terminal

Absolutely it can work, he just needs to get the order of operations correct.

You cannot crash GDP (government spending cuts) before you restructure the debt. Get the Fed to BTFP and cap rates at 2% and run inflation at 4%. Job done.

Of course it's never that easy. Once you let the inflation genie out of the bottle you might have 15% inflation. Bad for us, good for the US.

jog on
duc

 

[divs4ever]

Absolutely it can work, he just needs to get the order of operations correct.

You cannot crash GDP (government spending cuts) before you restructure the debt. Get the Fed to BTFP and cap rates at 2% and run inflation at 4%. Job done.

Of course it's never that easy. Once you let the inflation genie out of the bottle you might have 15% inflation. Bad for us, good for the US.

jog on
duc

can they restructure the debt ( without some variation of a default )

SOME international buyers aren't rushing to buy treasuries( because they aren't selling much in US dollars ) some local buyers are just cash-strapped or too scared to hold long duration paper

you can only restructure ( without defaulting ) if somebody is willing to extend the credit ( or a payment moratorium )

better him ( Trump ) trying that than me

please note i did a fair bit of debt buying between 2011 and 2017 , but currently the yields aren't good enough ( in my opinion )

 

[ducati916]

can they restructure the debt ( without some variation of a default )

SOME international buyers aren't rushing to buy treasuries( because they aren't selling much in US dollars ) some local buyers are just cash-strapped or too scared to hold long duration paper

you can only restructure ( without defaulting ) if somebody is willing to extend the credit ( or a payment moratorium )

better him ( Trump ) trying that than me

please note i did a fair bit of debt buying between 2011 and 2017 , but currently the yields aren't good enough ( in my opinion )

No there will be a default, inflation (slow motion default) and a repricing of the USD (devalue). That is the Fed BTFP and capping rates at say 2%.

1 big thing: Trump plays with fire — by choice
Photo illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios. Photo: Getty Images


They did it delicately, privately and belatedly. But some Cabinet members and top confidants warned President Trump that two pillars of his flood-the-zone strategy could backfire: tariffs and Elon Musk's budget-gutting, Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen write in a "Behind the Curtain" column.

• Why it matters: Both moves hacked off allies — some Hill Republicans and Cabinet officials with cuts, Canada and Mexico with tariffs — and created the impression and reality of uncertainty or outright chaos.

Now, the public is weighing in:

1. Markets hate uncertainty and chaos. The S&P 500 is down 6.4% since Inauguration Day, and 3% since Election Day — one of the worst-performing major indices in the world. Most market signals are negative — partly because of a tech meltdown that's not entirely Trump-driven. But the uncertainty is the critical element. The uncertainty is the point.
2. Consumers are already losing confidence and pulling back on spending.
3. Several polls show a slump in Trump's popularity since he took office and launched his shock-and-awe plan to remake the U.S. government and the world order.

Today is Day 51 of Trump's term — halfway through the opening 100 days.

• "Ever since the election, Trump has been the master of the narrative," a Trump adviser told Axios' Marc Caputo. "We won every day. But this stock market fall is just different, no control. But it's just a detox — it'll get better."

A senior White House official tells us: "The market isn't great, not gonna lie. But the vibes are still good otherwise."

• Another White House official said Trump and his team "are adept at playing the long game, and we will not be dictated by a snapshot in time when there are so many indicators that show we're building a strong economy with staying power."

The White House yesterday republished a Reuters list of a dozen companies looking at opening or expanding in the U.S. as tariffs loom.


Data: Financial Modeling Prep. Chart: Axios Visuals
What we're hearing: House and Senate Republicans are hyper-focused on avoiding a government shutdown at midnight Friday.

• "If the stock market looks like this in three weeks, we've got a problem," said a top consultant to Republican Senate and House candidates. "There's time. It's early."
• Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) posted on X with a bear-red graphic of yesterday's indexes: "The stock market is comprised of millions of people who are simultaneously trading. The market indexes are a distillation of sentiment. When the markets tumble like this in response to tariffs, it pays to listen."

Behind the scenes: Trump's team remains confident and aggressive, and contends not a minute has been wasted. The number of migrants trying to reach the U.S. by trekking through the Darién Gap jungle into Central America plunged 99% last month from February 2024, Bloomberg reports.

• Trump and his aides are taking risks with eyes wide open — and we're told they're determined to persevere. They think the first 50 days couldn't possibly have gone better. An emboldened Trump is leaning into his instincts on every front.
• Trump's team cares most about the MAGA base, which is beyond delighted with the pace and scope of his move-fast-and-break-things approach.

Trump and his advisers recognize "that changing the globalized economic system, which has deindustrialized the United States, will create friction in the real economy," a top Republican insider told us.

• "To rebuild the U.S. civilian and defense industrial base that the globalists gave away to China will cause economic and marketdislocation in the short term," the insider added. "It's a play for long-term results — like Reagan on deficits to win the Cold War."

​

Today's New York Post cover.
Reality check: Some Cabinet members and congressional Republicans fear this painful "transition," Trump delicately labeled it Sunday in an interview with Fox News' Maria Bartiromo, could stall his agenda.

• It was that quote — Trump refusing to rule out a recession — that helped fuel Monday's market swoon, as fears rose about a U.S. economic slowdown and the possible pocketbook effects of tariffs.

Between the lines: There's a messaging gap that's confusing the market, too. The same morning Trump was hedging on a possible recession, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick was on NBC's "Meet the Press" guaranteeing: "There's going to be no recession in America."

• Investors like one message from government — not a menu.

HOUSTON — A potent combo of MAGA policy and global energy demand is bringing a harsh reality check to climate change efforts, Axios' Ben Geman writes.

• Why it matters: Powerful execs gathered here for the marquee U.S. energy conference are declaring a new realism — even as temperatures keep shattering records.

"Energy realism is taking center stage," Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, head of UAE state energy giant Adnoc, said today in remarks at CERAWeek by S&P Global.

• "We need every energy option available. We need it all," he said, citing oil, gas, nuclear and renewables.

BlackRock Chairman Larry Fink — once a leading Wall Street advocate for net-zero emissions goals — told the audience: "Across the board, we have to think about power and energy in a pragmatic way."

• American Petroleum Institute CEO Mike Sommers told Axios: "An emerging theme that I've seen already is kind of: We're back to energy pragmatism."

The big picture: Comments here from U.S. and global execs distill what's been building in C-suites and across governments.

• The rapid spread of zero-carbon energy is still too slow for net-zero emissions aims. And the willingness to absorb the political and economic costs of a faster transition is waning.

Zoom in: A new Bain & Co. survey of hundreds of executives finds that just 32% expect the world to hit net-zero emissions in 2050, down from 50% in prior surveys.

• There's no single reason for the rethink. But several forces are at work, including ...

1. The U.S. political pivot, with Trump 2.0 officials reversing Biden-era policies and abandoning multilateral climate efforts.

• Energy Secretary Chris Wright declared that global warming needs to be knocked down on the priority list.
• "The previous administration's policy was focused myopically on climate change, with people as simply collateral damage," he said in his conference-opening speech.

2. Even in the EU, where climate has long been a bigger priority, nations are recalibrating tradeoffs between green goals and industrial competitiveness.

• Recent moves include giving automakers more flexibility on emissions and easing rules on corporate emissions reporting.

3. AI and other new technologies are pushing up electricity demand, with tech companies seeking energy of all sorts.

• Fink described his conversations with "hyperscalers" — large-scale cloud service providers offering data and computing services.
• "About four years ago, they would say: 'If we're building a data center, it must be with renewables,'" Fink said. "About two years ago, they said: 'We prefer renewables.' And today, they care about power."

4. Coal, oil and natural gas use keep rising in developing nations as people aspire to higher living standards.

The bottom line: Climate and clean tech remain big themes at CERAWeek. But the vibe has shifted.

Steady demand kept the economy humming for the last few years even amid recession predictions. Now there are early, tentative signs that demand from consumers and businesses may be cracking. Why it matters: Sentiment indicators show that economic uncertainty, tariff threats and federal government cutbacks are weighing on consumer and business spending plans. Some companies most exposed to discretionary spending say it isn't just talk: Weak sentiment is carrying over into weaker buying. It is unclear whether a similar cooling of demand is underway across the economy. But the anecdotes can't be ignored, especially as the factors that previously supported spending among consumers — robust hiring and wage growth — begin to fade. Driving the news: Three of the nation's biggest airlines — Delta, American Airlines and Southwest — warned about sluggish demand for flights. American Airlines said weaker dynamics started to appear "primarily in March." The fallout from federal spending cuts isn't limited to the government sector. They also spill over into less demand for private-sector goods and services, as shown by airline executives' latest comments. What they're saying: Less government travel is weighing on business this quarter, airline executives said. "The government contractors, the aerospace and defense business — certainly the employees that feel threatened as to whether they're going to have a job are not out there spending money traveling," Delta CEO Ed Bastian told CNBC. Bastian added corporations were nervous about trade uncertainty and pulling back some on business travel. "We saw in February a pretty significant shift in GDP sentiment and the output and the confidence signals that we monitor," Bastian said. "We saw companies start to pull back in terms of corporate spending." Zoom out: Smaller firms — responsible for the bulk of U.S. jobs growth — are also signaling concerns about how business will fare in the months ahead. "Many small firms are supported by assisting firms with government contracts. How these developments are resolved will shape the economy's future," the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), a lobbying group for small businesses, said in a statement. Trump officials have emphasized the administration's focus on small businesses. In the face of a stock market sell-off, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that Wall Street would be OK and the administration was concentrated on Main Street. What to watch: NFIB's latest small business optimism index fell again last month, though the index is still above pre-election levels. The underlying details of the survey had a stagflationary tone. The net share of small business owners raising prices surged 10 percentage points — the largest monthly jump since 2021. The share of owners who said it was a "good time" to expand their business fell by the most since the onset of the pandemic. The bottom line: For now, the evidence of waning demand is contained to anecdotes. But an uncomfortably high share of those anecdotes point to an economy losing momentum.

​

​ - US Energy Secretary Chris Wright announced that he plans to work with the Congress to cancel the mandated sales of 100 million barrels of strategic petroleum reserves in 2026-2031 to refill SPR stock. - According to Wright, it would take 5-7 years to refill US strategic oil inventories at a cost of approximately $20 billion, boosting global crude demand by an additional 100,000 b/d until the end of the decade. - US strategic stocks reached a 40-year low of 346 million barrels in July 2023 after the Biden administration released 221 million barrels in 2022 alone, recovering to 395 million barrels by the end of February 2025. - Refilling the SPR to their pre-Ukraine war levels would imply purchasing some 300 million barrels, worth some $27 billion at current prices, potentially indicating that the Trump team wouldn’t fill inventories ‘right to the top’. Market Movers - Canadian oil producer Whitecap Resources (TSE:WCP) will be merging with Alberta peer Veren (TSE:VRN) in a $10.5 billion merger, keeping the Whitecap banner and boosting output to 370,000 boe/d. - Norway-focused oil firm DNO (OSLNO) has agreed to buy North Sea peer Sval Energi from private equity group HitecVision in a deal valued at $1.6 billion, involving a $450 million cash payment plus debt. - UK oil major BP (NYSE:BP) is expected to sign a frontier exploration deal this month for Zone I in offshore Israel – alongside Azerbaijan’s Socar and NewMed Energy – covering six blocks alongside the maritime border with Cyprus. Tuesday, March 11, 2025 Fears of further trade wars and rumours of a potential Ukraine deal have contributed to choppy price movements this week, with ICE Brent still oscillating around the $70 per barrel mark. OPEC+ continues to loom large on the horizon, too, after Saudi Arabia’s foolhardy zeal to bring back oil in April seemed to have tamed investors’ bullish sentiment, making them wary of a prolonged period of oversupply in H2 2025. IEA Softens Tone on Oil Investments. Fatih Birol, the director of the IEA, stated that there is a need for oil and gas upstream investments to address declines in existing fields, softening the agency’s tone after a 2021 blanket call not to invest in new oil and gas projects to reach net-zero by 2050. Houthi’s Threaten Return of Red Sea Attacks. Yemen’s Houthi rebels have announcedthat if Israel will not allow humanitarian aid to enter the Gaza Strip by the evening of March 11, they will resume attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea following a two-month hiatus. US Mulls Easing of Russia Sanctions. According to Reuters, the White House asked the Department of Treasury to consider ways how to ease energy sanctions on Russia quickly in case Moscow agrees to a Trump-brokered ceasefire, with Saudi Arabia set to host a Trump-Putin meeting soon. Alberta Pushes for More US Oil Pipelines. As Canada is preparing for a new Prime Minister in Mark Carney, Alberta premier Danielle Smith signalled that if the US and Canada resolve their tariff issues, there could be two new cross-border pipelines built exporting an additional 2 million b/d by 2030. Oil Spill Contaminates UK North Sea. The US-flagged tanker Stena Immaculate carrying jet fuel from Greece to the UK collided with a Portuguese-flagged container vessel off the coast of Yorkshire in the UK, with kerosene contaminating the waters and both vessels catching fire upon the collision. Henry Hub Balloons Out of Control. US natural gas prices soared to $4.47 per mmBtu in Monday trading, marking the highest reading since December 2022, buoyed by Canadian gas imports dropping by 1 Bcf/d to 8.7 Bcf/d over the past week and record LNG feedgas demand. India’s Hunger for Coal Dissipates. India’s imports of thermal coal have dropped for the sixth straight month in February, down by 15% month-over-month to 12.16 million tonnes, as higher renewable generation was amplified by a slowdown in manufacturing activity across the country. XRG to Become the Next Energy IPO. ADNOC, the national oil company of the UAE, is considering listing its $80 billion low-carbon investment arm XRG on an exchange outside of the Emirates, asking Bank of America to advise on a future IPO strategy that could well happen on NYSE. Venezuelan Crude Output Dips in February. Just as the Trump administration ordered US oil major Chevron to wind down operations in Venezuela by April 3, the Latin American country’s crude output posted its first monthly decline in months to 1.022 million b/d, with further downside ahead. US-Canada Souring Leads to a Steel War. Having delayed tariffs on Canadian oil by a month, US President Trump decided to slap an additional 25% tariff on Canada’s steel and aluminium imports into the United States, concurrently declaring a national emergency on electricity. Kazakhstan Becomes OPEC+’s Worst Overproducer. Seeing its production skyrocket to 2.12 million b/d, more than a 500,000 b/d above its 1.468 million b/d OPEC+ quota, the government of Kazakhstan started negotiations with Western oil majors operating there to cut output by 620,000 b/d. US Iran Sanctions Send Iraq into Panic Mode. US President Trump rescinded a 2018 sanctions waiver that allowed Iraq to purchase electricity from Iran, prompting the Iraqi government to hastily lease a 500 Mcf/d floating LNG terminal and start negotiations on potential supplies with Qatar and Oman. Nigeria’s Dangote Wants More Local Crude. Nigeria’s giant 650,000 b/d Dangote refinery has initiated talks to extend its existing crude supply contract with the country’s state oil firm NNPC, ending later this month, as payments are taking in place in the local naira currency, avoiding forex risks.

Government spending = 25% of GDP.
Government spending = someone else's income.

You shrink govt. spending, you shrink GDP and increase debt/GDP, which makes debt service harder (ie. increasing deficits). This is why you restructure debt first. The order of operation is important.



Mag.7 have stabilised for the moment at least. Everything else sucks balls atm.

But the market does not have that frantic feel of the last couple of days.

I think we bounce, at least for a couple of days.

jog on
duc