December 24, 2024 -

I’m sure it is the question on everyone’s mind, and while I am no fortune teller, I’d like to share few thoughts on the subject:

1. Current policy of the Trump administration is completely misguided, confused and, if continued, will inevitably lead to a major crash. Not just a market crash, but an economy crash. US is not in a position to internalize all production; it can’t happen, it won’t happen. We can maybe strangle the market enough to get some of production back, at a great cost to the consumer and with huge sacrifice to the level of life. This is what almost every economist understands, and this is why almost no one believed this is their real goal. Most economists do not believe anyone can be that misguided on the implications, and therefore we looked at it as a “negotiation technique” rather than a policy. Unfortunately, it looks more and more like this IS a policy. If so, markets will undoubtedly exert more and more pressure on the government, as they already do. And the weakest point is not the equity market, but the bond market. There’s very little anyone can do if bond market begins to crumble, because any attempt to artificially support it by the Fed will lead to other problems.

2. If the plan is to hold negotiations, or if the plan is adjusted towards negotiations, we have a better chance to get out of it with minimal losses, but even then market crash is still a real possibility. First of all, trust in US government is already damaged, and it’s not coming back, not until the next administration, if ever. There are moves being made now by the major players, and they will not be reversed. It will become manifest in the economy weeks and months from now, affecting interest rates and unemployment levels. Nothing anyone can do to reverse this. Second, markets were overpriced even before the current madness, but there was a general belief they will hold despite common sense, since there was no particular reason for them to go down. Well, now they did go down. That logic no longer works. The boat has sailed, it’s not coming back to port. Even a complete, 100% reversal of this misguided policy is not going to bring us back to the situation before the Second Fools’ Day (also known as “Liberation from common sense” day).

3. My personal strategy now is to shift everything into European bonds and inflation protected securities, as those are safest assets. I would not invest into stocks or bonds until the market has settled. It will probably take months, if not years, to see full effects. I would not keep too much $ cash either, because of the possibility that bank accounts will be frozen and exchange rates drop to the point that up to 50% of US dollar value could be wiped out. FDIC insures nominal amount, not a real value. If you want to keep cash - look into a basket of currencies, including Swiss frank, Euro and Pound. Best if it’s held in a foreign bank, although there are problems with opening and holding foreign bank accounts for most people.

This is my analysis. Feel free to disagree.

October 14, 2025 -

Obviously the title is a bit clickbait.

But with

•The current ongoing of Trump power that could move the market by 1 tweets

• The current heavy government involvement in the stock market.

• As well as many anonymous Wall Street and top companies back Trump.

• New Feds change coming up and mixed policies that is unprecedented to favor AI and crypto

I kinda have a stupid theory that there may not be a nuclear market crash like many people have hoped anytime soon and anticipated despite the charts and datas say otherwise

Like there’s too much personal interest from within the Trump admisnistration and economy that they won’t let the market crash anytime soon unless he wanted too.

They will keep throwing bandages to anything that point out the weakness just to keep this alive or make any sudden change in policy that is unpredictable/ unprecedented to keep it going.

Like Trump literally revived Intel Stock within months , so you can’t say he won’t do the same to the stock market

October 22, 2025 -

Is it when retail are forced to sell their positions, even at a loss because they lack the funds to cover bills, etc?

So like recession times? Is it when unemployment rates are high? is it when disposable income is at its lowest? is it when people can't affford new triple A games? etc.

November 18, 2025 -

We’re not even down 5%, and yet the sentiment is insanely bearish everywhere I look. Fear and greed index is flashing red, and people are talking like we’re in 2008 again.

I don’t think most AI names are overvalued outside of a few hype tickers. I do go down over like 20% on my META, but I feel like this is more of temporary issue than a full-blown market crash.

October 15, 2025 -

The world right now is showing three signs which are very similar to exactly what happened before the Great Depression in 1929 and the dot com crash of the year 2000.

Which means most experts around the world are expecting a major market crash to happen, and we need to look at the strategy of what investors like Warren Buffet are doing right now and copy that to protect our wealth.

The first metric which is very similar is a valuation multiple in the stock markets called the Shiller P/E ratio. Now whenever it goes above the point of 32, it means a major crash is expected, exactly what happened in 1929 and the year 2000. And right now this ratio is at 39, which is 23% higher compared to the previous benchmarks, which means it's extremely risky.

Now, the second thing is actually this very interesting concept called the yield curve inversion. What does it mean? It basically means that, you know, in the short term, when you put money in the bank in an FD, the bank gives you higher return compared to when you make an FD for a longer duration. Now, this seems very counterintuitive, but this is one of the best indicators available in the world economy today to be able to predict a recession. And this yield curve inversion is showing up in the US market since October of 2022 to December of 2024.

( FD is same as HYSA in USA)

Now, while it has normalized and become okay right now, most economists are expecting that 18 months from December 2024 is where the crash will happen.

Now comes the third sign, which is concentration of valuation of the stock market index in a handful of stocks. And we are seeing exactly this in the S&P 500 or the US index, where out of 500 stocks, just seven stocks called the Magnificent Seven AI stocks hold 47% the value of the index. And most financial analysts around the world know that AI right now is in a massive bubble, which means over the next six to twelve months, a major crash is expected and the US stock market may fall by 30 to 40%, which will have ripple effects around stock markets around the world.

Now, in such a time, what is Warren Buffet doing? Well, right now practically close to 28% of his portfolio is just in cash and bank deposits, which is the highest ever allocation he's made to such assets in history. Earlier, he would maintain his cash and bank deposit portfolio share to just about 10% because he's expecting a major crash, which is why I would recommend, you know, you really need to look at diversification in your portfolio. Possibly have 20% of your portfolio in gold, about 20 to 25% in cash and bank deposits, and please, please diversify away from risky assets.

May 7, 2025 -

After the early April decline and subsequent partial recovery, I have heard many people say this was not the "real crash" and to wait for it before making any moves. How likely is this to be true in your opinion? Can the dead cat bounce track sideways for 4+ months?

November 12, 2025 -

Hey everyone,

I keep seeing people online and in the news / online saying things like “the market is going to crash soon.” “This or that is overvalued”, etc I’m not here to argue whether that’s true or not. I’m just trying to understand what that actually means in practice.

For the people who believe a crash is coming, what do they usually do about it? Do they sell their positions before it happens? Move to cash? Or do most just keep holding and wait it out?

I’m not asking for advice, just curious how people who expect a crash typically react or prepare.

Edit: thank you all! My question is answered, now I know :)

January 7, 2025 -

I wrote this last night, and I wanted to wait until the end of the day to confirm my thesis. Today, the Nasdaq ended at +333.14 on nothing except Fed saying that they will turn on the printing machine, which will devalue the dollar even more and send inflation to the moon. Everything below was my thought process last night. Additionally, the post below really helps explain why we're in deep trouble, but all of the retailers are focused on the stock market, and BlackRock and JPMorgan are telling us that we're in a recession (Stagflation).

https://www.reddit.com/r/WallStreetbetsELITE/comments/1jx4qr9/the_bond_market_crisis_explained_for_you_regards/

As I sit here watching the Nasdaq futures spike up 288 points, I can’t help but feel uneasy. With the combination of tariffs, an escalating trade war narrative, and unsettling movements in the bond market—particularly the 10-year and 30-year yields—it’s hard not to see this as a potential prelude to a market crash or at the very least, the beginning of a bear market. While nothing is ever certain in the markets, the recent behavior we’ve been witnessing isn’t just noise—it’s a glaring signal that something is fundamentally off.

When the Nasdaq starts swinging 500 points or more in either direction for several consecutive days, that level of volatility is not just abnormal—it’s a red flag for deeper market instability. This pattern often precedes or accompanies systemic crises and tends to be driven by a combination of macroeconomic disruption, loss of confidence, and major repositioning by institutional investors.

There are typically two major factors that contribute to such extreme and sustained volatility.

First, extreme volatility reflects a market grappling with uncertainty, crisis, or both. Markets do not move wildly without cause. These kinds of large, daily price swings often indicate that investors are trying to price in the unpredictable—be it a geopolitical threat, economic policy shifts, or a financial system under pressure.

What’s especially concerning now is that we’re not dealing with just one variable—we’re contending with all of them. The current economic backdrop includes unresolved trade tensions, shifting policy (playing chicken with a country that had no problem killing 40-80 million of its citizens), and geopolitical conflicts with unclear outcomes. On top of that, corporate earnings season has revealed a growing sense of uncertainty within companies themselves. A number of major firms have stopped issuing forward guidance, signaling that even CEOs and CFOs are unsure about what lies ahead. One of the most notable examples was Target, which essentially admitted, “We don’t know.” When corporate leadership starts to lose visibility, that lack of confidence trickles down through the markets.

The second driver is institutional repositioning. When large funds start rapidly rotating out of certain sectors—most commonly tech and growth—and into safer or more defensive holdings, the size of those movements alone can send markets soaring or tumbling. In addition to this rotation, institutions may begin to hedge more aggressively or unwind leveraged positions, creating massive capital flows that can spike volatility. This is why we're seeing large green and red days for no reason.

Interestingly, several articles have surfaced this past week discussing these very moves—rotations, de-risking, liquidity tightening—but I initially dismissed them as overblown headlines. In hindsight, I think they were onto something, and I wish I had saved those links for reference. The market may be telling us more than we realized.

These patterns of extreme volatility aren’t unprecedented. In fact, we’ve seen them during some of the most turbulent periods in recent history. Two notable examples are the 2008 Financial Crisis and the COVID Crash of 2020.

During the 2008 collapse, from September 15 to late November, the market experienced around 30–40 trading days of repeated 500+ point swings in the Nasdaq. Some notable days include:

• October 13, 2008: +11.8%

• October 15, 2008: -8.5%

• October 16, 2008: +5.5%

These weren’t isolated events—they represented a market that was fundamentally broken and trying to reprice risk in real time.

The COVID Crash followed a similar pattern. From February 20 to March 23, 2020, the Nasdaq saw around 23 trading days of violent swings:

• March 12, 2020: -9.4%

• March 13, 2020: +9.3%

• March 16, 2020: -12.3%

• March 17, 2020: +6.2%

In both cases, the VIX (Volatility Index) spiked sharply and remained elevated for weeks. Interestingly, we’re seeing similar VIX activity this week—bouncing up and down erratically—yet another clue that something deeper may be brewing beneath the surface.

Markets are complex and unpredictable, but they also follow patterns. When you see repeated, outsized swings like we’re witnessing now, history tells us it’s rarely a coincidence. It’s often a sign that the system is under stress and that market participants—both retail and institutional—are struggling to price in risk accurately. Whether we’re on the cusp of another crash or entering a turbulent bear market, the warning signs are flashing.

This isn't normal.

As I am rereading this, CNBC is reporting that retailers are providing exit liquidity for institution to exit.

Retail investors are running head first into this topsy-turvy market Retail investors are running head first into this topsy-turvy market

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/10/retail-investors-are-running-head-first-into-this-topsy-turvy-market.html

The current problems that we have are

1. Bond market crisis

2. Stagflation scenario

3. Geopolitical threat

4. Economic policy shifts

5. Mortgage rates surge over 7% as tariffs hit bond market. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/11/mortgage-rates-surge-tariffs-bond-market.html

The money printer will make this worse. Lowering the rate will make it worse. Increasing the rate will make it worse. There is no easy way out of this.

November 20, 2025 -

Nvidia had a terrific earnings report, we found out the economy is creating twice as many jobs as expected, there’s a great early surge and now the market is crashing. What the heck? It makes no sense. There’s no reason why that should be happening. We had a bunch of pieces of positive news.

March 24, 2025 -

These companies are left holding up the stock market. If they fall, the entire market falls. And it’s the opposite if they all go up the whole market goes up. But the chart tells a different story of the recent trend. They are going up but rest of market is going down. Here is what i think of the stocks left holding up the market.

AAPL - weakness in innovation, losing growth

MSFT - might be overbought here

META - good ad business but questionable ai product profitability

NFLX - high pe might give back massive gains its had

NVDA - ai sales increase already priced in. everyone says 170 eoy yet price is stalling. People relying on eoy to save them usually not a good thing.

AMZN - aws has competition with new datacenter companies emerging. Needs to take on more debt just to maintain its margin intensive shipping business

GOOG - losing search dominance, ai is good but not perfect yet, to maintain ai dominance intensive spending must happen will affect earnings

COST - taking a hit from tarrifs, it had a monster run and might give back a lot of gains

TSLA - lead roles stepping down, doesn’t look good for promises of products happening.

June 7, 2024 -

Ok so the way I see things, buffett indicator is at nearly 200% (2 stdevs above average), yield curve is longest and deepest its been in a long time (possibly ever) and is on the precipice of uninverting (Fed cutting interest rates suggests this will happen soon). July SAHM was > 0.5 (indicative but not conclusive of recession for now - need 3 months).

Add to this geopolitical tensions in the middle east, Ukraine and China creating an environment that is at the very least fraught with risk and at worst very inflationary (and noting that war often follows recessions), and all I see is a pretty nasty, probably double dip recession on the horizon (by mid next year and probably earlier) with a stock market correction of 20-50%.

As you can tell - this is very bearish. What am I not seeing that bulls are? At a bare minimum I see T bills as the correct play given rates are still nice and if one wanted to really get them tendies then go all in on SQQQ...I know this sounds moronic but I also dont see what else is seriously investable at this point.

August 12, 2024 -

Almost 90 days ago I made a post in an alternate subreddit regarding why I believe the stock market will begin to crash within 120 days -- Essentially the crash will begin by the day before the election. I have included that entire post below -- and all of these reasons still remain relevant... Moreso than ever with the news from the Middle East today. Obviously the port strike is expediting things today. Nonetheless -- I think the post is super relevant, and for some reason, the moderators of WSB deleted the post after 6 hours, despite it receiving over 2.2 million views, and over 1100 shares.

The ride the market has been on, quite simply, has been insane.

According to generally accepted wisdom -- by investing in the S&P 500, you can anticipate to double your money, on average, every 6.5 years. I'm not 100% certain as to why that's the accepted figure -- as calculating the last 14 6.5 year periods the average rate of return has been 64%.

Below is a chart of the average price/rate of return of GSPC (The S&P) over the last 14 cycles.. I couldn't easily find data prior to this..

Year	GSPC Price	6.5 year return on investment
1933.5	10.91
1940	12.05	10.44%
1946.5	18.43	52.95%
1953	26.38	43.13%
1959.5	58.68	122%
1966	92.88	58%
1972.5	107.14	15%
1979	99.93	-7.22%
1985.5	191.85	91.90%
1992	408.78	113%
1998.5	1133.84	177%
2005	1181.27	4.10%
2011.5	1320.64	11.70%
2018	2471.65	87.10%
2024.5	5525.29	123%

While the last two cycles don't necessarily ring any alarm bells -- we have just more than doubled, twice, looking at the last two cycles -- There is one massive, bloated, shit filled elephant in the room... Price to Earnings Ratio.

Historically, the Price to Earnings ratio for the S&P has sat just under 20 (the easiest data I could find puts it at 19.4x between 1974 and 2017 -- I'm not grabbing any arbitrary dates or numbers here). The Median value has it under 18x, and there have even been extended periods of time where it traded at +/- 10x.

Currently -- the P/E ratio sits at 28.71 -- roughly 150% of what is normal.

In the history of the S&P, the P/E ratio has hit this level only 3 times...

• Immediately preceding, and then during, the Dot Com Bubble (P/E broke 30 +/- April 2001).

• Immediately preceding, and then during, the Global Financial Crisis (P/E broke 30 +/- October 2008).

• The quarter after Covid hit. (P/E broke 30 +/- March 2020).

Images aren't allowed in this subreddit -- but if you go to the multpl website you will see we finished trading yesterday, 09/30, at a P/E of 30.07

Historically -- what has happened to the markets after crossing this mark? In all three scenarios, by the time we crossed a P/E of 30, the dam had already started to break.

• During the Dot Com bubble, the S&P 500 was already down 19% from its highs, and would fall another 34% before finally starting to recover. By the the time the bleeding stopped, it had lost 47% of its value.

• During the global financial crisis, an almost identical story can be told. The S&P had lost 18% of its value by time P/E broke 30, and when it finally bottomed out in February of 2009, it lost 53% of its total value.

• Covid, obviously, was a much quicker recovery... as we only fell 32%, and had bounced back in less than 6 months time (reason for which outlined later).

Okay -- so Maybe we have a price to earnings ratio problem, but you're still not sold. What else do we have going on?

Outside of the fact that I firmly believe that the market is overvalued today, I think there are several other major issues that we are facing in the current environment -- and while I could write a diatribe for each, for purposes of succinctness, I'll simply outline them via bullet points below.

• Credit card debt is at an all time high, and outside of a brief period after Covid checks arrived, has been rising since 2013.

• Younger Americans are in the most trouble with credit card debt. As boomers continue to retire, it will be the working class most disproportionately affected.

• Credit card delinquency rates are the highest they've been since 2011.

• Auto loans debt and average auto loan payments are the highest they've been at any point in history. Auto loan delinquency rates are the highest they've been since 2010.

• The stock market is insanely top heavy right now. The Magnificent 7 (Alphabet (GOOGL), Amazon (AMZN), Apple (AAPL), Meta (META), Microsoft (MSFT), Nvidia (NVDA), and Tesla (TSLA)) now account for 45% of the entire value of the Nasdaq. They account for roughly 30% of the entire stock market combined. As of today -- they are trading at a combined P/E of 42x. A correction in these 7 companies would be absolutely catastrophic for the entire market as a whole.

• We are starting to see a weakening of the labor market. Furthermore -- I do not believe the jobs numbers are entirely as they seem. I think many of the jobs 'added' over the last 18 months have been individuals picking up second jobs to help make ends meet. Any reasonable increase in the unemployment rate have absolutely massive consequences.

• Many banks are holding on to massive unrealized losses. While this has the potential to hit the regional banks the worst, some of the largest banks -- including Bank of America, Charles Schwab, and USAA have unbooked security losses that are greater than 50% of their equity capital.

• Regional banks are at risk due to the massive amounts of US treasury notes they hold that were bought during Covid. In short -- nobody was borrowing money to buy homes or cars. Banks, flush with cash, took said money and bought US T notes with this money so they could earn some interest on it. This was at a time when interest rates were very low. Now that interest rates are high -- demand for these old t notes is essentially non existent, as you buy new t notes that pay a much higher rate of return. If any sort of bank run starts, these banks will be forced to liquidate said t-bills, and they will have to sell them at a loss. If too many people do this simultaneously, the bank will become insolvent -- like what we saw happen with Silicon Valley bank, Signature Bank and First Republic Bank. (Side note -- the failure of these three banks alone was larger than the combined total of bank failures in 2008 during the global financial crisis).

• The US government still has a spending problem. Our deficit has grown by $500 million since I started writing this an hour ago.

• Global tensions are high -- and rising. Massive protests are erupting all over Europe.

• The US is involved in two proxy wars that don't appear as if they will abate any time soon.

• The political division in the US is as dramatic as I've seen it at any point in my existence. Perhaps those older and wiser than me can chime in here -- but it seems most are resorting to tribal, identity politics split down party lines.

• Commercial real estate is starting to buckle. Covid brought about work from home, and with many offices retaining those practices, or allowing partial work from home, office space supply far outpaces demand. This problem is exacerbated by high interest rates. Most commercial loans are done on 5 or 7 year balloon. When that balloon is bout to come due, the owner of that property will refinance the loan, restarting the 5 or 7 year period to avoid paying off the balance owed on the property. Many of these property owners that refinanced into low interest rates in 2020, during covid, when rates bottomed out -- are now having to get a new loan to keep from paying their balloon. However, with interest rates more than twice what they were several years ago, and vacancy rates skyrocketing, many of these real estate owners will not be able to pay the monthly mortgage on their buildings. Commercial Real Estate foreclosures jumped 117% in March alone.

• Housing has become increasingly less affordable for many Americans. For 2022 -- the most recent year I could find data -- a family earning the median US household income, renting a median priced US home, was spending 40% of their income on rent.

• Countries are abandoning the US dollar in droves.

I believe some of these issues, on their own, are enough to cause serious economic turmoil. Bundled together, I don't see how we aren't in for a very rude awakening.

This economic downturn may be severe.

In the three times this has happened before -- the action, or lake thereof varied dramatically. During scenario one -- the dot com bubble -- the government largely just let the companies fail. While I was only 11 at the time, my understanding is that there really were no bailouts here because the only people really hurt were the investors in those companies -- unlike scenario two. During the GFC, shuttering banks would have resulted in a complete collapse of the US (and really global) financial system. While I won't get into partisan politics, I'm of the belief that the covid bailouts were entirely unnecessary -- and more importantly for this post -- the reason that the upcoming crash is going to be so insanely problematic.

Bailouts on any level, whether to companies, banks, or directly to citizens, will inevitably increase inflation. I don't think they are on the table for this correction.

People have painted the inflation problem as a result of supply chain issues... And while supply chain issues didn't help, I think the bigger issue, by far, was the sheer amount of money we printed. You cannot make $4 trillion appear out of thin air and expect that every dollar in circulation isn't going to suddenly become worth less money. We just lived through this reality after the Covid printing.

This will largely tie the feds hands. Print more money -- we find ourselves in a cycle of ever increasing prices and higher interest rates.

What happens from here?

I don't know. Don't listen to me. I'm an idiot. Stock market will probably just continue to go up. I'm probably wrong about 100% of this.

The prediction in bold below is what I posted 90 days ago. I now believe the top is officially in -- that we won't see another ATH for a long time.

My Prediction? GSPC/SPY cruise up a tiny bit further, to +/- $5900/$590 -- before retreating to $3500/$350 by 12/2025.

My positions:

Bought 50 $570 10/2 puts at open this morning right at open. I'm up about 18k on them.
Bought 12 $565 10/1 puts at 9:30 CST. I am up about $80 on them.
Bought 35 UVXY $42 Calls exp 10/4 at about 10AM CST. I'm up about $80 on them.
Holding 359 $BITO Calls with a 1/17/25 Expiration.
Holding 7 $450 SPY P with an exp of 9/19/25, and 5 QQQ $400P exp 6/30/25

December 25, 2024 -

Considering Friday’s stock market plunge, who thinks Americans will panic and sell their stocks which can or will cause the market crash. I think it’s coming as soon as Monday 3/31. #marketcrash #recession

March 17, 2023 -

There weren't that many positive earnings even. Microsoft had bad guidance and Apple had declining sales. Moody downgraded a bunch of banks. BlackRock CEO also just sold 7% of his shares again.

I was looking at my stock list and I'm seeing lots of companies that are half from their all time high. Target, Best Buy, Dominos, Pappa John, Ford, GM, Intel, SouthWest, Delta, AT&T. The ones that are solid solid like P&G, J&J, etc. are going sideways. How is the S&P 500 still near the all time high?

This doesn't seem right. Who in their right mind think it's good to have another crash? Can you imagine some of the companies I listed go lower? I can't imagine the tech companies that are 1/10th of their high.

You can't just put more money into companies like P&G, J&J, Exxon, United Health meanwhile the other companies are evaporating and say that the market is doing well.

October 7, 2020 -

I feel like there’s a consensus on stock forums that a catastrophic market crash akin to the dot com burst is happening soon. They use historical prices to back it up, and they inform anyone who’ll listen to sit on large quantities of cash, because everything will come crashing down soon

Is there anyone out there that thinks that won’t happen?

I can see a -20% decline over the course of a couple months happening in the next couple years. I can also see certain industries that are inflated to come crashing down. If you see what happened to ZM from October to December, I can easily see something like that happening to a variety of different growth stocks that are completely mispriced.

But we also have companies making a LOT of money that can justify a lot of the prices. AAPL made over $100 billion in a single quarter, and they’re growing 20% YoY. They have almost $200 billion in cash alone, and they’re innovating and finding new ways to make money. Why is a $2 trillion market cap unreasonable?

Same with AMZN, MSFT, and other big tech companies. Unlike the dot com levels, tech companies are actually making a lot of money. I personally can’t imagine a -40% market drop that later stagnates for years on end when companies like AAPL have most cash in hand than their entire 2010 market capitalization .

I know this post is going to get of snark, but I hope we can have an actual discussion. The people who have been screeching “MaRkEt CrAsH iMmInent” are the ones that have been losing the most these last few years (by having large portions of their money uninvested in the midst of an incredible bull run)

With investors finally realizing the potential these tech companies have nowadays, and with tech companies making more money than what was once ever thought possible, does anyone else think a catastrophic market crash just.... won’t happen?

April 14, 2025 -

The resilience of the current price of equities/S&P 500 index, when compared to the price movement and market sentiment in 2022 seems quite surprising.

We had a crash in 2022, mainly in Tech companies. In hindsight, it was considered to be mainly caused by interest rate rises, lay-offs in the tech sector, Big Tech Antitrust Investigations in the USA, Europe and, I think even in China (Jack Ma becoming absent from public view for a little while).

Yet, between Jan 2022 (Shiller CAPE just under 37) and Oct 2022 (Shiller CAPE around 27) the S&P500 fell by 23% or so (Meta fell by around 70%, and was a bargain), and even Berkshire fell by around 16% or similar (to demonstrate that the price drop was wide spread and even reached 'non-tech' companies). So you can see from this picture, that the rationale for the pessimism was very concentrated, and not wide spread across various areas of the local or global economies, even though the price drops were.

Looking back at that, even when experiencing it at the time, IMO nothing had fundamentally changed; the Tech companies' products would still be used by billions of people (even if they were broken up), they were still going to generate revenues and profits, have high margins and there was no real recession or fears of one that I can remember. No concerns about the government, or the SEC or any other core organisation. No issues with reduction in consumer demand etc. So, overall, it was just this one tech related issue (as perceived by market participants, maybe a little bit of interest rates thrown in), and yet, the market shed 23% in 10 months or so.

On the other hand, the concerns that people seem to be having now are numerous, varied, disparate and fundamental.

Things people have talked about with regards to the USA now, most, not all, of which were not remotely concerning in 2022:

1. Market is priced quite high, maybe overvalued - S&P 500 Shiller CAPE of just under 38 in Jan 2025, and currently probably around 33. 60% of the global stock market cap as presented by MSCI? vs 25% or so of Global GDP. For context, historical average of CAPE ratio is around 17.

2. It took 7 months for the S&P 500 to drop 19% in 2022, in 2025 it did that under 2 months (before recovering some), so that is a much sharper fall than in 2022.

3. Concerns about Tariffs and Trade wars and its impact on consumer spending.

4. Effect of the above on inflation, which was just about to be gotten under control.

5. Businesses cooling off from investments due to the chaotic and unpredictable environment.

6. Unemployment at historical lows in USA, that means Fed might be limited in what they can do with lowering rates.

7. Spooked bond market and rising yields due to US Govt Debt sell off.

8. Concerns about insider trading and/or market manipulation by the administration and those who are close to it.

9. Concerns about the competency of the current US administration (handling of Signal Chat leaks, Peter Navarro qualifications or lack thereof and the bizarre Tariff formula, $Trump and $Melania kript0 pump and dump, DOGE handling or lay-offs, among many other things).

10. American reputation and brand deterioration amongst its close allies and trading partners.

11. Concerns about whether laws are being applied with as much integrity as they used to be and equally for the rich and the average person, resident citizens vs those on Visas etc.

There may be other things which I may have missed. (I haven't mentioned the many 'little issues', like Gabbard declaring her residency in Texas and voting in Hawaii etc. etc.)

So, it appears that there are far more, wide ranging, diverse, and fundamental reasons to be concerned and pessimistic now about the future and market prices, than there were in 2022, and yet the market seems more optimistic than it should be, based purely on how much it has dropped when compared to 2022, at least until now.

Is that a fair take?

Should there be more pessimism as expressed in the price drops of equity markets, than has occurred thus far? Perhaps there is pessimism in the mainstream discourse but it doesn't appear to be reflected in the market prices to the same degree.

November 15, 2024 -

I think it's safe to say that today’s events were a clear display of blatant market manipulation—something that many of us witnessed in real time. While some may find humor in the sudden surge marked by oversized green arrows and irrational price action, I genuinely believe this is one of the most short-sighted and dangerous moves this administration—or those behind the scenes—could make.

There have been countless posts, and even a few individuals pointing out exactly how the manipulation occurred. What we saw today wasn’t just a fluke or anomaly—it resembled, in both form and consequence, the kind of market dislocations seen during China’s stock market crash and even the 2008 financial crisis. These kinds of unnatural market behaviors, when left unchecked, have serious implications—especially for foreign investors who are already growing increasingly cautious.

https://x.com/unusual_whales/status/1910033260975165836

When foreign investors perceive that the U.S. stock market is rigged or manipulated, they begin to lose trust. And when trust erodes, capital flight follows. These investors start withdrawing their money from U.S. equities and reallocating it into markets they perceive as more stable, transparent, and fair. This withdrawal of capital leads to declining stock prices—especially in sectors that rely heavily on foreign investment—and a sharp drop in overall market liquidity.

And let’s not forget: the 2008 crash was, at its core, a liquidity crisis. Once liquidity dries up, even healthy companies can become victims of a broader market freeze.

Historically, the U.S. has been seen as a safe haven for global capital—thanks to strong institutions, robust regulatory oversight, deep market liquidity, and a relatively low tolerance for corruption. But if today’s behavior continues—and is either tolerated or encouraged—the reputation of U.S. markets will suffer. Investors will start to question the credibility of institutions like the SEC and doubt whether fair play is even possible.

This loss of faith won't just affect retail investors—it will reverberate through the largest and most conservative pools of capital: pension funds, foreign sovereign wealth funds, insurance companies, and long-term institutional players. These are not gamblers—they’re looking for stability. And if they begin to see the U.S. market as a casino, they’ll exit quietly but decisively.

We’ve been down this road before. In 2008, trust in U.S. credit markets collapsed globally. It took massive bailouts and sweeping regulatory reforms to even begin to restore confidence. If we continue on this path—where the bond market is screaming that we're in serious trouble, while the stock market artificially surges due to manipulation—we’re heading toward something even worse.

This is shaping up to be the mother of all crashes. And when it happens, we won’t be able to say we weren’t warned. The signs are there, flashing in broad daylight.

November 29, 2025 -

So for someone who hasn't started investing yet and has money in savings... Would it be better to put the money in a GIC or something guaranteed to grow a bit and then once the crash happens, buy while it's low? There is bound to be some kind of crash the way the economy is going right? Doesn't it kinda feel like things have peaked? Isn't buying at peak not really a good idea?

What does everyone think? If you had 100k from inheritance or something would you still invest it today or would you see how the next year or two plays out?

September 25, 2023 -

Hello everyone. I wanted to put this out here to see if I'm crazy or not. Feel free to tear this up.

The stock market is likely to crash in 2024. There are mutliple reason for this. Those reason could be simple coincidences. Just because x has happened in the past doesnt neccesarily mean y has to happen in the future. But if we find that there are multiple coincidences pointing at the same conclusion, we start to see a pattern take shape. There is a certain pattern that is starting to line up and it all revolves around FOMC decisions/market reactions to these decisions.

during and leading out of the 90's the fed went on a rate hiking campaign that saw markets rally like crazy and find a hold at 6% for the rate. The fed then went on to hold this rate from May 16, 2000 to Dec 19, 2000 (7 months and 3 days).

This is a chart showing the pause period from May 2000 to the first cut in Jan 2001:

Now whats interesting is the highs and lows since the last hiking date (May 16 2000) to that first cut in Jan 2000. You had +4.77% on the upside and -14.37% on the downside.

During the tech bubble, SPY went on a 3 year draw down to about -50% from its high. This demonstrates rate cuts only cut the markets. This chart essentially speaks for itself:

On the next recessionary event, the market activity during the pause was different. The reaction to the cuts however was way more severe. This pause period was from June 29, 2006 to September 18, 2007 (14 months, 2 weeks and 6 days aka almost DOUBLE the previous pausing period).

This chart demonstrates that you would only have gotten killed trying to bet on the downside during the pause cycle AND showing the effects of previous events on market psycology. You'll notice the prior pause period was 7 months and 3 days. If we too June 29, 2006 and added 7 months and 3 days, we get Feb 1st 2007. I highlighted below that when that time came on the 2006 cycle into 07, the market actually sputtered down 5.47%. I mean tell me that wasn't purely pyscological damage from the tech bubble at play here. Unreal! Overall, you only went down very early in the pause cycle 3.87% and was up 22.5% before it was all over.

During the cuts, the market was not so friendly and gave back a cool -50% over just the next 12 months from that first rate cut while gaining 3.49%:

So right now if we are only concerned with the fed as our metric for what to do out here, all we know is that each time is different. If you decided to go all bear and got some confirmation in Feb of 2007, you simply went on to get wiped out as a short in the ensuring months directly afterwards. For all we know, this pause cycle might last 14 months. It might last 7, its anyones guest honestly.

But what I do know is that all scenarios win lose or draw land in 2024. The last hike by the fed was July 26, 2023. Imprint that date into your brain.

Here is a chart of how things are going since very specifcally July 26, 2023:

So far the market has offered -10.12% and +1.16% returns. The upside is hardly there right now. To think that this is some kind of top would be inconsistent with the prior events. Which by the way might even be entirely logical as no event is the same.

If we scope out here is where we are now. I have added in the theoretical price movements upwards based on prior fed pause periods. If this was like the tech bubble, it would reasonable to expect SPY to hit 477.80 give or take a few cents. if this is like the housing bubble, we would see SPY go all the way to 557.51.

If I had to pick a horse to bet on, I'd say its reasonable to think we can go retest those ol highs we made in early 2022. It could easily be the case as in all previous cases, that we HAVE to go higher before we can go lower and much lower at that.

I find interesting that if we take that current fed pause price on SPY of 455.51 and cut that in half (-50% typical loss for a reccesion lately), you would wind up retesting the COVID lows.

I suppose its just fascinating that these parameters exist. I suppose if anyone was going to buy whatever doomsday scenario may await markets, the might as well wait until it hits the same end of the world prices offered in 2020 eh?

As of today, the pause is only 4 months and 2 weeks in. If we went 7 months and 3 days from the last hike, it would be Feb 29th, 2024. If we were 14 months, 2 weeks and 6 days later, the date would be Oct 16, 2024.

Probabilitys are currently showing like this for March of 2024:

Post Oct 2024 there is a 0.3% chance the rate is still at its current level:

Cuts are priced in not because of some soft land shenanigans. Its priced in because of history. History affects pyscology and psycology is the only thing that really drives markets.

Guess what else 2024 is? A presidential election. Think this next election is about to just be all hunky dorey with no drama whatsoever? I highly doubt it. One thing the market no likely is uncertainty. Its out of everyone's minds today because it can be. But they can only ignore this dynamic for so long.

Below is a piece I grabbed off Morgan Stanley:

https://advisor.morganstanley.com/the-ernie-garcia-group/documents/field/e/er/ernie-garcia-group/S%26P%20500%20in%20Presidential%20Election%20years.pdf

You can see in the past that markets have been typically good to the presidential elections until more recent history. 2008 being one of just fed cutting activity stands out with -37%. Even in 2000 under similar federal funds rate conditions it fell 9.1% that election year. 2020 is not listed, but it went down 31.85% and finished up 18.24% on the year (so both sides basically won if they were smart).

The good ol 2 year 10 year spread shows us the yield curve inverted quite deeply and is now starting to uninvert:

Jan 2000 is a low, Oct 2006 is a low

Our low here appears to be firmly established April of 2023. Its possible its a false signal and another coincidence amongst these other coincidences. For example Inversion low to high for the tech bubble was a peak 2 months later, and another peak 7 months later before it was all over. For the housing bubble you needed to wait a full year before it was all over. If this was any kind of direction, 12 months from our low is April of 2024 peak. 7 months is Feb 2024 peak.

There are alot of months that seem to line up in 2024, but all of them on their prior time scales all end in 2024. Again its not impossible this time is different because it actually will be. The one thing we can all count on is that history will not repeat itself to the dates whatsoever. But once we hit these date milestones, pysocological damage of the past will cause people to get "scared" if we havent gone into a rate cut phase by then.

One curious aspect I'm seeing online, in articles, on the stock shows and youtube channels is that somehow cuts are a sign of something good. They neglect the fact core inflation is still around 4% and the fed wants THAT at 2%. They also forget that once inflation starts moving to the downside, why should it just stop at 2%? Whatever causes a decelartion of inflation so severely is not going to just stop at some number we all want it to. It's more likely this goes deflationary and we see periods of negative growth. Negative growth would only add to uncertainty which markets no likey. That the public consensus is turning to a soft landing and that rate cuts will be a good sign just tells me they are priming the cow before its dinner time.

So 2024 is basically it. We will probably bounce around, retest some highs. Things are good so they appear. But unfortunatley I'd say everything in the data says the complete opposite and it will show itself at its designated time.

I'll close with a quote form Metric:

Wanna make a trade
Cougar for a snake, wanna fall in love
Wanna make a deal
Angel versus eel, owl versus dove

Every living thing pushed into the ring
Fight it out to wow the crowd
Guess you thought you couldn't just watch
No one's getting out