Stock Market Crash Predicted for Valentine's Day 2018

One River Asset Management's CIO Eric Peters broke with that tradition and dared to "pin a tail on the donkey" of when the next market crash - one which he agrees with us will be driven by a collapse in the global credit impulse - will take place. His prediction: Valentine's Day 2018. “But when the global credit impulse reverses, it’ll be a cascade, an avalanche. And I pin the tail on that donkey to be Valentine’s Day 2018.”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-06-25/it%E2%80%99ll-be-avalanche-hedge-fund-cio-sets-day-when-next-crash-begins

So we have about 7 months left to party.  I think it will be a few months longer than that but I wouldn't bet on it.  So eat, drink and be merry, for next year we will die!

Peak for the Dow

The DJIA hit 21528.99 on June 19.  I waited a couple of days to see if it would hit a new high.  At some point, it will hit a peak for this business cycle, and that might be it.

What I think will happen at some point soon is that the Dow will decline by 500 or more points over a few days, enough so that we are sure the Dow won't go even higher.  Then the real estate bubble will burst - probably this fall.  Then the unemployment rate will start rising, say about January.  It is very low now, so I think it has a ways to go to trigger a recession, but the recession should start early next year.  Then a full blown crisis will hit in September 2018, with a huge stock market crash.

Of course, I could be wrong - I am wrong more than I am right - and this boom could keep going forever.  I don't think so though.

Valiant Thor

Valiant Thor is supposedly an alien from Venus who spoke 100 languages who has been working for the Pentagon since 1937 and hasn't aged a day since.  This is one of the more interesting conspiracy theories that I have heard.  Phil Schneider made this video shortly before his mysterious death in 1996.

The Mother of All Debt Ceiling Crises is Coming

 The Treasury’s cash balance yesterday [June 11] stood at only $153 billion — down by $130 billion just since the tax season peak was reached on April 25th.  Uncle Sam has been burning cash at a rate of $3.2 billion per calendar day since then and has no more room to borrow. That’s because the public debt ceiling is frozen at its March 15th level ($19.808 trillion) and the mavens at the Treasury Building have run out of borrowing gimmicks. It will be impossible to pay Uncle Sam’s bills in full after Labor Day unless the debt ceiling is raised well the $20 trillion mark.  https://dailyreckoning.com/coming-mother-debt-ceiling-crises/

The "drop-dead" date appears to be Labor Day, which is on September 4 and a holiday.  So on September 5 we will be in for a world of hurt unless something big changes.  (The date could be even earlier - $153B divided by $3.2B is 47.8 days.  June 11 + 48 days is July 29).

The Democrats aren't going to support a clean debt ceiling increase because they want Trump to fail.  The Liberty/Freedom caucus wants to see more cuts.  So it is up to the moderate Republicans, the same group that couldn't pass TrumpCare.  Everyone just assumes that a deal will happen at the last minute.  But Stockman doesn't think so:  "And unlike the saves which were put together at the 11th hour in August 2011 and October 2015 by President Obama and Speaker Boehner, this time there will be absolute legislative paralysis."

And even if the debt ceiling gets raised, the government is only funded through the end of September.  So the two issues will get merged, which makes this an all-or-nothing event, without much room for compromise.  The other thing that makes this different from prior fights is that the left is totally crazy, unlike the right.  There is no equivalent of Boehner on the left who can pull them together.

So look for a mini-default on September 5.

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Update:  Now we have until October. See http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-06-29/treasury-will-run-out-cash-mid-october-cbo-warns

So the issue will definitely conflate with the budget issue.  Look for a shutdown on Monday, October 2.

Yet another high for the Dow

The Dow reached yet another high on June 14 of 21,374.56.

Baby Boomers are sucking the economy dry

Dow closes at all-time high of 21,271.97 on June 9

The SP 500 however, did not set a new high.  The high remains at 2439.07, which was set on June 2.

The NASDAQ Composite set a new high of 6,321.76 on June 8, and is down 1.8% since then.

For the FANG stocks, the bubble may have finally popped:

Facebook (FB) hit a high of 154.71 on June 8, and is down 3.3% since then.
Amazon (AMZN) hit a high of 1,011.34 on June 5, and is down over 3% since then.
Netflix (NFLX) hit a high of 165.88 on June 8, and is down almost 8% since then to 158.
Google/Alphabet (GOOGL) hit a hit of 1,004.28 on June 8, and is down 3.4% since then.

It is possible, but unlikely, that these stocks may keep going up.  The Fed I'm sure will just focus on the Dow, and this pretty much seals in the rate hike on June 14, and that will in turn ensure that the June 9 high is indeed the high.

So we are looking for a stock market drop this fall, to parallel the 2000 and 2007 markets, a recovery next Spring that does not break the all-time high, and then the big event in Sept 2018. 

Update:
I left out Apple (AAPL), which hit its high of 156.10 back on May 12.  It was down almost 4% yesterday, ending at 148.98.  It is not really part of the FANG gang because it left the party early.

Classical Gas on Acid

This is very jazzed up version of Classical Gas. It's worth watching just to see how crazy it is.  But ultimately, he ruined it.  This is him just showing off.

Classical Gas on Piano

Classical Gas on Piano. This is very hard to get right on piano, and this the one I like the best so far. I Professional pianists tend to add their own trills which aren't part of it, or do it in the wrong key, or get the rhythm wrong. It should start off very simple, like this guy is doing, and then jump into a bunch of chord changes.  I also like the fact that this guy is pausing to turn the page.  But the ending doesn't sound right.

Dow closes at all-time high of 21,206.29 on June 2.

This beats the previous high of 21,115 on March 1, 2017.   The Dow tends to make a high about a year-and-a-half before a crash.  So this still points to a fall 2018 crash, not this fall.

The S&P 500 closed at 2439.07, also an all-time high.