Recession is imminent. Get ready.
Before you hunker down and crack open your freeze-dried pasta, however, take a gander at this clip of Joe Biden from last year:
Inflation was never going to happen! King Joe was leading us to glory with his American Rescue Plan!
Even far-far-left Vox threw him under the bus last week for that:
On Wednesday, the horrible policy decisions of the past two years began to really catch up with us, tanking the stock market in the worst day of trading since June 2020 near the beginning of the pandemic:
Stocks plunged Wednesday, with the Dow heading for its worst day in about two years, after quarterly retailer results confirmed higher costs for fuel and wages are eating into profits, and as U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned of global stagflation taking root.
All 11 main industry groups in the S&P 500 index were lower, with consumer stocks leading the retreat.
How are stock indexes trading?
- The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -3.57% fell 1,250 points, or 3.8%, to 31,406, on pace for its worst daily percentage decline since its 6.9% drop on June 11, 2020, according to FactSet.
- The S&P 500 SPX, -4.04% declined 173 points, or 4.3%, to 3,914.
- The Nasdaq Composite COMP, -4.73% shed 593 points, or 4.9%, trading at 11,393.
Translation: It's a bloodbath out there right now. Tens of billions of dollars are just vanishing in minutes.
Take a look at Walmart this week:
And sticking with the retail theme, Target just had its worst day in 3 DECADES. From CNN:
The retail giant reported a stunning 52% drop in profit for the first quarter, badly missing Wall Street's forecasts. The company blamed higher expenses due to continued supply chain disruptions. Consumers also are holding back on nonessential purchases because of rampant inflation.
Shares of Target (TGT) plunged 25% Wednesday, its worst day since 1987.
It couldn't have happened to a woker company! 😭
And from the Guardian:
The sell-off was broad-based. Tech companies including Apple, Meta and Tesla fell sharply, as did the makers of household goods and grocery stores including Kroger and Procter & Gamble. General Motors and American Airlines fell along with banks including JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs.
This is fine:
Axios also noted a few important trends illustrated by today's trading:
- It's the fourth time in 2022 that the Dow has fallen by more than 900 points, something that never happened in 2021.
- Of the 12 times the Dow has ever fell more than 1,000 points, two of them happened this month.
I think Jack Ablin, the chief investment officer for Cresset Capital, had a good explanation of what's happening:
I think what investors realized was these seemingly safe haven stocks, the staples like Target, like Walmart, are not immune — that their costs are rising, they cannot pass their higher costs onto their consumers. And as Walmart said yesterday, their customers are coming in and buying groceries, but they're not buying hard goods, they're not buying other products where they have a slightly higher margin.
So if you look at the consumer and recognize yes wages are up, but they're not going up at the same rate as inflation, and the highest cost increases are food and energy, that's funneling away spending that ordinarily would be spent at a more profitable side of Walmart and a Target.
The government and media have been clapping like seals because Americans are still spending a lot of money, and they've used this as proof that the economy is actually doing well.
Remember when the economy was actually doing well?
(Man I miss those mean tweets)
Most of us know that we're only spending more money because we have no other choice. The treadmill is getting faster and faster, and the only way to survive is to pick up the pace.
Now, many Americans are reaching the edge of breaking. Consumer spending slowed last month as credit card debt started reaching a saturation point. All that "free" money the government was so proud of has dried up. Housing costs are beyond the pale. A tank of gas costs as much as a week's worth of groceries a year ago... and don't even get me started on groceries.
And it's only getting worse.
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You know how the ocean recedes and ripples just before a tsunami wave hits?
We're right at the point where the beachgoers are starting to wonder what that sound of distant thunder is.
BATTEN DOWN THOSE HATCHES, LADS!
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