Captain Rick : Stock markets around the world plummeted into correction territory on Monday, August 24. China’s Shanghai composite plummeted 8.5% followed with an additional 7.6% plunge on Tuesday, accumulating a 16% loss in two days. The Dow took an unprecedented 1,089 point dive at Monday’s opening bell, causing investors to wonder if this was the beginning of a market crash. The Dow has now lost 13% from recent highs. Most major stock markets around the world are down over 10%, considered to be the threshold that signals an official market correction.
This market correction is significant in magnitude. It is almost as big as the 2011 correction, which was the biggest correction since the global market crash of 2008, when the Dow bottomed at a 54% loss. This market correction has caused the average 401K retirement account to loose $10,000 in the past few weeks. It has erased billions of dollars of value from the world’s major corporations.
What is triggering this stock market correction?
Primarily, concerns about global economic growth — especially in the world’s No. 2 economy, China, after it unexpectedly devalued its currency. China’s Shanghai Composite suffered its worst loss in more than 8 years, which takes us back in time prior to the 2008 global market crash. This concerns investors because China is one of the biggest financiers of U.S. debt. If China stops funding Americas debt spending, where will Uncle Sam get its money to fund the countless federal grants it dishes out to keep the economy chugging along? Additionally, oil prices are down under $40 a barrel, hitting a 6 1/2-year low. While this is great news for drivers needing to buy fuel, it is taking a heavy toll on profits for the big oil corporations.
What is the long term stock market prognosis?
Perhaps the biggest concern of all is the extremely fragile financial structure of the United States. Intelligent investors realize that the U.S. is teetering at the edge of the real ‘fiscal cliff’ with lots of serious fiscal challenges that lie ahead … like uncontrolled spending far beyond its means, causing the U.S. national debt to soar past $18 trillion, dwarfing all other countries debt. And then there are the giant fiscal time bombs that continue to tick … Medicaid via Obamacare, Medicare and Social Security. Who knows what could spook the market to take the big plunge? The only things we can all be sure of is that ‘what goes up, eventually comes down’ and ‘time is of the essence’ because of the extremely ‘shaky fiscal ground’ that the entire world stands on … especially the United States of America.
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Captain Rick
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