Wolf Richter

This Chart Shows When the Smart Money Saw The Abenomics Fail

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This year has been lumpy for stocks around the world. Gone are the wild rallies followed by mild rallies interrupted by minor downticks, followed by more rallies. That’s so 2013. It’s as if on December 31, someone turned off the spigot. But in Japan, it turned into a rout.

“It’s not a bubble,” Retail Investors Are Told As The Smart Money Bails Out

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“Biotech Stocks’ Rout Perplexes Analysts” the WSJ headlined the phenomenon, as analysts continue to hype this stuff to small investors. But hedge funds are dumping stocks, and private equity firms are dumping their LBOs. That’s the Smart Money. They’re getting out.

Biggest Credit Bubble in History Flashes Warning: ‘Seek Cover’

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Hidden in the IMF’s Global Financial Stability Report is a doozie of a chart. “Seek cover, implosion in sight,” it screams. It depicts the bubble in covenant-lite and second-lien loans, the same that helped blow up the banks in 2008. Only this time, they’re even worse.

People In Eastern Ukraine: We Don’t Want To Be Annexed By Russia!

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Armed pro-Russian separatists barricaded in official buildings in eastern Ukraine exhorted Uncle Putin to come to their aid. But sudden breath of fresh air: a poll found that an overwhelming majority of the people in that region want to remain part of Ukraine.

America’s Structural Unemployment Crisis in Two Charts

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It didn’t even start with the financial crisis. It started before the 2001 recession. But the strategy exploded in 2009, and it’s still getting worse.

Head of EU’s Newfangled Bank Regulator: Markets Are Dumb, Pumps Stocks Of Teetering Banks To Keep them From Toppling

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It’s not often that a bank regulator proclaims stocks of teetering banks are undervalued because markets are too dumb to value them correctly. That’s what Danièle Nouy, chair of the ECB’s Single Supervisory Mechanism just proclaimed. She has a motive.

Hot Air Hisses Out Of Housing Bubble 2.0: Even Two Middle-Class Incomes Aren’t Enough Anymore To Buy A Median Home

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Giant PE firms and REITs have become the largest landlords in the country over the last two years because “there was a moment in time where it made sense,” but now home prices are too high, the business model has collapsed, and buyers evaporate.

“Champion in value destruction”: Russian Businesses Suffocating Under Putin’s Political Agendas

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Russia doesn’t need sanctions for its economy to slither into trouble. Last year, growth slowed to 1.3%, worst in four years. This year started out even shakier. The current entanglements are knocking the economy into outright recession, and fast.

Turns Out, Even The Price of Beer Is Rigged

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Everything is rigged. Stock markets, forex, interest rates, gold, silver, oil…. After battling that rigged world all day, you finally get to take that first big gulp of beer to heal the wounds, knowing that it’s the one thing that hasn’t been rigged against you. Or so you’d think.