Even while the googly-eyed mainstream media celebrate the Dow’s record high, beneath the gloss, thousands of stocks are getting gutted. And the carnage is spreading.

We don’t know what hedge fund manager Steven Cohen will do with the money he borrowed from Goldman Sachs. We don’t even know how much it is, though it’s a lot; the personal loan is backed by his $1 billion art collection. But we know how he’ll use it: cheap leverage.

New regulations force banks to get rid of CLOs. They’re similar to subprime-mortgage-backed CDOs that blew up in 2008. But CLOs are backed by junk corporate loans, including malodorous “leveraged loans.” And they’re booming again. So the banks made a deal.

For years, nothing could slow the tsunami of junk debt. But suddenly, something happened, and investors in leveraged-loan mutual funds, where the crappiest junk debt accumulates, ran scared and started pulling their money out. Consequences were immediate.