by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Biggest Credit Bubble in History Runs Out Of Time
Yield investors, driven to insanity by the Fed’s interest-rate repression, hold their noses and close their eyes to scrape up even the crappiest paper just to get a little extra yield. “On the way in, there’s insatiable demand.” Alas, “it’s going to be a disaster on the way out.”
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Richest 200 Moguls Made $13.9 Billion Today
Bernanke doesn’t regret any of the Fed’s actions, he said, except not explaining them to the people. They “really don’t understand why we did what we did,” he said. But there are a few people who do understand.
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Biggest Credit Bubble in History Flashes Warning: ‘Seek Cover’
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.
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Stocks on Speed: Leverage Spikes, As Does Risk Of Crash (Look at that Insane Chart!)
Margin debt is a crummy predictor of a crash. But it has a bone-chilling habit of peaking right around the time stocks do crash. In the last fifteen years, it spiked three times: during the final throes of the bubbles that imploded in 2000 and 2007; and now.
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Will The Last Bear Please Turn Out The Lights
When BlackRock CEO Larry Fink grumbled about “way too much optimism” in the markets, he wasn’t kidding. An entire mindset is benchmarking today’s record metrics against the splendor of 2000 and 2007: not to warn, but to prove that this time it won’t end in tears.
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on What Caused The Glorious Jump In Household Wealth (In One Insanely Good Chart) And Who Will Blow It Up Again?
The stock market has soared for five years, risks have ballooned, home prices have jumped. Gains built on the quicksand of endless liquidity and a lackluster economy. “Irrational exuberance” is back in the Fed’s vocabulary. As the Fed’s Fisher said, it may end “in tears.”
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on NASDAQ 10,000 – Or Something
“Paranormal liquidity stimulus” leads to “paranormal activity” to deliver that “parabolic overshoot” in asset prices. And there is no bubble in sight, not even in the Nasdaq Biotech index, which is up a cool 375%. Money is once again growing on trees.
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Small Investors Exuberant, Margin Debt And Risk Of Crash Soar
Small investors are having fun in the stock market again, after years of sitting out the most phenomenal rally. They’re leveraging up their portfolios. Margin debt is spiking beautifully. Alas, spiking margin debt has a nasty habit of ending in a crash. In one painful chart.
