Posts by Marc Nonnenkamp

Financial, Economic and Social Mood Update (February 1, 2023) The deceptive bear market rallies in the stock market cannot mask the truth of a very sick economy at the start of New Year 2023.  Bear markets are notoriously known for violent bear market rallies which trick very many people to get back into the market – the exact same thing happened during the Great Depression stock market from 1929 to 1949 – and yes, the market did not fully recover for 20 long years during that momentous & traumatic time in human history: https://www.elliottwave.com/Metals/How-Countertrend-Rallies-Can-Slyly-Lure-in-Investors?utm_source=com&utm_medium=eml&utm_campaign=ar-frup&utm_content=frupbscounterrally230126. One of my subscribers recently asked me if I thought that Bitcoin BTC (which rallied as high as USD $20,000 on January 14 – and yes, a digital asset like this trades 24/7) will still go to zero.  My reply is that I believe NOBODY should have anything to do with any cryptocurrency henceforth.  Many people did make a killing in these digital assets, but those who did so got in especially in the beginning.  The Bitcoin BTC “white paper” was released in 2009, private trading among pioneers took place from 2010 to 2015 and members of the public who did get it should have done so in 2015 & 2016.  Most investors who purchased cryptocurrencies after 2016 either broke even, lost a little or lost their life savings.  On January 13, 2023 the SEC (Security and Exchange Commission) sued both the Gemini Trust Company (owned by the Winkelvoss twins) and Genesis (owned by Barry Silbert who along with the Winkelvoss twins ranks among the 7 biggest US Dollar billionaire investors in cryptocurrency) due to the insolvency of the former “Gemini earn” program in which investor money has been totally frozen since November 16, 2022.  As I have said, all cryptocurrencies and cryptocurrency “exchanges” have been…

Financial, Economic and Social Mood Update (January 1, 2023) The deceptive bear market rallies in the stock market cannot mask the truth of a very sick economy at the start of New Year 2023.  According to the swiftly.com retail industry site, 70 percent of Americans are now struggling to pay their weekly grocery store bills, and 83 percent of consumers rely upon food discount coupons & supermarket retail brand name loyalty programs to put on the dining room table.  CarMax, the largest used vehicle retailer in the USA with 238 auto dealerships (they sold 750,000 vehicles in fiscal year 2021) reported a 3rd Quarter 2022 sales decline of 21 percent and an 86 percent collapse in net income. According to the MHFIN channel on YouTube, the coming ten year period until the year 2032 will be a “lost decade” for the real estate market due to collapsing demographics, deflation & collapsing asset prices:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kiKmQPeWKU. The cryptocurrency market is for all intents & purposes dead in the water, with digital currency trading platforms freezing customer accounts (many customers simply no longer able to access their money or having just limited access to their investment accounts per this FORBES article):  https://www.forbes.com/sites/ninabambysheva/2022/12/13/binance-pauses-usdc-withdrawals-sees-3-billion-in-outflows-since-yesterday/?sh=3e8a67b71f27&fbclid=IwAR19IqGpsLIrKwNcAbA6V5W_5pHyW1rdZP_wpNzXkakuNsnJSM6Unukg3fk. Cryptocurrencies & their exchanges need to be regulated no differently from commercial banks, complete with regulatory fees & capital reserve requirements.  They have thus far been operating like commercial banks with very little regulation and almost no investor (depositor) protection.  The 10 major cryptocurrency “digital asset” coins have lost more than 86 percent of their value since November 10, 2021 and they will never recover – they might not even last very much longer. The overall stock market & the entire cryptocurrency market have been strongly correlated since early 2018 per Elliott Wave International of Georgia, which means that so-called electronic…

Financial, Economic and Social Mood Update (December 1, 2022) The deceptive bear market rallies in the stock market cannot mask the truth of a very sick economy.  Almost 40 percent of small businesses did not pay their monthly rent in October 2022 & almost 40 percent of American households have received help from a food bank within the last 12 months.  Up to 70 percent of customer foot traffic business volume at grocery stores is due to government assistance such as the food stamp program (US government acronyms including SNAP, WIC and TANF).  Loan demand at Wells Fargo Bank (at one time the country’s biggest mortgage lender) has collapsed by 90 percent year-over-year as of October 2022.  The situation at other commercial banks is not much different.  The cryptocurrency industry – which is basically a far less regulated segment of the financial industry (it also solicits money from investors and lends that money out in the form of loans) saw its market value collapse by 72 percent as of November 9, 2022 compared to November 10, 2021.  The collapse in the market value of individual cryptocurrencies is even more stark – 78 percent for Bitcoin & Tron, 82 percent for Ethereum, 90 percent for Cardano & Polkadot, 91 percent for Ripple XRP, 92 percent for Dogecoin, 95 percent for Solano, 96 percent for Yearn Finance and 100 percent for Terra US Dollar, Mirror Protocol and Frax.  In yet another valid indicator pointing to the demise of digital currency is that the billionaire Winkelvoss twins from New York (once the 3rd biggest holders of cryptocurrency in the entire world) have already sold more than 95 percent of their Bitcoin BTC holdings. This debacle for the value of cryptocurrencies will likely mean 1) new & strict regulation of the industry not unlike…

Financial, Economic and Social Mood Update (November 1, 2022) The entire world is now in the midst of an unprecedented societal collapse in which all asset classes are moving in the same direction except for cash, which currently loses its purchasing power due to inflation.  By the time things hit bottom, human society will have to be rebuilt from the ground up in the most marked way since the Great Flood documented in the Old Testament. The overall stock market had lost 41 percent of its record nominal value as of October 13, 2022 since values peaked from November 2021 to January 2022 depending upon the particular index or financial asset class, thus equaling the net loss in the stock market during the crash from January 2000 to October 2002 (33 months).  The most recent prior stock market crash took place from October 2007 to March 2009 (17 months) when the asset market lost 63 percent of its value.  This time around, the eventual cumulative loss will be much more severe.  What we are witnessing in real time right now is a bear market rally – a deceptive “fool’s rally.” How lackluster has the performance of precious metals been?  Let's look at gold, which is the major precious metal = it has lost 0.42 percent in the past week, 1.03 percent in the past one month, 8.05 percent in past 3 months, and a whopping 39.0 percent in the past 28 months.  What does this show?  The stock market, the currency market, the crypto market and the precious metals markets are all very strongly correlated to move in the same direction over the same period of time.  In a deflationary collapse, only CASH will be king. Nicholas Gerli of Reventure Consulting (this channel is on YouTube) is forecasting an interest…

Financial, Economic and Social Mood Update (October 1, 2022) The issue of hyperinflation is so serious that the central banks of the world need to tighten credit interest rates (i.e. raise interest rates) much faster & higher than they have been.  The US federal government’s officially admitted annual inflation rate of 8 to 9 percent is far below the true honest rate of inflation which when one looks at prices for fuel, energy, food & groceries must be more like 20, 30 or 40 percent per annum over the past 2 to 3 years.  Asset values for real property & corporate stock also remain far above their true honest levels.  The solution to this unacceptable situation must be to raise interest rates above & beyond the rates we remember from early 1981, when the highest paying retail certificates of time deposits were paying from 20 to 22 percent per annum.  I would say that the central bank’s key rate should be no lower than 19 percent per annum right now, because defending the value of the currency should be the only concern at this time.  Every single country on earth has a lower standard of living today & all peoples have far weaker purchasing power today than they did at certain points in the past. As of September 30, 2022 the overall US stock market has lost 37 percent of its nominal value since November 2021 to January 2022 depending upon the index.  The digital currency market has lost 68 percent of its nominal value since November 10, 2021. The entire world today has become like one big third world country, with a dying middle class, an exploding under class and very few corrupt people at the top controlling governments, politicians, the media, entertainment and large corporations.  Europe peaked before…

Financial, Economic and Social Mood Update (July 1, 2022) Elliott “waves” are often very difficult to predict, most especially with respect to “timing” and “degree” or “magnitude” (i.e. length and duration).  That said, I believe I can now state that the long-awaited generational “crash” commenced on November 10, 2021.  We can compare this to the horrific hyperinflation, asset price collapse and world war that took place from 1922 to 1949 – but this time it will be much worse.  The nominal asset price collapse which took place from 1929 to 1949 (yes, it took a whopping 20 years or 2 decades for nominal prices to recover) wiped out an astounding 89 percent of peak nominal value from 1929 until 1933 (the nadir of the financial-economic crash at that time).  This time around, I believe that we will hit rock bottom in the year 2033 (11 years from today) and that our by then much smaller and severely decimated world will have to rebuild from the ground up, from “ground zero” so to speak – we will be very close to “rock bottom” long before 2033 (Nick Gerli of Reventure Consulting says late 2022 and into 2023……………he reported on June 17 that lumber prices have crashed by 50 percent in the last 3 months!), but we will remain at “rock bottom” until 2033.  Elliott Wave International of Atlanta, Georgia believes that the worst bear market in recorded history will take place from 2022 to 2024.  I believe that the “you know what” will hit the fan worldwide no later than the end of the 3rd Quarter of 2022………………..by September 30, 2022.  The economy of North America & Europe have already collapsed for all intents & purposes.  The bulk of global asset market trading is already done via “aladdin” Artificial Intelligence and…

The total global cryptocurrency market hit a record high market capitalization on November 10, 2021.  Bitcoin BTC and over 19,729 other privately launched electronic digital cryptocurrencies have been surging in value over the past decade.  They have already matured to a large degree, having replaced 94 percent of commercial and investment banks all over the world.  Traditional commercial and investment banks as we have come to know them over hundreds of years will likely cease to exist in the very near future – this is how rapidly things are changing over into the new digital financial system.  The cryptocurrency market reached a record high value on November 10, 2021, but it has lost 41 percent of its value since then. 4 of the 5 FAANG stocks (the titans of American high technology) are already in a bear market.  The 5 FAANG stocks are 1) Meta Platforms, Inc. (FB or Facebook down by 48 percent from its record high), 2) Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN down by 34 percent), 3) Apple, Inc. (AAPL down by 14 percent), 4) Netflix, Inc. (NFLX down by 73 percent) and 5) Alphabet, Inc. (GOOG or Google down by 24 percent).  The minimum description of a bear market is to be down by 10 percent.  The aggregate US stock market, best represented by the NASDAQ Composite Index, is down by 24 percent since November 22, 2021. Recent stock market activity points to an emerging asset market collapse – the noise coming out of the real estate market is demonstrating this by the day.  Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) which are forecast to replace existing national paper fiat currencies will likely be even more inflationary, and even worse than that, they will remove all remaining financial liberty.  Governments will have the ability to determine who spends how much, on…