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We see a lot of people touting artificial intelligence (AI) as the wave of the future. On Monday there was a great example of the wonders of AI. Machines are programmed to sell stocks at certain levels, and they do what they are told. Then the cascading effect goes throughout the world. So what if a human forgets to program the machines to stop selling? What could go wrong? When I think of AI, I think of self-driving cars, which are only as good as the humans programming their cameras and computers. Let’s say an autonomous car was going down...

The pullback in stocks the past two trading days is both long overdue and healthful. But after nearly a decade of easy money engineered by the Fed and other central banks, is the sell-off in the bond market simply a short-term tantrum? Or is it the start of a secular bear market in bonds, due to higher inflation, that can only end in tears? If one thinks about interest rates as simply the price of money, one could argue that the correction in stock prices would be more worrisome if accompanied by significantly lower bond yields than higher ones. In...

Mere days ago, in what feels like a different era now, the biggest thing that people in control of money appeared to fear was complacency. Stock markets in the United States were surging, enthralled by the regulation-slashing, tax-shrinking predilections of President Trump. Every major economy in the world was expanding. The worst that could happen, the money masters averred, was that investors would be lulled into reckless investments, taking on too much risk in the belief that the dangers of the marketplace had been tamed. As it turns out, the dangers were already at work. A decade-long era of easy...

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin addressed a shaky world economic market following Monday’s staggering drop in American stock value. Despite the largest ever single-day loss in terms of total points and the steepest overall dip since 2011, he pointed to evidence he presented as proof of a strong economy. “I’m not overly concerned about the market volatility,” he said Tuesday in a statement to legislators.

Billionaire investor Carl Icahn spoke to CNBC via telephone this morning and had some very ominous warnings after what he has seen in the last few days. Reflecting on the market’s moves recently, Icahn shocked the anchors by saying: “This is something we’ve never seen before… I don’t remember ever seeing a market with this kind of volatility over two weeks.“ “The market has become a much more dangerous place [due to index funds and ETFs]… it’s like 2008 where everyone was buying mortgages and CDS.” Concluding that: “Passive investing is the bubble right now.” “There is going to be...

As of 3:41 p.m. ET, the Dow is 600 points higher and trading at a new session high. At its session low it was down by 567 points. "I thought we were going to see the bottom within five minutes of when we opened. I think that's basically what we're seeing," says Ed Keon of QMA. After two huge sell-offs in a row, U.S. stocks are all over the map on Tuesday. Investors blamed the wild moves on a combination of interest-rate fears, computer-driven trading and the obscure volatility funds that use leverage. The Dow Jones industrial average opened with...

Whatever it is that’s bringing the stock market down sharply, it’s not the bursting of a bubble. That’s because the recent market — overheated and overvalued as it has been — doesn’t even come close to past market bubbles. And the stock market’s plunge over the last week — more than 2,000 points on the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.07% on an intra-day basis — also doesn’t compare to the carnage of a bubble bursting. That at least is what I conclude from academic research into the precursors of past market bubbles. Consider first a study that was published...

"Dow Industrials plunge more than 1,100, the biggest one-day point drop ever..." was a headline after the market closed today.  Why lead with the point decline and not the percentage decline? A 4% drop isn't nearly as alarming, and you might be less inclined to click on the headline.On a day in October of 1987, the Dow dropped 23% -- about 6x as much as today's decline.  Almost a quarter of stock market value was temporarily wiped out in about eight hours.  That was a loss of 508 points.  If we had only experienced the percent loss at that time...

An exchange-traded security which is supposed to be a bet on calm markets was collapsing after hours. The VelocityShares Daily Inverse VIX Short-Term exchange-traded note (XIV) is down more than 80 percent in extended trading Monday. The security, issued by Credit Suisse, is supposed to give the opposite return of the Cboe Volatility index (VIX), the market's widely followed turbulence gauge. The VIX doubled during regular market hours Monday, causing obvious havoc for a product seeking to track its inverse return. Though, the XIV dropped just 14 percent during regular trading. But then after hours trading began and the security,...

Stocks raced sharply downward on Monday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling by nearly 1,600, around 6 percent, before recovering to end with a decline of 1,179 points. All the major indexes were down significantly. The S&P 500 fell by around 4 percent, the Nasdaq Composite fell by around 3.8 percent, and the broad Russell 2000 fell by around 2.9 percent. Monday’s sell-off was not only deep but widespread, with all 11 sectors in the S&P 500 index posting declines. Financials, health-care, and energy sectors saw the steepest declines.

With the stock market nearing correction territory Monday, former Obama White House Press Secretary Jay Carney suggested on Twitter that President Trump should have learned something from his predecessor and be careful not to tout optimistic looking stocks. It is just too risky.The Dow Jones plunged almost 1,600 points and essentially erased its gains for the year. It was the worst loss in six and a half years.The Obama administration, Carney claimed on Twitter, was careful to never boast about the stock market as Trump has often done. Good time to recall that in the previous administration, we NEVER boasted...

The Dow Jones Industrial Average has plunged by nearly 1,500 points in a day of volatile trading that has rattled global markets. The leading US stock market index is down more than 5.8% at 24,025.33. It is the worst one day fall in points since September 2008 during the depths of the financial crisis. The decline extends losses on Friday, when strong wage growth data raised the prospect of accelerated interest rate rises. Monday's sell-off surpasses a 777.68 points drop on the Dow Jones on 29 September 2008 when Congress rejected a $700bn bank bailout plan following the collapse of...

The White House said Monday it is worried about the U.S. stock market sell-off. "We're always concerned when the market loses any value, but we're also confident in the economy's fundamentals," an official said in a statement to CNBC. The Dow Jones industrial average briefly fell more than 300 points Monday morning and the S&P 500 traded about 0.75 percent lower, extending last week's plunge. President Donald Trump has touted the strong stock market performance since his election win and has yet to deal with a significant market pullback. The Dow is up more than 30 percent since the election.

Mini Dow Jones Industrial 25,256.00 -916.00 (-3.50%)

The Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled by more than 650 points in the biggest plunge since Donald Trump’s election, as a rout in the bond market spilled into equities. It plummeted to 25,512, falling 674 points, or 2.6 percent, as the markets finished their worst week in two years. Strong jobs data that increased the likelihood the Federal Reserve will lift rates next month sent bond bulls scurrying and rattled equity investors who haven’t seen a week this bad in two years. The selling accelerated after Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan suggested more than three hikes may be necessary this...

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped more than 400 points, with 10 of the 11 major S&P sectors in the red, led by the energy index’s 3.49 percent fall. Nonfarm payrolls rose by 200,000 jobs in January, the Labor Department said, beating expectation of 180,000. Average hourly earnings rose and boosted the year-on-year increase to 2.9 percent, the largest rise since June 2009. After the data, benchmark 10-year Treasury yields extended their rise to more than 2.8 percent, while traders boosted bets that the U.S. Federal Reserve will raise interest rates three times this year. Fast-rising wages could prompt more...

Dow took a dive on Tuesday, plunging 400 points, thus marking its biggest point drop since 2016, when it fell 610 points in June. Due to investors’ fears of higher than expected inflation, the 10 year Treasury yield traded near levels not since since 2014. On Tuesday, the S&P 500 fell 1.2%, the Dow Industrial Average pulled back 400 points, while the NASDAQ composite lost 1.1%. This is the second day in a row US stocks traded significantly lower than expected, marking the first big selloff of 2018. On Monday, the DOW lost 177 points due to the rise in...

"We've had a unilateral move higher [in stocks] to start things off and people are realizing this is not sustainable," one strategist said. The Dow and S&P 500 posted their worst session of the year on Monday. Long-dated Treasury yields climbed further on Tuesday, with the U.S. 10-year Treasury yield trading near levels not seen since 2014, amid fears of higher The S&P 500 pulled back 0.9 percent, with health care as the worst-performing sector. The Nasdaq composite fell 1 percent. "We've had a unilateral move higher [in stocks] to start things off and people are realizing this is not...

Investors poured $33.2 billion into stock-based funds last week, another indication that the market may be overheating. Bank of America Merrill Lynch's "Bull & Bear" indicator is sending a sell sign, which has been accurate 11 straight times since the firm started tracking it in 2002. The indicator points to a technical pullback for the S&P 500 to 2,686, which would be about a 6 percent drop from the current level. The relentless gush of cash into the stock market is sending a powerful "sell" signal, according to a Bank of America Merrill Lynch gauge that has been a reliable...

$11,589.01. That’s the US dollar amount of American stocks the Swiss National Bank owns on behalf of every man, woman and child in Switzerland. Let that sink in. A Central Bank has taken on itself to expand its balance sheet and invest in the proceeds, not in gold, nor sovereign debt - heck not even in corporate bonds. Nope, the SNB has taken it upon itself to “invest” that money in another country’s most risky part of the capital structure - equity. And don’t think it’s a small number. It’s almost $100 billion US dollars. In a strange twist...