Before the huge dow runup last week I was watching it collapse the week before. I found it interesting that the collapse made very little news but the run up was a big deal. At the end of the run up it was only a hundred or so points higher than it was before the big fall beforehand.
And now the fall continues.
I remember before the big collapse in 2008 the market was having wild swings in both directions. I was noticing a few weeks ago that it is happening again, and getting wilder.
It’s kinda like a top just before it completely stops spinning. I REALLY would not want to be there right now.
Mathematically, everything has fluctuation within bounds. If anything happens to thwart those normal fluctuations, the fluctuations become more extreme until it all spins out of control. What's happened with the US economy is that since George 2 started the manipulation by saving banks that failed, the economy has been totally rigged. Interest rates can't go any lower, and if they go higher the gov can't pay its debt. The debt easily spun out of control with interest rates near zero. Quantitative easing infused big money in to the economy, which has nowhere to go except the stock market with such low interest rates not a good option for those who still have resources.
The government can chug along and keep printing more money and prop up the stock market and burn up people's savings, I guess. Now there's low gas which consummers say yeah!!!! but will mess up loans to oil companies, emerging economies, successful pockets of the economy that got that way because of oil revenues. The world's a mess and powers we don't understand just keep selling oil hoping the other guy folds first.
Logically, at some point the manipulation will stop working The manipulators only care about saving themselves and their interests, which they do quite well. But when they lose control (like what happened with the real estate bubble) in a global economy problems can happen all over. Now there's the factor of crazies all over the world, due in great part to regions where we've played regime change and nation building.
Mathematically, the wild swings mean it's getting more difficult for the manipulators to control it. That's when it goes tangential, or reaches a point where it can no longer fluctuate. Is this economy meets asymptote?
(I'm not a professional, just someone who's studied a little economics and math, and likes to observe and analyze things. Please correct me where I'm wrong)
Actually I’d liken the wild swings more like the Tacoma narrows bridge. galloping gertie.
I watched the volatility and it seemed insane that the market wasn't going to crash (again) a couple years ago. Moved all my stuff into safe, but next to zero interest, areas then and lost a lot by doing so. Still not going back in because I can afford a lack of growth far better than a substantial loss of worth.
The market reminds me of a downed high tension line - when one hits the ground it gives of sparks and flashes and big bangs and it jumps and thrashes like a wounded snake. It' makes me feel like the world really has gone insane and there is no foundation to rest upon - like Alice ...