#clive is technically there but he's a metaphor

[nebulousboops]

Pink smoke gets stuck in my throat

[kanohimineka]

FF16 Thoughts, 31 hours in.

So, I've played about 31 hours of Final Fantasy 16. This is one of my first Final Fantasy games (I've technically played a bit of the FF7 remake, but not much), and it's weird. I've been having a lot of fun with it so far. Its gameplay has been honestly really welcoming for beginners to the Character Action genre. I feel there is a lot of depth that I haven't really cracked into yet with the gameplay, but it has simple combos that are fun and satisfying. Plus, the simplification items helped me to get into the groove of the action without having to worry about dodging mechanics that I tend to be bad at. Then, about halfway through, I managed to figure it out and practice dodging. The gameplay is generally beginner welcome, which I understand, given the fact it is the first real Character Action game in this franchise, and needs to introduce this gameplay style to possible players who only really play RPGs and come to FF for that. Overall, it is fun, at least to me, making me feel like I could still lose, at least on bosses, even if I am overlevelled by a bit

The story is where I feel conflicted, at least so far. I like Clive. As a Guts inspired edgy boy, he is able to have the elements that help to make that kind of character work. You are able to see him show his emotions, be a sad boy, but he is mostly stoic. I do like him becoming a leader of this group of anti slavery freedom fighters, but the way it does this feels a bit hollow. I don't know if it will pay it off, but I se the way it may be playing off of the idea that the Mothercrystals act as a metaphor for the systems that oppress people, those that people feel they have to uphold no matter what. However, that could just be me reading into it based around recent events. However, the plot does still make sense. It's a tad generic, but the emotions tend to work, and the subplots, while a tad simple, do a good job to help you connect to this world and its characters in the way Clive does. Plus, sometimes you'll just randomly get a rad sword.

So, yeah, FF16, 31 hours in, is an enjoyable experience. Who knows, maybe it will collapse after my last about 15% of gameplay. I'll let you know. Until then, uh, fun game, check it out if you get a chance.

[skinks]

Do you have any works (i.e.; books, fics, poems, even movies, etc.) that inspire your writing?

ahhh thank you for this question!! I’ve been thinking about it for a few days, sorry this is so long. I hope this doesn’t sound too pretentious either, but who doesn’t like talking about the shit they enjoy?

In terms of the technical aspects, like style and structure, I love really visual and evocative writing. Clive Barker is great. I read a book last year called Days Without End by Sebastian Barry and he would occasionally bust out these fuckin gorgeous metaphors in the middle of the character’s very guileless narration, one that comes to mind rn is a giant herd of American buffalo stampeding over a hill, described as looking like bubbling molasses, and I thought holy shit, what an amazing way to describe something like that.

Then, and I’ve mentioned this a few times, but the Dreamboy podcast has absolutely beautiful writing, it’s lyrical and hilarious and blunt and horny and gross all at once in a way I wish I could do. One great metaphor I remember is describing a driveway as a “gray loaf”. Literally the way we’re introduced to the main character is him describing a recurring dream, with stuff like: “I open my mouth and the icy water rushes in, it hits the back of my throat and zooms down into my stomach. I feel it fill me up, and then it zig-zags its way through my intestines like a cold knife, and just before it gets to the back of my asshole — I wake up. And I throw off the covers and I look down, and my dick... is rock hard. Like — so hard that it’s actually like, bobbing up, and — oh fuck I’m late for work.” I dig those very nasty visceral descriptions of sensations, and how it doesn’t shy away from how bodies react in weird ways to weird things.

structure-wise, I’m really into writing where seemingly insignificant details are revealed to be more meaningful later on, long-form stories where everything fits together neatly. I think that’s why I like heist movies so much, Logan Lucky and Oceans 11 are great. I also like stuff where actions have real consequence, where you actually feel the stakes, y’know?

That last part about stakes doesn’t really apply to ithots because it’s super fluffy, but the small details thing, I was trying to do. I love the writing in shows like Barry and Fleabag for those aspects, or films like Hereditary, or Guy Ritchie’s better gangster movies. I tried to lay some breadcrumbs throughout the fic for stuff I knew I wanted to become significant in the last chapter, like the “you brought me weeds” thing in ch11, or their Olive Garden date in ch2. Or in ch6 at the aquarium there’s a line about Eddie rubbing his right arm if he stays in the pool too long, because I wanted to make a point about it and old breaks later. Richie saying “manhattan’s all shitty and cold this time of year” in ch1, then Eddie saying it again in New York. Everything Eddie talks about in his Big Speech lmao.

Pennywise appears to Richie as a werewolf in the novel (queercoding imo) so I say he feels like a dog “territorial and owned at once” in ch5, “a neglected dog” in ch6, follows Eddie like a dog in ch11 as well as hugging Eddie til he’s “squeaking like a dog toy”, shakes his head like a dog in ch12, feels like a dog with its head out the window, as well as saying his love for Eddie as a kid was “hairy and howling” in ch13, “lycanthropic” in ch15, and THEN it all culminates in him literally howling his love at the moon at the end, because he’s a dawwwwg but he’s a good one. Not a monster.

There’s a lot of that specifically with stuff Eddie says too, because I was kinda trying to show that he listens to Richie and values the stuff he says by having him parrot/emulate him a lot. Richie makes the Tozieritis joke in ch12 and Eddie says “There’s your Tozieritis” later For the Banter. Richie says “pull a groin, then?” in ch14 and that’s what Eddie tells him before the SNL show. Richie says “I’d have made a good cowboy” in ch5, so Eddie starts calling him “cowboy” in bed, the Die Hard quote comes back in ch13. Richie calls the Losers “chucklefucks” in ch9 and that’s the name Eddie calls them when he goes berserk in Atlanta, as well as him doing a Voice, saying “yessir” at the end because Richie says it all the time throughout the fic. And Eddie wearing Richie’s clothes a lot is a physical manifestation of that whole Thing he’s doing, kinda taking small parts of Richie onto himself. In a healthy way ofc.

So yeah, I’m into writing with good continuity, stuff like Archer or Arrested Development is the god tier for good continuity. I really wanted to try to do that.

as for like, mood and tone and visuals, I love surreal/liminal feeling stuff, I like how super hot lazy weather can feel otherworldly. Whatever feeling I get from watching The Green Mile, Donnie Darko, Happy as Lazzaro, Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line, or the parts in Ghibli or Makoto Shinkai movies where the cicadas are so loud and everything else is so still because it’s too hot to go outside. That hypnotised feeling. The illustrations in Shaun Tan’s book, Tales from Outer Suburbia, they were hovering in my head a lot, all the gold and long shadows.

The poems Snake by DH Lawrence, and Los Angeles/Boys by Rachel Sherwood. Definitely I Remember by Anne Sexton, since I put it at the start. The song Mad Man Moon by Genesis.

Also like, I write by basically imagining what I’d want to see if it were a movie, where the edits would be, what the camera’s seeing, what colour everything is. So I’d say the last two biggest visual inspirations would be the films The Fall by Tarsem Singh and Mandy by Panos Cosmatos. Idk how to describe it except that the imagery in those movies is the kind of stuff I see in my head when I close my eyes, like the line in ch15 about the stars falling to hang around in the canopy, that’s actually a dream I had when I was like 9 and the image always stuck with me. So yeah, all the surreal space stuff in Mandy or the strange nature in The Fall really speaks to me:

[rajpersaud]

Is Life A Miracle Beyond The Ability Of Physics To Explain It?

The Demon in the Machine

HOW HIDDEN WEBS OF INFORMATION ARE SOLVING THE MYSTERY OF LIFE

PAUL DAVIES

  Physics World Book of the Year A Financial Times, Sunday Times, and Telegraph Best Science Book of the Year What is life? For generations, scientists have struggled to make sense of this fundamental question, for life really does look like magic: even a humble bacterium accomplishes things so dazzling that no human engineer can match it. Huge advances in molecular biology over the past few decades have served only to deepen the mystery. In this penetrating and wide-ranging book, world-renowned physicist and science communicator Paul Davies searches for answers in a field so new and fast-moving that it lacks a name; it is a domain where biology, computing, logic, chemistry, quantum physics, and nanotechnology intersect. At the heart of these diverse fields, Davies explains, is the concept of information: a quantity which has the power to unify biology with physics, transform technology and medicine, and force us to fundamentally reconsider what it means to be alive—even illuminating the age-old question of whether we are alone in the universe. From life’s murky origins to the microscopic engines that run the cells of our bodies, The Demon in the Machine journeys across an astounding landscape of cutting-edge science. Weaving together cancer and consciousness, two-headed worms and bird navigation, Davies reveals how biological organisms garner and process information to conjure order out of chaos, opening a window onto the secret of life itself.

  Steven Poole | Guardian

“Brilliantly vivid. . . . The big idea is that . . . understanding the information flow in organisms might be the missing part of our scientific jigsaw puzzle. The informational approach, in Davies’s elegant and lucid exposition, is extremely promising.”

Timo Hannay | Nature

“Boundary-transcending. . . . Davies claims that life’s defining characteristics are better understood in terms of information. . . . With apologies to Charles Darwin, there is grandeur in this view of life.”

Clive Cookson | Financial Times

“Important and imaginative.”

Lewis Dartnell | Times (UK)

“Wonderful. . . . Davies is a lucid writer and master storyteller. . . . Truly mind-blowing. . . . This is a cracking read.”

Bianca Nogrady | Sydney Morning Herald

“Fascinating. . . . This book is no lightweight holiday read you can laze through.”

Richard Joyner | Times Higher Education

“A dizzying tour de force.”

Liz Else | New Scientist

“Explaining one of the oldest questions—what is life?—is physicist Davies’s quest. . . . He searches for answers beyond the known, venturing into a place with no name.”

Tushna Commissariat | Physics World

"Davies’s lucid writing on this emerging scientific area is just what the pop-sci reader ordered. He is the perfect host to this admittedly dizzying journey, as he spins yarns of quantum demons, double-headed worms and everything in-between."

Andrew Briggs, University of Oxford

“Davies narrates a gripping new drama in science, in which the plot is the story of life and the leading actor is information. With his characteristic blend of erudition and clarity, he brings together some of the most rapidly advancing knowledge in physics and technology to show how information controls biology. If you want to understand how the concept of life is changing, read this.”

Robyn Williams

“This is one of the most exciting books I have read in years. Davies celebrates a significant anniversary with a demonically brilliant investigation of a fundamental question that only the very latest science and philosophy can deal with. Now we have a view from the master that's as thrilling as it is satisfying. Superb.”

David Deutsch

“Davies takes us on a fascinating tour of what is known about what life is. Along the way he speculates interestingly about what may become known. His theme, drawn from Darwin, Schrödinger, Turing, Gödel, Shannon, and von Neumann, is that what separates life from non-life is *information.* But how? Exploring that question illuminates biology by revealing its deep roots in physics, mathematics, and computer science.”

George F.R. Ellis, University of Cape Town

“In this characteristically clearly written and engaging book, ranging from physics to biology and evolutionary theory to neuroscience, Davies strongly makes the case that at its core, life is about information flows.”

Denis Noble, University of Oxford

“Davies is a courageous explorer of the boundaries of what we can know about our world. This book makes his explorations available to all who enjoy pushing those boundaries. Written with a light entertaining touch, even the most abstruse science acquires the clarity of exposition for which the author is justly renowned.”

Michael Levin, Allen Discovery Center at Tufts University

“A tour-de-force. . . . The Demon in the Machine is simultaneously rigorous, state-of-the-art, and highly readable—very hard to put down.”

Michael Berry, HH Wills Physics Laboratory

“Davies always probes the deepest questions in science. Here, addressing the deepest of all—Schrödinger’s What is Life?—he tells us what life is: matter plus information—beyond the laws of physics, but compatible with them. To elaborate this thesis, he deploys his trademark talent: getting to the heart of the most abstruse and technical aspects of science (biology as well as physics), without jargon and with down-to-earth analogies.”

Charles Jencks, author of "The Garden of Cosmic Speculation”

“This creative demon shadows DNA and the promise of quantum computing, answering some basic questions. What is consciousness, why is life so good at predicting where it might go next? The bridge connecting fundamental physics, biology, and the most advanced labs of computation is what Davies calls information patterns. He shows how it organizes for top-down creativity, and thereby holds off the grim reaper of entropy. With striking insight, and metaphors that illuminate the landscape of science today, Davies once again becomes our guide to the near future.”

Mikhail Prokopenko, University of Sydney

“The Demon in the Machine encompasses some of the most intriguing and unsolved mysteries of the universe: the existence of an arrow of time imprinted on the cosmos, and the emergence of life itself. Davies's crisp but rich narrative succeeds in untangling various highly complex ideas and processes, while fluently and intelligently setting out its own arrow of argument.”

J. S. Schwartz, emeritus, CUNY College of Staten Island | Choice

"This work analyzes the properties of life from the perspective of atomic physics, arguing that the very nature of living things allows them to defy the second fundamental law of physics: namely, that there is a 'tendency towards degeneration and disorder.'... Along with treating the question 'What is life?' this book explains the fundamental principles of quantum physics, making a very complex subject more understandable."

Jim Al-Khalili | BBC Science Focus

"This book is really about whether a physicist can define what life is, and the living systems that are far from equilibrium, yet maintain high-order...It’s one of those books where you read a few pages, then you lean back and think and go, 'Oh, I hadn’t thought of it that way.'"

Daily Galaxy

"Davies offers a similar message . . . : information, like energy, has the ability to animate matter. ‘In each and every one of us lies a message,’ writes Davies. ‘It is inscribed in an ancient code, its beginnings lost in the mists of time. Decrypted, the message contains instructions on how to make a human being. Nobody wrote the message; nobody invented the code. They came into existence spontaneously.’"

ESSSAT News & Reviews

"Davies is struck by the way living organisms consistently resist the ravages of entropy that all forms of inanimate matter are subject to and argues that there must be some non-physical principle allowing living matter to defy the Second Law of Thermodynamics. This non-physical principle is information. Throughout the book, Davies explores all the different ways that information is an essential component of biological processes, especially at the cellular and molecular levels."

Penn Book Center

"For Davies, life is a data processing system. That is his demon from the machine. It is one of the books where you read a couple of pages; you then lean back and go and think, 'Oh, I had not thought of it like that.'"

Check out this episode!

[tinygamertris]

God, that little shoulder pat. It's just a little thing, but it's so telling of how he feels about you! It's him saying without words "I see what you guys are doing and I'm glad you're here right now". Not only does Arven really open up during the game, I think he really matures too. He's able to look around and think 'this situation right now, it really sucks, and I'm hurting, but this small group of people and Pokemon want me to feel better because they care about me'.

(A lot of people headcanon that because Clavell used to work with the Professor, he knows Arven fairly well. Am I now thinking about Clavell trying to be a good surrogate parent for Arven? Fuck yeah I am! Clavell is honestly second only to Arven for amazing character development and he has excellent Dad Instincts.)

And yeah, I think destroying the time machine would absolutely be destroying the last link to the Professor, and I think Arven really needs that. The Professor was not a good parent in the slightest, they were emotionally neglectful to WAY past the point of being abusive, and I speak from experience that it does help to be able to go back and destroy something that connects you to them.

Oh are we doing 'let's talk about our PCs' time? I love that time! XD

My boy is named Emile, with the family name Etoile not used. He and his mum moved over from Kalos after the whole Team Flare mess, because he has a congenitive heart condition that's left him prone to sickness and very smol. Technically he's 17, which is about the age I think Arven and Nemona are at, but again, SMOL. He is extremely gender non-conforming because he thinks life is too short to deny himself things that feel good. Lots of pink and cute stockings and a braid, and the Finneon pattern hat! Also Engineer Boots, because good solid boots are a must. (I will probably draw him eventually just because the combination of accessories I found for him are cute as all heckins.)

Initially he just viewed going to the Academy as a chance to finally go to a really good school where where he could live on campus. He loves his mum tons but she's suuuuuper protective, which was why Clavell came to visit on his first day. No way was her baby going all that way alone, and technically he didn't! Clavell just decided that since he and Nemona seemed to get along pretty quickly it would probably be better to let her be the escort instead. Clavell is smart like that.

Anyway, his first response to Arven was kind of just blank staring because he was in a state of 'did I just almost fucking die AGAIN?' and focussing on keeping himself calm. Next thing he knew he had a Pokeball shoved into his hands and Nemona was basically fireman carrying him up the lighthouse to show him the view. Because of course she did.

At the school he was initially very dubious of Arven's request, but he wound up doing the Klawf one anyway because he was in the area looking for interesting things to study and it bloody attacked him! And then it turned out that the Herba Mystica were real and it seemed like Miraidon was doing a lot better afterwards so he might as well help Arven on his culinary project.

The moment he saw Mabosstiff, and saw how genuinely happy Arven was just to see his eyes open, he knew what he had to do. He had to help him! He'd tried looking into the Team Star mess and had a terrible experience with it (Mela KICKED MY ASS SIX WAYS FROM SUNDAY and Clive-Clavell absolutely had later words with Penny about signing a chronically ill student up for a metaphorical war without their consent) and the Gyms were okay but he was quietly thinking Kalos gyms are WAY more cultured, but this? This was Capital-I Important. This was what he wanted to do, to help people who really needed it.

He also had the 'I'm going down there just to kick your Dad's butt for being a jerk' reaction to being called into Area Zero.

He'd originally planned to be the tip of the spear that would get the team into the lab, but of course circumstances changed. Everyone knew from Research Lab 3 that something really weird and bad was going on, so he and Arven agreed that if it got really hairy down there, he'd take the book and rip Turo a new one while his Rotom Phone recorded it and Arven would take the others and fall back to one of the stations. Of course it didn't QUITE turn out like that...

The first morning after leaving Area Zero Arven woke up with Nemona on one side, Penny on the other, Emile curled up on his chest and Mabosstiff sleep-woofing into his hair and felt... something unashamedly good. Warm in a way he wasn't used to. Things got a lot better from then on. Arven decided to become a chef, a proper one, and Nemona helped Geeta with Champion stuff, and Penny made up for her illegal activities and discovered she quite liked making things instead of breaking into them, and Emile decided to help Professor Jacq with the Pokedex while he worked out what he wanted to do with his life. (And Nurse Melanie spent several hours lecturing Emile on going into Area Zero with only a few days worth of medication!)

So I did the events of Area Zero in Pokemon Violet and…I wasn’t ready.

Arveeeeeeen…

[andreagillmer]

If This Doesn’t Scare You, Nothing Will

Source: Clive Maund for Streetwise Reports   10/09/2018

Technical analyst Clive Maund charts the markets and explains why he finds that the U.S. stock market is at an unprecedented overbought extreme.

There are times in life when being alarmed is actually a healthy defense mechanism that gives you an advantage over the many for whom “ignorance is bliss.” This is one of those times.

The U.S. stock market is now at a dangerous unprecedented overbought extreme, as the charts that we will look at in this update make abundantly clear, after years of being wafted higher by a combination of QE, ZIRP and stock buybacks, and latterly Trump’s tax bonanza, which has kept the party going by making windfall cash available for still more buybacks. However, with QE having already reversed into QT (Quantitative Tightening) and rates rising, the tide has already turned, and the vice is closing inexorably on the market, which will soon buckle and collapse back into an overdue and very necessary bear market that will serve to at least partially flush out the monstrous excesses of the past decade, before they come riding to the rescue with QE4. The magnitude of these excesses means that the bear market is likely to be anything but orderly, and it should be characterized by at least one big crash phase.

With respect to the timing of the onset of this bear market, which will likely start with a crash phase, because of the continually increasing pressure being exerted by QT and rising rates, we can expect the Republican party to pull out all the stops to prevent it caving in before the mid-term elections in just under a month, since a strong economy is one of the central planks of their campaign. What may happen is that we see wild volatility around the time of the election and then, regardless of the outcome, the market goes down soon after. However, we should keep in mind that October has long been notorious as the month when stock market crashes are most likely to occur, and the Deep State, which controls the Democratic Party, would love nothing better than to bring the market crashing down ahead of the mid-terms in an effort to discredit Trump and the Republicans and reduce their share of the vote.

The chief purpose of this article is to make it crystal clear to you, via the following charts, that the market is at a wild extreme and will soon tip into a savage bear market that will wipe out a lot of leveraged traders, so that you will not only be ready to take steps to protect yourselves, but for good measure position yourselves to turn this situation to your advantage.

We start by looking at a very long-term chart for the S&P500 index that goes all the way back to 1980, which gives us a Big Picture perspective. On this chart you need a magnifying glass to see the 1987 crash, which seems funny now, because it was big deal at the time. You can also see the glorious Clinton years bull market of the 1990s, which ended with the dotcom bust and then Greeny (Alan Greenspan) manning the monetary pumps to get things going again, which led to the property boom and subprime crisis that triggered the 2008 meltdown. After that all pretense at fiscal restraint vanished and we entered the era of full bore QE coupled with about 10 years of ZIRP, which caused debt to skyrocket and enabled massive leveraged speculation, which is what has caused the market to ascend to giddying heights, as stock buybacks rose to unsustainable extremes, kept going more recently by Trump’s tax cut.

So now what? Having created a situation of wild unsustainable extremes, the Fed has taken its metaphorical foot off the gas pedal and planted it on the brake, slowly at first to avoid rattling the markets, but slowly pressing down harder on it, as it desperately seeks to create “wiggle room” for the next crisis by raising rates and scale back its huge Treasury book. This is the cause of the liquidity drain, or Quantitative Tightening (QT). The “little guy” is, of course, blissfully unaware of all this as he gets sucked into the market at the top, believing all the hype about the “strong economy.” Actually the economy is strong; it’s the underpinnings that are anything but strong, like the continually expanding debt, and it won’t be Trump that is responsible when the whole thing comes crashing down—the causes of this impending crisis go back to way before Trump showed up on the scene. A massive liquidity drain is going on behind the scenes that will starve the market of funds to continue ascending and cause stock buybacks to shrivel as rates continue to rise—Jay Powell, the Fed Chair, has made it plain that he plans to carry on regardless with this policy, at least until it really hits the fan. Once players fully comprehend what is going on and that “the jig is up,” there will be a wild stampede for the exits, which is why the market is expected to not just drop, but crash—actually it would be odd, given the situation that is evolving, if it didn’t.

Now we will look at more charts which furnish additional evidence regarding the wild extremes that we are now at.

We start with the Bear Market Probability Chart, which is a very useful chart, because even a moron can understand it. The fact that a reading is at a high level does not necessarily mean that a bear market is imminent, but the higher the reading gets the more likely it is, and as we can see on this chart, it is now at readings that exceed by a significant margin those ahead of the 2000 top and the 2007 top, making the onset of a major bear market very likely soon.

Click on chart to pop-up a larger, clearer version. Chart courtesy of sentimentrader.com

Next we look at the NYSE Available Cash chart which shows the leverage being employed in the market via margin debt. As we can see it is now at unprecedented frightening extremes, which way exceed anything that has ever been seen. So when this thing really goes down there is going to be a veritable tsunami of margin calls going out—this by itself signal that a brutal crash is not far over the horizon.

Click on chart to pop-up a larger, clearer version. Chart courtesy of sentimentrader.com

Finally, it is worth taking a sideways look at what is going on in some other markets, to see if they corroborate the signs of an imminent reversal in U.S. markets that we are seeing. The pan-European STOXX600 index chart certainly does, as it shows that this index looks like it about to start dropping away from a giant completed Triple Top. Meanwhile, the Japan Nikkei index has staged a partial recovery in recent years, but is still a long way from making it back to its 1980 bubble highs, and since it is clearly moving to some degree in lockstep with U.S. markets, when they go down it goes down, which is hardly surprising as the intensifying credit crisis that started with Emerging Markets is, of course, a global phenomenon.

As we head into this crisis we will, of course, be looking at ways to protect ourselves, and more than that, to capitalize on the impending mayhem. In addition, in a separate article now in preparation, we will be attempting to assess the likely impact on the already heavily beaten down precious metals sector.

Clive Maund has been president of www.clivemaund.com, a successful resource sector website, since its inception in 2003. He has 30 years’ experience in technical analysis and has worked for banks, commodity brokers and stockbrokers in the City of London. He holds a Diploma in Technical Analysis from the UK Society of Technical Analysts.

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Disclosure: 1) Statements and opinions expressed are the opinions of Clive Maund and not of Streetwise Reports or its officers. Clive Maund is wholly responsible for the validity of the statements. Streetwise Reports was not involved in the content preparation. Clive Maund was not paid by Streetwise Reports LLC for this article. Streetwise Reports was not paid by the author to publish or syndicate this article. 2) This article does not constitute investment advice. Each reader is encouraged to consult with his or her individual financial professional and any action a reader takes as a result of information presented here is his or her own responsibility. By opening this page, each reader accepts and agrees to Streetwise Reports’ terms of use and full legal disclaimer. This article is not a solicitation for investment. Streetwise Reports does not render general or specific investment advice and the information on Streetwise Reports should not be considered a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Streetwise Reports does not endorse or recommend the business, products, services or securities of any company mentioned on Streetwise Reports. 3) From time to time, Streetwise Reports LLC and its directors, officers, employees or members of their families, as well as persons interviewed for articles and interviews on the site, may have a long or short position in securities mentioned. Directors, officers, employees or members of their immediate families are prohibited from making purchases and/or sales of those securities in the open market or otherwise from the time of the interview or the decision to write an article, until one week after the publication of the interview or article.

Charts provided by the author.

CliveMaund.com Disclosure: The above represents the opinion and analysis of Mr Maund, based on data available to him, at the time of writing. Mr. Maund’s opinions are his own, and are not a recommendation or an offer to buy or sell securities. Mr. Maund is an independent analyst who receives no compensation of any kind from any groups, individuals or corporations mentioned in his reports. As trading and investing in any financial markets may involve serious risk of loss, Mr. Maund recommends that you consult with a qualified investment advisor, one licensed by appropriate regulatory agencies in your legal jurisdiction and do your own due diligence and research when making any kind of a transaction with financial ramifications. Although a qualified and experienced stock market analyst, Clive Maund is not a Registered Securities Advisor. Therefore Mr. Maund’s opinions on the market and stocks can only be construed as a solicitation to buy and sell securities when they are subject to the prior approval and endorsement of a Registered Securities Advisor operating in accordance with the appropriate regulations in your area of jurisdiction.

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[goldcoins0]

If This Doesn't Scare You, Nothing Will

Source: Clive Maund for Streetwise Reports   10/09/2018

Technical analyst Clive Maund charts the markets and explains why he finds that the U.S. stock market is at an unprecedented overbought extreme.

There are times in life when being alarmed is actually a healthy defense mechanism that gives you an advantage over the many for whom "ignorance is bliss." This is one of those times.

The U.S. stock market is now at a dangerous unprecedented overbought extreme, as the charts that we will look at in this update make abundantly clear, after years of being wafted higher by a combination of QE, ZIRP and stock buybacks, and latterly Trump's tax bonanza, which has kept the party going by making windfall cash available for still more buybacks. However, with QE having already reversed into QT (Quantitative Tightening) and rates rising, the tide has already turned, and the vice is closing inexorably on the market, which will soon buckle and collapse back into an overdue and very necessary bear market that will serve to at least partially flush out the monstrous excesses of the past decade, before they come riding to the rescue with QE4. The magnitude of these excesses means that the bear market is likely to be anything but orderly, and it should be characterized by at least one big crash phase.

With respect to the timing of the onset of this bear market, which will likely start with a crash phase, because of the continually increasing pressure being exerted by QT and rising rates, we can expect the Republican party to pull out all the stops to prevent it caving in before the mid-term elections in just under a month, since a strong economy is one of the central planks of their campaign. What may happen is that we see wild volatility around the time of the election and then, regardless of the outcome, the market goes down soon after. However, we should keep in mind that October has long been notorious as the month when stock market crashes are most likely to occur, and the Deep State, which controls the Democratic Party, would love nothing better than to bring the market crashing down ahead of the mid-terms in an effort to discredit Trump and the Republicans and reduce their share of the vote.

The chief purpose of this article is to make it crystal clear to you, via the following charts, that the market is at a wild extreme and will soon tip into a savage bear market that will wipe out a lot of leveraged traders, so that you will not only be ready to take steps to protect yourselves, but for good measure position yourselves to turn this situation to your advantage.

We start by looking at a very long-term chart for the S&P500 index that goes all the way back to 1980, which gives us a Big Picture perspective. On this chart you need a magnifying glass to see the 1987 crash, which seems funny now, because it was big deal at the time. You can also see the glorious Clinton years bull market of the 1990s, which ended with the dotcom bust and then Greeny (Alan Greenspan) manning the monetary pumps to get things going again, which led to the property boom and subprime crisis that triggered the 2008 meltdown. After that all pretense at fiscal restraint vanished and we entered the era of full bore QE coupled with about 10 years of ZIRP, which caused debt to skyrocket and enabled massive leveraged speculation, which is what has caused the market to ascend to giddying heights, as stock buybacks rose to unsustainable extremes, kept going more recently by Trump's tax cut.

So now what? Having created a situation of wild unsustainable extremes, the Fed has taken its metaphorical foot off the gas pedal and planted it on the brake, slowly at first to avoid rattling the markets, but slowly pressing down harder on it, as it desperately seeks to create "wiggle room" for the next crisis by raising rates and scale back its huge Treasury book. This is the cause of the liquidity drain, or Quantitative Tightening (QT). The "little guy" is, of course, blissfully unaware of all this as he gets sucked into the market at the top, believing all the hype about the "strong economy." Actually the economy is strong; it's the underpinnings that are anything but strong, like the continually expanding debt, and it won't be Trump that is responsible when the whole thing comes crashing down—the causes of this impending crisis go back to way before Trump showed up on the scene. A massive liquidity drain is going on behind the scenes that will starve the market of funds to continue ascending and cause stock buybacks to shrivel as rates continue to rise—Jay Powell, the Fed Chair, has made it plain that he plans to carry on regardless with this policy, at least until it really hits the fan. Once players fully comprehend what is going on and that "the jig is up," there will be a wild stampede for the exits, which is why the market is expected to not just drop, but crash—actually it would be odd, given the situation that is evolving, if it didn't.

Now we will look at more charts which furnish additional evidence regarding the wild extremes that we are now at.

We start with the Bear Market Probability Chart, which is a very useful chart, because even a moron can understand it. The fact that a reading is at a high level does not necessarily mean that a bear market is imminent, but the higher the reading gets the more likely it is, and as we can see on this chart, it is now at readings that exceed by a significant margin those ahead of the 2000 top and the 2007 top, making the onset of a major bear market very likely soon.

Click on chart to pop-up a larger, clearer version. Chart courtesy of sentimentrader.com

Next we look at the NYSE Available Cash chart which shows the leverage being employed in the market via margin debt. As we can see it is now at unprecedented frightening extremes, which way exceed anything that has ever been seen. So when this thing really goes down there is going to be a veritable tsunami of margin calls going out—this by itself signal that a brutal crash is not far over the horizon.

Click on chart to pop-up a larger, clearer version. Chart courtesy of sentimentrader.com

Finally, it is worth taking a sideways look at what is going on in some other markets, to see if they corroborate the signs of an imminent reversal in U.S. markets that we are seeing. The pan-European STOXX600 index chart certainly does, as it shows that this index looks like it about to start dropping away from a giant completed Triple Top. Meanwhile, the Japan Nikkei index has staged a partial recovery in recent years, but is still a long way from making it back to its 1980 bubble highs, and since it is clearly moving to some degree in lockstep with U.S. markets, when they go down it goes down, which is hardly surprising as the intensifying credit crisis that started with Emerging Markets is, of course, a global phenomenon.

As we head into this crisis we will, of course, be looking at ways to protect ourselves, and more than that, to capitalize on the impending mayhem. In addition, in a separate article now in preparation, we will be attempting to assess the likely impact on the already heavily beaten down precious metals sector.

Clive Maund has been president of www.clivemaund.com, a successful resource sector website, since its inception in 2003. He has 30 years' experience in technical analysis and has worked for banks, commodity brokers and stockbrokers in the City of London. He holds a Diploma in Technical Analysis from the UK Society of Technical Analysts.

Sign up for our FREE newsletter at: www.streetwisereports.com/get-news

Disclosure: 1) Statements and opinions expressed are the opinions of Clive Maund and not of Streetwise Reports or its officers. Clive Maund is wholly responsible for the validity of the statements. Streetwise Reports was not involved in the content preparation. Clive Maund was not paid by Streetwise Reports LLC for this article. Streetwise Reports was not paid by the author to publish or syndicate this article. 2) This article does not constitute investment advice. Each reader is encouraged to consult with his or her individual financial professional and any action a reader takes as a result of information presented here is his or her own responsibility. By opening this page, each reader accepts and agrees to Streetwise Reports' terms of use and full legal disclaimer. This article is not a solicitation for investment. Streetwise Reports does not render general or specific investment advice and the information on Streetwise Reports should not be considered a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Streetwise Reports does not endorse or recommend the business, products, services or securities of any company mentioned on Streetwise Reports. 3) From time to time, Streetwise Reports LLC and its directors, officers, employees or members of their families, as well as persons interviewed for articles and interviews on the site, may have a long or short position in securities mentioned. Directors, officers, employees or members of their immediate families are prohibited from making purchases and/or sales of those securities in the open market or otherwise from the time of the interview or the decision to write an article, until one week after the publication of the interview or article.

Charts provided by the author.

CliveMaund.com Disclosure: The above represents the opinion and analysis of Mr Maund, based on data available to him, at the time of writing. Mr. Maund's opinions are his own, and are not a recommendation or an offer to buy or sell securities. Mr. Maund is an independent analyst who receives no compensation of any kind from any groups, individuals or corporations mentioned in his reports. As trading and investing in any financial markets may involve serious risk of loss, Mr. Maund recommends that you consult with a qualified investment advisor, one licensed by appropriate regulatory agencies in your legal jurisdiction and do your own due diligence and research when making any kind of a transaction with financial ramifications. Although a qualified and experienced stock market analyst, Clive Maund is not a Registered Securities Advisor. Therefore Mr. Maund's opinions on the market and stocks can only be construed as a solicitation to buy and sell securities when they are subject to the prior approval and endorsement of a Registered Securities Advisor operating in accordance with the appropriate regulations in your area of jurisdiction.

from https://www.streetwisereports.com/article/2018/10/09/if-this-doesnt-scare-you-nothing-will.html

[abigailswager]

If This Doesn't Scare You, Nothing Will

New Post has been published on https://tradegold.today/if-this-doesnt-scare-you-nothing-will/

If This Doesn't Scare You, Nothing Will

Source: Clive Maund for Streetwise Reports   10/09/2018

Technical analyst Clive Maund charts the markets and explains why he finds that the U.S. stock market is at an unprecedented overbought extreme.

There are times in life when being alarmed is actually a healthy defense mechanism that gives you an advantage over the many for whom “ignorance is bliss.” This is one of those times.

The U.S. stock market is now at a dangerous unprecedented overbought extreme, as the charts that we will look at in this update make abundantly clear, after years of being wafted higher by a combination of QE, ZIRP and stock buybacks, and latterly Trump’s tax bonanza, which has kept the party going by making windfall cash available for still more buybacks. However, with QE having already reversed into QT (Quantitative Tightening) and rates rising, the tide has already turned, and the vice is closing inexorably on the market, which will soon buckle and collapse back into an overdue and very necessary bear market that will serve to at least partially flush out the monstrous excesses of the past decade, before they come riding to the rescue with QE4. The magnitude of these excesses means that the bear market is likely to be anything but orderly, and it should be characterized by at least one big crash phase.

With respect to the timing of the onset of this bear market, which will likely start with a crash phase, because of the continually increasing pressure being exerted by QT and rising rates, we can expect the Republican party to pull out all the stops to prevent it caving in before the mid-term elections in just under a month, since a strong economy is one of the central planks of their campaign. What may happen is that we see wild volatility around the time of the election and then, regardless of the outcome, the market goes down soon after. However, we should keep in mind that October has long been notorious as the month when stock market crashes are most likely to occur, and the Deep State, which controls the Democratic Party, would love nothing better than to bring the market crashing down ahead of the mid-terms in an effort to discredit Trump and the Republicans and reduce their share of the vote.

The chief purpose of this article is to make it crystal clear to you, via the following charts, that the market is at a wild extreme and will soon tip into a savage bear market that will wipe out a lot of leveraged traders, so that you will not only be ready to take steps to protect yourselves, but for good measure position yourselves to turn this situation to your advantage.

We start by looking at a very long-term chart for the S&P500 index that goes all the way back to 1980, which gives us a Big Picture perspective. On this chart you need a magnifying glass to see the 1987 crash, which seems funny now, because it was big deal at the time. You can also see the glorious Clinton years bull market of the 1990s, which ended with the dotcom bust and then Greeny (Alan Greenspan) manning the monetary pumps to get things going again, which led to the property boom and subprime crisis that triggered the 2008 meltdown. After that all pretense at fiscal restraint vanished and we entered the era of full bore QE coupled with about 10 years of ZIRP, which caused debt to skyrocket and enabled massive leveraged speculation, which is what has caused the market to ascend to giddying heights, as stock buybacks rose to unsustainable extremes, kept going more recently by Trump’s tax cut.

So now what? Having created a situation of wild unsustainable extremes, the Fed has taken its metaphorical foot off the gas pedal and planted it on the brake, slowly at first to avoid rattling the markets, but slowly pressing down harder on it, as it desperately seeks to create “wiggle room” for the next crisis by raising rates and scale back its huge Treasury book. This is the cause of the liquidity drain, or Quantitative Tightening (QT). The “little guy” is, of course, blissfully unaware of all this as he gets sucked into the market at the top, believing all the hype about the “strong economy.” Actually the economy is strong; it’s the underpinnings that are anything but strong, like the continually expanding debt, and it won’t be Trump that is responsible when the whole thing comes crashing down—the causes of this impending crisis go back to way before Trump showed up on the scene. A massive liquidity drain is going on behind the scenes that will starve the market of funds to continue ascending and cause stock buybacks to shrivel as rates continue to rise—Jay Powell, the Fed Chair, has made it plain that he plans to carry on regardless with this policy, at least until it really hits the fan. Once players fully comprehend what is going on and that “the jig is up,” there will be a wild stampede for the exits, which is why the market is expected to not just drop, but crash—actually it would be odd, given the situation that is evolving, if it didn’t.

Now we will look at more charts which furnish additional evidence regarding the wild extremes that we are now at.

We start with the Bear Market Probability Chart, which is a very useful chart, because even a moron can understand it. The fact that a reading is at a high level does not necessarily mean that a bear market is imminent, but the higher the reading gets the more likely it is, and as we can see on this chart, it is now at readings that exceed by a significant margin those ahead of the 2000 top and the 2007 top, making the onset of a major bear market very likely soon.

Click on chart to pop-up a larger, clearer version. Chart courtesy of sentimentrader.com

Next we look at the NYSE Available Cash chart which shows the leverage being employed in the market via margin debt. As we can see it is now at unprecedented frightening extremes, which way exceed anything that has ever been seen. So when this thing really goes down there is going to be a veritable tsunami of margin calls going out—this by itself signal that a brutal crash is not far over the horizon.

Click on chart to pop-up a larger, clearer version. Chart courtesy of sentimentrader.com

Finally, it is worth taking a sideways look at what is going on in some other markets, to see if they corroborate the signs of an imminent reversal in U.S. markets that we are seeing. The pan-European STOXX600 index chart certainly does, as it shows that this index looks like it about to start dropping away from a giant completed Triple Top. Meanwhile, the Japan Nikkei index has staged a partial recovery in recent years, but is still a long way from making it back to its 1980 bubble highs, and since it is clearly moving to some degree in lockstep with U.S. markets, when they go down it goes down, which is hardly surprising as the intensifying credit crisis that started with Emerging Markets is, of course, a global phenomenon.

As we head into this crisis we will, of course, be looking at ways to protect ourselves, and more than that, to capitalize on the impending mayhem. In addition, in a separate article now in preparation, we will be attempting to assess the likely impact on the already heavily beaten down precious metals sector.

Clive Maund has been president of www.clivemaund.com, a successful resource sector website, since its inception in 2003. He has 30 years’ experience in technical analysis and has worked for banks, commodity brokers and stockbrokers in the City of London. He holds a Diploma in Technical Analysis from the UK Society of Technical Analysts.

Sign up for our FREE newsletter at: www.streetwisereports.com/get-news

Disclosure: 1) Statements and opinions expressed are the opinions of Clive Maund and not of Streetwise Reports or its officers. Clive Maund is wholly responsible for the validity of the statements. Streetwise Reports was not involved in the content preparation. Clive Maund was not paid by Streetwise Reports LLC for this article. Streetwise Reports was not paid by the author to publish or syndicate this article. 2) This article does not constitute investment advice. Each reader is encouraged to consult with his or her individual financial professional and any action a reader takes as a result of information presented here is his or her own responsibility. By opening this page, each reader accepts and agrees to Streetwise Reports’ terms of use and full legal disclaimer. This article is not a solicitation for investment. Streetwise Reports does not render general or specific investment advice and the information on Streetwise Reports should not be considered a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Streetwise Reports does not endorse or recommend the business, products, services or securities of any company mentioned on Streetwise Reports. 3) From time to time, Streetwise Reports LLC and its directors, officers, employees or members of their families, as well as persons interviewed for articles and interviews on the site, may have a long or short position in securities mentioned. Directors, officers, employees or members of their immediate families are prohibited from making purchases and/or sales of those securities in the open market or otherwise from the time of the interview or the decision to write an article, until one week after the publication of the interview or article.

Charts provided by the author.

CliveMaund.com Disclosure: The above represents the opinion and analysis of Mr Maund, based on data available to him, at the time of writing. Mr. Maund’s opinions are his own, and are not a recommendation or an offer to buy or sell securities. Mr. Maund is an independent analyst who receives no compensation of any kind from any groups, individuals or corporations mentioned in his reports. As trading and investing in any financial markets may involve serious risk of loss, Mr. Maund recommends that you consult with a qualified investment advisor, one licensed by appropriate regulatory agencies in your legal jurisdiction and do your own due diligence and research when making any kind of a transaction with financial ramifications. Although a qualified and experienced stock market analyst, Clive Maund is not a Registered Securities Advisor. Therefore Mr. Maund’s opinions on the market and stocks can only be construed as a solicitation to buy and sell securities when they are subject to the prior approval and endorsement of a Registered Securities Advisor operating in accordance with the appropriate regulations in your area of jurisdiction.

[sundownunited]

D

ay 6 and I feel pretty good, all things considered. The long ramp up rest to get out on day 5 is paying dividends. Nothing hard set on my conference schedule I was more into live music as a consumer than discussions on the business side of it. This does mean I miss a great SXSW panel with intellectual and conscious hip-hop performer Talib Kweli talking about the business of music. Guess I’ll just have to make up for it by seeing Talib perform sometime during SXSW! #day7teaser

Before I hit the streets, members of the Domination Team (#domteam) have already crawled out of bed to attend a technology in business panel with Uber, Homeward, Build-A-Sign, and more and hosted by Chris Fowler of ESPN. Great discussions over drinks is the recipe for a great start to the day!

Twitch TV and Reddit have team up to take over club Rio, a 2nd and 3rd story venue that rocks a pool on their rooftop. The Domination Team had representation for the talks and drinks, focusing on the future of streaming video and later on the business culture of being a gamer.

I hit the town in the mid afternoon, set in wandering a bit and and finding random music. Yes, this “random wandering” is technically planned in my schedule, but the destinations are at least random and unknown to me; such random walks have lead me to discovering such artists as B.o.B., Jheno Aiko, TV on the Radio, and much much more!

After wandering through live shows at Pandora, Fader Fort, and Camel House, and Showtime House, I finally find an artist I stuck around for the full set: Kweku Collins. The underage hip-hop youngin brought a surprising level of energy to the show, winning over a crowd that didn’t know his hip-hop/singing energetic music, yet also diverting a few politically charged songs showing intelligence and story telling.

He wasn’t full polished, but there definitely was potential for a hidden gem. I saw the now internationally known R&B songstress Kehlani on the very same small stage Kweku had just performed on when Kehlani was little more than a high school talent show act.

After the day shows ended, I recharged, my phone literally and brain metaphorically, at The 4 Horsemen, an Austin authentic and original bar on the middle of dirty 6th. There’s usually a 2 hour between the end of day shows (6pm’ish) and the beginning night shows (8pm’ish), and a relaxing spot with food is the best move to ensure you have the energy to experience the night to the fullest. Not all of the #domteam agrees with this philosophy, so many of them were at the Driskell for a sponsored Happy Hour with an open bar to continue the festivities rather than waste of time relaxing.

At 8:30pm I break out of rest mode and hit a small show with Korean Pop artist Neon Bunny. She was clearly nervous, a bit overwhelmed, and didn’t seem to speak much English, but she pushed through her act with the help of encouraging and loving fans.

Next I made a bee line to YouTube house to see Solange and her band, St. Heron. YouTube was packed to the gills, and not even all SXSW badges could make it in. Even still, a double digit number of the #domteam was present, as always. Solange’s show was mesmerizing, such a well executed show, excellently choreographed, perfect vocals, spectacular band, and top notch production. Solange is following a path different from her sister, reminding me of Lauryn Hill, Erykah Badu, and En Vogue. One of the best shows of SXSW as of yet! Had to be good if I could remember much after a good few drinks from their open bar.

Solange started and finished earlier than most sxsw headlong acts, making it possible to still catch other headliners. Finishing the night, the Domination Team scattered to various shows. Some went to Sony’s event for Trae the Truth and the A$AP family perform headed by A$AP Ferg. Others saw Grandmaster Flash for Showtime’s Collide event at Clive bar, while some went to Monster Energy Drink house for Ugly God and Young MA. A few even spotted comedian Hannibal Burress DJing at Bat Bar on dirty 6th street. 2 headliners in one night was a big win for many of the #domteam, yet even still, nothing new to them at the same time! Day 6 completed.

2017 SXSW CHRONICLES: Solange + YouTube + ASAP Ferg // DAY 6 D ay 6 and I feel pretty good, all things considered. The long ramp up rest to get out on day 5 is paying dividends.

[andreagillmer]

If This Doesn't Scare You, Nothing Will

Source: Clive Maund for Streetwise Reports   10/09/2018

Technical analyst Clive Maund charts the markets and explains why he finds that the U.S. stock market is at an unprecedented overbought extreme.

There are times in life when being alarmed is actually a healthy defense mechanism that gives you an advantage over the many for whom "ignorance is bliss." This is one of those times.

The U.S. stock market is now at a dangerous unprecedented overbought extreme, as the charts that we will look at in this update make abundantly clear, after years of being wafted higher by a combination of QE, ZIRP and stock buybacks, and latterly Trump's tax bonanza, which has kept the party going by making windfall cash available for still more buybacks. However, with QE having already reversed into QT (Quantitative Tightening) and rates rising, the tide has already turned, and the vice is closing inexorably on the market, which will soon buckle and collapse back into an overdue and very necessary bear market that will serve to at least partially flush out the monstrous excesses of the past decade, before they come riding to the rescue with QE4. The magnitude of these excesses means that the bear market is likely to be anything but orderly, and it should be characterized by at least one big crash phase.

With respect to the timing of the onset of this bear market, which will likely start with a crash phase, because of the continually increasing pressure being exerted by QT and rising rates, we can expect the Republican party to pull out all the stops to prevent it caving in before the mid-term elections in just under a month, since a strong economy is one of the central planks of their campaign. What may happen is that we see wild volatility around the time of the election and then, regardless of the outcome, the market goes down soon after. However, we should keep in mind that October has long been notorious as the month when stock market crashes are most likely to occur, and the Deep State, which controls the Democratic Party, would love nothing better than to bring the market crashing down ahead of the mid-terms in an effort to discredit Trump and the Republicans and reduce their share of the vote.

The chief purpose of this article is to make it crystal clear to you, via the following charts, that the market is at a wild extreme and will soon tip into a savage bear market that will wipe out a lot of leveraged traders, so that you will not only be ready to take steps to protect yourselves, but for good measure position yourselves to turn this situation to your advantage.

We start by looking at a very long-term chart for the S&P500 index that goes all the way back to 1980, which gives us a Big Picture perspective. On this chart you need a magnifying glass to see the 1987 crash, which seems funny now, because it was big deal at the time. You can also see the glorious Clinton years bull market of the 1990s, which ended with the dotcom bust and then Greeny (Alan Greenspan) manning the monetary pumps to get things going again, which led to the property boom and subprime crisis that triggered the 2008 meltdown. After that all pretense at fiscal restraint vanished and we entered the era of full bore QE coupled with about 10 years of ZIRP, which caused debt to skyrocket and enabled massive leveraged speculation, which is what has caused the market to ascend to giddying heights, as stock buybacks rose to unsustainable extremes, kept going more recently by Trump's tax cut.

So now what? Having created a situation of wild unsustainable extremes, the Fed has taken its metaphorical foot off the gas pedal and planted it on the brake, slowly at first to avoid rattling the markets, but slowly pressing down harder on it, as it desperately seeks to create "wiggle room" for the next crisis by raising rates and scale back its huge Treasury book. This is the cause of the liquidity drain, or Quantitative Tightening (QT). The "little guy" is, of course, blissfully unaware of all this as he gets sucked into the market at the top, believing all the hype about the "strong economy." Actually the economy is strong; it's the underpinnings that are anything but strong, like the continually expanding debt, and it won't be Trump that is responsible when the whole thing comes crashing down—the causes of this impending crisis go back to way before Trump showed up on the scene. A massive liquidity drain is going on behind the scenes that will starve the market of funds to continue ascending and cause stock buybacks to shrivel as rates continue to rise—Jay Powell, the Fed Chair, has made it plain that he plans to carry on regardless with this policy, at least until it really hits the fan. Once players fully comprehend what is going on and that "the jig is up," there will be a wild stampede for the exits, which is why the market is expected to not just drop, but crash—actually it would be odd, given the situation that is evolving, if it didn't.

Now we will look at more charts which furnish additional evidence regarding the wild extremes that we are now at.

We start with the Bear Market Probability Chart, which is a very useful chart, because even a moron can understand it. The fact that a reading is at a high level does not necessarily mean that a bear market is imminent, but the higher the reading gets the more likely it is, and as we can see on this chart, it is now at readings that exceed by a significant margin those ahead of the 2000 top and the 2007 top, making the onset of a major bear market very likely soon.

Click on chart to pop-up a larger, clearer version. Chart courtesy of sentimentrader.com

Next we look at the NYSE Available Cash chart which shows the leverage being employed in the market via margin debt. As we can see it is now at unprecedented frightening extremes, which way exceed anything that has ever been seen. So when this thing really goes down there is going to be a veritable tsunami of margin calls going out—this by itself signal that a brutal crash is not far over the horizon.

Click on chart to pop-up a larger, clearer version. Chart courtesy of sentimentrader.com

Finally, it is worth taking a sideways look at what is going on in some other markets, to see if they corroborate the signs of an imminent reversal in U.S. markets that we are seeing. The pan-European STOXX600 index chart certainly does, as it shows that this index looks like it about to start dropping away from a giant completed Triple Top. Meanwhile, the Japan Nikkei index has staged a partial recovery in recent years, but is still a long way from making it back to its 1980 bubble highs, and since it is clearly moving to some degree in lockstep with U.S. markets, when they go down it goes down, which is hardly surprising as the intensifying credit crisis that started with Emerging Markets is, of course, a global phenomenon.

As we head into this crisis we will, of course, be looking at ways to protect ourselves, and more than that, to capitalize on the impending mayhem. In addition, in a separate article now in preparation, we will be attempting to assess the likely impact on the already heavily beaten down precious metals sector.

Clive Maund has been president of www.clivemaund.com, a successful resource sector website, since its inception in 2003. He has 30 years' experience in technical analysis and has worked for banks, commodity brokers and stockbrokers in the City of London. He holds a Diploma in Technical Analysis from the UK Society of Technical Analysts.

Sign up for our FREE newsletter at: www.streetwisereports.com/get-news

Disclosure: 1) Statements and opinions expressed are the opinions of Clive Maund and not of Streetwise Reports or its officers. Clive Maund is wholly responsible for the validity of the statements. Streetwise Reports was not involved in the content preparation. Clive Maund was not paid by Streetwise Reports LLC for this article. Streetwise Reports was not paid by the author to publish or syndicate this article. 2) This article does not constitute investment advice. Each reader is encouraged to consult with his or her individual financial professional and any action a reader takes as a result of information presented here is his or her own responsibility. By opening this page, each reader accepts and agrees to Streetwise Reports' terms of use and full legal disclaimer. This article is not a solicitation for investment. Streetwise Reports does not render general or specific investment advice and the information on Streetwise Reports should not be considered a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Streetwise Reports does not endorse or recommend the business, products, services or securities of any company mentioned on Streetwise Reports. 3) From time to time, Streetwise Reports LLC and its directors, officers, employees or members of their families, as well as persons interviewed for articles and interviews on the site, may have a long or short position in securities mentioned. Directors, officers, employees or members of their immediate families are prohibited from making purchases and/or sales of those securities in the open market or otherwise from the time of the interview or the decision to write an article, until one week after the publication of the interview or article.

Charts provided by the author.

CliveMaund.com Disclosure: The above represents the opinion and analysis of Mr Maund, based on data available to him, at the time of writing. Mr. Maund's opinions are his own, and are not a recommendation or an offer to buy or sell securities. Mr. Maund is an independent analyst who receives no compensation of any kind from any groups, individuals or corporations mentioned in his reports. As trading and investing in any financial markets may involve serious risk of loss, Mr. Maund recommends that you consult with a qualified investment advisor, one licensed by appropriate regulatory agencies in your legal jurisdiction and do your own due diligence and research when making any kind of a transaction with financial ramifications. Although a qualified and experienced stock market analyst, Clive Maund is not a Registered Securities Advisor. Therefore Mr. Maund's opinions on the market and stocks can only be construed as a solicitation to buy and sell securities when they are subject to the prior approval and endorsement of a Registered Securities Advisor operating in accordance with the appropriate regulations in your area of jurisdiction.

from The Gold Report - Streetwise Exclusive Articles Full Text https://ift.tt/2ypRukY