Worst opening week ever

Altogether, the global stock markets lost $2.3 trillion in market cap in the first four days of 2016, according Michael Hartnett, chief investment strategist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Some $12 billion in funds fled U.S. equities, the largest in 17 weeks, he said. Tech-focused funds were the most severely hit, with $600 million exiting, the biggest in 19 weeks.

So far its a similar drop to the one back in august but hardly anyone is saying its just a correction this time.  Maybe we will really go down for awhile.

ChineseCircuit breakers...

Not too different from a chinese finger trap.

China sold heavy after opening and hit its 7% limit. Third time this week.  The shanghai comp is at 3125 but i heard a third of their hedge funds will be forced to start selling.  Sounds like a strong push to 3000. Its all time high was a bit over 6000 back in 2007, followed by a drop to the 1740's.  Scary, yet awesome. Over a 70% plunge.  I doubt that will happen again.  Maybe 2007 was their 1929.  2015 is their 2000.

Failure is the mother of success.

China panic week

REUTERS

China has shut its share market for the day after a meltdown in early trade.

Shares plunged 5% when the market opened, triggering a new “circuit-breaker” closure of markets for 15 minutes.

When trade resumed, the selling continued, with the benchmark CSI300 falling through 7%, triggering an automatic shutdown of trading for the rest of the day.

The market was only open for around 15 minutes of trade.

It’s the second time this week that China has had to shut its markets under the new rules designed to avoid panic selling of shares. But today, the circuit-breakers were invoked much faster than they were earlier in the week.

Maybe the shanghai comp index will hit 2500, or lower.  Its basically china's 1929 crash.  its really bad.  Chinas brightest minds and most influential communists have no control.  the government has wasted tons of money trying to prop up the market.  Its really the first big embarrassment china has had during my life.  They should have let americans and brits influence their market the way they do in macau casinos and hong kong finance.  Pride is a sin.  A few politicisns get rich, everyone else gets poor.

Industry Monitoring

Industry monitoring should be done all the time.

Oil is down about 40%
Retail is down about 35%
Agriculture is down about 25%
Autos are down about 20%
Tech is also down 20%
Banks are down about 10%
Food is down about 10%

Military is at all time highs

They are starting to pile up.  When enough get close to -40%, the broad market crashes

Will it keep going?

The market rise that began in March 2009 is now the third longest in history. That argues for shifting some of your stock assets to stable, large companies. Ned Davis Research has found that while small companies have the most sizzle in the first two-thirds of a bull, the advantage shifts to the big blue chips in the final third. Shares in large-company stocks also tend to be less volatile. That’s important now. “The bull can continue to run for another one to two years,” says Anthony Valeri, investment strategist for LPL Financial. “The caveat is you should expect volatility to pick up.”

I doubt it.  Its funny how people refer to the market as continuing to rise when it has not risen in several months.  How can the bull market keep going up when it has been going sideways.  Equities lost steam awhile ago.  Its not hard to believe that confidence, meaning prices, have been propped up by low oil prices.  But that will create and is creating long term problems which will gaurantee a quick crash.

I love Gabita.  My wife is wonderful.

Hello 2016

Good riddance, 2015.
Nearly 70% of investors lost money this year, according to Openfolio, an app that allows people to track their investment performance and compare their portfolio with other users.

U.S. markets had their worst year since the financial crisis. No wonder making money was tough.

"While the S&P 500 is on track to end 2015 almost exactly where it started, earnings have deteriorated," says Matt Coffina of Morningstar.

My wife is beautiful.
My assets look pretty good too.
2015 was mostly good for me, 2016 should be very interesting.