400 point round-trip

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ancona

Praying Mantis
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The DOW is acting freakishly similar to the period just before the Great Unwind. The Dow shot up well over two hundred points, then caught a slow downdraft. Now, it's down about 140 points from the open. That's a 400 point round-trip for stocks. Commodities are shitting the bed and oil took back a 45 handle. The Saudi Oil Minister made the outright statement that the point of this exercise is to break the backs of shale drillers, because they're digging too deeply in to Saudi pockets.

This is not going to end well. We're talking about a trillion dollars in credit and credit instruments tied up in projects that Saudi Arabia intends to destroy.

With the markets in total neurotic mode, shit is not looking good at all.
 
Looks like we could finally get the stock market crash that we all have been waiting for so long. Copper is tanking now, too.
It's definitely a time to be vigilant. Watch the health of your bank(s) and keep some dry powder ready in case we get a massive buying opportunity in stocks in a couple of months. Since everything is so massively leveraged, a crash will become a self feeding mechanism and eventually create undervaluations. I'm talking a 50+% move here, though...
 
Dr. Copper is getting his ass kicked. Right now I am in hurry up mode, because I have a mile and a half of feeder cable to pull out and several more buildings [industrial scale structures] to strip clean. The market for used switch gear, emergency generators [50+ KvA] and chiller equipment are dying off hard. I've been running around like a lunatic harvesting all of my salvage before it goes to zero. After the last crash, I had twenty five air breakers worth [normally that is] 4 grand each and couldn't sell them for four years. When I did sell them, I got five grand for the lot just so I could make space.

We do environmental engineering as well as structural dismantlement/demolition, so the hit will be even harder on my firm. The first thing to go out the window when money dries up is environmental considerations. They go from what type of system should we install and how much to remediate the TCE from the ground water, to would it be cheaper to shoot in a slurry wall or a bentonite soil screen and just contain it in place.

We are going to go right back to hanging on by our fingernails. I suppose it's a good thing we built such a huge war chest. The layoffs are already beginning, with the first 20 of my employees slated for pink slips next Thursday.
 
Here is an example of how bad things look here.

Friday I stopped at a tire store I have been patronizing for over 30 years. They have about 15 bays. When I drove up, there were NO cars in any bay and NO cars in the parking lot. This is the FIRST time in 30 years that I did not need to wait at least an hour, if not two or three hours, just to get my tires fixed.

This store is part of a chain of 450 stores stretching from Alaska to California to east of the Rockies. No matter which store I visited in the past, I ALWAYS had to wait, and sometimes left because the wait was too long. If the store I visited Friday is any indication, their business sucks big time.

Their service is better than any other store of any kind that I have ever seen. And their guarantee is one of the best, too. They have warranteed many tires that I had never even bought from them, many of which I picked up for free in the wrecking yards I buy from. They advertise a no-hassle guarantee, and it is REALLY a no-hassle guarantee - most of the time not even any paperwork, just swap tires and leave. As a result, when I do buy tires, I buy from them. I have no idea whether their prices are higher or lower than the competition as I have never price shopped for tires - I just pay whatever they want because I know that no matter which store I go to, and no matter what the problem is, they will take care of me with no hassles whatsoever.

So, when I saw them so slow Friday, I was shocked to say the least. I don't know if any of their other stores were that slow, but after seeing this, it would not surprise me at all.
 
This is not an anomaly Mmerlin, this is happening all over. There are pockets that seem far more resilient, but all of those areas are populated by upper class folks that have yet to really feel the pinch. Once the layoffs pick up steam, and they will, rest assured that those in higher income brackets will feel it as well.

In my area, NASA is a prime employer, along with Cape Canaveral Air Station and Patrick Air Force Base. Those three places along with Space-X, Boeing, Lockheed and Harris Corp are responsible for three quarters of our entire local economy. If anything harsh comes along, we're fucked.
 
Another crazy day on the DOW. We're down 234 right now, but I'll bet the PPT has it back to VWAP by 4.
 
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