The Great Recession Blog

I believe in it in the sense that I believe it will stupidly become even stupider for a short time. So, I’m putting money back into stocks in order to bet on stupid, not because I believe in a phantom V-shaped recovery, but because I constantly hear plenty of people do believe in the “V.”

The Dow Jones (DJIA) last week ignored the worst US jobs report in history as if it were of no concern because investors hope the coronavirus crisis is here on a short-term stay. Some argue in the market’s defense that the Dow has already discounted bad jobs reports. I say investors have not even begun […]

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. April closed as the best month for the US stock market since the V-shaped recovery that followed the Black Monday stock market crash of 1987. April also delivered the deepest, broadest economic collapse of any month in history.

FedMed proved dead awhile ago with the whole Bulls team looking dead on the field, until Team Trump, the owner’s club, joined Coach Powell. Then Powell’s coaching team upped its game; and, finally, the Wall Street Bulls revived. “Big deal!” the Bears now yell. “Let’s get back to playing ball!”

Today the bulls did it it again. This market remains deeply entrenched in denial, soaring even as unemployment soars higher toward the grand summits of the Great Depression and with certain knowledge that many jobs will not return.

Monday was nothing but a dead-bull bounce … after bounce … after bounce, which means there is plenty of punishment to come. Pure testosterone drove the market’s rise, fed by nothing but the weak premise that New York’s drop in the coronavirus death rate for a single night meant the worst is behind us.

I don’t like just preaching to the choir. So, as I work on articles on this site, part of my mission is also to comment on articles on permabull sites to vainly see if it is possible to pound some sense into them. While I know it is not, the following is an amazing example […]

The emphasis has to be on HOG as they squeal for corporate welfare and push their snouts into the trough. One hedge hog says the government needs to bail out all businesses by paying all wages so companies that depleted all cash don’t have to pay to retain all workers:

You can only be so dead, and that’s just “plain dead.” But there is also Feddy Krueger dead. The kind of dead that keeps on happening like a demonic death that won’t stay dead. It is in that nightmarish Elm St. light that I’m going to review the Federal Reserve’s death.

The economy was already heaving in the toilet before COVID-19 dropped the lid on its head and sat on it. Sales, revenue, real earnings, manufacturing, and finally the services industry had all puked. Last week, stocks got the Great Flush as the market went down with the economy.

It just can’t get bad enough, and I can ‘t write fast enough. The headlines at the end of the week are now stunning, so I’m going to share several of them along with some quotations from the bawling and dying market bulls. In just one week, this has become the fastest stock market plunge […]

During its brief and utterly failed attempt to reduce its balance sheet (called quantitative tightening), the Federal Reserve only rolled off securities at a rate of $50 billion a month. It is now purchasing US treasuries at a rate of more than $55 billion a month: