Massive drop in Dow and worldwide stock markets

Trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange

What is being called a “flash crash” has hit the financial markets:

February 6, 2018

Asia’s benchmark stock indexes collapsed Tuesday, as Monday’s massive selloffs on Wall Street rolled across the globe.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 index lost as much seven percent of its value at one point during the trading session, before closing at 21,610 points, a loss of nearly five percent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index followed suit, dropping just over five percent in its worst trading day since August 2015.

The benchmark indexes Australia and South Korea also suffered serious losses.

In early Europe trading London’s FTSE 100 was down 3.5 percent at 7,081 points. https://www.voanews.com/a/us-stock-market-affects-asia/4240898.html

February 6, 2018

Stumble, fall or crash?

Investors may be wondering what to make of the dramatic sell-off in the stock market after months of tranquility. A slide that started early last week led to a sharp dive in markets Friday and Monday. The combined two-day drop represented a 6.3 percent decrease in the Standard & Poor’s 500 index that undid the market’s gains for the year.

Market professionals say there are still plenty of reasons to like stocks. But they can’t say definitively that the selling is over.

So what should you do? Here are a few answers to common questions:

WHAT JUST HAPPENED?

No one thing triggered this.

The markets took a marked turn downward Friday after the monthly U.S. jobs report showed that wages surged in January, representing the sharpest year-over-year gain since the recession. That stoked concerns about higher inflation because as companies raise pay, they often raise prices and that cycle can speed inflation.

The Federal Reserve is already expected to raise short-term interest rates this year with the economy growing. But inflation worries raise concerns that the Fed will increase rates at a quicker pace. Higher borrowing rates can be a challenge for corporations over time as they want to borrow money to grow and it drives investors to bonds rather than stocks.

The selling continued Monday, in what most experts are saying is just an overdue correction. Some believe automated trading also played a role as the systems that buy and sell stocks may have been triggered. https://www.apnews.com/6f42c08f1742480bb275c16280ea0145/Investors-must-make-sense-of-a-sudden-drop-in-stock-market

6 February 2018

European markets opened on Tuesday awash with red, with the main benchmark indices all down around 3 percent following Wall Street’s Monday rout.

Minutes after the bell to signal the start of trading, Germany’s DAX index dropped 3 percent to 12,308 points. It was a similar story in France and the UK, whose indices opened 3 and 2.5 percent lower respectively.

Although all three indices recorded minor gains by lunch time, Europe’s Stoxx 600 index still remained set for its worst day of trading since the Brexit vote, and it worst seven-day fall in two years.

The prosepct {sic} of a higher-than-expected rise in US interest rates this year has spooked investors on the ground. http://www.dw.com/en/european-markets-plunge-at-opening-bell-as-stock-market-dip-deepens/a-42463889

CNBC’s Jim Cramer described the Dow Jones industrial average‘s nearly 1,600 point plunge on Monday as a “flash crash” of sorts.

“The markets showed the same lack of class and power and honesty and truth that we have seen in every kind of these flash crashes,” Cramer said on “Closing Bell.” …

“The market got phony again,” said Cramer, host of “Mad Money.” “It’s a shame. It can’t handle the volume and it can’t handle this level of selling.” https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/05/cramer-calls-the-stock-market-1600-point-plunge-a-flash-crash.html

“The market got phony again?” It has been phony for some time.

Between the Federal Reserve’s legal counterfeiting called “quantitative easing” to the USA running trillion-plus dollar deficits for most of the past 9 years to artificially low interest rates (that the USA basically forced), the market has been phony for some time. Furthermore, now with “quantitative tightening” and the prospect of higher interest rates, some are seeing stocks as overvalued. But, based on certain “fundamentals,” the market is phony.

Of course, markets often rise and fall. But as I wrote late last year, despite assertions from then Fed Chair Janet Yellen, we were not past the time of financial crises (see Janet Yellen does not believe that there will be another financial crisis ‘in our lifetimes’). A month later, I warned about rising interest rates (see Fed Chairman to raise interest rates: Can the USA afford that for long?).

Ever since Donald Trump began to take credit for the rise in the US stock market since his election (and, we are going back to November 2016), I have felt that he could be setting himself up for a fall as far as the stock market was concerned. The following scripture came to mind:

18 Pride goes before destruction, And a haughty spirit before a fall. (Proverbs 16:18)

Now, notice the following:

Trump’s Stock Market Trap

The Dow’s recent woes are a lesson for a president who has claimed credit for its historic successes.

February 6, 2018

For most of President Donald Trump’s first year in office, he and his lackeys used the stock market as a kind of alternate approval rating. …

But with few achievements to speak of for much of 2017, the stock market became his go-to pitch. “The reason our stock market is so successful is because of me,” Trump told reporters in November. “I’ve always been great with money, I’ve always been great with jobs, that’s what I do. And I’ve done it well, I’ve done it really well, much better than people understand and they understand I’ve done well.”

Over the last two trading days, the stock market has plunged—an ominous 666-point drop on Friday was the prelude to a 1,500-point plunge on Monday that got the media chattering. (The Dow clawed back some of those losses toward the end of the day, ending down 1,100 points.) https://newrepublic.com/article/146963/trumps-stock-market-trap

‘The president clearly set himself up’: Trump’s stock market miscalculation

After cheering the market’s relentless rise, Trump is forced to face the reality of Monday’s swift and historic fall. https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/05/trump-stock-market-down-324880

February 6, 2018

You have to feel sorry for new Fed Head Jerome Powell starting his new job yesterday: Powell is going to find he has three jobs: Inflation, Jobs, and managing Trump who might well think a falling stock market is a Fed Plot to discredit him. Does that increase the risk of a policy mistake? https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-02-06/blain-trump-might-think-crash-fed-plot-discredit-him

6 February 2018

During the famous “Black Monday” of 1987, the Dow shed a staggering 23 percent of its value. Monday’s 4.3-percent drop seems to pale in comparison, doesn’t it?

The point is: Don’t panic. Breath easy. Keep calm and carry on. And for Donald Trump, perhaps this is a moment when he may wonder if stock market values have as much to do with his policies as he previously thought. http://www.dw.com/en/opinion-markets-plunging-keep-calm-and-carry-on/a-42465707

Do I think that it is time to panic and it is now all over?

No.

But as far as the advice to ‘keep calm’ goes, that will happen when sudden destruction comes:

3 For when they say, “Peace and safety!” then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman. And they shall not escape. (1 Thessalonians 5:3)

Irrespective of what happens to the stock markets in the USA and around the world, the Bible warns that people should not think that things will continue to go on as they have:

1 Beloved, I now write to you this second epistle (in both of which I stir up your pure minds by way of reminder), 2 that you may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us, the apostles of the Lord and Savior, 3 knowing this first: that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, 4 and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.” 5 For this they willfully forget: that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water, 6 by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water. 7 But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.

8 But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 9 The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.

10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up. 11 Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, 12 looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat? 13 Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

Therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless; (2 Peter 3:1-14)

Jesus also warned about those who apparently did not believe things would get bad (cf. Matthew 24:36-44) as well as Christians who thought they did not need to change their lives (Revelation 3:14-19).

What should seem bizarre to most people about today’s stock market drop is that the stock market drop is believed to have happened because many investors are concerned that the US Federal Reserve thinks that monetary policy should be normalized. Normalized is a disaster?

The reality is that the financial markets have NOT been normal, but have been manipulated by the US Federal Reserve and other government-related entities.

If it were NOT for the Federal Reserve counterfeiting money (in programs like ‘quantitative easing) where it basically ‘creates’ money and then gets US Treasury pledges created, etc. the US stock market would have a much lower valuation.

Basically, because of manipulation of financial markets, many have invested in the stock market since banks, for example, are paying almost nothing in the way of interest (some banks in Europe charge ‘negative interest,’ which gets people to invest in almost anything, since why put funds in a bank that will charge you more and more money the longer you keep your funds there).

What the US Federal Reserve, US government, and other entities have done in creating ‘money’ to keep interest rates down is wrong.

This diluting of the value of coinage/currency is condemned in the Bible, when it uses the old term ‘dross’ (money that has been debased):

4 Take away the dross from silver (Proverbs 25:4a).

22 Your silver has become dross, Your wine mixed with water. (Isaiah 1:22)

25 I will turn My hand against you, And thoroughly purge away your dross, And take away all your alloy. (Isaiah 1:25)

18 “Son of man, the house of Israel has become dross to Me; they are all bronze, tin, iron, and lead, in the midst of a furnace; they have become dross from silver. 19 Therefore thus says the Lord God: ‘Because you have all become dross, therefore behold, I will gather you into the midst of Jerusalem. 20 As men gather silver, bronze, iron, lead, and tin into the midst of a furnace, to blow fire on it, to melt it; so I will gather you in My anger and in My fury, and I will leave you there and melt you. 21 Yes, I will gather you and blow on you with the fire of My wrath, and you shall be melted in its midst. 22 As silver is melted in the midst of a furnace, so shall you be melted in its midst; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have poured out My fury on you.’” (Ezekiel 22:18-22)

Although the Bible warns against using dross and diluting the money supply, modern ‘experts’ have a different view. The wrong views on economics will lead to economic problems and ultimately the total crash of the dollar of the USA.

There are things that the Federal Reserve can do to prop up the market, but much of its ‘ammunition’ is more dangerous than most think (cf. Habakkuk 2:6-8).

Notice something that Jesus prophesied:

7 But when you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be troubled; for such things must happen, but the end is not yet. 8 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be earthquakes in various places, and there will be famines and troubles. These are the beginnings of sorrows. (Mark 13:7-8)

We are having ‘troubles’ and the financial markets are being set up for even more severe troubles in the future. We are seeing signs of the ‘beginning of sorrows.’

Financial troubles are expected to be a factor in the rise of the European Babylonian Beast power. However, expect more volatility in the future first.

Some items of possibly related interest may include:

Collapse of the Euro and Dollar? War in 2020? Larry Edelson of Money and Markets described aspects of current economic difficulties and explained why he felt matters would get a lot worse. He said war, like World War III, could break out as early as 2020. What did he call the ‘granddaddy of all cycles”? Will matters go as he said? What does the Bible teach? Dr. Thiel provides biblical insights that secular sources often miss. This is a video.
The End of US Dollar Dominance Is the USA losing its economic status? What about the petro-gold-yuan? A related video is also available: US Dollar being challenged by Gold-Petro-Yuan.
The Plain Truth About Gold in Prophecy. How Should a Christian View Gold? What do economists and the Bible teach about gold? Gold and silver may drop in value. Inflation/deflation? What do Christians need to know about gold? A video of related interest may be: Germany, Gold, and the US Dollar.
Project Prophecy: Economic Collapse Starting in 2015? Jim Rickards once worked for the CIA and also was once part of a a USA government program called called ‘Project Prophecy.’ He has a video were he claims that starting in 2015, the USA may have economic collapse resulting in a 25-Year Great Depression. He mainly cites debt figures and claims advises alternatives to the USA dollar which he says will collapse? What did Rand Paul state? Can the USA dollar collapse?
Two Horned Beast of Revelation and 666 Who is 666? This article explains how the COG views this, and compares this to Ellen White. Here is a link to a prophetic video Six Financial Steps Leading to 666?
The Mark of Antichrist What is the mark of Antichrist? What have various ones claimed? Here is a link to a related sermon What is the ‘Mark of Antichrist’?
Mark of the Beast What is the mark of the Beast? Who is the Beast? What have various ones claimed the mark is? What is the ‘Mark of the Beast’?
Europa, the Beast, and Revelation Where did Europe get its name? What might Europe have to do with the Book of Revelation? What about “the Beast”? Is an emerging European power “the daughter of Babylon”? What is ahead for Europe? Here is a link to a video titled: Can You Prove that the Beast to Come is European?
European Technology and the Beast of Revelation Will the coming European Beast power would use and develop technology that will result in the taking over of the USA and its Anglo-Saxon allies? Is this possible? What does the Bible teach? Here is a related YouTube video: Military Technology and the Beast of Revelation.
Anglo – America in Prophecy & the Lost Tribes of Israel Are the Americans, Canadians, English, Scottish, Welsh, Australians, Anglo-Saxon (non-Dutch) Southern Africans, and New Zealanders descendants of Joseph? Where are the lost ten-tribes of Israel? Who are the lost tribes of Israel? What will happen to Jerusalem and the Jews in Israel? Will God punish the U.S.A., Canada, United Kingdom, and other Anglo-Saxon nations? Why might God allow them to be punished first? Here is a link to the Spanish version of this article: Anglo-América & las Tribus Perdidas de Israel. Information is also in the YouTube sermons titled Where are the Ten Lost Tribes? Why does it matter? and British are the Covenant People. A short YouTube of prophetic interest may be: Are Chinese threats against Australia for real?
Will the Anglo-Saxon Nations be Divided and Have People Taken as Slaves? Will the lands of the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand be divided? What about Jerusalem? What does Bible prophecy teach? Are there non-biblical prophecies that support this idea? Who will divide those lands? Who will end up with the lands and the people? Here is a link to a video titled Will the USA and other Anglo-nations be Divided and Their People Made Slaves? Here is a related item in the Spanish language ¿Serán divididas las naciones anglosajonas?
British are the Covenant People What do ‘British’ and ‘Britain’ mean in Hebrew? Are the descendants of the Anglo-Saxons people of the covenant? Does the British royal family connect to the throne of David? What does the Bible teach? What does history show us? Is there any DNA evidence related to British-Israelism? When did Christianity make it to the British Isles? Could Jeremiah have made it to the British Isles? What type of Christians made it to the British Isles? Did the last King of England believe in British Israelism?
USA in Prophecy: The Strongest Fortresses Can you point to scriptures, like Daniel 11:39, that point to the USA in the 21st century? This article does. A related sermon is titled: Do these 7 prophesies point to the end of the USA?
When Will the Great Tribulation Begin? 2018, 2019, or 2020? Can the Great Tribulation begin today? What happens before the Great Tribulation in the “beginning of sorrows”? What happens in the Great Tribulation and the Day of the Lord? Is this the time of the Gentiles? When is the earliest that the Great Tribulation can begin? What is the Day of the Lord? Who are the 144,000? Here is a version of the article in the Spanish language: ¿Puede comenzar la Gran Tribulación en 2018 o 2019? ¿Es el Tiempo de los Gentiles? You can also see the English language sermon videos: The Great Tribulation from the Mount of Olives and Can the Great Tribulation begin before 2020? A shorter video is: Can the Great Tribulation begin in 2018?
The Times of the Gentiles Has there been more than one time of the Gentiles? Are we in it now or in the time of Anglo-America? What will the final time of the Gentiles be like? A related sermon is available and is titled: The Times of the Gentiles.
Protestant and Church of God views of the United States in Bible Prophecy Is the USA mentioned in Bible prophecy? Some Protestants say yes, while others say no. What does the Bible really teach? Learn the truth about this. There is also a video available: Is The United States Mentioned In Bible Prophecy?
Physical Preparation Scriptures for Christians. We all know the Bible prophecies famines. Should we do something? Here is a version in the Spanish language Escrituras sobre Preparación física para los Cristianos. Here is a link to a related sermon: Physical preparedness for Christians.
The Plain Truth About Gold in Prophecy. How Should a Christian View Gold? What do economists and the Bible teach about gold? Gold and silver may drop in value. Inflation/deflation? What do Christians need to know about gold?
Who is the King of the North? Is there one? Do biblical and Roman Catholic prophecies for the Great Monarch point to the same leader? Should he be followed? Who will be the King of the North discussed in Daniel 11? Is a nuclear attack prophesied to happen to the English-speaking peoples of the United States, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand? When do the 1335 days, 1290 days, and 1260 days (the time, times, and half a time) of Daniel 12 begin? When does the Bible show that economic collapse will affect the United States? Here is a link to a video titled: The Future King of the North.
The Gospel of the Kingdom of God This free online pdf booklet has answers many questions people have about the Gospel of the Kingdom of God and explains why it is the solution to the issues the world is facing. Here are links to three related sermons: The World’s False Gospel, The Gospel of the Kingdom: From the New and Old Testaments, and The Kingdom of God is the Solution.
Donald Trump in Prophecy Prophecy, Donald Trump? Are there prophecies that Donald Trump may fulfill? Are there any prophecies that he has already helped fulfill? Is a Donald Trump presidency proving to be apocalyptic? Two related videos are available: Donald: ‘Trump of God’ or Apocalyptic? and Donald Trump’s Prophetic Presidency.
Trump Presidency Magic 8 Ball or Bible Prophecy? BBC reported that one might as well use a ‘Magic Eight-Ball’ to try to predict what will happen in the remaining time of Donald Trump’s presidency. What is a ‘Magic Eight-Ball’? Dr. Thiel not only explains that, but also briefly goes over 10 biblically-based warnings he wrote would happen if Donald Trump were elected that have already began to come to pass. He also goes over something he wrote back in 2008 that the Trump presidency is also helping lead to fulfillment. Should you trust Bible prophecy or not? Dr. Thiel says that Bible prophecy can be trusted, despite the view of skeptics and others that either overlook or despise the Bible. This is a video.
Donald Trump and America’s Apocalypse This 188 page book is for people truly interested in prophecies related to Donald Trump and the United States, including learning about several that have already been fulfilled and those that will be fulfilled in the future. The physical book can be purchased at Amazon for $12.99 from the following link: Donald Trump and America’s Apocalypse.
Donald Trump and America’s Apocalypse-Kindle Edition This electronic version of the 188 page print edition is available for only US$3.99. And you do not need an actual Kindle device to read it. Why? Amazon will allow you to download it to almost any device: Please click HERE to download one of Amazon s Free Reader Apps. After you go to for your free Kindle reader and then go to Donald Trump and America’s Apocalypse-Kindle Edition.
Who is the King of the West? Why is there no End-Time King of the West in Bible Prophecy? Is the United States the King of the West?