In this week's Off The Cuff podcast, Chris and Wolf Richter discuss:
- Growing Signs Of Recession
- Autos, retail, restaurants…
- Dark Times For Commercial Real Estate
- Bad enough that the Fed is worried
- The Retail Hosing Market Is Popping
- Toronto as a case study
- The End Of The Easy Money Era
- It's legacy: way too many over-leveraged victims
Suddenly, the tranquil seas long enjoyed by the markets have turned turbulent. Chris and Wolf react to the sudden volatility returning to stocks, the growing flood of recessionary indicators, the recent Fed statement, and the signs that the real estate market may have finally indeed topped out.
It's quickly becoming a lot clearer that the next 12 months are much more like to see the economy in full-blown recession vs not:
The other day I posted a chart that overlays the S&P 500 index with the S&P 500 quarterly earnings per share. What the chart shows is, since 2012, the index has risen about 75%. But quarterly earnings have only risen 12%. It’s been earnings stagnation in the S&P 500.
So this whole reasoning that stocks are going up because earnings are going up is just nonsense. Stocks are going up because global liquidity is buying stocks. That’s why they're going up. There are no fundamental reasons for these movements in stocks.
by cmartenson