ECONOMIC CRISIS: The Stock Market is Going to Crash

 ECONOMIC CRISIS: The Stock Market is Going to Crash

By Avi Gilburt  /  GoldSeek

Well, everyone else has been calling for a market crash, so I thought maybe I should too. But, while I think the market will likely crash again, I don’t think it is going to happen just yet, as I still believe this bull market has several more years to run.

When I peruse the articles on Seeking Alpha, it seems to be en vogue today to be bearish. The headline articles discuss how the market has now moved into being a bear market, or that the VIX is about to skyrocket, or the market is overvalued, discussions of black swans, the impending debt crisis, etc.

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Turn back the clock to early 2016 and 45% lower in the S&P500, and were we not reading the exact same articles?

And, of course, this time is certainly different. There are a whole new set of issues that we need to worry about, right?

I mean, are the issues with which we are now grappling much worse than what we faced back in 2016 and 2017 when the market saw one of its strongest rally in years?

Think about it. Are we dealing with anything worse than the cessation of QE, North Korean atomic threat, major terrorist attacks worldwide, Brexit, Frexit, Grexit, Trump election, rising interest rates, and many more I don’t even care to list.

Now, if you have been an active member of the market over the last several years, and you have not come to the realization that all these “issues” mattered not to the market as it continued to soar, then you have not been paying attention. All these issues are purely bearish noise which a prudent investor learns how to tune out. Rather, a prudent investor understands when this noise simply helps build that wall of worry which the market climbs.

Have you been a prudent investor these last two years? If not, don’t you think it is time to take stock as to what you did wrong, and how you can correct that in the future?

And, if you do not have the tools to recognize what is bearish noise then maybe you can come join us. We foresaw this rally years ago, as well as the correction within which we are now mired.

As to our immediate future, I am going to give you one number to watch in the coming week: 2645SPX.

As long as the market holds over 2645SPX early in the coming week, we are setting up to rally towards 2720SPX.

However, if the market breaks down below 2645SPX with an impulsive 5-wave structure, then we will be setting up to drop to the 2530-2555SPX region over the next week or so.

Now, for those who are going to read this article, and view this as my being indecisive, I want to remind you that my job is to give you guideposts to understand which path the market will take in the coming week. Anyone who can tell you with certainty what the market WILL do is truly clueless about how non-linear markets work.

Moreover, when you understand that the market has been mired within a 4^thwave correction (the most variable wave within Elliott’s 5-wave structure), then you understand we are not yet set up for the trending move, as whipsaw will likely continue to be the name of the game.

For the last several months, the stock market has been desperately trying to shake both the longs and the shorts out of their positions. But, this is nothing new to those who understand how 4th waves take shape.

Once the market dropped in February down to our target for this 4th wave between 2424-2539SPX, I expected a rally to take us back over 2720SPX. After the rally back up to as high as 2800SPX from the 2532SPX low, I noted that the easy part of this 4th wave was likely done, and the action will likely become much more complex from that point forth. And, the market as certainly been much more choppy since that time.

And, as I noted during the week to my members, seasoned and experienced traders find huge value in understanding where we are within the market structure, as they reduce the number of trades they do during a 4th wave, in addition to reducing the amount of risk they are willing to accept during a 4th wave.

But, understanding that we are in a 4th wave also suggests that there is likely another rally around the corner; the 5th wave. So, I still expect that this market will see another rally, potentially into 2019, which takes us over 3000 in the SPX.

See charts illustrating the wave counts on the S&P 500.

Avi Gilburt is a widely followed Elliott Wave technical analyst and author of ElliottWaveTrader.net (www.elliottwavetrader.net), a live Trading Room featuring his intraday market analysis (including emini S&P 500, metals, oil, USD & VXX), interactive member-analyst forum, and detailed library of Elliott Wave education.

Economic Collapse Signs Are Everywhere

What does it mean when the gold begins to leave the country. It means one of two things. It means that an economic collapse is imminent, or it means war is on the near horizon. Here is the complete story.

After reading this report, you will be left with little doubt that you should be buying gold and silver. At least you should trade in your soon to worthless paper money for precious metals, while you still can.
Income Extermination Is Already Underway

Your ability to make money the old fashioned way based on a cash system predicated on debt, is an outdated and flawed method of making money. In fact, it is one of the surest ways to end up in the poor house.
From The Palm Beach Investment Group:

The Fed has signaled that it will raise rates another two or three times this year. And projections have more raises next year.
This will put pressure on bond prices… specifically, long-dated bonds. (Or as Wall Street calls them, “long duration bonds.”)
Retirees are in the greatest danger. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, those age 65 and older own the highest percentage of U.S. government and corporate debt.
If you own bonds—especially those with long durations—you should consider ridding your portfolio of them.
As you can see in the chart below, the “safe” iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF (TLT) is down 6% this year.

U.S. investors have fewer choices than ever…
In short, there are about half as many U.S. publicly traded stocks as there were 20 years ago. And E.B. says that the Federal Reserve’s to blame for this.
…The Fed has been running an ultra-low interest rate experiment for the last two decades. This has made it incredibly cheap to borrow money.
When you can borrow money for next to nothing, you spend more money than you would otherwise. Everyday people do this. Large corporations do, too.

You can see that the number of U.S. banks has plummeted. There are now 65% fewer banks than there were in the 1980s.
In addition, we are seeing that people are fleeing, in mass, from the two key economic centers in the United States, namely, California and New York. This will wreak havoc on the economy.

Economists Predict 800,000 People Will Leave New York and California Because of High Taxes

Economists Arthur Laffer and Stephen Moore are predicting a mass exodus of affluent individuals from New York and California. The tax base, supported by the departing wealth, will cause a catastrophic economic failure in the two most important economies inside the United States. Local and state government will have to borrow enormous sums of money and this will have a very negative impact on the value of the dollar from the grassroots and up. Cash will become volatile. Gold will serve as the counterbalance and be stable.

The Departure of Gold From the US

Gold is leaving the United in volume. The Turks have repatriated their gold supply formerly stored in America. However, this kind of gold departure is minuscule in its impact compare to what else is going on.
The wealth of this country are buying gold and leaving the country with it. Why? There can only be two reasons and they run hand in hand with each other. There is a going to be a currency war (e.g. China and America) and there is going to be a war, a war in which America will lose. If that was not true, the wealthy would leave their gold in the US.
King World is reporting that brokers are beginning to short gold. This means gold is not going to be readily available much longer because the wealthy will purchase the gold being shorted and they will horde the gold because of what is coming.
So what will people do? They will try and take their money out of the bank. However, they will soon discover that the banks have built safeguards into taking your money of the bank. And before you take your money out of the bank, there are three laws that you need to know.

The Three Laws You Must Know Before Taking Your Money Out of the Bank

Taking what was your money out of the bank is no longer a matter of walking up to your friendly teller with a withdrawal slip and the teller cheerfully honors your request and you calmly exit the bank with your money in tow. In fact, your teller is trained to look for certain indicators in any cash withdrawal of any significance.
As you move to withdraw the bulk of your money, there are three federal banking laws that you should be cognizant of, namely, Cash Transaction Report (CTR), a Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) and structuring. Before proceeding with the planed withdrawal of your money, I would strongly suggest that you read the following federal guidelines as it relates to CTR’s as produced by the The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). All the federal regulations contained in this article are elucidated in this series of federal reports.
Before withdrawing your money, please be aware of these three regulations related to getting your money out of the bank.

(1) CTR

Federal law requires that the bank file a report based upon any withdrawal or deposit of $10,000 or more on any single given day.The law was designed to put a damper on money laundering, sophisticated counterfeiting and other federal crimes.
To remain in compliance with the law, financial institutions must obtain personal identification, information about the transaction and the social security number of the person conducting the transaction.
Technically, there is no federal law prohibiting the use of large amounts of cash. However, a CTR must be filed in ALL cases of cash transaction regardless of the reason underlying the transaction. This means your cash transaction will be on the radar.

(2) Structuring and (3) SAR

There will undoubtedly be some geniuses whose math ability will tell them that all they have to do is to withdraw $9,999.99 and the bank and its protector, the federal government will be none the wiser. It is not quite that simple. Here are a few examples of structuring violations that one should be aware of:

1. Barry S. has obtained $15,000 in cash he obtained from selling his truck. He knows that if he deposits $15,000 in cash, his financial institution will be required to file a CTR. Instead he deposits $7,500 in cash in the morning with one financial institution employee and comes back to the financial institution later in the day to another employee to deposit the remaining $7,500, hoping to evade the CTR reporting requirement. Barry should have used multiple accounts to conduct this transaction.
2. Hillary C. needs $16,000 in cash to pay for supplies for her arts and crafts business. Hillary cashes an $8,000 personal check at a financial institution on a Monday. She subsequently cashes another $8,000 personal check at the bank the following day. Hillary is careful to have cashed the two checks on different days and structured the transactions in an attempt to evade the CTR reporting requirement. Hillary should have made irregular deposits on staggered days covering a significant period of time. Or better, yet she should convert her soon worthless cash to precious metals.
3. A married couple, Bill and Hillary, sell a vehicle for $12,000 in cash. To evade the CTR reporting requirement, Bill and Hillary structure their transactions using different accounts. Bill deposits $8,000 of that money into his and Hillary’s joint account in the morning. Later that day, Hillary deposits $1,500 into the joint account, then $2,500 into her sister’s account, which is later transferred to Bill and Hillary’s joint account at the same bank. Again, Bill and Hillary should have used multiple banks.
The aggregate total of the three transactions totals more than the $10,000 threshold, therefore, a SAR would be filed by the bank and you would be the subject of a federal investigation as all three of the above cases clearly violate the federal banking laws related to structuring. It is a federal crime to break up transactions into smaller amounts for the purpose of evading the CTR reporting requirement. In these instances, the bank is required to file a SAR which serves to notify the federal government of an individual’s attempt to structure deposits or withdrawals by circumventing the $10,000 reporting requirement.

Structuring transactions to prevent a CTR from being reported can result in imprisonment for not more than five years and/or a fine of up to $250,000. If structuring involves more than $100,000 in a twelve month period or is performed while violating another law of the federal government, the penalty is doubled. This is what former Speaker of the House, Dennnis Hastert is facing. 

Enforcement

Much like the enforcement of our tax laws, the federal government’s enforcement of its banking laws as it relates to CTR’s, SAR’s and subsequent structuring is quite draconian. Civilian asset forfeiture laws come into play. The government can seize your bank accounts while it determines if a crime has been committed. The government can literally seize your assets in perpetuity without an order of the court. Of course, you could try and sue but you will be up against the deep pockets of the federal government and the case could take years. By the time your case is decided, the financial banking crisis that you are so desperately trying to avoid by withdrawing your money, could be over.  So, proceed with caution.