The Dow Has Reached "A New Permanent Plateau"

The Idiocracy Has Discovered the Secret to Effortless Wealth - Money Printing

The geopolitical strife we are seeing in Eastern Europe, across Asia, and of course the Arab world, is no coincidence. The widely ignored rise of domestic violence here in the U.S. is a wholly related phenomenon. Globalization has boxed the world in to a dead-end pseudo-economy with no exit, even as ever-growing (wage) deflation is putting wage earners under EXTREME pressure. 

Globalization's funeral pyre is set, all it will take is one tiny spark...

Human Call Option: 
"Someone who is here for a good time, but not a long time"

Lead Me Not Into Annihilation

Inflation is considered a "sustained increase in the general price of goods and services over a period of time". Deflation is the exact opposite, a sustained decrease in price levels. "Stagflation" a phenomenon of the late 1970s, was inflation without economic growth. However, what we are experiencing right now is ANNIHILATION. It's an increase in price levels for critical goods and services while also experiencing a decrease in overall employment and real wages. There is nothing "sustainable" about it.

The Human Call Options Are Self-Imploding

In this context, it should come as no surprise that geopolitical anarchy is rising, along with the preponderance of school shootings, stabbings etc. The human call options are starting to self-implode under extreme psychological pressure which is having derivative psychological repercussions for everyone around them, including all of us.

"The Dow Has Reached A New Permanent Plateau" - Irving Fisher, September, 1929

The Dow closed Friday at the EXACT same level that it started this year, almost 4 and half months ago. Investors have thrown billions in new capital into a market that has gone nowhere. Meanwhile, investor complacency is also at rock bottom (via the VIX).

 
The New Eldorado: 
A Centrally Planned Dow - The only "Socialism" that's acceptable to Billionaires and Baby Boomers
The only question on the table is: Why didn't anyone try this sooner?
Apparently the Idiocracy has stumbled upon the secret to effortless wealth - money printing

Imagine how surprised everyone will be when this all ends abruptly, right in the middle of a Kardashian or AC360 episode - "Aw fuck, not this again!!!"

Dow With Fed Balance Sheet:

For Speculators it's Too Late to Hedge

It's worse than what is shown above, because speculators have lost billions in the high momentum sectors of Tech, Biotech, IPOs and small caps. Only now are they starting to protect themselves from risk. Too late - you can't effectively hedge after-the-fact without putting more downward pressure on the markets. After all, put (insurance) sellers have to hedge too (aka. short the underlying market).

The speculators Index: Equity Put/Call Index (50 DMA) with Russell 2000

The Russell 2000 small cap index has rolled over, but the put/call index is only now starting to rise...

Ponzi Schemes Don't Go in Reverse

The real story this week was the fact that the ECB indicated additional "easing" of some unknown type at the next meeting. This means that the U.S. Fed is now becoming less accommodative than the ECB for the first time in five years, which no surprise monkey-hammered the Euro. Unfortunately a strong Euro is the secret sauce behind foreign investors willingness to hold Ponzi-financed sovereign debt. So, just as it was back in 2007 when Greenspan said that ultra-low interest rates followed by rising interest rates DIDN'T implode the housing market, now all over again we get to find out just how clueless Central Banksters really are as to the incentive-based outcome of their policies.

Euro/Dollar ETF w/Volume

"Doh!" (And yes, Spanish stocks sold off hard on Friday)

Breaking down out of a rising wedge - basically the exact same (bearish) rising wedge we see in every risk asset across the entire globe i.e. see Dow chart above: