This article was originally published by Michael Snyder at The Economic Collapse Blog.
There are some people out there that thought that global financial markets would be largely unaffected by the war in Ukraine. Those people were wrong. This week, investors have received a very rude wake-up call. Stock prices are plunging, commodity prices are going completely nuts, and a very thick cloud of fear has descended upon Wall Street. The fact that this war has permanently changed economic and financial conditions is starting to sink in, and it is likely that the level of panic will continue to rise in the days ahead.
At this point, even average people on the street are having discussions about the price of oil. Just a few hours ago, it briefly spiked to 139 dollars a barrel…
US crude futures jumped 6% to trade at $123 a barrel. Brent crude, the global benchmark, briefly spiked as high as $139 a barrel before easing back to $125. That’s still a leap of more than 35% in just one month.
We all knew that the price of oil was going to be going up, but very few of us expected this sort of dramatic movement so soon.
And as the price of oil goes up, so does the average price of gasoline in the United States. According to Gas Buddy, the all-time record was just broken for the very first time since 2008…
The national average price of gasoline in the U.S. today broke the existing record, rewriting the all-time high to today’s $4.104 per gallon, according to GasBuddy, the leading fuel savings platform saving North American drivers the most money on gas. The previous all-time high was set back in 2008 at $4.103 per gallon, just ahead of the U.S. Great Recession and housing crisis. The national average price of diesel is also nearing a new record, now at $4.63 per gallon, likely to break the record of $4.846 per gallon in the next two weeks.
If you can believe it, some investors are anticipating that things will get much, much worse in the weeks ahead…
Prices to buy call options at higher prices surged Monday as the market assessed the possibility of a supply cut-off from Russia, one of the world’s biggest exporters. More than 1,200 contracts for the option to buy May Brent futures at $200 a barrel traded on Monday, according to ICE Futures Europe data. The options expire March 28, three days before the contract settles. The price to buy them jumped 152% to $2.39 a barrel.
A $150-a-barrel call option for the June Brent contract doubled from Friday, according to ICE, while the cost of $180 call options jumped 110%.
It may not happen immediately, but I do believe that we will eventually see oil trade for $200 a barrel.
Of course the Russians are even more pessimistic. They are telling us that it could actually reach $300 a barrel.
Instead of doing something to fix this crisis, the Biden administration continues to act as if we are living in some sort of a fantasy world. On Monday, Vice-President Kamala Harris was trotted out to encourage everyone to transition to electric vehicles…
‘We are all in the midst of a turning point. We have the technologies to transition to a zero emission fleet,’ Harris said during the announcement. ‘We can address the climate crisis and grow our economy at the same time.’
Perhaps someone should explain to Harris that the vast majority of Americans can’t afford to purchase a new electric vehicle at this moment.
Most of us are just going to have to get by with the vehicles that we have right now, and filling up those vehicles with gasoline is going to become really, really painful.
Meanwhile, wheat futures closed “limit up” once again on Monday…
Among other commodities, the type that actually matter when considering social unrest and revolutions, wheat futures closed limit up again at a record $1,425 translating into an all time high $12.94 per bushel on fear Ukraine and Russian output will be cut off.
The price of wheat has been going higher and higher and higher.
Yesterday, when I warned that we were headed into an unprecedented global food crisis, I was not exaggerating one bit.
The era of cheap bread is over. It won’t be too long before five dollars for a loaf of bread is considered to be a bargain, and so I would encourage you to stock up now.
I warned about a coming global famine in Lost Prophecies, and I warned about it again in 7 Year Apocalypse. This is not a game, and the things that so many of us have been warning about are starting to come to pass right in front of our eyes.
Other commodities are going up even faster than the price of wheat.
If you can believe it, the price of nickel had risen by 82 percent at one point on Monday…
Nickel prices soared as much as 82% to $52,700 a metric ton, the highest in the 35-year history of the contract trading on the London Metal Exchange, as fears over Russian supplies triggered a historic short squeeze according to Bloomberg.
The metal added more than $22,700 to trade at a record-high $52,700 a metric ton. That builds on nickel’s 19% surge last week as banks cut exposure to Russian commodity suppliers because of Western sanctions and shippers, such as Maersk, stay clear of Russian and Ukrainian ports.
82 percent in one day!
Nickel is used in countless products. You will find it in batteries, in stainless steel, in coins and even in guitar strings.
And it turns out that Russia is a significant player in the global nickel industry…
Russia is a large producer of nickel, supplying about 6% of global demand, according to Bloomberg. Over 70% of the nickel production is used in stainless steel. And 7% goes into EV batteries, where demand is growing in leaps and bounds. But EV batteries use highly pure “Class-1” nickel, of which Russia’s MMC Norilsk Nickel PJSC produces 17% of the supply.
As commodities soar, stock prices continue their alarming plunge.
On Monday, we actually witnessed the worst day of the year for both the Dow and the S&P 500…
Stocks fell again on Monday, following four straight weeks of declines, as investors grew increasingly concerned higher energy prices stemming from the Russia-Ukraine conflict would slow the economy and raise inflation.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 797.42 points to close at 32,817.38, dragged down by a nearly 8% loss in American Express. The S&P 500 declined close to 3% to 4,201.09, falling deeper into correction territory. The 500-stock average sits more than 12% from its record close. The Nasdaq Composite lost 3.6% to 12,830.96, and now sits in bear market territory, more than 20% from its all-time close.
The fact that the Nasdaq is now in bear market territory doesn’t tell the whole story.
At this point, there are quite a few tech stocks that are already down more than 75 percent from their all-time highs.
There is carnage everywhere that you look on Wall Street, and many are wondering if the big crash is finally upon us.
I don’t have an answer to that question, but things certainly don’t look good.
The markets have been teetering on the brink of a precipice for a long time, and now the war in Ukraine may finally be the event that pushes us over the edge.
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About the Author: My name is Michael Snyder and my brand new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available on Amazon.com. In addition to my new book, I have written five other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, “Get Prepared Now”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. (#CommissionsEarned) When you purchase any of these books you help to support the work that I am doing, and one way that you can really help is by sending digital copies as gifts through Amazon to family and friends. Time is short, and I need help getting these warnings into the hands of as many people as possible. I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream, and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe. I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article. The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial, or health decisions. I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and anyway that you can share these articles with others is a great help. These are such troubled times, and people need hope. John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” If you have not already done so, I strongly urge you to ask Jesus to be your Lord and Savior today.
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Globalism ties everything and everyone to everything and everyone else.
Change one thing, change all things.
Zee new vurld oder out of chaos iz being implimented. You vill own nuzzing und be happy or be dead.
EVERYTHING in the world today that is happening seriously begs the question: If you were to die tonight, where would you go?
Without the saving blood of Jesus Christ, Heaven will not be where you spend eternity. The only other option is hell. I do not want you to go there. The only one who does is the devil.
Please open your eyes and see that Jesus died for you, and is offering His free gift of Salvation. He died on the cross, and He Himself spent 3 days in hell so that you would not have to do so. He then raised Himself from the dead, to show that He would also raise those who DO believe in Him. God created you. He is NOT myth. Please do not believe the lies this world system would have you believe. Regardless of what you have heard, read, or learned, JESUS is the ONLY WAY to Heaven.
John 3:16 says “For God so loved the world (You who is reading this), that He gave His ONLY Begotten Son (Jesus), that Whosoever Believes on Him, will not Perish, but will have everlasting life.”
To learn more: nowtheendbegins.com/eternal-life-through-the-blood-of-jesus-christ-is-a-free-gift/
Welcome to the wildest, craziest, scariest time on earth. I am praying for all of whom this message of Life and Love reaches. I urge you to please go the above site, and after you are finished with the article, please explore the rest of the site. I have to say that I was led to it, because I was. Many, if not all, of your questions about what ‘all of what is happening lately means?’ will be answered.
I Corinthians 7:29 But this I say, brethren, the time is short: it remaineth, that both they that have wives be as though they had none; 7:30And they that weep, as though they wept not; and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not; and they that buy, as though they possessed not;
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6fd5489b26f45f542be569a74e74f0613bf2eea1912c6c4b451acbb0d1948c47.jpg
Finally, we can GET ON WITH IT!
I will be utterly delighted to see either the Stock Market go to damn near Zero – taking all the FOOLS with it – and/or real live Hyperinflation finally wipe it all out. The only realistic way to get the axxholes OUT is the complete annihilation of the existing paradigm; Wall Street, the MIC, Congress (the FINEST body of Lawmakers that MONEY can BUY) and get that Fuxkin IDIOT out of the Oval Office…for a start.
After that, then we can take our time deciding just who needs to be HUNG. 1200 gallons of Deisel Fuel racked and packed, gotten when it was less than $2.00/gallon, enough food to last about 3 years and as of recently, 12,000 Watts of Solar to supplement my 13Kw Deisel generator. Ready? You frickin BET…and that’s just what I’ve got positioned Stateside. Back home in Alaska, the rest of the Clan is fully fixed up for GENERATIONS to come; embedded like an Alabama Tick.
Bring it ON…get it OVER with. Enjoy the Ride everyone, Yee-Haw!
JOG
“I will be utterly delighted to see either the Stock Market go to damn near Zero – taking all the FOOLS with it – ….. ”
And end that foolish 401K stuff, along with any other retirement plan based on increasing value by investments.
People should be content with working till the day they die the way most people throughout history have.
To be sure, the 401K situation is unfortunate…but you really didn’t think that they weren’t going to manufacture a means of stealing all those funds anyway…did you?
The entirety of “Western Financial Markets” (since the advent of the Federal Reserve) was always being explicitly set up as the greatest Ponzi scheme ever concocted by human thought. Sad, but for many, an obvious, self-evident truth. Those “press-ganged” into THIER system are – effectively – without hope.
Those who recognized this tragedy in the making early on have WATCHED for years, scratching our head’s in amazement as it went on…and on…and ON, wondering what would be the oft spoke of, “tipping point”…which now is pitifully plain. We’re just all tired of waiting for it all reach it’s logical conclusion, VERY tired.
Best Regards and full sympathy for those so afflicted…JOG
I know he is just a puppet, but Biden’s foreign policy reminds me of the black sheriff in Blazing Saddles that took himself hostage.
Sanction Russia and the US will go dark. Nearly half of the uranium the US uses in it’s power plants comes from Russia, said two of the largest US utilities, Exelon and Duke Energy.
Despite the antisocially-motivated wishes of some, its only the Russian stock market that’s been tanked.
US fundamentals are fine, and even if they weren’t, Russia didn’t keel over over with their stock market wipe-out.
There would be nothing to gain from a US stock market crash, except to give the Russians something to crow about. And weaken the already eroding ability of the US to project power domestically and internationally.
The US is very energy-independent. The only thing holding things back are the anti-economy, anti-American-worker policies of the Biden administration because the Democrats are obsessed with Resetting America.
The US depended on Russia for some commodities like strategic metals, but nothing that couldn’t be sourced from places like Africa.
The progressives need to hype collapse to pretext social engineering controls, but there’s no fat left to cut except amongst themselves.
Howdy BAT,
I would beg to differ that US fundamentals are fine.
The Stock Market is already hyper-inflated due in no small part to the egregious actions of the Federal Reserve in printing tens of Trillions of dollars from out of thin air over the past decade plus. American manufacturing – or rather what’s left thereof – is suffering a slow (but accellerating) ‘Death by a Thousand Cuts’ due to GloboCorp having off-shored the bulk of heavy industry/labor intensive production to ‘Greener Pastures’ in low-rent regions of the Globe.
Our Political house is an abject wreck, rotting from the head DOWN (like a fish) populated by nothing more than self-serving, self-dealing cowards and virtual traitors to the America I know and love. The entirety of the Regulatory process in this nation has undergone complete and total ‘Capture’ by the monied interest and virtually every three-letter Agency of the Federal Governance is either actively or passively assisting in the dismemberment of these United States. Our Military is more concerned with being ‘Woke’ than winning on the Battlefield…and the potential list in toto, goes on, ad infinitum, ad nauseum.
Please to note that at no point in the foregoing did I even begin an Ad Hominem assault on you/your thesis…but I would actually enjoy reading any cogent argument you might provide supporting your assertions in light of the counter-argument detailed – in brief – above.
With all due respect, JOG
The stock market is a diverse place. Some sectors do well, others not so much.
And while the US has been printing trillions, the rest of the world has been buying trillions for their currency reserves.
Meanwhile, stock market and crypto corrections have erased trillions of excess fiat. Money also gets locked up in financial instruments for rich investors, instead of funding small and medium-sized businesses as accessible loans.
This round of inflation owes more to broken supply chains than over printing dollars.
There’s a shortage of dollars where they are really needed in the economy. Banks would rather fund mergers and acquisitions than entrepreneurs.
Howdy BAT,
Sorry I couldn’t get back with a response sooner.
A while back an article ran over at ZH – unfortunately I can’t provide a link thereto – in which the author analyzed every instance if hyper-inflation from modern times back to ancient times.
His conclusion was rather simple, that being that the onset of of such invariably was set in motion by the tandem of both a large excess of currency existant in the system AND a decrease in the “Velocity of Money” as an if and only if proposition.
Certainly, there are a variety if instruments out there which have absorbed a vast amount of money…but there is yet a huge amount of same in the hands of foreign entities of all sorts inasmuch as the dollar IS the reserve currency on planet Earth currently. The problem arises when – for whatever reason – those owning dollar denominated instruments abruptly find themselves needing capitol. Surely that occurs daily…but in minimal quantities. Now, there is a new paradigm arising, one dividing the East from the West on a multitude of levels…and those on the other side of the divide will rapidly feel the need to begin divesting themselves from proscribed dollars. Under that circumstance then potentially a FLOOD of such is expected to be redeemed for other acceptableforms of capital. As those re-enter our economy the stage is set for calamity. Already, the velocity of Money is slowing rapidly due to supply chain issues yes, but also both people and institutions are reading the handwriting on the wall and holding their assets more and more tightly in the face of the impending East/West division.
The article I referred to to previously indicated that in no uncertain terms, EVERY time in history when both conditions existed the outcome was identically the same.
Personally, I’m just tired of being a tax-donkey fir a privileged class who are little more than highway robbers. Obviously, due to ‘capture’ there are no solutions arising from within the system which are capable of restoring what has been lost…so let by all means, let it FAIL…and after it does we’ll rebuild it without all the parasites bleeding “We, the People” DRY.
Regards…JOG
NP. Keeping up with a thread is difficult and losing track of where one has been is easy.
I may have read a version of that article on ZH some time ago.
The big questions might be are – to what extent is there really an excess of currency, and, to what extent is the velocity of money really slowing?
What’s happening is closer to a rebalancing, with the rich using inflation to siphon more value from middle class growth than usual in an attempt to preserve relative position. Bt if the kil the middle class, they kill the golden goose.
Throughout history money and commodity were closely linked through reliance on commodity currencies. A scarcity of a key commodity would translate more directly into a decrease in the velocity of money.
The modern fiat world changes that because money can be created or destroyed as needed throughout the system; not all money is printed solely by the central banks. Add to that, the massive redundancy in key commodities.
A failed wheat harvest, hoarded gold or depleted silver mine, has less effect on the rate of transactions. Individual people may buy less/pay more but money is still moving among the same pool of market participants.
WEF-crashing the economy of the entire world seems like a jumped-up version of Hunt silver-nomics, and that ended with the Hunt bros being Reset.
The WEF wants to rule the world by owning the money; that doesn’t work if their money is no good.
There may be a push to de-dollarize, but also to prevent losses to wealth owners through de-dollarization.
Given the sheer volume of nations’ wealth tied up in US$, it makes more sense for nations to reduce the rate of dollarization of their wealth and increase their holdings in other forms of wealth.
The $US can lose dominance without losing value in real terms as part of global GDP.
That’s not me saying that the US will go dark…it’s those 2 utilities that actually run those nuclear plants saying it. I think they have more insight to their supply chains than you or I.
Howdy JRS,
Right you are, however…
Most Nuclear plants can run at or near capacity for a few years (depending on the specific reactor design involved) without a necessity to “Re-Fuel”. As someone with an MS in Nuclear Engineering, I can assure you of that. Additionally, even during a re-fuel operation only a percentage of the total rods are depleted – typically those nearest the center of the core. Hence a re-fuel typically involves shuttling around the outermost rods to more central locations whilst placing the newer rods at the periphery.
The Nuclear industry has a habit of overstating things in light of all the bad press they’ve received via the PTB stirring up (and funding!) the tree-huggers; little do those know how badly they are shooting themselves in their feet railing against Nuclear Power.
Cheers…JOG
Look over there while we do something over here.
Bill Gates geneticly modified Aedes aegypti mosquitos have a deadly effect to be released in Florida and California to kill the offspring before they mature, but with Gates there is always a deadly effect on humans that they always hide. No tested reports have been done to humans, animals and environment in peer reviews and many are against this saying it is dangerous. There are no prominent tropical diseases by mosquitos in California, so why release these manipulated mosquitos there?
They may be carrying something else we don’t know about that spread to female mosquitos and other mosquitos—spike protein, nanoparticles, diseases that harm humans through bites like Marburg, or any of the tropical diseases they say they are preventing like Gates polio vaccines created polio in Africa.
Go see at the Epoch Times and read the article. The question should be do you trust the Globalist who says he wants vaccines to depopulate the earth, Bill Gates for his bio research?
Wait until wheat futures go up, and the futures for a whole lot of commodities go up, I mean way up. Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus supply almost a third of the world’s wheat, most of sunflower oil, and a large percentage of fertilizers. Russia supplies a lot of the world’s metals like nickel, etc, and much of the world’s rare earth metals, and oil. Europe depends almost entirely on Russians natural gas. And on and on. How do our politicians believe they can cut out these countries from the global economy and not have any impact? Literally half of all wheat grown depends on fertilizer, now we have sanctions against fertilizer. Are TPTB that stupid, perhaps some but generally no. Rather, this Ukrainian mess helps serves their nefarious goals to curtail the things people need, for their good of course. Meanwhile, the US will just print more money. Yeah, that will fix everything.
The US gov’t has paid billions and billions to construct several high-tech “research” bio-laboratories across Ukraine. Evidence points to nothing less than the laboratories being used to research and develop dangerous “biological agents”. The question is; who is the group, or think tank, or organization, or whoever behind this creation, and what would be its motive. Why were these labs built so close to Russia in the last few years, why in Ukraine? Why were they kept secret from the American people if their existence is for good and benign purposes? There are many unanswered questions. It doesn’t take a stretch to conclude why they are there and what their use is.
At first the existence of the labs were denied. When Russia invaded, our gov’t became concerned about their exposure. The order was given to destroy or remove all the research work, materials, documentation, samples, everything. The neo-cons have a lot to hide.
The one commodity that is really the only one that matters, hot ladies, will be dropping in price going forward because of this war. Enjoy!
I just wrote about the same subject to my brothers. What people do not get is how much the government forces us to waste. For example: we grow 15 BILLION bushels of corn in the US. And we put 5 Billion bu in our gas tank. That is totally NUTS!
With cost of fertilizer going up by 4X corn is going to probably double. How much corn you going to buy to feed your pigs and cows?
We citizens are going to get an econ lesson that is way beyond Econ 101.