Global Market Slump Spreads - Greece Markets Hammered "Down 23%", More Top Insights

Greece debt crisis: Athens stock market falls 23% as manufacturing plunges 

Heavy losses in Athens as trading resumes

The market has opened and it’s not pretty. The Athex Composite has plunged more than 20%, to 615.12. The falls are even deeper in financials, with banking shares down by as much as 30% – the maximum allowed. Market observers caution, however, that we will not know the true picture until things settle down a bit in a few hours’ time.

The Economic And Financial Problems In Europe Are Only Just Beginning…

Right now, the financial world is focused on the breathtaking stock market crash in China, but don’t forget to keep an eye on what is happening in Europe.  Collectively, the European Union has a larger population 

than the United States, a larger economy than either the U.S. or China, and the banking system in Europe is the biggest on the planet by far.  So what happens in Europe really matters, and at this point the European economy is absolutely primed for a meltdown.  European debt levels have never been higher, European banks are absolutely loaded with non-performing loans and high-risk derivatives, and the unemployment rate in the eurozone is currently more than double the unemployment rate in the United States.  In all the euphoria surrounding the “deal” that temporarily kept Greece in the eurozone, I think that people have forgotten that the economic and financial fundamentals in Europe have continued to deteriorate.  Whether Greece ultimately leaves the eurozone or not, a great financial crisis is inevitably coming to Europe.  It is just a matter of time.

In many ways, the economy of Europe is in significantly worse shape than the U.S. economy.  Just recently, the IMF issued a report which warned that the eurozone is “susceptible to negative shocks” and could be facing very tough economic times in the near future. 

Supply and Demand in the Gold and Silver Futures Markets

The bear market in bullion is an artificial creation.

India set to overtake China as world's most populous country by 2022

Populations in many regions are still young. In Africa, children under 15 account for two fifths of the population.

Debt Slaves: 7 Out Of 10 Americans Believe That Debt ‘Is A Necessity In Their Lives’

debt is considered to be just part of normal life.  We go into debt to go to college, we go into debt to buy a vehicle, we go into debt to buy a home, and we are constantly using our credit cards to buy the things that we think we need. 

Exxon Earnings: Carnage 

Moments ago energy titan Exxon Mobile, which not too long ago was bigger than AAPL by market cap, and is now roughly half the size of the phone maker, reported earnings which were, in a word, carnage. Starting at the bottom, EPS of $1.00 was not only a big miss to already reduced expectations of $1.11, but also the worst quarter since 2009.

Home Capital scandal may presage a slowdown: Don Pittis 

On a conference call yesterday Home Capital CEO Gerald Soloway insisted that the problem with its brokers was not an indication of a mortgage fraud crisis across Canada. Home Capital's delinquencies remain low, and the company says it has stopped doing business with the brokers that investigators had shown to be pretending customers' income qualified them for mortgages.

The War On Cash & Your Freedom – Mike Maloney 

“It’s the first step in the government being able to just turn you off if they don’t like you for some reason.”

“If we go 100% electronic, the banks can decide to charge you whatever you want in each transaction, the government gets to tax every transaction immediately.”

The Investment Legends Are Warning of a Systemic Event 

Seth Klarman used to manage the fourth largest hedge fund in the US. A legendary value investor (copies of his book Margin of Safety sells for over $1,500 on Amazon), Klarman returned billions in assets under management to outside investors citing “too few” opportunities in the market (again, a legend stating that the market was overvalued).

Warren Buffett, perhaps the single biggest cheerleader for stocks in the last 100 years, is sitting on a record amount of cash. The reason is obvious: the market is dangerously overpriced.

Learning Success: 

APPLY Tips From The Best

Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway – He is a deeply conservative trader during the times that everyone around him is moving from one extreme to the other to the tune of huge losses and gains. Warren Buffett is a perfect example of patience, proving that slow and steady generally wins the business race. (Although I continue to press my own desire to spur Fishbowl’s inventory software business to race!)

Top Weekly Ideas and Insights

An Inconvenient Truth:

What Happens When Top Economists Realize Physical Growth Constraints?

 EXISTENTIAL REALITY 

"Humanity's Coming of Age"

 - The Last Days of Economic Growth -

Asian Markets Take A Break, Not Over Yet, & Top Insights

Asian markets up as European leaders struggle for Greece deal

Markets in Shanghai, Sydney and Tokyo all positive even as eurozone leaders struggled for a deal with indebted Greece

Asian markets rose on Monday while the euro was marginally lower as European leaders struggled to hammer out a debt reform deal to keep Greece in the eurozone, with a source saying a compromise had finally been found.

Shanghai continued its recovery from weeks of wild volatility as several companies returned to trading while China released mixed data showing a pick-up in export growth but two-way trade sinking in the first half of the year.

The Wall Street Journal begins this article with the Greek crisis in a nutshell.

A week ago, Greeks partied in the streets after voting to resoundingly reject terms of a new European bailout. On Sunday, those same streets were filled with a dazed and confused populace struggling to understand how they were now faced with swallowing a deal even tougher than the one they had just snubbed.

In the summer heat in central Athens, groups of people gathered around televisions at cafes showing Sunday’s live coverage of talks in Brussels, where top Greek officials were scrambling to negotiate a last-ditch rescue. Like Anna Christoforidi, many viewers struggled to understand the strange turnabout that could result in the screws being turned even tighter as a condition for Greece remaining in the eurozone.

The Guardian view on the Greek negotiations: out in the cold or in chains

Editorial

The Greek crisis began like the proverbial cloud that was no bigger than a man’s hand and has grown into a perfect storm which has shaken Europe to its foundations. Regardless of the final outcome of the negotiations, what unfortunately can be said with certainty is that the union’s fault lines have all but burst under the pressure.

Between France and Germany, between north and south and east and west in the union, and even within nations, there are now profound differences, only potential before, which it will take a long time to resolve. The past few days have seen Paris commit itself to keeping Greece in the euro and the union in a way which puts President François Hollande on a collision course with hawks in the German government, headed by the finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble. France’s mentoring of Greece as that country made its own final proposals did not seek an easy or soft arrangement, but nor did it envisage Greece’s reduction to the status of a debt colony, not too different from the conditions once imposed on Egypt and China in the imperial era, with foreigners in controlling positions in its economy.

Greek crisis: surrender fiscal sovereignty in return for bailout, Merkel tells Tsipras

The terms are much stiffer than those imposed by the creditors over the past five years. This, said the senior official, was payback for the emphatic no to the creditors’ terms delivered by the snap referendum that Tsipras staged a week ago.

“He was warned a yes vote would get better terms, that a no vote would be much harder,” said the senior official.

The Eurogroup document said experts from the troika of creditors – the International Monetary Fund, European Commission and European Central Bank– would be on the ground in Athens to monitor the proposed bailout programme. The trio would also have a say in all relevant Greek draft legislation before it is presented to parliament. Furthermore, the Greeks will have to amend all legislation already passed by the Syriza government this year that had not been agreed with the creditors.

While Greece’s fate was being debated in Brussels, in Athens the ruling leftwing Syriza party was showing signs of disintegration. Demands that the reforms be approved by the Greek government and put into law by Wednesday were described as “utter blackmail” by leading party members and met with disbelief

Watch These Charts To Better Understand China's Stock Market Crash

Mainland China’s stock market continued to gyrate wildly last week after crashing by more than a third since mid-June. After plunging earlier in the week, stocks finally surged on Thursday and Friday due to several aggressive countermeasures taken by Chinese authorities. 

These countermeasures includean interest rate cut, curbing IPOs, loosening margin requirements, allowing the use of property as collateral for margin loans, and encouraging brokerage firms to buy stocks with cash from the People’s Bank of China. Short sellers have even been threatened with arrest, which has raised eyebrows around the world.

China's stock market turbulence is over? Don't count on it

The numbers are mind-boggling. Ten days of falls on the Shanghai stock exchange resulted in losses that exceeded the GDP of Mexico. And 12 million Chinese citizens who opened share-trading accounts in May were nursing potentially ruinous losses. Margin trading – speculating on the stock exchange with borrowed money – increased five-fold in a year to 2.3tn yuan (£230bn).

Gerald Celente: Greek Crisis, Gold and Geopolitics 

Gerald Celente is Publisher of the Trends Journal and he developed the Globalnomic® methodology to identify, track, forecast and manage trends. Unencumbered by political dogma, rigid ideology or conventional wisdom, Mr. Celente, whose motto is “think for yourself,” observes and analyzes the current events forming future trends for what they are — not for the way he wants them to be.

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Top Weekly Ideas and Insights

An Inconvenient Truth:

What Happens If Global Warming Continues?

 EXISTENTIAL REALITY 

Methane Bomb 

or Archaic 

Fabrications?