I stay very, very far away from the stock markets, since they are a rigged game. But they are useful indicators of social mood, and so it’s informative that Tokyo just saw the worst day on the Nikkei since the end of the Heisei Boom in 1988.
Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 stock index plunged 12.4% on Monday, resuming sell-offs that are shaking world markets as investors fret over the state of the U.S. economy. The Nikkei closed down 4,451.28 points at 31,458.42. The market’s broader TOPIX index fell 12.8% as selling picked up in the afternoon.
Darkening the outlook for trading on Wall Street, early Monday the future for the S&P 500 was 2.4% lower and that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 2.6%.
The Nikkei 225 dropped 5.8% on Friday, making this its worst two-day decline ever. Its worst single-day rout was a plunge of 3,836 points, or 14.9%, on Oct. 20, 1987, a day that was dubbed “Black Monday.” This Monday was gloomy enough: at one point, the benchmark sank as much as 13.4%.
In any event, it’s clear that the central banks have kicked the can, locked things down, and pulled every rabbit out of their hat that they can imagine. This leaves war as the only available panacea, so I suppose it’s useful in this regard that WWIII already began two years ago; it would be an interesting historical echo if the USA gets directly involved again precisely two years after the global conflict began.
1914-1917, 1939-1941, 2022-2024?
The other thing that strikes me is that by sending four carriers to the Middle East, we may – MAY – be witnessing the anticipated Sicilian Expedition Moment in the making. Nothing would more profoundly exemplify the end of Pax Americana and the imperial USA than the simultaneous sinking of all four carriers.