The Market has been a virtual playground for twenty years. I'm glad I don't have any money in the "Wall Street Casino" because with all the derivatives and index funds and everything, no one is actually buying into anything of real value. The whole thing is a house of cards standing on one minor detail: the Fed Interest Rate. When that goes up because the US can't pay its debts, it will collapse and destroy the US economy.

For those not familiar with national economic indicators, three of the biggest ones are 1) Housing, 2) Bonds, and 3) Stocks. Some analysts refer to this as the three-legged stool of investing. But even casual analysis of these three shows that the whole system is poised for total collapse.

1) Housing has already collapsed once. And instead of getting rid of Fanny and Freddy, the government doubled-down, now requiring that all mortgages go to Fanny and Freddy. Add to this a housing market that is underwritten by insanely low interest rates which encourage people to buy insanely expensive real estate AND the banks being more than happy to underwrite these loans knowing they will just turn around and sell them to Fanny/Freddy and we have a hyper-inflated real estate market where the taxpayer holds all the risk.

2) Bonds. Many bonds - especially municipal bonds - have a one year term and because they are publicly funded are a low-risk investment for seniors who need a steady income stream from their retirement portfolios. But current bond yields - due to the current interest rates being near zero - are actually negative, meaning that those who invest in them are losing money for the first time in history. This makes bond issuers such as state and local governments really happy because they can issue the bonds at or near the price of the money they are buying but yet pay off the bond holders with devalued future funds. Quite the racket if you can get it.

One of the other side-effects of these abnormally-low interest rates is that corporate- and long-term investors are turning away from bonds because the ROI just isn't there. This pushes their investment money into...

3) Stocks, which have become horribly over-priced as a result. Because 1) and 2) above are horribly-risky investment categories for any sane investor, where else is your money going to go to eke out even a meager gain? The Stock Market. This has resulted in a proliferation of worthless investment instruments such as index funds and other derivatives which are nothing more than a bet on the roulette wheel.

Proof? Precious metal prices are climbing as more and more investors are beginning to hedge, pulling their money out of these valueless investment mediums and into physical commodities which have utility outside their monetary value.

And I'll make this prediction: if Trump loses, you'll see investment bankers begin to shed these valueless investments like molting snakes as they buy commodities. I won't be surprised if because the three-legged stool has become a one-legged stool that the whole thing tips over and dumps the common American taxpayer on their backside - then leaves them the bill.

Get ready, because its going to be a bumpy ride.

Things are somewhat different now. At this time, the drop in activity is self induced and could be reversed pretty much instantly by removing the restrictions. If the restrictions are kept on too long, irreversible damage could be done to the economy however.

The difference between then and now is that the "Depression" we are now in is artificial. As soon at the government gets its foot off our necks....it will turn around....unless we get Democrats.....then the chart might look exactly the same.

This is all completely liquid! If you had the money to do a 12 month experiment in investing you might get the surprise of your life.
$50K to buy 5 acres of buildable land.
$50K to your savings account.
$50K to cash in your safe.
$50K invested smartly* in the stock market.
$50K to buy 25 ounces of metal @$1950/.
At the end of this 12 month experiment you will have at least $150K of this money that did not earn squat. The other $100K just might do real well and show some growth. I play around on my own in the market and do just a little OK. My savings accounts do great for the bank but nothing for me. My property is a loss loser because of the taxes. I don't own much gold or silver. Any cash in a safe is not much better than money in savings. We have some money in a 401K and much to my surprise it has performed ridiculously well throughout this entire pandemic because it is in diversified funds and by much smarter investors than me. The fear we should all feel is this could all go up in smoke in a flash. The wall street casino is a very dangerous place but I don't honestly see any safe havens out here for excess money any of us might have.

That graph is exactly what my stock adviser has been telling me. We'll see.

One might wonder how the graph maker computed the left hand side y-axis scale.
Looks to need a bit wider range of values to me.

Nice-looking graph, but the Title, and the Axes have no labels, so it could be anything!