The U.S. Stock market has lost $3.0 trillion just this past month. Home building has contracted in 5 of the last 6 quarters, car purchases are slowing, new home sales and existing home sales are down. A large percentage of third quarter GDP growth came from government spending which is totally bogus. These are deflationary forces and yet the Fed is contracting (taking money out of the system) the money supply to the tune of $80 billion per month with their Quantitative Tightening policy to exchange securities on their balance sheet for money in the economy...meaning the opposite of QE. The Fed is raising short-term interest rates, which is slowing housing, auto sales, and small business spending.
The stock experienced its worst month since October 2008. Stocks look to have completed their multidecade "Jaws of Death pattern", and the decline is now underway...probably.
Take a look at this....
Here are the Plunges and Crashes occurring so far in 2018: (Remember, over 15% is considers a crash)
Australia plunging 10%
Germany 18.4%
London 16.7%
FTSE Europe 35%
Canada 11%
Euro Stoxx 50 18.7%
Italy 21.5%
Russia 9.5%
Turkey down 29%
Dow Industrials down 9.5%
Emerging Markets crashing 27%
Japan 13.3%
Hong Kong 25%
France 10%
China crashing 30%
India 14.6%.
