Violent Swings Just A Warm-Up For What's Coming

Easy come, easy go. AMZN stunned traders with a 135-point gain Thursday from the bombed-out depths of Wednesday’s selloff. Then, after the close, the stock reversed steeply, shedding 180 points and sucking tens of billions of dollars from stock markets in the U.S. and around the world in mere minutes. A disappointing forecast for the holiday season triggered the avalanche, which has abated somewhat this evening, although presumably not for long. Analysts were left guessing about the reasons for the downbeat forecast, but higher pay for warehouse workers was cited by some. Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL) also missed estimates, crashing the stock 118 points, or 11 %, at the same time.

The devastation in these two stocks will put the kibosh on the wilding spree that recouped nearly all of the previous day’s huge losses. Evidence continues to mount that the bull market begun in March 2009 is over. If so, the transition from bull market to bear is going to produce some of the wildest price swings traders have ever seen. If what we’ve witnessed lately is just a warm-up for even more-extreme swings as seems likely, we’re in for bumpy ride over the next couple of years.

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