* Let me begin my final podcast of 2015 by wishing all of my listeners a Happy New Year * It certainly wasn't a happy New Year's Eve Day on Wall Street * Normally the last day of the year is a positive one; you normally have a Santa Clause rally and it continues on to New Year's Eve * That wasn't the case today. The Dow Jones finished its first down year since 2008 - down 178 points * The S&P also negative on the year, the NASDAQ managed to gain about 5% or so * I'm hearing a lot of people blaming the weakness on oil prices * The transports were the weakest index of the year, I think they were down about 17% and this index stood to gain the most from low oil prices * So clearly, if transports are the weakest index, the overall weakness can't be solely because of oil prices * It has to be another reason, and I think it has to be the economy * Oil is being affected by weakness in the economy * Another interesting observation about today's selloff - the market not only closed on the lows, but made its lows on the close * We've been seeing this volatility - all of this selling into the close says that something big is going on here * You get more professionals selling when you sell market on close, and I think this is what is going on here * People are bracing for a very weak 2016 * The Fed had interest rates for all of 2015 - it didn't raise rates until the waning weeks of the year * Imagine how the Dow will contend with the threat of rising interest rates as 2016 continues * But the other problem for 2016 is the economy and we got more evidence of an extremely weak economy * I mentioned before the the Atlanta Fed GDP Now has Q4 GDP estimate down to 1.3 * Based on the numbers we got today, they are going to ratcheting those estimates down again * First, we got the weekly unemployment numbers, which have been low for a long time - We got the biggest unemployment claims numbers in one week in 10 months * The 4-week moving average is also the highest it has been in 5 months * Remember, when Yellen raised interest rates, the basis for the decision was supposed to be the strength in the labor market * No sooner did the Fed raise rates based on the labor market, but now the labor market is rolling over. * Unemployment is a lagging indicator * What is more indicative of what is coming, is the Chicago PMI number which came out a little later in the morning, which was abysmal * One of the worst economic reports of the entire year * Last month, we got 48.7, which was below expectation * They were looking for a December bounceback to 50 * Instead, the index crashed down to 42.9 * This is the lowest number since 2009 * Order backlogs has been down for 11 months in a row, and this is the worst performance since 1951 * The only time we've been at this level is during a recession * It is possible that we are in a recession * It is possible that they will originally report Q4 GDP as positive and then go back later in the year and revise the data to show we were in a recession * That's what they did with the Great Recession * Another reason I believe the economy is weaker than the numbers suggest is because the inflation rate is being under-reported * If the inflation rate is higher than the GDP deflator, then obviously we are in a contraction during most of this recovery * I am looking at what is happening in the economy not in what the government says about the economy * As bad as the numbers were, it did not promote any reaction in the the markets * My guess is that if we had had a big drop in unemployment claims or a really good PMI number the dollar would have spiked up and gold would have sold off,Our Sponsors:* Check out Infinite Epigenetics: https://infiniteepigenetics.com/GOLD* Check out Justin Wine and use my code SCHIFF20 for a great deal: https://www.justinwine.comPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.

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