Did you know that 11 trillion dollars in global stock market wealth was wiped out during the third quarter of 2015? When I was emailed this figure by a friend, I was stunned for a moment. I knew that things were bad, but were they really this bad? When I first received this information, I had just finished a taping for a television show in which I had boldly declared that 5 trillion dollars of stock market wealth had been wiped out around the world. Unfortunately, the final number has turned out to be much larger than that. Over the past three months, the stock markets of all major global economies have been crashing simultaneously, and 11 trillion dollars of “paper wealth” has now completely vanished. The following comes from Fortune…
Global equity markets suffered a bruising third quarter, shedding $11 trillion worth of global shares over three months, according to Bloomberg.
It was the market's worst quarter since 2011. The prolonged slump was due to low prices for commodities such as oil, instability in China's markets, and the anticipation that the u.s. federal reserve will soon raise interest rates.
In light of this number, how in the world is it possible that there is still anyone out there that is claiming that “nothing happened” over the past few months?
In China, they sure aren't claiming that “nothing happened”. Chinese stocks are down about 40 percent from the peak of the market.
In Germany, they sure aren't claiming that “nothing happened”. As of a few days ago a quarter of all German stock market wealth had been wiped out since the peak earlier this year.
Yes, things have been a bit milder in the United States. So far, stocks are only down about 10 percent or so, but we did see some truly remarkable things happen over the past three months. We witnessed the 8th largest single day stock market crash on a point basis in U.S. history, we witnessed the 10th largest single day stock market crash in U.S. history, and we witnessed the single greatest intradaystock market crash in all of U.S. history. On August 24th the Dow plunged 1,089 points before bouncing back.
