The consumer is still fine. The main issue of worry is, of course still housing. The consumer can not continue to add on debt if housing prices collapse much like they couldn't in the last downturn. If anything needs moderation, its not stocks but housing. Depending on housing as a source of continuous funds is dangerous for the consumer as it is for the economy.

Yes, well playing financial games instead of focusing on selling things like food is a dangerous pastime as people are starting to realize.

It was an interesting day on the market in that the market punished good stocks with decent earnings growth more than the bad ones that need correcting.

Sadly, yes it will come to haunt us someday. The issue is what will lite the fuse to cause this to topple? Likely it will be when the Federal Reserve has pushed their powers to the point they can no longer protect themselves or other banks because a lot of the credit going towards funding derivatives growth and underwriting them are coming from companies the banks are backing.

A lot of money has already moved from bonds to stocks and a lot more will likely follow. Expect something to crash in the bond market (and possibly the housing market) before stocks look horrific.

Indeed long term rates rising above 4% would not just be a dramatic change, it would be bad for all the other asset classes namely housing and those holding massive sums of US Treasuries at low rates.

Wind energy is a good renewable source of energy. A lot of utilities are investing in it and strangely enough, it will be more productive if global warming trends continue.

I feel sorry for the companies who received crypto payments and didn't get out of the payment in time. They provided their service for a loss. Indeed things will get better for crypto, but the main factor it needs more than those stated is a stable price. Strangely, that decreases the incentive for people to join the crypto bandwagon.

It is not good earnings as much as rising US government debt and a weak dollar along with trade war concerns. We are also seeing a gradual shift towards higher commodities and commodity related stocks. This is not being caused by stronger or higher employment or wages in the US.

I agree that the Yuan will not replace the dollar as the world's reserve currency as it stands. Anyone who thought different needs to stop smoking something. It is interesting to see how weak the Chinese have made their oil exchange, not that it matters so much because its mostly for China's direct buys with the Mid-East and others. That said, it will have an effect, but much smaller than some might have anticipated.

On the US, it is far from energy independent and the sales out of the US is sales of oil that can not replace the oil coming from the mid-east. Most refineries are already geared for Mideast blends of oil. Thus the US imports a lot of oil still. That said, the US is losing power in oil because their foreign demand is not increasing and is in fact decreasing gradually. This is in stark contrast to Asia which is increasing their demand rapidly and is the main reason why we will see oil prices rise in the next 10 years. Don't be overly focused on the US when looking at oil. It's a global market even OPEC can't control anymore.