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Saturday, November 22, 2025

Global Unwind Makes Way for Black Friday Deals

Is the selling about to accelerate to the downside, and spoil the single most important spending season of the year?

Year-end Sell Cycles in Recent memory

  • 2009 - Global financial crisis aka the great recession  
  • 2016 - The original "Taper Tantrum" + and unwind in China  
  • 2019 - Trump Crash #2 (The first was the night he was elected) - Steven Mnuchin finally had to threaten to call in the Plunge Protection Team, in order to save Christmas. 
    Global slowdown fears, and valuations blamed. Sound familiar? 
  • 2020 The Covid Crash + the most obscene money creation, and government spending spree in history (the gift that keeps inflating).  

The Proof Is In The (still up 25% since 2022 (Bureau of Labor Statistics)  
Pudding

The bad news? 1. Higher housing. 2. Higher local Taxes. 3. "" Utilities. 4. Higher insurance costs. 5. Higher healthcare costs. 6. Savings are drained, credit card balances are maxed at 24% APR. A cheaper turkey doesn't fix that.


 Three Big Reasons This Unwind Feels Different (and Uglier)

 

  1. We’re still fighting an inflationary mess we didn’t have in 2019. Real wages for the bottom 80 % are still negative six years after the pandemic began. The economy is not strong. 
  2. The market is more bifurcated than ever. Strip out the Magnificent 7 and most diversified 401k's are flat or red YOY since November 2024. That bubble is already leaking air.
  3. We now have the most divided, wishy-washy Federal Reserve in modern history. Half the FOMC still thinks we’re “higher for longer,” the other half is quietly begging for 50 bp cuts the minute the S&P drops 10 %. No one trusts them to act decisively in either direction — and markets hate nothing more than a confused central bank. 

The Charts Remain Broken   

I actually placed the sell order on Friday, before cancelling it; after I found Fidelity was going to hit us with an excessive trading violation. A topic for another day.    Meanwhile: the Bitcoin unwind spills into the rest of the market, and CNBC and Tom Lee blow smoke, claiming it's a computer glitch! See Friday's blog [link] 

Possible Grinch-that-Stole-Christmas Scenario… Or Dress the Windows?  A 15-20% draw-down into late December (tax-loss harvesting + bonus redemptions) triggers margin calls and retail panic. But history says don't bet against the rally: Late-year dips often front-run January inflows, with the S&P up 79% of the time in that seven-day window, averaging +1.3%. The Fed might blink with cuts, Q4 GDP gets revised down from +2.5%, but new-year money has to go somewhere—potentially muddling through with flat comps and a mild bounce. 
  
Or the Grinch wins, and Black Friday slashes turn desperate. Either way, I've snagged early deals—because if the unwind bites, at least I scored a new BIG SCREEN TV, and that will distract from the 401(k) statement.

Take Care, AA  

P.S. Word on the street is Trump is about to drop a UFO/ alien technology bombshell reveal any day. 

 I'm deadly serious! I was convinced the moment I watched it being telegraphed in the Bret Baier interview... 

Watch it for yourself..:  

 


   

 

 

 

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