Absolutely YES! It has already happened in my own lifetime as a trader. The markets today are no longer as they were when I began trading. They are hardly recognizable today compared with what they were then. It is as though trading, as I knew it originally, has disappeared. But there's more, as you will see. As traders, we tend to build our lives around our trading without giving much thought to what we would do if trading and markets were not available to us. Recently, the question was asked: "Joe, do you think we could ever see a complete collapse of the derivative markets?" The answer is most certainly yes! The world is awash with all sorts of derivatives. A futures contract is a derivative of the underlying cash market. An option on futures is a derivative of a derivative - the underlying futures contract. All stock warrants and options are derivatives. And think of all the SWAPS that exist out there. At some unknown point, if a hedge fund, a bank, a government, or other entity were to fail to meet its obligations, it could bring down the whole house of cards. We are living in a gigantic global bubble. The stock market is a bubble within a bubble, as were the dot com bubble and the real estate bubble. There are few indeed who know the true worth of anything. All fiat currencies are nothing more than a bubble with nothing whatsoever to back them up other than the willingness of the populace to accept essentially worthless pieces of paper. It seems to me that an awful lot of people assume that things will always go on as usual, and yet, everywhere I go I detect a certain uneasiness about the status of the world's economies. Certainly any worldwide stock market "correction" gives a lot of people pause for thought. Only a fool would think that a boom such as we have seen in recent years would never end. Yet that is exactly what I'm seeing in ever increasing numbers of people. Do you realize that there was a huge crisis in equity markets a few years ago, precipitated by a devastating shock to the Asian currency markets? Beginning with the Thai Baht, the Philippine, Malaysian, Korean, and Indonesian (I've probably missed a few) currencies all plunged. The reaction to this was an immediate call by many Asian nations for a cessation of currency trading. If they couldn't get a complete halt to trading of their currencies, they wanted at the very least to stop all short selling. This is the way governments react to crises. Do you think for one minute that the same thing would not happen in Europe, the U.S., or Canada? In any crisis of that sort, the President of the U.S. has the power, without anyone's prior approval, to shut down all markets, banks, borders, etc. He can freeze all assets, both domestic and foreign. He can declare a state of emergency, call out the National Guard, and declare Martial Law. So I ask you, what is your plan "B?" You really need to have one!!
There is always a market somewhere. Life isn't for pussies. http://blog.seattlepi.com/thebigblog/library/belltowndrugmarket.jpg
we can make the market disapear by replacing paper currency to gold. folks, begin forming an army. start building a fortress and stack canned of tuna and canned of spam.
Joe, you forgot the most important one for these clowns ... ATMs will shut down and lines of disgruntled folk will be several blocks long. Goodluck on getting any speedy cash or any cash at all. Credit cards auto denial will occur. Plan B 2 or 3 yr supply of hard cash stashed in several locations - not in any bank safe deposit box either. this will give you tremendous breathing room in the event of a protracted emergency. You only need CASH as everything that can be bought will be worthless, with CASH as the only reigning KING. But as ought to be expected, nobody here will do doodly, then when they get fcked, they'll blame the black guy with the big cock and dancing shoes.