As I mentioned in my video blog I recorded on Friday,  the jobs data that came out on Friday was just not weak enough for the market

So the markets' carnage continues, because everybody still believes the Federal Reserve may in fact be raising interest rates - the only question is, will it be in March, will it be in June, the markets don't know and so they continue to be under pressure

At one point today, the Dow Jones was down nearly 400 points

The NASDAQ was down about another 150 intra-day

We had one of these last hour rallies, just to keep hope alive so the Dow closed down just 177 points, the NASDAQ down 79

At the lows today, we were within 1% of a bear market, in the NASDAQ, so technically Wall Street can pretend they are not in a bear market, maybe for a few more days

The same thing is going to happen with the recession - everybody is saying there is no recession, but eventually they will have to admit it

I was reading an article by an economist from one of the bigger banks, who said, there will be some more downside, maybe the NASDAQ will go down to  about 3900

But, he said, "Don't worry, it's not going to be as bad as 2000 or 2008 because the economy is in good shape and the odds of a recession are very slim."

What would make him think the odds of a recession are slim? All the data is horrible.

Manufacturing is already in a recession; the service sector is contracting rapidly

It has been seven years since the last recession so we're overdue…

The Fed is tightening, raising interest rates, as a matter of fact they've been tightening for 2 years if you understand that the "Taper Talk" was the beginning of the tightening

Plus, we're in a bear market

We often hear, "The market has predicted 10 of the last 5 recessions"

OK, well, the Fed has predicted zero of the last 5 recessions

They always say there's not going to be a recession right before there's a recession, in fact, they have a history of saying there won't be a recession when we're already in a recession

What led the carnage in the stock market was the sell-off in European banks and it was brutal, in fact these big banks are lower than their lows in the depth of the Financial Crisis

The big one is Deutsche Bank had to come out today and re assure everybody that they did not have a solvency problem

All the U.S. stocks hit 52-week lows: Morgan Stanley hit a 52-week low, Goldman Sachs down 4-1/2% - 52-week low, Bank of America down 5-1/4% -  52-week low

These stocks will continue to suffer until the Fed cries Uncle, or Aunt

The ECB can't do it, the Bank of Japan can't do it - negative rates are actually making it worse for the European banks

There is no more stimulus coming from Europe because the stimulus is causing a bigger problem than it is supposed to cure

I've said this many times: bankers in Europe were worried about, "Lowflation" as they see weak oil prices, so now they want to stimulate

But whenever they stimulate, they cause the dollar to strengthen and the stronger dollar further suppresses the commodity prices, threatening more "Lowflation"

The Bank of Japan can't do anything, in fact the yen was up again today a new 52-week high for the Japanese yen, so even though Japan has gone negative the yen is rising not just to a 52-week high, this is the highest it has been since October of 2014

In Europe they are making the situation worse by easing

Who's left? Janet Yellen will speak to Congress Wednesday and Thursday this week and maybe she'll throw the market a lifesaver this time instead of an anchor

This is exactly what I have been saying would happen - the Fed would prick its own bubble with just a tiny .25 hole and the air has come gushing out

It is the opposite in gold.  Gold actually traded up to $1200/oz today before closing today above $1190 - up $18 on the day

A number of gold stocks were up 15-20% interday on their highs; they surrendered some of their highs by the close,