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Nikkei Flash Crash - Futures Plummet 16% As All Hell Breaks Loose In Japan
All hell is currently breaking loose following an explosion at reactor #2 and a another hydrogen explosion at reactor #4 per Kyodo, leading to a 16% drop in Nikkei futures as blind panic grips Japan. Kyodo essentially confirms there was a reactor meltdown as radiation levels at Fukushima 3 are now 400 times legal levels. And topping it all Japan's warning that all people within 30 kilometers from Fukushima should stay indoors and that the radioactive winds may reach Tokyo in as little as 8-10 hours. The BOJ has just intervened to prevent the yen from surging, as the following chart shows. Our prayers are with the people of Japan.
Tepco was down 24%, or 500 points, before a circuit breaker was invoked.
We hope our Japanese readers took our advice earlier to evacuate. If not, this is the area that needs to be vacated right now.
The absolutely worst news: NHK saying radiation up to 400mSv at Reactor #3, 100mSv at Reactor #1...That's milli... not micro, or 250 times the maximum reported prior number. Alas, we believe this means the cores have melted.
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Capitulation...
so you're buying?
Maybe Ravi Batra was finally right. 20 years too early, but the catastrophe in Japan appears to be correct.
For those who want to bone up on Batra's predictions: http://www.amazon.com/Great-Depression-1990-Ravi-Batra/dp/0440201683
I recently finished re-reading the Dickens classic, The Old Curiosity Shop. If space monkeys recall, the elderly grandfather was gambling with borrowed money in a last ditch attempt towards generating endowment funds for his grand-daugher.
In many ways, Bernanke is like the grandfather. He knew back in 2008 that he had at most 2-3 years to pimp expectations. That's really all the time he had while waiting for some technological breakthrough or global cultural movement (mania) to get morts once again signing debt peonage papers.
But, like all classic Dickensian characters, time runs out - in truth, the odds were always against them. So now here it comes, all the bad news/events which have been suppressed & have built up pressure are ready to blow.
When this is over sometime in the distant future, the 2007-2011 period will seem like the dreamlike pre-WWI Belle Époque.
The mood completely change when reactor 2 blew up and results came in. Sounds like they are beginning to try to tell the truth on TV. You can hear it in their voice, as if it is getting more and more difficult for them to lie.
Before the collapse of the USA and world economies builds up to final detonation, let me make it perfectly clear before they blame it on the Japanese earthquake and nuclear disasters.
The USA would have had no problem dealing with this tragedy if we were not 14 trillion dollars in debt and had not huge unfunded liabilities on every level!
As I said before, the huge national debt of the US is a direct threat to our national security and now that threat is going to be played out.
End the Fucking Federal Reserve Corporation as soon as possible!
Cannot wait for Jones' take on all of this.
Who was behind it, certainly not a "natural" disaster that is so cliche in your world?
Maybe the Zionistas again or those evil banksters?
More disinfo (not ALL of it; you have to have some 'truth' in 'it')?
Which 'branch' did you say you were from (who pays you)?
Resistance is futile.
The "who pays you" line is becoming the de facto way to try and discredit someone with differing view points.
Which is amusing coming from someone who has only been here for 3 weeks.
As if tenure and credibility go hand in hand, this is not a public union. THe cyber blow jobs from fellow moronista conspiracy doomsday self loathing neo marxists and/or anarchists are big street cred around here though.
The scary thing is the lack of realization how not novel any of it is. How the same was shouted from the rooftops of the time in both the 70's and 80's to no avail nor doomsday.
But it makes for entertaining delusional paranoia at it's finest.
I am merely pointing out that ad hominem attacks are becoming the default method of countering differing opinions.
Of course, tenure and credibility do not go hand in hand. But it IS amusing given the context of the accusation.
ad-hominem, shmad-hominem...BTFD!
Here's another one with deep normalcy bias. He'll get it eventually, or not.
Since I've been here longer than 3 weeks, blow it out your ass.
I'll take it under advisement.
Welcome to a vision of your future;
ALERT: Patriot Raided by SWAT Under Patriot Act
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foG-J2Tdg9o
Predicting a catastrophe of some kind in a country with as many tectonic plates intersecting underneath/near it as Japan.
High-5 Ravi Batra, who would have thought it possible.
The way they built all of their sky scrapers to resist a major earthquake, they had to have consulted an astrologist or a psychic of some kind, right?
Aliens told them how...
Is the Nikkei even trading today? Article above said futures -16%.
Another nice thing about ZH, I can ask questions like the above and get a good response from the smart gene pool of people here...
If it is just futures trading (like on tomorrow's open, whatever), there is plenty of time for the EE and PPT to step in.
Cash markets are all trading - look at Hang Seng down 800+, Taiwan down 300 last I looked
http://finance.yahoo.com/intlindices?e=asia
Japan always shuts down at 10:28 for awhile - its gonna shit the bed when it reopens because they say Reactor #4 is on fire now and there is in all likelihood a leak in the #2 container vessel
Japan just reopened - down 800
India just opened down 400 out of the gate
U.S. futures down 210+
http://www.bloomberg.com/markets/stocks/futures/down
Fucking Japan's down 1200+ do they have circuit breakers that will shut them down?
Thanks aint! More proof that ZH is THE place to observe events...
My third home...
This is becoming a monster liquidity sucking machine
As incredible as down 1370 is in Japan, Hang Sen down 900 and Taiwan down 435 say the meltdown of the 3rd largest economy in the whole world is gonna set off a chain reaction of selling as the entire linkage/corellation meme works just as hard on the downside as on the upside.
Oil's getting whacked despite continued fears about Bahrain and the rest of the ME.
So fuck you bernank you motherfucker - inflate your way out of this shit. You notice what the EURUSD's doing tonight you middle class murdering POS??
http://forex.tradingcharts.com/chart/Euro_US%20Dollar.html
Watch this EURUSD chart tomorrow a.m. I will bet you the Euro spikes at exactly 3:30 +/- 15 minutes eastern time to over 1.40 on a massive dollar selling spree by the bernank. He'll be buying EURO's hand over fist.
http://forex.tradingcharts.com/chart/Euro_US%20Dollar.html
Dow futures down 275 tonight will be flat by 8:30 a.m. eastern premarket when he gets done with his manipulation.
Anyone care to place a wager?
Hear hear, y'all. It has been predicted, the markets will crash once again. Once we take out 1220 SPX, then 1180, it's a done deal. I'm not 100% convinced, but the prediction is playing out nicely (or badly). Though expect a bounce from 1180 to around 1220, then vroom, straight down to 750-800 SPX (taking out 1050 like a hot knife through butter). If that happens, we WILL see DOW 6000 for sure. Though possibly 5000-3000. The source says, paraphrasing, "you will not care about the stock market when it crashes".
If the containment vessels are fried, its a gonner, as in meltdown
Let's hope they can still pump salt water.
The headline above is referencing the Nikkei 225 Futures. Said contract trades nearly 24hr/day with a daily 30min break; however, as the other replies correctly point out, the markets are open, and I think there is about 1.5hrs left in todays post-lunch session (could be wrong).
No, but I would recommend Lumber futures...Or wait for the market in Cairo to reopen when ever that is..
Will nibble at DFJ at 30
More likely the birth of a new Japan. This apocalypse should finally get the japanese in gear to have a revolution in their arthritic govt. Yeah it's gonna be hell for awhile but they might turn lemons into lemonade. Compare the character of the Japanese during this to us Americans during katrina.....night and day. And yet, the USA is going to go through their own apocalypse soon so just think what will happen...katrina times 1000...make the civil war look tame.
I agree.
We are far more deserving of this kind of catastrophe than the Japanese.
ML
“Deservin's got nothing to do with it.”
Quite possibly the most douche bag piece-of-shit comment in history.
What banana and boiler said...
There is no "deserve" or "not deserve", none. Nature/the universe does not discriminate, it just "is". Given the level of brainwashing, distraction, and general lack of any real consciousness in today's world, events like this are a powerful reminder that we live on a deminimus sized rock, circling a relatively massive but ultimately equally deminimus-sized star, amidst that which is empty and infinite. We can choose to bury our heads in the sand, or embrace our impermance and free ourselves.
My heart goes out to the Japanese and the ex-pats in Japan. I believe Japanese society and cohesion will overcome this series of events.
deleted
+ $1400
Or would that be + $1390 now? $1380?
Thanks, I moved the comment up for maximum consumption.
Nikkei just dropped over 400pts in 30min. Its on like Donkey Kong.
I mean futures hell! the index might go below 16% today!
BTFD
-=-
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12307698
Unit 4 is the one that had a reported fire in the SFP. This is the first known report of that unit also having suffered an explosion.
If the water in the SFP is now boiling then it will eventually evaporate the full 40 ft x 40 ft x 20 ft SFP, the fuel bundles will be exposed to the atmosphere and H2 will be liberated as the cladding oxidizes and the result will be either a fire or an explosion.
don't buy till it goes sky high
Started to post something snarky, but stopped half way. My heart goes out to Japan. This is surreal.
Just for once, I am not going to enjoy being short even though I have had my brains warped by the 2 year bull run !!
Don't forget the $2.7 Trillion in federal deficit spending in FY2009 and FY2010 and untold trillions of US dollars being created by The Fed that came with that "2 year bull run". The market may (or may not) run out of steam this year, but we have a projected $1.65 Trillion budget deficit for FY2011 coming. All in all, I'd say it was a bad deal. Far more people are hurting from inflation than those who gained from the stock market rise.
I think the real Black Swan has just blown in. I told Robo I am short the KBE. Also short eight different triple ETFs. If this is not the time. It will never be.
This looks like the time. I am thinking that even our Federal Reserve can't buy the world. Good luck with your shorts.
The first Black Swan was the vendor in Tunisia that immolated himself because the goomint hacks wouldn't allow himself to work or even take care of his family.
This wreck is just a pyramiding of yet more hack work and corruption of governments. TEPCO had all of the pols lined up to license a string of nukes on the beach in the land that gave us the word, "tsunami". The underlings of the Japan Defense Force are doing whatever they can to mitigate some of the decisions of the sake partiers of forty years ago. I wonder just how much damage the overarching political racketeers of Japan have sustained with their lying incompetence that is now as naked as the fuel cores on the reactors.
+1 I caught myself also..No Joke right now..
Fully agree. Not a time to be snarky at all.
But what I'm not looking forward to is this black swan being blamed for the fallout that is going to finally occur in US markets.
You know the next FOMC minutes will have the word "Japan" in them at least 3 or 4 times.
me too can't sleep on the verge off tears
SHTF when reporter on NHK uses words - "its really scary"
I was thinking of those brave men working at those reactors- in all reality, they are probably making the ultimate sacrifice to put the nuclear genie back in the bottle. They are everyday heroes.
Agreed.
True heroes...
It's the same attitude that produced the kamikazes, who were willing to die for honor and country. The Japanese are some of the most awesome people on earth, I think. I would rather have them as my friends than have them as my enemies. My heart goes out to them.
Samurai spirit is keeping them going, when they know both the cause & their lives are lost.
Noble.
Wow. This is a nightmare scenario.
I wonder if The Ben Bernank will start pumping S&P futures?
It has already begun.
Nikkei futures : -12.09%
DOW futures : -1.45%
Nearly a factor 10, which is of course ridiculous, but this is what happens when a market is entirely controlled by the PDs.
No ham in your sandwich. Peace Bro.
that ain't nothin BUT ham....and cheeeese....:)
Am I allowed to cry and laugh at that?
Reactor 4 fire apparently put out now..
But the radiation reaches Tokyo.
A French Embassy statement warned radiation could reach Tokyo within 10 hours.
That would be about the time of the NY open.
yes i flagged you way out of line
12/7/1941 was way outta line....
So was 1492, the year that sea pirates showed up and raped the real Americans.
How's that for pithy you dumbfuck hipster piece of shit. Get your man purse, your horn rim granny glasses and that fag scarf and hit brix bitch.
YEOWCHHHH!!!
"How's that for pithy you dumbfuck hipster piece of shit. Get your man purse, your horn rim granny glasses and that fag scarf and hit brix bitch."
Lolz. Impressive.
by "real Americans", you mean the tribes that migrated to America from Asia?
They warned us that they were comming..
12/7/1941 was way outta line....
70 years not long enough for you, fuckwit?
Korg, you are my actual first junk asshole.
Korg
you fuck ass. on a site respected for its intelligence, argueably most of the time, that has to be the dumbest post I have ever read here. You are now the dumbest fuckass poster to have ever posted on ZH.
I am dogbreath
don't you know that 12/7/1941 event was engineered by the elite? go read the real history.
This comment is way out of line.
Oh YEAH....you think the JPM and Goldmanites aren't buying japan on the cheap right now!!! Get real, they invented this crap. Have their Media hype the living shit outta this now....and then next week nothing.
or were they short beforehand and just waiting to cover shorts at some point?
This site thinks of JPM and GOLDMAN in the same vein we think of you Korg
I dont have time to write a short succinct reply, so fuck you.
I wouldn't worry about it. It's probably a display error.
Damn you, Waddell & Reed!!
This is some serious Jurassic Park level fucked up shit!
No kidding, this is way way way worse than anyone could have dreamed up.
I envy your extremely inactive imagination.
I'm sure you do.
Sheepishly admitting I LOL'd at your pithy reply.
In all seriousness, my deepest sympathies to the Nipponese people.
Absolutely horrible...Prayers to all Japan..
The human and environmental toll is tragic. In the end, it's not about the Nikkei, The Dow or the price of Gold. That said, it may soon become once again, about the price of Oil.
this Turning seems to be about the Bankers and Mother Nature...caught between the Devils and the deep blue sea
Holy sh*t! The robots have gone mad!!!! It is time to unplug the Terminators.
Holy cow!
http://www.bloomberg.com/markets/stocks/futures/
Wouldn't they close the Nikkei so everyone can GTFO of Tokyo?
If the winds are blowing towards Tokyo, you would think they would evacuate.
The government is really going to have a hard time restoring any sense of credibility if this is as bad as it sounds.
You beat me to the punch.... having been to Tokyo many times... um... there is no way.
There's 13 million in tokyo... It cant be done
There are 38 million people in metro Tokyo. http://www.world-gazetteer.com/wg.php?x=1&men=gcis&lng=en&des=gamelan&ge...
Wait till the full impact from the zone makes its way over to China. This is going to tank the whole region. Empty out your emerging market fund, friend-O.
As the low pressure spins up north of Japan, winds will be strong out to sea for a couple of days. Good for China, Hawaii, not so much.
Let it tank China.
Perhaps they can eat some humble pie.
Here is a little something something.
Take it with a grain of salt, er iodide.
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread674027/pg1
Or a 55 lb. sack of rock salt -- I call BS!
from UW (Seattle) Atmos Sci Dept.
http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2011/03/us-west-coast-is-not-at-risk.html
Science, not sensationalism!
That said, my heart goes out to the people of Japan.
On a serious note...this has gotta be the goddamn biggest black swan ever! Japan is basically gonna go offline for awhile, not good. How's the derivative market gonna handle this?? We are fucked. This is the start of a chain of VERY bad events and that's without the ME going batshit! This is it....
How about insurance and re-insurance...
Give me a break, this is mega-fucked.
CDS contracts on Japan? Domino effect>>>WTF?
I wouldn't worry about it. The BoJ and the FED will continue to monetize the losses, and it will be like nothing happened.
What choice do they have..
the fed can't monetize 3 Goddamm Nukler Reactors Blowing up!!!!!!
Looks as if 5 or so huge financial firms can do about the same damage to an economy, so, why not?
Um, tarp was 700B, over four times the total estimated damage to Japan so far (tsunami related) ... well that was before these reactors started really going downhill.
COoter
Choice: Don't.
Seriously, Hamy, just exactly when was your lobotomy?
You'd think the Bernank/PPT has finally met its match with this horrific looking scenario.
This shit is off the hook crazy...
let me repeat Gentlemen....
...the Fed cannot even reflate the mortgages and MBS's on its own balance sheet. There is zero chance anyone including the Bank of Japan can keep stock prices inflated.
Why? Because an assets/stocks price takes a buyer and a seller. The Fed and BoJ can buy as many assets as these dimwits like, but nobody is going to buy them. Nobody wants to catch a falling knife. That's why the Fed, PPT, ECB and BoJ cannot 'support' falling asset prices (the BoJ have been trying, and failing, for 20 years). The BoJ's $200bn is going straight down the toilet.
Are we crystal clear?
It's called fighting large numbers like infinity.
only junked by one? must have been Kudlow...
The Ben Bernank made things worse in the world with all his money printing. He helped force the cost of living higher for people all over the world, and now the world's 3rd largest national economy will be somewhat paralyzed by this ongoing disaster. Some of the root problems that led to the riots in MENA (e.g. surging food costs etc.) did not go away, and printing more $$$ will only make things worse.
CORRECTION : the BoJ are pumping $80bn in to 'support' stocks etc, not $200bn as i mentioned above.
Nikkei down -6% yesterday, -10% today... how is the BoJ's $80bn 'support' doing? Very predictably, absolute crap. Because no private buyer is going to 'support' (buy) falling asset prices at the price BoJ would like to see supported.
This is what the retards of the public sector do not understand. You cannot 'support' prices because you still need a buyer, from the BoJ, to buy at an agreed price. Nobody is going to buy stocks at the BoJ's fantasy price nor buy the Feds crumbling MBS's or mortgages at what they value them on their balance sheet.
So the BoJ are compounding one dumb decision to support falling stock prices on top of 2 already dumb Japanese Govt decisions, to build extortionately expensive nuclear stations and to site them on a coastal region in the 'flight path' of a known high risk tsunami zone.
So the BoJ are pissing another $80bn down the toilet on top of the ongoing extra costs of expensive nuclear power for the past 40 years, on top of another dumb decision to site the plants on the coast! The estimated cost of these serial Govt fuk-ups is $1 Trillion and the BoJ are throwing another $80bn down the toilet as well. Genius!
The dumb (of Govt) just get dumber
Chain reaction. Everything is connected.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPfI9oxZuEo&feature=related
How much has the asset values of Japanese banks just dumped - into the ocean? Can't help but go bust, which will ripple around the world. As bad as the economic impact of this could be internationally, it pales in comparison to what the people of Japan are going through. Economic disaster is not even 2nd on their list of concerns I suspect.
As bad as this this may be for the rest of the world -- MAYBE some small bit of good can come from it, if this finally crashes the destructive Ponzi-speculatin' banks and their CB enablers. A new world economic reset COULD be a good thing (although painful)
Swanzilla. Have told my brother it's time to get out of Tokyo and come home.
Incredible. You think you've seen it all.
Wow, check out the Yen!
And stocks are in major meltdown mode -- and I'm not talking about nuclear energy, either!
May the grace of God pull Japan out of this one.... The scariest thing is nobody can tell what the real fallout of this one is going to be. Does anyone know if these yen interventions are sterilized or not? A sudden liquidity vacuum can send the BTFD crowd scrambling for exits. No amount of money printing can print away the radioactive fumes that hovers over one of the largest financial center of the world. Oh God please don't let it get out of hand....
Pascal's Wager, anyone?
Any one want to talk to God about now?
Yes? You there at the back. Come on up on the stage.
Now, what's your name son?
"Ben Bernanke".
And then you realize there's no POMO on the Ides of March. Enjoy.
The Bernanke isn't appearing before the Senate tomorrow, is he?
I'm sure he has many times appeared for surrepticiously "planned" congressional events, that were probably organized the night before, under emergency circumstances, as lipstick-the-pig pep talks, and if he shows up tomorrow for some (previously unannounced) 'Spring Equinoctial Finance Lecture', I won't be surprised.
bernank is meeting his fellow cling-ons tuesday
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Fed-to-meet-at-a-time-of-apf-837536991.htm...
Well............because they're making shit up on the fly, along with the rules, they could always pull a rabbit out of their hat and produce a super duper extra large with a cherry on top emergency POMO tomorrow.
He who has the Gold power makes the rules.
I agree...intervention risk is higher than the radiation levels at bldg #2 right now.
If the US market tanks like the N225, expect basically global financial meltdown part 2.
i am honestly surprised that the JCB has not started buying the N225
But there's no cause for concern, now is there, Trav?
You're nothing but a fucking cunt with a beard.
cause their either glued to NHK or gone
wow. u two in agreement. crisis indeed.
And dollar swap lines for all.
You're worried about your financial future?
Did someone give every naive day-trader at Seeking Beta errr I mean "Seeking Alpha" a free pass to post here on ZH?
Did you wander here from CNBC?
Sometimes the ZH black hole gravitational force is irresistible to passers by.
Unfortunately the feet arrive well before the brain. I call it ZH string theory, conspiracy division.
gotta be Larry Kudlow in disguise....
at least his favorite president was Coolidge
actually and...strangely actually because i hate money...i am cash flow positive and remain bullish. i don't know what else to say other than..."it is true."...."everything."
Please put a full tablespoon of wasabi in your mouth, then wrap your face with duct tape and turn your head into a containment vessel.
+100
some people can never give it a rest, even for a second
I was #47. Three more before you disappear. I hope there is a wakeup call for you in this.
dbl post, sorry...
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=6JrIYR8jArk&vq=small