A new wave of fear has lowered US stock indexes by 1.2-1.4% and caused cryptocurrency prices to plummet by 15% in a day

Fears of a recession in the US, where the labor market is already falling, have swept Wall Street in a new wave. The rise in the fear index has triggered a sell-off in stocks, leading to a decline in prices and provoking deleveraging - the sale of positions bought on credit, of which there are more than $1.2 trillion in the US stock market alone. This time, small-cap companies were the ones selling the most.

The sell-off in tech stocks began amid reports of significant job losses and a weak US labor market, as well as concerns that AI stocks are highly overvalued.

The S&P 500 fell 1.23%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.2% and the Nasdaq 100 fell 1.38% on Thursday after some overseas stock markets closed lower. The Euro Stoxx 50 fell 0.75%, China's Shanghai Composite fell 0.64% and Japan's Nikkei Stock 225 fell 0.88%.

Stock indexes continued their sell-off, with the S&P 500 falling to a 1.5-month low and the Nasdaq 100 to a 2.5-month low.

Cryptocurrencies Bitcoin and Ether fell 14-15% yesterday to a low of 1.2, losing 50% of their value from their highs last year.

US labor market indicators:

Challenger Job Cuts (Jan) = 108,435k vs. previous = 35,553k. Layoffs in the US in January rose to a 17-year high of +205% (month-over-month).

New job openings - JOLTS Job Openings (Jan) fell to a 5.25-year low of 6.542 million (expected 7.200 million, previous 6.928 million).

Initial claims for unemployment benefits rose to an 8-week high of 231k (212k expected, 209k previously)

Current unemployment claims = 1.844 million (expected 1.850 million, previously 1.827 million).

On Thursday, the Bitcoin price fell to $63,000, which is 50% of the record level reached in October, and the Ether price fell to $1,900, which led to a collapse in the shares of speculative companies that were betting on the increased cryptocurrency rate.

Cryptocurrency markets reached a record high market capitalization of $4.3 trillion on October 6, but today their value is only $2.3 trillion, meaning they have lost $2 trillion in market capitalization or ~46% of their total value in 4 months.

Shares of Michael Saylor's MicroStrategy, which bought bitcoin and took out loans against its shares, have fallen 80% and have about $6.5 billion in unrealized losses on bitcoin. Tom Lee's Bitmine has almost $8 billion in unrealized losses on Ethereum.

The sentiment in the cryptocurrency markets remains pessimistic, as the price of Bitcoin has NEVER fallen below the cost (energy) of its mining and maintenance, which is currently around $58,740. If the price of Bitcoin falls below this level, the mining farms that support the operation of the blockchain itself will begin to go bankrupt.

Huge investor losses following the speculative rise in precious metals and cryptocurrency prices are reducing speculative capital, so we should expect less volatility in commodity quotes in the coming months.