Stocks plunge as gold, yen rally in "risk off" trade

The signs were there for a stock market plunge, which is exactly what has happened today. Gold, a perceived safe-haven asset, had been rising strongly of late despite the dollar's strength and the equity market rally. The Japanese yen, likewise another safe haven asset, has been firm and today it has got firmer. Risk is clearly off the menu today. At the time of this writing, the FTSE and DAX were trading near their lows and US index futures were pointing to a sharply lower open on Wall Street later. Is this the start of the crash that many people had been waiting for? Well, that remains to be seen. In part, it depends on what Wall Street will do today. So far every dip – small or big – have been bought. But at these record high levels, there will be a lot of stop orders that had been accumulated during the melt up. I fear there will be a very sharp pullback to clear out these weaker longs before we see a bounce.