October is here, and the clouds are getting darker. The gaming capital markets are signaling that the worst is yet to come for stocks and the global economy. The bear market in casino stocks that began in May is about to spread to other markets and get worse in itself. This is not the time to buy any dips.

This column began 2018 with two bearish pieces, a theme that has continued throughout the year. Stay conservative, because this year was not going to be a booming one for capital growth, and scale out. Cryptocurrencies were going to flatten out, and as it turns out they were already on their way two weeks before 2018 even started. Price inflation was going to heat up again, and it has. There were no obvious buying opportunities except for the United Kingdom post Brexit, which hasn’t happened yet so we’re still waiting on that one. Back on January 2, I wrote:

Eventually, possibly in late 2018, we’ll start to see a positive feedback loop form where interest rates rise and force more borrowing to pay the interest, which raises interest rates which forces more borrowing and so on.

It looks like that process has started. We’re at the very beginning of the first bond bear market in 37 years, so only those in their 60’s and 70’s has ever traded or invested under these conditions. Last week saw the fastest rise in US interest rates since the early 1990’s. Italian rates, Eurozone Ground Zero, are up 82 basis points in two weeks. (Whoops, now they’re up 90, now that I’m giving this a proofread.)