Michael Snyder<\/p>\n
(RINF<\/a>) – Do you remember how much stocks went down when the first dot-com bubble burst?\u00a0 Well, it is happening again, and tech stocks are already down more than half a trillion dollars<\/strong> since the middle of 2015.\u00a0 On Friday, the tech-heavy Nasdaq dropped to its lowest level in more than 15 months, and it has now fallen more than 16 percent from the peak of the market.\u00a0 But of course some of the biggest names have fallen much more than that.\u00a0 Netflix is down 37 percent, Yahoo is down 39 percent, LinkedIn is down 60 percent, and Twitter is down more than 70 percent.\u00a0 If you go back through my previous articles, you will find that I specifically warned about Twitter again<\/a> and again<\/a>.\u00a0 Irrational financial bubbles like this always burst eventually, and many investors that got in at the very top are now losing extraordinary amounts of money.<\/p>\n On Friday, tech stocks got absolutely slammed as the bursting of dot-com bubble 2.0 accelerated once again.\u00a0 The following is how\u00a0CNBC<\/a> summarized the carnage\u2026<\/p>\n The Nasdaq composite fell 3.25 percent, as Apple<\/a> and the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB)<\/a> dropped 2.67 percent and 3.19 percent, respectively.<\/p>\n Also weighing on the index were Amazon<\/a> and Facebook<\/a>, which closed down 6.36 percent and 5.81 percent, respectively.<\/p>\n LinkedIn<\/a> shares also tanked 43.63 percent after posting weak guidance on their quarterly results.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Overall, LinkedIn is now down a total of 60 percent<\/a> from the peak of the market.\u00a0 But they are far from the only ones that have already seen their bubble burst.<\/p>\n Many of the biggest names in the tech world have gotten mercilessly hammered over the past six months of so.\u00a0 Just look at some of the famous brands that have already lost between 20 and 40 percent<\/a> of their market caps\u2026<\/p>\n Yahoo (YHOO<\/a>) shares are off 39%<\/strong>, and Netflix (NFLX<\/a>), the best-performing stock in the S&P 500 last year, is now off by 37%<\/strong> from its 52-week high.<\/p>\n Likewise, Priceline.com (PCLN<\/a>) is off 31%<\/strong> and eBay (EBAY<\/a>), 22%<\/strong>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n But there are other very big tech companies that have seen stock collapses that completely dwarf those numbers.\u00a0 Here are some more absolutely stunning statistics from USA Today<\/a>\u2026<\/p>\n Twitter and Groupon are the biggest dogs of this boom, both off 70%<\/strong> from 52-week highs and well below their IPO prices.<\/p>\n FitBit shares have collapsed 70%<\/strong>, while Yelp\u2019s valuation has shrunk by two-thirds<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Box, which has the distinction of posting quarterly net losses in excess of revenue<\/a>, is down by half<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Match.com<\/a>, the holding company for dating sites owned by parent Interactive Corp. that went public late last year, is down 39%<\/strong> from its high.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n When your stock loses 70 percent of its value, that is a complete and utter collapse.<\/p>\n In the past, I have specifically singled out Twitter, Yelp and LinkedIn<\/a> as tech stocks that were irrationally priced.<\/p>\n Hopefully people listened to those warnings and got out while the getting was good.<\/p>\n At the top of this article, I mentioned that tech stocks have already fallen in value by more than 500 billion dollars.\u00a0 The financial crisis that began in the middle of last year<\/a> is now greatly accelerating, and Wall Street is starting to panic.<\/p>\n As stocks crash, many hedge funds are being absolutely pummeled.\u00a0 The following are just a few of the high profile names\u00a0that are experiencing massive losses right now<\/a>\u2026<\/p>\n Some of the biggest names to get trounced include:<\/p>\n \u25baPershing Square Capital Management, the publicly traded investment vehicle of billionaire hedgie Bill Ackman<\/strong>, fell 11% last month following a 20% decline last year, data from the web site shows.<\/p>\n \u25baLarry Robbins\u2019 <\/strong> Glenview Capital, famous for picking stocks that could benefit from Obamacare, dropped 13.65% in January following a decline of 18% last year, according to data from HSBC\u2019s Hedge Weekly report, a copy of which was obtained by USA TODAY.<\/p>\n \u25baMarcato International, a well-known activist fund run by Ackman protege Mick McGuire<\/strong>, fell 12.1% last month following a 9% loss last year, according to HSBC.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n When you lose more than 10 percent of your money in a single month, that is not good.<\/p>\n And if I am right, this is just the beginning of our troubles<\/a>.<\/p>\n And of course I am far from the only one warning that big problems are on the horizon.\u00a0 In fact, analysts at Citigroup just made international headlines by warning that the global economy was now trapped\u00a0in a \u201cdeath spiral\u201d<\/a>\u2026<\/p>\n Some analysts \u2014 including those at Citi \u2014 have turned bearish on the world economy this year, following an equity rout in January and weaker economic data out of China and the U.S.<\/p>\n \u201cThe world appears to be trapped in a circular reference death spiral<\/strong>,\u201d Citi strategists led by Jonathan Stubbs said in a report on Thursday.<\/p>\n \u201cStronger U.S. dollar, weaker oil\/commodity prices, weaker world trade\/petrodollar liquidity, weaker EM (and global growth)\u2026 and repeat. Ad infinitum, this would lead to Oilmageddon, a \u2018significant and synchronized\u2019 global recession and a proper modern-day equity bear market<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Signs of a significant economic downturn are all around us<\/a>, and so many of the exact same patterns that played out during the last two stock market crashes are happening again, and yet most people continue to refuse to acknowledge what is taking place<\/a>.<\/p>\n If you are waiting for this new dot-com bubble to crash, you can stop waiting, because it has already happened.<\/p>\n When your stock falls by 50, 60 or 70 percent, the game is already over.<\/p>\n But just like 2001 and 2008, many people out there will end up being paralyzed by indecision.\u00a0 Once again the mainstream media is insisting that there is no reason for panic and that everything will be just fine, and once again millions upon millions of ordinary Americans will be wiped out as the financial markets implode.<\/p>\n This is now the third time<\/strong> this has happened since the turn of the century.<\/p>\n How clueless have we become?\u00a0 The exact same thing keeps happening to us over and over and yet we still don\u2019t get it.<\/p>\n Only this time around there isn\u2019t going to be any sort of a \u201crecovery\u201d afterwards.<\/p>\n This is essentially our \u201cthird strike\u201d, and the years ahead are going to be extremely bitter and painful for most people.<\/p>\n But if you want to believe that one of these politicians is going to come along and save America, you go ahead and keep on believing that.<\/p>\n Most people believe what they want to believe, and the capacity that many Americans have demonstrated for self-delusion is absolutely remarkable.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n