in march 2020 the stock market plunged the black swan covid19 outbreak created fear and uncertainty investors sold first and asked questions later they anticipated the worst and desperately wanted to get out of stocks—afraid of losing all or a big chunk of their money parallel to the precipitous decline in the stock market companies furloughed and fired millions of americans executives were concerned over how bad things could become and wanted to lighten their expenses by jettisoning workers since the march 2020 lows the stock market rebounded like a rocket going straight up those who remained invested saw giant gains we also witnessed something new people stuck at home due to being laid off or colleges being closed and going to an online format started trading meme stocks options nfts bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies the federal reserve to keep the economy afloat printed money nonstop the united states government spent trillions of dollars to stimulate the economy this unprecedented amount of money sloshing around drove up the prices of stocks and bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as well as food and home prices historically stock and real estate prices can’t go up forever without a correction the balloon keeps expanding until its either pricked letting the air out slowly or gets so extended it bursts supply chain disruptions causing higher prices the trillions put into the economy higher wages and other factors led to inflation this created rapidly rising prices in an “everythinggoesup” world there’s a big risk of it ending badly political and social tension a potential war between russia and the ukraine that could possibly bring in other countries tense relations with china and the federal reserve bank stating that it wont be as accommodating any longer and will raise interest rates stoked fear in the markets the confluence of events created a fearinduced selling frenzy novice investors not used to stocks going down sold their holdings people who trade on margin were forced to sell to pay off the margin requirements people who’ve made fortunes over the last couple of years took their winnings off the table google searches for “is the market crashing” and “why is the market crashing” were trending the nasdaq index a gauge of technology stocks fell over 10 from its record high this drop is referred to as a “correction” taking some froth out of the market the sp 500 index a bellwether for the overall economy lost around 57 last week and more than twothirds of the companies in the index shed 10 of their value since recording their record highs with 1490 stocks declining 20 or more from the highs bloomberg reported “changpeng zhao of binance lost 177 billion mark zuckerberg of meta lost 104 billion bill gates of microsoft saw a 95 billion drop in his fortune and jeff bezos wealth of amazon decreased by 20 billion in total the five richest tech tycoons lost 85 billion due the sell off last week” their losses continued into monday ceos and corporate executives don’t like the unknown they want clarity and certainty if the selling continues and there is a real or perceived fear of a war in eastern europe along with high inflation and supply chain disruptions its logical that management will hold back on hiring in addition to hiring freezes businesses may start firing people to preemptively cut costs they’ve done it before so it wouldn’t be surprising if they return to their old playbook people who were contemplating looking for a new job may decide to hold off and wait they won’t want to be the last one in at the company and first one out and let go if stocks fall further into a “bear market” going down 20 or more the fear could snowball into more layoffs as panic may take hold hopefully this is only a muchneeded rational correction that pumps the brakes on rampant speculation sobriety will take hold and people may hold off on purchasing nfts stocks and digital assets believing someone else will buy it back from them at a higher price tag long term this may take out some of the excesses cooling down the temperature and then we’ll enter a more reasoned phase when that happens the executives will feel more comfortable and start hiring once again