ChainThink News, March 19: Citrini Research, author of the "Apocalypse Report," published a recent market commentary stating that there is truly no visible possibility of the stock market avoiding further declines in the short term.

The market has been so desperately seeking a "positive catalyst" that people have begun fabricating one themselves, forgetting that in actual warfare, both sides must agree to cease hostilities (or one side must surrender). They will ultimately come to realize this.

The Fed's rate-cutting cycle has already been fully priced into the market. Two weeks ago, SOFR Z7 (Secured Overnight Financing Rate futures) was 75 basis points lower than the forward rate for March 2026; it has now narrowed to just 25 basis points. Moreover, IOR (Interest on Reserve Balances) remains firmly above the two-year yield—indicating that reserve managers do not anticipate further rate cuts, and thus are not buying during downturns. A strong nonfarm payroll report would severely disrupt the rates market (especially as financing becomes increasingly critical for the world’s largest corporations); yet if data comes in weak, I believe equities would still fail to react positively.

All of this unfolds at a time when AI may not yet be sufficient to convince enterprises to replace human labor with machines under normal operating conditions—but it is absolutely enough to drive companies to deploy AI in filling roles cut due to economic pressures, potentially discovering they no longer need to rehire those positions.

It's one thing to see bearish scenarios and dismiss them with "that's already priced in"—a strategy that has historically worked well (with typical annual drawdowns ranging from 10% to 15%). But one must consider that the S&P 500 is currently down only about 5% from its all-time high.