Archive - Sep 10, 2015 - Story

Anyone waking this morning will glance at US equity futures and happily note its unchanged-ness relative to weakness in Asia overnight. But behind the scenes of the last 12 hours was a total and utter farce of price discovery failure. S&P 500 e-mini futures have been halted twice (0551ET anbd 0612ET) in what one market observer exclaimed "looks like manipulation to me." So what exactly happened at 6:12am?

Of course, with Goldman's desk making millions in commissions executing AAPL's weekly, if not daily, buyback orders, the last thing Goldman would dare to do is issue a report that angers Tim Cook. But another problem may be emerging for AAPL: China. As a reminder, China recently became the biggest end-market for iPhone demand and any hints this may be jeopardized could have severe repercussions on the stock price.  Which is why we paid particular attention to the report overnight from China's finance ministry, which accused a China unit of Apple of underpaying taxes in 2013 by 452 million yuan ($71 million), "which comes as China toughens its stance on tax payments by foreign firms."

• Compare: S&P 500 Futures Advance After U.S. Stocks Ignored Global Rally (BBG)
• And contrast: Global Stock Rally Grinds to a Halt (BBG)
• And be very confused: Global Stocks Lower on U.S. Interest Rate Uncertainty (WSJ)
• Hilsenrath: Fed Wavers on September Rate Rise (WSJ)
• Time for more QE: Abe Adviser Says Next Month Good Opportunity for BOJ Easing (BBG)
• Brazil downgraded to junk rating by S&P, deepening woes (Reuters)
• Kiwi dollar tumbles after New Zealand cuts interest rates (Reuters)

It has become virtually impossible to differentiate between actual central bank intervention, hopes of central bank intervention, and how the two interplay on what was once the "market" but is now merely the place where money printers duke it out every day in some pretense of price discovery set by those who literally print money.