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Post-Baathist Iraq is rife with sectarian discord, a post-Assad Syria would likely be an even bloodier free-for-all than it already is, and post-Gaddafi Libya is a failed state with two governments each claiming legitimacy. These types of environments are exploitable by extremists eager to capitalize on the chaos by seizing resources and, ultimately, power.

"The fact that market volatility is on the rise and the Fed is raising interest rates further increases the probability of a Bear Market. The current option-implied probability of a bear market (i.e. ~20% decline this year) is about 25%. While there is no way to predict a bear market, below we look at various scenarios, and estimate that the probability of a bear market may be nearly twice as large."

We want this time to be different so badly, we can almost taste it. But this time is only different on the margins; the flavor of the bust remains the taste of ashes.

“The bulk cash distribution site was used by [ISIS] to distribute money to fund terrorist activities. We estimate in the millions of dollars ... from all their illicit stuff: oil, looting, extortion,”

Who could have seen this coming? Week after the CEO ordered his mega-yacht and 6 months after Jim Cramer said "it was going higher," GoPro has just slashed Q4 revenue guidance by 15% (from $510.9mm to $435mm) and has addtionally decided to layoff 7% of the workforce. For now, GPRO is halted... but Ambarella is not (and is collapsing 6% after hours) leaving them down 65-80% since Cramer said "buy buy buy."

Earlier today BOK financial admitted that as a result of a major loan impairment on just one energy producer it would have to take a dramatic $22.5 million in credit losses, but that things are slowly going from great to not so great when it also admitted that "we continued to see credit grade migration and increased impairment in our energy portfolio. The combination of factors necessitated a higher level of provision expense."

Nope and Mange...

The similarities continue. Both saw an initial sharp 2-3 month fall from their peaks followed by a quarter or so of stability. The NASDAQ then started to fall sharply again and Chinese equities seem to have started a similar trend on a similar timeline....

President Barack Obama’s final State of the Union address came up short of the facts on several topics. Obama apparently omitted part of his presidency in boasting of nearly 900,000 manufacturing jobs “in the past six years.” Over his entire time in office, manufacturing jobs have gone down by 230,000.

Dear Janet, it appears the US consumer (or small business) is nothing like as strong as you "believed."

More people in the United States than ever are breaking away from the political duopoly by refusing to self-identify as either Democrat or Republican - and they now effectively comprise the true silent majority: Independents.

"Do you see what she's done to Germany? They have a problem. She went off the reservation. I don't know what happened to her. She was doing well."