Australia

• After Rough Quarter, Investors Buckle Up (WSJ)
• From heroes to bystanders? Central banks' growth challenge (Reuters)
• Russian Airstrike in Syria Targeted CIA-Backed Rebels, U.S. Officials Say (WSJ)
• Kremlin says Syria air strikes target list of groups, not just Islamic State (Reuters)
• That’s information warfare? Russia accused of killing civilians in Syria (RT)
• Euro zone factory growth eases in August despite modest price rises (Reuters)
• How Glencore's Crazy Month Makes Greek Banks Look Tame (BBG)

News That Matters

In the latest sign easy-money market froth may be peaking, moments ago German media conglomerate Axel Springer announced it has agreed to buy 88% of web-only Business Insider, adding to the 9% it already owns, for $343 million, which according to the Springer press release values 100% of the content aggregator at $442 million "on the basis of a cash and debt free valuation of USD 390 million." The remaining 3% of the company will be retained by Bezos Expeditions, the personal investment company of Jeff Bezos, who purchased a $5 million stake in 2013.

It was a tale of two markets overnight: Asia first - where all commodity hell broke loose - and then Europe (and the US), where central banks did everything they could to stabilize the already terrible sentiment.

Neoliberal economics is blind to reality and serves to justify the destruction of the economic prospects of the Western World. It remains to be seen if Russia and China can develop a different economics or whether these rising superpowers will fall victim to the “junk economics” that has destroyed the West. With so many Chinese and Russian economists educated in the US tradition, the prospects of Russia and China might not be any better than ours. The entire world could go down the tubes together.

Did Australia's Prime Minister Tony Abbott just lose his job because of fears that a probe and audit of the "data" and "statistics" behind global warming could threaten to destroy Goldman Sachs' best laid cap-and-trade, emissions trading scheme and carbon tax plans?

The caste of climate alarmists reminds us strongly of assorted doomsayers throughout history. They have almost become a kind of priestly caste, accusing us of committing the alleged “sin” of capitalism, even while they reserve for themselves the right to partake of its fruits to an extent few others are able to (as Greenpeace founder Patrick Moore notes, “environmentalism has become a religion”). Mind, we don’t believe genuine environmental concerns should be ignored, but AGW looks more and more like a contrived non-issue. The hysteria that has been on display of late is probably an indication though that its proponents are actually losing the debate.

In many ways, the overnight market has so far been a reversal of yesterday, when a stable Asia session (with China stocks rising) gave way to a European tumble which in turn dragged the US lower.

A series of dramatic moves at the helm of Germany's iconic carmaker leaves many wondering what's next. Here are some thoughts.

After sliding early in Sunday pre-market trade, overnight US equity futures managed to rebound on the now traditional low-volume levitation from a low of 1938 to just over 1950 at last check, ignoring the biggest single-name blowup story this morning which is the 23% collapse in Volkswagen shares, and instead have piggybacked on what we said was the last Hail Mary for the market: the hope of more QE from either the ECB or the BOJ. Tonight, it was the latter and while Japan's market are closed until Thursday for public holidays, its currency which is the world's preferred carry trade and the primary driver alongside VIX manipulation of the S&P500, has jumped from a low of just over 119 on Friday morning to a high of 120.4, pushing the entire US stock market with it.

Non-bombasitc overview of the investment climate.  No, the sky is not falling.  This is not the end of days.  

"Instead of acting via bond markets and banking sector, why shouldn’t public sector bypass markets altogether and inject stimulus directly into the ‘blood stream’?... CBs directly monetizing Government spending and funding projects would do the same. Whilst ultimately it would lead to stagflation (UK, 70s) or deflation (China, today), it could provide strong initial boost to generate impression of recovery and sustainable business cycle... What is probability of the above policy shift? Low over next six months; very high over the longer term."

News That Matters

The long awaited day is finally here by which we, of course, mean the day when nobody has any idea what the Fed will do, the Fed included. Putting today in perspective, there have been just about 700 rate cuts globally in the 3,367 days since the last Fed rate hike on June 29, 2006, while central banks have bought $15 trillion in assets, and vast portions of the world are now in negative interest rate territory.

Kyle Bass shared his macro views during the “Squawk on the Street”