Australia

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”

Given the recent admission by the Australian Central Bank that property prices "have gone crazy," it appears new Chinese 'regulations' may just kill Australia's golden goose of 'weath creation' as Aussie's largest trade partner sees its economy collapse. While the Aussies themselves proclaimed a "war on cash," it appears, as AFR reports, that Chinese purchases of Australian property have dropped significantly in the past month, according to agents, as buyers struggle to shift money out of the country following Beijing's move to tighten capital controls. With Chinese banks now limiting any overseas transfer to USD50,000 - in an effort to control capital outflows - and with China dominating the Aussie housing market, one agent exclaimed, "it has affected 70 to 80 per cent of current transactions and some have already been suspended."

TURNBULL WINS PARTY BALLOT TO BECOME AUSTRALIAN PRIME MINISTER

While any moves in the US stock market ahead of Thursday are largely irrelevant, as only Yellen's statement in 4 days will unleash epic algo buying or short covering (yes, according to JPM the Fed statement is bullish no matter what), it is what happened in China that is concerning, because while we had expected Chinese stocks to go nowhere in particular now that index future trading volumes have plunged by 99% or perhaps rise on hopes of even more easing after the latest terrible economic data, the Shanghai Composite dropped 2.7%, but it was the retail darling Shenzhen Composite which tumbled 6.7% - its worst selloff since August 25, while China's Nasdaq, the ChiNext crashed -7.5%.

It’s well-known that you have to make a declaration if you physically transport $10,000 or more in cash or monetary instruments in or out of the US, or almost any other country; governments collude on these things, often informally. But we've recently had some disturbing experiences crossing borders with coins...

The Chinese economy will soon move into contraction, its leaders will panic and jump in with both feet. Fiscal and monetary stimulus, bail-outs, more political control, increased use of censorship, talk about patriotic duty and who know what else. What we do know is that it will look like this...

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott on Wednesday became the latest elected leader to use the plight of refugees in building a rhetorical case for military escalation towards Syria, despite numerous calls for wealthy nations to extend refuge - not bombs - as the humanitarian crisis worsens.

And monetary policies will be “ineffective”: Natixis

Apparently fed up with the persistent spread between the onshore and offshore yuan, China has decided to add one more spinning plate to its collection by intervening in the offshore spot market.

And to think all it took was Gartman going short of stocks in 25% correction terms yesterday...

Before China’s bursting equity bubble grabbed international headlines, and before the PBoC’s subsequent devaluation of the yuan served notice to the world that things had officially gotten serious in the global currency wars, all anyone wanted to talk about when it came to China was a "hard landing." Now that the yuan devaluation has all but proven that China has landed, and landed hard, here are the five channels of contagion.

The US economy was not “decoupled” in the slightest during the expansion of the great global monetary boom that has now crested. Nor will it uncouple during the deflationary bust that must necessarily ensue. The ultimate worldwide hit to US exports is evident in the 20% drop in shipments to Brazil, and that’s just for starters because its economic depression is just getting underway. Likewise, the panicked flight of hot dollars from Brazil now besetting the global financial markets is only indicative of the turmoil to come as the massive “dollar short” unwinds on a global basis. So this is not a retest. We are in the midst of an unprecedented global deflation. A real live bear market is once again at hand.

Since today was the last day of trading for Chinese stocks this week ahead of the 4-day extended September 3 military parade holiday to mark the 70th anniversary of the allied victory over Japan, and since Chinese stocks opened to yet another early trading rout coupled with the PBOC's biggest Yuan strengthening since 2010 as we observed earlier, there was only one thing that was certain: massive intervention by the Chinese "National Team" to get stocks as close to green as possible. Sure enough they tried, and tried so hard the "hulk's" green color almost came through in the last hour of trading and yet, despite the symbolic importance of having a green close at least one day this week ahead of China's victory over a World War II foe, Beijing was unable to defeat the market even once in the latest week which will hardly bode well for Chinese stocks come next week.