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On October 24, 2014, the 19-year old son of a wealthy Swiss businessman walked into a brothel in the Bavarian town of Augsburg. Although by almost any standard he led a rather splendid existence, on this particular night he had reached his breaking point. The problem: he drove a 2011 Ferrari 458 Italia.

Recent price volatility in the media sector got us wondering: is “Cord cutting” the home cable box in favor of online entertainment really hitting critical mass?

The WSJ reported that none other than the operator of the biggest dark pool in the US by volume, Credit Suisse and its massive Crossfinder dark pool, "is in talks with regulators to settle allegations of wrongdoing at its “dark pool” with a record fine in the high tens of millions of dollars, according to people familiar with the matter." What is grotesque about this story, is that back in December 2012, it was none other than Credit Suisse which conveniently explained and laid out all those forms of HFT manipulation which we accused virtually every HFT firm of employing since 2009... and which Credit Suisse itself is now accused of engaging in!

• China Rattles Markets With Yuan Devaluation (BBG)
• China Move Sparks Wave of Yuan Selling (WSJ)
• China's devaluation raises currency war fear as Greece strikes deal (Reuters)
• Protests return to Ferguson streets, state of emergency declared (Reuters)
• Heavily armed 'Oath Keepers' inject new unease to riot-hit Ferguson (Reuters)
• Greece Secures Bailout Deal After All-Night Talks in Athens (BBG)
• U.S. Identifies Insider Trading Ring With Ukraine Hackers (BBG)

Google is adopting this structure in order to make clearer the difference between its main business and longer-term endeavors, as Page and Brin take on more strategic roles, while leaving operational management to trusted deputies.

Wondering why stocks are surging this morning - aside from Fischer's comments, OPEC rumors, Greek bank recaps, and JPY ignition? Perhaps it is the veritable swarm of professional technical analysts out with notes warning of significant problems ahead. From John Hussman's refined Hindenberg Omen and Carter Worth's "sell stocks, breadth is a problem," to Oppenheimer's warning of "seasonals and weak internals," and Louise Yamada's "stocks are vulnerable, keep cash on sidelines" warning - it appears today's early bounce is as much about contrarian oversold bounce as it is about any macro news. But with 73% of the largest 1000 stocks at least 5% off their highs, stocks remain fragile as they push back towards highs.

... in under a minute, the hateful script had taken offline the entire system in much the same manner as chucking a spanner into a running engine might stop a car. The databases, as always, were flushing their precious data onto many different disks as this happened, so massive, irreversible data corruption occurred. That was it, the biggest computer system in the bank, maybe even the world, was down. And it wasn't coming back up again quickly. At the time this failure occurred there was more than $12 TRILLION of trades at various stages of the settlement process in the system. This represented around 20% of ALL trades on the global stock market.

If Tesla doesn't start to get its act together with respect to delivering new products and getting their service back into its former tip-top shape, I suspect the symbol TSLA will make a long, tortured trip back down to the double digits.

Bill Ackman had a $1Bn shortfall to cover (allegedly) in his Pershing Square Fund. 

A public school district in Eastern Texas is under fire amid allegations it made up quotes by famous figures in order to promote Christianity to its students, posting them to the walls of the four schools in the district. The Mount Vernon Independent School District is accused of misattributing quotes to George Washington and Ronald Reagan among others and faces demands to remove the false statements from its walls.

Well, David Einhorn has clay feet, just like you and me, so.........naturally..........this very public announcement came within days of the stock's highest point in history

"It's all noise," squeaks Laszlo Birinyi, deflecting concerns about revenues, earnings, Europe, China, commodities, and rates as he unleashes his latest extrapolation. "If we continue to grow at 11bps per day, the S&P will be at 3,200 within 2 years," he warbles as he hopes his ruler - which missed its 2013 projection by 1100 points - is forecasting better this time.

After trading limit-down on Monday when Greek stocks opened for trading for the first time since PM Alexis Tsipras called a referendum, shares of Greek banks once again flirted with the daily 30% loss limit on Tuesday as there were simply no bids for a set of institutions that everyone knows is insolvent. Meanwhile, Kathimerini reports that "the state’s losses from indirect taxes alone in the first couple of weeks of capital controls and the shuttering of banks [amounted to] more than half a billion euros."

The headlines are dramatic, ugly and depressing to anyone who holds gold right now. Broad market sentiment has shifted from disdain and dismissive to highly negative. Hedge funds are shorting gold aggressively, hedge funds that own gold are being "outed". The market pundits are are sticking the proverbial knife in and twisting it with glee. 

With Greece facing a critical €3.2 billion payment to the ECB on August 20, creditors are under immense pressure to conclude official discussions on a third bailout program within the next three weeks. Now, Focus magazine says some German officials doubt whether the quadriga's timeline is realistic.