Nasdaq 100

Before we go into details of the overnight carnage, this is where we stand currently: S&P futures now down 33 points or 1.63% while 2Y Treasury rallies pushing its yield back below 1% as EU stocks extend their drop after China weakened its currency, North Korea says it tested a hydrogen bomb; Brent crude falls to lowest level since 2004.

An 88-page "Research Note" from the SEC's Division of Trading and Markets titled "Equity Market Volatility on August 24, 2015," outlines the facts of that fateful trading day, discussing what went wrong, and which classes of securities were affected. The conclusions of the piece are purely factual, with little or no conjecture, and there's absolutely no policy recommendations. There are dozens of unintended consequences already baked into its proposed rulemaking. That's bad enough when you're talking about the inner workings of mutual funds and ETFs; it's a bigger deal when we're talking about the inner workings of the markets themselves.

It would not be unprecedented for trendy issues like the F.A.N.G. stocks to continue on to much larger gains... But just ask the Turkeys how this ends.

Once again, the expected outcome of the most recent wave of deterioration in market internals will likely depend on one’s view of the current market regime. Are we in an environment that can continue to largely dismiss these breadth warnings, ala the late 1990?s? Or are stocks fated to eventually succumb to the weakening internal foundation as in the post-2000 period?

As Strategas notes "any way we look at it, market breadth remains narrow," but, as Dana Lyon's details, everyone's favorite high-beta squeeze index - Nasdaq - is perhaps the most troubling. Since the initial spike off the September lows, rally participation among all stocks has been lackluster; the Nasdaq provides us with more evidence of this... In fact, over the past month, the cumulative number of daily advancing stocks minus declining stocks on the Nasdaq is actually negative.

So far today's trading session has been a repeat of what happened overnight on Monday, when following a weak start on even more weak Chinese data, US equities soared on the first trading day of the month continuing their blistering surge since that dreadful September payrolls report, which as we showed was mostly catalyzed by a near record bout of short's being squeezed and covering, which accelerated just as the S&P broke the 2100 level.

As Nasdaq 100 surges above July 2015 cycle highs towards 2000 record highs and the S&P 500 breaks the key 2,100 level - erasing all the losses from August 11th's start of China's devaluation, global markets in turmoil collapse - on ever-decreasing volume, it appears the credit market 'changed its mind' after Europe closed. What happens next?

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The previous Bubble was of the Fed’s making, and our central bank lost control. It became a Hobson’s Choice issue in the eyes of the Fed, and they fully accommodated the Bubble. These days, the Fed and global central bankers face a similar but much more precarious Bubble Dynamic: The Fed specifically targeted higher securities market prices as its prevailing post-mortgage finance Bubble (“helicopter money”) reflationary mechanism. This ensured that the Fed would again be unwilling to impose any monetary restraint before it would then become too risky to remove accommodation (Einstein’s definition of insanity?). In concert, global central bankers now aggressively accommodate financial Bubbles.

Stocks of “vice” industries like alcohol and tobacco are showing leadership – that hasn’t always been good news for the market.

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