NASDAQ

With everyone now focused on what China's daily Yuan fixing will be ever night, there was some confusion why last night the PBOC decided to devalue the CNY by another 1.1% to 6.4010, despite its promise that the devaluation would be a "one-off" event, taking the 3 day devaluation to just about 4.5%. However, subsequently in a press conference, central bank vice-governor Yi Gang said that the PBoC will continue to step in when the market is ‘distorted’, that there is no economic basis for the Yuan to fall continuously and that it will look to keep the exchange rate ‘basically stable’. The Vice-Governor also said that the PBoC will closely monitor cross-border capital flows and that reports suggesting the Central Banks wants to see the currency depreciate 10% are ‘groundless’. Which is ironic considering after just 3 days, the PBOC is already half the way there!

Asset price inflation, a disease whose source always lies in monetary disorder, is not a new affliction. It was virtually inevitable that the present wild experimentation by the Federal Reserve - joined by the Bank of Japan and ECB - would produce a severe outbreak. And indications from the markets are that the disease is in a late phase, though still short of the final deadly stage characterized by pervasive falls in asset markets, sometimes financial panic, and the onset of recession.

When AAPL is moving higher, it can mask a lot of problems in the broader market. Unfortunately for bulls, AAPL is beginning to crack. It began on the day of the July post when it got crushed following its earnings release. It has since broken down more, recently dropping below its post-2009 UP trendline... "no brainer"

Well that escalated quickly...

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.

And the catalyst was... crap China data means moar stimulus (except pork prices are soaring), oil rumors (denied), JPY (stalled), Fischer (same old), and Lockhart... or maybe it's just your standard Monday morning stop run...

Following last week's bad news for the economy (terrible ADP private payrolls, confirmed by a miss in the NFP) which also resulted in bad news for the market which suffered its worst week in years, many were focused on how the market would react to the latest battery of terrible economic news out of China which as we observed over the weekend reported abysmal trade data, and the worst plunge in Chinese factory prices in 6 years. We now know: the Shanghai Composite soared by 5%, rising to 3,928 and approaching the key 4000 level because the ongoing economic collapse led Pavlov's dog to believe that much more easing is coming from the country which as we showed last night has literally thrown the kitchen sink at stabilizing the plunge in stocks.

Here comes today's main event, the July non-farm payrolls - once again the "most important ever" as the number will cement whether the Fed hikes this year or punts once again to the next year, and which consensus expects to print +225K although the whisper range is very wide: based on this week's ADP report, NFP may easily slide under 200K, while if using the non-mfg PMI as an indicator, a 300K+ print is in the cards. At the end of the day, it will be all in the hands of the BLS' Arima X 12 seasonal adjusters, and whatever goalseeked print the labor department has been strongly urged is the right one.

It is unclear what catalyzed today's dump. Futures were briefly green at the open, then as if all hell broke loose and without an explicit  catalyst (although the technical collapse of numerous "story stocks" which had been market leaders for months, both today and in recent weeks has not helped) the E-mini, and individual stocks, just took out level after level of bids and at last check the Dow has dropped to 6 month lows, the S&P is just barely green for the year, while the biggest pain is in the Nasdaq which has dropped as much as 2% intraday. Below we lay out the biggest losers from today's market drop.