NASDAQ

"The world-beating surge in Chinese technology stocks is making the heady days of the dot-com bubble look tame by comparison...the industry is leading gains in China’s $6.9 trillion stock market, sending valuations to an average 220 times reported profits," Bloomberg reports, in yet another example of how stretched the margin-driven rally in Chinese stocks has become. We present the only chart you need to understand how this will end.

• Israel, U.S. Lawmakers Press Case Against Iran Nuclear Deal  (WSJ)
• Rand Paul tries to broaden libertarian appeal (Reuters)
• Fewer Oil Trains Ply America’s Rails (WSJ)
• Chicago voters go to polls in first ever mayoral runoff (Reuters)
• FedEx to buy TNT to expand Europe deliveries (Reuters)
• Mohamed El-Erian Has Most of His Money in Cash (BBG)
• In Surprise Move, Australia Holds Rates (WSJ)
• Oil falls as Iran, China discuss more supply (Reuters)

Because with the suddenly collapsing labor market, in which only Americans 55 and over can find jobs, expensive and superfluous Apple Watches should be a game-changer.

The question on everyone's lips: which asset class was responsible for Virtu's trading perfection for yet another year.  It wasn't stocks because adding across the firm's America, EMEA and APAX equity product lines, Virtu revenues actually declined, from $201 million in 2013 to $195 million in 2014. It also wasn't commodities, where revenue dropped by almost $2 million in 2014 to $93.1 million.The answer is...

The higher financial markets rise, the harder they fall. It would be one thing if stocks were soaring because the U.S. economy as a whole was doing extremely well.  But we all know that isn’t true. The warning signs are there – if you are willing to look at them.

* Silver surges 6.5% in dollars and 19% and 12% in euros and pounds *Oil and most commodities declined on economic concerns in the quarter (see table)  *U.S. stocks eked out minor gains to new record highs and look toppy *Gold performance impressive given strength of dollar and equities, oil collapse and negative sentiment

Biotech has outperformed the broad market by a count of 3.5:1 over the past four years, is up four fold over a decade that included the worst financial crisis since the Depression, is riding a 5-year reign as the top performing sector, and the number of public companies in the sector with $2B market caps has tripled in four years. But we'll let the charts do the talking.

All of these are signs of a top forming.

With Trannies now down almost 6% year-to-date, the S&P just fell back below the red-line for 2015, joining The Dow. Small Caps and Nasdaq remain up 2% for now. Bonds, gold, and silver are back in the green for 2015.

In a somewhat surprising turn of events, this morning's futures reaction to last night's shocking start of a completely unexpected Yemen proxy war, which has seen an alliance of Gulf State launch an air, and soon land, war against Yemen's Houthi rebels, is what one would expect: down, and down big. This is surprising, because on previous occasions one would expect the NY Fed, or its pet hedge fund, Citadel, or the BOJ or ECB (via the CME's "Central Bank Incentive Program") to aggressively buy ES to prevent a slide, something has changed, and for the BTFDers, that something may be very fatal with the e-Mini rapidly approaching a 1-handle yet again. The offset to tumbling stocks, as previously observed, is oil, with WTI soaring over 6% in a delayed algo response to the Qatar headlines.