NASDAQ

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.

It appears the "hostile act" in Turkey was not enough to keep the dip-buyers from bidding The Dow back into the green for the day. Nasdaq and the S&P are still lagging... as is the credit market.

It had been a relatively quiet session overnight when as reported previously, the geopolitical situation in the middle east changed dramatically in a moment, when NATO-member country Turkey downed a Russian fighter jet allegedly over Turkish territory even though the plane crashed in Syria, and whose pilots may have been captured by local rebel forces. The news promptly slammed Turkish assets and FX, sending the Lira tumbling, pushing lower European stocks and US equity futures while sending 2 Year German Bunds to record negative yields.

As a result of the global commodity weakness, global stocks have fallen for the first time in six days as the sell-off in commodities continued, dragging both US equity futures and European stocks lower. However, putting this in context, last week the MSCI All Country World Index posted its biggest weekly gain in six weeks: alas, without a coincident rebound in commodity prices, it will be merely the latest dead cat bounce.

Having detailed the "perverted nonsense" that is the collapsing and negative US swap spreads (here, here, here, and here) and noted money manager's concerns that the big question remains whether there is "something bigger brewing under the surface that so far hasn’t been pinpointed yet," it appears Goldman Sachs feels the need to 'explain' the anomaly in what appears an effort to calm fears about the broken money markets. Of course, we don’t have to figure out what the “market” is saying about a negative spread because it isn’t saying anything other than “something” is wrong and even Goldman admits this signals funding and balance sheet strains are worsening since August.

It appears there is a simple solution to regaining animal spirits in America... mandate black Americans to buy Nasdaq stocks...

If this weekend's gruesome terrorist attack on Paris ended up being hugely bullish for stocks, then two subsequent events, a stadium-evacuation scare in Hannover (where Angela Merkel was supposed to be present) and a raid in north Paris which left several dead in the ongoing manhunt against the alleged ISIS mastermind, appear to have but some question into if not stocks then algos whether a rising wave of terrorist hatred across Europe is truly what central bankers need to unleash more QE. That said, we expect the current weakness to last only until the traditional USDJPY carry ramp pushes stocks traditionally higher.

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?

While the U.S. equity markets, until the last few days, seemed unconcerned about the prospects of the rate hike, the so called canaries in the coal mine are once again sending troubling signals, as the consequences of a reversal of Fed policy after 7 years of crisis management are significant, and the stresses are amplified as policy change looks likely to occur while most other central banks are taking the opposite monetary policy tact.

Bonds are back in town and stocks are tumbling. Dow Transports remain the worst performer of the major indices (down over 11% year-to-date), but, after the exuberance of October, November's reality of a tightening Fed has dragged first Small Caps, then The Dow, and now The S&P into negative territory for 2015. Only Nasdaq remains in the green (up a stunning and entirely unsustainable 10% YTD). The S&P 500 also broke below its 200-day moving average.

The biggest event overnight came from Europe, where Draghi managed to once again jawbone the Euro lower by ober 50 pips when he told European lawmakers in a prepared testimony that downside economic risks are "clearly visible," repeating his October press conference statement, adding that the ECB will reexamine degree of accommodation in December as "inflation dynamics have somewhat weakened." And the statement that crushed the Euro: "If we were to conclude that our medium-term price stability objective is at risk, we would act by using all the instruments available within our mandate to ensure that an appropriate degree of monetary accommodation is maintained." I.e., another "whatever it takes" moment.

The PBOC weakened the Yuan fix for the 7th straight day - the longest such streak of 'devaluation' since 2012 - which appears to have helped fuel yet another day of gains for China's most-levered Shenzhen and ChiNext stock indices (even though the USDollar is losing altitude against Asian FX). At the break we note that the lower beta CSI-300 and Shanghai Composite are diverging lower. Meanwhile, over in real economy land, Copper is hitting new lows, nickel is weak, zinc is down, and China Containerized Freight Index just hit a new record low... but when has any of that ever mattered?