NFIB

A federal shutdown due to a funding lapse looks no less likely than it did two weeks ago, and Goldman Sachs believes the probability is nearly 50%. The Senate is expected to begin voting later this week on a funding extension, but the House looks unlikely to act until shortly before the September 30 deadline. The following attempts to answer the main questions surrounding the shutdown, debt limit deadlines, and ramifications...

And to think all it took was Gartman going short of stocks in 25% correction terms yesterday...

News That Matters

The last time we looked at Chinese stocks, just a few hours ago, they were on pace to close back under 3000, following the latest collapse in trade, where in August exports dropped 5.5% (last -8.3%) while imports tumbled -13.8% in dollar terms (worse than the -8.1% prior). As the Reuters chart below shows, this was the 10th month in a row of declines and the worst stretch since the 2008 crisis, confirming China will need far more currency devaluation to stabilize the trade pain. And then Chinese authorities intervened with gusto, waiting until the start of the afternoon session, at which point a massive buying orgy ensued, and pushed the SHCOMP from down more than 2% to close at the day highs, up some 2.9%!

Chinese stocks opened with a bang, and as we previously noted soared higher at the open after China's long 4-day holiday weekend, which however subsequently slowly (but very surely) fizzled, eating away at the hope that the 3-day drop in the Shanghai Composite would finally come to an end following comments from PBOC governor Zhou that the recent rout in Chinese stocks is almost over, and result in a relief rally in Europe and the US. Alas, all that was promptly swept away at the end of trading in China when the Shanghai Composite tumbled at close of trading to confirm just how unpleasant a "death cross" is coupled with loss of central bank control, and to push the Shanghai Composite down 2.5% for the day and 3.4% for the year.

The overnight market has been a repeat of yesterday's action, when following China's repeat 1.6% devaluation of the CNY (which was to be expected since the PBOC made it quite clear the fixing would be based off the market value, a value which continues plunging), the second biggest in history following Monday's 1.9% plunge, traders appeared stunned having believed the PBOC's lies that the devaluation was a one-off and as a result the E-Mini tumbled overnight, and is now 30 points lower from last night's PBOC fixing announcement, trading at around 2058, and far below the "magical" 200-DMA support line, which has now been solidly breached.

If yesterday it was the turn of the upside stop hunting algos to crush anyone who was even modestly bearishly positioned in what ended up being the biggest short squeeze of 2015, then today it is the downside trailing stops that are about to be taken out in what remains the most vicious rangebound market in years, in the aftermath of the Chinese currency devaluation which weakened the CNY reference rate against the USD by the most on record, in what some have said was an attempt by China to spark its flailing SDR inclusion chances, but what was really a long overdue reaction by an exporter country having pegged to the strongest currency in the world in the past year.

Following last week's economic data tempest, capped with the disappointing US nonfarm payrolls, which has provided virtually no clarity on just what the "(Dow Jones) data-driven" Fed will do in a world in which not only is the US economy rolling over, but China is imploding, commodity deflation is raging, and global stock markets are propped up by a handful of stocks, the coming week will be far less exciting (which is just how the Hamptons crowd wants it).

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.

As with all data, none of these data points suggests that the economy, or the markets, will immediately plunge into a recessionary contraction. However, what is important to consider is that many of these data points are now converging and suggesting that risk is more elevated now than at any point since the financial crisis. It is at least worth thinking about.

Just when the Chinese plunge protection team (and "arrest shortie" task force) seemed to be finally getting "malicious selling" under control, first we saw a crack yesterday when the composite broke the surge of the past three days as a result of yet another spike in margin debt funded purchases, but it was last night's reminder that "good news is bad news" that really confused the stock trading farmers and grandmas, which goalseeked Chinese economic "data" beat across the board, with Q2 GDP coming solidly above expectations at 7.0%, and retail sales and industrial production both beating, but in the process raising doubts that the PBOC will continue supporting stocks.

With all hopes and dreams of economic renaissance in America pinned on small businesses (see ADP's recent gains), today's data from the NFIB will strike fear in the heart of the wealth-effect-creating Fed. The NFIB small business optimism index disappointed expectations in June (94.1 vs. consensus 98.5), falling to its lowest level since March 2014 - the biggest drop since 2012. All components were weaker but most notably hiring and plans to raise worker compensation tumbled. Furthermore, Deloitte's Q2 latest survery shows American CFOs are more worried than at any time since 2013.

One day after the Greek "pre-deal" was announced and the world breathed a sigh of relief, sending US stocks soaring and Greek halted stocks, well, tumbling (via ETFs and ADRs), things are oddly quiet and in fact quite red in Europe, with futures in the US modestly lower, following both China's first red close in several days (SHCOMP -1.2%), and a Europe which is hardly looking very euphoric at this moment: it is almost as if the algos finally got to read the fine print of the Greek deal after trading all day on just the headlines.

After a Chinese session which following the MSCI failure to include Chinese stocks in its EM index, if only for the time being, was largely a dud with Shanghai stocks actually dropping by 0.1% after a late day selloff, eyes turned to Europe, which once again did not disappoint and where the bond rout continued apace, with the 10Y Bund yield spiking just after the European open, and rising above 1.05%, the widest level since September 19, before recouping some losses and trading just around 1.00% at last check.

After a quiet Asian session, where not even the latest Chinese CPI miss was enough to push the SHCOMP to new multi-year highs, all eyes were on Europe where a few hours ago the European Commission announced it had received not one but two new proposals from Greece with the Greek government adding that it considers proposals submitted last week as remain basis for political negotiations. However, barely had Europe received the Greek addenda when it nein'ed all over them, with BBG citing an international official directly involved in talks saying that the "Greek government's revised proposal to unlock bailout funds is vague rehash of earlier plans, not considered credible."