Nikkei

BOJ IS SAID TO SEE LITTLE IMMEDIATE NEED FOR ADDING STIMULUS
BOJ OFFICIALS ARE SAID TO WANT CHANCE TO SEE MORE DATA

Good news! Bad news is again great for stocks, and overnight we had just the right amount of bad news from Japan, China and Europe to send stocks surging on the first day of the final quarter.

News That Matters

With Japan's economy already sliding into its 5th recession of the past decade, once pensioners open their retirement statements in a few weeks and find a 15% plunge in their purchasing power, Japan can skip recession and proceed straight to a consumer-driven recession. But wait, there's more: because if pensioners are angry now, wait until they learn that they have lost everything, after buying all those junk bonds that Carl Icahn is now actively selling with both hands and feet, because: JAPAN PENSION FUND TO INVEST IN JUNK BONDS, NIKKEI SAYS. And just like that, with or without Krugman's active economic advice, Japan's fate is sealed because much to Japan's dismay, "junk" bonds are called that for a reason.

USDJPY is tumbling, cracking back below the 120.00 tractor beam (and catching down to Nikkei 225's decoupling). EURUSD is also plunging, down 100 pips in the last few hours... it appears it is not just EM FX that is seeing volatility increase as The Majors start flip-flopping ahead of Friday's payrolls data..

Terrible economic news is wonderful news for markets, all over again, and with the worst S&P500 quarter since 2011 set to close today, some horribly "great" news is just what the window-dressing hedge funds, most of whom are deeply underperforming the broader market (not to mention Dennis Gartman) ordered.

News That Matters

In the latest sign easy-money market froth may be peaking, moments ago German media conglomerate Axel Springer announced it has agreed to buy 88% of web-only Business Insider, adding to the 9% it already owns, for $343 million, which according to the Springer press release values 100% of the content aggregator at $442 million "on the basis of a cash and debt free valuation of USD 390 million." The remaining 3% of the company will be retained by Bezos Expeditions, the personal investment company of Jeff Bezos, who purchased a $5 million stake in 2013.

It was a tale of two markets overnight: Asia first - where all commodity hell broke loose - and then Europe (and the US), where central banks did everything they could to stabilize the already terrible sentiment.

Following on from a weak Europe and US session (despite late-day heroics in China last night), Fed confusion and commodity-complex counterparty-risk-concerns have sparked further turmoil across AsiaPac in the early going. Noble Group (asia's Glencore) is crashing, down 6.7% at the open. FX markets are seeing outflows send CNH below CNY for the first time since July and crush Thai Baht to its weakest since Jan 2007. Equity markets are in trouble with Aussie stocks hammered (driven by a plunge in Miners) and Nikkei 225 down 1000 points from Friday's highs. Asia credit markets have spiked to 2-year wides. China injected another CNY40bn and strengthened the fix (by the most since 9/2) for 2nd day in a row.

It was all about China once again, where following a report of a historic layoff in which China's second biggest coal producer Longmay Group fired an unprecedented 100,000 or 40% of its workforce, overnight we got the latest industrial profits figure which plunging -8.8% Y/Y was the biggest drop since at least 2011, and which the National Bureau of Statistics attributed to "exchange rate losses, weak stock markets, falling industrial goods prices as well as a bigger rise in costs than increases in revenue." In not so many words: a "hard-landing."

When will the “nothing is happening” crowd finally wake up?

The market, which clearly ignored the glaring contradictions in Yellen's speech which said that overseas events should not affect the Fed's policy path just a week after the Fed statement admitted it is "monitoring developments abroad", and also ignored Yellen explicit hint that NIRP is coming (only the size is unclear), and focused on the one thing it wanted to hear: a call to buy the all-critical USDJPY carry pair - because more dollar strength apparently is what the revenue and earnings recessioning S&P500 needs - which after trading around 120 in the past few days, had a 100 pip breakout overnight, hitting 121 just around 5am, in the process pushing US equity futures some 25 points higher at last check.

European equity have been weighed on by BMW after reports in German press that the Co.'s emission tests for their X3 model could show worse results than that of the Volkswagen Passat. The Norwegian and Taiwanese central banks have both cut interest rates, taking the number of central banks to cut rates this year to 40. Today's highlights include US weekly jobs data and durable goods orders as well as comments from ECB's Praet and Fed's Yellen. Of note US data, including jobless claims, durables and home sales will be delayed today & not released to newswires 1st due to Pope's visit

AsiaPac stocks are broadly lower at the open, folowing US' lead as after being closed for 3 days, Japanese stocks open and catch down to global weakness with Nikkei 225 at 2-week lows. It appears it is time to "get back to work Mr.Kuroda," as stocks are below Black Monday's lows. Following last night's dismal data, China credit risk rose once again to new 2 year highs. Once again, industrial metals are under pressure with iron ore, copper, and aluminum all lower (following "peak steel" comments). After 3 days of weakening (and Xi's comments that China won't weaken), PBOC weakend the Yuan fix again, pushing the offshore-onshore spread to 2-week wides (over 500 pips apart).