Real estate

First it was Australia (closest to China), then Miami, then London, and now New York appears to have been hit by the sudden withdrawal of a bid-at-any-price, stash-my-cash, launder-my-money foreign flood of money to buy real estate. Manhattan apartment vacancies reached their highest level in more than nine years, according top broker Miller-Samuel, a sign that the post-recession run-up in rents may begin to cool. "We're reaching the point where things can't go up as much," Miller said in an interview. "The economics don't make much sense anymore." Did they ever?

The Fed & ECB are spawning the next crisis....

"I want to add my voice in support of Muslims in our community and around the world... If you're a Muslim in this community, as the leader of Facebook I want you to know that you are always welcome here and that we will fight to protect your rights and create a peaceful and safe environment for you."

• Gloomy mood prevails despite calmer commodities (Reuters)
• A Strong Dollar Hurts China More Than the U.S. (BBG)
• China Sets Yuan at Four-Year Low in ‘Stress Test’ (WSJ)
• Dow Chemical and DuPont Are in Advanced Talks to Merge (WSJ)
• Yahoo scraps plan to spin off Alibaba stake (Reuters)

12 hours after his dramatic campaign statement to shut out Muslims arrivals into the US, Donald Trump doubled down and in a series of interviews early on Tuesday, he repeatedly told anchors such as CNN's Chris Cuomo that "we're at war - get it through your head" in his latest heated exchange, during which he reminded America how quickly people have forgotten "World Trade Center #1 and World Trade Center #2."

"We're gonna have to figure it out, we can't live like this. It's going to get worse and worse, we're going to have more World Trade Centers. It's going to get worse and worse, folks. We can be politically correct and we can be stupid but it's going to be worse and worse." Donald Trump said even as an AP summary of Muslim reactions to Trump can be summarized as follows: "He's trying to alienate not only the Muslim population of the United States but all the Muslims around the world."

The suicide rate in Alberta has increased dramatically in the wake of mounting job losses across the province. According to the chief medical examiner's office, 30 per cent more Albertans took their lives in the first half of this year compared to the same period last year. "This is staggering," said Mara Grunau, who heads the Centre for Suicide Prevention.  "It's far more, far exceeds anything we would ever have expected, and we would never have expected to see this much this soon."

China burned through some $40 billion in FX reserves in November in support of the yuan while the headline drawdown came in at a whopping $87 billion inclusive of valuation effects. It was the third largest decline in history and suggests that despite a misleading $11 billion increase in October, capital flight continues unabated.

The "Jobs Friday" ritual is getting truly absurd. So it can’t be repeated often enough: These artifacts of the BLS’ seasonally maladjusted, trend-cycle modeled, heavily imputed/crafted and five times revised “jobs” numbers have precious little to do with the real health of the main street economy. Indeed, the six-year run of job gains since early 2010 primarily represent “born-again jobs” and part-time gigs. In economic terms, they do not remotely resemble your grandfather’s industrial era economy when a “job” lasted 40 to 50 hours per week all year round; and most of what the BLS survey counted as “jobs” paid a living wage. Not now. Not even close.

So how do you grow household wealth by $18 trillion in the face of these dismal real world trends? In a word, with a printing press. But what happened today is that Draghi showed he is out of tricks and Yellen confessed she is out of excuses. Yes, this sucker is going down. And this time all the misguided economics professors turned central bankers in the world will be powerless to reverse the plunge.

• The Jobs Report Probably Won't Change the Fed's Mind on Liftoff (BBG)
• U.S. authorities look for militant links to shooters in California mass slaying (Reuters)
• Neighbors, Acquaintances Shocked That Couple Are San Bernardino Shooting Suspects (WSJ)
• ECB Fumbles the Stimulus-Baton Hand-off, Mussing Up Fed’s Plans (WSJ)
• OPEC Heads for Status Quo as Members Clash Over Crude Output Cut (BBG)
• Foreigners drawn in as fear and loathing grip China's finance industry (Reuters)

Yesterday's market swoon which unwound all of Tuesday's gains on concerns about a hawkish Fed and fears about terrorism in the US, are now completely forgotten, and have been replaced with the latest daily round of pre-ECB euphoria, driven by hopes that Mario Draghi will announce even more dovish details to Europe's Q€ 2 than just a 10 bps rate cut and a boost to QE more than €10 billion, both of which have been already priced in.

It is only logical that a day after the S&P500 surged, hitting Goldman's 2016 target of 2,100 more than a year early because the US manufacturing sector entered into a recession, that Europe would follow and when Eurostat reported an hour ago that European headline inflation of 0.1% missed expectations of a modest 0.2% increase (core rising 0.9% vs Exp. 1.1%), European stocks predictably surged not on any improvement to fundamentals of course, but simply because the EURUSD stumbled once more, sliding by 40 pips to a session low below the 1.06 level.

The central banks are simply trapped. They have bought in bonds under the theory that this will stimulate the economy by injecting cash. But there are several problems with this entire concept. This is an elitist view to say the least for the money injected does not stimulate the economy for it never reaches the consumer. This attempt to stimulate by increasing the money supply assumes that it does not matter who has the money... The attempt to “manage” the economy from a macro level without considering the capital flow within the system is leading to disaster.

Our condolences to the Fed: as Chinese buyers exit US luxury housing double time, watch as the bottom falls off the top in housing, and slowly at first then very fast drags the rest of the market lower, forcing the Fed to undo whatever tightening in monetary conditions it may have launched, or is contemplating.