Wall Street Journal

• Stick to tapering and rates pledge, says Boston Fed chief (FT)
• Turkey to let Iraqi Kurds reinforce Kobani as U.S. drops arms to defenders (Reuters)
• Obama makes rare campaign trail appearance, some leave early (Reuters)
• Japan GPIF to Boost Share Allocation to About 25%, Nikkei Says (BBG)... or three months of POMO
• Japan Stocks Surge on Report GPIF to Boost Local Shares (BBG)
• China Growth Seen Slowing Sharply Over Decade (WSJ)
• Russia, Ukraine Edge Closer to Natural-Gas Deal (WSJ)
• Leveraged Money Spurs Selloff as Record Treasuries Trade (BBG)
• After clashes, Hong Kong students, government stand their ground before talks (Reuters)

Not everything is as it seems. While the PBOC may be taking a stand on monetarism and its character, it has been very curious that the yuan has not fully participated in the dollar turmoil marking so many other “dollar” dependent nations. While the yuan’s appreciation trend may have been altered, that has not led again to the kind of disorder that marked the currency earlier in the year. Maybe that is due, at least in part, to these expectations that the PBOC will eventually relent on its new approach, but we also think that the PBOC is at least looking the other way on some of the “old tricks” that supported the Chinese version of the dollar short.

Once in a blue moon officials commit truth in public, but the intrepid leader of Germany’s central bank has delivered a speech which let’s loose of three of them in a single go. Speaking at a conference in Riga, Latvia, Jens Weidmann put the kibosh on QE, low-flation and central bank interference in pricing of risky assets.

If U.S. stocks have stabilized – granted, a big 'IF' - you can thank the fact that markets don’t believe the Federal Reserve’s outlook on interest rates. Bad news will keep the doves “Fed” (yes, a pun…  it’s Friday) and the hawks at bay. A spate of good U.S. news while the rest of the developed world slows is the worst potential outcome in this narrative.

We suspect the market will be disappointed by this morning's headlines from China. Chinese rate markets are implying a RRR cut is coming soon (as swap rates drop below deposit rates - previously signaled 2 RRR cuts) but the PBOC announced this morning a muich more focused injection of cash to 20 of the nations' largest banks. RRR cuts, are (theoretically) considerably more broadly stimulative to lending than a $32.8 billion cash injection to banks - which are struggling to lend as demand for loans (given high costs of debt for the firms that need the money the most) is weak. One can only imagine the holes in bank balance sheets that exist if the PBOC is forced to do this. Simply put, no matter how much hope there is, as we noted previously, the PBOC will not be providing broad stimulus.

"There is nothing good to say about the state of Venezuela’s economy, and this isn’t helping," warns Danske's Lars Christensen as tumbling prices for Venezuela’s oil are threatening to choke off funds (oil is 95% of exports) needed to pay debt.. and that is clear from the collapse of bond prices. The Maduro government desperately needs a rise in oil prices, but Saudi Arabia has so far rebuffed calls for an emergency meeting as it pursues a strategy of waiting out higher cost competitors. OPEC does not plan on meeting until Nov. 27. That is an eternity for a country that is beginning to unravel.

As oil prices continue to fall, analysts and producers are trying to wrap their heads around the reasons and identify a floor price. Even though crude benchmarks like Brent and WTI keep dropping, the cost of finding oil continues to rise. What are some of the key drivers that have created this paradox?

With this in mind we hope the Swiss people display their fierce independence and reject the advice of the "experts," many of whom got us into this mess, in favour of the policies that have kept them peaceful and prosperous for centuries ...

The Chinese Communist Party’s official newspaper claims the U.S. is trying to foment a “color revolution” in Hong Kong. Although China has strongly implied that foreigners were secretly controlling the Hong Kong protests in recent weeks, the commentary was the first time it so explicitly accused the U.S. of being behind the movement.

We first exposed the "secret" US-Saudi deal in September which led to the inevitable bombing of Syria. We then progressed to explain the quid pro quo of the deal in lower oil prices (benefiting US consumers into an election and crushing Russian revenues). In today's Wall Street Journal we get the final piece of the puzzle as it is clear that what Saudi Arabia loses in 'price' it will make up in 'volume' as The Kingdon is taking the unusual step of asking buyers to commit to maximum shipments if they want to get its crude. Simply put, "they are threatening [European] buyers" to discontinue sales if they don't agree with the full fixed deliveries. The 'oil weapon' grows stronger...

Late into Friday's major market selloff, a completely unfounded rumor emerged out of nowhere, seeking to rekindle the BTFD spirits, that with central bank intervention from both the BOJ and ECB already priced in, and with the Fed still in taper mode (if not for much longer should the S&P dump accelerate), that the last central-planner wildcard, China, would join the fray and a major monetary gusher would come out of Beijing over the weekend to halt the slide. Alas, we have bad news for said BTFDers: just hours before futures are set to open on Sunday afternoon, the chief economist at China’s central bank said Saturday that he doesn’t see any reason for large-scale fiscal or monetary stimulus “in the foreseeable future” despite slowing growth in the world’s second-largest economy and disagreements about the depth and timing of economic overhauls.... Part of China’s “new normal,” he said, is that “big stimulus” won’t be called for every time growth decelerates. “And secondly, the new norm will involve a lot of rebalancing in terms of changing the economic structure.”

Hearing of IMF interventions generally conjures up images of developing nations (and the occasional Eurozone peripheral economy of late) facing some kind of financial difficulty. But it was actually Great Britain, the cradle of the industrialized world, which in 1976 became one of the first countries ever to be "bailed out" by the IMF in the modern sense of the term.

What if there was some degrees of freedom in the centrally planned capital markets that rational, non-emotional and non-ideologically-laden thinking could shed light on ? Here is such an attempt

Mega-startups go parabolic. Flame-out already happening.