Yuan

"Every day brings another reason why the Federal Reserve should hold off before raising interest rates... First and foremost there was the recent plunge in stock prices."

The OECD is well aware of the possibility that a Fed hike could plunge emerging markets into chaos. Nevertheless, the time to hike is apprently now...

Chinese equity markets are holding modest 'bounce' gains after two days of carnage. After 3 days of stronger fixes PBOC devalued the Yuan but the Ministry of Finance made it clear that "devaluation is not aimed at boosting exports," which makes us wonder, is it aimed at selling Treasuries? No additional direct liquidity injections but anxiety grows as China National Erzhong Group Co. may miss an interest payment later this month after one of its creditors filed a restructuring request, putting it at risk of becoming the second state-owned company to default in the nation’s onshore bond market.

Going into Thursday, everyone - and we do mean everyone - is scrambling to predict which asset classes are most susceptible to a Fed hike. Amid the rampant confusion, BofAML asked fund managers to weigh in. Here are the results.

Meanwhile, in Frankfurt...

• China stocks resume sharp slide as economic worries mount (Reuters)
• OECD head says sees further cut to global growth forecasts (Reuters)
• The U.S. Dollar Is Gaining Like It's the 1980s — For Better or Worse (BBG)
• Glencore Slumps to Record Low, Erasing Gains Since Debt Plan (BBG)
• Woman killed, 400 homes destroyed by California wildfire (Reuters)
• Why Morning Is the Worst Time to Trade Stocks (WSJ)
• German Investor Confidence Damped by Weaker Emerging Markets (BBG)

It appears someone is betting on Kuroda and his cronies to do something later this evening (just like they did as The Fed stopped QE3 back in October) in some wierd monetray policy quid pro quo of - dump Yen all you like as long as the carry trade is alive and well. USDJPY is up from 119.85 to 120.50 (and NKY up over 400 points from US session lows), as perhaps the fact that The BoJ's ETF-buying kitty is running dry at a crucial time. Chinese equity markets are extending yesterday's losses as margin debt declines to a 9 month low (still +62% YoY), injects another CNY50bn and strengthens the Yuan fix for the 3rd day in a row; but in a somewhat embarrassing move, Washington has decided not to impose sanctions on China ahead of Xi's first state visit next week.

"It looks to me a bit like a bubble again with essentially a tripling of stock prices since 2009 in just six years and at the same time people losing confidence in the valuation of the market."

The USD strengthening since last July is the core driver of the global recession. Is the Fed insane enough to deepen the global recession by raising rates and pushing the U.S. dollar even higher? Who wins if the USD strengthens due to the Fed raising rates? In a globally interconnected economy, nobody wins.

The EM FX carnage continues unabated heading into the FOMC as the Kazakh tenge plunges for a seventh consecutive day and the beleaguered Turkish lira slides to a new low as an obstinate central bank and an extraordinarily unstable political situation conspire to undermine confidence ahead of elections scheduled for November 1.

• China stocks slide as data raises fresh economy worries (Reuters)
• Was Tom Hayes Running the Biggest Financial Conspiracy in History? (BBG)
• The Fed’s Policy Mechanics Retool for a Rise in Interest Rates (NYT)
• Germany re-imposes border controls to slow migrant arrivals (Reuters)
• Thousands flee California wildfire as homes go up in flames (Reuters)
• Bavarian minister says German border controls could last for weeks (Reuters)
• China sells record FX in August, shows pressure after devaluation (Reuters)

News That Matters

For now, US equity futures are higher on the day, rising by 9 point after being 14 points higher ealier, driven mostly by USDJPY correlation algos, and perhaps by Goldman's conviction that the Fed will not hike in September and may delay hiking until 2016 altogether. However, we expect this initial euphoria higher to fade momentarily, once the vacuum tubes realize that the catalyst of Friday's surge higher, namely Gartman's latest flipflopping is no longer on the table: as of tonight, just 1 trading day after his latest reco, Gartman has been stopped out as his 1.5% limit was hit when futures rose above 1962 this evening.

"All this points to weaknesses in domestic and international policy arrangements - arrangements that have so far been unable to constrain sufficiently the build-up and unwinding of hugely damaging financial booms and busts across countries.Hence a world in which debt levels are too high, productivity growth too weak and financial risks too threatening. This is also a world in which interest rates have been extraordinarily low for exceptionally long and in which financial markets have worryingly come to depend on central banks' every word and deed, in turn complicating the needed policy normalisation. It is unrealistic and dangerous to expect that monetary policy can cure all the global economy's ills."

"Of all the possible risk scenarios the meltdown scenario is, realistically speaking, the most likely to occur. It is actually a more realistic outcome than the capital stock adjustment scenario. If China’s economy, the second largest in the world, twice the size of Japan’s, were to lapse into a meltdown situation such as this one, the effect would more than likely send the world economy into a tailspin. Its impact could be the worst the world has ever seen."