To be sure, there were already a number of concerns about the upcoming Olympic games in Rio. For instance, last summer we learned that thanks to a lack of sanitation infrastructure, Olympic athletes are almost certain to come into contact with disease-causing viruses in the water. In the latest embarrassment, power to the stadium that will host the Olympic track and field events was cut off after a dispute between the government and a soccer club ended in a $250,000 unpaid utility bill.

We don’t have a dog in this fight.  San Bernardino doesn’t change the calculation.  ISIS will eventually collapse under its own homicidal and parasitical weight, probably with the help of one or more of its neighbors, whose inactivity and divisiveness we currently underwrite. Then ISIS will be replaced by something better... or worse... it is impossible to know in this region.  In the interim, we and our European friends should focus our efforts on isolating ourselves from the madness.  And we certainly should not go out of our way to draw further fire.

Returns from being long the commodity super-cycle have evaporated in the last 18 months... to 42 year lows...

Homicide rates in the United States have been declining for 20 years as the number of privately-held guns in the US has increased substantially. In some states, such as New Hampshire and Oregon, which have very weak gun laws, homicide rates are remarkably low, and these states are among the safest places on earth. As homicide rates have declined, however, and gun-related homicides with them, gun-control advocates have attempted to create a new category of "gun violence" by blaming suicides on access to guns.

"We the people are pissed. The body politic is burning up. And the anger that courses through our headlines and news feeds - about injustice and inequality, about marginalization and disenfranchisement, about what they are doing to us - shows no sign of abating,"

One of these bubbles is not like the others, one of these bubbles just doesn't belong... and yet still "officials" and talking-heads proclaim it cheap...

Sure Oil can go a dollar below this low, but for all intents and purposes this is the bottom in the oil selloff that was predicted for the start of the year.

On December 3rd, a month before Saudi Arabia carried out it largest mass execution since 1980 - subsequently setting the region on fire - Arjun Sethi wrote an article for Al-Jazeera titled: Saudi Arabia Uses Terrorism As An Excuse for Human Rights Abuses. According to Cora Currier at the Intercept: Al Jazeera’s headquarters in Qatar appear to have blocked the article outside of the United States because it is critical of an ally of Qatar.

Market psychology established in recent years is reversing. Market volatility is rising and will remain pervasive for a while as psychology, the change in direction of Fed policy, and the increases in general uncertainties, will all conspire to shape an environment ripe for sharp spikes in volatility which will be further amplified by rickety market liquidity.

The concern, of course, is that these divergences are not resolved by strengthening stock market closes (a welcome sign of improved investor confidence) but, rather, by pullbacks in the indexes themselves– a decidedly less envied outcome.

Resented with no comment...

Is Tim Cook in the house? Or is The SNB doubling down?

They tried to slam VIX (and failed). JPY was sold (but failed). And Crude was temporarily ramped (but failed). So how do you stall a sell-off - BREAK THE MARKET AGAIN!!

Just as we saw in the August collapse, US financial stocks appear to be facing the harsh reality that other markets already recognize. While US financial credit markets have been anything but exuberant for weeks, equity options markets have now turned their bullish backs on the banks as Bloomberg reports the ratio of bearish to bullish options on the S&P Financials ETF has climbed to the highest level in a year this week, reflects rising demand for protection against losses as NIM hopes collapse and Fed "error" probabilities increase.