Just as Wholesale inventories-to-sales ratios flash recessionary signals so Business inventrories-to-sales point to US heading towards an inventory-dump recession. At 1.38x, the ratio is the highest since the last crisis as both sales and inventories fell Mom but year-over-year, sales tumble (-1.4% YoY) and inventories rise (1.6% YoY).

UBS has warned that the seven-year cycle in equities is rolling over, we could see a sharp 30% correction in stocks and that as per the headline of their ‘Technical Outlook 2016?, it is time to “buy gold” ... "So if gold moves into a bubble, we would need to see a gold price of minimum $3,300 ..." 

Exchange says Nasdaq/Finra TRF -- a service dark pools and other off-exchange venues use to report stock trades -- is experiencing technical issue.

The great Kingdom of Saudi Arabia - the long-time dictator of crude oil prices for the world - is struggling on all fronts. The Saudis are in a state of panic all around - from its OPEC status and dwindling reserves to its proxy wars that absolutely cannot turn into full-fledged wars and its growing friendlessness. At the end of the day, Saudi Arabia has overextended itself, and overestimated its prowess and it does not have the clout that it once had to be able to do this effectively.

“Yeah well, considering you’ve got a book value of $20 billion and you haven’t reported an operating EBIT gain in the last two years, I think they’ve been lucky to get away with such a modest amount. I think they’ll be having the same discussions with their auditors in July."

Remember when the Fed's dots - less than a month ago - suggested there would be 4 rate hikes in 2016? Ah, the memories. Well, you can not only forget that (now that the market is estimating the next rate hike will come in October if ever), but it appears that the Fed will follow Kocherlakota's advice after all and not only cut rates (the possibility of a January rate cut now is 10%), but will pass go, and collect negative rates:

• DUDLEY: IF ECONOMY WEAKENED, WOULD CONSIDER NEGATIVE RATES

After today's atrocious, recessionary data, one can be certain that the Fed is furiously considering negative rates.

It has been a roller-coaster week for precious metals as the 50-day moving average remains key support for Gold and resistance for silver. This morning's chaos appears to have reignited the bid for safety once again...

Thus we are treading water for about a year at this 9.2 million barrels per day level, but that just isn`t going to cut it considering the drop in spot prices of crude oil.

There comes a time when you just have to admit you were wrong... You were wrong. Industrial Production plunged 1.8% year-over-year - the fastest pace of collapse since May 2008 and a level that has never not produced a recession.

This is just the beginning. The bond bubble will take months to completely implode. And eventually it will consume even sovereign nations. Globally the bond bubble is $100 trillion in size: larger than even global GDP.

American consumers curbed their spending in December, a lackluster finish to a year marked by slowing consumption despite a steadily improving labor market and months of cheap gasoline.  But the biggest disappointment was the Retail Sales ex auto which was down 0.1% in December, below the 0.2% expected. Putting this miss in context, 66 out of 69 economists thought December retail sales ex autos would've been higher than actual. So much for those "gas savings" prompting Americans to spend, spend, spend...

Against hope-strewnm expectations of a bounce from -4.6 to -4, Empire Fed printed a disastrous -19.37 - the largest miss on record. New orders collapsed, shipments plunged, and employees and workweek continue to contract. Forward-looking employment expectations also plunged. The last time Empire Fed crashed to these levels was the immediate aftermath of the Lehman bankuptcy and the global financial crisis and the peak of the recession in 2001... but we are sure this is just transitory.

In the latest Chinese domestic financing report released by the PBOC last night, there were two divergent themes: on one hand bank loans grew far less than the expected 700Bn yuan; on the other hand total social financing soared to 1.82 trillion yuan, smashing forecasts of a 1.15 trillion increase, and the highest since June. As noted last night, this may have been the catalyst that spooked the markets, because as Bloomberg confirms, "the data shows companies are turning to alternative sources for credit given banks’ reluctance to lend."

Dow futures are now over 400 points off the Bullard Bounce highs as it appears The Fed's ability to convince the world it will save it once again is fading. Thanks to deflation-inspiring credit growth in China (yes, you read that right) and Kuroda's implied "we are done for now" comments, growth scares have spread across every asset class with crude and copper clubbed, bonds bid, and stocks tumbling...