B+

After two months of sharp currency devaluation, the market was carefully watching last night's China trade data to see if the Yuan debasement had led to a positive trade outcome to the world's second largest economy, and as reported last night, it was not disappointed when China reported a December trade surplus of $60.09 billion from $54.1 billion in November, as a result of exports beating expectations and rising 2.3%, the first increase since June, while imports declined by just 4%, the smallest drop since 2014 despite China importing a record amount of oil, or 33.2 million tons, in December.

China = Japan: China, like Japan in the early-1990s, has entered a secular period of significantly slower economic growth, compounded greatly by debt deflation; like Japan in the 1990s, Chinese asset prices, currency, banks (Chart 5) and capital flows will periodically cause severe disruptions to global financial markets, even if China does not itself cause a global recession.

Is the U.S. economy in recession? Is it heading for recession? These questions can only be answered in hindsight, but it's worth looking for clues to what might be just ahead.

This decline is inevitable in fast-expanding economies that play fast and loose with credit/debt and leverage. All the phantom wealth piled up in China's boost phase is now melting down, and the China Syndrome will trigger a meltdown in global phantom assets.

On Sunday, Washington responded to Kim Jong-Un's nuclear sabre rattling by flying a B-52 over South Korea in a show of force that's sure to infuriate Pyongyang. Next up: Ash Carter may be set to send in an aircraft carrier.

Government owned and subsidized lands in the American West have been a source of conflict among competing interest groups since the 19th century. Since the very beginning of white settlement, lands have been used by the federal government as part of a political scheme to subsidize and reward certain groups while punishing others. The current standoff between ranchers and federal officials in Oregon is simply the latest chapter in a long contentious and sometimes bloody history of groups competing for control over government-owned lands in the West, and by ensuring that lands continue to be allocated by political means rather than through the market, government ownership of lands simply perpetuates conflict in the region.

In the eyes of Western bankers, it was the perfect “scheme” – hence their label for the plan. In the eyes of any sane, rational, human being, it was/is the most naked, clumsy fraud that one could possibly imagine. But the corporate media assured us there was considerable enthusiasm amongst India’s population for this scam. However, in two weeks, out of a population of more than one billion people, holding an estimated 40 million pounds of gold, the Conspirators managed to steal less than 0.000002% of India’s privately held gold. So we’re now told that India’s government sees “temple gold” as its best/easiest target for stealing.

If you had not noticed, 2016 has begun with gold and the USD rising simultaneously. This is different and important. This is very positive for gold and very bad for the world...

Once China set the Yuan fixing some 0.5% lower, the biggest drop since the August devaluation, all hell broke loose and unleashed a global selling panic after China's stock market was promptly shut down less than 30 minutes into trading, then European shares dropped the most in more than 4 months as Asian equities plunges, as did US stock futures, the dollar weakened against the euro and the yen; crude plunged to fresh 12 year lows. Gold rose.

Will the scheme by the One Bank and India’s government to steal some/most/all of the 20,000 tonnes of privately held gold in India be successful?

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.

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.

And with that we can finally close the book on slippery central bank semantics on what precisely it is that they do, and what it is they plan to achieve.

Last year amid China’s ongoing financial crisis, the government there tightened some forms of capital controls (curiously while loosening others). For any Chinese citizen with savings right now, it’s pretty obvious what’s happening. And they want to get their money out of the country. Bitcoin has been a popular alternative in China because people can easily cross borders with vast sums of money encrypted inside their mobile phones. But there’s a new tactic that Chinese are using now: domains.

After getting hammered on the first trading day of 2016, what can we expect from the stock market?