Bond

"The dealer market has collapsed, and all that's left are investors trading the same few bonds back and forth, leaving pricing services guessing with bigger and bigger margins of error on the real value of illiquid debt. That's the real problem. And it's not one the SEC can fix by targeting 'transcendent liquidity' in ETFs."

"This is legal?" Stephanie Ruhle on CDS after watching "The Big Short" (Bloomberg TV) 

• European stocks up, oil slides as concerns ease over Russia-Turkey tension (Reuters)
• ECB discusses two-tiered bank charges, broader bond buys (Reuters)
• New agonies, alliances as Fed debates post-liftoff plan (Reuters)
• A New Military Power Rises in the Mideast, Courtesy of One Man (BBG)
• Russia's Gazprom says halts gas supplies to Ukraine over payment (Reuters)
• Other central banks set to act, but Swiss policy cupboard bare (Reuters)

Following yesterday's dramatic geopolitical shock, U.S. equity index futures rise as Russia has not escalated the confrontation with Turkey as some had feared, while Asian shares fall, reversing earlier gains. European stocks are rallying and the euro is falling on the back of a Reuters report that the ECB is mulling new measures to prop up lending, although it’s not clear at this point what the real impact from these measures would be.

CEOs, Wall Street are furiously making hay while the storm moves in.

The financial news continues to confound and confuse investors. The Fed is telling one story. The world economy is telling another.

When it comes to 2016, Goldman says that it is "deja vu all over again", and that the S&P 500 index will tread water for a second consecutive year. Specifically Goldman says that its "year-end 2016 target of 2100 represents a 1% price gain from the current index level (2089), which itself is just 1% above the year-end 2014 level of 2059." Here are the reasons why Goldman expects all the main themes from 2015 to be repeated in the coming year, and why the one can just sell on December 31, 2015 and go away for the next year:

The world is awash with debt. With central banks increasing their balance sheets through quantitative easing, simultaneously pushing down interest rates and taking huge chunks of the market out of circulation, investors have had to stray beyond developed market government bonds in search of yield.

It had been a relatively quiet session overnight when as reported previously, the geopolitical situation in the middle east changed dramatically in a moment, when NATO-member country Turkey downed a Russian fighter jet allegedly over Turkish territory even though the plane crashed in Syria, and whose pilots may have been captured by local rebel forces. The news promptly slammed Turkish assets and FX, sending the Lira tumbling, pushing lower European stocks and US equity futures while sending 2 Year German Bunds to record negative yields.

"... the next 12-18 months will be divided into three periods corresponding to the three distinct regimes of market dynamics. They can be summarized by the following modes of the curve: short-term tactical bear flatteners on the back of a Fed liftoff story, followed by volatile bear steepeners of the “taper-tantrum” type around mid-year, and a bull-flattening finale as structural factors deem rate hikes to be a policy mistake."

In his letter, reproduced below, Nader bashes  the "tediously over-dramatic indecision as to when interest rates will be raised"; demands that the Fed not "lecture us about the Fed not being “political.” When you are the captives of the financial industry, led by the too-big-to-fail banks, you are generically “political" and - in short - wants to know when the Fed will put the interests of Main Street over those of "plutocratic, crony capitalism for which the Federal Reserve has long been a leading Tribune."

Perhaps at a yield of just under 1%, the highest since May 2010, there is an increase in relative value demand. Nowhere is this more visible than when looking at the German 2 Year Bund, which earlier today hit a new record low, just shy of -0.40% (yes, negative).

Amid all the singing and dancing over Spain's miraculous recovery and Europe's renaissance on the back of Draghi's money-printing machine, it appears - just like in America - that below the glossy veneer of engineered equity and bond prices, all is not well. As Xinhua reports, the average wage in Spain has fallen to its lowest level since 2007, according to figures released by the Spanish Ministry of Finance, and after peaking at 19.3 million in 2009, the number of workers is also collapsing. It appears Catalan is righty to want out...

"The hardest questions we are trying to reconcile here are how is that possible to see all these signs of weakness under the surface being balanced by very strong equity markets and upbeat employment picture. One of these sides has to be wrong..."

As a result of the global commodity weakness, global stocks have fallen for the first time in six days as the sell-off in commodities continued, dragging both US equity futures and European stocks lower. However, putting this in context, last week the MSCI All Country World Index posted its biggest weekly gain in six weeks: alas, without a coincident rebound in commodity prices, it will be merely the latest dead cat bounce.