fixed

In late 2014 something happened: for whatever reason the most unregulated aspect of China's financial system, its shadow banks, not only stopped lending money but actually went into reverse, thus putting a lid on China's Total Social Financing expansion, which had been the world's "under the radar" growth dynamo for so many years. At that moment not only did China's ghost cities officially die, but it meant an imminent collapse for China's steel industry. That collapse has arrived.

As all eyes, ears, and noses anxiously await the scantest of dovishness from Kuroda and The BoJ tonight (despite numerous hints that they will not unleash moar for now), the data that was just delivered may have helped the bad-news-is-good-news case. Most notably Japanese household spending dropped 0.4% YoY (with tax hike issues out of the way) missing expectations by a mile as the 'deflationary' mindset remains mired in Japanese heads. AsiaPac stocks are hovering at the week's lows unable to mount any bid as China fixed the Yuan notably stronger and instigated a new central pricing plan for pork prices (which suggests concerns about inflation domestically). Once again Chinese margin debt reaches a new 8-week high as 'stability' has prompted releveraging among the farmers and grandmas.

Bernie Sanders supporters seem to be everywhere. 49% of Democrats now have a favorable view towards socialism. This is scary. And sad. No matter how it is wrapped, socialism is still the belief that we can raise people out of poverty by taking money out of the hands of those who have learned how to produce. And it has never worked. Socialism always fails because at some point people realize they don’t have to work as hard to get the same amount of stuff. It takes all the incentive away to really succeed.

Those were just excuses, it’s not like any of those factors suddenly changed and were fixed magically on October 1^st.

Here is our question: on May 7, the Price-to-Sales ratio of the stock market was 1.8264x. As of this moment it is higher at 1.8408x. So, dear Janet, can you please confirm what the attached chart shows, namely that "equity market valuations" are now even higher than when you said they were "generally quite high", and if so, should we still be buying stocks and why?

For six years, the world has operated under a complete delusion that Central Banks somehow fixed the 2008 Crisis.

The long awaited inventory correction is finally arriving. Moments ago the BEA reported preliminary Q3 GDP, which at 1.49%, missed both sellside consensus expectations of 1.6%, and tumbled from the 3.9% reported in the second quarter as the quarterly volatility continues at an unprecedented pace. This was the second lowest quarterly GDP print since Q1 2014 excluding the "double seasonal adjustment" meant to cover up the collapse in Q1 2015 GDP.

As tipped earlier this month, Deutsche Bank just turned in a Q3 loss of €6 billion as a raft of writedowns hit the bottom line. The bank also announced more details of "Strategy 2020", which include layoffs and a corporate rethink that will see Europe's largest bank exit a multitude of markets. 

Based on the overnight market prints which are an oddly reddish shade of green, it took algos about 12 hours to realize that the reason they soared for most of October, namely hopes of an easier Fed which were launched with the terrible September jobs report and continued with increasingly worse US economic report in the past month, can not be the same reason they also soared yesterday after the announcement of a more hawkish than expected Fed statement which envisioned a stronger US economy and a removal of foreign considerations, which even more curiously took place on even worse data than the Fed's far more dovish September statement.

"The key question is if the US economy is strong enough to handle a stronger USD."

No, Ben S. Bernanke will be someday remembered as the world’s most destructive battleship admiral. Not only was he fighting the last war, but his whole multi-trillion money printing campaign after September 15, 2008 was aimed at avoiding an historical Fed mistake that had never even happened!

With a 4% probability, it is no surprise that The Fed did not raise rates. Since The FOMC "folded" in September blaming global turmoil, stocks, bonds, and precious metals have soared as China (and EM) chaos has calmed while domestic data has declined. This has led to 'lift-off' expectations extending to April 2016, and so the question today is - how will The Fed convince the world it 'will' raise rates when it really can't...

• *FED REMOVES LINE THAT GLOBAL DEVELOPMENTS MAY RESTRAIN GROWTH
  
• *FED SAYS U.S. ECONOMY `HAS BEEN EXPANDING AT A MODERATE PACE'

A definite hawkish bias but so we are left data-dependent (fundamentals bad, stocks good), and less economically optimistic, but are supposed to believe that December (34%) is still a live meeting (because of some hockey-stick expectation in data) because The Fed needs to raise to show that it can.

Something very unexpected happened: the world quietly hit a tipping point when, according to Reuters, China ran out of space to store oil. According to a senior trader familiar with Sinochem's oil trading and cited by Reuters, the tankers "are both for SPR (strategic petroleum reserve), but no tank space is available to take that oil in."

• After the anticipation of the previous meeting, markets focus on the statement and whether the FOMC still see December as a date for lift-off
• The vast majority expect the Fed to keep the Fed Fund Rate on hold at 0.00-0.25%, however there is a minimal outside bet (~4%) that the Fed will hike rates by between 15-25bps

EXPECTATIONS

We would say today's main event is the culmination of the Fed's two-day meeting and the announcement slated for 2 pm this afternoon, however with the 90 economists polled by Bloomberg all expecting no rate hike, today's Fed decision also happens to be the least anticipated in years (which may be just the time for the Fed to prove it is not driven by market considerations and shock everybody, alas that will not happen). And considering how bad the economic data has gone in recent months, not to mention the recent easing, hints of easing, and outright return to currency war by other banks, the Fed is once again trapped and may not be able to hike in December or perhaps ever, now that the USD is again surging not due to its actions but due to what other central banks are doing.