Yuan

"Rate cuts should not be seen as goodies that the RBI gives out stingily after much public pleading"...

Following on from a weak Europe and US session (despite late-day heroics in China last night), Fed confusion and commodity-complex counterparty-risk-concerns have sparked further turmoil across AsiaPac in the early going. Noble Group (asia's Glencore) is crashing, down 6.7% at the open. FX markets are seeing outflows send CNH below CNY for the first time since July and crush Thai Baht to its weakest since Jan 2007. Equity markets are in trouble with Aussie stocks hammered (driven by a plunge in Miners) and Nikkei 225 down 1000 points from Friday's highs. Asia credit markets have spiked to 2-year wides. China injected another CNY40bn and strengthened the fix (by the most since 9/2) for 2nd day in a row.

• Headline winner: "Read Beyond Massive Job-Cuts Headlines: Labor Market Is Fine" (BBG)
• And speaking of lies: The More Yellen Talks Up Inflation, the Less Traders Believe Her (BBG)
• How Some Investors Get Special Access to Companies (WSJ)
• Victorious Catalan separatists claim mandate to break with Spain (Reuters)
• Russia seizes initiative in Syria (Reuters)
• Former VW boss Winterkorn investigated for fraud (Reuters)
• Investors Pull Back From Junk Bonds (WSJ)

It was all about China once again, where following a report of a historic layoff in which China's second biggest coal producer Longmay Group fired an unprecedented 100,000 or 40% of its workforce, overnight we got the latest industrial profits figure which plunging -8.8% Y/Y was the biggest drop since at least 2011, and which the National Bureau of Statistics attributed to "exchange rate losses, weak stock markets, falling industrial goods prices as well as a bigger rise in costs than increases in revenue." In not so many words: a "hard-landing."

With liquidity in the markets drying up, it's important not only to understand the opportunity but also to understand how to execute on an opportunity!

In a move that would make even Hewlett-Packard's Meg Whitman blush, Harbin-based Heilongjiang Longmay Mining Holding Group, or Longmay Group, the biggest met coal miner in northeast China which has been struggling to reduce massive losses in recent months as a result of the commodity collapse, just confirmed China's "hard-landing" has arrived when it announced on its website it would cut 100,000 jobs or 40% of its entire 240,000-strong labor force.

At the height of the financial crisis, the unprecedented decline in swap rates below Treasury yields was seen as an anomaly. The phenomenon is now widespread, as Bloomberg notes, what Fabozzi's bible of swap-pricing calls a "perversion" is now the rule all the way from 30Y to 2Y maturities. As one analyst notes, historical interpretations of this have been destroyed and if the flip to negative spreads persists, it would signal that its roots are in a combination of regulators’ efforts to head off another financial crisis, China selling pressure (and its impact on repo markets) and "broken" wholesale money-markets.

The divergence theme is likely to strengthen in the week ahead.  

After borrowing (and largely wasting) $15 trillion during the Great Recession, China now looks like a typical decadent developed-world country, complete with slow growth, anemic consumer spending and unstable financial markets. But it’s not France, Canada or the US, where recessions happen and voters peacefully replace one major party with the other. China, within living memory, has seen civil unrest beget open rebellion beget multi-decade civil war. Take a surplus of young men (the result of China’s one-child policy which put a premium on male children), combine it with a shortage of good jobs, and the obvious result is instability.

Are some Chinese banks ramping up their exposure to shadow conduits on the way to obscuring massive amounts of credit risk? Moody's says yes...

• Global Markets Rebound on Yellen Speech (WSJ)
• Obama and Putin to meet; Syria and Ukraine vie for attention (Reuters)
• Obama to host China's President Xi amid simmering tensions (Reuters)
• Don't Fall for It, Xi! Chinese Take to Web to Scorn U.S.—and China, Too (BBG)
• Yellen Confirms Fed Still on Track to Raise Rates This Year (BBG)... but is still China dependent?
• Abe's New Economic Plan Confounds Analysts (BBG)
• It's All `Perverted' Now as U.S. Swap Spreads Tumble Below Zero (BBG)

The evening started on a high note when Janet Yellen's survival giving a speech warranted a 100 point rip in Dow futures (and USD strength). Then Japan stepped up with its first deflationary CPI print since April 2013 (which of course was met with stock-buying because moar QQE is overdue but that soon faded). EM FX is tumbling further (with Malaysia leading the charge). Chinese credit risk jumps tro a new 2 year high (as SHIBOR remains entirely manipulated flat) as China halts its 4-day devaluation with a tiny nudge stronger in the Yuan fix.

Contrary to popular opinion, there are problems that are too big for the Central Banks to control.

Somehow everything in the following statement from David Petraeus is wrong: "There is no shortage of customers for the purchase of U.S. Treasuries," said Petraeus.... "Given the relative strength of the U.S. economy and the prospect of the Fed raising interest rates at some point in the months ahead, I suspect there will continue to be very keen interest in U.S. Treasuries."