Yuan

In the latest confirmation that China's Politburo is getting far more nervous than it will admit, hundreds of workers at a Hong Kong-owned toy factory in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen have been protesting since last week after the owner "disappeared," leaving their wages unpaid.

In a sign that the slowing economy, rising bank NPLs, and lackluster demand for credit from overleveraged corporates is overwhelming Beijin's easing efforts, China's October loan growth data came in far weaker than expected in yet another sign that all is most certainly not well with the world's engine of global growth and trade. Meanwhile, fiscal spending soared as it now appears Beijing may have no choice but to go the helicopter route if it hopes to reignite growth.

Gold bullion coin and bar demand surged in Q3 as gold’s continuing COMEX driven price weakness in July and sharp falls in stock markets in China and globally in August saw store of wealth buyers internationally again accumulate bullion.

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The biggest event overnight came from Europe, where Draghi managed to once again jawbone the Euro lower by ober 50 pips when he told European lawmakers in a prepared testimony that downside economic risks are "clearly visible," repeating his October press conference statement, adding that the ECB will reexamine degree of accommodation in December as "inflation dynamics have somewhat weakened." And the statement that crushed the Euro: "If we were to conclude that our medium-term price stability objective is at risk, we would act by using all the instruments available within our mandate to ensure that an appropriate degree of monetary accommodation is maintained." I.e., another "whatever it takes" moment.

Amid warnings from Daiwa Capital Markets that policy-makers "will sacrifice Yuan stability" in order to manage the deterioration in the economy (trade and industrial production data confirming the weakness), The PBOC weakened the Yuan fix for the 8th straight day. This is the longest streak of weakness since August 2008.

“Debt wasn’t a problem during the boom years because profits kept growing. But it’s not sustainable when the economy slows."

The PBOC weakened the Yuan fix for the 7th straight day - the longest such streak of 'devaluation' since 2012 - which appears to have helped fuel yet another day of gains for China's most-levered Shenzhen and ChiNext stock indices (even though the USDollar is losing altitude against Asian FX). At the break we note that the lower beta CSI-300 and Shanghai Composite are diverging lower. Meanwhile, over in real economy land, Copper is hitting new lows, nickel is weak, zinc is down, and China Containerized Freight Index just hit a new record low... but when has any of that ever mattered?

In what's being described as a "palpably tense" tense auction, a "Chinese Beverly Hillbilly" dubbed "The Eccentric Mr. Liu" paid the second highest price at auction in history for a Modigliani. 

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The ongoing failure of China to achieve any stabilization in its economy, after already cutting interest rates six times in the past year, and the prospect of a U.S. interest rate hike in December, had made markets increasingly jittery and worried which is not only why the S&P 500 Index had its biggest drop in a month, but thanks to the soaring dollar emerging market stocks are falling for a fourth day - led by China - bringing their decline in that period to almost 4 percent, and the global stock index down for a 5th consecutive day.

Those who choose to distance themselves (and their wealth – however large or small) geographically from the centre of the hurricane will fare best.

"On our estimates $360bn of capital left China during the previous two quarters and an additional $210bn left from the rest of EM." That folks, is what you call an exodus...

The market drop in August triggered by China devaluing the Yuan (another victim of the US Dollar bull market) was just the start. Once the US Dollar rally really begins picking up steam, we could very well see a crash.

China is playing the long game and they could be low balling their total gold holdings – official central bank reserves and non official, governmental holdings – in order to maintain confidence in their substantial US dollar holdings and to aid their bid to join the IMF.