Market Crash

The China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association has submitted a request to Chinese regulators to probe "malicious" short-selling in domestic metal contracts amid recent price declines. Becase it is always the "malicious" sellers who are the cause of all the world's problems, never the "malicious" buyers, especially when said buyers are the central banks themselves.

This signal has triggered four times in the last 20 years. Every time it did stocks lost between 20% and 50% in the following six months.

The arrests or investigations targeting the finance industry in the aftermath of China’s summer market crash have intensified in recent weeks according to Bloomberg, creating a climate of fear among China’s finance firms and chilling their investment strategies. As one professor of Chinese economy noted, "some in the political leadership sought to find scapegoats to blame" for the market crash which along with massive intervention "created uncertainty and anxiety that can only undermine the effort to make these markets work better."

The Fed has conditioned investors to ignore fundamentals, valuations, and the business cycle. As a result, we are in another bubble that will burst as all bubbles do.

Stripped of accounting gimmicks, real GDP growth shows economic collapse. And it will culminate in another stock market crash.

This is the REAL picture of the global economy. It isn’t what CNBC and the talking heads tell you. It is economic collapse.

• France, Russia strike Islamic State in Syria, EU aid invoked (Reuters)
• Pressure Grows for Global Response Against Islamic State After Paris Attacks (WSJ)
• Weakened Hollande Faces Election Backlash in Wake of Attacks (BBG)
• French Official Calls for Metal Detectors at Train Stations (NYT)
• Belgium Raises Terror Threat Level, Cancels Soccer Game vs Spain (BBG)
• Foreign Companies Scrap Paris Events After Terror Attacks (BBG)

"New banknotes were being delivered daily in boxcar loads. In October 1923, banknote circulation amounted to 2,496,822,909,038,000,000 and everyone called for more. It is this last fact that is most telling, that every group believed that the solution was simply more money. They failed to grasp that what was needed was to simply cease all manipulation of the system and let the free market return. Their failure assured that the only possible outcome was the collapse of the system."

"Clients are quick to point out similarities between the current low breadth environment and the narrow breadth regime that emerged during the tech bubble in the late 1990s. Our Breadth index currently equals 1, one of the lowest levels in the 30- year series. The typical episode lasted four months, with past episodes ranging from two months in 2007 to a high of 14 months during the tech bubble."

Over the past 3 months, the name Marko Kolanovic, head of JPM's Quant Team, has become one of the most loved, or feared (depending on which way he is leaning) and respected on all of Wall Street for one simple reason: think Dennis Gartman, only correct every time. Well, the man Bloomberg calls "Gandalf" just did it again - "nailing" the top in stocks last week.

The world of Bubble Finance economies created by the Fed and other central banks is fundamentally different than that prevailing under the “Lite Touch” monetary policies which preceded the Greenspan era. The problem today is that the PhDs running the Fed have an economic model which is a relic of the Lite Touch era. It is not only utterly irrelevant in today’s casino driven system, but is actually tantamount to a blindfold. It causes them to look at a dashboard full of lagging indicators like jobs and GDP components, while ignoring the explosive leading indicators starring them in the face on CNBC. The clueless inhabitants of the Eccles Building do not recognize that they have created a world in which Wall Street supersedes main street.

Perhaps those accusing Bridgewater of being the market-moving catalyst did have a point, because after posting a total AUM of $10.8 billion at June, this total declined by a whopping 31% to just $7.5 billion as of September 30.

Inflation expectations are collapsing in the EU, Japan and the US. Is another deflationary spiral about to hit?

Breaking a critical trendline (particularly one that has been in place for several decades) is one thing. Breaking it and then failing to reclaim it during the following bounce is indicative of BEAR MARKET.

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