Reality

"The irony in this year’s batch of outrageous predictions is that some of them are “outrageous” merely because they run counter to overwhelming market consensus. In fact, many would not look particularly outrageous at all in more “normal” times – if there even is such a thing!"

At 6 p.m. local time in Buenos Aires, new FinMin Alfonso Prat-Gay will announce the end of currency controls in Argentina, ushering in a new era and a sharply weaker peso as the official and black market rates converge. 

The continued misuse of capital and continued erroneous monetary policies have instigated not only the recent downturn but actually 30 years of an insidious slow moving infection that has destroyed the American legacy. “Recessions” should be embraced and utilized to clear the “excesses” that accrue in the economic system during the first half of the economic growth cycle. Trying to delay the inevitable, only makes the inevitable that much worse in the end.

The upside is ephemeral, illusory or wishful thinking; the downside is real and lasting.

"we moved to generally “neutralize” our positions by taking on derivative positions to hedge ourselves. We did so mid-morning yesterday and now are comfortable sitting through the Fed’s decision… or “non”-decision as the case may be… later this afternoon."

We’ve already gotten a taste of what happens when asset classes finally “adjust” to underlying “demand” with the commodity markets: having operated based on Central Bank money printing for five years, they then wiped out ALL of those gains in six months.

Where most analysis on oil markets tends to fall short is on the depth of analysis vs. reading headlines and group think, the latter of which is heavily shaped by misinformed media and government propaganda.

"It is time once again to seek the safety of the sidelines. This is not the time to be aggressively bullish of equities but rather this is the time for… as we say here in the South… “hunkering down,” for getting smaller, for curtailing exposure."

“In our estimates, one should hardly expect any serious growth of the oil price above $50," Oreshkin told a breakfast forum hosted by Russian newspaper Vedomosti on Friday. “The oil industry is changing structurally and it may happen that... the global economy will not need that much oil."

The start of the Fed's most eagerly awaited two-day policy meeting in years has finally arrived with the market expecting Yellen to announce the first 25 bps rate hike in 9 years tomorrow with nearly 80% probability, and so far US equity futures are enjoying a last minute relief rally, while emerging market stocks rose for the first day in ten after the longest losing run since June. Europe's Stoxx 600 Index has also rebounded from a five-day losing streak, the worst in over four months.

Official Washington is awash with tough talk about Russia and the need to punish President Putin for his role in Ukraine and Syria. But this bravado ignores Russia’s genuine national interests, its “red lines,” and the risk that “tough-guy-ism” can lead to nuclear war. In short, Russia is being offered only the binary choice: to acquiesce to the “benevolent” hegemon, or to prepare for war.

"Yeah but it's junk credit... who cares! I am invested in solid megacaps and even solider FANGs - what can go wrong?" Well, this...

We are living in a time that can only be considered monetary chaos. The media and the policy pundits may focus on the day-to-day zigs and zags of central bank monetary and interest rate policy, but what really needs to be asked is whether or not we should continue to leave monetary and banking policy in the discretionary hands of central banks and the monetary central planners who manage them.

Everybody can see Janet Yellen standing naked in that corner - more like a box canyon - and it’s not a pretty sight. But the mundane truth probably is that events have finally caught up with the structural distortions of a financial world running on illusion. To everything there is a season, turn, turn, turn, and economic winter is finally upon us. All the world ‘round, people borrowed too much to buy stuff and now they’re all borrowed out and stuffed up. Welcome to the successor to the global economy: the yard sale economy, with all the previously-bought stuff going back into circulation on its way to the dump.