China

Heading into the Fed's first "dovish" rate hike in nearly a decade, the consensus was two-fold: as a result of relentless telegraphing of the Fed's intentions, the hike is priced in, and it will be a "dovish" hike, with the Fed lowering its forecast for the number of hikes over the next year. Consensus was once again wrong on both accounts: first the rate hike was far more hawkish than most had expected (see previous post), and - judging by the surge in Asian, European stocks and US equity futures - the "market" simply is enamored with such hawkish hikes which will soon soak up trillions in liquidity from the financial system.

Now, slave, get back to work, if you have a job, and make sure you save some energy for your other part time employment as you will be going to those jobs later today. 

Iran's move to test-fire a new ballistic missile in October may not have violated the letter of the nuclear accord (on which the ink is barely dry), but UN experts say it does violate a Security Council resolution, a revelation which puts the Obama administration in an extremely awkward position just as Iran was poised to see economic sanctions lifted. 

In the first two weeks of August 2008 (just a month before Lehman imploded), as tensions built in US financial markets, China weakened the Yuan for 10 straight days. Tonight, China just extended its streak of weakening the Yuan fix to 9 days (for an aggregate 1.4% devaluation, the largest such drop outside of August's devaluation in history). This pushes the Yuan back to June 2011 levels.

"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. 

China did everything it could to prevent a collapse and it still happened.  How do you think other countries will do?

"When the Fed moves next will depend importantly on how inflation evolves. The Fed’s preferred measure of inflation has run below its 2% objective for more than three years. The central bank focused extra attention on the inflation outlook in its statement, saying it would “carefully monitor” actual and expected progress toward the goal. This point implied the Fed will be reluctant to raise rates again unless it sees inflation actually moving up. For now, officials said they were “reasonably confident” inflation would rise."

The argument that the Fed should do nothing - for it will be harder to correct a rate rise than to do nothing - because there is no bubble anywhere, demonstrates that we have the most serious BUBBLE in history. The FED is between a rock and a hard place. It will be blamed no matter it does. Nobody seems to understand the dynamics of the trend in motion.

According to ScGen, the Fed is widely expected to start tightening policy on Wednesday and adds that "after the BoJ and ECB, we see a risk that the market will be wrong-footed for a third time, and that extreme positions built ahead of tightening will be reversed.... In particular, we are short US small cap equities vs large via being short Russell 2000 vs S&P 500.... As the Fed tightens and the market enters into a lower-liquidity environment (and higher-volatility regime), we think the premium on small caps is no longer justified."

Despite a brief dead-cat-bounce late November, which Jim Cramer heralded as evidence of stabilization in China, the world's best known freight index has collapsed to new all-time record lows this morning. Amid a persistent glut of ships and ongoing concerns about Chinese steel imports, The Baltic Dry has tumbled to 471 - the lowest level in at least 30 years.

... I found myself seeking refuge in the tiramisu staring back at me, a bit uncomfortable that I was only hearing the wah wahs of Charlie Brown’s adult voices. Until this, during the back and forth of Q&A: (Laughter around the room…) “We don’t remember how to raise interest rates. None of us worked here the last time we did it.”

The writing has been on the wall since the S&P "junking" in September, and now Fitch has jumped on the bandwagon, cutting Brazil to BB+, outlook negative. 

• Fed Poised to Mark the End of an Era (Hilsenrath)
• Fed opens meeting to put an end to crisis era policy (Reuters)
• Fed's Historic Liftoff and Everything After: Decision Day Guide (BBG)
• Emerging Markets Gird for Fed Rate Increase (WSJ)
• What 7 Years at Zero Rates Have Looked Like (BBG)
• 5 Things to Watch at the Fed Meeting (WSJ)