China

As WSJ reports, a banker from Industrial & Commercial Bank of China "said the number of people wanting to change yuan for dollars has increased significantly during the past three weeks—a period during which the Chinese currency has declined about 2%." Over the weekend for instance, "ICBC received an urgent notification from China’s central bank warning of a dollar shortage."

EM debt bubble... emaciated, FX Carry... crucified, Crude...crushed,  High yield bonds... burst, Chinese equities... blown, Trannies... trounced, Small Caps... slammed, Biotechs... busted, and FANGs finally FUBAR! But there is one big (very big) bubble left in the world that no one is talking about, and a rather large liquidity-busting pin beckons...

Senior-level sources in numerous Middle Eastern governments have privately expressed bewilderment at recent and current U.S. government strategies and policies toward the region. But a closer examination of U.S. policies, now almost entirely dictated by the Obama White House, shows no cohesive national goals or policies exist, but rather an ad hoc set of actions and reactions, which are largely dictated either by ideological positions, ignorance, whim, or perceived expedience.

If there was one silver-lining in the oil complex, it was the demand for VLCCs (as huge floating storage facilities or as China scooped up 'cheap' oil to refill their reserves) which drove tanker rates to record highs. Now, as Bloomberg notes so eloquently, it appears the party is over! Daily rates for benchmark Saudi Arabia-Japan VLCC cargoes have crashed 53% year-to-date to $50,955 (as it appears China's record crude imports have ceased).

"The fact that market volatility is on the rise and the Fed is raising interest rates further increases the probability of a Bear Market. The current option-implied probability of a bear market (i.e. ~20% decline this year) is about 25%. While there is no way to predict a bear market, below we look at various scenarios, and estimate that the probability of a bear market may be nearly twice as large."

The similarities continue. Both saw an initial sharp 2-3 month fall from their peaks followed by a quarter or so of stability. The NASDAQ then started to fall sharply again and Chinese equities seem to have started a similar trend on a similar timeline....

President Barack Obama’s final State of the Union address came up short of the facts on several topics. Obama apparently omitted part of his presidency in boasting of nearly 900,000 manufacturing jobs “in the past six years.” Over his entire time in office, manufacturing jobs have gone down by 230,000.

China is untenable in its current financial position. That is the primary problem, and so long as it remains so whatever the PBOC does will have but a fleeting impact. In more immediate terms, that is being recognized by the “dollar” run which continues to savage not just China but South America (more than just Brazil), Africa, Asia (more than China) and you might even argue Canada and Mexico. From that, we see that it isn’t China that is the problem with the “dollar”, it is the whole damn system.

While the market for corporate bond issuance has been relatively quiet among the recent broader market turbulence, in a few hours a historic new bond is about to price and be sold to investors. Earlier today, Anheuser-Busch InBev NV, the acquiror in the second largest M&A deal of 2015 valued at $117 billion and just shy of Pfizer's massive $160 billion merger with Allergan, started offering bonds that will back its takeover of SABMiller Plc in a sale that according to Bloomberg will stretch into Europe and is set to become the biggest corporate-debt offering on record.

"To bottom on a Shiller PE of 7x would see the S&P falling to around 550. I will repeat that: If I am right, the S&P would fall to 550, a 75% decline from the recent 2100 peak."

Confirming API data overnight, DOE reports that while total inventories of crude rose less than expected (+234k vs +2.1mm exp.) Gasoline and Distillates saw a massive build once again. Gasoline invenrtories rose 8.44mm barrels (following last week's 10.6mm record build) is the biggest 2-week inventory build in history. Crude has crashed back from overenight "China is buying oil" demand hopes.

"Oil goes below $40, it’s frightening for geopolitical behavior. Guess what, folks? It’s below $40 and this frightening political behavior is upon us.... We could be looking at a really ugly situation during the first quarter of 2016... I think we're going to take out the September low of the S&P500."

While Chinese New Year seasonals are undoubtedly one factor in last night's "surprisingly good" Chinese trade data, the following chart shows the level of "bullshit factor" was extreme by anyone's measure. Three years ago we first brought China's 'fake' trade data and abundant discrepancies to the public's attention and despite an apparent crackdown by regulators, the gaping difference between imports from Hong Kong and exports to Hong Kong is downright embarrassing for China's SAFE as it is clear that capital outflows are being disguised as exports with "over-invoicing" back in play.

• China trade surprise brings relief (Reuters)
• Obama knocks Trump, voices optimism (Reuters)
• Republican Candidates Criticize Obama’s State of the Union Address (WSJ)
• Republicans and Democrats Agree: We Hate Wall Street (WSJ)
• Oil rises for first time in eight sessions on China, U.S. stocks draw (Reuters)
• U.S. Exports First Freely Traded Oil in 40 Years (WSJ)
• China Imports Record Crude as Price Crash Accelerates Buying (BBG)

After two months of sharp currency devaluation, the market was carefully watching last night's China trade data to see if the Yuan debasement had led to a positive trade outcome to the world's second largest economy, and as reported last night, it was not disappointed when China reported a December trade surplus of $60.09 billion from $54.1 billion in November, as a result of exports beating expectations and rising 2.3%, the first increase since June, while imports declined by just 4%, the smallest drop since 2014 despite China importing a record amount of oil, or 33.2 million tons, in December.