China

For most investors, the major story of 2015 was the expectation and eventual fulfillment of a rate hike, signalling the start of tightening monetary policy in the United States. This policy is divergent to those of other major central banks, and this has translated into considerable strength and momentum for the U.S. dollar. Despite this strength, the best performing currency in 2015 was not the dollar. In fact, the top currency of 2015 is likely to be considered the furthest thing from the greenback.

It's all up to China tonight.

One of the (many) fascinating things about this latest global financial crisis is that there’s no single catalyst. Unlike 2008 when the carnage could be traced back to US subprime housing, or 2000 when tech stocks crashed and pulled down everything else, this time around a whole bunch of seemingly-unrelated things are unraveling all at once.

Having correctly foreseen in September that "China's devaluations are not over yet" it appears Nomura's infamous 'bear' Bob Janjuah has also nailed The Fed's subsequent actions (hiking rates into a fundamentally weakening economy in a desperate bid to "convince markets that strong growth and inflation are on their way back"). In light of this, his latest note today should be worrisome to many as he warns the S&P 500 will trade down around 20% to 25% from current levels in H1, down to the 1500s and for dip-buyers, it's over: "I now feel even more certain that debt-driven asset bubble implosions cannot merely be 'fixed' with even more debt and another round of central bank-driven asset bubbles."

Another day, another fresh all-time record low in The Baltic Dry Index as Deutsche Bank's "perfect storm" appears ever closer on the horizon. Plunging 4.7% overnight to 445 points, this is 20% lower than the previous record low in 1986 and as one strategist warns, "It’s a brutal start of the year, there’s just nowhere to hide on the market."

Who could have seen that coming? Bob Pisani is about to get "worried" as VIX broke above 25

If there’s one thing to take away from this year’s developments in markets and economies so far, it’s that they are all linked, they’re all part of the same thing. If you can’t see that, you’re not going to understand what’s happening. It’s tempting to see this as a China problem, but first of all there is no China problem that will not of necessity also gravely affect the west , and second of all when you read, just to name an example, that America’s new jobs pay 23% less than the jobs they replaced, it’s just plain silly to believe that the economy is doing well, let alone recovering.

Remember 'The Santa Claus Rally' that Bob Pisani said "we should expect" - well The Dow is now down over 1200 points from the highs just before the end of the year and extending those losses as Reuters reports, PBOC advisors are said to call for steeper yuan depreciation, pressuring the government to depreciate by 10-15%.

Over the past few days we have repeatedly heard the following statement: "China isn’t that important as it is only 7% of the U.S. economy." While that may be a true statement in relation to the economy, it is a far different matter when it comes to the financial markets. With financial markets so closely correlated, what happens in China has a direct and immediate impact on U.S. markets.

Chinese stocks have retraced 50% of their overnight losses following the lifting of the circuit-breaker rule. China FTSE-A50 Futures trading on SIMEX are up over 250 points, trading at the highs of the day but for some context, the index is still down 14% from post-Christmas highs.

Update: *CHINA SUSPENDS  STOCK CIRCUIT BREAKER RULE - In Q&A, CSRC insists circuit breakers didn't cause the China meltdown but admits they may have aggravated sell-off.

"It couldn't be worse," exclaims one manager who started his fund mid-year in 2015, blaming China's equity market carnage on its newly-created circuit-breakers (as opposed to the fact that the Chinese market trades at 64x P/E and there are sellers everywhere). "Panic will eventually turn into a buying opportunity," hopes one strategist while another proclaims "poorly-designed" circuit breakers need to be adjusted to 10% (seriously). Blame is everywhere,  but it is Chen Gang who summed up the panic best, "this is insane... we were forced to liquidate all our holdings this morning."

As the PBOC revealed overnight, China’s foreign-exchange reserves plunged much more than forecast in December, capping the first-ever annual decline (of $513 billion) as authorities sought to prop up a weakening yuan. More importantly, the $108 billion decline from $3.438 trillion to $3.330 trillion - far greater than the $20 billion estimated - was the largest on record, and shows that while on the surface the Yuan was stable, behind the scenes the PBOC was furiously dumping securities to prevent an all out currency rout as outflows hit a record.

• China turmoil sends oil, stocks sliding (Reuters)
• China's Stock Traders Go Home After 29 Minutes (BBG)
• Yuan hits weakest since Feb 2011 on fresh low midpoint (Reuters)
• Stocks Extend Rout, Oil Slides on China as Soros Warns of Crisis (BBG)
• China's 29 Minutes of Chaos: Stunned Brokers and a Race to Sell (BBG)
• North Korea Uses Bomb Test to Boost Dictatorship (WSJ)

Once China set the Yuan fixing some 0.5% lower, the biggest drop since the August devaluation, all hell broke loose and unleashed a global selling panic after China's stock market was promptly shut down less than 30 minutes into trading, then European shares dropped the most in more than 4 months as Asian equities plunges, as did US stock futures, the dollar weakened against the euro and the yen; crude plunged to fresh 12 year lows. Gold rose.