China

"... On 12 December 2015, the Company was notified by the local public security bureau that the Truck was found but not the Lost Documents. As at the date of this announcement, although the possibility of finding the Lost Documents is not high, the Group has nonetheless deployed all possible resources in search of the Lost Documents."

“I think 10-year USTs are quite attractive because of my outlook for the weakening economy. Actually I believe we’re already entering a recessionin the US. Given the weakness in the global economy and the deceleration of growth in the U.S., I would imagine that by next year the Fed will cut rates once again and launch QE4."

My overriding theme and the central drama for the coming year is that unexpected events can take on greater importance as the Federal Reserve ends its near-decade-long Zero Interest Rate Policy. Consensus premises and forecasts will likely fall flat, in a rather spectacular manner. The low-conviction and directionless market that we saw in 2015 could become a no-conviction and very-much-directed market (i.e. one that's directed lower) in 2016. There will be no peace on earth in 2016, and our markets could lose a cushion of protection as valuations contract. (Just as "malinvestment" represented a key theme this year, we expect a compression of price-to-earnings ratios to serve as a big market driver in 2016.) In other words, we don't think 2016 will be fun.

While most hedge funds will be glad to close the books on a year in which they once again dramatically underperformed a market which hugged the flatline courtesy of just a few stocks (even as most stocks posted substantial declines) and where "hedge fund hotels" such as Valeant suffered dramatic implosions, a handful of traders generated impressive returns for their investors and made billions by going against the herd.

No year is ever easy to predict, if only because if it were, that would take all the fun out of life. But still, predictions for 2016 look quite a bit easier than other years. This is because a whole bunch of irreversible things happened in 2015 that were not recognized for what they are, either intentionally or by ‘accident’. Things that will therefore now be forced to play out in 2016, when denial will no longer be an available option. Simply put, 2016 will be the year when a lot of ‘underlying wealth’ evaporates.

The S&P 500 closed at 2052 on November 18,2014. That was 405 days ago, and despite the rips and dips in the interim the broad market average has gone nowhere.

While the straws have been building on the camel's back of Apple's "no brainer" status over the past few months, today's news from DigiTimes appears to be the most damning yet on the 'peak Apple' phenomenon. Apple share are fading off early market highs as demand for iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus appear to have slowed down recently, shipments of iPhone devices from production lines in the fourth quarter of 2015 are likely to be 5-10% lower than originally expected, according to Taiwan-based supply chain makers.

• The World's Richest People Got Poorer This Year (BBG)
• Oil hovers near 11-year lows on abundant supply, slowing demand (Reuters)
• Oil-Producing States Battered as Tax-Gushing Wells Are Shut Down (BBG)
• A Bold Few Traders Earn Billions Flouting Rivals (WSJ)
• Islamic State ruling aims to settle who can have sex with female slaves (Reuters)
• Winter Storm Snarls Republican Presidential Traffic (BBG)
• Donald Trump Urges Supporters to the Polls (BBG)

Santa Claus is cutting it close: after stocks closed down yesterday, and just fractionally red for the year, the jolly old gift-giver (who now has activist investors breathing down his neck) has just three trading days to push if not stocks then the market into the green for the year. And so far, so good, with US equity futures rising by 8 points or 0.4%, on the back of some modest renewed Dollar strength but mostly on oil, which after yesterday's big slide, has managed to stem the decline and is up fractionally, just under $37, along with other commodities if not copper, which falls for second day.

"We encourage the higherst leadership of the country to inform the people correctly without sugar coating the truth about Chinese invasion of our Exclusive Economis Zone. How can the people unite and pick up the cudgels and fight alongside of you if you hide the truth from us?"

2015 was the year of considerable FX drawdown as desperate EM central banks attempted to rescue themselves from reality. As Barry Eichengreen noted, "Intervening to support an exchange rate that’s fundamentally overvalued is a fool’s game and a no-win situation, akin to a sovereign attempting to sustain an unsustainable debt burden rather than yielding to inevitable restructuring."

On the heels of the collapse in China 'B' shares last night, and continued stress in money-markets, China weakened the the Yuan fix to its lowest since June 2011 tonight. This has sent offshore Yuan spiralling lower breaking above 6.5700 for the first time since trhe August devaluation's collapse. Chinese stocks are on the weaker side, extending losses, and we now await the money-markets to see if this stress is escalating.

Even though the odds are never in our favor, there is still hope. Not everyone has to make the extreme sacrifice in order to contribute to the revolution. There are thousands of small acts which will weaken the establishment: "Don’t be a slave to debt. Live beneath your means and accumulate some physical silver and gold. Don’t vote for candidates selected by the vested interests. Spread the message of liberty and freedom to anyone who will listen. Think critically. Do not trust your government. Prepare for the inevitable collapse of this rotten, fetid, corrupt paradigm."

Each year more than one trillion dollars goes up in smoke. More accurately, it is stolen from the middle and working classes and shipped off to the one percent. We are talking about the massive yearly bill to maintain the US empire. What can we do to work for peace in 2016? First we must tune out the lying propaganda served up by the US mainstream media. We must educate ourselves so that we can help educate others.