SPY

"When does the statute of limitations on blaming President George W. Bush for the record of the current administration finally expire? Obama [has become] the president who, to use one of Rose’s baseball metaphors, called his shot only to strike out."

"After roughly matching the S&P 500 through most of 1H 2015, funds lowered net exposures as the market declined in late June and failed to benefit as the index rebounded in July. The typical fund has returned +0.5% YTD, with equity long/short funds rising 1.3% and event-driven funds falling by 2.0%."

With the confused FOMC still stuck on the fence of raising rates (or not), here are ten reasons why they won't.. and a caveat in case we're wrong...

• Oil moves nearer six-year low on Japan data, oversupply (Reuters)
• Commodity Slide Spurs Treasuries as Emerging Markets Extend Drop (BBG)
• Because 7 years is "just right" - BOE Official Says Don’t Wait Too Long on Rates (WSJ)
• How Medicare Rewards Copious Nursing-Home Therapy (WSJ)
• Millennials Are Developing Parents’ Taste for Jaguars, Cadillacs (BBG) ... and even more debt
• Mexican Billionaire’s Firms Swept Up in U.S. Probe of Citigroup (BBG)

Newly disclosed NSA files expose the spy agency's relationship through the years with American telecoms companies. As NYTimes reports, The National Security Agency’s ability to spy on vast quantities of Internet traffic passing through the United States has relied on its extraordinary, decades-long partnership with a single company: the telecom giant AT&T. The documents, provided by the former agency contractor Edward Snowden, described the NSA-AT&T relationship as "highly collaborative," while another lauded the company’s "extreme willingness to help."

Though transparency was a cause he championed when campaigning for the presidency, President Obama has largely avoided making certain defense costs known to the public. However, when it comes to military appropriations for government spy agencies, we know from Freedom of Information Act requests that the so-called “black budget” is an increasingly massive expenditure subsidized by American taxpayers.

How did Tepper do in Q2? In a word: lousy. In another word: the man who recently was on CNBC pitching a 20x P/E multiple as the new normal, may have just called the market top.

China has officially gone the "nuclear" route, SocGen says, and the read through for the global economy is not good. Here's how to profit going forward...

In "historic step," Norway may be forced to tap into its $875 billion sovereign wealth fund to help make ends meet in the face of persistently low crude prices.

The police and surveillance state predicted in the forward-looking 1940s classic “1984” by George Orwell, has slowly, but steadily, come to fruition. However, like a frog sitting idly in a pan of steadily-warming water, too many Americans still seem unaware that the slow boil of big government is killing their constitutional liberties. The latest sign of this stealth takeover of civil rights and freedom was epitomized in recent Senate testimony by FBI Director James Comey, who voiced his objections to civilian use of encryption to protect personal data – information the government has no automatic right to obtain.

Earlier this year, Germany’s attorney-general Harald Range has suspended the investigation into the NSA phone tapping affair. Due to Edward Snowden’s revelations, it had emerged that the NSA had wire-tapped even chancellor Merkel’s mobile phone. The reason for suspending the investigation? “We can’t prove it, and the Americans won’t tell us anything”. Of course documented proof does exist, and US officials have even admitted to tapping Ms. Merkel’s phone. It couldn't be any clearer that Germany is essentially a US vassal state. Since then, a plethora of NSA and BND-related scandals has emerged. But now, the president of Germany’s “Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution” (another spook agency) brought criminal charges against journalists working for the online publication “Netzpolitik”. Allegedly, the journalists are guilty of treason. Their offense? They reported on the spook bureaucracy’s plans to vastly expand internet surveillance of Germany’s citizens.

"President Barack Obama has authorized using air power to defend a new U.S.-backed fighting force in Syria if it is attacked by Syrian government forces or other groups, raising the risk of the American military coming into direct conflict with the regime of President Bashar al-Assad," WSJ reports.

"China is extremely concerned at the United States' pushing of the militarization of the South China Sea region. "What they are doing can't help but make people wonder whether they want nothing better than chaos."

"In the past 12 months investors traded $18.2 trillion worth of ETF shares. For perspective, that means the amount of dollars exchanging hands through ETFs is now more than the U.S. gross domestic product, which stands at $17.4 trillion," Bloomberg reports. Or, put differently, the financial apocalypse draws near.