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While Gold has been grabbing the "safe haven" headlines in recent days, this morning it is Silver's turn. Having rallied 2.5%, Silver just broke its 50-day moving average for the first time in 2 months...

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.

"We the people are pissed. The body politic is burning up. And the anger that courses through our headlines and news feeds - about injustice and inequality, about marginalization and disenfranchisement, about what they are doing to us - shows no sign of abating,"

On December 3rd, a month before Saudi Arabia carried out it largest mass execution since 1980 - subsequently setting the region on fire - Arjun Sethi wrote an article for Al-Jazeera titled: Saudi Arabia Uses Terrorism As An Excuse for Human Rights Abuses. According to Cora Currier at the Intercept: Al Jazeera’s headquarters in Qatar appear to have blocked the article outside of the United States because it is critical of an ally of Qatar.

Since The December 16th FOMC decision to hike rates, Gold is up over 2%, Bonds up 1%, and stocks down 3% suggesting the word "error" with regard Fed policy. As The FOMC Minutes are released, traders anticipate confident-hawkishness and a focus on ignoring current data in favor of preferring their own confident outlook:

• *ALMOST ALL FED OFFICIALS AGREED LIFTOFF CONDITIONS MET IN DEC.
  
• *FED: LINGERING RISKS TO OUTLOOK INCLUDED FURTHER USD STRENGTH
  
• *A FEW FED OFFICIALS SAID FINANCIAL RISKS COULD ALTER RATE PATH

January's meeting has negligible probabilities for a rate move but March has 45% chance of a hike and 3% chance of a cut. The apparent unanimity of December's decision appears questionable given the Minutes suggestions of some dissent.

Pre-FOMC Minutes: S&P Futs 1983.25, 10Y 2.19%, Gold $1094, EUR 1.0755, WTI $34.05

Apple's shares broke below $100 in pre-market trading as analyst downgrades and further component producer outlook reductions weighed heavily on the "no brainer." It appears increasingly likely that Tim Cook's "rescue" email to Cramer on August was perhaps not the entire truth.. and the market is trading back to levels it first crossed in August 2014 (i.e. unchanged in 16 months). Of course, amid this carnage this morning, AAPL attempted to save the day and issued a quick statement proclaiming January 1st as the biggest App Store spending day in history... for now the stock is not excited about that.

Before we go into details of the overnight carnage, this is where we stand currently: S&P futures now down 33 points or 1.63% while 2Y Treasury rallies pushing its yield back below 1% as EU stocks extend their drop after China weakened its currency, North Korea says it tested a hydrogen bomb; Brent crude falls to lowest level since 2004.

After yesterday's historic -6.9% rout in the Shanghai Composite, which saw the first new marketwide circuit breaker trading halt applied to Chinese stocks (on its first day of operation), many were wondering if the Chinese government would intervene in both the once again imploding stock market, as well as China's plunging and rapidly devaluing currency. And, after the SHCOMP opened down -3%, the government did not disappoint and promptly intervened in both the Yuan as well as the stock market, however with very mixed results which global stocks took a sign that the "national team" is no longer focused solely on stocks, and have resumed selling for a second consecutive day. 

A lot of people were expecting some really great things to happen in 2015, but most of them did not happen.  But what did happen? A global financial crisis began during the second half of 2015 threatens to greatly accelerate as we enter 2016. This is what the early stages of a financial crisis look like, and the worst is yet to come.

This morning, the headlines surrounding what's quickly mushroomed into a Mid-East melee are coming fast and furious and in the latest escalation, the Saudi foreign ministry says the kingdom will now cut all commercial ties with Iran.

It all started off relatively well: oil and US equity futures were buoyant on hopes Iran and Saudi Arabia would break out in a bloody conflict any minute boosting the net worth of shareholders of the military industrial complex, and then, out of nowhere, like a depressed China in a bull shop, the "mainland" crashed the party and it all well south very, very quickly...

"The strengthening of Russia happens against the background of new threats to the national security [while] conducting an independent policy has triggered a counteraction from the USA and its allies," Russia's new national security strategy document reads. While the Western media has been quick to say that the new appraisal is further evidence of deteriorating relations between Moscow and Washington, an objective take may tell a different story.

In 2015, the iron fist of power clamped down on humanity, from warfare to terrorism to surveillance, police brutality, and corporate hegemony. The environment was repeatedly decimated, the health of citizens was constantly put at risk, and the justice system and media alike were perverted to serve the interests of the powers that be. However, while 2015 was discouraging for more reasons than most of us can count, many of the year’s most underreported stories evidence not only a widespread pattern that explicitly reveals the nature of power, but pushback from human beings worldwide on a path toward a better world.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. We were all told by the “experts” and the so-called “smart crowd” ad nauseam the economy and markets of 2015 were “ready for lift off.” Proclamations that GDP and other economic metrics were indeed going to be the unquestionable catalyst to help propel not only the markets themselves ever higher, but also, prove all the nay-sayers as well as data-deniers wrong. The problem? It was the exact opposite. 2015 exposed the sole overarching fundamental principle the “experts” refused to calculate into their qualitative analysis. That fundamental? Without the continuing interventionism of the Federal Reserve – there is no market. Period.