Goldman Sachs

If the market is right, Goldman warns that current cross-asset-class volatility appears to be pricing in a lot of economic damage. As they note, VIX doesn’t just trade the economy; it also has a strong and often humbling element of risk sentiment baked in.

On one hand, every economist, virtual portfolio manager, Yahoo Finance Twitter expert, and TV talking head is certain that a September rate hike is inevitable. On the other hand, the bank that runs the NY Fed (and whose chief economist Jan Hatzius has dinner with NY Fed head Bill Dudley at the Pound and Pence every other month), Goldman Sachs is re-doubling down on its call that the Fed will not hike in September. Here are Goldman's seven reasons why not.

As an investor, you have enough to be concerned about just taking into account factors like inflation, deflation, Fed policy and the overall state of the economy. Now you have another major threat looming – financial warfare, enabled by cyberattacks and force multipliers. What can you do to preserve wealth when these cyberfinancial wars break out? The key is to have some portion of your total assets invested in nondigital assets that cannot be hacked, wiped out or disrupted by financial warfare. The time to take defensive action by acquiring some non-digital assets is now.

While we have exposed the ugly under-belly of today's jobs data, mainstream media is spinning it as a 'Goldilocks' report with enough hits-and-misses for every hawk or dove. The market's initial reaction signals rising expectations of a September rate hike but, as Goldman's Jan Hatzius explains, they continue to expect the FOMC to keep policy rates unchanged at the September 16-17 meeting.

This Friday appears to be make or break for the Fed's data dependency, as the FOMC's September rate decision looms.

This nation has become a land where character and integrity are secondary to profits for the few and self serving interests of the powerful.  And as we are seeing already for the third time in this millennium’s infancy, stability and prosperity can be but short lived for even the highest paid CEO’s in such a world.

• All surveyed analysts expect the ECB to keep their three key interest rates unchanged
• A number of analysts have suggested that inflation rhetoric could be downbeat and further QE is a possibility later this year, as such any potential indication to this by Draghi is likely to take centre stage at the press conference
• The central bank are said to be concerned by inflation expectations, with low energy prices and recent EUR strength raising concerns about the central bank’s mandated 2% inflation target

The current VIX level of 26 is equal to the median VIX level over the last three recessions. As Goldman warns, while extreme VIX levels periodically occur, our analysis shows that VIX levels in the high-twenties to low-thirties for extended periods of time are rare outside of recessions. Furthermore, this was foreseeable as equities were ignoring potential warning signs from other asset classes prior to the recent sell-off.

A glitch in the Matrix (if you will) that affected pricing for 1,200 mutual funds and ETFs still wasn't wholly resolved as of Sunday evening after executives worked through the weekend in a frantic attempt to resolve the issue ahead of Monday's open. Remember, if anyone asks, none of this has anything to do with flash-crashing, broken markets.

· The final US Nonfarm payrolls report before the September FOMC rate decision takes centre stage this week after developments in China last week dampened expectations for a Fed rate lift off

· The ECB rate decision and press conference is this week’s main event in Europe, with some analysts forecasting an extension to QE by the end of the year

...one theory is that some within the Fed realized that QE wasn’t working, and never worked, thus another path was needed. But what alternative did they have, since rates were already ZERO? So maybe they changed course and took a strong dollar policy vs. a weak one to intentionally weaken the commodity sector and thus boost consumer spending. Throughout this down turn, that message has been repeated by Yellen herself many times, as a source of economic stimulus and for sure has been repeated over and over in the media and the talking heads of Wall Street.

Two years ago, when we first profiled Japan's mysterious "Mister Watanabe" daytrader - aka CIS - we thought it may just all be a hoax. But, as his claims this week that he made $34 million trading the panic on Monday - "I do my best work when other people are panicking," Bloomberg reports, CIS - who claims JPY20bn AUM, has become a cult figure among Japan’s tight-knit community of day traders. Notorious for lines like "Not even Goldman Sachs can beat me in a trade," CIS drops some knowledge this week on how he has become so successful... "Buy stocks that are being bought, and sell stocks that are being sold." Just don't tell Cramer.

The private economy and its millions of savers exist for the convenience of the apparatchiks who run the central bank. In their palpable fear and unrelieved arrogance, would they now throw millions of already ruined retirees and savers completely under the bus? Yes they would.

Just over half a trillion dollars: that's how much cash US shale producers and other oil industry companies will need to repay in maturing debt over the next 5 years.