Goldman Sachs

Despite claiming yesterday's devaluation was a "one-off", The PBOC has devalued the Yuan Fix dramatically for the 2nd day in a row - now 22 handles weaker than Monday's Fix. Offshore Yuan is trading at 4 year lows against the USD. The carnage from this dramatic shift is just beginning as global equity markets (US futures to China cash) are tumbling, US Treasury bond yields are crashing, gold is up, China credit risk is at 2 year highs, and China implied vol has exploded to 4 year highs. Ironically, China's government mouthpeiece Xinhua explains "China is not waging a currency war; merely fixing a discrepancy."

The WSJ reported that none other than the operator of the biggest dark pool in the US by volume, Credit Suisse and its massive Crossfinder dark pool, "is in talks with regulators to settle allegations of wrongdoing at its “dark pool” with a record fine in the high tens of millions of dollars, according to people familiar with the matter." What is grotesque about this story, is that back in December 2012, it was none other than Credit Suisse which conveniently explained and laid out all those forms of HFT manipulation which we accused virtually every HFT firm of employing since 2009... and which Credit Suisse itself is now accused of engaging in!

WTI Crude just broke to a $42 handle - which would be the lowest closing price on a continuous adjusted future contract since March 2009. Based on the front-month contract, Goldman Sachs warns that there is "last ditch" support between $43.24 and $42.44 - a break below there could lead to serious capitulation...

That hasn’t stopped many gold bears from using this as an opportunity to disparage gold. A recent article points out that the gold rout has cost China and Russia $5.4 billion. An amount that would sound colossal were it not for the fact that U.S. media companies such as Disney and Viacom collectively lost over $60 billion for shareholders in as little as two days last week ...

There is much stunned confusion among Wall Street's "best and brightest" following China's historic Yuan devaluation overnight which was predicted by exactly zero of said best and brightest, just like nobody expected the SNB to give up its own peg to the EUR in January.

Goldman has truly outdone itself with this one: in addition to purchasing the former Danish PM, and by implication, the current PM and his former fin-min protege, and assuring the DONG scandal quietly goes away, Goldman just hired the former head of NATO: from 2009 to 2014 Anders Fogh Rasmussen served as  the 12th Secretary General of NATO.

A decline in the desire to own products conferring and announcing one’s high social status happens close to, or hand in hand with fairly severe economic downturns. People no longer want to stand out as rich when times are getting tough. This effect can be observed in numerous areas, even in the colors and shapes people choose when buying cars.

In simple terms, Greece from 2003-2010 was an economic boom driven by incomes, which were in turn driven by cheap debt NOT real organic growth. Thus, the collapse in GDP was yet another case of “price discovery” in which asset prices fall to economic realities…

If GDP growth only averages 2.0% in the Second Half (which I think is likely), then 2015 growth will only be about 1.7% annually. Given that the Fed didn't raise rates in 2012, 2013, and 2014, when growth was well north of 2%, why would they do so now? Yet Wall Street and the media stubbornly cling to the notion that 3% growth and rate hikes are just around the corner. Old notions die hard, and this one has taken on a life of its own.

While many labor market indicators were softer in July, some important service sector indicators, such as ISM nonmanufacturing employment, were significantly stronger; and on balance, they expect job growth roughly consistent with the 223k increase in June. The participation rate showed a surprising drop of 0.3pp in June to 62.6% - due in large part from a calendar effect caused by the timing of the reference week relative to the end of the school year - they therefore expect an at least partial rebound in July.

It is unclear what catalyzed today's dump. Futures were briefly green at the open, then as if all hell broke loose and without an explicit  catalyst (although the technical collapse of numerous "story stocks" which had been market leaders for months, both today and in recent weeks has not helped) the E-mini, and individual stocks, just took out level after level of bids and at last check the Dow has dropped to 6 month lows, the S&P is just barely green for the year, while the biggest pain is in the Nasdaq which has dropped as much as 2% intraday. Below we lay out the biggest losers from today's market drop.

WTI Crude is back below $45 again this morning - pressing towards 2015 and cycle lows -after Goldman Sachs' Jeffrey Currie warns 'lower for longer' is here to stay, with price risk "substantially skewed to the downside." His reasoning are manifold, as detailed below, but overarching is oversupply (Saudi Arabia has a challenge in Asia as it battles to maintain mkt share, the Russians are coming, andother OPEC members want a bigger slice) and, even more crucially, storage is running out. As Currie concludes, this time it is different. Financial metrics for the oil industry are far worse.

Today, following another spike in negative news, it appears that the credit markets have finally woken up, and a quick look at Brazil's CDS shows that following today's spike to 314bps, the country's implied default risk is back to levels last seen in April of 2009! We expect more credit market participants to notice the depressionary developments in brazil, and as the country's CDS continue to blow out, many will start asking themselves: is Brazil the next Argentina?

Today the Bank of England releases its rate decision, minutes and quarterly inflation report (QIR) all at 1200BST with the QIR press conference to be held by Governor Carney at 1245BST. Given the volume of information on offer, the release is likely to be met with volatility.

What many have tacitly known for a long time was finally confirmed overnight when an analysis of Federal Election Commission data by Vocativ and The Daily Beast found that of the 60 or so ultra-rich Americans - aka the mega-donors - who have contributed to both Jeb Bush’s and Hillary Clinton’s federal campaigns, seventeen of those contributors have gone one step further and opened their wallets to fund both Bush’s and Clinton’s 2016 ambitions.