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Members,

Complex and volatile economic and financial situations in China and abroad are adding uncertainty to market. Members should remind investors to be prudent in judging market information and to be rational with investment decisions to maintain a smoothly running market.

The US E&P sector could be on the cusp of massive defaults and bankruptcies so staggering they pose a serious threat to the US economy. Without higher oil and gas prices — which few experts foresee in the near future — an over-leveraged, under-hedged US E&P industry faces a truly grim 2016.  "I could see a wave of defaults and bankruptcies on the scale of the telecoms, which triggered the 2001 recession."

Friday's nearly 6% plunge on the SHCOMP left some market participants wondering where the plunge protection team was hiding in the final minutes of trading. As FT reports, Beijing's so-called "national team" now owns 6% of the entire mainland market and as we saw in September, the paper losses on that kind of portfolio can add up quickly when things go south. The question now is whether the PBoC will step back in if we have a few more days like today.

It's almost game over for Puerto Rico. The commonwealth is racing to restructure some $72 billion in debt and next week, Padilla will need to decide between a partial default on a $354 million bond payment and ensuring that the government can continue to provide basic services. 

"This is legal?" Stephanie Ruhle on CDS after watching "The Big Short" (Bloomberg TV) 

Any modest reduction in debt, tax revenues, consumption or new borrowing will bring the entire Status Quo crashing down. This is the bitter fruit of rampant financialization and the ascendancy of maximizing private gain by whatever means are available.

The financial news continues to confound and confuse investors. The Fed is telling one story. The world economy is telling another.

As usual, S&P was late, but just over three months after our explicit warning, the rating agency finally came out with the catalyst we have been expecting when moments ago it said that it had "placed its 'BBB-' long-term corporate credit rating on Hong Kong-based supply-chain management service provider Noble Group Ltd. and the  'BBB-' issue rating on the company's senior unsecured notes on CreditWatch  with negative implications." In other words, Asia's Glencore is about to be junked.

"The hardest questions we are trying to reconcile here are how is that possible to see all these signs of weakness under the surface being balanced by very strong equity markets and upbeat employment picture. One of these sides has to be wrong..."

"Today is a historic day. It’s the changing of an era. We can live in an Argentina without poverty, where we can all aspire to have our own homes with running water and a sewage system." 

"The question is whether this is going to be something like the rebirth of Argentina or another failed dream that people get excited about, but then they can’t overcome the challenges.”

The hardest questions we are trying to reconcile here are how is that possible to see all these signs of weakness under the surface – including weak commodities, tightening credit, retrenching consumer spending – being balanced by very strong equity markets and upbeat employment picture. One of these sides has to be wrong in its assessment of the current macro environment, and seeing both of them extending well into the future appears unlikely to us.

As Puerto Rico stares down a $355 million bond payment due in less than two weeks, analysts warn that without federal intervention, the commonwealth could face growing social unrest and a prolonged depression.

“Some Chinese firms have entered the Ponzi stage because return on investment has come down very fast. As a result, leverage will be rising and zombie companies increasing.”

People are scared, the market is uncertain and the world is for all intents and purposes in a constant state of turmoil and flux.

There are seemingly always “good reasons” why troubles in a sector of the credit markets are supposed to be ignored – or so people are telling us, every single time. Some still recall how the developing problems in the sub-prime sector of the mortgage credit market were greeted by officials and countless market observers in the beginning in 2007. Meanwhile, the foundation of the economy continues to look rotten (the newest round of Fed surveys has begun with another bomb and other manufacturing-related data continue to disappoint as well). This isn’t going to end well, if history is any guide.