Japan

To say that China, which a few days ago reported GDP of 6.9% which "beat" expectations and which a few hours ago reported Chinese home prices rose in more than half of tracked cities for the first time in 17 months, stunned everyone with its rate cut on Friday night, meant clearly for the benefit of US stocks, as well as the global commodity market, is an understatement: nobody expected this. As a result strategists have been scrambling to put China's 6th rate cut in the past year (one taking place just ahead of this weekend's Fifth plenum) in context. Here are the first responses we have seen this morning.

• CHINA CUTS BANKS’ RESERVE REQUIREMENT RATIO
• CHINA CUTS 1-YEAR LENDING RATE BY 0.25 PPT
• CHINA CUTS 1-YEAR DEPOSIT RATE BY 0.25 PPT
• CHINA CUTS RESERVE RATIO BY 0.5 PPT

Yesterday morning, when previewing the day's tumultuous events, we said that "Futures Are Firm On Hope Draghi Will Give Green Light To BTFD." And boy did Draghi give a green light, that and then some, when his press conference unleashed one of the biggest one-day US equity rallies in 2015. This morning it has been more of the same, with global market momentum on the heels of Draghi's confirmation that Europe's economy is again backsliding (it's a good thing, if only for stocks), leading to momentum for US equity futures, which together with soaring tech/cloud, earnings if no other, are on their way to take out recent all time highs.

Given what the Japanese have been subjected to in the past two and a half years of QQE, it is nearly criminal to suggest they need only more of it. None of it has worked as promised and stated, so what might have changed? Absolutely nothing except the arrangement of qualifiers and excuses that litter the same shared central bank speech delivered over and over of late. Kuroda says “robust”, Yellen proclaims “strong”, and both only confirm they live not of this world’s economy.

From the bowels of Australia’s iron ore mines to the top of Dubai’s pointless 100 story office towers, the entire warp and woof of the global economy has been distorted and bloated by the central bank money printing spree of the last two decades, led by the red credit machines of Beijing. Everywhere economies have succumbed to over-building, over-consumption, over-financialization and endless dangerous, unstable speculation. Stated differently, China’s red capitalism is the new black swan. There is nothing rational, stable or sustainable about it.

The Fed has created permanent housing crisis from which there is no escape.

Despite today's ridiculous melt-up in US equities - all driven by USDJPY-correlated algos - after the completion of over 9 months of this year, the median stock in the United States has officially gone nowhere.

Goldman: "we think a 10 bps (surprise) deposit cut is worth two big figures downside in EUR/$. At the very least, following today’s press conference, a December deposit cut is now possible, meaning that EUR/$ – which went into the meeting at around 1.13 – should reprice to 1.11....  there is a good chance that December will instead bring an actual augmentation of the QE program, such that downside in EUR/$ might be larger. The kind of scenarios our European economics team envisage imply downside of at least 5-6 big figures from here, i.e. should see us return to near the 1.05 low that EUR/$ made in March."

Gold can be useful as a hedge against inflation but it's been consistently so only in the long run.

As long as politicians and media keep talking about disinflation and central bank inflation targets, and all they talk actually about is consumer prices, we will all fail to acknowledge what’s happening right before our very eyes. That is, the system is imploding. Deflating. Deleveraging. And before that is done, there can and will be no recovery. Indeed, this current trend has a very long way to go down. So far down that you will have a very hard time recognizing the world, and its economic system, on the other side of the process. But then again, you have a hard time recognizing the world for what it is on this side as well.

After yesterday's dramatic late day market rout catalyzed by the tumble in the biotech sector in general, and Valeant in particular, and foreseen in its entirety by Gartman who went bullish just hours before, this morning US equity futures and European stocks have recouped some losses on the recursive, and traditional, hope that Mario Draghi will say something to push risk higher when he speaks in 2 hours at the ECB's press conference in Malta. And yet, just like Yellen a month ago, Draghi faces the paradox of reflexivity that after years of being ignored, is the "new thing" in town: how does he intervene and demonstrate he is readier than ever to set up stimulus, without panicking investors over euro area’s health.

After last night's bloodbathery in China, analysts and officials are out en masse to ensure a newly re-leveraged Chinese investors that the "stock plunge is a normal correction." Disappointingly, Chinese stocks are barely bouncing at the open, which is not what we can say for Japan, where the mysterious uneconomic panic-buyer-of-first-resort appeared once again and smashed the Nikkei 225 200 points higher at the open (after weakness in the US).

The "very serious people" are starting to get nervous, because while most other "commodities" have seen their prices plummet in the biggest crash since Lehman, gold just went green for the year. Enter Goldman Sachs: "While our base case remains for higher US real rates and lower gold prices, there are significant risks that our forecast for gold price weakness is pushed out, should the Fed surprise us and remain on hold in December."

Global Capitalism is trapped in its own Prisoner’s Dilemma; fourty four years after the end of the Bretton Woods System global central banks have manipulated the cost of risk in a competition of devaluation leading to a dangerous build up in debt and leverage, lower risk premiums, income disparity, and greater probability of tail events on both sides of the return distribution. Truth is being suppressed by the tools of money. Market behavior has now fully adapted to the expectation of pre-emptive central bank action to crisis creating a dangerous self-reflexivity and moral hazard. Volatility markets are warped in this new reality routinely exhibiting schizophrenic behavior. The tremendous growth of the short volatility complex across all assets, combined with self-reflexive investment strategies, are creating a dangerous ‘shadow convexity’ that will fuel the next hyper-crash.