Markit

With Markit suggesting US Manufacturing is at a 7-month high (with new orders surging), The ISM appears to disagree as ISM Manufacturing PMI dropped to 50.1 - its lowest since Dec 2012. The silver lining in the ISM report is that it was a 'Chinese beat' - 50.1 vs 50.0 exp - but with the employment sub-index at its lowest since August 2009, the report is anything but positive. Finally, ISM inventory drops to 46.5 (its weakest since January) after Chicago PMI inventories soared over 60; and along with export orders in contraction for the fifth month (while Markit claims highest new orders in 7 months), today's US manufacturing outlook is just more baffle-em-with-bullshit.

Amid a slew of sometimes contradictory Manufacturing data, Canada appears to have suffered the most with its Markit PMI tumbling to 48.0 - a record low. Canada's weakness puts it below China (based on China's Caixin/Markit measure). US manufacturing rose marginally from its preliminary 48.0 print to end October at 48.1, highest since March. Output and New orders are seen rising at the fastest pace since March, but despite this 'strength' Markit is careful to warn a rate hike would be premature.

On a day full of Manufacturing/PMI surveys from around the globe, the numbers everyone was looking at came out of China, where first the official, NBS PMI data disappointed after missing Mfg PMI expectations (3rd month in a row of contraction), with the Non-mfg PMI sliding to the lowest since 2008, however this was promptly "corrected" after the other Caixin manufacturing PMI soared to 48.3 in October from 47.2 in September - the biggest monthly rise of 2015 - and far better than the median estimate of 47.6, once again leading to the usual questions about China's Schrodinger economy, first defined here, which is continues to expand and contract at the same time.

Confusion reigns... China's Manufacturing PMI is in contraction according to both the Official and Markit/Caixin measures (but the former was flat and missed while the latter rose and beat "confirming economic stability" according to the 'official' press). Following the largest strengthening fix for the Yuan in 10 years, both the onshore and offshore Yuan are weakening by the most since the August devaluation. Finally, having cliff-dived at the open, Chinese stocks have bounced back to unchanged on the Ciaxin PMI beat (but US equities drift lower still).

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In January when Markit Services PMI printed 54.2, the weakness was blamed on weather (and port strikes). Now it is sunny October, following the warmest September ever on Earth, and Services PMI has plunged to 54.4 - its lowest in 9 months (handily missing the 55.5 bounce expectation). This flash data shows the weakest payroll numbers since February and business confidence remains just marginally higher than the three-year lows of July. As Markit warns this weakness "will add to calls for policymakers to delay hiking interest rates until the economy finds a firmer footing."

Two biggest move overnight came from everyone's favorite carry pair, the USDJPY, which may have finally read what we said yesterday, namely that with the Fed and ECB both doing its job, there is little need for the Bank of Japan to repeat its Halloween massacre for the second year in a row, and as a result will keep its QQE program unchanged. It promptly tumbled from its 121 tractor level, to just above 120.25, where BOJ bids were said to be found. With the FOMC October meeting starting today, the other overnight catalyst was not surprisingly the latest Hilsenrath scribe in which he removed any uncertainty about a Wednesday hike, "leaving mid-December as the central bank’s last chance to raise rates this year."

Having stabilized at 2-year lows in September, October's preliminary US Manufacturing PMI printed 54.0 (smashing expectations of a small drop to 52.7). Despite collapse regional Fed surveys, and widespread job cuts across the manufacturing sector, Markit claims US Manufacturing is the strongest since May. Both output and new orders surged as input costs fell, as Markit notes, despite cycle high inventory levels, today's data "indicated a robust and accelerated expansion of production levels across the manufacturing sector." December rate-hike odds are risisng...

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.

As always happens after shocking events like yesterday which "nobody could have possibly predicted", watching the Penguin gallery reel in its humiliation is absolutely worth the price of admission.

Since inception in June 1998, UBS' Managed High Yield Plus Fund survived through the dot-com (and Telco) collapse and the post-Lehman credit carnage but, based on the press release today, has been felled by the current credit cycle's crash. After 3 years of trading at an increasingly large discount to NAV, and plunging to its worst levels since the peak of the financial crisis, the board of the Fund has approved a proposal to liquidate the Fund. While timing is unclear, this is the worst case for an increasingly fragile cash bond market as BWICs galore are set to hit with "liquidty thin to zero."

Investors should hope for the best while making preparations for less benign scenarios. This can be achieved by reducing leverage and speculation and having a healthy allocation to physical precious metals in the safest vaults in the world.

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On the heels of China's, Japan's, Brazil's, and Europe's Services PMI weakness (and US Manufacturing PMI and ISM weakness), Markit's US Services PMI printed 55.1 (missing exectations of 55.6) and dropping to its lowest since June. This catch-down to Manufacturing weakness suggests the mid-year bounce is well and truly dead as even Markit admits, "it remains unclear as to whether growth will weaken further as we move into Q4." Additionally, after its exuberant spike to 10 year highs in July, ISM Services continued to drop back (to 56.9 missing expectations) with the biggest collapse in New Orders since Lehman.

Following Friday's disastrous payrolls report, which confirmed all the pre-recessionary economic data and signaled that instead of approaching "lift-off" and decoupling from the rest of the world, the US economy is following the emerging markets into a slowdown in what may be the first global, synchronized recession since 2008, the market saw its biggest intraday surge since 2011 and the sharpest short covering squeeze in history, we are happy to announce that the "market" is now solidly back in "bad news is good news" mode.