Markit

In many ways the overnight session has been a mirror image of yesterday, with the dollar accelerating its Lockhart-commentary driven rise, which curiously has pushed ES higher perhaps as a result of more USDJPY correlation algos being active and various other FX tracking pairs. Indeed, the weak yen is all that mattered in Japan, where the Nikkei 225 (+0.5%) rose amid JPY weakness, despite opening initially lower as index heavyweight Fast Retailing (-4.5%) reported a 2nd consecutive monthly decline in Uniqlo sales. Elsewhere in mirror images, China slid 1.7%, undoing about half of yesterday's 3.7% jump, and is now down for 4 of the past 5 days.

The Athens Stock Exchange reopened on Monday after a five-week hiatus. Stocks fell nearly 23% out of the gate with the country's insolvent banks trading limit-down. Meanwhile, Markit confirmed that the Greek economy has for all intents and purposes collapsed, with Greece's manufacturing PMI printing at 30.2. New orders plunged to just 17.9, betraying a contraction of unprecedented depth.

If China had hoped it would root out intervention by eliminating Citadel's rigging algos, and unleash a buying spree it was wrong: the Shanghai Composite opened negative, and never managed to cross into the green, despite the usual last hour push higher, ending down -1.1% and down for 6 of the past 7 days. The real action, however, was not in Asia but in Europe, and specifically Greece, where the stock market finally reopened after a 1+ month "capital control" hiatus. Despite the attempt to micro manage the reopening, the result was not pretty, with stocks crashing 23% at the open and staging barely a rebound trading -17% as of this moment, even as banks promptly traded down to the -30% limit as the realization that an equity-eviscerating recapitalization (or bail-in) is now inevitable.

Following last night's afternoon session plungefest (with ChiNext's biggest drop in a month), as it appeared the government experimented with 'free' markets briefly, regulators have "asked" insurance companies to be "net sellers" of stocks going forward. With margin debt dropping for the 4th day in a row (to fresh 4-month lows), Markit noted that accusations of foreigners short selling shares is “overblown” by Chinese market regulators and not the cause of a recent rout in the stock market, according to the SCMP. The requests and threats appear to not be working as CSI-300 futures open down 0.7%.

For the first half an hour after China opened, things looked bleak: after opening down 5%, the Shanghai Composite staged a quick relief rally, then tumbled again. And then, just around 10pm Eastern, we saw a coordinated central bank intervention stepping in to give the flailing PBOC a helping hand, driven by the BOJ but also involving NY Fed members, that sent the USDJPY soaring which in turn dragged ES and most risk assets up with it. And while Shanghai did end up closing down -1.7%, with Shenzhen 2.2% lower at the close, the final outcome was far better than what could have been, with the result being that S&P futures have gone back to doing their thing, and have wiped out all of yesterday's losses in the levitating, zero volume, overnight session which has long become a favorite setting for central banks buying E-Minis.

Despite a very marginal improvement (from 53.6 to 53.8), Markit US Manufacturing PMI remains stubbornly stuck at 19-month lows, unable to bounce from the weathewr-strewn, port-strike-ridden weakness of Q1. As Markit notes, "a modest upturn in the headline manufacturing PMI belies some more worrying undercurrents which point to potential weakness in coming months," and the slump in unemployment index suggests things are not well at all...

After yesterday's latest drop in stocks driven by "old economy" companies such as CAT, which sent the Dow Jones back to red for the year and the S&P fractionally unchanged, today has been a glaring example of the "new" vs "old" economy contrast, with futures propped up thanks to strong tech company earnings after the close, chief among which Amazon, which gained $40 billion in after hours trading and has now surpassed Walmart as the largest US retailer. As a result Brent crude is little changed near 2-wk low after disappointing Chinese manufacturing data fueled demand concerns, adding to bearish sentiment in an oversupplied mkt. WTI up ~26c, trimming losses after yday falling to lowest since March 31 to close in bear mkt. Both Brent and WTI are set for 4th consecutive week of declines; this is the longest losing streak for Brent since Jan., for WTI since March.

"We really want to stay away from positions we can’t get out of"...

15 minutes ago we had a miss from the Markit Service PMI, and now it is the turn of the ISM's non-manufacturing survey to also miss, rising from 55.7 to 56.0, below the 56.4 consensus increase. The reason: trade (both - imports and exports - disappointed with Imports dropping into outright contraction down from 53.5 to 48.0, while employment dipped from 55.3 to 52.7. Finally, here are the respondents who after blaming winter, port strikes, drought and flooding have found a new scapegoat or rather scapebird: avian flu.

Following last week's disappointing manufacturing PMI, today it was Markit's turn to report the June Service PMI, which just came out at 54.8, just under the 54.9 expected, down from 56.0 in May and the lowest reading since January. Additionally, job creation eased to a  three-month low while input cost inflation reaches its highest since October 2013. In other words, more bad news for future job prospects and margins.

More than even the unfolding "chaos theory" pandemonium in Greece, market watchers were even more focused on whether or not China and the PBOC will succeed in rescuing its market from what is now a crash that threatens social stability in the world's most populous nation. And, at the open it did. The problem is that as the trading session progressed, the initial 8% surge in stocks faded as every bout of buying was roundly sold into until every other index but the benchmark Shanghai Composite turned sharply red.

Despite much hopeful banter among the mainstream media, Goldman forecast nonfarm payroll job growth of 220k in June, notably below consensus expectations of 234k. This is roughly in line with Goldman's expectations for below average job growth over the remainder of 2015. Employment indicators were mixed in June: reported job availability, the employment components of most manufacturing surveys, and ADP employment growth improved, but jobless claims and job cuts both rose slightly and online job ads declined. Overall, the June data point to a gain below the very strong 280k increase in May.

Following Construction Spending's exuberant 2.2% MoM surge in April (revised to 2.1), May saw a fall-back-to-earth 0.8% gain (still better than expected). However, while Markit's Manufacturing survey tumbled, ISM's rose in May and now in June picked up again to 53.5 - its highest since January. Employment rose notably but New orders were only marginally higher and Production slowed. Rather stunningly, all the improvment in ISM is seasonal adjustments with the non-seasonally-adjusted data at its lowest since January. The question remains, is this good news enough to warrant a September rate cut - if we ignore everything else that is weak?

US Manufacturing PMI's final print for June at 53.6 (slightly above its preliminary 53.4 print) is its lowest since October 2013. The survey has fallen almost non-stop since the end of QE3. Under the covers, data was mixed, softer output growth was offset by a slight pick-up in the pace of new business gains and job creation, but Manufacturers indicated a slowdown in production growth for the third month running during June. As Markit's echief economist notes, “Policymakers will be concerned about the unbalanced nature of growth, and in particular the loss of export and investment drivers, and will want to see growth pick up again in coming months before committing to higher interest rates.”

So much going on that by the time an article is prepared, everything has changed and it has to be scarpped. But, in any event, here is an attempt to summarize all that has happened in another turbulent overnight session.