Fail

Most Americans can see the spoiling incongruity of his grandeur. He claims, somehow, to defend monetary policy as it supposedly removes and prevents all the really bad downside at the same time the world is still rebuilding from the last one while seriously contemplating the next one. As 2008 proved, timing was never his strong point; as his oped proves, duplicity is.

The best headline to summarize what happened in the early part of the overnight session was the following from Bloomberg: "Asian stocks extend global rally on stimulus bets." And following the abysmal data releases from the past three days confirming that the latest centrally-planned attempt to kickstart the global economy has failed, overnight we got even more bad data, first in the form of Australia's trade deficit, and then Germany's factory orders which bombed, and which as Goldman said "seems to reflect genuine weakness in China and emerging markets in general and this will weigh on the German manufacturing sector."

"Today the US government has admitted that it was their airstrike that hit our hospital in Kunduz and killed 22 patients and MSF staff. Their description of the attack keeps changing—from collateral damage, to a tragic incident, to now attempting to pass responsibility to the Afghanistan government. The reality is the US dropped those bombs. The US hit a huge hospital full of wounded patients and MSF staff. The US military remains responsible for the targets it hits, even though it is part of a coalition. There can be no justification for this horrible attack. With such constant discrepancies in the US and Afghan accounts of what happened, the need for a full transparent independent investigation is ever more critical."

The Fed understands that economic cycles do not last forever, and we are closer to the next recession than not. While raising rates would likely accelerate a potential recession and a significant market correction, from the Fed's perspective it might be the 'lesser of two evils. Being caught at the "zero bound" at the onset of a recession leaves few options for the Federal Reserve to stabilize an economic decline... For Janet Yellen, the "window" to lift interest rates appears to have closed.

Never have markets carried so much risk. And never have markets been as vulnerable to an abrupt change in perceptions with regard to central banker competence, effectiveness and capabilities. At the minimum, global markets will function poorly, but risk is now high for a disorderly – Party Crashing - "run" on financial markets, as faith in central banking begins to wane.

Late last week, after looking at Valeant soaring default risk as measured by the price of its blowing out CDS, soaring to over 30% even as its stock prices was surging, we wondered - does someone know something? It appears someone may have known that this weekend, the same Andrew Pollack whose NYT article exposing Turing's 5000% price increase resulted in Hillary Clinton promising to cap specialty biotech prices if elected, has come back for round two and after taking aim at Shkreli and Turing, much to the chagrin of Bill Ackman, Pollack is now taking aim at the biggest culprit: Valeant Pharmaceutcals.

We are a product of our time and place. We live in a dystopian future that makes Brave New World look positively mundane in comparison. Mass shootings are the natural outcome of a society that mentally shackles its population while pumping it full of psychotropic drugs and violent imagery. It tells us to turn away from bullying while it dumps payloads of high explosives on hospitals and schools. It tells us to empathize with women while objectifying them via pornography.

"The decrease in labor force participation among prime-age individuals has been driven mostly by the share who say they currently don't want a job."

We don’t label many spots on U.S. equity charts as “make or break” for the broad market. However, the mid-430?s area on the Value Line Geometric Composite is as critical a level as we can give you in any index or security.

Each and every day, we are witnessing the ongoing global selloff inflict more and more damage to the post-2009 cyclical bull market. And while that bull may not be declared dead for some time, it is now being wounded enough daily to warrant very seriously considering that possibility.

Gold in Q3: USD -4.5%, EUR -2.4%, GBP +1.5%, CHF +2.4%, CAD +4.6%. Global stocks fall 5% to 13% - Stocks face worst quarter since 2011 over fears for global economy

This is a damn shame. You can't be upset if your banker calls you a muppet if you hand him the marrionette strings... The tools to cut the strings are just around the corner. Let's see if regulators do the right thing, or if will they stilfe innovation to protect status quo.

Terrible economic news is wonderful news for markets, all over again, and with the worst S&P500 quarter since 2011 set to close today, some horribly "great" news is just what the window-dressing hedge funds, most of whom are deeply underperforming the broader market (not to mention Dennis Gartman) ordered.

For investors, the markets have been sending a fairly clear warning signal. Market topping processes take time to develop fully and, unfortunately, are only fully recognized in hindsight. The problem in waiting for "recognition" is that the destruction of capital is already far larger than previously expected. This leads to a series of "psychological" responses that exacerbate the problem such as "hoping to get back to even." The last point is critically important. In the world of investing, "hope" has never been an investment strategy that one could profit by. It likely won't be successful this time either.