Bear Market

• China’s Stocks Enter Bear Market as Rate Cut Fails to Stop Rout (BBG)
• Stocks Tumble Around the World on Greek Crisis (WSJ)
• Some say back to the drachma for a Greek reboot (Reuters)
• Greece Imposes Capital Controls as Fears of Grexit Grow (BBG)
• Panic Sets in Among Hardy Hedge Fund Investors Remaining in Greece (NYT)
• Euro off Greece-driven lows after SNB intervenes (Reuters)
• Western Union to close in Greece for rest of week (Reuters)
• European banks, bonds shaken by Greek turmoil (Reuters)

We're gonna need a bigger rate cut...

SHANGHAI COMPOSITE HEADS FOR BIGGEST 3-DAY DROP SINCE 1996
CHINA CSI 500 STOCK-INDEX FUTURES FALL BY MAXIMUM 10% LIMIT

"It's time to wake up," because, the fate of the world is in the hands of illiterate Chinese farmers and Greek grannies.

A correction is generally defined as any stock that is at least 10% off a recent high. If we look at a price performance over the past 200-days, 42% of all the stocks in the MSCI World Index are in a correction. Higher than you might have thought, right?

Bad breadth is everywhere in US equity markets...

Shanghai Gold Exchange volume climbed to a record today as prices declined incentivizing value driven Chinese buyers as Chinese stocks crashed 7.4%. Chinese stocks have had the biggest two-week loss in more than 18 years and are close to entering a bear market after extending losses from their June 12 peak to 19 percent in less than three weeks.

Following yesterday's furious market drop in Chinese stocks, just before the overnight open, Morgan Stanley came out with a much distributed report urging investors "Not to buy this dip", and so they didn't. As a result, the Shanghai Composite imploded, at one point trading down 8% while the Chinext and Shenzhen markets crashed even more. This was the single biggest Shanghai Composite one-day drop since 2007, and with a close at 4192.87 the SHCOMP is now on the verge of a bear market, down 19% from its June 12 highs. China's second largest market, Shenzhen, is now officially in a bear market.

Is it time to step in and buy the dip in Chinese mainland shares after last week’s harrowing 13% decline on the SHCOMP? Absolutely not, Morgan Stanley says.

*CHINEXT PLUNGES 8.3%, BIGGEST ONE-DAY LOSS EVER (down over 27% from highs)

Before taking a look at Europe, an update on China. Just a few short hours ago, when looking at the bursting of the Chinese bubble where stocks were down between 3% and 5% across the board in the first post-holiday trading session after the worst week in 7 years, we said that "without assistance (levitation) from the same PBOC that just clamped down on liquidity, the China bubble has burst." And then as if by request, minutes later we got, drumroll, levitation and the stickiest stick-save by the PBOC seen in months, when the Shanghai Composite staged an unprecedented 7% surge from the lows to close 2.2% higher after tumbling as much as 5% earlier in the session. And just like that, faith in the "wealth effect" is preserved.

Just when you thought it was safe to buy the 12% collapse (the biggest since Lehman) in Chinese stocks, they re-plunge another 3-4% with no dip-buyers evident. The drivers are twofold: first, China PMI beat expectations modestly (uh oh no more QDII, QE, PSL, etc.); and second - and much more critically - The PBOC Operations Office has called for stricter regulation of brokerage liquidity (implicitly clamping down on the seemingly infinite expansion of margin lending required to fuel the boom). CHINEXT has entered a bear market (down 21.5%) and the rest of the Chinese complex is down 3-5% today (down 15-20% from the highs).

Today will go down in history as one of the worst times in history to be invested in the stock market. Virtually no one believes this statement. That is why it will prove to be true. Every valuation method known to mankind is flashing red. A crash is baked in the cake. Will the trigger be Greek default, a Chinese market crash, a Fed rate increase, a derivative bet going boom, a Middle East event, someone doing something stupid in the South China Sea, a Ukrainian eruption, or a butterfly flapping its wings? When greed turns to fear, for whatever reason, the house of cards will collapse for the 3rd time in 15 years. Thank the “brilliant” bankers at the Federal Reserve.

What the stock bubble shows is the unthinkable degree of difficulty in trying to actually manage letting air out of any bubble in an orderly fashion. It may already be too late, as growth declines still further month by month, but stock prices go even more insane, drawing in more and more “retail” accounts and regular Chinese. In other words, the reform idea may have been impossible from the start; that the PBOC went ahead anyway, and still continues despite all that has happened, more than suggests that they now recognize the most dangerous existence is asset bubbles, far and away more important than even “necessary” growth.

History tells us two related facts. Central banks are always defeated by markets in the end, and central bankers have a touching faith that next time they will retain control over markets. But if we accept the lessons of history, we must dismiss complacency over systemic risk to the financial system. We can go even further, and begin to expect that of all the risks that will eventually trigger a widely expected financial crisis, it will be an old-fashioned bear market in bonds.

Chinese stocks had a tough night with CHINEXT dropping back into official correction once again and the rest of the Chinese stock euphoria fading systemically. In fact, Chinese stocks have gone nowhere in the last month - which is a major problem for a margin-loan-driven ponzi-fest. However, there is a much more worrying canary in China's coalmine which as one analyst warns means "investors are becoming more fearful than greedy." The "No-Brainer" China IPO Trade has tumbled in the last few weeks as limit-up gains disappear, and is nearing a bear market.

The gold market has been in a profound lethargy (at least in dollar terms) for over a year. This is as frustrating for the bulls as it is for the bears. These days we are witnessing an avalanche of bearish commentaries on the price of gold for the coming 6 to 12 months. The psychological $1,000 threshold is attracting analysts like a magnet attracts iron dust... They can’t continue to fight this market, because they’ve lost all their credibility, some capital, and are about to lose all of their clients! They capitulate... this is the kind of sign that is expected before a definitive trend reversal.

We believe that the above chart is telling us that this Super Cycle of leveraging is ending. What's coming next won't be pretty.