Submitted by David Stockman via Contra Corner blog,
As of June 2008 no Wall Street banking house was predicting a recession, yet by then the Great Recession - the worst economic downturn since the 1930s - was already six months old, as per the NBER’s subsequent official reckoning.
Back in August we noted that John Paulson managed to get himself and his investors involved in two rather dubious "firsts" in 2015: Puerto Rico became the first US commonwealth in history to default, and Greece became the first developed country to default to the IMF.
As we noted in the overnight wrap, after sliding by 1%, and hitting an overnight low of 1,850, just as Europe opened US equity futures staged a furious rebound jumping nearly 30 point in under three hours for reasons largely unknown: surely it wasn't hope that the Saudis would do any aggressive oil production cutting especially when considering what the CEO of Aramco Amin Nasser said moments ago, namely that the global economy is not encouraging for demand growth, adding that "The current price is definitely a supply-demand issue" hoping that "With low oil prices, demand hopefully will also
It has been another volatile, illiquid, whipsawed session, driven by the only two things that have mattered so far in 2016, China and oil.... and stop-hunting algos of course.