Asia

Submitted by Mac Slavo via SHTFPlan.com,

Following yesterday's OPEC "production freeze" meeting in Doha which ended in total failure, where in a seemingly last minute change of heart Saudi Arabia and specifically its deputy crown prince bin Salman revised the terms of the agreement demanding Iran participate in the freeze after all knowing well it won't, oil crashed and with it so did the strategy of jawboning for the past 2 months had been exposed for what it was: a desperate attempt to keep oil prices stable and "crush shorts" while global demand slowly picked up.

Submitted by Mike "Mish" Shedlock

Hungary has become the first Eastern European country to issue a yuan-denominated sovereign bond.

The deal that shows how currying favor with China may be a more important driver for the market than funding.

Reader Steve who sent me the story commented on Hungarian mortgages denominated in Swiss Francs only to see the  Franc jump over 20% in value overnight.

“Pretty clever guys!”, said Steve.

Anyone think this is a good idea?

Hayman Capital founder Kyle Bass sat down recently for a conversation with Maria Bartiromo and Gary Kaminsky on Wall Street Week. He covered a variety of topics such as NIRP, income inequality, and the U.S. presidential race. As our regular readers know, Kyle correctly predicted the housing crisis, and is now calling for the yuan to be dramatically devalued.

In January we pointed out "the last bubble standing," as China's crashing equity market had spurred massive inflows - directed by a "well-meaning" central-planning committee's propaganda - sparking a massive bubble in Chinese corporate bond markets (in an effort to enable desperately weak balance-sheet firms to roll/refi their debt and keep the zombies alive). That has now ended as China's junk bond risk has soared to 5-month highs with its worst selloff since 2014. As HFT warns, "we should avoid junk bonds."