Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,
Italy is increasingly dependent on the ECB to hold down bond yields as foreign investors dump Italian bonds like mad.
Eurointelligence bills this as “Further Evidence of Capital Flight in Italy“.
When Warren Buffett surprised markets in 2011 after announcing that he had started building up a stake in IBM - a member of the tech sector from which Buffett had traditionally kept a safe distance - we joked that the only reason for his involvement was IBM's then unprecedented buyback spree.
With all eyes on crude, following last night's mini flash crash which sent WTI lower by 3% from just above $45 to under $43 in under 10 minutes, equity markets, generally quiet overnight, have taken on a secondary importance ahead of today's key risk event, the April payrolls report (full preview here). In global equities, Asian and European stocks are lower, while S&P futures are little changed.
It was a very ugly night for the Andy Halls, Pierre Andurands and other crude longs, after oil flash crashed just before midnight ET, dragging WTI from above $45/bbl to below $44 in seconds on a surge in volume, to the lowest price since OPEC agreed to cut output in November.
As shown in the chart below, in less than 10 minutes futures slumped more than $1 as volume surged 14 times.
Despite the Turkish people having never been more 'miserable' based on painfully high unemployment and soaring inflation, it appears the world's yield-hungry investors can't get enough of Turkish debt (because hey, you can trust a guy who just dictated himself as 'sultan for life').
This so-called misery index signals the mood of the population...