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...
With the collapse of Home Capital Group focusing the world's attention on the Canadian real estate market, nowhere is the subprime debt time bomb more likely to go off than Toronto, which as we recently noted "has gone nuts."
Even Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz (who declined to comment on questions about Home Capital Group and whether he’s worried about contagion), noted that Toronto is out control tonight while answering questions following a speech in Mexico City...
Forex is the most simple market in the world. As we explain in our book Splitting Pennies - Forex is the underpinning of the world's financial system. Although it is also the least understood market, there's nothing 'sophistocated' about FX. Take a dollar, exchange it for a euro. The rate changes - exchange it back. Simple! Trading money.