At the end of November, when the 10Y yield had just cracked 2.3%, Goldman, together with SocGen, JPM, RBC and various other banks, gave its answer to what may be one of the most important questions for the market right now: how high can 10Y bond yields go before they start to hurt equities? Goldman answered that "the equity market is still at a level that can cope with moderately rising bond yields.
Following last night's bond bloodbath, The Fed fallout continues in China as The PBOC has devalued the official Yuan fix the most since Brexit to its weakest level since May 2008, breaking above 6.95/USD. Since the "one-off" devaluation in Aug 2015, the Chinese currency has now weakened almost 14% against the dollar.
While the broad Renminbi basket has been "stable" against China's global trading partners for 3 months...
It appears the devaluation pressure has been focused back against the US Dollar...
When I was growing up in the Soviet Union, our local grocery store had two types of sugar: The cheap one was priced at 96 kopecks (Russian cents) a kilo and the expensive one at 104 kopecks. I vividly remember these prices because they didn’t change for a decade. The prices were not set by sugar supply and demand but were determined by a well-meaning bureaucrat (who may even have been an economist) a thousand miles away.
Submitted by Pater Tenebrarum via Acting-Man.com,
A Quick Chart Overview
Below is an overview of charts we picked to illustrate the current market situation. The selection is a bit random, but not entirely so. The first set of charts concerns positioning and sentiment. As one would expect, these look fairly stretched at the moment, but there are always ways in which they could become even more stretched. First a look at the NAAIM exposure index:
What will they call this "crisis"?
(click image for large legible version)