Business

In what has so far been a strange day, in which one headline by an "anonymous diplomatic source" and unconfirmed by the Russian energy ministry has pushed stocks from red on the day back to highs for the year, the latest surprise came from Bill Gross who moments ago broke into a "tweetstorm" to lay out what he see as the latest set of investor delusions.

Gross: (1 of 5) Investor delusions that one day will be exposed to fresh air: #1) China is growing at 6% / yr;

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,

This predatory exploitation is only possible if the central bank and state have partnered with financial Elites.

Last week when BofA reported that "everything is being sold" as its smart money clients (institutional, private and hedge funds) dumped stocks for a whopping 10th consecutive week, it said that "BofAML clients were net sellers of US stocks for the tenth consecutive week, in the amount of $3.98bn. Net sales last week were the largest since September, and the fifth-largest in our data history (since 2008). Since early March, all three client groups (institutional clients, private clients and hedge funds) have been sellers of US stocks."

Following this weekend's snafu in which Spiegel said that Germany is considering suing the ECB if it launched QE, Mario Draghi reportedly made attempts to "mollify" Germany with promises that this won't happen (it will) and that it was willing to meet - literally - with the German finance minister to appease any concerns he may have. Moments ago, Reuters reports that the meeting appears to have gone... badly.

Moments ago the IMF did what it does better than anyone (with the exception of the Fed): it once again admitted its forecast of world growth had been too optimistic, and as a result in its just released quarterly World Economic Outlook report, it cut its forecast for 2016 global GDP growth from 3.4% to 3.2%, and from 3.6% to 3.5% for 2017. Indicatively, back in July 2014 the IMF was forecasting 4.0% GDP growth in 2016. It is now 20% lower.