Business

Albert Edwards is in love, but what makes it somewhat awkward is that the object of his affection is not living flesh and blood but a major asset, one which he calls "probably the most fantastic investment of the last decade", and one which so many others have called the "widowmaker" for the simple reason that they have shorted it, shorted it again, and shorted it some more, only to always lose money because as their adversary that have the most irrational, most childish and most desperate central bank in the world: the Bank of Japan.

Deja vu all over again.  Just as we saw after yesterday's "glitch" in POMO unleashed a huge short-squeeze buying rampage, so today's "technical issue"-delayed 7Y Auction has sparked panic-buying in stocks.

Recall what we said less than an hours ago and moments after the Treasury announcement that today's 7Y auction was rescheduled:

What is more stunning is that just like yesterday's POMO cancellation at 11:15am  sent yields surging, so today's announcement has likewise pushed yields higher and stocks promptly followed.

 

It turns out oilfield services isn't a good place to be during epic crude downturns.

Halliburton - which cut thousands upon thousands of jobs in 2015 - is back it, announcing an additional 5,000 layoffs on Thursdsay. The cuts amount to 8% of the company's remaining workforce. We say "remaining" because as CNN notes, "the latest pink slips bring Halliburton's job cut tally to between 26,000 to 27,000 since employee headcount peaked in 2014."

At the end of 2015 we wrote about what may have been the most amusing incident of Chinese corporate fraud in recent years, one in which China Animal Healthcare, whose stock was suspended nearly a year prior and which, was just waiting for its delayed audited financials to be released so its stock can resume trading. The problem, as a subsequent public filing revealed, is that a truck loaded with four years’ worth of its original financial documents was on its way to Beijing however, while the truck driver was taking a lunch break, the truck was stolen. One week later the truck was found...

At this point the manipulations are getting ridiculous.

“Someone” decided to step in a prop up stocks yesterday.  How do we know it was a market prop and not real investors?

There were several “tells.”

They were:

1)   The jump in stocks was based on a sudden move in one of the key asset classes the PPT are using to prop up the markets (they are: Oil, the VIX and Yen).

2)   The price action was sudden and vertical: neither are the hallmarks of actual buyers.

3)   The trading session differed dramatically from recent other sessions.