Business

We have joked about it in the past: with equities around the globe all correlating tick for tick with the price of oil (supposedly "lower oil is good for the economy", just don't tell that to the stock market), instead of doing piecemeal interventions and monetizing stocks, something which as even Citigroup has noted no longer works, what central banks should do instead is monetize the source of all market problems: oil itself.

We first joked last January that the ECB should do it...

For a minute, Sharp was saved.

The 100-year-old maker of LCD screens was once a consumer electronics powerhouse but has stumbled in the face of fierce price competition and ill-advised investments in advanced production plants. Earlier this month, Sharp reported a net loss of $208 million for for its fiscal Q3, bringing the nine month loss to nearly a billion as the company continues to lose market share to Samsung, LG, and other Asian competitors.

• Europe shrugs off pre-G20 China stocks slump, sterling steadies (Reuters)
• China Unveils Its Deliverables for G-20 -- And No Plaza Pact (BBG)
• Foreign Money Could Be Slow to Enter China’s Bond Markets (WSJ)
• China Urged to Stomach Much Higher Fiscal Deficit (WSJ)
• Trump's Momentum Has Republicans in Congress Confused and Cowed (BBG)
• Obama weighs Republican for Supreme Court (Reuters)
• Apple to boost customers’ iCloud encryption (FT)
• Sears Posts $580 Million Fourth-Quarter Loss as Retailer Shrinks (BBG)

It's just getting ridiculous: moments after the Euronext exchange broke down unexpected duo the "technical difficulties" shutting down "part of the market", and spiking the Stoxx600 in the process, moments ago the NYSE itself decided to have a "technical glitch", one which coming alongside James "QE4" Bullard's CNBC interview has pushed S&P500 futures to their overnight highs.

From the NYSE

If and when the CME breaks next, we expect everything to lock limit up as only the upward momentum-levitating algos will be allowed to frontrun each other.

After a burst of volatility in the developed market over the past month, one odd outlier was China, where after a surge of gut-wrenching moves in both its currency and equity markets (recall that it was China's troubles with marketwide circuit breakers at the start of January that may have catalyzed the global volatility wave), Chinese stocks remained relatively quiet and resilient, levitating quietly day after day. That all changed overnight when the Shanghai Composite plunged by 6.4% with the drop accelerating into the close.