Business

Having warned - correctly - of the impending collapse of the US credit markets last year, it just seems ironic that Carl Icahn's firm has been downgraded to "watch negative" from stable by S&P, implying a cut to junk may be imminent. Just as we detailed earlier, activist investors have suffered greatly in the oil rout, and S&P cites declining investment values in the firm's portfolio, which have smashed the loan-to-value ratio up to 45% (a crucial threshold for the ratings agency).

In recent months, much has been said about how as a result of the rising correlation between oil and equities (and pretty much all other asset classes), crude has been dragging down stocks, and alternatively unelashing furious short squeezes on even the tiniest pop in the price of oil.

But what about the impact of the strong dollar on the S&P 500?

Rig counts dropped for the 9th straight week but for the 3rd week in a row, US oil rig counts dropped heavily, down 26 this week after -28, and -31 in the last 2 weeks. The 85 rig drop is a 17% plunge over 3 weeks - the fastest pace since Feb 2015, and 2nd fastest since Feb 2009.

• U.S. OIL RIG COUNT DOWN 26 TO 413, BAKER HUGHES SAYS
• U.S. TOTAL RIG COUNT DOWN 27 TO 514 , BAKER HUGHES SAYS

Rig counts continue to track the lagged crude price perfectly...

Here is the regional breakdown:

The last few days have been "odd" according to one veteran trader and today's moves, with USDJPY plunging, S&P 'steady', and XIV (the inverse VIX ETF soaring) left the same trader exclaiming "what the hell is going on?" More unwinds from equity market-neutral funds? OPEX impacts? Or just the death-throes of a Fed-fueled market gasping its last breaths...

The chaos in equity market-neutral funds continues with weak/strong momo stocks extremely volatile this week...

Authored by Steve H. Hanke of The Johns Hopkins University. Follow him on Twitter @Steve_Hanke.

On Thursday, Venezuela’s central bank released a long-overdue -- and little-trusted -- report claiming that the country’s inflation rate in 2015 was 180.9%.  Unfortunately, for the global community, as high as this figure sounds, it is way below the true inflation rate.