Business

Neither USDJPY nor Japanese stocks can hold a bid in the early going in Asia markets which has dragged both into the red post-QQE2. Since Kuroda took over from The Fed by doubling down on his cunning plan in October 2014, Japanese stocks are down 11.4%, USDJPY is unchanged, and only Japanese bonds have made any gains (up 3.7%).

So what we want to know is - how will Abe et al. explain to the Japanese people how they lost so much of their retirement funds by forcing GPIF to allocate so much to stocks?

Late last month, HSBC Holdings CEO Stuart Gulliver announced a global freeze on hiring and compensation in a move designed to help the bank cut some $5 billion in costs by the end of next year.

To be sure, HSBC isn’t alone in seeking to roll back costs amid bouts of global market turmoil. As Bloomberg notes, “UBS froze investment bank salaries this week and Barclays Plc extended a freeze on hiring new staff indefinitely in December, while Credit Suisse Group AG and Deutsche Bank AG are cutting thousands of jobs.”

From Phil Davis's Monday article at Phil's Stock World

"We should all fear Oilmageddon!" 

That's the word from CitiBank, which is SUPPOSED to be the voice of reason in these markets. When Banksters tell us to get out of something – it's usually time to get in.

Nattering Naybob had a very good summary of the weeks events, reminding us of my Wednesday warning that we were simply in a "dead cat bounce" and likely to fall even further this morning. I wrote,

Submitted by Paul Rosenberg via Free-Man's Perspective blog,

Over the last few months a stream of articles have crossed my screen, all proclaiming the need of governments and banks to eliminate cash. I’m sure you’ve noticed them too.

It is terrorists and other assorted madmen, we are told, who use cash. And so, to protect us from being blown up and dismembered on our very own street corners, governments will have to ban it.

Over the past month, one of the more alarming developments in Europe has been the move to eliminate high denomination bank notes like the €500 bill.