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"Worse than Lehman" is how one European bond market trader described the carnage this week as the brief respite that ECB monetization and debt-buyback rumors provided yesterday have morphed into utter destruction this morning. European (and US) banks are a sea of contagious red with Deutsche Bank the tip of the collapse spear. Credit risk on Deutsche has exploded this morning with Sub CDS trading up 85bps to a record high 540bps... eerily reminiscent of the pre-Lehman bankruptcy week in 2008.

Time to panic now?

• Gold Roars to One-Year High as Turmoil Drives Safe Haven Demand (BBG)
• Banking Stocks Pummeled in Europe (WSJ)
• Dollar, stocks plunge sparks scramble for safety (Reuters)
• Nymex Crude Slips Below $27 a Barrel (WSJ)
• No Respite for S&P 500 as U.S. Stock Futures Join Global Selloff (BBG)
• Walgreens Threatens to End Theranos Agreement (WSJ)
• Next Task for Clinton, Sanders: Securing the Minority Vote (WSJ)
• Yen Advances to 15-Month High as Korean Tensions Stoke Haven Bid (BBG)

Mutual Funds, ETFs at Risk of a Run Warns Stockman

In one of his starkest warnings yet, Former White House Budget Director (Office of Management and Budget, OMB), David Stockman has warned that banks and the global financial system remain vulnerable and there is likely to be another global financial crisis which will be worse than the first involving "a run on mutual funds and ETFs."

Stockman warns in a Bloomberg interview that Deutsche Bank

Ever since the BoJ took the plunge into NIRP late last month analysts and commentators alike have begun to express a high degree of skepticism about the wisdom of adopting negative interest rates.

Once seen as a kind of peculiar policy experiment confined to Switzerland, Denmark, and Sweden, NIRP has escaped the lab so to speak and now that Kuroda is negative and Draghi is contemplating another depo rate cut in March, people are starting to realize that the entire developed world might be about to go Keynesian crazy. Even the US.

Just like two days ago, when for the first time since 2011 the BOJ intervened directly in the USDJPY market, moments ago Kuroda's trading desk once again decided to sell a boatload of Yen, with the key carry pair trading at 111.25 and threatening to take out the 110 support, in the process sending the USDJPY higher by 175 pips in a matter of seconds to just above 113.

The move quickly filtered through to all other asset classes: