Business

With an ever-increasing horde of hedge fund "speculators" daring to confront The PBOC, here is how they are placing theirs bets on Yuan devaluation...

Spot trades are simple but less levered and prone to direct interventionist manipulation. So traders turn to derivatives (more capital effective with their prime brokers) to place their bets.

In the forward FX market...

The FX forwards market has shown significantly more selling pressure than spot as traders place bets on timing and expectations of a devaluation.

Authored by Michael Meyer, originally posted at Project Syndicate,

The idea that oil wealth can be a curse is an old one – and it should need no explaining. Every few decades, energy prices rise to the heavens, kicking off a scramble for new sources of oil. Then supply eventually outpaces demand, and prices suddenly crash to Earth. The harder and more abrupt the fall, the greater the social and geopolitical impact.

Submitted by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

I recently wrote an article discussing some of the issues of “buy and hold” investment advice as it relates to what I call a “duration mismatch.” The issue that arises is individuals do not necessarily have the “time” to achieve the long-term average returns of the market.

As I stated in the article:

Financial stocks account for 16 per cent of the S&P 500 in the US, and their 9 per cent slide last month is the biggest single reason the benchmark index is now 5 per cent lower than at the start of the year.

But, as The FT reports, the options market is currently suggesting a worst-case scenario of a 28% decline in financial stocks over the next three months, according to none other than Myron Scholes who currently works at Janus Capital.

Disappointing data across the globe trumped by jawboning from Draghi & Fisher...

It's a double-rainbow short-squeeze day...

As Tech's squeeze offset energy's weakness...

Futures show the day's undulations...