After a day of "rock solid" Lehman-isms, emergency bond buyback plans, and a stock price still unable to close green, Deutsche Bank is on the ropes (despite CNBC proclaiming that "it doesn't feel like a Lehman moment.") However, as dawn breaks across the motherland, something more insidious is breaking for Germany's largest bank.
With stock markets from every continent plunging (Japan most recently), it should be no surprise that MSCI's world index has entered a bear market - dropping over 20% from its April 2015 record highs. However, as Gavekal notes, while much of the drag on global stocks is from collapsing emerging markets, the average developed market stock is down 23% in the past year.
The World enters a bear market... at a crucial level...
While the markets have been generally lacklustre in the past two days, much of the enthusiasm associated with the last hour spike on both Monday and Tuesday had to do with optimism involving a significant relent by Janet Yellen during her semi-annual 2-day testimony in Congress starting tomorrow at 8:30 am.
Submitted by Pater Tenebrarum via Acting-Man.com,
A Curious Collapse
With the "generals" finally meeting their reality-maker, investors appear to be questioning the DotCom bubble-like highs as momentum collapses. "Exuberance has turned to panic pretty quickly," notes one asset manager and after a very rapid plunge in recent days, options traders are piling into protection at a pace not seen since Q4 2008.
The Nasdaq-S&P implied vol spread is more than double its 5 year average...
(ignore the spikes as they represent rolls as opposed to trends)