Business

With its stock in a relentless slide over the past 3 years, and hitting a new 5 years low earlier today, many had hoped that it can't get much worse for the one tech investment made in recent years by Warren Buffett. The wait for news was over moments ago when IBM released Q4 operating EPS, which at $4.84 beat sharply lowered expectations of a $4.81, and a 17% drop from a year ago.  GAAP EPS was $4.59.

Summing up the day on CNBC in 19 seconds...

Crude (and USDJPY to a lesser extent) was the driver today as overnight stimulus hope from China's crap data was toppled by Iran's double-whammy of increased production and price cuts to Europe...

Submitted by Patrick Barron via The Mises Institute,

It seems that each new bubble brings forth claims that, although the bubble may be the result of artificially created demand, prices of this or that product will not fall and may even continue to rise. How many so-called real estate and financial planning “experts” claimed that the surest path to financial security was in buying the largest house possible with the least amount of one’s own money?

The Boom: McMansions and Luxury Cars

The fabric of the market is showing signs of fracturing, as 9 years of declining policy rates and 6 years of QEs failed to kick-off growth, while, as Fasanara Capital's Francesco Filia notes, further easing has a visibly decreasing marginal effectiveness.

But China was going to stimulate the world???

Crude has crashed to the post-Iran lows... and Energy stocks have collapsed...

And that has dragged every major stock index to the lows of the day...

As Regional banks get sold hard as perhaps, just perhaps, our independent sourced confirmation that The Fed is allowing banks to lie about their energy exposures is causing investors to sell...