Business

Via John Hussman's Weekly Market Comment,

With the topic of distress among U.S. oil and gas exploration and production companies becoming more important with every passing day that oil not only continues to drop, but certainly fails to rebound to levels that allow US energy companies to return to a cash flow positive state, we would like to show just how much debt is at stake.

With the lifting of Iran sanctions, the Tenge has crashed 5% to record lows at 377/USD (extending the currencies collapse since the USD-peg was scrapped in August).

Furthermore, as Eurasianet's Joanna Lillis reports oil production is entering a new year of decline this year in Kazakhstan - a dismal omen for a country so heavily reliant on energy exports.

Over the weekend, we gave the Dallas Fed a chance to respond to a Zero Hedge story corroborated by at least two independent sources, in which we reported that Federal Reserve members had met with bank lenders with extensive exposure to the US oil and gas sector and, after parsing through the complete bank books, had advised banks to i) not urge creditor counterparties into default, ii) urge asset sales instead, and iii) ultimately suspend mark to market in distressed instances.

Italian bank stocks are crashing (with BMPS down 40% year-to-date) as Reuters reports that investors are growing increasingly nervous about how the sector will cope with lower interest rates and a 200 billion euro ($218 billion) pile of loans that are unlikely to be repaid.