Business

Over the past week, Poland's relations with Europe have gone from cordial to abysmal, when first Poland's new Eurosceptic government compared the EU and Merkel to Nazis, with Polish weekly Wprost releasing the following cover saying "they want to supervise Poland again"...

... only for Brussels to retaliate and launch an "unprecedented" review of Polish media laws, a move which Poland angrily responded is far beyond the EU's domain.

When "whatever it takes" meets "get me out now!"...

Europe's broadest Stoxx 600 Index is down 21% sicne the April 2015 highs...

A Q€-driven Bear Market has begun.

It was just two weeks ago when we highlighted a Morgan Stanley note which showed that US trucking has not been this bad since 2009. That revelation came on the heels of an abysmal November for Class 8 sales.

Trucking, apparently, is just another casualty of slumping trade, falling commodity prices, and mediocre, double-adjusted economic “growth.”

On Friday we get the latest sign that trade is grinding to a halt. 

There has been some confusion overnight whether Goldman, in a note released overnight, is calling for a new "bull market" in oil and commodities in general.

Goldman did not call for a bull market. This is what it did say.

While Goldman has long been one of the bigger bears on commodities in general, and oil in particular, earlier today, the firm's energy analyst Jefferie Currie released a note that offered a faint glimmer of hope for oil bulls. This is what he said:

BofAML's Michael Hartnett says that clients are no longer in "denial" about recession/bear market risks; but clients not yet willing to "accept" we are already well into a normal, cyclical recession/bear market.

How about now?

As Hartnett warns, if it walks like a bear, and growls like a bear... 

US 5y5y forward breakeven (USGG5Y5Y) collapses to lowest level since Mar’09.