Business

Canada's Ivey Purchasing Managers Index collapsed from an exuberant and simply unbelievable 63.6 in November to a contractionary 49.9 in December - one of the biggest MoM drops on record and biggest misses on record. On a seasonally-unadjusted basis, this is the weakest print in at least 2 years. From the best data since February 2012 to the worst since February 2015 seems to expose these soft-surveys as practically useless. The huge drop in Inventories suggests a major drag on GDP and an extension of Canada's recession.

Update: China folds - CHINA SUSPENDS  STOCK CIRCUIT BREAKER RULE

As we detailed earlier...

Via Dana Lyons' Tumblr,

Today saw a slew of significant levels related to the post-2009 bull market break on several key stock indices.

Two words - "policy" and "error"

Gold up 3%, Long bonds up 2%, Stocks down 5% since the Fed hiked rates: This was not supposed to happen!

And money markets are not buying what The Fed is selling.

What rate hike? The market is starting to whisper about an imminent rate cut.

Bitcoin Blockchain technology has progressed from a little known nerd interest, to media darling to Mt. Gox/Silk Road infamy, to the realization that modern finance and the burgeoning Internet of Things as well as large swaths of everyday personal and corporate life will likely be based on it for the foreseeable future. The last year has witnessed a sea change in understanding of this new paradigm.