Business

While everything was awesome last week (apart from the last 10 minutes), it appears lower oil prices this week (WTI just crossed back below Brent's price and under $37 once again) is not "unequivocally good" for US equity markets. Following the bloodbath in China's "B" Shares overnight, traders are hoping this pain will stop once the machines "get back to work" at 930ET...

If this holds, S&P 500 will open back in the red for 2015.

As Bloomberg reports,

The last trading week of 2015 begins on a historic precipice for stocks: as reported over the weekend, the U.S. stock market has not been lower for any year ending in a “5? since 1875.

Paris -- Here's another great post from my friend and co-author Fred Feldkamp that talks about why credit spreads are crucial to understanding our economic prospects. His comment also illustrates how the SEC handed the large banks a monopoly on short-term finance in 1998 by amending Rule 2a-7 and made the 2008 financial crisis inevitable.  Few significant players in "corporate finance land" are willing to take on the bank monopoly/monopsony over short-term funding for fear of being cut off.

We have seen this pattern before. In August, the first thing to tumble was Yuan FX rates, then money market rates exploded, and then the stock market tumbled. While it is a little premature, today's sudden plunge in Chinese stocks (as the afternoon session opens) following last week's spike in money market rates following the previous week's non-stop weakness in the Yuan does have a concerning smell of deja vu all over again.

Submitted by David Haggith via The Great Recession blog,

It’s a good question to ask on the days after Christmas, when we have all used our credit cards to buy gifts for others. In spite of this seasonal gift buying, I think there has never been a more selfish generation.

What is so selfish about this generation?