Earlier today Caterpillar reported its latest monthly retail sales statistics, and the numbers continue their deplorable trend: Asia/Pacific (mostly China) was down -17%,EAME dropping -5%, Latin America down -37%, the US down -5%, and global sales continuing their double digit decline for one more month down -11% in November.
"Unequivocally terrible."
Back below Black Monday lows...
Remember when low oil prices were bullish... yeah, nope!
Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds,
The Fed's hubris has led it to the Dark Side.
It's not just a movie, it's real life: the Fed-Farce awakens. Now that the Federal Reserve has finally voted to "restore order to the galaxy" with a tiny .25% rate increase, the true measure of our travesty of a mockery of a sham economy--in a phrase, The Fed-Farce--has been revealed.
When last we checked in on Puerto Rico’s seemingly intractable debt debacle, Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla was pandering to Congress in an ill-fated attempt to secure some manner of federal intervention that would help to alleviate the strain on the island’s finances.
Meanwhile, the commonwealth avoided a messy default on $273 million in GO debt by using an absurd revenue clawback end-around to make a $354 million payment on December 1.
Just in case yesterday's weakness was mistaken for "well, it's just stabilizing before the next leg higher," US equity markets are pooping the bed this morning with the Dow down over 500 points from its post-Yellen highs, FANGs plunging red, credit collapsing, and bond yields slumping. Between the widely watched quad-witching, Fed policy error concerns, and the utter failure of the Bank of Japan's efforts to save the world, global stocks and bonds are flashing red warnings for the end of centrally planned markets.
That was not supposed to happen...